Country's War

.5

Still Hearts Beat

Erupting into a cacophony of laughter and excitement, the crew just about fell all over each other in amusement, recounting how the boy flew so easily over the gunwale. Atryn in his armor clanged about the boat, crashing into the other armored soldiers knocking them out of the way with a metal bang as he searched the bilge frantically. Parcleus rushed over to him, chattering and hysterical. Atryn grabbed him around the collar and looked him in the eyes for just a moment.

            “Still your heart.” Atryn glanced beside Parcleus and spotted what he was looking for in a corner on the other side of Tarkys. Knocking Parcleus aside, Atryn’s steel steps slammed across the boat and through the crowd of soldiers, whom were still reeling with excitement. Bending he retrieved a chain link rope from the bilge and hooked it to a cleat protruding from the gunwale. Taking the other end of the chained rope and clipping it to a cleat protruding from just above the waist of his armored suit, he gathered himself and crouched beside the gunwale. Springing up he grabbed the edge of the gunwale and pulled himself up hooking his leg atop and climbed up until he sat atop the wall. The crew had grown silent as they watched Atryn sit upon the wall looking down at them. His eyes met Tarkys.

            “Your crazy.” Tarkys spat to the bilge. Atryn shifted his eyes from Tarkys over to Parcleus and fell from the side of the boat, the chain spun over the edge rapidly one link after the other hit the iron gunwale with a clink and there was a deep thud of a splash.

Country's War

            .4

Enjoy the Fish

     Goaded the giant tosses a few loaves, thudding the shoulder and forehead of the suicidal man. Rowdy shouts from the older soldiers grew more intense and bolder. Atryn looked around as the men began standing and moving toward the giant and the boy, some shouting some laughing.  The boy shrinking at the gunwale shutting his eyes he placed his palms flat against the cold metal wall. Seeming to Atryn as if he thought somehow the wall could protected him. The crew cheered the giant on, Parcleus stood and surveyed the excitement then looked down to Atryn. Leaning back, he shut his eyes, silently drifting.

            “They’ll toss em’ over!” He cried over the rising mayhem athwart ship. Atryn sat as still as the wind had become. Parcleus turned back to the disorder. The giant threw another loaf at the boy, who recoiling began to sob.

            “He’s tearin up he is!” A short filthy man pointed at the boy and giggled with his hands on either side of his belly. The giant roared his most boisterous delight. Turning he raised his arms to the crowd of onlookers. In unison they cheer him, fists pumping and backslapping. A loaf of bread pats the giant against the back of his massive cranium, the boy stood, eyes of tears chest higher than his head, and hushed the crowd. Turning slowly with eyes of disbelief and shock, the giant saw through to an end.

            “So, death is your wish after all.” Pointing at the boy with eyes of rage, and hair wild, his stomps rang out a clatter of metal as his steel boots pounded the iron deck. Rushing away, the boy tried escape, but the crowd enclosed him, pushing him towards his adversary. Bouncing off the enthralled mob, he ducked under the swing of the giant, momentarily escaping his fate. Parcleus turned back to Atryn.

            “Do something!”

            “You do something.” Atryn calmly retorted. Again the boy tried to rush into the sea of men, and again they fought him back and thrust him into the center of the ring, with the iron gunwale its unforgiving gate. It was his salvation and his damnation. Free from the agitated fence, he found himself with his back against the cold iron entry to the sea as the giant descended upon him. Into the air he went with one swift motion of the mountainous man, he was lifted high above the deck, an felt himself oddly safe in the monstrous hands of the giant as he lay cradled above all. Looking out he stared at the sky, thin and flat where it met the sea thin and flat, and thought of where they might collide.

            “Toss him over!”

            “Get on with it!” The men shouted for the giant to throw the boy off the ship.

            “Enjoy the fish.” The giant said as he bent slightly to send the boy out and over. From athwart ship a voice boomed in command.

            “Let em alone Tarkys!” The deck grew silent, and the crowd turned toward the bow. Startled Parcleus looked back, with the crew, at Atryn now standing with his eyes fixed on Tarkys, holding the thin boy above his head, whom was no longer squirming and fighting having made his peace with the waves and the clouds and fate. Tarkys slowly brought the boy down to the deck.

            “Pardon me. I wasn’t told of your promotion.” Tarkys acquiesced.

            “There’s been no promotion Tarkys.” Atryn began walking towards the crowd.

            “Surely you must be captain now, giving orders out.” Tarkys grinned, his eyes of anger, slightly wrinkled at the corners.

            “Tarkys, I’m no captain, leave the boy be.” The boy tried to run but the weight of Tarkys’ hands upon his shoulders kept him anchored to the deck directly in front of Tarkys. Atryn slowly approached the crowd Parcleus in tow, Tarkys towering above.

            “Moments ago you tried pushin em over yourself.” Their unwavering eyes were locked. The crew moved to either side allowing for a path between the two men.

            “The boy wanted to live, so I let em.” Atryn saw the boy for the first time, a thin lad with a straight nose and shaved head. A look of dissolution in his brown eyes. “Your right to do the same.” Tarkys lowered his giant brow.

            “My right.” Nodding his head, he placed his hands upon the boys waist and sent him flying over his head. Barely missing the top of the gunwale he disappeared behind it and Atryn heard a splash.

             

Country's War

          

.3

Cretus

     Atryn awoke to yells and the scrap and ruckus of a scuffle. A young man had succumbed to the seasickness and tried to leap over the side of the ship, his high pitched screaming disturbed Atryn's slumber. Grappling with him, the young man’s friends tore at his rags as he clung to the edge babbling incoherently at the top of his lungs while they all barked for him to let go the edge. Fully awake and angry at the disturbance, Atryn leapt from his seat and pulled the suicidal man's saviors from his legs, flinging them to the bilge.

          "Let em drown, we've no need of cowards." Atryn stared down at the young men, checking their eyes. The suicidal man clung to the edge sobbing now, lowly. Turning Atryn grabbed him by his collar and the seat of his pants. "Well jump boy if you're gonna, and get on with it." Shoving the man up, he tried to push him over the edge. Kicking and driving off the side, the suicidal man fought back. Atryn let go and the man fell from the side of the boat and landed on the bilge with an empty thud. "You wanna  live or not boy? Make your mind. Do it quick and quiet, a conqueror needs sleep." Atryn sauntered over to his bench, and plopped down with a clank folding his arms across his chest.

          Chuckles could be heard amongst some of the older men. The young men slowly rocked back and forth with the ship, susceptible to the waves, hovering where Atryn napped. They stared at him wide eyed, while the suicidal man lay on the ground fixed on Atryn as well. Settling back into their general positions, the boat became quiet again. Atryn's fiery beard fluffed over his armor and stopped just above his belly, like some hariy beast in a suit of steel. One of the young men finally spoke.

          "Would you've really pushed em?" He sat across from Atryn who's one opened eye appeared like a blue marble caught between wrinkled flaps of freckled pink flesh.

          "Sure, he was makin' an awful racket wasn't he?" More chuckles from the older men. He closed his eye again. The young man was unmoved.

          "This not your first voyage then?" Quivering vocal cords chimed. Without opening his eyes, Atryn responded.

           "Nope."

          "Where'd you fight?" More of the first voyagers gathered around them, eager to hear the tales.

          "What's your name lad?" Atryn still napping.

          "Parcleus." Chin slightly raised. Atryn's eyes opened fully. Searching he saw Parcleus for the first time. The proper response eluded him. He spoke low and true.

          "I liked your father." Surprise sprang across Parcleus' face. A few of the other younger lads looked at him.

          "So did I." Parcleus looked down at his boots.

          "I saw him fall at Cretus." Atryn coughed out.

          "You were at Cretus?" Lurching forward the passengers reoriented themselves as the ship hit a wave. Atryn barely moved his neck, which was thick beneath his armor.

          "Aye." A mariner's silence echoed over the waves. The older men were quiet now, hunched on their benches, pretended not to listen.

          "Why..." Parcleus lost the nerve. The First Voyagers looked at Atryn for the answer. He knew what he wanted to know, what they all wanted to know. Solemnly he recalled with a red pain in his blue eyes.

          "They wouldn't stop fighting." The suicidal man began swiping at hovering flies above a bag of bread in the corner of the ship. Parcleus’ eyes never wavered from Atryn. One of the other older men yelled at the suicidal man.

            “Hoy! Knock it off.  We won’t get no meat til them flies lay their eggs!” Standing he towered six feet six, his armor was twice the size of other men. His brown locks dangled across his shoulder plates, his short beard recently cut. The suicidal man cowered against the iron wall of the ship as the giant grabbed the bag of bread and shoved the edges down towards the bilge, loafs tumbling out all over. “Wanna kill yourself now? Try the maggoty bread in a day or two.” A roaring laugh escaped his chest as the suicidal man gagged at the thought.

Country's War

.2

War Voyage

          At the bow Iron Horde was engraved across a battered and scratched gold plated banner. Atryn eyed an empty bench beneath the banner and limped his way towards it. Clattering down with his armor, he began rattling the pieces together, connecting the giant knee plates to the steel boots, and twisting and screwing the bolts in place. He caught a glimmer of shining metal amongst the grimy lumps of twisted shield. Searching the sky for the sun, there was none, only the ambling billows of layered clouds gathering over the open sea. Searching the beach dunes of the coast, his eyes settled atop a ridge with an edge of foliage and grass that spilled over the cliff like sand. A woman stood from the ledge wrapped in a large grey shawl, she disappeared with the sky. Blinking Atryn found her gaze as she stared directly at him, acknowledging this with a slow deliberate nod of her chin once his eyes met hers. Suddenly shivering he felt for the first time the cold of the morning and he cast his eyes down to the boat again. She had to have been some five hundred yards off, there was no way she could find his gaze, and yet Atryn could not shake the feeling that she spoke to him with her eyes. A deep and dividing fear crept over his spine and through his brain as he looked back towards the ridge and searched across it, not finding the woman in grey. A slamming metal door obscured his view as the ship was clamped shut and he felt the hunk of metal heave away from the shore and slosh into the ebb of the sea. Blood and chaos and crossed steel lay before him, yet the only thing his mind could see was the unwavering stare of the woman in the grey shawl. 

A thousand footprints took hours to stamp across the sand, it took merely a moment for the tide to wash them all away. The outline of the sun hung overhead, a circle of light inscribed in the clouds; it just as well have been night, for there was nothing to see but the rusted deck of the Iron Horde. The clanking of metal as men shivered in their armor, the wretched scent of vomit, dry and moist, stung the air. Moldy bread and potatoes was all they had to eat, along with as many waterskins as they could pack and carry along with their armor. No meat. 

"You'll have your meat with victory!" -Viceroy Nikan

          Soon the weak would jump from the back of the ship. Atryn could never understand it, the drawn out torture of the lungs filling with ocean was a fate far worse than the meandering voyage which would probably end with a short quick death under the blade. He knew which he preferred. The opportunity to reap the rewards of victory was enough to keep him alive and fighting. His second War Voyage, upon the first a soldier returning home victorious was allowed to take a wife and given a bit of coin. Atryn chose not to take the wife; he knew he would be leaving for his second voyage soon. The year and a half it took the Viceroy to choose a target was excruciating. Atryn spent the duration drinking beer and fighting with the other soldiers. He trained and waited patiently for his second chance at glory. 

          Upon return from a second War Voyage, a soldier was granted a plot of land, a horse, a farmhand, and double the coin. A boyhood dream some twenty-five suns ago. Now was his chance to earn his leisure, with the blood of a foreign threat.  The strays were usually boys who had been coddled by their mothers far too long, better for a boy to learn how to survive in the mud of madness, so to defend himself from the torturous silence of the voyage. So Atryn sat, in the back of the Iron Horde, in his suit of steel, huddled with six other men, when finally the rain stopped. He would make these men his squad before landfall. But that would not be for many moons, and with the rain stopped he could finally quiet his mind to sleep.

Country's War

Country’s War

W.B. Preston 


.1
 The Clatter of Armor

“Puncture the shores of our enemies with the iron ships of war. Dye the sands on the banks of their land with the blood of its men.”  -Viceroy Nikan

            The War Command escaped Viceroy Nikan’s thin nasals. The snarling speech would be the last words Atryn heard standing on his home soil. Thousands of men trudged across the beaches of Ganamoth lugging the clanking metal armor through the muggy bay all the while Atryn wishing he were comfortable in his bed. What of the other thousand soldiers? Loading themselves into the Iron War Ships in the early morning. Was it blood or blankets they yearned for?

 Dragging his War Armor through the slog of the early morning shore, the sky fell short and leaden.  He carried his steel suit hunched over his right shoulder, pulling and heaving with strained biceps and gritted teeth. Atryn, like the rest of the infantrymen of Ganamoth trekked across the seafront towards the iron ships, the giant metal monoliths black and motionless, forged and anchored to the bay floor. Twenty hulking shadows, steely and ferrous, dotted the landscape a half-a-mile down the shoreline. Engulfing one soldier after another, the metal monstrosities bobbed and moaned with the morning tide. The low chromic roars echoed inland as the shadows on the sea devoured one soldier after another, slowly, hour after hour. Entering the mouths of the beasts, the men went in willingly, and quiet.  

Lightning purple and pale tore across the smothering gray blanket of sky, afterward a crack and a boom of thunder round and full. Atryn saw the tear and heard the rip, yet looking to those around him, the soldiers were too busy to bear witness, they sunk in against the wall of wind that slapped at their jaws riddled with ocean as water sprayed across the brow and they loaded on to the warships. Clanking metal pounded over and over again for hours a half-mile down the coast as two thousand armored boots met the steel bilge of the lurking colorless, flagless ships. Floating towards a foreign coastline, they appeared enormous black creatures of the sea, carving through ocean waves and smashing all that lay in their wake. To Atryn they seemed the same kind of beast, blights on his home coastline, enveloping and floating away with its men, good men. In victory most would return, in defeat only some. The monsters over the waves were to blame.

The nearer he came to the metal ships, the louder their anchored roar bellowed from deep within their rusted depths. Beside each ramp was a Monitor in hooded robe holding a lantern above his head. The yellow glow a speck beside a black void, once over the ridge. Now they were orange and faded, as the last of the soldiers loaded on to their assigned ship. The Monitor held the lantern until the last man of his ship entered and the ramp was lifted and the entryway closed. Atryn recognized his Monitor by the long white beard and sunken eyes. It was he who had taught Atryn chess in his childhood. Without the slightest gesture or glance the Monitor stood motionless, eyes fixed on the horizon as Atryn’s metal boot came down with a clang on the iron bilge. The ship was half full and Atryn despised the rectangular deck surrounded with hard iron benches. A few of the older men he recognized, but there seemed to be many young faces, First Voyagers whom had never seen the battlefield.