Joseph X


After two treacherous months of endless sneaking and sulking through enemy terriotry, Joseph was glad to at last be riding home. In the distance, he glimpsed massive pillars of smoke rising from Open Hearth's great hall, stoked by the many fireplaces that gave the castle its name and reputation as a beacon of safety for new castaways. He was happy to see the castle but, weary to his very bones, could not find the energy to entertain that feeling of elation for long.

Perhaps owing to the daylight, Joseph found himself more tired than usual. Two months of nocturnal travel had certainly taken its toll on his body, not to mention the constant stress and pressure from his infiltration mission. Now that they were back on friendly soil, the group was afforded the luxury of travelling under daylight once more. As with the rest of his rangers, Joseph found it hard to simply transition back to normal life after so much espionage and sneaking around in the dark. Everything was a bit too bright for his liking, not to mention clear and honest. Joseph had discovered a taste for the protective darkness of the night over his long journey.

The sun beat down on the weathered autumn road, greeting the sixteen rangers and their mounts with cheerful beams of golden light. Only sixteen were returning, whereas twenty had set out. Joseph was sad to have lost four good soldiers to the journey, but he also knew he had gotten extremely lucky. He should count himself fortunate for having returned with the greater majority of his party. And for the fact that they had not run into the enemy over their long travels. Indeed, the dead rangers had perished to nature itself. Three had been slain from a raptor attack, and one of their parasaurs had been severely injured. The poor creature still had a bad limp to show for it. The fourth ranger had died from an infection. Joseph had ordered them to be buried where they fell, for they could not risk bringing the fallen back home for a proper funeral. Not only would it slow them down, it would bring danger upon the rest of the party. The smell of the dead would only attract wild carnivores to their group like flies to a corpse. So they had hidden the bodies in discrete locations, buried under hedges and stones and whatnot. It felt wrong to lay valiant soldiers to rest under such informal conditions, but Joseph knew it could not be helped. Stealth was their main priority and they could not give that up, no matter the circumstances.

Fortunately, sixteen healthy rangers were returning to Open Hearth safe and whole. Joseph counted himself lucky for having completed his mission with minimal losses. Thanks to the brave sacrifices of the four dead rangers, their tribe would have a fighting chance in the future. With them, Joseph's party brought back invaluable knowledge of the enemy they faced. No longer were they fighting shadows, but a concrete human force with flaws and weaknesses that could be exploited.

Joseph owed much of his knowledge to the old man they had encountered in that tower during the storm. From him, he had grasped all the basic information about the Protectors of Man, who were undoubtedly the foe they would eventually face. The tribe was more of a nation, with its vast territory, huge numbers, and long history of conquest. For nearly sixteen years, the Protectors had been fighting to gain a hold over the Island. Presently, they held at least a quarter of its territory. They were led by a warrior king whose name the old man did not know. Only that he was widely called the Great Uniter or the Great Peacebringer by his subjects, and spited as the Great Conquerer behind his back. Joseph had not troubled pressing the old man for details about the Protectors' economy or policies, but focused his attention on finding out everything possible about their army. A rough estimate of their numbers placed them at somewhere around five thousand soldiers strong. Joseph knew the numbers were frightening and many of his followers had felt the odds were impossible, but fortunately he had learned there was more to it.

As with any nation that controlled vast swaths of territory, they needed to station soldiers at key locations to keep order, enforce laws, and protect the citizens. Whenever the Protectors marched to war, as they so often did, they could never afford to mobilize their entire strength against a single enemy. Otherwise neighbouring tribes could take advantage of the undefended lands they left behind and strike when the Protectors were concentrated elsewhere. And although the Great Uniter was famed for his strategic brilliance, his four great generals were just as widely known for actually carrying out much of the conquest. Each great general was assigned a cardinal direction to rule over in the name of their king; they were all stationed on the nation's borders, whether it be north, east, south, or west. Finally, the Great Uniter himself kept a standing army at the capital city, Prosperity.

So although roughly five thousand soldiers served the Protectors of Man, they were not all concentrated in one army, but rather split into five smaller armies. Based on this information, and the fact that the Great Uniter usually left frontline fighting to his subordinates, Joseph expected that his own tribe would only have to deal with the Great General stationed to the north. Unfortunately he still expected they would have to face an army numbering somewhere around a thousand soldiers, but then again that was a lot more manageable than the full five thousand.

And along with information about their army, Joseph had painstakingly collected facts about their territory. After meeting the old man, Joseph's group had travelled along the river for another week, passing through annexed lands. A few small garrisons were posted at a few villages but Joseph and his men avoided them, staying hidden. One night, Joseph sent two of his stealthiest hunters to steal a map from a stone tower. The two rangers had successfully retrieved it without being caught, so now they also possessed a detailed map of the enemy's territory. Joseph and his rangers had obsessively pored over every detail of the map, committing everything to memory in case the precious paper should be lost. Luck was with them, for the map was currently sitting in Joseph's saddlebags, completely safe. As soon as he returned home, Joseph intended on transcribing a copy of the map and sending the original off to Otto.

Although Joseph would have liked to gather a bit more information, he had felt more and more vulnerable the further he went into the Protectors' territory, so they took what they could and left. Even on its own, the information was more than enough. Joseph was extremely pleased with the results and knew that it would be a great boon to his people. My two months of hard work have paid off. Now we know more than ever before, and we can begin scheming up a counterattack plan.

Just as Joseph had that thought, he sensed something was wrong. There was a dull rumbling feeling in his bones, slight tremors in the ground that hinted at conflict up ahead. Joseph straightened up. The parasaurs noticed it as well, pricking their heads and murmuring amongst themselves. Joseph trusted their instincts more than his own. If they sensed something was amiss, he would follow up accordingly.

"Enemies ahead," Joseph warned the rest of his group. "Be prepared to flee."

They crested a hill and emerged onto a battlefield. Two opposing armies were facing off in the golden hills, shouting and screaming at each other. One side was composed entirely of cavalry, a mounted force of about forty riders. They were armed with shields and lances, mainly riding megaloceros and equus, although a few commanding officers were mounted atop wooly rhinoceros. Northerners? These soldiers must be from my own garrison. They've ridden out from Open Hearth to meet the enemy in the field? Even as Joseph watched, the mounted riders were forming up into a sharp wedge, preparing to charge their opposition.

The other side was almost entirely on foot, save for a few officers who were mounted on armored parasaurs. Around sixty spearmen were arranged in three rows, marching forward into battle in a neat rectangular block. As soon as their commanders caught sight of the incoming cavalry charge, they shouted some desperate commands and the block of spearmen halted. The front row kneeled down and rammed their spears into the ground, while further ranks stood behind them with their weapons brandished. They formed an imposing phalanx, a wall of sharp spears jutting out between thick wooden shields painted a midnight black.

As the mounted force thundered toward the hastily erected barricade, Joseph's first instinct was to rush to the aid of the northerners. In his panicked state at the sight of his own soldiers preparing to face a larger infantry force, Joseph had been about to order his own warband to charge and take the spearmen from the flank. It would catch them off guard and take some pressure off the headlong suicide charge that his northerners were planning.

But as he scanned the battlefield with sharper eyes, he could tell something was off. Both sides had banners planted in their respective turfs, and Joseph quickly realized the cloths all bore the same symbol; a howling white direwolf against a black field. As he took a closer look, he realized that both sides also had that symbol painted on their shields. They're all using the same heraldry?

"What in the world…?" he muttered aloud.

"A training exercise," Vanessa observed, riding up beside Joseph on her own parasaur. "These are all soldiers from Open Hearth."

Joseph saw that the Head Ranger was correct. At the very last instant before the cavalry slammed into the phalanx all the riders turned their mounts away, safely avoiding a collision with the rooted infantry. Nobody was in danger of getting hurt; it was all just an act to familiarize the riders with attacking in formation, and for the infantry to hold their ground against a charge. Unfortunately, it seemed that a few spearmen had failed the test.

In the moments before the mounted riders turned away, the courage of some soldiers on the left flank had given out. At first, a few spearmen had abandoned their position and fled from the phalanx. Then, after their comrades fled away and created an opening for the cavalry to exploit, the remaining soldiers who had stood their ground also dropped their weapons and ran away. As a result, the desertion of a handful of spearmen caused the entire left flank to collapse before the cavalry had even reached them. Joseph saw the training officers angrily shout at the spearmen who ran away. After a bout of verbal slander, the deserters were all sent to do push-ups in the mud. The rest of the men and women who had successfully passed the training exercise took up their respective positions for another round.

"Well that's new," Joseph noted. The rest of his group were equally baffled. But after enough gaping, Joseph waved them onward. They were just a few minutes away from finally being home.

As they passed the training ground, a few soldiers saluted the returning warband. Others stared at them with curiosity and wonder, as if seeing them for the first time. While they were passing the assembled army, Joseph realized just how many new faces were among the crowd. He only recognized one person out of every ten. In the two months I was gone, the rescue patrols must have been extremely successful. There are many new faces among the survivors today.

Joseph rode toward the front gate of Open Hearth, realizing just how drastically everything had changed. When he first left to investigate the Protectors of Man, Open Hearth had been in its infancy. Now the stronghold was a bustling center of activity, not to mention an extremely fortified castle that would be a huge challenge to attack. Before, the hills that wrapped around the hidden valley had been protected by trees, wild shrubs, and a few man made wooden spike barriers. Now all the vegetation had been cleared away. The trees had been cut down and used to erect large watchtowers, fortified with stone bricks and mortar at their bases. Sturdy stone walls connected the towers to each other, fully enclosing the rim of the hill in a protective screen. Furthermore, the wooden spike barrier had doubled in thickness and gotten relocated to the bottom of the hill, now with a trench around the outside.

Joseph saw twice the amount of guards patrolling the top of the hill, and a few were even riding lithe reptilian mounts. Not parasaurs or iguanodons, Joseph realized from the way the creatures swiftly skirted around in a pack. Raptors. The feathered predators gave a screech when they caught scent of his returning party and dashed over to them, raising up a huge alarm to warn the guards. In response, Joseph's parasaur reared back and bellowed at the beasts in a vain attempt to scare them away. The raptor riders managed to reign the carnivores back, apologizing to Joseph for the near catastrophe.

"Sorry about that Lord Joseph. They're still being trained." The leader said.

"All well and good. I'm just surprised you managed to tame the things at all. Carry on."

The guards opened the front gate for Joseph and his party to pass through. Inside, things were just as different as the outside. The small buildings that Joseph remembered were larger and busier, many of them now two or three stories tall. There were plenty of people going on about their duties; harvesting crops, tending to the animals, fletching arrows, cleaning weapons, cooking food, and whatnot. When Joseph's exhausted rangers finally set foot inside Open Hearth, they visibly seemed to come back to life as if a weight had been lifted off their shoulders. We're finally home, even if it wasn't the same as we left it months ago. Joseph gave leave for his rangers to get some well-deserved rest. The veteran rangers peeled off toward the direction of the lodgings, which had evidently tripled or quadrupled in size. Others led their tired mounts back to the stables, which had also swelled to accommodate a larger array of creatures. From that direction, Joseph even recognized the angry roars of a captive carnotaurus, which must have been in the long and arduous process of domestication.

"The lookouts said you were back, but I didn't believe it until now." A voice called out to him. It was Gerald, the Captain of the Guards and castellan of Open Hearth who Joseph had left in charge while he was absent. "Welcome home, Lord Joseph."

"Thank you Gerald," Joseph sighed wearily as he climbed off his mount. "You've made tremendous progress these last few months, I see."

"It's been a whirlwind of events." Gerald frowned. "And not one that I'd like to go through again. Many troubling events occured while you were gone. Come, I'll give you a debriefing in the meeting hall."

Joseph handed off his parasaur to Vanessa and followed Gerald into a formidable stone building. Once they had settled into comfortable seats, Joseph learned of the events of the past two months. Everything from the more minute details like the completion of a building or the taming of a creature, to the major events like the formation of the Northern Coalition. Joseph was especially perturbed to learn about the attack that had happened on the coast, just two weeks prior. His mind instantly jumped to the horrible conclusion that it was retaliation for his group trespassing, if anyone saw them. Could the massacre of that patrol group have been directly linked to my own activities? Fort Pine and Fort Northguard are closer to the Wolf's Den than Open Hearth but still. . . It's not hard to imagine that it could have been a warning for me. Then again, why attack some innocent patrol rather than my group directly?

Joseph tried to push those uneasy thoughts away and focus on Gerald's report. In response to the provocation, Otto's new Northern Coalition was rapidly militarizing to deal with potential future agressions. The huge training exercise Joseph had witnessed outside had been to prepare his people for human conflict. Along with adopting a nation-wide set of standard military equipment and the new training program for rangers, hunters, and guards, many of the non-combative survivors were also receiving self-defense lessons. The numbers of their garrison had also greatly swelled, along with Open Hearth's general population itself. From eighty-seven survivors, there were three-hundred-seventy, with at least a hundred serving in the military. Further, Gerald had done well trapping and taming new creatures. Along with forty northern mounts, they now had a small army of southern creatures too; twelve parasaurs, five iguanodon, three triceratops, one stegosaurus, two dilophosaurus, four raptors, a baryonyx, and of course the carnotaurus Joseph had heard outside.

When Gerald was finally done debriefing Joseph, he then took his turn giving the Captain of the Guards a summary of his own findings. After listening intently to Joseph's discoveries about the Protectors of Man, Gerald advised him to ride to the Hotspring Hold as soon as humanly possible to bring the news to Otto. Last week, when Gerald had received news from Alysanne about the potential war looming in the near future, he had gotten the impression that Otto was at a loss for what to do. All the invaluable information Joseph had gathered would greatly aid his friend in making a wise decision for the future of the Northern Coalition. Joseph wholeheartedly agreed with Gerald, already making the arrangements in his head. I'll get the stewards to copy down this map overnight. Then, tomorrow morning, I'll set off to the Hotspring Hold with news of my discoveries.


Author's Note:

DinoNerd89, Indeed every personality trait has its strength!

Ricardo753, Sweet expect the speech to be adapted soon. I also like the idea of the Yutyrannus but I've already given Otto all the times I had originally planned. However, a different character equally suited to the Yutyrannus will be using it eventually.

Nateman364, Glad you enjoyed the character development! And I agree that Larbert would be a huge asset to the tribe. I'm planning on using his character slightly differently than you envisioned but yes, he will definitely make for a great farmer.

SF UberMan, Your prediction is very close! Just wait to see how it plays out though. Glad to hear the taming mission was a success, I've personally never used them but it should be fun to play around with. As for the animated ARK clip it would be fun to see what you come up with if you ever pursue that project.

Bladerunner24k, I mean he always has Patches :) But glad you enjoyed the developments!

Thunder, You'll have to wait and see. They have a plan for dealing with argies, rest assured.

Thanks for taking the time to check out my work, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Feel free to comment, ask questions, or criticize my story, review is always welcome! If you liked what you saw, make sure to check out the other ARK stories on this site! Have a great day!

- DaRumpyBurr