Art of War

by Triantafyllou, Petros

  Behind her stood Odo, his spear held blunt end up, his mouth pursed into a thin, stoic line. He looked at O’den, who had lowered his sword and was staring at his father, mouth agape.

  “Damn coward.” Odo spat in the direction of the unconscious admiral. “I don’t care if you’re the king himself, you try to harm my boy and I will be swift in my retribution.” He looked back at O’den. “You did well, but your offense was nonexistent.”

  “I know.” O’den said apologetically. “I just… You can’t blame me for not wanting to attack the king’s top admiral.”

  Odo nodded thoughtfully. “About that…” He motioned to Thakratch, who hurried over.

  “Turn around.” Odo instructed, and Thakratch complied and was released from his bonds as a result. “We don’t need her going anywhere.” Odo explained as he bent over and began using the straps to bind Deuen’s hands and feet. “I have a feeling that the admiral has quite a lot to answer for.”

  “I would like to make one thing perfectly clear,” Odo’s voice carried through the chill winter air in which the new recruits stood, all the way to the rear ranks where O’den stood. “Despite what you all may have heard, war is still very much upon us. It is my job to prepare you for that, and it is a job I take very seriously.”

  O’den had heard the rumours. He had wished that they were true. Unfortunately, however, after Admiral Deuen had been implicated in a plot to have the Seahulk attacked at sea, it only furthered animosity by both kingdoms. Acts of war had only been on the rise in the six months since.

  “So, if you think the soldier’s life is in some way easier than tilling fields, or hauling fish, or slaving over an anvil and forge, then my job is two-fold, and I will not relent until each and every one of you is not only willing to fight and die for your kingdom, but that you’ll all be too damned good at the former to have to worry about the latter.”

  O’den smirked at that. He had seen the sort of training Ghestal soldiers were used to, and he had lived the sort of training his father had expected. A lot of these recruits were in for a world of hurt.

  “Beyond all else, know this: you are the first in a new, proud tradition. Every other soldier in Ghest will be watching. Indeed, all of Ghest will be watching. But you will show them that you are capable, that you are brave, that you have every right to serve your kingdom that they do.” There was a cheer that echoed across the field where Odo made his speech, five hundred halflings calling out their assent. It sent a chill down O’den’s spine.

  Odo dismissed the assembled crowd, all of whom then split into their respective units. O’den climbed atop his pony and watched as one hundred halfling men and women formed in ranks in front of him. He fought a grin as the unit, his unit, saluted him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he called out to them, “welcome to the Ghestal Second Halfling Infantry, welcome to the Shortblades.”

  “Thank you, sir!” they called out in unison.

  O’den’s smile broke through at that. “You’re welcome. Now let’s get to work.”

  Rendered Chaos

  D. M. Murray

  There’s something altogether mind-bendingly disappointing about being woken up in the middle of a sex dream. That was the overwhelming notion that stabbed into my mind when that bloated old fuck Corporal Winston ground the sole of his boot into my bollocks.

  “Wakey time, Sontino, you piece of shit.” Winston’s ravaged voice was never the sweetest caress one needed when birthing the mother of all hangovers. “Every morning,” Winston growled on, blazing spears of cruel sunlight finding their mark in my eyes, “you wake up humping your cot. Must be feeling it bad. Fucking over-sexed, sun-baked Aneochins.”

  I rolled my tongue about my sour-as-shit mouth, furry as week-old mouldy cheese, and not tasting much better. I rubbed at my burning-dry eyes and looked at the piggy-face of Winston. Baby-sitter number one. Dog-wanking prick.

  “Been out here, what, three weeks? Crying out for some velvet, are you?” Private Broochman piped up from the upturned bucket he sat on by the entrance of the tent. Baby-sitter number two. Not quite having achieved the rank of dog-wanker, but certainly with aspirations.

  I fixed a greasy smile, ignoring the growling sickness in my belly. “Why don’t you two fret less on me and concentrate on fucking yourselves?” Broochman was right, though, it’d been three weeks. Three weeks since the archduke had sent my happy existence of painting, and then fornicating, with the wives of absent military officers into the shitter. Three weeks of mud. Three weeks of shit rations, even worse brandy, and worst of all, no velvet worth the fucking that wouldn’t give me the cock-rot. Actually, no, worst of all was storming into my tent to crown my hangover like the mother of all shitting hangovers.

  “Where’s DeVerocci—” The tall young officer looked every inch the hero. The prick. Long-blond hair kissed the silver markings of captaincy on his epaulettes. No doubt my face being the only one not as pale as the risen moon was all the answer he needed. He strode forward, ignoring the lazy salute of Winston and Broochman. “Sir,” Captain Hero said, fury simmering behind his good manners. These people and their fucking manners. “You, sir, are a scoundrel.”

  Been called worse. Captain Hero was shit at this. I pointed at my chest and pursed my lips in my best feign of innocence. I mean, I didn’t know the man, but chances are I’d fucked his wife, or sister, or even his dear old mother. Innocence was lost on me, and the two or three fading and not-so-fading bruises about my face were testament enough that others agreed.

  “Sir,” I said, attempting to stand, a smooth smile dawning on my lips.

  “Sit down!” Captain Hero snapped.

  My arse hit the cot hard.

  “You, sir, have dishonoured my sister.”

  Sister! A first for this week.

  “And by dishonouring her, you dishonour my family. I would have hers, and our honour restored with your life, if it weren’t for the fact the archduke is so a fan of your work.”

  “He does quite like my—”

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  Winston and Broochman sniggered behind Captain Hero. Winston’s glee in particular making me wished I’d fucked his sister. Though, that again would mean an inevitable run-in with the old cock-rot, as no doubt the man’s sister was the most rancid whore in Warungsland.

  “As I cannot take her honour back from you in blood, I shall take it from your hide.”

  “Sir, if you feel I must present my arse to you, I’m sorry to disappoint. Whilst I understand the predilections of the officer class, and despite my reputation for being a prolific lover, it’s not a preference of mine. Can’t you just rough me up a little?”

  Captain Hero’s face plumed red, and his mouth gaped open and closed. “That’s not what I meant.”

  I stood, sympathetic smile curling beneath my sweat-beading lip. “Why, of course you did.”

  Captain Hero’s fury drained from him now, caught off-guard with my well-timed accusation of a preference for buggery. I presented my chin and placed a paint stained finger-tip to it. Tap, tap. Thump.

  The blow sent me corkscrewing in a spinning haze of stars, and then down. Down into my cot. Down into my side-table of empty bottles and spent cigars. Down into my tubs of paint powders, spent canvases, and down into a black void of pain and disafuckingpointment. How had it come to this? I was perfectly happy painting, drinking, and fucking myself into a courtly stupor. And now I’m here, on the outskirts of the Highlands, to capture for posterity glorious battle art of the Warungsland’s army repelling the Antellenians. I rubbed my aching chin. Bollocks to this.

  Yellow-bog-star flowers brushed against the ankles of my boots as I crested the wooded hill. Scouts reported no Ant soldiers, so I made my way up. Winston and Broochman huffed behind me, hauling canvases, easels, and satchels full of paint powders, brushes, and charcoal.

  “Chop, chop!” I called to my mules.

  “Fuck yourself, Sontino.” Winston grumbled.

  “Howe
ver could I do that when I’m spending all my fuckery time with your mother?” I ignored the grumbled insults from the rear and stepped out between two red-barked pines and into the little glade. Bright purple buds bloomed about the summer heather in a meadow flower mosaic. I’d rather be painting this merry scene than battle.

  “Those mountains look like tits.” Broochman’s just-a-man voice pipped behind me, followed by the clatter of him dropping easels and the bag of paint powders.

  “Careful!” I said, looking at the mountains across the valley.

  “Called the Twin Sows.” Winston grunted, tossing the equipment on top of Broochman’s abandoned heap.

  No point calling out these two pricks any more. Either too stupid or too much a pair of arseholes to care different. He was right, though, Broochman, the Twin Sows did look like a pair of tits. Tits. I shook myself out of my reverie and studied the landscape below. More of a portrait man. I guess that told when I sent my first work back to the Archduke. ‘Not grand enough. More action. More visceral.’ So here I was, atop a windy hill in the Highlands, freezing my own tits off in this shit-stinking weather the Warungsland folk called summer. I pulled a hairless paintbrush from my pocket and mouthed it, teeth finding familiar pits and grooves as I took in the land. Heather-clad drumlins ran down from the foot of the Twin Sows, purple gleaming with yellow. About the only thing of brightness and beauty out east.

  “Shitting weather.” I set up my easels, careful to fix the legs into the ground. I fitted my canvases in place. Five easels, and five canvases. ‘Give me the art of war,’ the Archduke told me. ‘Give me glory, and gore, and the divine beauty of it,’ he demanded. ‘Give me it all, and you shall be returned to court.’

  The clouds rolled slow overhead, ugly and dull like the skin of a day-dead fish, all lustre and promise gone to shit and leaving nothing behind but wasted glamour and the promise of disappointment. Beneath the drumlins, the ground evened off into the valley floor, a dull carpet of hummocky grass, beaten and bent over by the easterly wind. The grey sheen of countless little mirror pools played out the reflection of the ugly sky, leopard-spotting the ground either side of the worming meander of a small ox-bow river.

  I laid open my paint pots and mixed my palette. An unpleasant task owing to the colours in this place. Greys. Or browns. Or the yellow-greens of a fading bruise. There was about as much charisma in this palette as there was in that mouldering shit-and-wine stinking tent I shared with those two guardsmen. So, about the same as a dried-out turd.

  I took a moment and sketched out the backdrop, making sure I’d at least one good landscape canvas to capture the meeting of the armies. After all, the archduke would be keen I show he’d offered terms before slaughtering the Ants.

  The mirror pools drew my attention for a moment, and I wondered just how deep those little bog pools were. Armoured men falling into deep pools leads to one conclusion. I opened a sketch book and began to scratch down an image that played in my mind. Bright strobes of light cutting though the shades of water before losing out to the inexorable depth. In the midst, the hero of the piece descended, sleeping the long sleep. His armour gleams in the water, and his white cloak floats up and out behind him like a phantom reaching up to haunt the valley.

  “Shit.” Winston’s voice sounded from behind. “Tie a pencil to my cock and watch me dry-hump your canvas, bet I’d do better than that.” His reeking breath strangled me from over my shoulder.

  I turned and offered the meat-headed prick my best fuck yourself smile. “Corporal, whilst I respect and, indeed, value your critique, it would be altogether more helpful in maintaining the atmospheric stability favoured by my paints if you were to take your shit-stinking breath away the fuck somewhere else.”

  He sloped off to the edge of the glade and leaned against a tree, fixing his piggy-black eyes on me. I duly extended my middle finger in his direction and flashed him my most disarming smile. The prick.

  I closed shut my sketch book and returned my attention to the valley floor. A herd of deer grazed to the east of the river. The stag raised his dozen-pointed antlers, cocked his head, and turned his bearded neck to the south. I followed where he looked and saw them. Five thousand men according to the scout reports. Five thousand Ants marching inexorably towards a hungry Titan. Why the Antellenian’s believed they could just carve off the Highlands was beyond me. Yes, there’s the rumour of gold in the mountains, but fuck me, they were never equipped to deal with the Warungsland Army. Idiots would all die. The stag bellowed, his breath pluming out around his head. The harem bolted towards the woodland fringing the hill I stood atop.

  Noise drew my eye to the north. A whinny of horse, and the slow, grinding clamour of Warungsland’s finest. Ten-thousand cavalry, archers, and foot. I’m a lover, not a fighter, but even to me it was simple arithmetic.

  I sketched the formations underneath the two colossal tits of mountain and watched as the white-cloaked Warungsland general rode out to meet his counterpart. The offer of terms the archduke wanted. Easy. Utterly rejected as fuck by the outnumbered Ants, naturally. Ants, much like their crawling namesakes, haven’t much in the way of brains, and so they can’t see when they’re utterly, hopelessly defeated.

  “We’re fighting!” Broochman squawked, fingers tapping his sword belt. He may be a lowly private, but that boy, well, captain of stating-the-fucking obvious.

  I brought the optics to my eyes and peered into the valley. The heavy cavalry of the Warungsland force would hit them any moment, white cloak’s billowing out behind them like a host of vengeful phantoms. The horsemen crashed into the Ants’ pikemen with a thunderclap that could have roused the dead. It sure as shit roused the hangover in me. I swung my optics along the line and picked out my frozen moment.

  A white horse reared, back hooves planted in the heathery ground. Front hooves rose above the grimacing Ant pikeman, birthing a jump that the horse would never see through. The Ant’s leather round-cap had slid down over his eyes. Shit gear for shit soldiers. Fair is fair. The man’s gritted teeth bared in the moment. White knuckled hands gripped hard at the mid-shaft of his pike as he drove it between the shoulders of the great beast. The rider, with silver armour gleaming, had the look of the most pronounced disappointment on his face. I imagine he thought it rather unfair that a mere Ant foot soldier should have him so rudely unhorsed and most likely cleaved into the dirt.

  I lowered my optics and wasted no time in sketching the moment onto the canvas. I worked fast, ignoring the bleating of dying men in the valley below.

  “We’re fucking smashing them.” Winston’s ugly voice sounded as he looked down at his comrades tearing through the Ants. He clapped a heavy hand onto my shoulder, sending one of the horse’s rear legs askew. “Fucking well smashing them, eh, Sontino?”

  “Corporal,” I turned slow, “would you ever piss off?”

  “That’s right, you Aneochins are lovers, not fighters.”

  “Quite correct.” I turned my attention back to the canvas, correcting the askew leg by building up the heather about it. “Now off you fuck.”

  “Greasy prick.”

  “Greasy from your mother’s cunt.”

  Winston lumbered past the easels and pissed over the crest of the hill. No doubt that was as helpful a contribution to the fight that bloated arsehole would ever manage.

  I finished my work on the clash of cavalry and pikeman, and then raised my optics, searching for my next frozen moment. No shortage of options. My view alighted on a riderless horse galloping past two foot-soldiers locked in a dance so lacking in love, it would seem it would end in someone’s death. Well, war is war. Hand’s gripped hard on the opposing arms. Weapons trembled above each of the men’s heads, the tremor running down and into the strained faces of each.

  A Warungsland horseman galloped past, and the Ant axeman released his grip of the swordsman’s hand. With confusion dawning on his face, he tried to stem the bright blood that spurted from where his arm had been severed at the elbow. The
Warungsland swordsman waited, almost respectfully before he shook himself, realising where he was. With a double-handed cut, sent the axeman thumping to the ground, his lower jaw flying to join his lower arm. The instant the swordsman struck, a spear met him above his hip, just under his breastplate. It jerked him off his feet, and he crashed to the ground like a sack of marionette dolls. The Ant spearman’s shaft jolted and snapped, courtesy of the riderless horse bolting back where it had started from and riding him down.

  “Fuck me.” I blew out wine-stinking breath and tried to process what I’d just seen into a painting. Never easy, deconstructing such intensity into a single scene. Archduke wanted visceral, fuck the old crow, he can have it. I worked fast. The riderless horse colliding with the spearman. The spearman sticking the swordsman, and the swordsman felling the axeman. Sheer and utter bloody madness.

  A palsy had worked its way into my hand. Could’ve been either the wine, or the chaos below. I stepped to the third easel, and raised my optics once more. The Warungsland foot pressed, filling the holes the cavalry punched into the Ants like sickness into a rent in the flesh. It was terminal. A rout. The mass of the Warungsland forces was turning the Ants around and pushing them up onto the heathery drumlins at the foot of the Twin Sows. They’d grind them into the mountain.

  “Look at `em fuckers!” Broochman yipped, pointing to the small groups of Ants that had avoided the press. “Making a break for it.”

  “They’ll be ridden down.” Winston laughed as he lit a thin brown wrap of mulch-leaf, sending out yellow plumes of smoke above his head.

  Didn’t matter a shit to me if the Ants ran. Didn’t matter if they lived or died. Simply characters lost from the canvas now. I raised my optics once more, sweeping their view into the melee at the foot of the Twin Sows.

  A man lay on the heather clutching at his knee where the rest of his leg used to be. He howled as the awful wound bloomed red on the blooming purple flowers of the heather. Holy hellfire how he howled. Bellowing louder than that stag earlier. He was trampled to silence by the press of Warungsland foot. One of the foot was taken down by an axe to the neck. Not severing the head, but not failing at its work either. Made a right mess. He fell and was lost to the press. An Ant soldier, stepping backwards, took a shattered spear shaft in the groin. He bent over, and was clattered groundward by a flash of silver. A metal-rimmed shield pushed out of the press, deflecting an Ant sword thrust before swinging back and clattering the man in a spray of blood and teeth. Another strike of the shield obliterated the Ant’s nose. He fell and was joined an instant later by the Warungsland shield-man, his world turned to shit by a hammer to the chest.