In Solis 460, Earthsdei, the 28th of Marxa:
Dear Diary,
It's raining, and I'm miserable, though not because of the rain. I feel that war is looming again. We picked up a prisoner from the Highland Unicorn Brigade, who says that his unit was attacked by the State Army. Well, that can't be right, because there are no State units anywhere in the vicinity. Still, if the unit was destroyed, Highland could use that as an excuse to break the cease-fire agreement. I've got men listening to rumor mill, so we'll see.
Viktor, of course, didn't want to go out in the rain this morning. Sometimes he's just like a big baby. But we need to get the training up. Also, I've got to remember to send the recruiters around. I wonder if Viktor would like that job?
Riou, he's our prisoner, bothers me, though. He hardly ever speaks, so I think Viktor underestimates him, but I think he's cunning, and he's definitely got an indomitable spirit. He reminds me a little of Tir McDohl, a person that I have not thought about in a while.
Meanwhile, young Tuta, doctor Huan's pupil, is staying with us for a few days, to look over our sick cases. And I have a letter to send to Muse, so I guess I'd better write it.
Flik shook his head, and set his diary aside. A steady rain was beating on his window, falling out of a gray sky. The fort was quiet, or at least as quiet as a place with several hundred men in it can be. In the distance, he could hear Viktor drilling the men, his loud voice calling out errors in the line. Turning from that, Flik looked around for some paper. There was none in his room. He walked out into the hall and down to the planning room.
Inside, Edrick, the mercenary fort's accountant, was crunching numbers. He looked up as Flik walked in.
"You got any extra paper?" Flik asked.
He shook his head. "Talk to Barbara. She'll know where any extra might be."
Flik nodded his thanks and then said, "How's the numbers?"
"Not too good," Edrick answered, chewing on his pencil. "Peace just doesn't pay well, begging your pardon."
Flik shrugged. "Well, I'll see about getting us some more money. Excuse me." He ducked back out under the door and walked towards the stairs. Sen was standing there, playing desultorily with a yo-yo. Flik rolled his eyes and went down stairs. Crossing the main room, he almost stumbled into Tuta, coming out of the sick ward.
Tuta was a ten-year-old boy, but already a skilled physician. He was a short little sprout, with orderly black hair that was pulled back under a little orange cap. He was wearing a yellow shirt, white apron, and brown gown. He carried a black bag of doctor's implements. Though usually he was a bubbly young boy, around his patients, he had an unnerving calmness. It was this calmness that he presented now.
"How are my men?" Flik asked.
"You've got a couple of cases of Senan flu, probably from something that you bought originating in Toran. That's nothing to worry about, as long as they get rest and their clothes and bedding are properly cleaned. That broken arm, though," now he sighed; the physician's eternal lament against unnecessary injuries. "Your men botched the job and set it completely wrong. If we don't transport him to Muse to have it re-broken and then re-set, it will heal poorly and he'll only recover limited use of it. The sooner you do this, the better."
"Fine, I'll see to it." Flik knew better than to doubt young Tuta's recommendations. After all, his master was the famous Doctor Huan, acclaimed throughout Dunan and Toran as the greatest disciple of the legendary Luikan. "Will you be staying here any longer?" Flik asked, pleasantly.
With a shy smile, Tuta turned back into a little boy. "If you'll allow me to. Muse is always so stuffy and crowded. Besides, here I can watch the soldiers train."
"Of course you can stay," Flik answered with a smile. "But don't make too much trouble for Viktor and the others."
"Don't worry," Tuta beamed back, and dashed outside to watch. Flik chuckled, and continued across to the stairs leading into the basement area.
Basement area was a bit of a misnomer, for it was actually the largest part of the fort. In one room was the fort's smithery, where the smith and his few apprentices worked around the clock churning out horseshoes, fixing armor and weapons, and creating all of the other little metal things that a thriving mercenary fort might need. Also down here was the living space for the senior sergeants, apart from the other barracks buildings. None of their rooms were terribly large, but they did provide a degree of privacy.
This was also the area where they kept the lock up, now Riou's semi-permanent home. Thinking about that, Flik realized that he hadn't given the boy anything to do. That would have to change, but he pushed the thought aside for the moment. In spite of everything else down here, it was also a basement, and a basement was where all of that extra junk that people accrued was stored.
And Barbara, scowling as Flik mentioned his need for paper, was master of that domain.
"Paper?" She muttered. "Did not that money man-"
"Accountant." Flik corrected, softly.
"Money man." Barbara continued, loudly. "He needed paper just yesterday." She thrust a finger right at Flik's nose. "You people are always using things up, throwing them away, never thinking about where or when we might get more." She jabbed that finger closer with each point. "You always need paper: toilet paper for wiping your bums, tissue paper for wiping your noses, and writing paper for wiping your brains. Do you think all that paper just grows on trees?"
"Actually, I've heard that trees are the major component of paper," Flik tried, gamely.
This seemed to stick, or perhaps she'd just grown tired of the argument. "We've got some paper in one of those boxes in the back room, over by your jail."
"Thank you," Flik responded, but Barbara had already turned away to organizing some sheets. Taking a lamp, Flik walked over towards the back room. As he passed, he glanced in towards Riou's room. Through the bars on the door window, he could see Riou standing motionless, staring out the outside window, watching the rain fall.
"Got to find something for him to do," Flik muttered softly.
Somehow, Riou heard Flik talking, and wheeled about to stare intently at him. Everything else seemed to drop away as Flik met that gaze, trying to quell a sudden, entirely irrational fear that seemed to bubble up within him. He felt very glad that there was this solid wooden door between the two of them, and yet immediately worried that it wasn't enough, that Riou would, at any moment, choose to batter down the door with his own two fists.
Flik broke the contact, telling himself that Riou was just a kid, like any other kid, not some monster in waiting. Still he was unsurprised to find that his hand had strayed to his sword hilt. He felt an incredible urge to break down in hysterical laughing right on the spot, but suppressed it and instead walked into the back room.
Even with the lamp on, the first thing Flik did upon entering the room was to stumble over clutter on the floor. The room was an awful mess, with boxes piled everywhere, armor tossed about at random, and, at Flik's feet, the same length of still sodden rope that had been used to pull him from the Dorthai River just two days ago. Eventually, Flik did manage to wade through all of the stuff until he could get to some of the boxes. Unfortunately, those boxes were so precariously balanced that they toppled over onto him as he tried to check their contents, and he was buried under a landslide of leather.
He picked himself up and, brushing pieces of leather off him, checked one of the overturned boxes which did, in fact, contain paper. Flik took this moment to wonder why Barbara was so concerned. There was enough paper in that box for each soldier to write a full length novel and then some. Nevertheless, something had to be done about this room.
Walking outside, he grabbed the first senior sergeant he came across, a younger man with auburn hair, and said, "Pohl, I need you to find somebody to clean up that storage room, understand?"
"Sir, yes sir." Pohl answered crisply. Without another thought to that matter, Flik went back upstairs to write his letter.
The days passed quickly and month of Marxa inevitably gave way to Avrai. New recruits and old hands slowly filtered back into the fort, as rumors of war grew. Flik had his scouts in both Toto and Ryube, listening to every bit of information, but there was nothing concrete as of yet. However, on the third of Avrai, Pohl walked into the planning room with an interesting suggestion.
"Sir, I'd like to outfit Riou for a trip to Ryube, to buy some things that we need." Pohl suggested, in his very cheerful and rather unsergeantish manner.
"You what?" Flik goggled, which unfortunately was a mistake, for it gave Viktor an opportunity to speak.
"Yeah, go right ahead," Viktor affirmed, without so much as a look Flik's way.
"Wait, wait a minute," Flik interjected. "You want to send our prisoner out into the countryside alone?"
"No, no, not alone. Leona's convinced Gengen to escort him, and Tuta will go with him, too."
"One undertrained kobold and a physician's apprentice do not sound like very good minders to me." Flik responded, sourly.
"Don't worry so much," Viktor chuckled. "Where's he going to go to escape us? It's not like he can get through the guards at North Sparrow Pass, and he couldn't get anywhere else before we ran him to ground. Besides, you said it yourself; he doesn't look like the type to try and run away."
Flik ground his teeth, but finally conceded with, "Fine, but I'm sending a detachment out after him if he's not back by sundown."
"Thank you, sir," Pohl answered, betraying his newfound liking for Riou.
"By the way," Flik said, before Pohl could leave the room. "What sort of weapon are you giving to him?"
"He seems to have an affinity towards tonfar." Pohl answered. "Luckily, we had a set in one of the storage rooms.
"Tonfar," Flik mused. "Now those are strange weapons…and why would we have a pair here at the fort?"
"Dumb luck?" Pohl suggested. Viktor shrugged. Somehow, neither of those answers was any comfort to Flik.
To Flik's relief, Riou's mission to Ryube Village went off without a hitch, and he returned to the fort long before the sundown deadline. Viktor, on the other hand, was not terribly satisfied with the results.
"Where's my flint?" Viktor growled at a very shamefaced Pohl, as he reported the results to the two of them in the planning room.
"Sir, you…uh, I've only got two flint requests, and they were from Barbara and Rossgard. You didn't write down any request for yourself."
"For crying out loud," Viktor cried out loud. "I told you I wanted some flint right after lunch. Did you stuff your ears full of mashed potatoes or something?"
"That's enough, Viktor." Flik intervened, putting his hand on Viktor's shoulder. "It's an honest mistake." Pohl looked terribly relieved to hear that, and slipped out the door before Viktor could say anything more.
Viktor, though, rumbled like a volcano threatening to erupt. "You wouldn't be so calm if these sort of things happened to you, Flik. First my rope and now my flint."
"Your rope?" Flik queried.
"Yes my rope! I can't find it. I placed it down in the storage room the other day, and when I went to get it back, it was gone."
"Um…can't you just get another?" Flik suggested.
"That was my favorite rope," Viktor groaned. "I could never use another."
"I think you're taking this way too seriously, Viktor." Flik replied, hoping to end the matter.
Sadly, Viktor was still in a foul mood when he led the men out for battle practice the following morning. Flik could hear him tearing into the men for minor infractions. Later, during the actual combat phase, it sounded as though Viktor was setting off explosives on the field, though that was certainly an impossibility. Flik sighed, and wondered how much damage Viktor was doing with his overtraining.
Yet, when Viktor emerged into Flik's room, later that day, his mood had changed completely. He was also covered in liquid.
"Is that…oil?" Flik asked, getting a scent of it.
"Yeah," Viktor laughed. "I set up some barrels for practice, but I didn't know that one of them still had some oil in it." He shrugged, causing more oil to spill off of him and pool on the floor.
"Viktor," Flik chided. "You're getting oil all over the place."
Viktor glanced about, as if noticing for the first time. "You seem to be right," he replied. "Don't worry, I'll get someone to clean this mess up." He stepped out into the hall. Flik went back to his writing, but it wasn't long before he heard Viktor's voice command, "Pohl, find somebody to clean this oil up."
"Sir, yes sir." Was Pohl's reply.
Flik smiled; this was the sort of order that would probably makes its way down to the very bottom of the totem pole. It would be informative to see who exactly was at the very bottom.
That answer arrived in mid-afternoon, as Flik was searching through the filing cabinets in the planning room. Riou, a rag in hand, did not even bother to knock on the door before quietly walking into the room and going over to the oil on the floor to wipe it up. Flik could not help watching him at the work. Riou moved with stoic efficiency, carefully wiping up every spot, rather than doing a lackadaisical job that one might have expected out of a prisoner.
Flik decided to speak. "You're doing a good job, Riou." Riou looked up, the expression on his face suggesting that he could do no other kind of job. Flik soldiered on with the one sided conversation. "I've sent a letter to Muse. Hopefully, they will work out some sort of prisoner exchange, and you'll be able to go home soon." Riou only nodded in that unperturbed way of his, which was both annoying and unnerving at the same time. Then, seeing that he had finished with this room, he quietly stood up and walked out.
After Riou's departure, Flik sat down at his desk to go over equipment readiness reports. It was mind numbing work and, for the millionth time, he wondered why he hadn't simply assigned a sergeant to be his personal aide. Thus, when a sudden cry of "Intruder!" rang through the hallway, he immediately jumped into action, grateful at the break in the monotony.
Outside of the planning room, Flik paused, trying to get his bearings on the situation. He could hear people blundering about outside of the building, but the interior was oddly quiet. The best thing that he could do was to secure the main doors to the building. This decided, he started for the stairs. It turned out to be the best timing he'd ever had, for just as he was descending the stairs from the second level, Riou was ascending the stairs out of the basement.
Normally, this wouldn't have been cause for alarm, for in recent days Riou had been given an increasing amount of freedom. However, he wasn't usually allowed to wander around with his tonfar in hand. Of course, he also wasn't usually in the company of another youth, this one with blond hair bordering on silver and wearing a sleeveless blue shirt and white pants. This new arrival was armed with a long, blue staff, with little silver dragon heads at either end. Flik suddenly recognized him as the other boy from the river.
They stared at each other for just a moment, then the newcomer said, in a desperate tone of voice, "Come on Riou, we have to break through." Swinging his staff, he leapt forward to try and knock Flik aside. Casually, Flik unsheathed his sword and blocked the staff aside. Following through on the motion, Flik stepped towards his opponent and delivered a blow with his shoulder, knocking the boy to the ground. Bringing his blade back around, Flik intended to place it firmly on the boy's neck, but at that moment Riou jumped forward, parrying the blow with his tonfar.
Flik suddenly felt a giddy anticipation rush through his body; the long anticipated conflict was about to be joined. Flik shifted his position slightly, bearing down on Riou's guard. However, as he did so Viktor, at the head of about ten men, burst through the main doors to help. Obviously, this was not the moment to settle this.
"That's enough. It's time to give up, Riou," Flik said, gently, suddenly stepping back. Riou nearly pitched forward, but caught himself at the last moment, standing over his friend. For a moment Riou paused to consider, seemed to be weighing the chances of his success in a fight.
Then, so suddenly and softly that Flik almost did not catch it, he said, "I understand," and placed the tonfar on the floor.
With a gesture, Flik sent four soldiers forward to tie their arms. They did this quickly and efficiently, but also without malice, for the men had come to like Riou in the past few days. The prisoners were then escorted up to the planning room, and Flik took a seat at the map table, while Viktor remained standing, next to him. The two boys exchanged glances, but said nothing.
"What have we here?" Viktor asked, halfway between menace and laughing out loud.
"The other boy from the river." Flik answered. He then stood up and addressed said boy. "And what is your name?"
The boy looked briefly at Riou, who only nodded slightly, then he answered, "I'm Jowy, of the Highland Unicorn Brigade."
"Riou said something about a State attack on your unit." Viktor commented. "Why don't you tell us about that?"
Again Riou and Jowy exchanged looks. Then Jowy continued, "It was set up to look that way, but really, Prince Luca and his men attacked the Unicorn Brigade and slaughtered our friends. He said he needed an atrocity to get the war started again."
"How do you know all this?" Flik interrupted.
"When the attack started, Riou and I followed our captain's orders and tried to escape to the east. But I felt that there was something wrong with the route, so we went back to try and talk to the captain. That's when we saw Luca, talking with our captain. That's how I know."
"And you escaped by jumping into the river?" Flik concluded.
"It was our only choice," Jowy pleaded. "They were going to kill us."
"Well." Viktor clapped his hands together. "That's a fine story. But, you're still our prisoners and our prisoners you'll stay."
"That's correct." Flik replied. "If what you say is true, then we'll need you to provide your story to the proper authorities. I'm sorry to say that we just can't let you go free. Also, Riou, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to revoke your privileges for a while, seeing as you just abused them by trying to escape." Flik motioned the men at the door forward. "Take them back to the lock up, then untie them and give them some food."
After the prisoners were taken away, Flik sank back down into his chair. Viktor grabbed the chair over by the accountant's table and dragged it over, plopping down into it backwards.
"I thought Prince Luca Blight was still up in Harmonia, getting some 'seasoning'." Viktor commented, after a while.
"Obviously, either he or the Harmonians finally got tired of pretending to be sociable to one another, and now he's come home."
"So, what's he like as a commander, Flik? Is this going to change the war any?" Viktor gestured at the map.
"Don't know." Flik replied. "He got a reputation as aggressive beyond all reason, and that's certainly different from the recent Highland generals."
"Yeah," Viktor laughed, "I was getting used to skirmishing for a few days and then sitting on my butt for the rest of the month."
"Well, I can assure you that he won't be like that," Flik said, morosely. "He'll want to test Muse's defenses somewhere, and soon."
"That's not good," Viktor answered. "Our generals are about as lethargic as Highland's."
"We'll see," Flik tried to sound optimistic. "He may turn out to be a terrible commander. Or he may not even get a command." Viktor frowned; even Flik couldn't muster up the faith to believe in those words. The light through the window was the brilliant red of a setting sun.