Resourceful, Keen-eyed and Foolish

{Excerpt}

The true messenger pigeon is a variety of domestic pigeons derived from the wild rock dove, selectively bred for its ability to find its way home over extremely long distances. The rock dove has an innate homing ability, meaning that it will generally return to its nest (it is believed) using magnetoreception.

Flights as long as 1,800 km (1,100 miles) have been recorded and their average flying speed over moderate distances of about 965 km (600 miles) long is around 97 km/h and speeds of up to 160 km/h have been observed for short distances.

Because of this skill, domesticated pigeons are used to carry messages as messenger pigeons. They are usually referred to as "war pigeons" if used during wars.

…

Excerpt from Milburga Leah's Speculum universale - 'The Voltulian Philosophica', located on the coordinates 00.00.24.07; Udoris/Udoris/Zoology/Avians, Domesticated.

{END}

The Barracks,

South of Grey Willows forest,

Greenfields, Souville Province.

Algrim.

…

“Sir Justin!”

A young voice called out from behind the knight. Sir Justin stood deck in brown woollen tunics and overalls as he observed, from the very edge of the training grounds, as the young lord’s militiamen sparred under the guidance of his fellow brothers of the banner and a handful of knights captured just a few weeks ago from Redwater. Loud yells, frustrated bellows and grunts of exertion were just a few of the cacophony of noises that echoed out of the open clearing as the militiamen practised.

“Yes, Noel, what is it?” Justin asked, peeling his gaze away from the scene ahead to cast a sidelong glance at the teenager squire who jogged to a stop beside him. The brown-haired boy was not much younger than the earl himself, just a few months away from being eighteen as well.

Yet, looking at the squire’s freckled face, lithe but sturdy frame, and that faint twinkle of innocence and naivety that still existed in his gaze, the difference between the two could not be any clearer.

“A letter just came in, Sir,” the boy reported as he pulled a tiny parchment scroll from its place on his belt.

“Well then, hand it over.”

“Yes sir.”

Pinching the tiny scroll between his gloved fingers, Justin unfurled it too and began reading through its contents. A few seconds later, he nodded as he returned the scroll to the boy saying. “Later when the viscount returns, deliver it to him, he would know what to do with it. In the meantime, I want you to inform Steward Robert that Sir Deaves’s unit has located a suitable relay point and now are on its way back. It would be best if the supplies needed to erect it are ready before they return. Go.”

“Yes sir,” the boy said, jogging off. Sir Justin stared at his departing form for a moment before turning back towards the militiamen ahead. There was still a lot to be done today.

{COS}

Earlier today…

It is common knowledge that the world is at its darkest just a few hours from dawn. Sombre shadows and the morning fog stalked the open fields. The golden hue of the rising sun stained the horizon crimson as dark, gloomy clouds drifted lazily in the gentle late summer breeze, carefree and unrestrained.

It was a quiet morning in the town of Greenfields. The willowy tune of the travelling winds meandered across the town, ushering in the soothing awakening of dawn.

In an open field, several figures lay prone on the dry grass as they rhythmically cycled through push-ups. Standing haphazardly around them were a few men―knights, each wearing some shade of woollen tunic with more than a few armed as they supervised the exercise. Although, slightly confused as to why the earl commanded they perform this seemingly pointless exercise, Donner’s gaze held no emotion, stoic, as he diligently performed his daily morning routine.

“Eighty-seven,” One knight, Sir Liam―one of the ones they were to refer to as the ‘training instructors’―shouted as Donner and his fellow militiamen cycled through to match his pace. “Eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety…”

Feeling the muscles in his arm burn painfully, the knight’s voice only droned in his ear but Donner didn’t dare stop. Doing that would mean forfeiting his breakfast today. “Ugh,” Donner shivered painfully at the thought.

“...ninety-nine, one-hundred! Good job men!” The knight commended as he walked towards another. “Take five!”

With a relieved sigh, Donner collapsed onto the floor, ignoring his fellow militiamen's groans as sand and bits of dried grass stuck to his sweaty skin. He made it through successfully and that would have been worth celebrating, only if he didn’t know what was coming next.

Exhaling again with a faint shiver, he felt his body rapidly cool as the morning chill drilled through his sweaty garments to rob him of his much-needed warmth. Still, he didn’t make the mistake of standing up, instead choosing to force his body to relax and regulate his breathing.

“Get up!” Sir Liam’s infernal voice sounded again. ‘Has it been five minutes already?’ Donner was dismayed internally. With an exhausted heave, he pushed himself to his feet as he turned to face the knight.

“Move maggots! Move!” Sir Liam yelled as he jogged to the back, his stern gaze roving over all forty-five members of Donner’s ‘platoon’(whatever that word meant). Falling in line, Donner began jogging at a brisk pace out of the training grounds towards the line of trees that bordered the town from grey willows forest.

“I said move it, dammit!” Sir Liam shouted to one fellow who was groggily lagging behind.

Donner jogged up to about a hundred metres from the edge of the woods before breaking left and continuing along a well-used path for another hundred and fifty metres. Lopping back towards their starting point, Donner looked towards the other platoon trailing behind his group. In the distance, he also caught a glimpse of a few figures armed with longbows dotted along the forest edge seemingly guarding it.

‘What were they guarding against?’ was a question Donner had once asked himself. It couldn’t be them, the militiamen, since Donner had long noticed that only men like himself with families back in town were chosen to join the militia. They would have no reason to want to flee and leave their loved ones behind regardless of how torturous the training was. Besides, they weren’t forced to stay here. Donner trusted that also like himself, everyone remained steadfast due to the daily benefits they received in exchange for completing odd tasks that arose as a result of the earl’s recent folly.

They also couldn’t be against outsiders since in that case, the guards would face the woods instead of backing it. Unless they were stupid that is, but unlike a sizable few Donner had seen in his lifetime, most of the knights here appeared to be competent save for a few, but those were usually delegated to just dealing with more mundane tasks.

It wasn’t until recently that Donner noticed that none of their training instructors was armed. Not with even a simple dagger. And with the alien manner in which the guards dealt with them, Donner was quick to realise that the instructors were a little less than ‘indentured guests’ here.

Still, none of that was Donner’s business and he had more pressing issues to deal with at the moment, hence he was quick to dismiss the thought. Three laps later, upon arriving back at the training ground without even being given a chance to rest, wooden daggers with rounded tips were thrust into the hands of every man gathered before they were paired up to fight. Standing in front of Donner was a tall, heavily-built man. He was a man well-known in the town known as Carpenter Trim for his gargantuan size and friendliness before he joined the militia. Now people just called him Trim.

“Yer ‘ready, friend?” Trim panted, clearly short of breath. Donner simply nodded, his lungs protesting any attempts to reply with his voice. Subconsciously, Donner rolled the pommel of his wooden dagger in his palm as he stared up at the larger man.

“Start!” Sir Liam boomed.

Immediately, Donner rolled sideways to the left as Trim lunged towards him, instantly leveraging on his farther reach. The larger fellow was quick to follow but with some clumsy footwork, Clyde just managed to slide out of reach with a few inches to spare.

Forced to overextend, the larger man’s footing was unstable which left him vulnerable to Donner’s tackle that promptly followed. The two men rolled in the dirt for a moment with Donner appearing on top seconds later, the blunt edge on his wooden dagger pressed against the larger man’s throat.

“I yield,” Trim exhaled, raising both his hands in surrender. Donner rolled off, to lie on the floor beside him. “Yer fight well, friend,” Trim complimented.

“Yeah,” Donner exhaled before rolling to his feet the next second. “So do yer,”

His entire body felt sore, but he raised his dagger as he poised for the second match. By now Donner had grown well acquainted with the routine so he saw no point in attempting to out-smart his instructor. At least not now, or again in the foreseeable future.

Not like he failed the last four times, but there was too much at stake to risk annoying the temperamental fellow. Just a few more rounds and they would be free for the next handful of hours.

…

In a smooth swing, Donner emptied the bowl of water in his hand on his head, relishing in the feeling of the cold water running down his sore muscles. At first, he had wondered why the earl commanded they take a bath after every training session, but he was quick to realise the ingenuity behind the decree and began to appreciate the gesture himself.

Bending down, he scooped another bowl from the pail before emptying it again on his head. Pausing to scrub his bare chest free of grim, he turned to Trim and his fellow platoon mates, cleaning themselves just a few metres away.

“Who do yer think the earl is training us to fight against?” Donner asked as he bent over to scoop another bowl, breaking the silence.

One man, a somewhat short fellow going by the name Mob shrugged. “Dunno,” he said, “I heard someone say the young lord’s spooked by the war in Greystones. He must be panicking so he’s having them train us so he can feel safer.”

“I heard,” one man Donner could not pin a name whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “he had a disagreement with the earl of Redwater and had their fort burnt to the ground and the entire family imprisoned. If that is true, then raising an army just to feel safer seems quite mild and reasonable in comparison.”

Donner raised a brow as he pondered upon the plausibility of that being true. Disturbingly enough it might be. Still, Donner took what he heard with a grain of salt. False rumours did spread fastest after all.

“He’s young and highborn, so I guess such extreme frivolity should at least be expected from someone like him,” Donner commented, with a heavy undertone of uncertainty. “But, what if there is indeed a day we are sent out to fight? He did promise to pay us monthly regardless if there is a battle or not, and there is also that pension thing he mentioned. I don’t think any noble worth his salt would willingly give out coin unless there’s something for them to gain from doing so. There is always the possibility of the incident at Redwater repeating itself, yer know.”

“I reckon the earl’s bluffing,” The same man Donner failed to place a name on, whispered again. “Them nobles do it all the time to get us common folks all riled up. I remember one time in the tavern I heard a traveller’s tale about his journey from the kingdom of Tequila.

“The poor fellow mentioned how during his stay in Quilton, a noble swindled the people into digging a mine for him, telling tall tales about the presence of a gem vein buried somewhere within and decreeing that whoever finds it first gets his pick of gems from the vein for a day. The traveller mentioned the people, merchants and travellers like himself included, went crazy excavating what turned out to be an iron mine not much different from ours. Very few found any gems of value at all while at the end of the day the lord now had a newly excavated mine without losing so much as a single coin from his coffers.”

Trim nodded affirming the tale. “I was there,” he said, “the fellow was still enraged about it days after he arrived at the Greenfields. It took Lalita’s most special ministrations to put a dampener on his rage and anguish, Ancestor’s bless that tavern maid’s divine hands.”

All the men, Donner included, nodded and clasped their palms together in prayer as they observed a moment of silence before sharing a look of camaraderie.

“Well, if there is indeed a war, I might still fight,” Mob commented with a hint of uncertainty. “If yer' think about it properly, this is an opportunity.”

“What do yer’ mean?” Trim asked, baffled.

“Think about it,” Mob said as Donner scooped another bowl of water from his pail. “If there is indeed a war, regardless of how well-trained we are, the young lord would never send us out to fight on the field, right? I mean yer’ surely noticed we are only being trained on either spearplay or archery, both of which would most likely be used defensively from the safety of the Keep. Also, I reckon at the rate at which things are going the young lord would probably want to arm us properly. That would probably mean we would get decent gambeson armour at the very least or chainmail or even plate armour at best.

“If all goes well, even if there is a war, we would be able to hold out in the fort until the lord’s vassals send their armies to help after which many of us might be rewarded greatly for valour in battle.”

“Yer mean…” Donner trailed off.

“Yes. Some lucky sod amongst us might get knighted someday.”

The men all fell silent as they mulled the thought, but Donner, despite how logical their arguments might be, still felt knighthood was well outside the question. The rest though still somewhat made sense, and while a few things didn’t quite add up, Mob indeed had a point. This might truly be an opportunity…

If they survive that is.

But who was to say there would indeed be a war soon, or any at all in fact. For all they know, the Duke might return next spring with his knights, disband the militia and everything would go back to how it has always been.

Donner dismissed the thought as he poured one more bowl of water over his head before dressing up in fresh tunics. With an exhausted heave, he returned to the barracks, a once grassy, wood-fenced compound stomped bare and dotted with lines of linen tents. There he drew water from the barrack’s shallow well to wash his used garments before leaving them out to dry on the cloth line.

The barracks were bare except for a few important necessities and the wooden shack at the end where another knight, the ‘house-master’(another weird word) slept. After returning his pail and bowl to his shared tent, Donner quickly joined a queue to receive his breakfast, but he should instead call it lunch as the sun had nearly fully risen to its crest.

It was torture, and after this, they would return to that accursed training before heading for literacy class a little before late noon. At least, literacy class wasn’t half bad and afterwards, free dinner would be served, but their sadistic instructors would surely insist they run another few laps well into the night before they can bathe and sleep. Then rinse and repeat the next day.

Still, Donner didn’t complain too much for mostly two reasons.

One, it’s not like he can change anything by complaining about it, and two, the thick, steaming bowl of vegetable and meat porridge now resting in his hands at this very moment seemed to more than made up for every bad thing that has ever happened to mankind since the creation of the world.

The saying is true. Free food does taste better.

‘Ah, meat…’ Donner moaned softly as the warm, salty goop slid down his throat. ‘Ancestors, this is divine.’

…

The Throne Room,

The Royal Palace.

Ferum, Hertalese.

…

The portly, middle-aged king of Hertalese sat upon his royal throne listening as his Hand[A.N.: as in King’s hand] read out a report.

"Mryh and Rarth were lost two days ago, My Liege, with over five hundred men confirmed dead and two hundred more currently unaccounted for. The ones who managed to escape to the surrounding towns spoke of the presence of the Arien Immortals alongside the Blacksails pirates, it appears Aries is determined in forcing the withdrawal of our armies in Algrim. Pisan, Shasse and Renos are currently under siege with hostile ships spotted off the coast of Harregak. I fear at this rate we might lose another town or two in the coming days."

“Are those Duke Lorne’s exact words?” King Tukhus asked with a tinge of exhaustion.

“Yes, my Liege,” the Hand replied. “As it is written in this letter, Your Majesty.”

King Tukhus leaned further into his throne with a half-full wine goblet dangling precariously between his fingers. The king sat absentmindedly, occasionally sipping the wine which he could barely even taste. His eyes were glazed over, lost as he wallowed in his loss.

A few weeks ago he was elated when he got the news that his son had successfully led the invasion, conquered Algrim and captured that smug-faced Leonard. Now? That victory felt hollow as his own kingdom was slowly being eaten away at the fringes by those filthy, jealous Ariens.

The party preparations that had been underway to celebrate their victory had to be immediately halted and now everything was ruined. It was easy being optimistic at first, but as time passed it became clearer that things were only going to turn for the worst.

“Fucking back-stabbing, double-crossing pirates,” King Tukhus swore angrily as he remembered the pirates’ involvement in this assault. They must have been the ones to alert the Ariens to his plans of conquering Algrim and given them time to prepare for these shenanigans. Now, most of his armies are away in another land and they are here, at the perfect moment, to lay waste to his kingdom.

“This was supposed to be a simple thing,” the king lamented drunkenly to his Hand. “Make landfall, capture the capital and royal family, then slowly force the nobles to fold. But now, what is this?”

“War can be unpredictable, my Liege,” the Hand said with a hint of wonder, “for even a great king as astute as yourself to fail to fully grasp its intricacies, I must wonder if any can even glimpse at a chance at understanding it at all.”

The flattery soothed Tukhus’ taut nerves, if only a little, but the question remains what to do now. He had already tried seeking aid from the Band of the Six, that they may rouse their faith militants to his aid but was coldly turned down despite all he had done for them. That sleazy Pope Heimlich had most probably received some benefits from Aries not to intervene.

And as to whether he could threaten the Pope into submission or offer a greater counter to what the wealthy Ariens might offer, Tukhus already knew that would just be a pipe dream on his part. The same goes for the lofty Chamber of Commerce. They are just a bunch of absurdly rich, haughty, snot-faced bastards.

‘Damn!’ Tukhus felt a flare of irritation at the mere thought of those fucking merchants.

As to getting help from the remaining kingdoms who to this day continue to condemn and threaten him for his actions in Algrim, Tukhus didn't even consider it. Hypocritical bastards. As if they would do the same or even worse if they were in his shoes.

With no power to stop it, King Tuhkus could only stare on as the Ariens continued to encroach into his kingdom with utmost impunity. The only good news was that Pope Heimlich personally confirmed that the sanctity of the capital and the surrounding towns would at least be secure. Hopefully.

Depressed and half-drunk, the king took another swing from his cup. Then a servant ran in, paying obeisance to him before handing a sealed scroll to his Hand. Curious, Tukhus watched as the court minister broke the scroll’s seal and began reading.

“It’s another message from Duke Lorne, My Liege.”

“Read it to me,” Tukhus said.

“Yes, My Liege. ‘Your Majesty, I pray you are of divine health. I write now to inform you that Duke Triss of Verumitte house Ornal leading an army of two thousand men just sent a messenger claiming he had crossed the border into Hertalese and liberated the town of Rarth from the Arien invaders’”―Tukhus sat up as a large smile began to creep onto his face.

”’ But I when I asked the messenger,” the king’s Hand continued, solemnly, “a knight by the name Tern of house Liverl, when the town would be returned to the rule of its rightful lord I was informed that Duke Triss decreed that the town and another liberated from Aries by Verum’s armies would remain under Verumitte control until King Lender of house Scymaester, King of Verum deems otherwise.’”

The throne room fell into a deathly silence as King Tukhus sat upon his throne with a dead smile frozen on his face. Then he exploded, flinging his wine goblet across the entire length of the chamber. The utensil crashed against the large double doors at the other end before bouncing off, clinking loudly as it rolled away on the marble floors.

“Lender,” the king hissed venomously as he stood hunched before his throne, his facial expression twisted into one of pure spite.

”You slimy snake.”