Chapter XVIII: Nerubians Ruin Everything (draft one)

XVIII: Nerubians Ruin Everything

The lake had been huge and on the verge of overflowing, if the jagged teeth of broken ice protruding from the banks could be taken as dependable indications of the once-was waterline. Now it was more of a crater. Standing at the edge, I could make out moving fluid some two metres down in the gloom, moonlight gleaming along ridges of current and off semi-submerged hunks of ice. Seemed as though the lake had frozen and the water had drained away beneath it. Inevitably, the sheet of ice must have collapsed in the middle, leaving this gaping maw to make my mission harder.

One thing was certain: I wasn't going to be drawing any water here. Everything else, particularly the cause of this unnatural mess, was well into the realms of the vague and vacillating.

Smacking the flat of the cooking pot against the heel of my hand, I scowled into the blackness, thinking. There was no way we could stay in that tree with that fire and no water. Potential human roast aside, I had no interest in leaving a burning beacon for any of the topside scourge to come across. Neither could we travel far without something to drink. No, I was going to have to find a place where the water was high enough to reach, and following the current seemed the most logical way to start my search. Presumably all this was pooling up somewhere.

The frozen mud crackled beneath my boots as I followed the bank around, watching the way the water became increasingly turbulent with every step. The gurgle of the current loud enough to elicit the slightest twinge from my bladder, I quickened my pace until I came across what must have been the catalyst behind all of this: a collapsed tunnel, saturated mouth stretched greedily open as the water frothed its way down inside. In the dark, it was little more than a gushing triangle of white, extending a good four metres from the shore before presumably dipping underground.

Wary of the crumbling edge, I knelt as close as I dared. I locked both hands around the handle of the kitchen pot, dipping one edge under the surface and feeling the immediate tug of the current.

It was by pure chance that I looked up and saw the Nerubian staring back at me.

Only an idiot would lie and say they didn't jump, because only an idiot would fail to see the evil in that creature's despicable eyes and comprehend what a threat it was. I jumped. I jolted backwards, falling onto my arse and dowsing myself with freezing water. The cold cut straight through me but I ignored it; it was nothing compared to that creature. Light alone knows exactly how many eyeballs Nerubians have, but this one was regarding me with at least four. They glowed a low orange, a darker circle within tracking my movements beneath heavy lids. Barbed mandibles stretched towards me from beneath the jagged split of its mouth, which in turn released two raspy notes: one high and one providing low, ugly harmony. I scrambled to my feet.

It didn't lunge. It didn't even make a swipe in my direction. Holding the cooking pot out in front of me with both hands, ready to deflect anything the monster might spit at me, I peered past the curved lip of metal at a broken arachnid body pressed against the shore by the sheer force of the current. Its thin, two-fingered Nerubian arms clutched at the earth on either side of it; even in the darkness I could make out deep furrows in the ground where it must have clawed with futile hope for purchase. As my gaze shifted to its torso, the flesh swollen and straining around the armoured plates that gripped its narrow thorax, I became slowly aware of its breathing: a gurgling, strained sound, barely audible over the growling rush of water.

I lowered the cooking pot and circled around the creature, my initial fear dulling to little more than instinctual trepidation at the enemy's proximity. It was clear now. The Nerubian was as good as dead. Its back was likely bent at an agonizing angle, its bulging abdomen pressed against the roof of the tunnel it had foolishly aimed straight into the lake bed, its four barbed legs tugged, twisted and broken, in the ruthless current. Unfortunately for it, however, it looked fit to survive for a few hours yet, and in a few hours one of its fellows could very well chance upon it and hear of the human medic out on her own in the forest. I couldn't have that. Wrathwrought and I were dependant on the Nerubians' ignorance of our presence here. If they started actively looking for us, we were as good as done for.

This left me with one sensible choice. Stepping up behind the mangled monster, I raised my pot.

Overcoming faction divides

Presently: Hatred, pinned down by:

- Military divides. They make up the bulk of the enemy army in the north.

- Physical differences. They do not look human and hence can be classified as "monster." Easily treated as vicious animals without moral repercussions.

- History. They have badly injured friends and allies. They are responsible for the overrunning of various towns.

- Hate/fearmongering. Allied propaganda demonises them. Any shared aspects between the two species are carefully excluded from documentation to avoid cultivating any sort of rapport.

- Fear. Calysia is petrified of them. They come from beneath her feet and they are massively more powerful than she is. Fear makes her angry and she naturally points that anger at the Hakurians, where it flourishes into hate.

- Accepted standards of behaviour. Many soldiers happily joke and daydream about butchering and torturing Hakurians; it is an accepted social norm to want to harm them and to be quite open about this. Although Dayrin's unit includes several members with less violent attitudes - specificially Rethilmyrr, Vintner, Devine and Dayrin herself - Calysia is constantly exposed to rampant, unchecked, encouraged hate, and thus easily adopts it herself without any thought for morality or humanity.

- The situation. They're out in the middle of no-where, without reinforcements, with the constant threat of death maintained by the presence of Hakurians in the area. Most of the time they are heard and perhaps glimpsed at most (meeting them face to face would result in direct confrontation), allowing imaginations to run wild. Essentially hemmed in by nightmares, any possible point of identification or sympathetic contact removed.


How might this be overcome? Consider real life cases of racism/classism/sexism.

- Proper contact. Ignorance is a breeding pool for hatred. If they are allowed to see day-to-day, peaceful aspects of the Hakurians, they will be able to define them more specifically (and thus less damningly) in terms of concrete facts. Similarities between the factions might also show through.

- Active attempts by influential members of the community. Dayrin and Rethilmyrr in particular are respected, logical people. By undermining the hate culture that allows people to happily voice their violent views, they can introduce moral consequences to such bigotry.

- The censorship of negative influences, specifically allied propaganda. No longer being fed their opinions, the humans will have to forge their own. (Though this in itself does not necessarily cause progression, it does open the way for it.)

- Other threats. Presently the Hakurians are the only enemies in the area, which earns them all the animocity of the people. Once the party reaches the ruins they will have other things to worry about - their environment, the presumed "malevolent spirits" etc - which may reduce their fear of the Hakurians.

- Positive interaction. Although the war makes this difficult, scenarios where the two sides must band together will allow some of the historical divides to be replaced by the new. Even if they do not actively ally even for a short period of time, seeing the Hakurians working towards similar goals may also have this effect due to an element of kinship in their struggles.

XVII: Competence, or the lack thereof

It must already be more than clear that I consider my fellow humans to be somewhat dimmer than your average bright spark. Somewhat dimmer than your average muck-covered rock, in fact. Stupidity, however, is one thing. Incompetence is another.

Incompetence is that completely incomprehensible inability to carry out a task you've been trained to do. It's an explosives expert smoking by his bombs, a warrior neglecting to pick up his shield, a medic using cold water to wash bandages. It's the sort of thing that could very easily put me in the mood for six measures of scotch and a night spent cursing humanity. It's something I couldn't help but expect from someone as irritating as Gethan Wrathwrought.

Hence I watched him with eagle eyes as we set up camp. There was no doubt he had been told what to do from the way he undressed the horses and helped me rub down their coats with earth, scouring their gleaming hooves with his boot knife before slapping their rumps and sending them trotting away into the dark. Herd animals that they were, they reappeared as we were going through the back-breaking process of hauling every last bag, blanket and saddle up into the tree I had found – an enormous oak with a suitably broad crown – but didn't loiter too close, thankfully. The last thing we wanted was some dumb gelding giving our position away by loyally standing right beneath our hiding place.

Once in the tree, we rested: breathless, wordless. Soon enough Wrathwrought got up and began wedging the saddles between the lowest gaps in the three main branches, blocking the easiest ways up and fencing us in so we wouldn't roll straight out in our sleep. I went about tying back the thin, flammable branches that overhung the projected position of the fire pit, using the horses' reins as rope. By the time I was done, Gethan had finished his work with the saddles, bored out a circular pit and filled it with dry kindling and the odd larger stick. Sitting back against a branch, I eyed his work sceptically. The saddles looked secure. The pit wasn't too large and the bark around it had clearly been suitably soaked. The firewood was pitiful but hell, we weren't exactly toting around an axe and block. As he finally managed a spark and started the fire off, it really did look like he knew what he was doing.

Almost.

“You mean to tell me we have a fire in a tree and no fucking water to hand,” I said, shortly after the first measly flickers had grown into full-size flames and the truth of our safety precautions – lack of safety precautions – became clear.

“In my defence, I thought you were going to-”

“There is no goddamn defence. Hellfire, did you even wet that fire pit?”

“Of course; plenty of water in our canteens-”

“Drinking water? You used our drinking water to wet tree bark?”

For once, Wrathwrought looked appropriately ashamed. Ears clearly red even in the orange firelight, he cleared his throat self-consciously.

“There's a lake not far from here,” he said, reaching for the lone cooking pot. “I'll go gather some of that.”

I snatched it from him before his hand was even halfway to the handle, taking a certain amount of pleasure from his discomfort.

“Like hell I'm giving you another chance to screw up,” I declared, bounding over the saddles, clambering down the tree trunk and utterly ignoring his hissed calls of protest.

Everyone loves being right. It's not worth denying that as I strode through the forest, keeping to the firmer ground near the bottoms of the trees, I was positively gleeful. That Wrathwrought had undoubtedly been looking forward to praise after trying to hard to impress me made his eventual slip all the more enjoyable; I wondered just how low those punctured high hopes had brought his mood on the way down. Hopefully dirt low.

Low as the lake.

XVI: Signs of the Enemy

The Hakurians are burrowers. They live out the vast majority of their lives underground. You'd think that would separate our worlds enough to have avoided war, but evil has little interest in leaving things that effortlessly simple. And they are evil. They come out from under your feet. You kill them as soon as you see them well enough to stab. That's all anyone ever needs to know. That's all that matters.

Well, that and the fact that the woods we had entered were bloody swarming with them. That mattered one hell of a lot. When they're moving fast, not looking to create permanent tunnel systems, they tunnel high, where the soil is looser. Leaves huge whopping tracks, if you can call them that: not impressions in the ground but cracked, raised paths of turned earth punctuated by the occasional hole where something on the surface was unfortunate enough to attract their attention. The area was so churned up with Hakurian paths it was a wonder the trees were still standing at all. Their roots must have been mulch, not unlike all the diced worms squirming out their last on the surface.

It all meant we were probably utterly screwed and a lot earlier than I'd thought. They were obviously active here and not even trying to hide it, less than three miles from one of our bases. Meant they had a strong army or that they knew ours was full of petrified peasants. Meant also that we could run into one at any time, and with the ground in its current state they'd move fast. I had seen a Hakurian tunnel at high speed through clay before; I sure as hell did not want to be chased by one travelling through something as soft as this.

The only good side in all of it was that the danger was so evident even thick-skulled Wrathwrought responded to it. Silent and serious for the first time since I'd met him, he prowled on ahead, leaving his horse tethered to mine. He'd even taken off his jangling chain mail shirt, muffling it in his blanket and stowing it in his saddlebag. Occasionally he stooped down to rub soil between thumb and forefinger or paused to inspect the trunks of trees as though any of it meant something to him.

I doubt it did. In fact, I considered him to have made a major mistake just by dismounting: the footing here was atrocious. In all likelihood, we were going to take a wrong step at some point: why put your own leg in the path of potential breaks when you could just as easily let a dumb beast take the fall? Wrathwrought did not think logically.

That said, I couldn't overestimate the simple fact that he was quiet. My ears could enjoy precious peace, so I suppose I should at least thank the enemy for that.

XV: Distraction

They say cities are impressively huge. That buildings packed in all around you make you feel small. In truth, tame, human-built structures make you feel safe. It doesn't matter if they tower over you, those houses and towers and vast halls are merely proof of civilisation and society's protecting embrace.

They say forests make you feel lost and bare to the elements. That anything could be spying on you. In truth, amongst the trees and foliage you can make use of cover. It may not be so clearly marked as our territory, but humans know how to survive in forests. There is some vestige of instinct there.

No. It was the unnatural terrain we trekked across that left me feeling small and bare. Hacked down to stumps in a wide radius around the port town's walls, trees provided no cover. It was no different from walking across an open plain. I found myself waiting for the rain of arrows from the tree line up ahead. I caught myself hunching down in the saddle, unable to decide whether I wanted to spur my horse forward and reach cover more quickly or loiter and perhaps stay out of range of a volley. Even that I had finally quieted my babbling mouth did nothing to raise my mood.

“Did they do this at Taovak?” Wrathwrought said suddenly.

It took a second for my startled brain to comprehend the words.

“Fort Taovak needed lumber and leaving trees right up to the walls would have meant undetected enemies knocking at our door,” I replied after a bewildered pause, my voice as terse as my muscles were tense. “We never managed to cut the forest this far back. The enemy did that for us, making catapults.”

“Nice of them.”

“Not really.”

“I suppose not,” he said, before yawning and stretching his arms over his head, a small smirk spreading over his features. “Ruins the view.”

I glowered at him for his casual tone and teasing smile. Intolerable man. The more I looked at him, the more I realised that he found my evident fear funny; he was enjoying showing me just how at ease he was with this whole blasted situation. Mocking me under the thin guise of friendliness. He made me so furious I could hardly think of anything else beyond mashing his face to a bloody pulp, gathering up the remains and feeding them to a pack of worgs.

Before I knew it, we were in the forest.

Edric Vintner

(earlier names: Blackarrow and Pinter. If you spot either name in an entry, it refers to this guy.)

Gender: Male
Age: 21
Role: Combatant - longbowman

History:

Part of an innkeeping family, Vintner grew up in the heart of the village: the pub. A moral, respectable young man, he was very much the community's favourite until a soldier set the family establishment alight in a drunken accident. Although Vintner and his mother managed to pull his father from the flames, he was already unconscious and badly burned. Assuming the worst, Vintner attacked the arsonist in a fit of fury, only for him to trip, smack his head and die.

Although Vintner's father recovered, the son was sent to the battlefront as punishment for manslaughter. Petrified and left completely off-balance in regards to his own identity, Vintner succumbed to every illness to pass into camp, spending much of his wartime servitude puking in the medical tent. His ability with a bow earned him proper military training as an archer prior to the attack that shattered their division. Surviving by hiding in a tree early on under the pretence of gaining higher ground, he was one of the first to be discovered by Dayrin. Initially comforted by the presence of other survivors, when he realised Dayrin's intent was to regroup and continue the fight he panicked and, at the first chance, stole Aaliyah's pack and struck out for the port.

Character traits: Unlike many of the others, he recognises that killing is still wrong. Friendly, emotionally insightful, possesses a youthful desire to help and be useful. Petrified by war, leading him to flee the group in the first place and also prompting him to freeze up in combat. Lacking a sense of identity, leaving him conflicted and guilty. Inexperienced.