Don Perrin - Theros Ironfield

“All right, gentlemen, very good work. I congratulate you. Well done! I want the first brigade to set up a picket line around the town tonight. Nobody in, nobody out, under pain of death. If there are any men in this army who want to get a head start on pillaging, they hang in the morning.

“I can’t afford any more casualties. I need this army ready to fight. This is just the first town, the first battle. We’ve got a whole season of campaigning to do, and only six or seven weeks before winter sets in. Tell the men to be patient. We’ll get our loot, all right, but we’ll do it on my orders. Now, how many prisoners do we have?”

Berenek Ibind was in charge of the army standard and the command group. The baron’s bodyguards were holding the prisoners.

“Sir, we hold only twenty knights. The rest were wounded and were dispatched.”

The baron rubbed his hands together. “Good. At least we shall have some sport tonight. Move the second and third brigades back to the camp set up beyond that second hill. Make sure that the commissary crew takes hot food out to the first brigade tonight. They’ll have a long night of it.”

The officers saluted and went back to their commands. Soon, orders were being shouted all over the field. The first brigade began to deploy around the town, keeping a distance of at least two hundred yards between the nearest building and their picket line. The plan was to set up roadblocks at either end of the town, on the roads leading in and out. No one was to leave that night. Any citizen foolish enough to try to do so would be searched for weapons, roughed up a bit, then sent back home.

The second and third brigades headed for the site of the camp. Among these were the command group, bringing with them the twenty prisoners. The knights were tied by the wrists and ankles and had been disarmed.

Moorgoth let them keep their armor. It was heavy and would increase the difficulty of their march.

* * * * *

Theros looked up to see a column appear over the hill. The army was back! His smithy was set up, but the fire was not yet started in the forge.

“Yuri, hurry up with the wood!” he yelled at his assistant, who was struggling with a load of slumak bark and wood.

Theros had set up the grates above the fireplace to heat the metal. Two large barrels of water stood to one side to temper the metal.

Yuri stumbled into the tent and threw the wood down. He began to stack the wood up near the edge of the tent, away from the fire. The last thing they needed was the cordwood catching fire and taking the whole smithy with it.

“We’ll be mending weapons all night, it seems,” Theros commented, hoping to draw Yuri into conversation.

Yuri didn’t even look at Theros. He just turned and went back out into the twilight to collect more wood. The other soldiers came in and stacked their bark and wood, too. Erela-the soldier that Theros had come to know best-entered last.

Theros had already laid a bed of coal rocks. Over them, he had placed twigs and leaves. Now came the slumak-a very hard wood. It took a long time to catch fire, but once caught, it burned long and hot.

Theros and Erela were still building the fire when the second brigade marched past the tent, on their way through to the opposite side of camp, where they would set up their tents. The soldiers looked worn, but pleased with themselves. They had won, and nothing cured minor wounds like winning. They would be well paid. They would start celebrating as soon as their tents were pitched.

The unloaded commissary wagons, pulled by draft horses, headed to the battlefield to carry the wounded back to the camp.

Under Theros’s care, the fire started. The flaps of the tent’s chimney were tied back to allow the smoke and heat to escape. Yuri had attached a metal skirt around the hole to protect the canvas from getting too hot and bursting into flame. Theros stoked the fire, and for a time, forgot his troubles.

The flames danced, weaving in and out, merging, parting, them coming together again, reminding him of two lovers. He thought of Yuri and Telera. Theros thought back to Marissa.

His heart soared as he remembered his night with her. She was almost a dream to him, a shining moment in a bleak existence. He remembered her kiss at parting. She had made it clear to everyone that she liked him. Maybe she even loved him.

“So what makes me any different from anyone else?” he asked himself. “Why should she choose me? Certainly not for my looks!” He chuckled some at this.

He’d never thought much about his appearance, until he started living among humans. Among minotaurs, ugliness was equated with prowess in battle. Scars and lumps were badges of honor. A slit nostril, a torn and tattered ear, missing teeth-these were outward signs of a proud warrior and were much admired by minotaur females.

Among humans, Theros had been astonished to learn that women liked men with smooth skin, unbroken noses and hands that weren’t rough and calloused. He had led a hard life, one that had left its marks on his body. He carried scars from battle-not only battles with men, but also those with his work. When he looked at his dusky face in the shaving mirror, he was always displeased with himself.

His nose had been broken more than once. He’d lost a front tooth during a “discipline” session on board the minotaur ship. Part of his hair had been singed off during a fire and would never grow back. Thinking himself ugly, Theros had managed to convince people he was ugly.

But he’d seen a new side of himself reflected in Marissa’s eyes. It had never occurred to him that women might be able to see beneath the scars and the roughness, to see the dreams and longings of his soul. He had found himself sharing such things with Marissa during that night. She had listened, been interested in him. He had even told her his dream of seeing the god Sargas. She had not laughed, as he had expected.

Yuri’s voice, talking to someone outside the tent, disturbed Theros’s reverie, then became a part of it.

Yuri was nearly the same age as Theros had been when he had won his freedom from the minotaurs and had been granted the capability to forge his own life. Yuri didn’t have that choice. He was not a slave, yet he didn’t seem much better off than Theros had been. Theros realized suddenly, ruefully, that it was easier to yell at Yuri, to hit Yuri, to force Yuri into obedience, than it was to talk to Yuri, reason with him, discuss things.

Theros thought of the girl, Telera, the girl Yuri loved.

Yuri had the right to feel the same way about a woman that Theros felt, but the young man had to learn that there was a time and place for everything-even romance. What if this girl were a spy? The inexperienced and naive Yuri would be an easy target for seduction. And even if this relationship were all perfectly innocent, it looked very bad.

“It cannot continue,” Theros told himself. “It’s a matter of discipline.” But perhaps he should try to talk again to Yuri, explain why it was bad, rather than just order him to quit seeing the girl.

And that brought Theros in a circle back to Marissa. He smiled. When he had served his time in this army, when he felt he had repaid Moorgoth’s investment in him, Theros would go straight back to Sanction, straight back to Marissa.

The sound of shouts and jeers woke Theros from his musings. He looked out of the tent to see the bodyguards from the command group marching into the center of the camp. They brought with them the twenty prisoner knights, tied together to form a human chain. Weary, the men stumbled over the rough terrain.

So this is our enemy, Theros thought.

He had heard nothing good about the Knights of Solamnia. The minotaurs had no use for them, claiming that the knights had lost all honor because they’d been given the chance to stop the Cataclysm and had failed, or some such tale. But these knights had, from what Theros had heard, acquitted themselves well.