Accelewrite 10/24
Posted by Chris on Saturday, 10/24/2009Welcome to One Monkey. Please feel free to comment with constructive criticism! Please be aware that I reserve the right to moderate the comments heavily.
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Goal: 1304 words | Total: 1482 words
Continuity: Wilmark
I had finally sunk into the beginnings of a sound sleep when the bell beside my bed rang and woke me straight back up. It was designed to sound like a thousand angry children with pots and spoons, in order to wake up even the soundest sleepers, and I bemoaned that it had done its job so well. I contemplated ignoring it, but finally decided it was probably a bad idea; pulled on a padded tunic and then a chain shirt, and tossed my robe over my shoulders to make the point. The uncarpeted stone was cold under my bare feet, but I ignored it as I tramped up to the western parapets.
The guards on duty were already at stiff attention when I came through the narrow doorway, and I waved them to ease as I strode to the edge of the walkway. The Western Marches, against which my duchy and keep were meant to defend, were dark and murky even in daylight; at night they were nearly impassable without the best lanterns, and even then I wouldn’t send soldiers through, even in groups, unless I knew myself the stuff they were made of. Tonight was an even worse night than usual, as the moon was low and the stars unreliable thanks to a smattering of cloud across the sky.
Nonetheless, someone was forging toward us through the swamp.
I turned to the guards, who’d ignored my at-ease gesture. “Oh, come on,” I said, “and good work spotting that.” Deep in the swamp there was a glow with which I was intimately familiar – eerie and sickly green, wavering back and forth as it wove through the swamp. The Doldans on the other side of the Marches used magic lanterns that cast such light, to mimic the native will-o’-wisps, or display their lack of fear of the magic, or perhaps, as my tutor had forwarded, because they simply saw better in green light than we did. Nonetheless, the Doldan lanterns were well-known to those of us who’d patrolled the Marches during the last border battle some dozen years prior. What I couldn’t figure out is what they were doing out here now, in the middle of the night.
“A new weapon? Striking while they figure we’re asleep, so that they can more easily overtake the keep? Or is this a lost patrol on the wrong side of the swamp?”
One of the guards looked at me with an eyebrow cocked. “Bit many of them to be a patrol, don’t you think, sir?”
I’d turned away from the Marches, expecting the guards to keep watch, but my eyes leapt back to the swamp with his words. Sure enough, now dozens – maybe hundreds of the green lamps illuminated the swamp. They were bullseyes – illuminating the ground in front of them but not the faces of their bearers – but thinking that we’d spot them, they might have given multiple lanterns to each patroller, to give us the idea of greater numbers than they actually had.
“Light the signal,” I said, and the guard who hadn’t spoken ran to another staircase, up to the highest point on the walls. Atop that point was a brazier with fresh kindling; I could see as he stepped out that he’d grabbed the torch from the stairway. As I watched, he lowered the torch to the brazier, which leapt into flame nearly a yard high and growing. I blinked a few times to get the fire from my eyes, then looked into the darkness to the south. Another fire at a smaller keep went up as well, then another. I turned and the northern posts had done the same. In the distance I heard the clanging of bells similar to my own.
“Good work,” I said again, and turned back to the swamp. The lanterns were undeterred by the signal fires – in fact, they seemed to be coming faster. Thankfully, I heard the patter and jingle of boots and chain now, hastening to shore up the defense of the keep. “Your bow, guardsman,” I said, and the guard obligingly handed me his strung bow and an arrow from the quiver at his hip. I plucked the bow, found it taut but not quite to my strength, and nocked the arrow. I raised my voice, projected as my father had taught: “Doldans, stand ye down!” I bellowed, and let fly the arrow.
In the dim moonlight I could not track the arrow for more than a few yards, but the lanterns stopped nonetheless. None fell, but a hush fell over the swamp and the keep. Then, just when I was about to nock another arrow, the sound of a horn played from the swamp. It was a sequence of sour and filthy notes, from a horn long battered and longer uncleaned, but nonetheless I recognized the bar, even more clearly than the glow of the lanterns – it was the horn call I myself had been taught as a base footman. It was old – the call changed every five years or so to avoid the enemy learning it and taking advantage – but it was a native soldier’s horn call nonetheless.
“Your Grace,” said Guardsman Liane, from whom I’d borrowed the bow, “how do we know it’s not an impostor, who’s captured one of ours and forced the calls out of him?”
“We don’t.” I bit my knuckle. “Assemble the finest soldiers you know and meet me at the north gate in ten minutes.”
The guard followed me down the stairs, and then we parted ways, he further down to the barracks and I to my chambers to dress more appropriately. In five minutes I’d replaced my silk trousers with linen plated with hardened, studded leather, and found the boots I’d so ingloriously kicked next to the wardrobe. Stout falconer’s gloves – the best I had on short notice – and the symbol of my duchy, a half-submerged shield to represent our defense against the swampy Marches, pinned to my chain shirt, and I was ready; I headed downstairs to the north gate.
Liane had brought together five others; I recognized them all, and nodded my approval. “Let’s go, then. On foot; slower, but it’s harder for them to shoot us off our horses if we’re not riding them.”
Liane shrugged. “There’s enough of them, your Grace, that I don’t think it’ll matter, but as you say.”
I grunted and headed out the gate, the guards winching the portcullis back down as the last of our group passed through. As one, we marched westward until we came to the edge of the swamp. The Doldan lanterns were still visible, but barely; the lower vantage also lowered our visibility, and I gestured for Aarder, one of the men Liane had selected, to hand over his horn. I wet my lips and blew, sour at first but then clear and sharp, the old call I’d heard them sound. After a moment, their horner returned the call. I paused, then began a four-call recognition sequence. Each wing of the King’s army had one sequence to challenge and one to respond; at least with this, if the Doldans were impersonating our soldiers with the horn calls, at least I’d know which wing they were pretending to serve.
The horner from the swamp replied to my challenge with the response of the 27th wing. Infantry lost in the Marches in the war a dozen years ago. I challenged again, and received the correct second response. I lowered the horn and glanced at Liane and Aarder. “Could it be the 27th?” I asked, under my breath, and Liane shook her head. “Why not?”
“A dozen years in the Marches or Dolda? Not even we could survive, your Grace.”
“Still. I must know.” I raised the horn to my lips, then dropped it again and bellowed, “Commander, come to face us!”
There was a moment of silence as we waited. My knuckles, at least, were white around the horn. Then we heard the sound of sloshing, and three lanterns coming directly for us. We could see nothing of the bearers, only their vague silhouettes against the other lanterns, now in the background.
A voice called from the group of lanterns. “Commander Hirstmann reporting, sir! The 27th requests sanctuary!”
I glanced to Liane. “If they’re Doldan, they don’t have the hiss.” I turned back to the lanterns. “Come closer and douse your lamps!” I shouted.
“Oh, hell,” said the voice of Commander Hirstmann, and the lanterns went out one by one. When my vision had adjusted again I found a woman and two men standing before me, holding clearly Doldan lanterns but just as clearly not Doldan themselves. “Commander Adina Hirstmann of the 27th wing reporting, sir. And frankly, we could use some food and rest. Do you have room for us to put our feet up?”
