CHAPTER IV: THE OTHER SIDE OF IT ALL

The sun had been obscured for today, and Feraene did not like it. She knew that the Dysarian concentration upon crossbowmen would be disadvantageous to them now, as the crossbowmen's accuracy would be diminished by the rain, leaving the Dysarian infantry and cavalry exposed to the bows of the Ostroan battle archers, who maintained relatively the same accuracy as in dry weather. She didn't understand why, but she didn't care either. She felt the first raindrops on her face already. Argh... rain We can't use that The Ostroans and their strange archers are marching upon us, she grumbled. Dralthyr, one of her fellow Paladins, tapped her shoulder, and made her look at the low hill ridge a mile away. Feraene, they aren't marching on us, they are here., he calmly mentioned to her. Hmmm... are there any Vanguards in their ranks?, she mused. Bortor told her, in his heavy voice, their were, on the right flank of the Alliance army. Her Leader, Master Geldyn Singsword, one of the best Paladins she knew, ordered the unit of two-hundred Vysi Paladins to face the Ostroan Vanguards, their eternal rivals.
Lady Feraene Rosekelk, obviously the main character for today, was a member of the Order of the Winged Sword, the order of Paladins, who were all Vysi. This ancient Order had been formed to protect the people that believed in the God Vys, long before the Empire rose to power, just like the Ostroan Vanguards. These became their eternal rivals, and in battles between the Dysarians and the People of the Alliance, the Vanguards and Paladins always sought each other, to test each other's mettle. The Paladins were armoured in varying types of battle protection, but were mostly seen in field plate. Most of them weilded swords, but any weapon was allowed. They were renowned, and feared, for the rigid discipline and prowess in battle, although in single combat they were outclassed by the Vanguards, but they made up for this by their greater agility. Over their battle armour, they always wore white sleeveless robes that reached to just below their knees, with over the chest a red winged sword that pointed to the ground. It was mandatory for them to wear a closed helmet, with a colored horse hair plume, mostly colored a dark purple, the Dysarian color for honour, extending from the top. A breathing slit was cut from the middle of the eye slit, which was just wide enough for efficient melee, down to the end of the helmet. The Paladins sometimes rode horses into battle, but most of the time they acted as a heavy shock infantry, to counter the Vanguards. Most of them had an impetuous folly, which had, at more than some occasions, led to disastrous Dysarian routs. Another problem for the Dysarian generals with units of Paladins in the ranks of their army, was that the Paladins only obeyed their Leaders, which commanded the units, so they could be quit an unruly battlefield presence. Unruly, but feared on the battlefield, and disciplined, to their Leaders, that is. Oh yes, before i forget, they were, like their Ostroan counterparts the Vanguards, quite clearly unroutable, unless ordered to. But now back to the battle at hand.
The Dysarian position was a defensive one, upon a hill, where they looked down upon their enemies, the Alliance forces, who had set themselves up on a lower hill. The Dysarian problem was that, because it would rain all day by the looks of it, their crossbowmen's range would be severely impeded, as well as their usual accuracy. The Ostroan battle archers, however, could see right up the hill with ease in the rain, and their compact bows gave them a great range, plus the fact that their accuracy was relatively unchanged, even in the rain. After fifteen minutes of troop deployment and preparation for battle, the battle commenced, with the Alliance forces advancing down their hill, their fearsome berserkers in the front ranks, already busy with working themselves up into their battle frenzy. When they reached the foot of the hill, the battle archers commenced raining down death upon the Dysarians, who were forced to merely spread out, leaving the battle archers to pick them off. Suddenly, without warning or a sign, the five hundred berserkers charged up the hill in a wild frenzy, and the Dysarian Legionnaires were becoming scared, having heard tales about the terrible berserkers and their antics in battle. Following the berserkers in an uphill march, came the Gorûl Axemen, who made up the bulk of this Alliance army. The Gorûl looked up to the Dysarian Cavaliers, and saw that these were being held back by the Dysarian general. As if the Alliance general had read the Gorûl's thoughts, he ordered his spearmen forward. These spearmen carried long spears, similar to eastern yaris, specifically made for anti-cavalry. The Vanguards, on the Alliance right flank, marched up in a calm pace to their target, as always, the Paladins. To Feraene, they seemed to be marching slower as they came closer to the Paladins, waiting for their enemies to charge them. Damn them... this is smart... waiting for us to pounce, and then run down the slope, making us chase, and then eliminate our hight advantage when we reach the low ground..., she muttered in a muffled voice through her helmet. They waited. And waited. And waited, as the battle had already begun, the beserkers having charged into the ranks of the Legionaires, and the Gorûl now having joined in, while the Cavaliers were fighting the Alliance spearmen on the left flank of the Dysarians. Finally, Master Geldyn gave the sign, and the Paladins charged down the hill to their rivals. Everything went fast for Feraene after that. She remembered charging into a Vangaurd, knocking him over and then killing him, and then fighting in a bloody one-to-one melee, and nearly getting killed, only to be saved by Bortor, who used the opporunity to smash the Vanguard's head clean off with his flail. Furthermore, she remembered hearing the Ostroan horn, meaning that they should retreat, and coming out of the haze she always experienced in single combat. After that, she saw that a lot of Legionaires had been killed, but mainly due to them holding their line,and the fact that all of the beserkers had been killed, the battle had been won. She scolded herself for going into that haze again, only to be laughed at by Dralthyr and Bortor. She vowed to get rid of that haze, one day....

CHAPTER V: STILL ALIVE

Garan opened his eyes, slowly, painfully. Everything hurt in his body. The sun glared down upon the world, into his painful eyes. He lifted his head, but it fell down again. He felt he was lying on a sand, but he didn't know where in the world he was. He waited, for some time, he didn't know how long, he didn't care. Finally, he made another attempt at looking around. Slowly, he got up, and looked around. He was on a beach, somewhere, he didn't know where. In the distance, at least three tenleagues away, there were mountains. Closer to the place where he has apprently been washed up, there were glades, and bushes with berries in them. Only after seeing these did he realise how hungry he was, he was so hungry that he felt his stomach acid retaliating against his stomach wall itself. He felt extremely weak, and he was also extremely thirsty. For the sake of his life, he hoped there was a pond or a stream nearby to drink from. He tried to get up, but he fell down again. Again he tried to get up, but fell down again. He tried to get up for, to him, a very long time, constantly failing to get up. At last, he stumbled to his feet, and weakly, very slowly, he shuffled over to the nearest berry bush. He started voraciously to eat the berries, but then realised that he was so hungry that he couldn't eat all the berries on the bush, lest he die from eating too much. So he calmly, ever so slowly, by pure willpower, kept his notion to stuff all those berries into his mouth at once under control. After another long time, at least to him, he got up, feeling a lot less hungry and somewhat better. He looked around for a stream or a pond between the trees in the beach-side glade he was in. And sure enough, he saw one, not too far away. By the temperature he deduced it was early fall, and also by the fact that nearby the pool there was a large swarm of mosquitoes dancing in the air. He didn't care, all that mattered was water. When he, after seemingly walking an age, got to the pond, he fell onto his knees, exhausted, but he plunged his head into the water and began to drink, at first with long, deep gulps, but then slower, again keeping his desire to drink the entire pool empty in check with pure willpower. After he was done, he took a long, ragged breath, fell down onto his back into the soft grass, and fell asleep almost instantly.
He awoke again early the next day. This time, he felt better, but still hungry. He got up slowly, and then went further inland, hoping to find something wholesome to eat. To his great pleasure, and great luck, he found the remains of a wolf meal. He went into the nearby trees to get some firewood, and started a fire. He skewered the leftovers of the animal the wolves had killed and roasted them, to a certain extent. He ate what he could take, and filled his empty stomach. After this meal, he took a bath in the pool, and when he was dry again he put his clothes back on. He decided it was time to venture further inland to see if there were any humans here, and if they could possibly help him and tell him where he was. He saw the mountains, and set off for them.
After three days of eating from the lands, sleeping in the open by a fire, and travelling on boots that were not meant to travel long distances with, he could no longer see the ocean, but only now did it strike him how high the mountains were, as he got closer. He judged that he was now at least thirty leagues from the sea by now, and that the foothills of the mountains were mere leagues away. In the afternoon of the third day of his trek in this new land which he did not know, it struck him that he could well be in the realm of Ostro, the hated god that had massacred his village and killed his loved ones. But he also hated Vys, for not doing anything to stop such a vile deed. Just as he felt cold rage welling up in him again, he spotted plumes of smoke over the next ridge of hills. He ran through a small glade of trees on the hill side, and came to the crest of the hill. From there, he looked down upon a triangular valley, in the shadows of the great mountains nearby, and nestled in this valley, was a large village along the river running through it. It was walled, and inside these stone walls were pittoresque wooden houses, built on stone foundations. Near the center of the village, there was a large wooden building, which he recognised as the village center. He walked down the hill, and onto the dirt road leading to the tall wooden gates of the village. There, he walked into the village under strange looks from the gate guards, who wore scale mail, carried spears and an oval shield covered with leather, and had a helmet shaped like a peak. The people walking the streets of the town wore clothes made of a different material than Garan's clothes, and with different dyes as well. Garan didn't know better than to think these must be Ostroans, as he had never seen an Ostroan in his life.
When he got to the town square, where the village center was located, he stopped. There was a market there, with lots of farm animals, foods unknown to him, and other wondrous things were being sold and bought, under the loud noise of talking people, wagons hobbling over the bumpy stones of the square, and noises coming from the animals. It smelled like a combination of dung, mud, grease and animals, which it probably was. He walked up to the guard in front of the village center, a large round building with a wooden dome covering it, he asked where he could find a place to eat and sleep. The guard took one good look at him, and said, Go down the street to the left and enter the large building with the sign with the two crossed swords on it, lad., in the Common language with a strange accent. Garan took his advice and headed down the street, and sure enough, he found the building with the sign. Under the two crossed swords there seemed to be smudged out letters, making it quite hard to discern what was there. So, instead of trying to read the words under it, which were probably in another language as well, he entered the building.
The interior was quite a difference from the smelly outside. Given, it smelled like musk and leather, but it was a lot better than the smell of manure and sweat and grease outside, and it was a lot quieter as well. In common language, Garan asked the man behind the counter in the entrance room of the building if he could get a room and a meal for a few days. The man replied, in the Common language with the same accent as the guard at the village center, Right... if you would like a room and a meal here, you first have to sign this. Ok... I'll do that then., Garan replied. He wrote out his name at the bottom of the paper, after briefly scanning what was written on it. Immediately after doing so, the man behind the counter grabbed the piece of paper, folded it, apparently called two names, and walked into a door behind the counter. Two burly men came walking into the room, and gestured to the door in the right hand corner of the room. One of them said, in broken Common, Barracks are past that door through corridor. Barracks?, Garan replied. The other of the two men said, Yes... barracks. Welcome to the mercenaries.