Back to Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Five � The Destroyer's Servant
The
final months of the winter of 1756-57 turned out to be good ones for the
Defenders� encampment. It was a time of peace and rest that passed more
quickly than Danka had expected. Commander S�upeckt's militia was
totally cut off from the outside world for several months, but there was
plenty of food.
Danka�s life among the nymphs became considerably more pleasant under
Dalibora, the new squad leader, than it had been under her predecessor.
Oana was brave, tenacious, and competent in battle, but she was too
focused on harsh discipline and had a hard time maintaining morale among
her women when they were not campaigning. Dalibora was much more
gregarious and everyone liked her. She had a quiet charisma that Oana
totally lacked, keeping the squad under control though her personality
instead of constant threats of the whip. She had a way of talking to her
subordinates that made them want to please her. She skillfully and
patiently manipulated the other women�s emotions, to the point she
exercised absolute control over the squad within a few weeks.
Danka wondered how competent Dalibora would be in battle. Oana�s
personal strength manifested itself in a chaotic fight, while Dalibora�s
character seemed more suited for keeping bored women under control
during peacetime. One detail that troubled Danka was Dalibora�s lack of
curiosity about trying new weapons and fighting tactics. It occurred to
Danka that perhaps the squad should have two leaders: Oana to lead the
women in the field, and Dalibora to lead the women in the encampment. Of
course, such an arrangement would not be accepted by anyone: either Oana
would have to lead or Dalibora would have to lead.
----------
Danka spent some of her limited free time reviewing her journal and the
miscellaneous notes she had collected during her travels. She called
upon Isauria to help her transcribe her work; not because she really
needed the girl�s help, but to force her to practice writing and
penmanship. Isauria was not the best student: she much preferred to be
running around with the male apprentices. However, Danka emphasized that
her former servant needed to learn how to write to improve her chances
of having a decent life in the Duchy. She also had a premonition that
Isauria would be more important either to her future, or to the future
of the Duchy, than anyone could have imagined at the time. Perhaps, when
whatever disaster the Destroyer had hinted at took place, it would be
Isauria's Path in Life to survive it, just as it would be Danka's path
in life to survive. If the girl was indeed to be a witness, she'd have
to know how to write well, whether she wanted to or not.
As Danka noted to the bored adolescent:
"You have no life to go back to in the Kingdom. You've seen, as much as
I have, how the Destroyer has completely wrecked your homeland and
killed your people. So, it doesn't exist anymore. Like it or not, you're
now Danubian. You are a girl of the Duchy. You will marry a Danubian
husband and raise Danubian children. That is your Path in Life."
And... it was true. When Danka saw Isauria running around with the other
apprentices, it was obvious there would be no going back "home" for her.
----------
During the snowbound months, there was plenty of work for the militia's
doctors. While it was true there were no war-related wounds, there were
injuries from accidents, falls, burns from carelessly handling fire,
training mishaps, and frostbite cases. Ilm�tarkt was an expert at
setting broken bones, while his assistants were competent at sewing shut
open cuts and gashes. Danka's knowledge of alchemy was a valuable
addition to the medical staff's capabilities, contributing the
Followers' knowledge about disinfectant and sedating patients before
operations. She asked the cooks to provide her with live animals upon
which to practice and gave hands-on demonstrations about the use of
anesthesia.
She also shared her university medical diaries with her husband.
Ilm�tarkt found the readings very interesting, not only for the
information they contained, but also because they were all dated
1752-1753. Danka claimed to have been at the university for three years,
but the dates on her notes did not support that claim. Ilm�tarkt fully
understood his wife was hiding something about her past.
Danka may have considered her husband strange for his weird blasphemous
ideas, but her mixture of lower and upper-class habits was equally
strange to him. Her vocabulary and table manners were typical of a woman
from the nobility, but her accent was definitely lower-class. She could
kill and butcher any animal with ease and confidence: she was not afraid
to dig her hands into a pig's intestines or pull a chicken's head off.
She knew a lot about farming, hunting, and fishing, but she also knew a
lot about music, geography, religion, and literature. She could sew both
fine embroidery and thick leather. She knew how to prepare a huge
variety of food, from primitive stews to fancy pastries. She knew a lot
about politics and guild protocol. She had visited every major town in
the western half of the Duchy, along with a few places outside the
country's borders.
Ilm�tarkt pondered the bizarre mixture of traits in his wife. He
correctly guessed that she was born into the lowest class of laborers,
but she had widely traveled and somehow spent enough time with the
nobility to pick up many habits unique to the Duchy's finest citizens.
He calculated it would have been between 1753 and 1755 when she
learned the traits of a noble-woman. He was curious to know her secret,
but he was a patient man and could wait for her to inadvertently drop
clues and hints about where she really was and what she really was doing
during the two missing years of her life.
Danka's bucket contained manuscripts that she did not share with her
husband. Those included her writings about the battles of H�rkustk Ris,
Sumy Ris, and Iy�shnyakt-Krep�ckt, as well as notes on the slave trade
and the settlement of Mal�nkta-Gordn�ckta. Ilm�tarkt saw all those extra
notes in the bucket, but decided not to look at them. Danka was smart
and would have been perceptive enough to figure out if he was looking at
her writings. Ilm�tarkt wanted and expected to find out the truth about
his wife, but he wanted the clues to come from talking with her, not
from digging through her papers.
----------
By the middle of April, the snow had disappeared and the forest was
coming back to life. The paths had cleared enough to allow the Defenders
to make their way towards the villages to celebrate the Festival of
Rejuvenation, which at the time was still carried the Christian name of
"Easter". In the 1750s, the True Believers still associated Easter with
the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The Old Believers
had returned the holiday to its more ancient Pagan origins, as a
celebration of the Creator's victory over the Destroyer by returning
warmth to the Realm of the Living.
The spring festival was also important for the Defenders and the
villagers who hosted them. However, the isolated militia members
followed neither the Christian nor the Old Believer traditions when they
celebrated. Instead of the flowers of the Old Believers or the
crucifixes of the True Believers, the militia celebrated with dancing
and midnight bonfires to honor the Destroyer's triumph over the son of
the Roman God.
According to the Defenders' version of events, the Roman God's son was
simply killed and the Resurrection did not happen. Instead, following
the death of the "Son of Man", the Destroyer triumphed over and over,
first by destroying Jerusalem, then by destroying Rome, then by
destroying all of Europe through multiple invasions against Christian
countries. The Roman God had proven himself weak and incapable of
protecting his followers. Only the Destroyer could triumph, only the
Destroyer had true power in the Realm of the Living. The Roman God
existed as a hapless witness, unable to do anything to prevent the wrath
of the Destroyer.
Danka felt sick when she understood how the Defenders celebrated Easter
and what the holiday meant to them. She did not want to believe that the
Destroyer had such power over everything: she always wanted to hold out
hope that somehow the Creator, or the Ancients, or even the Roman God,
could combat the "Profane One" and win. She shared her doubts with her
husband, but his answer was predictable and did nothing to ease her
despair:
"The Realm of the Living is inherently destructive. It has to be,
because otherwise there'd be no room for new life. Everything decays and
rots. As for the violence, that's just because we haven't figured out
how to create enough food, so men don't have to fight over things like
farmland. We don't need fantasies like the Destroyer to explain why
people invade each other's territories when they're starving. The
Defenders are right about the Creator, the Roman God, and the Ancients.
They're helpless to protect us, but it's not because they're weak, it's
because they're imaginary. But so is the Destroyer. It's all fiction.
Imagination."
----------
Several militia units descended the muddy wooded trails from various
winter campgrounds to converge on the largest of the three settlements.
They traveled on foot, but fortunately they had mules to carry their
supplies. The journey was wet, tiring, and lasted several days. Danka
spent the most of her time talking to her husband about the area and
some of the Defenders� previous campaigns. Meanwhile, Isauria walked
alongside Dalibora and learned more about the system of trails the
militia members used to move about the region.
Before entering the settlement, the nymphs stripped off all their
clothing and placed it in a bag guarded by Isauria. Although the weather
was still chilly, they gave up everything, even their shoes. The naked
militiawomen walked into the settlement in single file and gathered with
their village counterparts, who also were completely undressed. To
Danka's dismay, the villagers' hair was unbraided. The oldest woman
among the villagers ordered the nymphs to kneel and close their eyes. A
villager took her place behind each nymph. Danka held her breath. Sure
enough, she felt a stranger's fingers undoing her braids. She cringed at
the horror of knowing all those men, including her husband, would see
her with her hair undone. She was used to being naked in public, but
having her hair loose was an unbelievable humiliation, a sacrifice of
women's honor to appease the all-mighty Destroyer.
The
purpose of the celebration was to acknowledge the Destroyer's power over
the Realm of the Living. There was a large pile of scrap lumber piled in
the village square, surrounded by torches. In the middle of the pile was
a sacrificial victim, a captured foreign priest dressed in a purple
smock that was supposed to mimic a royal robe. The prisoner represented
the son of the Roman God and would be burned to death as an act of
defiance against a divine being who supposedly was all-powerful. The
Defenders' priest was un-seemingly cruel to his captured counterpart,
taunting him and encouraging him to pray to the Roman God, just to prove
his deity was powerless to save him from the true power of the cosmos:
the Destroyer.
The naked, sweaty women danced for hours to the beat of
sinister-sounding drums and flutes, completely exhausting themselves
before midnight. They had to prostrate themselves on the muddy ground
while the fire was lit. As the flames consumed the foreigner and
separated his soul from his body, the Defenders' priest called out to
the Destroyer to share the power of devastation with the militia so they
could have a successful campaign against their enemies. The victim's
screaming seemed to continue for an eternity. Danka later learned the
fire had been set up so he would die slowly and suffer.
When the victim's agonized screaming finally subsided, the militia's
Priest shouted into the air:
"In the end, we all come to you, whether we want to or not!"
----------
The drums continued to beat as the men indulged themselves with ale. The
women were dismissed and immediately went to the settlement's bathhouse
to wash off the mud and re-braid their hair. Just like everything else
in that village, the bathhouse was a wretched, primitive structure. As
she waited for her turn to bathe, Danka thought about the pristine
washroom in the Grand Duke's castle. She had hated her life as a
concubine, but at the moment she wouldn't have minded spending a nice
lazy afternoon sitting in comfortable warm water in the Grand Duke's
marble tub.
When she returned to her husband, Danka couldn't bear to look at him.
She was dishonored: he had actually seen her with her hair unbraided!
Ilm�tarkt was not scandalized, but he did not have any sympathy with his
wife's distress. He told her not to be ridiculous and that he could not
have cared less about her hair. To him, the Danubians' fixation with
braided hair was as idiotic as their belief in the supernatural.
Danka did not reply, but she could not accept his casual dismissal of
the most important part of a Danubian woman's honor. Braids were what
defined a Danubian woman's very identity. How could he not consider
braided hair as vital to proper protocol? What was he, a foreigner?
----------
Springtime is normally a time of celebration, a time to be happy about
the end of food shortages, confinement, and the physical discomfort of
being cold all the time. Danka, however, did not feel any joy as the
weather warmed up and the snow melted. Soon enough, the Defenders would
return to the border and the battles with the Kingdom of the Moon
factions would resume. There would be desperate surgeries on wounded
men, of which she could expect only half to be successful. She'd have to
endure the guilt of triaging patients and making the decision whether to
operate or whether to administer a dose of poison to put a casualty out
of his misery. She'd have to kill with her crossbow, yet again, and in
doing so would add more suffering to her soul in the Afterlife.
----------
Oana returned to the encampment during the first week of May, with a new
squad of nymphs recruited from the Vice-Duchy of Rika Chorna. Whatever
faults Oana had with her personality did not interfere with her ability
to identify dissatisfied women and talk them into abandoning their lives
and responsibilities. The recruits did not really understand what they
were getting themselves into, but the promise of a silver piece for
every month of service and learning how to handle weapons was a tempting
alternative to their drab and oppressive Paths in Life in the
Vice-Duchy. At first glance it seemed the new nymphs were as varied a
group as Danubian women could possibly be. Some of the women were
peasants and some were from the guild class. Their ages ranged from 16
to 37. However, they had one thing in common: they were all fugitives.
Some of the older women were fleeing bad marriages, and some of the
younger ones were fleeing their fathers. Two were thieves who had spent
a humiliating afternoon in the pillory, three were fleeing money
lenders, and one was fleeing from a jealous landowner's wife.
Danka said nothing as she watched her former commander with her new
subordinates. She had to hide her lingering hostility; the resentment
that she felt from the older woman's desire to flog her for no good
reason. However, like everyone else in the militia, she knew that
bringing up old disputes in front of Oana's new squad would only cause
trouble and hurt the morale of the nymphs.
There was no mention from anyone about Oana's previous command, nor how
she lost control of her squad. The new recruits never learned that the
women in Dalibora's unit had been under Oana's orders just a few months
before. What mattered was that Oana had redeemed herself and was ready
to train and lead her new squad. Oana was a more experienced fighter
than Dalibora and had a better instinct for strategy, so the squad
leaders agreed that Oana would be the one to lead movements and attacks.
The disadvantage of the situation was that Oana's squad still needed
training and experience, so Dalibora's veterans would need to be extra
careful about providing cover for the newcomers as they maneuvered in
the forest.
----------
Danka had to accompany her husband to the smallest of the three villages
to assist the birth of the elder's baby. The birth was uneventful, but
Danka noticed several geese running around the village square. She
remembered the Followers' explosive goose-eggs, knowing that her
husband's laboratory had all of the ingredients to make hand-bombs,
assuming he could obtain some gunpowder for her. She told Ilm�tarkt
about the eggs and how Ermin used them so effectively against the True
Believers. He was very interested. If only there was a way to preserve
the eggs' shells while allowing the villagers to keep the contents. He
pondered the problem for a few minutes before searching through his
surgical equipment. Eventually he created a small circular saw that,
when properly twisted, would drill a hole in the shell without cracking
it. He approached the village elder and explained what he needed: as
many empty goose-egg shells as the village could provide. He would leave
behind the extractor and pay the villagers a copper coin for every five
intact shells they could deliver to the encampment.
The dim-witted settler looked at the doctor with an incredulous
expression. A coin for empty egg shells? Yes, but they had to be neatly
drilled with no cracks and completely cleaned out. The village elder
took the cutter and said nothing. Danka had no doubt she'd receive her
egg shells, but there also was no doubt the elder had no intention of
sharing Ilm�tarkt's coins with any of his neighbors.
While she waited for the first batch of egg-shells, Danka prepared the
chemicals and refined the gunpowder needed to make the hand-bombs.
Through her husband, she sent out word that she needed volunteers who
know how to use slings. Several male archers showed up, from whom
Ilm�tarkt selected four, based on their ability to accurately aim their
rocks. He explained that the volunteers were about to try out an
experimental weapon, which needed to be launched with slings.
When the first batch of eggshells arrived, Danka had all of the
ingredients needed to assemble four explosive bombs and two flash bombs.
With trembling hands she carefully poured in the first layer of
explosives, laid in a layer of melted beeswax to separate the next
ingredients, and poured in the accelerant. Another layer of wax, and she
put in a detonator that was designed to go off as soon as the seal at
the top of the egg was broken. Each bomb was extremely volatile: even
being turned upside down was enough to set it off.
As much as she hated doing so, she had to sacrifice one of each type of
bomb in a test to make sure it worked. Ilm�tarkt and Danka led the four
volunteers away from the camp. Danka took charge of the sling and loaded
the goose-egg. She took a deep breath, swung the bomb and released it.
She screamed at everyone to get down and cover their ears. The deafening
explosion blew apart the nearby trees and rattled the entire area. The
blast brought dozens of panicky Defenders scrambling towards the crew
with drawn crossbows and loaded muskets.
Commander S�upeckt showed up, as dumbfounded by the explosion as
everyone else. He was present to witness the flash bomb being tested.
Danka was enormously relieved that she had been able to duplicate both
types of the Followers' secret sling-bombs.
Because Danka "belonged" to her husband and thus not allowed to speak
for herself, Ilm�tarkt was responsible for explaining the goose-egg
bombs and how they could be either thrown or used with slings. He gave
as much credit to his spouse as protocol would allow, but ultimately he
would receive the honor of introducing the new bombs to the unit. Had
Danka not been married, she would have been able to claim credit for the
innovation.
Danka planned to prepare additional bombs as empty goose-eggs and more
beeswax arrived at the encampment. She would have liked to prepare some
landmines as well, but mines would have been useless. The mobile nature
of the Defenders' manner of fighting made the positioning of explosive
traps unrealistic as a tactic. The sling-tossed bombs were a different
matter.
----------
The
Defenders moved towards the border at the end of May. The first part of
the trip consisted of walking with pack mules along steep hillsides to
return to the villages. The settlements took care of the Defenders'
horses over the winter, where they had to be left because the mountains
did not have enough forage. The militia exchanged their mules for horses
and continued mounted towards the combat zone. The settlers had cleared
a series of meadows and had set up ponds to water animals, so the
Defenders and their mounts arrived at the border at full strength and in
excellent health.
The situation to the south had deteriorated over the winter. The village
from which the Lord of the Blue Moon's troops had been attacking
Commander S�upeckt's section of the border had been raided by troops
from the Lord of the Red Moon, precisely because the troops assigned to
protect it had launched a raid against Red Moon territory. The scope of
the civil war was expanding into previously peaceful areas. The land was
burnt and desolate, there was no food, and the surviving population was
desperate.
The Danubians decided to further demoralize the foreign towns near the
border by riding through the region in a show of force. They could
gather a total of 1500 Defenders, which was a force larger than any of
the broken Kingdom of the Moon units operating in the eastern section of
the country at the time. Commander S�upeckt and his fellow commanders
discussed the possibility of permanently occupying some of the southern
land, and the ride-through would allow them to see how feasible that
idea would be.
The Danubians gathered and forded the small river marking the border at
the end of the first week of June. 1500 mounted Danubian militia
fighters would not have been a match against the Lord of the Red Moon's
powerful army just three years before, but by 1757 the Kingdom's armies
had been decimated by continuous fighting, movement, and atrocities. At
that moment neither faction had an available unit in the area large
enough to counter the unexpected invasion from the Duchy.
The Danubian column rode unopposed through the war-torn region for
several weeks. They did not attack any civilians as long as the local
populace did nothing to impede their procession. When word spread that
the Danubians were not as cruel as the Lord of the Red Moon's men, the
locals stopped fleeing. Instead, the wretched, starving foreigners
silently stood along the roadways, sullenly staring at the strange
invaders. Danka noticed the women and girls paying particular attention
to the squads of nymphs, sitting on their horses with crossbows in their
hands and satchels of bolts slung over their bare shoulders. It was
bizarre and scandalous for the Kingdom's women to see their Danubian
counterparts with their heads and torsos uncovered, with cold hard
expressions on their faces and, above everything else, holding weapons
they clearly were accustomed to using against male opponents.
Danka remembered her husband's words from the previous year: "...among
the Defenders, your life will have a purpose. And when we go south, and
you�re riding your horse with a squad of armed nymphs, the women of the
Kingdom of the Moon will look at you with respect and awe. Remember, the
Kingdom�s women don�t fight. They don�t do anything other than serve
their men. So when they see the infamous Danubian nymphs� women carrying
weapons� it makes them wonder about their own Paths in Life. And as far
as being part of something much greater than yourself, among us, you
will be. We�re defending the Duchy. You, a mere woman, have taken up
arms and are defending the Duchy. You can�t be part of anything more
important than that."
There was an important exception to the Danubians' rule about not
attacking non-combatants. Any foreign priests, monks, or other church
officials that could be captured were immediately chained and sent
northward to the Duchy. They would be held in a forest prison until the
Defenders returned from their campaign, to be sacrificed in the
Destroyer's bonfires. The Defenders didn't just want the foreign clergy
as sacrificial victims; they also wanted to demonstrate that the
blessing the Roman God and his executed son had supposedly granted the
Kingdom of the Moon was a total lie. The Roman deities couldn't even
protect their own clergy, so how could they protect the Kingdom? The
local populace only lived because the Danubian militia allowed them to
live, not because of any Divine blessing from Rome.
Although the Defenders met very little resistance during their tour
through the southern towns, their leaders decided to return to the Duchy
at the beginning of July. The main problem was lack of food in the
Kingdom. There was not much point in raiding or foraging, because the
previous year's harvest had been destroyed when the Lord of the Red
Moon's troops invaded the region. The Defenders could move into any area
they wanted, but they couldn't stay because there was nothing for them
to eat.
The column of militia fighters was both relieved and disappointed when
their horses waded the shallow river back into the Duchy's territory.
The fight they had expected did not happen. The fighters were alive to
celebrate and feast in the three villages, but they had not fulfilled
their Paths in Life as Defenders. The units drifted off towards their
assigned protection zones, not having accomplished anything apart from
showing off to a bunch of wretched foreigners and exploring some of the
enemy's territory.
----------
The commander ordered Danka and her husband to pick up a supply of empty
goose-egg shells from the villagers, return to the laboratory in the
winter encampment, and make as many bombs as possible. The couple
entered the cave and set up the alchemy equipment. However, before Danka
had the chance to mix the ingredients for a new batch of bombs, her
husband expressed doubts about the project and a possible improvement.
The volatility of the bombs and their extreme fragility troubled him.
They were simply too dangerous to carry long distances. He wondered if
it was truly necessary use goose-egg shells for the casings. Wouldn't
blown glass make better casing material? What about glazed ceramic?
Perhaps that would be even better than glass.
He brought up the alternatives to his wife, but she was skeptical,
commenting: "I don't know, my love. The Followers used goose-eggs for a
long time, and I'd imagine it was for a good reason."
�Well, we need to find out if there really was a good reason. I think
the only reason they didn�t try a better casing was because under their
circumstances it wasn�t necessary. Our needs are different and I�d like
to use a casing that�s more dependable than an eggshell.�
Ilm�tarkt worked on a glazed ceramic design for the explosive bombs that
looked like a goose egg, but was twice as big. The section dividing the
explosive from the accelerant was part of the internal design. There was
a hole between the sections that would be sealed with beeswax, but it
was much smaller than the area that would need to be sealed inside a
goose egg. He also devised a glass casing for the fuse. When she packed
in the explosive, Danka had to agree Ilm�tarkt�s design was a huge
improvement. The test blast from the enhanced bomb was comparable to the
power of explosives that would be used in the late 20th century. Not
only did it destroy trees; it tore a hole in the ground and shattered
the stones on a nearby hillside.
When he saw the destruction from the enhanced bomb, Commander S�upeckt
whistled with satisfaction and anticipation. Assuming he could keep them
secret until the first time they were used, he knew they would guarantee
him a victory. That meant he could be more daring in his efforts to
provoke a raid from the Kingdom of the Moon, and that for the first
battle he would not have to call upon other militia commanders for help.
He pondered the possibility of conducting a full-blown massacre of a
large enemy unit, using nothing but his own troops and the new bombs.
----------
After his counterparts departed with their units, Commander S�upeckt
came up with a plan to goad one or both of the Kingdom's factions to
make another attempt to attack the Defenders in their home territory.
Without consulting the other militia leaders, he ordered three of the
captured foreign priests to be brought to the main village to be burned
alive. A fire was set up in honor of the Destroyer and the three
foreigners were brought to the village square. However, one of the
victims' bonds had been left loose, on purpose. The villagers threw him
against a wall while they tied up the other two priests. Realizing he
had a chance to escape, the young cleric untied himself and fled. A
squad of Commander S�upeckt's most trusted men chased after him, but
their orders were not to capture him. Instead, they were to stay close
enough to make the priest believe he was about to be caught, but all the
while making sure he headed in the right direction so he could safely
cross back into the Kingdom.
The staged escape had a specific purpose; to goad the Kingdom's factions
to attempt a rescue of the remaining captured clergymen. Undoubtedly the
escapee would warn his countrymen what was happening to the priests. The
Roman God would be quite displeased with the Lords if they allowed the
Danubians to sacrifice the Kingdom's priests to the Duchy's Beelzebub.
It was ironic that in the Kingdom torturing and impaling civilians was
perfectly acceptable, but to do anything to a priest was considered an
unacceptable outrage. How horrid that the Danubians would leave
worthless civilians alive, and instead defile sacred clergy members!
As soon as the Kingdom's men entered the mountains, Commander S�upeckt
would try out his new bombs. His plan was to defeat and annihilate a
force much larger than his own with no help from the Defenders' other
militia units. The glory of the victory and all the loot would be
reserved solely for him and his unit. More importantly, he hoped to keep
the sling-bombs a secret and use them in another surprise attack at some
point in the future.
Danka was not really expecting her commander's plan to work. Surely the
Lord of the Blue Moon would not blindly sent troops into the Danubian
mountains, given the humiliating defeat from the previous year.
Certainly he'd take precautions, and if need be, not be overly worried
about the priests. Anyhow, it seemed the Lord of the Blue Moon's forces
were depleted and unable to defend their own territory, let alone launch
a cross-border raid.
All of Danka's doubts about the Blue Moon faction were true. A column of
2000 men did cross into the Duchy on July 17, but their banners were
red, not blue. A commander from the Lord of the Red Moon's Army, hoping
to avenge the battles of 1754, came directly from Sumy Ris and led his
troops into the forest, completely unaware of the defeat endured the
previous year by the Kingdom's rival faction. The Danubians began their
counter-attack predictably enough, with hit-and-run archery raids. The
column sustained a few casualties, but the force attacking it was
ridiculously small. The foreigners continued advancing against the
villages. They had no plans to actually occupy them: they'd simply kill
whoever was there, rescue the priests, burn buildings and supplies, and
withdraw.
The pathetically small size of the force countering the Red Moon column
played into Commander S�upeckt's plans. The Red Moon troops were
overconfident by the time they reached a large meadow that was only a
half-day's march from the villages. The area was completely open: there
was no way the guerilla tactics of the Danubians would be of any use in
such an area. The foreigners watered their horses and allowed them to
graze. The troops set up their encampment well away from the trees and
from the deadly bolts of their enemies. A few musket volleys would
easily dispatch any Danubians foolhardy enough to appear at the wood
line. The final part of the march would be more challenging, but there
was no reason to think the villages would not be under the Kingdom's
control by the middle of the next day.
Commander S�upeckt had only 230 fighters under his control. At the last
moment he decided to ask his most trusted counterpart for back-up, which
increased the force with 110 additional Defenders. The leading commander
positioned his own troops at the exit leading back towards the border,
while the other unit deployed at the exit that led towards the villages.
The Defenders were hopelessly outnumbered, but they knew that Commander
S�upeckt would not have deployed in such a manner had he not devised a
horrible surprise for the enemy.
The commander had sixteen squad members who knew how to use slings: the
four who had trained under the unit's doctor, and twelve more he had
recruited and trained himself. Each sling-bearer carried a wooden box
containing four sling bombs: one flash bomb and three explosive bombs.
The plan was extremely simple. The men would first sneak past the line
of sentries and creep close enough to throw their charges into the
encampment, causing chaos with the flash bombs and then injuries with
the explosives. The other Defenders then would attack the stunned
foreigners. The sentries and outer defense would be attacked first, then
the main unit of Defenders would rush the camp and with traditional
weapons and kill as many as possible.
The blinding light from sixteen simultaneous flash bombs was truly
amazing. The meadow momentarily lit up much brighter than daytime and
anyone not covering their eyes during the flash was blinded by the
extreme light. Within the invaders' camp, wild screaming and
disorganized shooting began immediately, but it was too late. The bomb
throwers did not have to worry about being spotted when they stood up to
discharge the second round of bombs: their targets were totally blinded.
The men calmly flung their explosives in unison and ducked to avoid the
blast. As soon as the noise subsided, they stood up, loaded their slings
a third time, twirled their eggs, and let them fly into the camp. There
were three sets of horrific explosions that wrecked the entire enemy
encampment. Maimed horses and mutilated men scrambled in every
direction.
Both
militia units charged forward as soon as the final blast went off. They
quickly dispatched the stunned sentries before heading into the main
cauldron of maniacal horses and mutilated and dying men. Their attack
was not going to be a battle; it was going to be a massacre. The archers
ran among the injured foreigners and wildly emptied their crossbows at
anyone who was still moving, while the men with muskets bayoneted anyone
lying on the ground. A handful of invaders were still able to put up a
fight, but the biggest danger for Danubian and foreigner alike was the
multitude of blinded injured horses running around, tumbling, and
crashing into everything in sight. A few tents caught on fire, giving
the Defenders enough light to complete their grim task.
Danka moved with Dalibora's squad, firing bolt after bolt into the
agonized men struggling all around her. At the moment she didn't have
time to think about what she was doing: she simply followed orders and
acted as a nymph was expected to act. She only stopped when she became
separated from the others and ran out of bolts. Then her adrenaline ran
out and her fatigued arms went limp. The crossbow fell out of her hands
and she collapsed onto a pile of bloody corpses. A couple of the bodies
were still somewhat alive.
One dying man pushed up and tried to grab her. She tried to get up, but
lost her balance and fell to the ground. A man fleeing from a Defender�s
crossbow was hit, staggered, and fell on top of her, completely pinning
her. She felt the enemy�s body jerk as the Danubian fired a finishing
bolt and his soul separated from his body. The Defender ran off, not
noticing in the darkness that his victim had fallen on top of a nymph.
Danka struggled to breathe. The wind was knocked out of her and she
remained stuck under the corpse that crushed her chest. For a few
minutes she lay quietly, gasping for breath and staring at the stars and
smoke. The massacre continued. Danka knew that she had to get up and
find more crossbow bolts, but she couldn't move. She weakly pushed at
the corpse, but her exhausted arms could not budge it, any more than a
toddler could have moved a dead horse. So that was it. She was out of
the fight. She continued staring at the stars and smoke, wondering how
long it would be before someone found her.
The stars and smoke disappeared as her world went completely dark.
Oh no... please... no... not now...
"Danka... Danka... Danka..."
She saw nothing until she turned her head. The unblinking yellow eyes
were staring at her. When she tried to turn her head in the other
direction, the eyes followed her.
"Don't try that with me, Danka. You have to answer."
"Yes. I have to answer. You're not giving me much choice about it, are
you?"
"I'm not giving you any choice at all, Danka S�luckt. When I call, you
will answer."
"And this... this is your work?"
"Ha! Actually, in this instance you bear the responsibility. You're the
one who made this glorious victory possible. You volunteered the
knowledge of the bombs. You made the bombs. You showed your companions
how to use the bombs. You allowed your husband, the unbelieving fool
that he is, to improve the bombs. You placed the bombs in the hands of
your commander. The only thing your commander did was put them to good
use. The rest of it is your doing, not anyone else's."
Danka had no idea how to respond. The eyes vanished, but her world
remained completely dark.
Finally the darkness cleared from her brain and she looked up into the
predawn light. Two men from her unit, each carrying a bloody sword,
spotted her lying under enemy corpses. They pulled off the bodies and
helped her up. She was unsteady on her feet. One of the men handed her
the crossbow, which she accepted and held limply in her hands.
"Defender Danka. Your husband's looking for you. There are plenty of
injured and you need to report to him immediately."
"Which way?"
"The doctors took over that tent, the tall one with the banner."
Danka tried to pull herself together as she walked towards her husband's
surgery area. She was dead tired, but no one cared. A long day of
operations lay ahead of her.
----------
The Defenders� casualties were unusually heavy for a single battle.
Those killed outright during the fighting numbered 15 and the total
number of seriously wounded was 39. The medical staff spent the day
sedating patients so her companions could remove bullets and sew up
bayonet slashes. There were several burns and multiple trampling
injuries from horses. Some of the wounds were too serious to
successfully treat given the level of medical knowledge at the time; of
the 39 seriously injured patients only 21 could be saved. Danka quietly
poisoned the others to put them out of their misery. Two of Oana�s
recruits were among the mortally-wounded patients the medical staff was
unable to save.
The day ended and the field surgeons stepped out of the medical tent. In
spite of the losses, the victory was significant. As far as anyone knew,
not a single man from the Kingdom of the Moon escaped. The uninjured
Defenders stood guard over groups of villagers who had been drafted to
collect and haul away the enemies' weapons and clothing. The seized
equipment coming out of the battle would be impressive, making Commander
S�upeckt's unit by far the wealthiest and best-provisioned group of
Defenders operating along the border. Now Danka understood why he didn't
want other units participating in the attack. Not only was he trying to
keep everything secret, but he also did not want to have to share the
loot. He would allow the villagers to keep clothing, leather, and
whatever food and condiments they found, but all weapons, metal,
uninjured horses, and coins had to be turned over to the militia.
The scene was unbelievably horrific. The enemies had been stripped of
their uniforms and the exposed mutilated bodies of horses and men
already were starting to reek in the hot summer afternoon. Within a few
hours the place would become unbearable and would have to be abandoned
to the birds and wolves. No one wanted to imagine what that meadow would
look like the next day.
By sunset the stench was too bad for the Danubians to stay any longer.
Danka could barely lift her crossbow, but she stumbled along with the
rest of her squad while her husband and his assistants struggled to help
the injured evacuate. The Danubian dead were taken out as well, hauled
by the villagers on the backs of mules. They would be buried the
following day, adding 33 graves to the ever-growing military cemetery.
It was well after nightfall when the Defenders and the settlers arrived
at the main village with the casualties and loot. There would be
funerals tomorrow, an assessment of the condition of Commander
S�upeckt's unit, and some badly needed rest.
Before going to sleep, Dalibora handed Danka thirteen silver coins, her
share of the loot that had been recovered from the coin purses of the
invading force. She said nothing, but looked at the money with disdain.
Money. What difference did money make? So... after killing 2000 men and
dealing with the deaths of several people she knew, that was all?
Thirteen silver pieces? She resisted the temptation to toss the money
aside. She didn't want the coins, but forced herself to hold on to them
by convincing herself they were partial compensation for the money she
had spent on Isauria. Certainly Oana would have made that argument.
----------
The exhausted nymphs watched as the villagers mounted severed heads on
poles and placed them around the village square. The heads belonged to
the Red Moon commanders. After the funerals, the captured enemy priests
would be forced into the square to see the heads and understand there
had been a rescue attempt that had failed miserably. They would be
encouraged to pray for a miracle, right up to the moment they were
burned alive to appease the Destroyer.
Danka tried to push the image of the severed heads out of her thoughts.
As the Destroyer had told her, this was her doing. She realized how much
damage that she, single-handedly, had inflicted against the Kingdom of
the Moon. The Grand Duke's victory in H�rkustk Ris three years earlier
was the direct result of the Followers' explosives recipes. A month
later, Sister Silv�tya (as she was known at the time) was the one who
convinced the Sovereign to pull his troops out of Sumy Ris in time to
avoid a defeat. The Defenders' previous summer's victory against the
Lord of the Blue Moon's men was partially the result of her actions.
This latest victory, against the Red Moon army, was directly the result
of her knowledge and actions. As a mere woman, a Royal concubine and the
wife of a field surgeon, no one would ever acknowledge her, but the
destruction she had unleashed against the Kingdom of the Moon had saved
the Duchy, several times over.
How ironic is the Realm of the Living. The Kingdom of the Moon's worst
nemesis was a wandering peasant girl, an anonymous young woman no one
would ever know about. Danka wondered how many other times in history
the Destroyer had used a completely unknown and unacknowledged person to
determine the course of events and obliterate a nation. She felt no
pride in what she had done, nor really did she feel any shame. The
Destroyer just as easily could have used some unknown girl from the
Kingdom, perhaps even Isauria, to ensure the destruction of the Duchy.
One kingdom was destined to live and the other destined to die, and it
was the Destroyer who made the decision which nation would be spared at
the expense of the other.
So... maybe the Defenders were right after-all. Maybe the Destroyer did
control everything in the Realm of the Living and was the only deity
that needed to be honored. Certainly there was no indication that either
the Creator or the Ancients had any control over any of the events Danka
had witnessed in her travels.
She looked up at the nearby treetops. An owl, that owl, sat in a
branch staring back at her.
----------
Commander S�upeckt's unit did not participate in any more combat during
the remainder of the summer of 1757. A third of his troops had been
killed or wounded during the massacre of the Red Moon encampment, so his
unit was in no condition for another fight. The injured still had to be
cared for and transported away from the unsanitary villages, along with
the muskets, ammunition, and other military equipment taken from the
battlefield. It was the middle of August before everything and everyone
was safely transported back to the winter campground and the new
supplies were safely stored away in the caves.
The commander sent several squad leaders and other subordinates to the
Vice-Duchy of Rika Chorna and H�rkustk Ris Province to augment his
command. He planned a dramatic expansion of his unit: from 90 surviving
members to over 400. He now had the weapons and ammunition necessary to
create three entirely new companies. Like all Defenders, the newcomers
would be trained in guerilla tactics, but their main responsibility
would be firing muskets in formation. There were enough surviving horses
from the Kingdom to establish a small cavalry unit to augment the musket
companies.
Commander S�upeckt planned to dramatically change the Defenders' tactics
and strategic goals during the summer of 1758. He hoped to carry the war
into the Kingdom of the Moon and establish a permanent Danubian presence
in territory that had not been part of the Duchy since 1502. From what
he saw during the ride-through during the previous June, there would not
be much military opposition if the Danubian unit was large, properly
armed, and not spread out. That would present a problem for occupation:
the Defenders simply did not have enough to troops to conquer and
occupy. They'd have to do one or the other. An even more pressing
problem would be having to bring in food. However, the commander figured
that having to ship in food could possibly work to the Defenders'
advantage because it could be traded to the locals for equipment and
support. Perhaps the commander could even recruit a unit of Blue Moon
subjects to fight alongside his men when they attacked the Lord of the
Red Moon's depleted forces. If in 1758 he could inflict a defeat on the
Lord of the Red Moon's forces comparable to the one he had achieved in
1757, there wouldn't be much standing in the way of his dream of
occupying land and turning it over to the Royal Family in exchange for
being appointed governor.
The expanded size of his unit would make Commander S�upeckt the most
powerful leader among the Defenders, but to pursue his goal of altering
the militia's strategy from defending the Duchy to conquering new
territory, he would have to convince the other unit leaders to support
him and submit to his command. The militia commanders had mixed feelings
about his amazing rout of the Red Moon column. They were impressed with
the victory itself and glad that such a large enemy component had been
eliminated, but they resented the fact Commander S�upeckt had conducted
the operation without anyone's consent and did so specifically to keep
all of the seized weapons and ammunition for his own unit. Still, a
victory was a victory and the other commanders had to hide their
misgivings about Commander S�upeckt from their troops. To the ordinary
Defenders, Commander S�upeckt and his fighters were heroes. It was
obvious he was intelligent and brave and had great plans for the future
of the Duchy. He deserved everyone's respect and deserved to be
followed.
Between August and October, the Defenders transformed the three villages
into a military garrison that rivaled the largest garrisons under the
control of the Grand Duke. Recruits flowed in, happy to have the chance
to practice with real muskets and be part of the Duchy's future glory.
Other commanders sent some of their troops to train with Commander
S�upeckt's men, so the size of the garrison fluctuated between 1000 and
1500 Defenders at any given time. When the weather became cold the
fighters lived in relative comfort, in new cabins heated by ingenious
cast-iron stoves that burned cave-charcoal instead of wood. The
villagers were put to work mining and hauling the strange black rocks,
motivated by the promise of new stoves for their own houses and not
having to cut firewood.
----------
During the winter, Danka continued her busy existence. She trained with
Dalibora's squad, learned better how to ride a horse, worked in her
husband's provisional laboratory as he prepared medicines and
explosives, cooked for him, and spent as much time as possible trying to
educate Isauria.
Isauria stood as tall as Danka by the beginning of 1758. Her
menstruations had started and she was very interested in the boys
running around the village. Danka insisted she started using the
birth-control paste and, sure enough, the girl lost her virginity to one
of her fellow apprentices in February. Even though she had prepared for
it, Danka was furious that Isauria would start having sex so early in
life. However, she decided not to say anything. It seemed that Isauria
enjoyed her first experience and was ready for it, unlike Danka, who was
much more naive, even at an older age.
At least Isauria won't have to go through what I went through. For her,
there will never be a "graveyard of virtue", nor will there be a
Bagat�rckt to damage her soul...
----------
Commander S�upeckt changed over the winter, in a way that worried Danka.
Instead of thinking no further than the next battle, he started thinking
about the future, of what the Duchy's new southernmost province would be
like once it was secured and he was acting governor. There was happy
talk of farms and seized manors, of slaves from the conquered population
and new Danubian towns. The militia leader was suffering from the same
hubris that afflicted the Grand Duke, of imagining himself as the man
who had the glory of conquering Sumy Ris and returning to its rightful
place within the Danubian Duchy. He started talking more like a town
elder or a land-owner and less like a military commander. Meanwhile, the
expanded militia spent the winter training to fight a conventional war
in open territory. Commander S�upeckt reorganized the units several
times, experimenting with different tactics and maneuvers to see what
best fit the needs of his forces.
Danka
wondered what it was about Sumy Ris that seemed to make otherwise
intelligent Danubian leaders lose their common sense. Yes, the city was
the first Christian settlement and the Danubians' second most important
political and religious center throughout the Middle Ages, but that had
ended 250 years before. Apart from the cathedral and a few other
buildings, very little remained from its Danubian past. Yes, the
location was ideal for trade, but it was totally indefensible. As the
Defenders became increasingly excited about the glory of re-taking the
former southern capitol, Danka became ever more uneasy about the future.
She remembered the Destroyer's words: "You're my witness. When everyone
around you lives no more, you're the one who will walk away unscathed.
You're the one who will carry the memories."
Commander S�upeckt spent the early spring corresponding with provincial
leaders around the Duchy to obtain food for his troops and money to pay
them. At the beginning of April the Grand Duke surprised everyone by
responding with a large shipment of silver coins, enough to buy some
supplies and pay the entire garrison for three months. When she saw the
guarded wagons of Royal silver arrive and the paymaster distribute the
pay among the troops, Danka wondered why the Grand Duke would be so
trusting of a leader who was not part of the regular army's chain of
command. Later that night, when they both were in bed, she decided to
bring up the topic with Ilm�tarkt. Her husband responded:
"This whole situation is a huge bargain for the Grand Duke: a single
shipment of silver in exchange for an entire army. Commander S�upeckt
laid a gift at His Majesty's feet and he is smart enough to realize it.
We supplied our own muskets and just about everything else. He didn't
even have to provide food or horses, just some coins. We are not under
his direct control, so we are not his responsibility. We can live or
die, we can succeed or fail, with no consequences for the Crown. If we
succeed and survive, the Crown claims more land for the Duchy and we are
dismissed with some service metals, a certificate of gratitude, and
maybe the title to a small farm, nothing more. If we fail, he is not to
blame and his army will suffer no losses."
"I guess that makes sense. Certainly sounds like him. All he ever
thought about was turning everyone and everything to his advantage. I
remember..."
Danka caught her breath, regretting that careless statement the instant
it was out of her mouth. Ilm�tarkt sat up and intensely looked at her in
the dim light of the room's single lantern.
"So... you know His Majesty?" Have you met him?"
It was a simple question, perhaps totally innocent, but it forced a
difficult decision on her. She did not want her husband to know about
her time as a Royal concubine. However, protocol dictated the absolute
worst thing a wife could do was tell a direct lie to her husband. It was
a terrible sin in Danubian culture, even worse than adultery. In theory,
if a man caught his wife lying to him and could prove it, he had the
right to kill her. Up until that moment she had insinuated that she had
been at the university between 1753 and 1755, but had never openly said
that. She looked away.
"Yes, Ilm�tarkt. I know His Majesty."
"How could you know His Majesty? When did you meet him?"
"I met him... four years ago. In the plaza of the Great Temple in the
capitol."
"What about the university?"
"I was a student for a year. Then I left."
"Interesting... because it confirms something I was wondering about. You
showed me your university notes, which I appreciate. However, I did
notice that none of those papers were dated after May 1753. No dates
from 1754 or 1755. So, I suspected you were somewhere else over the next
two years."
"I was in the capitol."
"In the Royal Household?"
"Yes, in the Royal Household."
"Doing what?"
"What do you think I was doing? Why do you think the Grand Duke would
keep me in his castle?"
There was a long pause, while Ilm�tarkt wondered what to ask next. He
did not want to force his wife to openly admit she was lying to him
about the two missing years of her life, but he was curious to know more
about the Duchy's ruler . She broke the silence.
"In my bucket I have some sealed packages of parchment. All of the
information about my life with His Majesty is in there. My notes can
tell you the story better than I can. Then..."
"No. I won't read your papers. The decision about what you choose to
tell me about your past needs to be yours. But, you do understand that
you are never again to deceive me with your words, even by omission."
"I understand that, my love."
Ilm�tarkt ordered Danka to get out of bed and stand against a chair with
her legs spread and her bottom sticking out. She worried he might punish
her. He rubbed her bottom and ran his hands between her legs. When he
became erect, he entered her and thrust hard. She could tell by the
rough way he was making love to her that he was still irritated.
However, there would be no switching from him. On the surface, the
incident was over.
However, she knew the incident was not over at all. Over time she would
need to reveal to him the details of her humiliating life with the Grand
Duke. It would have been so much easier for him to simply read about it
and ask her a few questions, or for him to interrogate her and extract
the story in a single tearful night, but he was not about to let her off
so easily. She would have to decide what to reveal and when. The
conflict between sharing her past and keeping it hidden would weigh on
her conscience. Her husband was very much aware that he had pushed a
difficult responsibility onto her, which was his way of punishing her
for the attempted deception.
She took a deep breath as they got back in bed. She had to start
somewhere, so she figured it would be best to start with information
that would be useful for the Defenders' upcoming campaign.
"During the war... the siege... I was in H�rkustk Ris with His Majesty.
And I was also in Sumy Ris. I saw the battles... and I talked to some of
the Royal Protectors about things I didn't see. So I know, in detail,
what happened in both places. I know the layout of Sumy Ris... I saw the
old cathedral... and all the newer buildings... the ones built by the
Ottomans. It's different from the old drawings we have. If you borrow
one of the commander's maps and let me write on it, I can update it for
you, so there're no surprises when we go in."
----------
It was not hard for Danka to anticipate that the incursion into the
Kingdom and the effort to capture Sumy Ris was destined to end in
disaster. She just hoped the Destroyer was wrong about her own Path in
Life and that she wouldn't survive. She had already seen too much and
had no desire to have yet more atrocities added to her collection of
memories. However, she suspected any release from her grim life was not
to be. Her most recent encounter with the Destroyer was always present
in her thoughts as she listened to her fellow nymphs talk about the
upcoming campaign. At times she saw them as ghosts: already it seemed
the separation of their souls from their bodies was closing in on them.
Especially at night, as the nymphs sat around the fire, Danka imagined
each of her squad-mates holding her mirror.
I wish I could hold up my mirror instead of them. It is my Path is
Life to witness their fates and that is not what I desire. I want to be
blissfully dead and buried before the souls of the others separate from
their bodies. I don't want to have to deal with their deaths. I don't
want to have to bury them.
She thought about the two people she most cared about, her husband and
her former servant. If the expedition was indeed to end in disaster,
there wasn't much she could do to preserve the life of Ilm�tarkt. He had
to travel with the commander and that was the end of it. However, Danka
was able to come up with an excuse to prevent Isauria from leaving the
Duchy. The wife of the village elder who had the baby the previous year
was pregnant again and about to deliver. The elder was angry that none
of the unit's doctors could stay behind to help out. To placate him, and
to make sure Isauria stayed in a safe location, Danka assigned her to
help with the delivery. Dalibora, convinced the apprentice was still too
young to accompany the nymphs on a full-scale military campaign, agreed
to order her to remain in the village instead of marching south.
----------
