So a bit more... from the prologue of memories
Please ignore grammer etc . That will all be fixed (I will be paying someone to do it) The main thing is content.
As we walked from the Inn, its sounds of revelry fading but the crickets continued in the grasses all about, we paused. We looked up, eyes wide and glinting. I remember I saw a new halo or crescent of paler aurora wreathed about the moon making her even more bewildering, an omen of change. I still recall the air was so close, the moon covered fields which opened up before us, that hot and humid July night. They gently rolled down toward the wide silent artery of the Empire, its greatest slumbering river. Something of that memory was to be a treasure in my heart later when I recall seeing the same moon at times years later during the terrible fell winter of the defeat, in which alas I had my part.
That wound in which I had complicity at times would bring all the Northern Empire and Armarier City to its knees.
The tragedy (my part) wakes me at night regularly. My wretched numb hands nipped by frost, the ceaseless un noble killing, the great and noble horses of old lines expired and rigid in the snow, hunger endless hunger and the lost chances. I may yet be damned by the sights of the dead and dying, sons and fathers of men, lesser and greater than I. It is too dreadful to say how many were left behind during the darkness of rout following the defeat and its bitter pursuit but it was very many. I still hear their fading cries for help as they fell exhausted and starved one by one behind me, unable to walk or stumble lame and weak yet further. I could do nothing but take the poison vials I still had left and handed them to those I past, who looked most deserving of a honourable end. I did not look back at any of them; they were the lucky few for the vials soon ran out.
There they lay still, un buried bones, lying in country without a horizon upon which could be some distant home they will never see.
I feel I can taste those decisions on my lips even now; perhaps I should have crushed each vial upon their freezing weak lips to make sure the end was swift and true. I know if they had not been too weak or delirious with cold, they would have all taken the poison of Druids, we all trusted them, though the treachery of some was still more bitter. I keep telling myself that, as they (Soldiers) were my comrades and friends, I did my duty. Falling alive, un poisoned and fresh to the vast pursuing enemy just a few miles away who was himself so hungry and tired was not contemplated. Then finally, in my icy nightmares, there is from time to time the fragile and broken hound, Tobias and his mournful grey eyes, saved at the last moment before death into my arms. I had found him again going back (as I had promised) down the snow trodden path easy to follow, littered with debris of the retreat, back there we had separated in the short storm the evening of the day before. Amongst the snow-dusted debris of retreat, he lay huddled tight in some old hessian feed sacks and tangled discarded harness. Half buried in fresh snow, thin and brittle and it seemed, breaths from death with cold. I picked him up gently and rolled him, limp but alive into my blanket and into my spare pack. His eyes became brighter his tail wagged a little and he gently licked my hand with a cold tongue. I folded him in, just as I would an infant child, the oath was kept. I then so gently lifted the pack onto my back and tied the leather straps tight upon my chest and waist to keep it all still.
I thought that was it, now just a long hack on foot back to the rear guard of the Army.
No.
In dread as I went to turn, movement caught my eye. Under the slate sky and northward, I saw on the horizon figures, about ten maybe a few more, that I could see. They had luckily not seen me as they had appeared over the low ridges as I had crouched to wrap the dog. They were moving in a wide arc and they were the enemy. White faces of the East, skirmishers with bows or short spears crossing the low ridges at speed but fatefully heading North West of my position, perhaps three hundred yards away. The low wind gradually strengthening also stood in my favour still bound from the East; upon it were small flecks of snow racing into their eyes should they look my direction. Somewhere within that wind further away, I heard dreaded distant drumbeats carried toward me. Beyond the low ridges, just coming into sight through the thin veil of falling snow and following the line of retreat were long dark columns of tall pikes and rumbling drums. This was the advance guard ahead of the main body of the victorious Eastern hordes. They marched purposefully forward with conviction, the daylight held no fear for them now. I knew I had to make a very good pace on foot back down the trail now to keep ahead of certain death, if the snow came just a little harder I had a chance.
By every sharp wit I had, I knew I had to leave… immediately. I turned quietly toward the south and took my first step.
I never saw it, or smelt it, which they say you never do, before it sprang… veiled and hidden in the snow, its deep bristling fur glistening perfect white against the low grey sky.
Crouched and motionless in the snow the Rog had cunningly used Tobias as bait. Seeing my casual approach, wandering all about from side to side over the trail and even it had watched as I stopped to urinate over my hands to blissfully warm them. It must have thought I was an easy meal.
So it was, the ravenous and massive white turning grey furred Rog sprang in cunning ambush from within fifteen feet of me. Its body was as massive and muscular as a great mountain bear yet it was long limbed and agile as a fit dog wolf. I was so startled and wide-eyed that stumbling backward, fumbling for my blade caught in the straps of the pack, I slipped. The weight of the pack with the sickly dog now struggling within dragged me nearly over backward and in doing so… saved my life.
In one great bound, slightly misjudged, it was above me and it was against the grey sky I now truly realised its massive form. With one wide and pan sized paw with massive claws instead of both (as it had intended), it caught my shoulder just as I came onto my knees. One lower claw easily pierced my leather jerk; I felt it sharp as it pricked my skin and I was tossed back forcefully with my feet swept from under me as the Rog passed well over my head.
Dusty snow fell in clumps from the fur of the roaring Rog and fell into my face, which felt like cold fire and then filled my eyes, blurring my vision.
Tobias growled and yelped in pain as I landed on my back collapsing onto him hard but he was unable to move, strapped as he was into my pack. I hit the bandaged side of my face upon a blunt wooden object and my helm rolled away into the snow. The pain was incredible but it sharpened me thoughts, I struggled to turn over, death could be so close.
The Rog had landed heavily, tumbling over in the deeper snow. I was up before it, fumbling for the 1908 partially caught up in the remaining loose straps of my pack, I had just seconds to free it. Tobias struggled furiously had one leg out of the pack and snarled louder than I had ever heard him before. I struggled again tearing at the straps that tangled the sword, my 1908 thruster; luckily, it became free by chance as the pack slipped sideways on my shoulders in cursed accordance with the efforts of the hound. The Rog was struggling up, wasting no time to look for its advantage. Now it had a new rocky grey hew in its coat, mirroring the sky that would have made it silhouette hard to see if it had been still. On it came, mouth agape, white razor teeth four inches long and wide amber eyes full of rage and hunger, upon me in one bound …
Many men would not have loved me for that deed; none was there to see it but chastised me for going back the night before and leaving my wounded horse with them when the enemy was so close at hand. One, Lt Collisn had said,
“Sar, the troop need you here, It’s just a no good, lame dog. Don’t tread back upon the path we have already come in misery, the enemy cannot be far behind. Tobias is just a hunting dog Sar, forget that not… a lame hound for which you give your loyalty in place of the Empire and us. You may yet hang for that.”
I never saw him again under the sun, even at the court martial, where he would have been an important witness. He must have died with most the others somewhere on the retreat before reaching the sanctuary of Badenn’s walls. Graciously Merlous my grand charger was lead there by a hand I never knew of to this day.
I should forgive their logic, they were afraid to die just as we all are and they valued what I could offer. They were not to know about Tobias and his part in this story. I had promised the future, they had not seen, I gave my word before him and her. I would not break my oath. Even if Tobias had ended there I still wonder if he were not been a focus of my promise to her, what I would have done. You should suspect that even as a simple thief of my heart, which he was, I would not leave him to the Rog.
