A March Down Memory Lane [Solo]
Mar 15, 2016 0:55:18 GMT -6
Post by Cebron on Mar 15, 2016 0:55:18 GMT -6
Drunk was the thick knight of Lycia. Drunk out of his mind. It was the third night in a row he’d been quite this drunk. Three nights in a row he’d had enough for at least ten men. Three nights ago he’d been forced to strangle Nergui, his commander of the mobile archery unit. The man was a Sacaen, and though many of the men within the Long Company had their birth on the plains, he had hated their business more than the rest.
A good commander couldn’t really be friends with his men. There needed to be an image of you, an image that supported you as an absolute power. You could question a friend, but to question an order was to put all your men at risk while you waited for an answer. So there was no familiarity, no sharing of childhood stories. There were days when Cebron was amicable, and days where he made it clear that he didn’t want to speak with anyone. However, despite all that, he had quite enjoyed Nergui. He was a funny man, light hearted but competent. His men had loved him, most had considered him a friend.
They now hated Cebron, which was fine. He didn’t need to be liked, no Knight had ever been liked by common sellswords. As long as his men did their jobs, he didn’t care if all of them wanted him dead, and he knew they would fight. They were mercenaries, not idealists. Coin was their cause, and it was enough to keep them here. To keep them here fighting for Cebron, a man willing to kill his own men for a cause he himself didn’t believe in.
So he was drunk. He was drunk in his tent, having only ridden about twenty miles in the day, and making early camp. He was not willing to make real war with the Djute until these Etrurian Knights the little Bishop kept telling him about would produce themselves. For that, they stayed rested and ready.
Cebron stayed drunk, in his tent. He had a woman with him, a woman whose name was Unegen. Her husband had burned in the first fire, and she had not been willing to burn with him. She was older, she’d had one son who’d died in a fight with the Lorca some two years ago when he was only fifteen, barely a man by the Djute tradition. She was pretty, pretty enough to catch his eye, and since she’d decided to convert to Eliminism in order to survive, had jumped into his tent when he offered.
Now, he sat on his cot, bringing a fourth wine bottle to his lips, while she lay behind him. She had taken drink, but not near as much as him. She ran a finger up and down his arm, but did not raise her body up from where it rest. “Do you ever wonder why a mercenary company would start?” he asked her. She stopped moving her finger, and instead gripped his arm. She looked up at him with her hazel eyes and said, “I wonder after many things Captain.”
He snorted, “But not over why mercenary companies start.” She leaned up and kissed his shoulder, “No. Not over why mercenary companies start.” He looked at her for a second, and then continued, “Of course not, of course you wouldn’t, nobody does.”
He looked down at the grass that was slowly dying for lack of sunlight under the roof of his ger/tent. “You start a mercenary company because you get tired. Tired of s**t jobs, tired of s**t pay, tired of your friends throwing their life’s away because they aren’t equipped very well or they’re underfed. See, Merc Companies are started when a band is just too small. Either you disband, or you expand.” She was back to tracing little circles around his flesh with her finger, but now she had moved to his back. “It’s that simple. When yer twenty kids, all cock sure and ready to take on the world, anybody with enough money’ll be able to shove a job off on ya, because if there aint demand for you, ya aint gettin’ paid. When you take a job, it’s dangerous and you don’t get paid but piss fer it. Until one day you reach it, the breaking point. The point where a few fellas pack up, and a few wise up. Eventually you decide that your life is worth something, and then you start thinking, thinking of ways to get paid more for throwing your life away.”
“The first thing you think of is to get so many people to fight with you that the rate has to go up. So you get more than twenty men. You get twenty five, thirrrrty, fifty men. You start finding other bands and telling them they should join you, because together you’ll be worth more. Eventually there are so damn many of you that ya have to start organizing everything, and you make sure you and your friends who wised up at the start of everything are the ones running the show. Then there are power struggles, incompetent old friends getting everyone killed, until eventually, there’s just one of the old dogs who started the company left. He’s left, holding the reins he picked up with ten other kids, so many years after they all decided they didn’t want to die just for a few bits. Then there’s too much at stake, you can’t go back at a certain point. No farm, no ranch. There’s just another kid who aint wisened up yet at the other end of yer lance, and you with a few extra coins.”
“Least,” Cebron turned and looked at the woman laying behind him, “that’s how it was for me. Me an’ my friends, we’d survived through the breaking of a few bands, and I was the oldest one, the one who’d seen the most fighting. One day, I told my friend Osney that we should try and get more men, and he laughed. The next job we took, Osney died. I told a few off my other friends Iwasgonna go and get some more men, and start my own band, with the goal to get as many men as I could, and they listened. So we started ridin’ around to farms, and ah would tell the young men about how glorious it was bein’ a mercenary. They believed me. Before long I had two hundred men. Two hundred men, and we started only takin’ jobs I knew we’d take good losses from. One day, Rodney, oneatha boys who’d been with me before we started recruitin’ he comes to me ane says, ‘Cebron, you shouldn’t be pickin’ all the jobs’ an I told him he could pick a job if he found the men to fight it. An’ he couldn’t and he stopped arguing. Bout a year in, I was the last young man left from before the Company got its name, and since then, all the other commanders’ve changed names, but mine hasn’t.”
“Thing is, is I aint never had to kill one of’em. In all the power struggles in all the arguments, not once have I just killed one of my own officers. An now I aint up to feeling so good.” Unegen leaned up and draped her arms over his shoulders, and said, “Ah, Captain, you have so much to carry.” He was too drunk to tell if she was being sarcastic, or just not trying very hard to flirt anymore. He lay back, and looked at her. “Maybe I should talk to the priest, I may be seein’ hell soon.”
A good commander couldn’t really be friends with his men. There needed to be an image of you, an image that supported you as an absolute power. You could question a friend, but to question an order was to put all your men at risk while you waited for an answer. So there was no familiarity, no sharing of childhood stories. There were days when Cebron was amicable, and days where he made it clear that he didn’t want to speak with anyone. However, despite all that, he had quite enjoyed Nergui. He was a funny man, light hearted but competent. His men had loved him, most had considered him a friend.
They now hated Cebron, which was fine. He didn’t need to be liked, no Knight had ever been liked by common sellswords. As long as his men did their jobs, he didn’t care if all of them wanted him dead, and he knew they would fight. They were mercenaries, not idealists. Coin was their cause, and it was enough to keep them here. To keep them here fighting for Cebron, a man willing to kill his own men for a cause he himself didn’t believe in.
So he was drunk. He was drunk in his tent, having only ridden about twenty miles in the day, and making early camp. He was not willing to make real war with the Djute until these Etrurian Knights the little Bishop kept telling him about would produce themselves. For that, they stayed rested and ready.
Cebron stayed drunk, in his tent. He had a woman with him, a woman whose name was Unegen. Her husband had burned in the first fire, and she had not been willing to burn with him. She was older, she’d had one son who’d died in a fight with the Lorca some two years ago when he was only fifteen, barely a man by the Djute tradition. She was pretty, pretty enough to catch his eye, and since she’d decided to convert to Eliminism in order to survive, had jumped into his tent when he offered.
Now, he sat on his cot, bringing a fourth wine bottle to his lips, while she lay behind him. She had taken drink, but not near as much as him. She ran a finger up and down his arm, but did not raise her body up from where it rest. “Do you ever wonder why a mercenary company would start?” he asked her. She stopped moving her finger, and instead gripped his arm. She looked up at him with her hazel eyes and said, “I wonder after many things Captain.”
He snorted, “But not over why mercenary companies start.” She leaned up and kissed his shoulder, “No. Not over why mercenary companies start.” He looked at her for a second, and then continued, “Of course not, of course you wouldn’t, nobody does.”
He looked down at the grass that was slowly dying for lack of sunlight under the roof of his ger/tent. “You start a mercenary company because you get tired. Tired of s**t jobs, tired of s**t pay, tired of your friends throwing their life’s away because they aren’t equipped very well or they’re underfed. See, Merc Companies are started when a band is just too small. Either you disband, or you expand.” She was back to tracing little circles around his flesh with her finger, but now she had moved to his back. “It’s that simple. When yer twenty kids, all cock sure and ready to take on the world, anybody with enough money’ll be able to shove a job off on ya, because if there aint demand for you, ya aint gettin’ paid. When you take a job, it’s dangerous and you don’t get paid but piss fer it. Until one day you reach it, the breaking point. The point where a few fellas pack up, and a few wise up. Eventually you decide that your life is worth something, and then you start thinking, thinking of ways to get paid more for throwing your life away.”
“The first thing you think of is to get so many people to fight with you that the rate has to go up. So you get more than twenty men. You get twenty five, thirrrrty, fifty men. You start finding other bands and telling them they should join you, because together you’ll be worth more. Eventually there are so damn many of you that ya have to start organizing everything, and you make sure you and your friends who wised up at the start of everything are the ones running the show. Then there are power struggles, incompetent old friends getting everyone killed, until eventually, there’s just one of the old dogs who started the company left. He’s left, holding the reins he picked up with ten other kids, so many years after they all decided they didn’t want to die just for a few bits. Then there’s too much at stake, you can’t go back at a certain point. No farm, no ranch. There’s just another kid who aint wisened up yet at the other end of yer lance, and you with a few extra coins.”
“Least,” Cebron turned and looked at the woman laying behind him, “that’s how it was for me. Me an’ my friends, we’d survived through the breaking of a few bands, and I was the oldest one, the one who’d seen the most fighting. One day, I told my friend Osney that we should try and get more men, and he laughed. The next job we took, Osney died. I told a few off my other friends Iwasgonna go and get some more men, and start my own band, with the goal to get as many men as I could, and they listened. So we started ridin’ around to farms, and ah would tell the young men about how glorious it was bein’ a mercenary. They believed me. Before long I had two hundred men. Two hundred men, and we started only takin’ jobs I knew we’d take good losses from. One day, Rodney, oneatha boys who’d been with me before we started recruitin’ he comes to me ane says, ‘Cebron, you shouldn’t be pickin’ all the jobs’ an I told him he could pick a job if he found the men to fight it. An’ he couldn’t and he stopped arguing. Bout a year in, I was the last young man left from before the Company got its name, and since then, all the other commanders’ve changed names, but mine hasn’t.”
“Thing is, is I aint never had to kill one of’em. In all the power struggles in all the arguments, not once have I just killed one of my own officers. An now I aint up to feeling so good.” Unegen leaned up and draped her arms over his shoulders, and said, “Ah, Captain, you have so much to carry.” He was too drunk to tell if she was being sarcastic, or just not trying very hard to flirt anymore. He lay back, and looked at her. “Maybe I should talk to the priest, I may be seein’ hell soon.”