The Prelude
“Rest while you can, men,” Captain Farum cried, his voice battling the roars of the whirlstorm outside. “We march on Yorm in the morrow. The man-giants await!” The captain’s face flashed white as lightning struck outside, briefly illuminating the dark gloom of the candlelit tent. Moahm and his unit sulked, staring at their food, watching as the captain saluted the brigade, and marched off to his private pavilion.
The moment he was gone, Moahm whispered, “Pass the canteen, will you,” urging Kotta to hurry it along. “The senior said I should get some rest, but I doubt I’ll manage without a little help.” He chuckled, and the rest of the unit joined in the laughter.
Kotta raised the canteen to his thin lips, signaling ‘one last sip’, albeit with his actions and gulped down the liquor as if it would be his last drink.
“Hold it there, K. You said a sip, not that you were going to neck it.” Moahm tried to snatch the canteen from Kotta’s lips, but he held on too tightly, causing some liquor to spill over his saltfish. “Tah – you’ve made me spill it even.” The liquor meandered down the table and dripped onto Moahm’s lap. He tried to dam the flow with his palm, but that only served to widen the stream.
“You shouldn’t be drinking so openly,” said Gherm, a man in his unit. When he stood, his gut jiggled in a discontinuous way and poked out near as much as a battering ram. “There are officers coming in and out of these tents. Anyone could report us, and we’d be the next lot off to the Boats.”
“As long as it’s not any of you, we won’t have a problem.” Moahm and Gherm looked at each other and erupted in contagious laughter. Gherm grabbed the canteen from Moahm’s hands, and chugged as greedily as a wallrat would a water bundle.
“Hey, did you lads hear?” Gherm began, wiping his lips. “I overheard the officers talking about some changes to the van. The captain’s bumping us up to the front lines, alongside Laskar’s lot. Old Iman’s brigade lost an arms cart to a cliff, so they’ll be joining another attack later, I suppose.”
“That’s if Old Iman hasn’t chopped their heads off and carted them back to Gorhad!” Norak quipped, prompting another round of laughter.
Kotta, however, ignored the jest. “Don’t you think the captain would’ve told us just now?” He asked in his high-pitched voice. He was a man of few words, but when he spoke, Kotta spoke true. Something about Gherm’s rumour smelled like camelcrap.
“How do you think that’d unfold? Morale would be low as the Rifa is deep. Better for us to assume those dangers fresh in the brink of morning than ruminate all night.” Gherm said, smiling as he chewed a bite of his saltfish.
“And you believe morale would be much better when the brigade wakes up, expecting a safe and quiet day in the rear, only to be met with the news of fighting the man-giants head on? Come on, Gherm, you’re always full of these rumours. Next thing you know, we’ll all be made mandars or given land and made dahns. Eat your saltfish, Gherm, and let us enjoy the peace and quiet while we can.”
Gherm’s lip curled at that. “What’s your issue, Moahm? Was just making conversation.”
“Figure I don’t want to talk about the increased odds of dying in the hands of those barbarians!”
Gherm struggled to his feet, gathering his helmet and satchel, gritting his teeth as he glared at Moahm. “I’ll see you in the morning, Moahm. K, Norak, Harem, goodwind.” The others nodded back, except Moahm who turned away.
“What a tit. I love the bloke, but he can be a real storm down the backside when he sets his mind to it.”
“You were a dick just then,” spoke Harem, the best lancer in the unit, and probably the brigade. “You owe him an apology.” He rose and donned his helmet.
“What? Did you not hear him spouting about us being bumped up to the vanguard?”
“He was just talking, is all,” added Norak, also standing to grab his helmet. “Goodwind, lads.”
“Goodwind,” Harem echoed. Moahm nodded back at them as they left the tent.
Only Kotta and Moahm stayed behind, silence quickly becoming the most prominent speaker at the table. Moahm saw no end in trying to get a word out of the lad. Though they’d spent most of the journey together, Moahm could probably count their conversations in one hand. Kotta meant well, he knew, but he was always brief and polite. Moahm had developed a queer tenderness for him, however. His kind demeanour was very comforting, despite his eagerness for liquor, especially amongst the horde of hogs the Khah called his soldiers.
Unlike himself. He’d acted a right twat. He always did this to everyone, his friends, his family. The day he left Klarissa and their boy, Borras, they could barely look him in the eye even as he put his foot out the door. The image was ingrained into his mind. There was a part of Moahm that hoped they’d been amongst the crowd on Victory Road, wishing goodwind for parting soldiers, but he never found them in that sea of faces. “He’ll be alright in the morning, right, K?” he said, pushing those thoughts aside.
“Moahm,” Kotta said quietly, ignoring his question.
“Yeah?” Moahm noticed the lad’s eyes darken with a moody glow he’d never seen before.
“You say we should enjoy the peace and quiet, right?”
“Sounds about right.”
“Why shouldn’t we have it all the time?”
“K, then we wouldn’t be sitting here freezing our teats off while the dahns and mandars stuff their faces with bread and saltfish in their grand tents.”
Kotta paused briefly, rubbing his slender hands. “But…why stay?”
Moahm’s stomach clenched. “What are you getting at, K? It better not be what I think it is.” Desertion? Kotta must have bumped his head, surely.
“It’s…no, it’s nothing.”
“Better keep it that way, and if it ain’t, don’t tell me, lad. We’ve secured a spot in the rear, unless Gherm’s rumour is to be believed, and I wouldn’t like to spoil it.” Moahm glanced outside through the tent flap—the night had sneaked up on them. “I’m off to rest. And I’ll be taking this with me,” he said, picking up the canteen. “Trust if I’d left it to you we’d have none for the march tomorrow!” He chuckled, stuffing it into his satchel. Moahm headed outside, Kotta following him, rushing.
Their quarters were packed to the brim with soldiers, sleeping side by side in a pavilion no larger than the provisions tent. The ground was littered with sleeping soldiers, and dotted with ones awake. Moahm found a space near the edge, enough for Kotta and him. “Goodwind,” Moahm whispered, lying on his back. Kotta nodded back and turned over.
As Moahm closed his eyes, he felt afloat, his head ringing with a slight buzz. He dreamed of his home, his rut in the wall, Klarissa breastfeeding little Borras as daddy climbed through the hole-in-the-wall. Klarissa looked at him with those dense black eyes, pitch as the night sky. When he moved to kiss her, she shoved him away and launched little Borras splat against the wall. She collapsed, sobbing, her arms wrapped around her legs, breath rasping in the silence.
He woke with a start, but the sobbing persisted. It was Kotta he found rocking back and forth, crying quietly. His face was ghostly, like that of a dying man’s. “Lad, what haunts your wits?” Moahm whispered to not wake the others.
“You think he’ll call off the attack?” he said through soft whimpers.
“Lower your voice, lad. You don’t want to rouse the others.” Moahm didn’t know much about Gorhad’s army before he was levied, but one thing was for sure, the Tiger’s claws did not retract once drawn. “These orders are the Khah’s own,” he whispered.
“But the rain…surely not in this rain. The fireballs, they won’t light, surely.”
“With enough fuel, any fire will burn in an ocean.” Kotta seemed calmed by the grim certainty of Moahm’s words, even if it was in acceptance of their impending doom. He nodded at the poor soldier and turned over, hoping for more sleep before the dawn.
“Huuuaah!” boomed the captain, clapping his hands at the same time. “Beat the sun to it, lads! Get your oats and hard bread while you can. We march at sunrise. Huuuaaah!” Moahm’s head rang like the bar’s closing bell, and his breaths drew shorter than usual. Most soldiers rose instantly, knowing this would be the best meal they’d have until…Winds know when they’d sit down to eat again. Moahm was among the early risers, despite never wanting to wake from his slumber. Kotta resisted awhile, but with enough shakes from Moahm he awoke, albeit startled.
It was deathly quiet in the provisions tent, quite dissimilar from the night prior. Soldiers sat alone, wolfing down their oats and bread, and the lucky few washing it down with water.
“Is that all we’re getting?” Moahm said to the man handing out the rations.
“We packed for three fortnights, and three fortnights have passed. This’s all that’s left, lad.” The man had an unapologetic look about him.
Twat. Moahm snatched the bar of oats from his hand, darting a glare of contempt at the man as he took the last bundle of water to share with his unit. When he joined Kotta at the table, the lad was pale as an unhatched larva. “You’ve not even touched your oats, lad. What’s haunting you now?”
“I’m not going to make it, Moahm,” Kotta said, his voice grating with anxiety. “Some man-giant’s going to tear me from neck to groin or split me in half, or…or I’ll get trampled in the charge, I’ll—”
“—Survive! You’ll survive, for Wind’s sake! K rein your wits in. We’ll be running at your side as we charge. You’ve nothing to worry about.”
“How can I survive, Moahm? How can I, if I’ve never…” Kotta’s voice wavered. “…if I’ve never killed.”
“Put a spear in them, is all, or whatever you can get your hands on.” Moahm knew all too much about killing, living in the Wall, surrounded by the vermin of Shanghala.
“Don’t you see? We’re nothing but fodder. We’re just needed to pave the way for the cavalry.” He tried to maintain a quiet tone, but his anxiety overtook his speech. “No—get me out of here. We’re doomed. Doomed!”
“Keep your voice down! I told you to rein your wits in. The rest of the soldiers have ears as much as I do, and they don’t need their last morning disturbed.”
“Let’s run. Far away from here.”
“You don’t mean that, K.”
“We’ll hide out in the woods until they’re gone.”
Before speaking, Moahm looked around in alarm. “Have you a craving for suicide? Desertion is treason, K. A very brittle bridge to tread.” He spoke in such a hush tone he wondered if Kotta even heard him.
All of a sudden, Kotta’s expression changed to one of consuming fear as he looked behind Moahm.
“Lancer Moahm Krel, on your feet!” It was the Captain.
“Aye, sur!”
“Turn and face!” Moahm did as he was bid. “I’ve had a report of a soldier in the rear guard being in possession of unauthorised personal items. That wouldn’t happen to be you, right, Lancer?” Moahm said nothing. “Empty your satchel.”
As he reached for his satchel, he spotted Gherm’s horrid head poking inside the tent, hiding the rest of his vile, fat self behind the flap. That floppy gut, and his misshapen face made his blood boil hotter than the fires of the Ires.
“Lancer, do you mishear me? Empty the contents in your satchel!” Silent, he dumped his satchel on the wooden table, his son’s twig-man falling to the ground, the canteen bounced off the table, and a putrefying white rose gently glided onto his oats. The captain’s screams grew louder, but Moahm saw naught but that coward behind the flap.
Suddenly, Moahm charged toward Gherm, all else blurred by rage. He was on top of him, the bastard covered in mud, fist after fist pummeling away at his teeth. “You shit-for-honour coward!” Moahm cried, his hands dripping red. The ground around them became a bloody mesh of skin and bone, and Gherm’s face…well, it could’ve been anyone’s, then.
In a flash, a large weight barged Moahm off Gherm and seized him on the ground.
“Filthy wallrat! I knew we shouldn’t have taken your kind off to war.” Moahm tried to break free of his restraint, but the Captain did not budge an inch. “You’re off straight to the Boats, lad,” he mocked, his mouth right up against his ear. “Happy sailing.”
As they dragged him away, Moahm spotted Kotta in the crowd, paler still than when they sat down to break their fast.
© Jaime Abad 2024