Chris Evans - A Darkness Forged in Fire

"Relax, Ally, we're in the field now," the dwarf said, running a sleeve across his mouth after downing a prodigious slug. "The first rule out here is to keep yourself fit to fight. Button polishers and crease keepers don't amount to much when you're in the line and there's a horde of screamin' natives comin' at you. This is the last time in a long time we'll shine like this.

"Take a look at our new kit, would you?" Yimt directed, waving his right hand around, his left cradling his shatterbow against his shoulder. "Sure, looks all fancy now; the silver-green as fresh as spring clover, all the leather bits polished, the shako badge a-glittering, bright silver piping on our jackets, not a frayed bastion loop, and every pewter button in place with nary a chunk of wood as a replacement…yet. Even these fancy socks look spiffy without any holes in them." He raised his legs higher as he marched so Alwyn could get a good look at the black wool stockings with their band of embroidered green leaves circling the top just below the knee.

"Yup, take a good look, Ally, and remember this. Won't none of it stop a musket ball or a spear point. You can shine like a crystal ball in moonlight, but it ain't going to make a spit of difference to that arrow shot from two hundred yards away."

Alwyn felt a sudden nostalgia for his old, worn uniform. "So are you saying I shouldn't care about taking care of my stuff? The corporal would have my head."

Yimt looked up at Ally as if he'd sprouted tusks. "Is there not enough air up there? I'm saying you got to focus on the important things: musket, powder, boots, blades, water, and victuals. Sure, you take care of your kit, but just so's a corporal don't write you up, see? Look," he said, pointing to his chest, "see how the cross belts cover up most of the buttons? Well, when you're out here, if you have to polish, you only polish the ones that the corporal can see, see?"

Alwyn did, though he thought he'd still polish every button just in case. "And that's the key to surviving out here?"

Yimt marched along in silence for a minute, and Alwyn was going to repeat the question when the dwarf finally answered.

"Ally, the key to that is simple," Yimt said. There wasn't a trace of humor in his voice. "Wherever Death is swinging his scythe, you be somewhere else."

"But, we're infantry, we're always going to be where Death is."

"Then carry a bigger scythe," Yimt said, patting his shatterbow.

Alwyn gripped his musket a little tighter and hoped it would be big enough.

The plain simmered like a skillet over an open fire. The sun was shining off the ebony spikes of cactus thorns sprinkled throughout the vines, causing them to twinkle with something close to malevolence at the approaching flesh. Prince Tykkin had decided on this route, deeming it the least likely to be watched by enemy scouts. Konowa could see why.

The Prince led the regiment on a magnificent charger named Rolling Thunder, a silvery-gray, four-year-old Mernian gelding, a breed rare and much sought after among royalty and wealth for their precious-metal coloring. That Konowa knew this much about a horse was thanks entirely to the lengthy lectures Jaal had subjected him to over the years about the qualities and temperament of various horse breeds. It bordered on criminal in Konowa's eyes that a soldier got little more than a piece of silver a month in service to the Empire, while a horse like the Prince's could be worth hundreds of pieces of gold.

It was a bloody great waste of money, as far as Konowa could tell. Dust from the road had already dulled the animal's coat to pewter, and a large spotted animal skin made into a shabraque covered a large portion of its body, leaving very little of the horse's coat to be seen. More gold down the well cushioned the future King's behind. His saddle was wrapped in a thick, red fur from a bear the Prince himself had dispatched on an earlier expedition, which probably meant the Prince had been allowed to walk up and stab it with his sword after the poor animal had been dead for a day. And just in case that bit of tack didn't woo the damsels, the Prince had had the bridle and reins fitted with ornately decorated wrought silver and burnished brass. Konowa gave it less than a week before some enterprising soldier had pocketed a few bits of the finery.

Konowa squirmed in his saddle and looked over his shoulder at the troops marching behind them, then quickly faced front again. His embarrassment at riding when the soldiers had only their feet to move them was galling, but the Prince was adamant that they ride as befit the station of officers, so Konowa found himself bouncing along most unhappily on a large black gelding named Zwindarra, a loan from the Duke of Rakestraw. Unlike the glittering Prince and his steed, Konowa's tack was simple, sturdy brown leather, the shabraque a quickly converted caerna with the regimental crest sewn on either side. The saddle itself was covered with the softened hide of an animal Konowa thought might just be skunk dragon, no doubt a parting jest of Jaal's.

Konowa looked ahead to their chosen path with barely concealed dread. Everywhere he looked, vines lay across the plain like one great slithering mass heaped on top of itself in looping coils of green sinew. In places the stems were as thick as banyan trees, creating impenetrable walls every bit as daunting as those of a stone-and-mortar castle. The fortress at Luuguth Jor lay two hundred miles to the east through this morass, a journey of at least two weeks with no further impediments beyond what nasty surprises the land itself could spring. Konowa doubted, however, that nature would be their only foe.

"I think I'll check on the troops, sir," Konowa said, motioning back at the regiment.

"I won't have them mothered, Major," the Prince said, but waved him away all the same.

"Sir," Konowa replied, and swung Zwindarra in a short arc to allow the regiment to march past.

"Pasty twit," Konowa muttered, watching the Prince ride on. Unlike His Highness, he worried about the morale of the troops, but after the initial shock of the caerna, their sense of pride in their new regiment began to take over. He'd sensed as much as he'd seen their backs grow a little straighter, their chins lift until they were marching with purpose, only beginning to feel the mystique of belonging to the Iron Elves, no matter that most of them had never even seen an elf up close before in their lives.

Konowa readjusted himself in the saddle, patted the spot on his jacket where the pouch lay underneath, and watched the regiment pass. They marched in column, six elves-men, he corrected himself-abreast, their winged shakos bobbing in time. White flashes of knee sparkled where legs not normally exposed to the sun now gleamed between the hems of caernas and the edge of stockings.

A few shouted greetings to him as they marched past and Konowa nodded and smiled. Seeing soldiers once again wearing the uniform of the Iron Elves stirred mixed emotions in him, his mind seeing elves he once knew where a new and unfamiliar face now marched. I won't fail you again, he silently vowed.

"You almost look like you belong in a saddle, Swift Dragon," said the Duke of Rakestraw, sidling up to Konowa on a huge roan.

"Jaal! What are you doing here?"

"You didn't think I'd let you slip away without saying good-bye, now did you?" the Duke asked, smiling.

"I thought maybe you were here to check on your investment," Konowa said. "You let me drink your wine, bought my commission to major, and loaned me one of your own horses. I've only been out of the forest for a week and already my debt to you knows no bounds."

Jaal slapped his knee and both horses started. "Bah! You'd do the same for me; think nothing of it. Besides, Zwindarra here is no ordinary steed. His great-great-mare was a unicorn, and he's got a bit of the mystic about him. If you get into a bind, he'll stand firm and won't veer."