Author Topic: Landing in Lugagun: One Graves Digs His Own; The Rise of A Mercenary  (Read 3349 times)

Wolfsong

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Figured I'd compile and post my past few roleplays (over a period of 4 days or so) from Fissoa in case anyone was interested:
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Night Before The Landing

"News from ashore, milord," the young man intoned solemnly, watching the blanket-wrapped man from a respectful distance away. Tarkus had been sitting there for some time watching the coast, insofar as the man could now given his limitations, and did not immediately stir to the boy's voice. So he tried again, prompting cautiously: "Milord, news by falcon." The night hung around them both, foggy and chill.

This time Tarkus shifted in his chair and turned at the hip, presenting a preternaturally aged face lit by a lantern's dim halo, lined by scars and the healed reminders of flayed skin. His eyes, what of them remained, were blissfully closed; he spared the boy that sight, at least. Then, just as quickly, he twisted back to face the sea and tucked his left arm beneath his blanket, hiding that mutiliation from sight as well as the others. He rasped a noise that could have meant anything, thick and choked in his throat, but the boy took it for assent and continued quietly.

"Aurvandil has been declared upon by," a list of realms followed, "and has formed a new colony in Paisly, which too has been declared upon. We have reached the coast, and will make landing after the sunrise. It's to be a quick raid." The boy hesitated, then: "You will watch from the ships...?"

A harsh cough, followed by a vigorous shake of Tarkus's head. His face was coiled up in a fierce scowl and despite the frailness of his body, there was still that iron core of stubborn intent stiffening his spine. How the lord planned on making the landing with his troops was anyone's guess, but the boy knew better than to question it. Base-born folk had no right to counsel their betters.

Only usurp them.

"Very well," the boy whispered, his breath catching, then chanced a step closer to the lord and extended the sheet of parchment he'd been concealing under his arm all night, and wet at his lips in sudden anxiety. "There's just the formality of a signature, milord, and I'll leave you be. Regarding the ship captain's pay."

Tarkus Graves didn't - couldn't - even spare the paper a second, or first, glance. He took it and signed it clumsily, without hesitation, glad to be rid of the nattering voice in his ear, and sagged back in his chair to listen to the gulls overhead, and smell the salt tang in the air. Without eyes, the tears did not sting so much, but he could still feel them run tracks down his weathered face. After all this time - finally, action.

The young man retreated without a word, glad the nobleman could not see his face. He was shaking, grinning riotously, and wasn't shamed to admit he had nearly wet himself in terror. The paper he carried with him contained a future he could have never dreamt of before now:

'I, Tarkus Graves, declare henceforth that Waldor of Fissoa is my true-born heir and son. Upon my death, he is to inherit all my titles and lands and be welcomed into the House of Graves. Should I take ill or be rendered senseless, he is to act as my Regent until either I recover, or pass from this world.

Tarkus Graves
Knight of Fissoa Fields
Once Duke of Madina'


Captain Waldor, the youngest man by far to lead this company of mercenary bowmen since its inception during the colonization of Dwilight, privately thanked all the gods above and below for this good turn of fortune as he disappeared below deck to ready his men for morning.

Wolfsong

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The Next Morning

A hushed silence fell across the deck as the sun rose over the sea. Moments later, it was broken by shouted commands and nervous, whispered chatter.

"Into the boats!" The young captain directed, stabbing his finger at the series of longboats being lowered into the water, and men began to mill in that direction, holding tightly to their longbows and making last minute checks of their boiled leather armor.

Near the prow of the ship, bobbing in the water and pulling at its rope tethers, was a longboat already full of bowmen. Among them, Waldor was dismayed to see the nobleman Tarkus - hunched over and sweaty already under the dawning sun, his chain armor glinting dully in the light. A sword was strapped to his hip, and he clutched at it desperately with the hand he had left to him.

A wasted life, the boy thought somberly, and passed on last minute directions to his sergeants - every one of them older than him by at least ten years. Then he made for the prow of the ship and, reaching it, shimmied the length of a long rope into the boat Tarkus had claimed as his own. He checked over his own leather armor and brigandine jack after thumping down, checked his unstrung bow, then shouldered it in favour of his small stabbing sword.

"A good time to fight, milord. The weather is with us," the young man lied, watching that mutilated face turn toward him, searching him out blindly and by voice alone. Then the nobleman nodded once, blinking his empty eyes. "The men saw an albatross earlier. Those sailors claim it's good luck. Something about the souls of the drowned." Another lie, but a harmless one if it raised the morale of his men.

Tarkus made an unintelligible, guttural sound and spat.

Waldor sighed quietly and turned his attention to the coast.

Now it was just a matter of time.

"Row!"

Wolfsong

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Trouble Arises

Very few other longboats seemed to be launching, and Waldor was starting to get worried. He turned again to Tarkus and tapped the nobleman twice on the shoulder, whispering hoarsely, "Should we turn around, milord? The advance seems to have stalled. We should get a confirmation of orders. There could be spies in the army, miscommunication, worse..." Those bowmen in the boat who overheard him shifted uncomfortably, exchanging looks. Some muttered oaths, or prayers.

Tarkus rasped a word at him in reply, his good hand clenching tighter about his sword hilt, and even without a tongue it was painfully clear what he had said:

"No."

Wolfsong

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A Desperate Battle

They hadn't even stepped out of the longboats when the first arrows fell among them, causing the first line of rowers to buckle and scream and drop bleeding to the bottom of the boat. Bowmen lurched to take over for the downed sailors, but they too were shot at and fell in turn, pulling desperately at the oars in an attempt to beach themselves before the worst hit. Waldor watched one longboat alongside them tip over as panicked soldiers piled out of it, and of the twenty that went into the water, only nine came up again. Two in his own boat were dead, and there were already more injuries than he was comfortable with.

And then, with a crash and too-loud scrape of sand along the bottom of the hull, they were beached and he was first out of the boat, pulling the blind nobleman after him with a shout of encouragement to his men - though most were already charging up ahead to take up positions along the unprotected coast, trying futilely to string their damp bows and force the defenders back, thanks to his sergeants. His own leadership was a formality; those grizzled old men knew better than he did what to do in a situation like this.

An arrow whizzed past and he found himself pressed flat to the sand, sheltering behind an overturned boat one of the sergeants had seen fit to drag up onto the beach. The man's squad hunkered down there too, taking pot-shots from time to time, but it was obvious to the captain that the seawater had made a mess of their longbows. Too few of the men had back-up weapons of any value: a few daggers, a longknife, shortswords here and there and one lonely pike.

"Where's everyone?" The older man bawled at him, his face soaked in sweat, saltwater and blood, then jabbed a bare hand back savagely at the water behind them, and then at the coast to either side of them. "Where in the name of all that's good and right is everyone?"

Waldor chanced a look over his shoulder and felt his insides twist. Too few ships. There weren't enough ships. A few other units were off-loading further down the beach, but nowhere did the young captain see the numbers that suggested the army had landed in force. That wasn't something he could tell his men, though. That would seal their fate.

"They're coming! We need to clear some space, get these archers off our asses, then secure a portion of the beach for the main force to land along!" He shouted back at the sergeant, then peeked up over the bottom of the overturned boat. After a brief glance, he ducked low again, gesturing frantically with the tip of his shortsword, forgetting everything he had just said the moment before. "Brace! Cavalry incoming!"

Something heavy crashed against the side of the longboat, and a horse went down with a sickening crunch, throwing its rider. Arrows arced up from behind the squad of men and Waldor watched as they fell among the charging enemy. He let out a whoop and threw his own bow aside, useless as it was. "A round of drinks to the captain of the Harriers! Bless them -- Brace!" More horses came, leaping over the sprawled bodies of the first rank of the cavalry charge, bounding over or around their makeshift fortifications. Waldor twisted at the hip to watch the charge as it carried past them and into the bulk of his men, downing the first rank of startled, panicked archers with ease. Momentum left the horses as the wedge bogged down with the second and third ranks, however, and another horse went down, its rider impaled on the lone pike wielded by one of his men. The boy felt his heart swell with pride - and then horror.

Staggering blind among the carnage was Tarkus Graves, his sword still gripped in his remaining hand.

Everything slowed.

A horse and rider appeared as if out of nowhere, thundering down the beach, a lance couched and pointed at the hapless knight.

The lance tip punched into Tarkus's armor, splitting mail, and spun the man around as the horse galloped on past toward the longboats still arriving on the beach. The nobleman fell, and Waldor lost sight of him.

He had more pressing matters to worry about. The sergeant clasped his shoulder and pointed across at where another unit of men had bogged down, where heraldic banners still waved and bobbed uncertainly. Even as he watched, their side of the fight dissolved and the men turned and broke, running in vain back toward the boats - as if that could save them. A banner fell. The sergeant grunted, mouthed the word, "Rout."

More and more men were falling to the cavalry and the infantry that massed in their wake. Waldor drew his own shortsword and stabbed blindly at one riderless horse that wandered too close, watching helplessly as most of his men were cut to pieces as they tried to fight their way up out of the treacherous trap that the sand had become - soaked in blood and bile and gore, it was worse than mud.

"We can't hold here!" He shouted through the clamor at the sergeant, not realizing the man had taken an arrow to the face and was wheezing blood through both nostrils. "We have to push through them to the woods while their cavalry regroups. It's our only chance!"

He didn't wait for agreement. He leapt the splintered remains of their little barricade and was at a dead sprint through the startled enemy before he even really had time to second guess himself. Only the wheezing of the sergeant behind him reassured him that the squad had followed.

Time lost meaning and coherence. In one instant, he was ramming his shortsword into the face of a boy even younger than him, and in the next he was sitting back on the longboat, watching the surfers break. He fought for his life with every inch of his bruised, bleeding body, as did the men behind him. It was no longer men attacking him - only arms, legs, swords and horses. Sometimes arrows fell, and he would hear the agonized cry of someone dying behind him, or beside him.

Then, ahead of them, Waldor spotted another unit bearing the colours of Fissoa and felt an irrational surge of hope. He waved his men forward.

"They've got the same idea as us - to them! To the," his eyes searched out the banner held raggedly above those survivors, "Grand Duke! Our lives depend on it!"

---

Everything hurt. That was nothing new.

Tarkus Graves stared up at the night sky overhead and wondered distantly when he had fallen down, and where his sword had gone. Something wet fell across his face, and he tried to lift his hand to swat at it, but realized too late that he had no hand - only a scarred stump grazed his sand-gritty cheek.

Memories came flooding back - the sky overhead was no dark, cloudless sky at all but the blackness of blindness. He choked, coughing raggedly, and spat blood. It frothed on his lips, dribbled down his  chin.

"He ain't dead," a voice above him noted in amusement, and Tarkus felt the tip of a sword probe harshly at his side. He screamed, a gagging noise, and writhed in agony as the tip dug in at the gory wound the broken lance had made. "Should we take him back to the Margrave?"

"Carmine?" Another voice broke in, and Tarkus felt his throat go dry. Tears started in the corners of his sockets, and he soiled himself. The nobleman, stripped of all dignity in the end, began to cry, making desperate, pleading noises with his ruined mouth - mewling, infantile sounds. He grasped weakly at the men above him, trying to beg for his life, or for death, or for anything but a return to that dungeon cell and that blood-stained slab.

A sword stabbed down through the meat and cartilage of his throat, choking off all attempts at words.

"Nah. Too much work."

One of the last sons of the House of Graves bled out onto the sand, and died.

---

Waldor slapped the flat of his sword against the hindquarters of a horse and watched as it spooked and lurched away from the fighting, carrying its rider with it. He felt a degree of satisfaction at denying that cavalryman his kill, but it was short-lived. A man-at-arms came at him from the side, and he had to twist away to avoid losing an arm to the better skilled swordsmen. His left arm was already numbed to uselessness by a clash with a shield earlier in the desperate fight, and he bled from half a dozen wounds. Most of the squad behind him were either dead or wounded, but those who could still fought on. Others hid among the dead, praying to whatever gods they had left for mercy.

He ducked another strike, then stumbled backwards over the prone body of the sergeant, snapping the arrow that still jutted from the man's blood-caked face. The sergeant groaned, and Waldor knew that for the time that man still lived --

-- and then suddenly he was lying face-first among the wounded and dying, something sharp and hot twisting in his shoulder. The pressure withdrew, but the pain remained, and he could distantly hear the sounds of new fighting as the defenders closed in on the Grand Duke's men. A booted foot slammed into his back, but the death blow never came.

He shut his eyes and let his weariness overtake him, and began to silently recite all the prayers his mother had taught him as a child, beseeching each and every god in turn to protect him.

And when he had run out of gods, he prayed to his dead mother.

The Grand Duke still fought, he thought. There was still some hope of rescue.

Waldor was not conscious to see the Grand Duke fall.

But nor was he dead.

Wolfsong

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Adrift

"Lord Graves is dead."

Something heavy thumped into his lap, and Waldor opened his eyes to the painful glare of torchlight and saw the sergeant, his face rag-wrapped and crusted in blood, looming over him. The man leaned back, then offered Waldor his hand. "I found his sword, I think. His or another's - hard to say. Thought you'd want it, what with your fancy papers and all. Not that it's business of mine."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Waldor replied, already uneasy, and tried to bring his hand up to grasp the one offered to him, but a stabbing pain in his shoulder caused him to groan and slump back, a knot twisting in his stomach. "The paper? It was our contract. Where are we?"

"Thought that was obvious," the man replied, then hunkered back down on the wooden bench he'd been sitting on. "We're on a boat. Not sure exactly where, though. Our coast or theirs - been drifting. But gods be good, it'll be ours." He nodded back over his shoulder where what looked to be a pile of corpses stirred, and Waldor realized what it actually was: injured men, some of them tended to, others struggling with broken oars, one-armed or with crude bandages hiding their eyes. His men. "Drug out who I could, left the worst. Managed to give them all the slip come night, you over a shoulder, Bret under my arm, and the rest staggering along after. Found a boat on the beach that still had its oars and we shoved off, but the fleet weren't there. Some current took us couple of hours ago, and we've been drifting since."

Flashes of the battle came back to Waldor - bloody fragments, screaming faces, the sound of arrows and snort of horses. He felt a surge of adrenaline, then exhaled raggedly and reached up with his good arm to probe around his shoulder, finding bandages and then crude stitches in place of a gaping wound. His other arm was splinted.

"Bret," he murmured, wincing again as he felt the crude work. "Good. That's... what's the total tally? You, me, him, the others?" The self-examination became too painful, coupled with the roll of the longboat in the water, and he dropped his arm across his lap, fingers tracing the pitted metal edge of the longsword lying across it. He wondered if noblemen really did name their swords, as he had heard in stories, and wondered if this blade had one - or if it was his to name.

"Eighteen, including you and me. And Bret. Most of the rest's the new bunch from the docks that we put on before leaving the city. One or two of us veterans left. Some of them ain't even ours, but they aren't enemy. The company's gone, Walt. Don't even know if we can bring it back." The sergeant - Ranulf, Waldor remembered, his name was Ranulf - cleared his throat noisily, then spat congealed blood and pus onto the bottom of the boat. Waldor noticed splinters and wadded cloth pooling down there in the waste water, but declined to comment on them. "All things considered, you did good though. Trying to break for the woods - it could have worked. But fate wasn't for us. Plain and simple."

"I don't want the new ones now," Waldor murmured, still tracing the contours of the sword with his numb fingers, "but I won't turn them away, either. Nor the fellows that didn't sign on with us. If they're willing to stay, they can. Nobody's pursuing us?" He could feel the rolled papers pressing against his chest, and hoped they hadn't gotten too bloody during the fight. They were his ticket to glory, and if those were ruined, he was ruined.

Ranulf shrugged, twisted at the hip to confer with a painfully thin young man, then faced his captain.

"Take who we take, I suppose," he echoed without much feeling. "You going to tell me what you're planning, boy, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?"

"Later." Waldor snapped, feeling his strength ebbing again, and slunk back against the bench boards of the boat, eyes lidding. He hooked his good arm around the sword and drug it closer, cradling it like a lover against his battered armor. "I promise - later. Let's get home first."

Sergeant Ranulf grunted and felt at his bandaged face, then lowered the torch he'd been carrying and snuffed it out unceremoniously in the waste water below. It hissed and stunk, but he smiled.

"Alright, boys, we sail by the light of the stars. First man to spot something that proves we're coming up on home, and not the 'kirks, gets ten silver and this fancy hat."

A dented pothelm was rusting beside the torch, upside down and full of puke.

Wolfsong

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A surly man with bandages wound across his chest had won the pothelm in the end, shading his eyes as he pointed out Mount Mangai in the far distance, and then later the southern manor-houses off the coast, dotting the pristine beaches between small fishing villages. Waldor had no idea what his name had been before the battle, but everyone who could still speak had taken to calling him 'Puke.' That had been a whole day ago, and they had only stopped walking once since then to rest by a small stream, gorging on fresh water.

Now Puke trudged at the head of the column of men beside Ranulf and Waldor, as if having won the pothelm, he had also won with it the right of leadership and seniority over the men who were left. And why not? Waldor thought. He'd survived this far, and nobody had challenged him. Bret walked near the back of the men, where most of the injured had gathered - stumbling along, or carried on crude pallets fashioned from the remains of the longboat they'd scuttled yesterday.

They had passed through grassy fields, periodically leaving some of their worst wounded in the small villages they passed, and in time the plains had become wheat fields, and Waldor directed his men to stick to the muddy furrows rather than tramp along the ridges of newly turned earth. Spring wheat, if that was what the farmers had been planting, would have only just begun to sprout and he had no desire to tramp all over it, crushing it beneath his boots. The scenery had become a blur of wheat fields, orchards and vineyards.

"Well?" Ranulf spoke up suddenly, snapping Waldor out of his daze, and he nearly stumbled before Puke reached over and steadied him with a filthy hand. The boy winced at even that lightest touch to his shoulder, straightened, then shot Ranulf a warning look.

"Well?" He echoed warily, unable to gauge the sergeant's expression very well with all the bandages wrapped about it.

"Well," the grizzled man persisted doggedly, "those papers, for one. And that sword. And don't lie to me, Walt, and tell me it's contract papers. We're done out of that contract now, our employer's dead. And that sword, too. You ain't bat a single eye when I threw it your way, stolen property though that'd make it, and now you're wearing it like you're some lordling's own son himself. Are we bandits now? Wouldn't have left old Roteye back there with those villagers, if we were, not unless you've grown balls of steel or a heart of sludge, at least. So what is it?"

Puke stopped cleaning out that disgusting pothelm, tipped it back over his shaved pate, and squinted interestedly between Waldor and Ranulf. Mud splashed up from his boots and had coated his bare legs in plant matter, feces and stagnant water.

"Fine. Don't tell a damned soul, Ranulf," Waldor prefaced, taking in a deep breath, then added hushedly, "but I'd made a business proposition with the nobleman before we landed on the beach. He didn't have any heir, and couldn't with what they'd done to him. So he trusted me. He made me his heir, said everything he had was mine."

"Don't you gotta be a knight for that?" Puke spoke up suddenly, splashing over the bloated corpse of a rat floating in the muck.

"He did that, too," Waldor lied hurriedly, rolling his shoulders despite the stabbing pain there. "Knighted me on that boat, in his own cabin, with this own sword and gave me these papers, so the other lords would know to recognize me. That's where we're headed. Going to the capital and kneel in some lord's court, and not one of us will be a mercenary anymore."

"I like being a mercenary," Puke protested dimly, then sidestepped a hard cuff of Ranulf's ill-aimed hand.

"You, you gods-damned idiot. Do you even realize - that, how - what's to keep them from killing you as soon as you walk up to those gates? You're carrying his sword, but his body's rotting on that beach. You know how that looks, boy? The nobleman signs these papers and winds up dead in the next battle, and here you come set to make the most of it, and you don't think they'll think that looks the least bit suspicious? What you're doing is against nature." Ranulf broke into unintelligible cursing, stomping along savagely enough to raise a few eyebrows among the men behind them.

"My da always said - take what you can keep. This is mine, and I'm of Graves, now. You can expect I won't let it go lightly."

"Your father was hung for filching his neighbor's pig, you oaf!" Ranulf snarled back, waving his hands above his head.

"House Graves," Puke corrected absently. "Sir Waldor of the House Graves."

"Right," Waldor waved the smelly man off with his good hand, then reached down to touch the sword hilt that rested near his hip. "And you're Captain Ranulf, and Sergeant... Puke. My household guard. And if we pull this off, I swear to you both we'll sleep on beds of gold."

The other men fell silent, but Waldor wasn't sure if he had placated them or not. High walls rose up in the distance, and the gorge in his throat rose with them. Adrenaline and apprehension kick-started his heart to a hammering pace. He swallowed hard.

"I need you two to stand with me. We'll billet the men in a tavern somewhere, hire a proper priest and sawbones both to look to them, then strike out for the ducal estates. I'll explain what I need to, and you'll both attest to it as truth. Or we'll all hang."

Sergeant Ranulf stared at the walls in the distance and sighed heavily.

"At least it won't be for filched pork," he offered finally.

"That sounds delicious," Puke added.

Poliorketes

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Wonderful RP!... A bad battle, but a good RP.  :D