Disclaimer:
I don't own it. I make no profit off of it. I mean to offend no one's sensibilities. Please God don't sue.
Thank You: MOM: I love you
Tony-o: for courage & the right things to do
Miss Sharp: you put up with me for no reason I know
Stelmarta: more than words can say!
Sergeant-Major BreckenridgeSar-major Breck, as he was called, was in charge of prisoners. It was his job to 'contain' the unfortunate souls who were not destroyed in the Karsite retreat. It was not an enviable position. The men, once he got to them, were scared so badly of the Heralds and the army officers that his job was virtually done for him. He mentally applauded Hoshi's daring gambit. She scared them out of their minds. No one would fight if they were scared stiff. He was getting more and more people under his tender care. Some of them were in really bad shape and had to be treated in the 'house of healing' that traveled with the army. He was heading there now to pick up the latest batch of detainee's.
"Heyla Cedric, got any fresh meat for me?"
"Sar-major, how nice to see you. Please come in and have some tea and scones while we have a nice little chat."
"Are you getting fresh with me, boy?"
"No, sir, sar-major sir! No freshness at all." He grinned.
"Damn Healers"
"Don't be so quick to judge. We may well be patching you up tomorrow. Wouldn't want my hand to slip and give you argonol instead of angel fire."
"Don't get snippy with me greenshirt. You're to get me my guests for Camp Breck."
"Just be good to this batch, I don't want to patch up the lot of them again."
"Ayah, will do"
His experience eye for evaluating human cargo flew over the sequestered 'wing' of the 'hospital'. Some of the ex-Karsite soon-to-be prisoners were not in any kind of shape to go anywhere. The others were healed enough to head down to Camp Breck and begin their service to Valdemar. He picked out the sturdiest of the lot and began to tie them together into a gang. They were to work for their lunch. If they weren't well enough to get some real physical labor then they pushed paper or ran messages. It kept the wheels of progress rolling.
"Thankee much Cedric. I'll be taking this lot of them."
"Be my guest."
The Sar-major picked the healthiest and the most able. They were mostly tall, fair men with the deep sunk eyes on them that marked those just freshly speed-healed. They were dressed in the uniform of the Karsite army, soon-to-be exchanged for the blue of the Valdemaran Guard. One was a little less shocked than the rest; by his uniform he was an officer and seemed to take watch for the other men. Breck decided to put him in charge of the gang for the time being. There was nothing like a little good hard work to speed the indoctrination process. Whistling, Breck marched them off to the barracks.
SophiaThe Kings Own was getting quite an empathic workout. She had dozens of traumatized Heralds, soldiers, and civilians to sort out. Not to mention the duties inherent to the Kings Own involving the rest of the nation. The Holderkin were also petitioning for admittance into Valdemar on the grounds of mistreatment by Karse. If that wasn't enough she still had Hoshi to deal with and the complications of making her a full Herald and the Herald to the Lord Marshal. Not all of this was her responsibility, but she was still preoccupied enough about it that it made life interesting.
"Hey Hoshi"
"Hello Lady Sophia"
"You know you don't really need to call me 'lady'."
"You King's sister. That makes you a 'lady' "
She sighed; one more thing Sophia needed to fix was Hoshi's insistence on formal titles. There was a time and place for formal protocol and a battlefield was not it.
"Yes, well. How goes the advance?"
"We've taken forty furlongs of Karsite territory. We now concentrate on solidifying the position before we advance further."
"How far do you plan on advancing?"
"As far as we can go."
"You're kidding, right?"
"I see we can make the City of the Sun by March. There is no resistance left within Karse. We destroy most of army. Can march until we capture the King, take country, and make part of Valdemar."
"Do we really want to do that?"
"Why not? End problem with Karse right now."
"They don't want to be part of Valdemar."
"So?"
"So we can't just force them to obey our laws and become part of the country."
"Why not? Army makes job easy."
"That's not our way. We take only those that want to come."
Hoshi gave Sophia a very level look. There was something very evaluating in her gaze. The glasses made her look like a spinster schoolteacher with a miscreant student. She was still in armor, black, as was her habit. She had a white cloak; about four sizes to big, thrown over her shoulders to mark her newly won rank. She walked, but Donni was close behind, stunning in silver and blue and with a cheerfully soot streaked rider that was Suki.
"Very good Lady Sophia. We take only what we given."
"There is no one true way Hoshi, remember that." She was inwardly surprised at the lack of resistance to the argument. Surprised enough to sent out a little trickle of 'feeling' towards Hoshi.
There was something BIG on her mind. Something she was devoting a lot of attention to. Something, Sophia realized, that had to do with her gift and the situation with Cedric. Sophia hastily withdrew the contact Hoshi stopped her walking. She turned to face Sophia.
"Sorry, there was something on your mind. I thought I could help."
"There is always something on my mind."
"Something important."
"I think about Cedric."
Suki broke in, wide-eyed and slightly hysterical. "What about him? Is he going to… No he can't. You didn't see…"
"No," she said quickly, reassuring "Not that."
Sophia saw Hoshi's troubled look, "You can trust me. I'm the Kings Own, it's my job to listen if you've got a problem in your relationship."
Hoshi sighed deeply and frowned.
"Not your problem"
"If you need anything…"
"You here"
"Not just me. The whole bunch of us is ready and willing to help if you've got a problem. Heralds stick together. I know its rough understanding it at first. We're your family in every sense of the word."
"We hold our own."
"You don't have to."
"We will," said Hoshi firmly.
Sophia sighed; this little concept was getting nowhere. "Just remember that"
They looked at each other and nodded.
"We will"
Line Gang #146Albright Sol Arum, once the Lord Captain Commander of the army of the Son of the Sun, was now the line leader of prisoner gang #146. His fall from grace had been surprisingly quick. He accepted his lot almost with gratitude. In Karse a Valdemaran, if captured, would be gone to the sacrificial fires within days. He had not only been spared a gruesome torture and execution, but healed of his injuries and allowed work, food, and the companionship of his fellow soldiers. It was perplexing. To him at least.
"Boys to the road"
Grunts, moans, and the general nitpicking of men assigned any kind of hard labour accompanied his shout. The only minor restraint was the rope, plain hempen cord, which bound each of them to the other at the waist. The guard assigned to watching his gang was an injured soldier, his left arm bound in a sling. Albright marveled at the confidence the Valdemarans had in allowing the 'prisoners' so much freedoms and relative luxuries, while at the same time the confidence in the prisoner's good intentions to assign a wounded man to guard a healthy, strong group of men with only a rope to hamper their rebellion.
It was perplexing. It also said something about the people he was now among.
Albright rubbed the stubble of his scalp in a thoughtful manner. They'd shaved it to prevent the spread of lice and other nasty things, but other than that there was no real difference between the wardrobe of a prisoner of Valdemar and that of a soldier of Valdemar. He was slightly sorry to have his full mane of blonde hair gone, it was his only real vanity, but he accepted the exchange of his freedoms.
They ate with the troops, they worked beside troops, and they slept in the same barracks. It was unreal. He realized that if he began seeing his captors as real people and not captors, that they would not hold the same fear that a demonic jailor would. He was already unwilling to reveal his true identity to the soldiers, for fear once it was done they'd stop treating him as a fellow, and more as an abstraction of the army they'd defeated. His duty to Karse was rebellion, but he'd quashed talk of that among his men in the gang. He didn't want them to injure the guards as much as he didn't want his own men hurt in the exchange.
Their job was to clear out the roads that had been fouled during the retreat. They loaded scrap lumber and brick into wagons destined for the Fort. Other gangs helped re-build houses and places of worship destroyed in the flame. They worked side-by-side with the Army engineers and soldiers. The people brought them water and food during rest breaks. Certainly there was animosity towards Karse for what had been done, but the prisoners weren't mistreated by anyone. They began, in fact, to feel guilty for the horrors inflicted and desperate for amends. It was, to quote a famous Valdemaran General, "the perfect system".