Cerasus Township – Raid
Mellivora soldiers in full strength seen heading along Northern Highroad toward Cerasus.
Township guards are ill-equipped and southern reinforcements have yet to return. Jasmine of Clan Onaria has arrived and promises relief, but we fear the time is now too short.
Message received and posted immediately in the hopes of a rapid response from friendly forces further north. We will hold unt- (message burned)
-Dispatch retrieved by Mellivora during Cera operations
The autumnal sun hung low, red and oppressive as it began its measured climb over the patchy, sepia landscape surrounding Cerasus Township. Low-hanging smoke smothered a gentle morning fog already retreating into the hills after slumbering among the modest, well-built homes and shops. The central stables were aflame, greedy orange fingers tickling up through stout, tarred timbers to stab at the splintery roof preventing its further advance. Horses screamed terrifically, kicking and bucking as to batter down gates or pen walls, adding to the chaos intruding through the broken barndoors from the turmoiled streets beyond.
Stable dogs, both wiry ratters and long-limbed sprinters, yipped and bayed over their stablemaster’s crumpled form just beyond the groaning doors. He lay where he had fallen to the arcing wave of blackened steel and oak that had blown through the wide doors and pierced his back as he retreated from the burning wagon beyond.
The stablemaster had been good to the animals and to his dogs especially; he had bred them and their kin for generations, loving them as a man should his children or passions, spending many sleepless nights feeding them from birth, painstakingly cleaning their kennels, and ensuring they were well-healthy before ever considering his own needs or retiring to the small home he shared with them among the rafters. The dogs showed their appreciation in their final moments, crawling over him and shielding his body as one of the heavy doors crashed away from its final hinge and fell flat amongst the carnage.
Pica arose from the trampled ground unsteadily, reaching out blindly and his knees shaking him violently as if the very earth were heaving beneath him. Steadying himself against a crumbling wall, he wiped dust, blood, and sweat from his eyes through his visor with trembling fingers. He looked around in disbelief at the destruction around him and attempted to assess his situation.
It was hard to see in the morning sun, his eyes burned like acid and an acrid smoke clung to the ground like black treacle, hugging thickly to the road and refusing to dissipate in the gentle, easterly breeze. Black scorches pockmarked the buildings around him, and his armor smoldered gently along one side, adding its own not-entirely-unpleasant aroma to the sour, metallic scent surrounding him.
Despite the ringing reverberating through his brain from a blow to his ear, and the partially crumpled nature of his helm which now stuck firmly to the right side of his head, he could still hear the screams and shouts arising from around the corner ahead; the main body of his platoon appeared to have taken the fight further down the street at a sprint and without him, his cadre of troopers engaged with a collapsing enemy and not willing to give them any chance to breath and recoup.
They may have thought him dead, he considered. Was he sure himself that he wasn’t a ghost and simply seeing the remains of the raid on Cerasus from disembodied eyes?
He was horrified at the thought. That his final seconds would be spent looking upon the destruction that so perfectly paralleled the majority of his time alive. But no, he surely wouldn’t feel quite so much of, well, everything if he were dead… would he? He started forward to regroup with his squad, choosing to utilize blind purpose to force himself forward and tripping over something soft at his feet as he did so. The soldier, displaying surprising agility considering the situation, recovered himself with a quick hop to the side and looked down with the trepidation reserved for expecting to find one of your friends cut neck to elbow at your feet first thing after an unplanned nap. He was perversely pleased to instead see a woman and after a moment of confused staring, he recognized her.
She had put up a good fight, screaming like a feral cat and wielding her hammer with a vicious indefatigability that suggested years of practice in both the martial and practical applications of the tool. Pica thought he may have stood a better chance if she hadn’t so successfully gotten the drop on him, leaping through a small window and almost knocking him flat as she engaged him, but he wasn’t so sure as he replayed the fight again in his aching imagination.
Whatever the case, Pica reckoned she had earned a place in the afterlife alongside those savage Gods they speak of and revere in far-away Arlo; those odd and barbarous beings whose appetites for communal bloodletting and sacrifice of the battlefield had fueled timeless wars between those seeking to attain salvation at their gnarled hands. Were those her celestial beings of choice-for there are so many to choose from-he hoped they welcomed her warmly; that even now she was raising an Arler ale in toast to those who had done battle against and alongside her today. He was just happy that he hadn’t been the one so divinely blessed.
Of those so god-touched, there were many more; the streets around Pica were covered in the bodies of rebel fighters, some showing signs of being cut down as they attempted to flee, others run through by the soldiers storming through Cerasus as the sun was just peeking above the thick forest and gentle hills to the east. Mellivora’s scout troops had interrupted many a breakfast or bowel movement in their swift flood through the older buildings on the west side of town; efficiently rooting out outlaws and their sympathizers as they had a thousand times before across the vast Grove.
To his relief, Pica did not see any of his comrades, wearing their slate-and-rose brigandine, among the corpses adorning the street. From what he could blearily tell, these were all either rebel regulars, draped in mismatched and poorly painted red-and-gold leathers, or the guerillas that the company had been hunting for the last six-months across the Aurum Range. Other than the red armbands they sometimes wore, those bastards had no defining characteristics at all beyond the flame of indignant fury they could never fully hide behind acquiescent words and kind gestures; looking at the dull eyes around him now, he noted the fire of resistance had once more been quenched, leaving behind skinny forms who could have been anyone now that they no longer moved.
Captain Haidarum, commanding officer of the Company, was a clever man and a seasoned strategus; upon receiving orders to move into the Cerasus area for counter-insurrection maneuvers, he had had a plan in motion before the courier had remounted for return to Keeptown headquarters.
Sighting those spies trailing them on the North Highroad had been all the confirmation he needed that the town was a linchpin of rebellion organizing in the central province of Prunus. He promptly sent Fourth Platoon in pursuit, ordering them not to overtake the fleeing agents and correctly presupposing that in their panic, they would lead the soldiers directly along the fastest route to the township through the forested foothills.
Under the seaborn Lieutenant Heteractis, Third Platoon had been sent ahead of the main body of Mellivora, bolting west on the highroad to complete the pincer with Fourth Platoon just as Lieutenant Strozzi flushed their quarry into the town from the west. They had made good time, spurring their horses relentlessly and collecting refreshment ponies at each waystation between before moving into the brushy tree line north of the town the evening before their foot-bound comrades. They prepared for their sister platoon’s arrival with gusto, laying plans and eager for an easy victory over an unprepared foe.
Pica and his squad had been at the rear of the Fourth’s initiating assault from the forest in the early-dawn hours. Barely registering the sudden upswelling of buildings around them after so many days tracking through the woods at speed, they had found themselves surrounded by scampering and surprised combatants who could hardly see straight themselves, let alone mount any meaningful defense against the sprinting Mellivora scouts. They took the southern edge of the main thoroughfare in short order after passing through the gate, setting upon a group of straw-covered rebels stumbling onto the street from a wagon outside the stable. He remembered the scene with chaotic uncertainty, figures running frantically across his imagination as they fled, half-dressed and rubbing sleep from gritty eyes, toward the hopeful safety of the market square; they hadn’t stood a chance in hell as the slate-and-rose troopers cut through them like cheese-wire through summer lard.
The man blinked slowly in the sparse, moted sunlight coming in over the forest top and into the street far below, trying to force his mind to concentrate and shuffling his thoughts into order resolutely. The battle still raged, he reminded himself, turning toward the chaotic shouts and crashes that broke the ringing of his ears from time to time. With a final breath to resolve himself, he stooped slowly to grab his battlepick from where it had been flung away as he fell.
He gasped sharply at a previously unremarked pain in his leg and reeled slightly as he beheld the cause; just above his left knee and sticking from the dense meat of his thigh, a splinter of oak six inches long and half that thick was poking proudly through his blue-grey, now crimson-black, leggings. The young soldier sighed past a yelp as he stood stiffly: another day, another fight, another scar. He had long ago accepted that his body would be mangled by the time he reached an elder age, if he reached an elder age, but damn if they didn’t all hurt like hell regardless, especially when they were still protruding-from-your-limbs fresh.
Staring at the wound, he vaguely recalled an explosion from the stable, a bright flash and a roar before his helmet seemed to cave in on his face and the world went black. Maybe that had saved him from the flying hammer blows, he reflected looking at the broken corpse at his feet. He could see similar shards protruding all along her back and right side. One was buried deep in her neck, a slow trickle of dark liquid oozing still as her heart pumped its last.
With a grimace and a small grunt from the back of his throat, he snatched his foe’s red-and-gold armband to wrap tightly around his upper thigh; it seemed to slow the blood trickling steadily down his calves and into his boots a bit. In one motion, he yanked the offending spar from his flesh and the roll of bandages from the field kit on his belt, hastily applying the thin layers of cotton just as he had done so many times for himself and others over his five years with the company.
He thanked whichever God was watching today’s slaughter for Doc Pan and his incessant harping about arteries, absentmindedly feeling for femoral pressure as if the good surgeon was scowling about the battlefield at that very moment. He wasn’t, of course, but based on the shouts coming around the bend ahead, he would surely be needed. In fact, the Doc might actually be well on the way already, leading his rolling hospital caravan across the Urartu Plains from Avium with all the efficiency expected of a surgeonly man turned martial.
With a resolute grimace and a last look at the fallen woman, he set himself to task, pulling the bandage tight and limping over the ex-rebel to continue his day’s fight.
Rounding a tall, cheerily ablaze bakery on the final bend of the wide main road, Pica found the rest of his squad slugging their way across the village’s northern market square. They were engaging the rebels attempting to retreat through the narrow North Gate, hounding and working to encircle them before they could escape into the wooded foothills that bordered much of the sprawling town. The insurgents were not having a good time of it, a pile of their torn and broken bodies stacking at the feet of the troopers ringing them.
As Captain Haidarum had foreseen, Cerasus had been taken completely by surprise and had been unable to mount any but the most fleeting resistance to the Mellivora soldiers flooding through the streets. They, as well as those foolish enough to host them, were now exanimate, strewn from town gate to town gate in a scarlet tract. There weren’t many Mellivora soldiers to be seen among them. In fact, Pica could only see a handful of troops on the ground in their ruby, grey-trimmed armor, and most of those seemed to be moving more-or-less fine despite their injuries as they righted themselves before proceeding to regain the battle or find somewhere removed for a more thorough triaging of their injuries.
‘IF YOU AREN’T DEAD ALREADY, GET YOUR ASS IN THE FIGHT!’ A coarse voice cut through the scene with practiced precision. Pica recognized it as belonging to Lieutenant Strozzi, head of Fourth Platoon and a dancer with his silver-glinting short swords.
In all the leadership of Company Mellivora, he was the type who took that title literally, always wading into a fight from the start and never one to shirk a soldier’s responsibility whether that be running point down a trail or burying a latrine on the way out. His platoon loved him fiercely; any and all of them would’ve followed him into the icy monster pits of High King Pyres himself if the lieutenant had only asked, let alone ordered, such a thing.
‘I said fucking MOVE, PICA!’ he reiterated, parrying a wild spear jab from one of the two rebels attempting to push around his flanks yet still managing to turn a cold eye to the young soldier shuffling up to his rear.
Pica leapt fast, ignoring the tightness of his leg and the wrenching pain of the torn muscle therein. With newfound relish and the sole end of getting this over as hastily as possible, he hopped awkwardly into the fray, striking hard with his pick against a buckler as it appeared before him. A cowering, middle-aged man was at its back, he peered over the malformed edge of the ancient thing through terror-black eyes that pled survival despite the swelling odds to the contrary.
With the thoughtless savagery that battle demands, Pica battered down the feeble defense in a flurry of slamming blows with the broad side of his weapon. It dissolved under his enthusiasm, the splintering wood arcing through the air in successive waves with each crunching blow. The dark eyes were suddenly gone, disappearing behind blackened lids and an involuntarily raised hand to the fragmenting pine. He fell back as the shield gave way completely and tumbled to the ground before the pressing mass of soldiers, trying to turn but finding his pathway blocked by his comrades behind. His mouth hung open in dismay as the diamantine tip of a Mellivora gladius appeared in his throat, removing itself again just as instantaneously in a dazzling spray of crimson.
The startled rebel collapsed with a gurgle, eyes shining and shifting frantically as he struggled with the realization that he would die here in the dirt, the morning’s piss still damp on the toes of his tattered boots. The ranks that were unyielding before did so easily now, opening to his limp form, consuming the falling man, and forcing him underfoot as they sought any advantage over the better trained and equipped soldiers pressing them ever tighter into the funnel of the gate. Another insurrectionist was shoved forward to take his place in the hopeless resistance to the tide eating lethally into their flanks.
Pica glanced to the side and was thrilled to see his best friend Simen grinning maniacally as he whipped arterial blood skyward from the short, devilishly pointed sword with a flick of his wrist. He brought it back down instantly, pulling the weapon close to his chest before thrusting another piercing blow at an apron-clad woman endeavoring to fill the gap in the struggling ranks and climbing onto the already forgotten man, deaf to his gurgled cries as he was slowly crushed in a suffocating end every soldier fears above most others.
Simen winked a big dark eye at his friend. ‘Was wondering where you had wandered off to.’ He grunted, blocking an incoming slash. ‘Almost had to go find you so you wouldn’t miss the fun!’ He chuckled to himself, amused in his easy way as he lunged forward to push back the rebel soldier trying to slash through his guard with a chipped, rather dated rapier.
Near-as-tall as Pica, but more thickly built overall; Simen’s armor clung to him tightly, his shoulders and chest straining it to near-breaking as he deftly punched his short, broad sword forward into the soft ranks ahead with brutal efficiency. He had always done well for himself in a fight, taking primeval joy in surviving the slaughterhouse, approaching each encounter with the cool processing of a scholar unwinding a new riddle.
Pica grinned despite the situation around them, he could remember that silver-eyed look from a hundred times during their youth together in Heartwood; the man was in his zone, focusing completely on the only thing which ultimately mattered: survival. He had, as most soldiers do, turned off his humanity beyond the most essential functions necessary for the next two or three moments, walling any empathy or emotional response from himself until he could piece together fractured memories in the safety and privacy of his bed roll.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the skirmish had ended, the last surviving insurrectionists abandoning their wounded and scrambling over one another through now-burning market gates in their flight into the hills hugging Cerasus. Such naivety was amply rewarded, Third Platoon trampling them head-on as they emerged from the forest beyond, striving to gain some of the morning’s glory from their comrades in the Fourth.
‘MEN HOLD!’ Strozzi called as a few of his troopers started to follow ‘We’ve got the one we came for.’ At his feet, stuck under the collapsed frame of a man suffocating from a penetrated lung, was a man whose armor clearly marked him as something other than the rebels whose bodies lay dying or otherwise around him. ‘Jasmine, I presume?’ the officer looked down his nose at the man, his question clearly leaning towards statement. He gestured for the gurgling rebel to be removed, revealing his prize beneath.
They were clearly an officer of some rebellion rank and disposition, wearing the livery of the Onari Rebels which, while fitted too small against his large figure, was remarkably ornate in the smoke-tinged sunlight. The crest of Clan Onaria, with its gape-jawed fish head in red and gold, was engraved proudly across the middle of the breastplate. Now, the burning trees emblazoned in the large, round fish’s eyes had been sundered in one of the day’s more potent blows, the otherwise magnificent piece now modified by the addition of a proud crack running across the once fearsome visage.
He was gasping loudly but otherwise unmoving despite having been freed of the dying weight of his comrade, mouth open almost as wide as that of the mangled fish across his chest. The source of his disability was clear enough, Strozzi’s battlepick, rebounding from a stunning hammer blow to the man’s side, had returned to burrow its sharp end into rib meat, lodging snuggly in cloven armor and against shattered ribs in the depths of his innards. He didn’t have long, that was clear to anyone with eyes for the situation.
Strozzi leaned forward, eager to take advantage of what time did remain. ‘You’re ‘Jasmine,’ he reiterated, dropping any feigned questioning entirely the second time.
‘Sergeant Jasmine,’ the felled officer responded indignantly. ‘At your service.’
‘And I at yours.’ The lieutenant dipped his head slightly to the man and stepped back to remove the solleret from his heaving chest. He knelt slowly beside the man’s muddied face, sweeping a loose strand of silver hair free of the drying sweat of his brow and steeling blue eyes against the pain of the increasingly breathless man on the ground before him. ‘Where is she?’ he asked, leaning close to the sputtering mouth and keeping his voice low and calm.
Strozzi was a lifer, and he had seen the worst that men can visit upon one another in his long years of service. It had hardened him to forged iron, as it must, but he had a profound respect for anyone who lived the soldier’s life; the way he saw it, anyone who stood bravely against odds as great as those presented by even a platoon of Mellivora Badgers was worthy of respect and a clean death. The lieutenant didn’t want to drag this out, he hoped he wouldn’t have to.
The rebel officer coughed, flecks of lung-red and pink froth appearing on his lips and teeth. He grimaced at the lieutenant, clamping his jaw to the pain and eyeing the young soldiers gathering round him or going about the usual after-action duties and activities. His eyes followed them slowly as they helped one another up or searched for friends, looted the dead and finished off the mortally wounded. He pitied those of his who had been injured too little for the mercy killings currently being apportioned to his comrades, praying for those he saw being dragged away to the field hospital he knew would be springing up nearby. They were going for healing, it was true, and interrogation; Jasmine wished them a quiet death from infection on the road before that.
‘Not much time left,’ the lieutenant continued, ‘no sense stretching this out. Might even be able to get you patched up.’ He lied. He knew there was no hope for the dying officer. It was either he dies here, or he was dragged off to meet the Inquisitor’s legion back in Avium to die there.
The crumpled man rolled his eyes and managed a grim smile, recognizing the barefaced lie and doing Strozzi the dignity of not calling it out. He was already dead and just hoped to get it over with before they were able to take him to the Auditors who, he was sure, were already well on their way from Avium, if they weren’t already lurking nearby. He eyed the shadows with unhidden dread in search of the hooded figures. ‘Not much time left,’ the dying man parroted, regaining himself and falsifying coolness, ‘don’t know why I would talk now.’
While Strozzi didn’t show it, he pitied the dying man at his feet and wished him a quick death; nobody deserves to have the truth ripped from them one fingernail, scrap of skin, tooth, or eye at a time. The lieutenant wouldn’t wish that upon anyone, let alone one who had fought bravely to allow his soldiers a chance at escape; who had held his own against two of the company’s best fighters before being felled by a clever feint from the lieutenant and an opportunistic young trooper with a waiting spear.
‘Look,’ he said, his voice becoming tight and dark, ‘all we want is her, I can offer you a clean death here or a dirty one in the Auditor’s pits, your choice. Just tell me where Anticlea is and I can make sure you go with your troops to the pyres, like proper.’
The sergeant at his feet appeared to genuinely consider his words for the briefest of moments before hardening his eyes to match resolutely. He wouldn’t break; he wouldn’t betray the cause that he had sacrificed his life for, not now that the end was so near.
Strozzi cast his eyes away with a sigh, he had a job to do whether he wanted it or not. With a regretful nod, he stepped back, allowing a trio of company medics to come forward, two of them bearing a stretcher close behind the first.
As they set it down, the primary poured a small vial of thick, white liquid into the man’s mouth, plucked the roll of bandages from the felled soldier's own kit, and rushedly wrapped his chest, battlepick and all, in a stabilizing cocoon of befilthed cotton. As one, the attendants lifted him bodily off the ground and placed him on the awaiting conveyance. The officer in red-and-gold gasped and screamed, but didn’t die under their watch, he was soon being hustled back to the impromptu hospital tent already being erected just outside of Cerasus. If he survived, he would find himself in an interrogation dungeon in Avium Citadel, awaiting the pincers and prying knives of the Inquisitor Council and their famed Auditors.
Pica and Simen watched as the wounded man was shuttled away by the young medics, his fate becoming dreadfully certain the sooner he found himself in the hands of the legendarily talented Doc Pan.
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