Art of War
Page 45
“Kill the bastard!” With elbows and shoulders, I dug deep, worming my way through the lines. “Move! Make a hole!”
And suddenly, the press of men gave way and I was stumbling into space. I found myself face to face with a spike-covered, half-naked lunatic who had somehow run himself neck-first onto my sword.
The main force of Scorrons had attacked up the pass in my brief absence like the treacherous foreigners they are. The Scorron Razor-Men had led the charge, terrifying madmen covered in sharp metal and eschewing armour for defensive purposes entirely. They take some drug that makes them foam and howl. Some set themselves aflame with alchemical mixtures, and all of them want nothing more than to throw themselves amid the enemy and wreak a red ruin before they die. It’s a famously intimidating sight, and until the moment an unarmoured prince of Red March had fought his way through his own troops to get at the Razor-Men, the intimidation tactics had been working. Colonel Artax’s men had been in retreat on both flanks.
My inadvertent stupidity reminded my fellow men of the Red March of the similar but intentional stupidity that had brought them here in the first place, and with wild cheers, they charged after me.
My memories of what follows are disjointed and largely absent. War is a red haze punctuated by horror and death. It’s a sequence of things that no human should ever have to know are possible, let alone see or have happen to them. War is neither a science or an art, it’s a fucking mess, and the only sane response to it is to run fast in the opposite direction. If we all did that, there wouldn’t be any more.
Months later, I found the great painter Steffano Kensio in his airy studio in Vermillion, a place of high windows and light overlooking the Selene. I took with me a small, stained section of the map he had drawn for Colonel Artax, who we buried under a mound of stones overlooking the Aral Pass. I asked the venerable Steffano how it was that the Scorrons had reached the Haimar Gap on warhorses when his map had shown no possible way for even a well-prepared group of unencumbered mountaineers to get there from the Scorron-held territory. Steffano, an elderly man with a bush of wild grey hair, hummed and harred and waved a loaded paintbrush at me before settling on, “All those squiggly bits, dear boy, it’s very messy up there. Every artist takes a bit of license in these matters.”
I punched him on the nose. I may have broken it. But it was wartime, and war’s hell.
I push the parchment back across the table. Night has fallen. An oil lamp burns beside me, though I have no memory of lighting it…or there having even been a lamp. Ashley has fallen asleep on the bed, an inviting collection of curves, light and shade offering up hints of her mysteries. If I had the talent, I would paint her here and now.
Instead, I force my gaze back to the pages that have held my attention for so many hours. With a sigh, I carry them to the fireplace. The Aral Pass still has its hooks in me after all these years. It had dragged me back wholesale, and I had bled again, this time in black upon parchment. I had wanted honesty, but sometimes you can have too much truth. Especially if you’re supposed to be being attacked by a bear…
I consign the pages to the flames and watch as they are taken from the world. Tomorrow I will try again. Something shorter, less honest, and more believable.
Acknowledments
I know this part may seem boring to you, so I’ll try to keep it as short as possible, although there are many people who deserve to be mentioned.
To begin with, I would like to thank all forty authors who helped create this anthology. Each one of them spent dozens of hours creating the best possible version of their stories, and they did it for free, albeit for a good cause. This anthology exists because of them. I did nothing more than bring them together.
Of course, those forty authors aren’t the only ones who brought this anthology to life. There are four generous people that deserve equal recognition for their work. Tim Marquitz, Jason Deem, John Anthony Di Giovanni, and Shawn T. King, thank you for your amazing work with editing, interior art, cover illustration, and cover/interior design respectively.
I would be amiss if I didn't mention Adrian Collins (editor of Evil is a Matter of Perspective) who inspired me to create Art of War and gave me valuable advice, and Ulff Lehmann who gave me the final nudge into starting this project.
Most of the aforementioned forty authors of this anthology are part of a larger group (one hundred authors) who took part in another charity action from BookNest back in January called BookNest’s Fabulous Fantasy Fundraiser (BFFF), in which we raised $4,400 for Doctors Without Borders. Since that was the success that lead into this anthology, those one hundred authors deserve to be mentioned as well.
To go even further back, there was one person whom without BFFF wouldn’t be the success it ended up being, and that’s Laura M. Hughes. Thank you, Laura, for supporting me and BookNest all the way from BFFF to Art of War.
And to complete the reverse domino, I would like to thank Agnes Meszaros, who first nudged me into creating BookNest. Everything that followed is a result of this action.
Of course, BookNest isn’t just Petros. A dozen other reviewers have helped the site grow, and although they come and go, they are still part of our family. Thank you, Katerina, Petrik, Celeste, Mary, TS, Charles, Michael, and everyone else who’s no longer with us.
Last but not least, there’s one person who has supported me throughout the years like no one else has. I wouldn’t exaggerate if I said that I simply wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Mark Lawrence, and therefore it is only proper to dedicate this anthology to him. Thank you, Mark. For everything.
Finally, many thanks to all those people who supported Art of War by giving it early reviews, spreading the word, or simply buying a copy. A fair number of them are part of four groups that I’m proud to be a part of: Fantasy-Faction of the amazing Marc Aplin, Grimdark Fiction Readers & Writers of the ever-amusing Rob Matheny, Fantasy Buffet, and finally r/Fantasy. Thank you, all of you, from the bottom of my heart.
-Petros Triantafyllou