Boss gave a disapproving growl that set a hundred lazy twirls of smoke through the afternoon sunbeam, momentarily distracted from his card hand and cigarette. I snuck a peak at his hand and quietly decided to fold.
“They got no [censored]' meat on their bones. You young fellas always fall head-over-heels for these Keidran girls. Now some people think that's just perversion—I ain't like that. You just don't have any common sense.”
I had to pipe up at that point. “What, it's against common sense to have different taste in girls?”
“First off, it's good you said girls, cause half of these broads are as young as my daughter back home. Again, not here to sit in judgment, but they ain't gonna know any [censored] ropes, y'know? They get in bed and they're just gonna be a confused [censored] child.”
“Aw, nuts to that. You know the tabbys screw like wild animals.”
“Yeah—exactly. I ain't interested in screwin' wild animals. When you're young all you care about is perky boobs and a decent grip. When you get older--”
Mick interrupted with a chuckle. “What else is there to like? We ain't talkin' bout getting married, we talkin' about stands.”
“I know you're talking about stands. Why the hell would you marry one of the—oy, thanks kindly.” the wench—pretty little thing with orange and white all over with bird-of-paradise feathers in her hair—passed out drinks with a grin. She was either unaware of the context of the discussion or knew better than to show any disapproval. Smart girl. Me and Mick made eyes at her. Nate broiled in the corner. He was the new guy. Don't know what his problem was. I think he just didn't care for tabbies, really.
“See? Look at that right there and tell me you wouldn't nail her to the [censored]' wall, boss.”
“Eh, I don't go for all the fur and [censored] anyways. Again, no offense intended. But even if I did, I wouldn't be going with no Keidran because first, no goddamn meat on their bones, and second, no technique. You start getting higher standards. And you ain't gonna get that with the local color.”
“Bout time we heard some common sense,” Nate said, a little too loud and a little too assertively. Mick shot him an awkward look.
“The [censored] you lookin at?”
“Nothin, man, nothin. 'Ey, we playin' cards or what?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Boss replied. “I'll raise--”
A very specific kind of whistle, followed by a thunk, repeated itself against the wooden tavern walls. You learn the sound of an arrow striking wood pretty quickly as a soldier. Even if you haven't blocked on yourself, you've heard the noise a hundred times. On shields, on palisades, and on inn walls. These were too closely grouped to be misses or accidental, which meant they were likely fire-shot.
We rushed out to the front of the inn in a cloudy haze of steel armor plating, cursing, and screaming. Thankfully the inn patrons were too stunned to get in our way before we got outside.
Five of the [censored], in loincloths, were lighting up the east tavern wall from about 50 paces out. They saw us and started taking shots. We knelt and raised shields. Of course they were in [censored] loincloths, goddamn savages. You'd think it makes our job easy but it doesn't. If we closed in they'd outrun us and shoot us again. That's why they didn't wear any armor—relied on mobility. They loaded more fire shot, aimed at us this time.
Infantry aren't cleared to use longbows—takes a good few years or so to train a proper archer. That's why I carried a crossbow around. Not a little [censored] one you get from some shady hophead's kiosk though—a real, bona-fide siege crossbow. It's overkill on unarmored targets but the extra range is worth it. You wore the thing on your back and it shot bolts half the size of a javelin. You reloaded it with a [censored] wench—if you had the strength to pull it back on hand you'd probably be better off throwing the damn bolt anyway.
I used toothed bolt-heads since armor piercing wasn't an issue. That's another disadvantage of fighting bare—you give your enemy nastier tools to work with, since they don't have to worry about piercing steel to get to you.
I fired off a bolt. It hit one of them and he stumbled back, vomited blood, and crumpled as his life bled out. I got a jolt of adrenaline and didn't bother suppressing the natural grin that comes from a combat high. I remember my first confirmed kill terrified me. Boss told me you either embraced the high or died trying to fight it. “War don't have room for merciful men,” he said, and after a short reflection, “Maybe don't even have room for halfway decent men.” I put that out of my head. I was decent enough. I just took pride in my work.
They still had us outmatched, though—no one else carried a crossbow, and our shields weren't large enough to hold the line forever. We had to make a break for the back wall of the inn. The fire hadn't spread there yet. With any luck, cavalry's horses were still in the stable next door. We had emergency cavalry training, not enough to deal with a spear line but more than enough to overrun a handful of archers.
Like I said—“with any luck.” The mangy [censored] slit the horse's throats. One of them was still choking, twitching, even managing a weak whinny and kick every now and then—they'd been cut recently. Then why weren't they on this side? Wind answered my question—they wanted it in their favor. I was surprised they didn't bar the door to the inn—if they're going to torch it, why not just let the people burn inside? Questions for later.
We were ground troops, not archers, and our armor wouldn't hold forever if we charged the line—besides, they'd just run into the woods and peck at us some more.
People finally started pouring out. The mutts fired into the crowd, yelling [censored] in Keidran. I knew a few words because I heard them enough I thought I'd look them up. “Sympathizers.” “Traitors.” “Cat-Garbage.” (That one doesn't translate well, but you get the gist of it.) I'd only been hearing it since we got posted across borders. You can guess why.
“We just gonna stand here and let them pop civvies?” Mick said, with a rumble of rage.
Nate pushed his luck again“Quit your high horse [censored], Mick. They're [censored] tabbies, not real [censored] people. You only give a [censored] because you want thei—“
Before Mick could beat the Nate senseless, Boss smacked him upside the head. “Shut your [censored] mouth, newbie. They're people if they're on our side.” Nate smoldered, but kept silent. He addressed the whole squad then. “Look, they're busy with what they're doing, and we can't stop 'em. Best we can do is use this and get around them. They lost one of their number but they still know better than to come over here and bother us.”
“[censored], boss, that's cold,” I replied. I really felt it too.
“The [censored] are we gonna do? Ride in like knights in shining [censored]' armor? That option's out. Now move.”
Wolves don't anticipate much cunning from human rank-and-file. They outmaneuver us casually—and today they'd done it brilliantly. No reinforcements showed up, and as we started creeping around the tavern to get a shot behind the bowmen we saw why. There was a huge pillar of smoke coming from where the barracks was—or more appropriately, used to be. If anyone was in there, they were dead or close to it. And these ones must've been sitting pretty, thinking we were shaking in our boots. But we're the 8th Infantry, the Razor Edge, not some cannon fodder spearguard. Yeah, we ain't knights. We sure as hell aren't Templars. But my first week in training I learned what kind of snakes you can eat in a survival situation and which ones will kill you—then I ate 'em. Next week I had to get to the mess hall without being seen by sentries in order to eat, every day—when you go without meals every time you [censored] up you learn some tricks fast.
Still, creeping up to them was galling. You'd think after a while I'd get used to seeing people walking around, alive, thinking today was like any other day, and then suddenly getting an arrow in the [censored] throat. You think after a while I'd see that and not be able to feel a weird combination of sickness, rage, and depression. You'd think I'd call myself a hypocrite for being disgusted at that but loving it whenever I stuck a mutt.
So you'd think. I guess I'm just odd that way. But there isn't a soldier in the world—at least there isn't one that survives very long—that doesn't feel that high, doesn't relish in it. There's a group of philosophers back in the cities that say war is against our nature. That's a load of crock. Every animal in the world is made to kill or get the hell away from things that kill. We're no exception and the Keidran are no exception. We're just exceptionally good at it.
We moved to a barn that was just behind them. I was amazed they hadn't seen us. They were shouting obscenities, furious at their dropped comrade. Probably thinking about how they would catch up with us. You'd think the civies would realize it was just the five of them, that if they just bumrushed the [censored] people would stop dying. But I guess that takes a few people with the balls to bumrush a bow line.
Which turned out to be us once we were close enough. We managed to hug the barn wall until we were just five paces from them. They couldn't outrun [censored] now. We closed. They pulled their bows. We had our steel in hand already.
One volley hit us at once. An arrow hit my shield and went through, but just by a few inches. I figured Nate would go down—his shield technique was always [censored] sloppy. I don't know how you [censored] up holding a piece of wood between you and the pointy thing but Nate always seemed to manage. Not today, though. Today Mick took one in the leg and went down, so now it was just the three of us against the four of them.
Three of us clad in inch-thick steel and holding three foot razors, against four of them nearly butt-naked with spears they hadn't drawn yet. One of them managed to just before Boss cut his throat with a snarl.
There's nothing quite like hitting a bowline, even in a little skirmish like this. I think it's that look in their eye just one second before you stick 'em. They realize they're well and truly [censored] and all they can do is stare. When you actually stick the [censored], though, that's something you can get philosophical about. Doesn't matter what kind of person you are—when three feet of steel is in your chest and you're looking death in the face, you're a coward. You can see that just before the light leaves their eyes. They'd stab their mothers in the back just to get away from the fate you gave them. There'd be no end to what they'd do. You have total power over them. In the moment before you destroy their lives, you destroy everything they thought they were, and they know it. And you can get all that just from a look.
One of 'em, though, one of 'em was slick enough to back off.
I wenched up another bolt as he dashed towards the treeline, where he'd be impossible to hit.
“Cmon, man, he's getting away,” Nate insisted.
“Shut it, newbie!” The wench clicked. The string was taught. I knelt and brought the crossbow up.
Ten paces from the treeline. A westward wind. I compensated. Five paces.
I fired. The bolt whistled and curved through the air and hit the mutt right in the [censored]-cheek. It howled and tumbled. Boss was pleased with the shot, pumping his fist—doubly so since the mutt was still alive. “That one might be a field officer if I'm reading those colors right.” they kept little bands on their arms for ranks. We knew red and blue were officer colors but little else past that. The mutts kept their internal organization pretty close to the chest.
Combat high still racing through my head, I looked at Mick's damage. The arrow was a bodkin stuck right through the chain, popping the links like twigs under a horse's hoof. He was sweating, groaning, but alive. Guess one of the mutts shot low and actually managed to hit something. The first thing I wondered when I saw that arrow—how did these savages get [censored] bodkin?