by Helen Gosney
So his gift or whatever it was hadn’t been a ‘gift of the Gods’, Rowan realised with relief, otherwise it would surely have disappeared with the closing of the nexus. Good. He didn’t want to be indebted to those bastards for anything. He looked around at the expressions of varying degrees of disbelief and awe on the faces of his friends and decided to totally ignore them as he’d ignored such looks from people all his life. He didn’t understand how he could do this any more than anyone else did, but he’d found there was simply no point in fretting about it. ‘Just enjoy it’ as Moss had said, he thought. It had been a strange few days, Rowan mused as he tickled the great cat’s ears, truly a strange journey all in all. It seemed a long time since Cris had faced him in the Duck and Whistle Inn and demanded to know what he meant by saying the Gods didn’t know or care what was going on in the world. He smiled as something else occurred to him.
“You said you were the one who caused the rains of frogs and things, didn’t you, Rill?” he asked after a moment.
“Well...yes... but I thought...”
“It doesn’t matter, you did no harm really...” Rowan began to laugh, “I was just thinking of a certain inn-keeper in Gnash who will be very keen to meet you…”
**********
To be presented in evidence
Court martial of Magnus Lorrissen, formerly Commandant of Wirran Guard, to be held at Den Siddon at 1000, third day of Cold. The following documents will be presented in evidence.
Reports
Rowan d’Rhys del’Quist, Captain of Guard, Den Siddon
Idris Cholli, Lieutenant, Den Farrar
Cade Pendtsen, Sergeant, Den Mellar
Farran Endelsson, Master Healer, Den Kallen
Fess Aaronson, Lieutenant, Den Siddon
Excerpts from private journals
Master Healer Farran Endelsson
Lieutenant Fess Aaronson
Reports
Report from Messton-near-Edge
I write this report from the carnage of the battlefield of Messton-near-Edge.
Our Troop Commander, Cpt. Yianni Josefson of Den Mellar, was killed this morning & Cpts. Fonnel of Den Bissen, Tomasson of Den Col & Bolt of Den Ree were all killed at various times during the day. Cpt. Fiore of Den Kallen is seriously injured & Cpts. Yeo of Den Tor & Shennason of Den Tillot are missing, believed dead. I, Cpt. Rowan d’Rhys del’Quist of Den Siddon, find myself the last man remaining of Captain’s rank & thus I take command of the remnant of our combined Wirran troops.
We engaged with the forces of Duke Rollo of Plait this morning shortly after sunrise. I estimate their numbers to have been between 4000 & 4500, though I believe it is possible that not all of their troops were brought into the conflict. Our men have fought bravely, indeed heroically, but we have suffered very heavy casualties.
Our camp is an horrific place of dead, dying & injured men. Our brave healers are doing their best but they are all but overwhelmed.
Of our 2000 men, we have none who are uninjured. There are about 300 who are so seriously injured that the healers say most of them will not survive this night. About 200 men, myself included, have sustained lesser injuries and may be able to fight again tomorrow. A few have relatively minor injuries but are undone by the horrors of the day & I doubt they will be capable of further combat. The remainder of our troops are dead, or missing & believed to be dead.
I believe that Rollo’s forces have taken more casualties than us. Certainly there are more of their troops dead & injured on the field, but given their superiority of numbers to begin with it is difficult to estimate how many of them remain to be faced tomorrow. I think it could be perhaps 800 or 1000 men or more, but it is truly impossible to say. Certainly they will vastly outnumber us & I do not expect many, if any, of our troops to survive.
We will not retreat. We cannot transport our most badly injured troops away from here & I will not leave them behind. Those of us who can will face Rollo’s troops again tomorrow, though I fear it will ultimately be a futile gesture.
I urgently request that you send the troops held in reserve at Den Siddon to Messton-near-Edge, in the hope that there may be a few survivors of tomorrow’s battle. If any do live, they will certainly be in dire need of assistance. If none of these brave men survive, they deserve better for their courage & sacrifice than to be left to lay here as mere carrion.
Signed this day at Messton-near-Edge
Rowan d’Rhys del’Quist
Captain of Guard, Den Siddon
***
Report from Messton-near-Edge
This morning there was no further attack from the forces of Duke Rollo of Plait, as we had expected there to be. I took a small group of the least-injured men over to Rollo’s campsite. There were perhaps 550 or 600 men from his army there but all of them were dead.
About 400 or so of these men appear to have died from their wounds, but the rest had had their throats slashed. There was no one alive there & only a few horses. The obvious inference is that Rollo & his remaining forces murdered these men, his own troops, & that they have run away some time in the night. Why they would do this is a complete mystery, as is their failure to attack us & kill us all when they clearly had an overwhelming advantage.
I urgently request that you send the troops that have been held in reserve at Den Siddon to us here at Messton-near-Edge, as the men are in great need of help. We have sustained heavy casualties among our original 2000 troopers. Of the 300 men who were very seriously wounded, we have lost 144 overnight; and of the 209 who are less badly hurt, 27 have died. [list of names & ranks attached] The remainder of the men were killed in the battle yesterday. Naturally there will be further deaths. We need more healers, more potions & medications & more bandages, & we need men & wagons to transport the injured men home. Some will be able to ride, but most will not.
I cannot stress to you enough how very urgent this request for assistance is.
I will take a volunteer troop of 15 men with me to pursue Rollo & his men & I hope to catch up with them before they are able to reach Plait. We aim to capture him if possible but will kill him if not. The remaining 35 men who are the most relatively able-bodied of our troops will assist the healers in looking after their comrades, but I remind you, Sir, that we are in desperate need of reinforcements and assistance.
I leave the camp under the command of Lt. Idris Cholli of Den Farrar, he being the most capable & least injured of our few remaining officers. His orders are to remain here at Messton until reinforcements arrive & then to make his way back to Den Siddon with the wounded troops at the best speed he can manage.
Signed this day at Messton-near-Edge
Rowan d’Rhys del’Quist
Captain of Guard, Den Siddon
***
Report from Trill
I write this in haste as we prepare to leave the charnel house that is Trill. The actions of Duke Rollo of Plait & his troops in this little town are simply horrific and beyond comprehension, but I will try to record them as best I can.
We tracked Rollo & his men for almost 5 days, from Messton-near-Edge to Trill, near the northern border with Plait. Each day we found the bodies of men in Rollo’s livery, all killed by a stab to the heart or a slash to the throat. I surmise that these could be men who objected to Rollo’s murdering their wounded colleagues at Messton, spoke up & paid the price for doing so. It seems that there have been a good many desertions among his troops too. Certainly we were tracking a much smaller group for the last couple of days & they were probably about a day ahead of us by the time we reached Trill.
As we approached the town we found several farms that had been raided, perhaps for food. There were no survivors among these unarmed civilians.
As we came into Trill we found the first bodies of its townsfolk. There is no Guard garrison here & the people were essentially defenceless against Rollo’s trained & well-armed men. Unarmed men, women & children had been killed where they stood. Some had tried to resist, but all had been
slaughtered.
We proceeded to the central market area of the town. It was filled with the bodies of the townsfolk. It seems that they had been going about their business when Rollo’s men arrived & they were captured & herded into the square. Again there seems to have been some resistance, but to no avail.
I cannot bear to write what I know I must.
All of the people of Trill have been killed & I believe that there was quite a bit of time spent on it. All of the women regardless of their age were raped, as were most of the young girls and some boys. I think that their menfolk were forced to watch this brutality. Some of the luckier townsfolk were simply killed outright, but some were hacked apart & some were impaled & some were hanged. Some poor souls met their deaths in more inventive ways that I simply cannot force myself to describe.
The well in the corner of the square was running over with blood. On investigation I found that several babies and children had been stabbed & hacked & tossed into the well. Those who were dismembered may well have been already dead, but some of the others were certainly still alive at the time & must have drowned. I could see where they had clawed at the top & inside of the well in their efforts to escape & some of their fingers were torn almost to the bone. It does not bear thinking about.
I found a single baby boy still alive in his murdered mother’s arms, near the well. She had fought hard to protect him & at first we thought he was uninjured, but we found that he’d been stabbed in the back & simply left to die. There is no real way of knowing how long this little one had suffered but it is safe to say it would have been several hours at least. There was nothing we could do for him and he died in my arms.
We ran Rollo & his men to earth in a tavern in a little street off the square. The Black Swan. All of them were very drunk after their day’s butchery & some were sleeping peacefully. The rest were making so much noise that they didn’t know we were there. I set my troopers to surround the tavern & called on those inside to surrender. This was greeted with much hilarity. I suppose they felt that their force of nearly 50 drunken murderers & rapists was superior to my own brave troop of 15 who were all carrying injuries of some kind.
I felt that it was simply too dangerous to try to capture any of these men inside the Black Swan & they were clearly not interested in surrender. I set fire to the tavern & we killed any of those who tried to escape the flames. Some of those inside were simply too drunk to make the effort to flee, but many fought us fiercely. Luckily for us, some turned on their fellows in the frenzy of escaping the tavern. Duke Rollo was among the last to emerge & I engaged him in combat. I regret he did not survive, and will not face the justice he deserved, but it was simply unavoidable.
We searched the town for survivors but found no one still living. We freed all the animals that we found & let the fire in the tavern spread, which it did quickly. We could not bury all the dead & this was the best I could do for them. Trill has been burnt to the ground & is totally destroyed.
I estimate that perhaps 250 women & children were raped & murdered in this little town & perhaps 120 men have been slaughtered. All were unarmed & defenceless, though there was some obvious resistance by these poor brave souls.
Of the people on the surrounding farms, I estimate another 60 unarmed men, women & children have been murdered.
None of those from the tavern survived. I estimate there would have been 45 or 50 of Rollo’s brutal beasts killed there, including Rollo himself, who died by my hand. No. I should not have said ‘beasts’, because beasts do not murder & they do not rape.
Of my own troopers, Tr. Donal Fergusson of Den Bissen was killed in the battle outside the Black Swan whilst bravely doing his duty. A few of the men, including myself, have sustained further injuries, but while a couple are serious they do not appear to be immediately life-threatening & we have stitched ourselves up as best we can.
The men & I are heartsick & shattered by what has happened at Trill. It is a terrible nightmare that will not leave our thoughts or our hearts, and nor, I fear, will it leave our dreams in the future. I fear that some of these brave troopers will never really get over their experiences, but I commend them all to you for their courage & discipline & dedication to their duty under truly dreadful circumstances. [list of names & ranks attached]
I suppose that we at least have the knowledge that Duke Rollo & his brutal troops are dead & they cannot inflict any more atrocities on Wirran or anywhere else.
We return now to Messton at our best speed. Our troops there will have been relieved by now & may already be almost back to Den Siddon, but there may still be some who remain there too badly injured to be moved. We will return to Den Siddon ourselves as soon as we are able. None of my troop is fit enough to deliver this report, but I shall hand it to you myself on our return to the garrison.
Signed this day at Trill
Rowan d’Rhys del’Quist
Captain of Guard, Den Siddon
***
Report from Messton-near-Edge
I returned from Trill to find the camp has been moved a little, but otherwise it is much as it had been. The troops requested of the Commandant have not arrived & Lt. Cholli himself has sent a further request for assistance. He confirms that there has been no communication received from Den Siddon. We cannot understand it.
Most of the remaining 156 very seriously injured men have died [list of names & ranks attached]. Of those 12 men who are still alive, it is doubtful if more than a couple might survive.
There have been losses among the less badly injured men too [list of names & ranks attached]. Some of the survivors have contracted lung fever & are in a bad way. The healers believe that most of these men will not survive long without further help, as they simply do not have the medicines or potions to give them.
The least injured men have done what they can to bury the dead, but it is a monumental task & one which they can’t hope to finish in their present condition.
All of the men are exhausted, sick & injured & morale is very low. They have all done their best, but they have been through too much & the non-arrival of reinforcements has hit them hard. The healers have run out of bandages & dressings, and supplies of potions, particularly painkilling potions, are very limited.
We do still have a little food & surprisingly there is still a good clean source of water close to our camp, but these are the only good things about our situation.
I believe we should try & get ourselves back to Den Siddon by whatever means we can. I do not believe that the Commandant has not received at least one of Cholli’s or my reports, & it seems obvious that the 3 separate requests for reinforcement & assistance have been ignored.
It will be a heartbreaking journey home & we will undoubtedly lose more men on the way, but our only alternative is to stay here at Messton-near-Edge, among the bodies of our friends that we simply cannot bury, & wait for Death to claim us all as well. No. This is not an alternative at all. We cannot stay here. We will at least try to return to the barracks, or die trying.
We have more horses than men, and the most able-bodied of the men will ride. I will go to a farm back along the track a bit & try to borrow, or if unsuccessful, commandeer some drays or carts. Our uninjured troop horses can pull them so that we will not need to deprive the farmer of his working beasts.
When we leave, I intend to take all of the men with me. The most seriously injured & ill will not be left here to die alone. Far better for them to be with the rest of their comrades, for whatever comfort it might afford them. A dray is not a comfortable way to transport sick & injured men, but it is certainly better than not transporting them at all. The healers say these men will die soon, no matter what is done. Those of the men in question who are rational & able to decide what they want are all adamant that they wish to try to return to Den Siddon with the rest of us. Brave souls that they are.
LATER… The farmer sent two of his strapping sons to help us & his wife sent as much food as she could spare & some clean sheets for ba
ndages. I wish I could repay them better for their kindness. All I have to give them is some of our spare troop horses, but they are good beasts & I hope the farmer will not be unhappy with them. The farm lads have helped us to get the wounded men onto carts & they help to drive them.
Another 10 men have died today [see attached], & I expect that more will too, but we continue the slow trek back to our homes. It has started to rain heavily & so the troops are under makeshift shelters of canvas on the carts as we struggle on. Not all of those who are on horseback still have a cloak to wear, but we have managed to cut up some tents to protect them a little.
Despite the rain & the hardship, the men do seem a bit less dispirited & hopeless. I think the few miles we’ve managed to put between ourselves & Messton have done them more good than anything that I can say or do. We will keep going for as long as we can & no one will be left behind.
LATER… We’ve been on the way home for nearly 2 days. Another 15 men have died [see attached]. It rains still, but a bit less I think. Our crude shelters are heavy & cumbersome but they work surprisingly well. Our gallant troop horses plod through thick mud, but we still have enough to let us give some of them a rest from their hard work. I wish I could do the same for the men too. Of course we must rest but we have too few men who can do much & I fear that we will not get going again if we stop for too long.
LATER… To our great joy we’ve been joined by Sgt. Nils & 10 brave troopers from Den Siddon, with 2 wagons of desperately needed supplies, a couple of hours after my last report. Brave men, because they say the Commandant would hang them all if he knew they were here. I believe them too, but I cannot imagine why he’s ignored his injured men & treated them as he has. And I will not have it! I will not allow him to desert his troops when their need is so desperate. I will see that man hang if it’s the last thing I ever do.
