Leroy's Writing Space

Rain pelted down upon the battlements. It was wintertime in Ostwald. The Imperial province was enjoying its second week of a torrential downpour. The fertile countryside had turned into a mushy swamp overnight. The people shivered, but not from the cold.

It had been almost a year since the invasion. A horde of vile monsters had descended upon the peaceful farmlands. Driven by a ruthless warlord, they rampaged without opposition, destroying everything in sight. Nothing was left behind, save ash and ruin.

Refugees flooded to the Fortress of Nox de Tolly, the last bastion of Imperial authority in the region. The stonewalls were high, but the keep was overcrowded, and supplies dwindled. The poor people of Ostwald huddled together and trembled as they awaited their uncertain fate.

All in all, they were almost as miserable as the invaders themselves.

Throughout the muddy valley, a sea of black tents surrounded Nox de Tolly. Within these tatty, hole riddled shelters, swearing and shaking, were Ostwald’s conquerors. Nothing was dry. The dark thunderclouds saw to that. As if the weather wasn’t bad enough, rations had been decreased. Again. They were down to one serve of cold broth a day.

Worst of all, however, was their leader, the big axe wielding maniac who had brought them here in the first place. She was known by many names: the Hammer of the Imperials, the Scourge of Man, the Butcher of Empires, the Despoiler of Hope and the Warlord Supreme.

Her real name was Sally, but she’d rather you didn’t know that. One of Sally’s minions had discovered her real name and thought it would be really funny to spread around the camp. Sally, by contrast, did not find it funny, and spent an evening spreading him around the camp.

Whatever you wanted to call her, she was currently reclining on her throne, feeling immensely pleased with herself. In no time at all, she had assembled an army and carved out a domain of her very own, from the mighty Imperial Empire, no less. The Fortress held, but it would fall enough. Sally allowed herself a rare smile at the thought its destruction.

Ostwald would be hers.

Meanwhile, on the other side of camp, another monster paced around the rickety confines of an old barn. He stood just a bit shorter than the average man, his grey skin covered by a threadbare tunic. A mop of greasy hair dangled from his greasy head, and a jagged set of sharp teeth crisscrossed his mouth.  

This was what educated men called the Orcum’ium, the monsters that dwelled in the Brenna Forests. Everybody else called them Ferals, and didn’t care where they came from, provided that they stayed there.       

This particular Feral was Captain Alog, Supply Master of the Feral Army. He was soon due for a meeting he wasn’t entirely sure he would survive. Marching from one side of the barn to the other, he continued a rather intense conversation he was having with himself.  

“I’m not to blame,” he said. No one replied, which was unsurprising. He was, after all, alone. “It wouldn’t be fair. I did everything I could, right? I mean… I… I can’t be held responsible for everything that happens… or doesn’t. Right?”

There wasn’t much free space in the barn. It was packed to the rafters with sacks and barrels filled with vegetables, beer, and flour. It might have seemed like a lot to an outsider, but the Supply Master knew better. It was nowhere near enough.

“It’ll be fine,” Alog fidgeted his fingers. “Everything will be fine,” he added, fidgeting even more. “I just need to calm down…”   

There was a knock at the door. Alog, so focused on being calm, yelped in surprise. The doorknocker took that as a cue to enter.

“Hello Cap’n.” The newcomer didn’t salute. It wasn’t that kind of army. “How’s tricks?”  

“Skavos,” Alog nodded, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “How’ve you been?”

“Right as you can be when the sky is falling”. Skavos slammed the door shut behind him.

Skavos was ugly, even by Feral standards. He had a wide mouth, big, knife-like ears, and a grotesque potbelly. He also had a large leather saddlebag, which he carried over one shoulder. As one would expect, he was soaking wet from the rain. 

“Heard noises outside.” He dumped the dripping saddlebag onto the barns only table. “You talking to yourself again?”

Alog nodded.

“Any particular reason?”

“I’m going mad, you see.”

Skavos snorted. “Good an excuse as any.” He sat down at the table and grabbed a nearby sack of foodstuffs. This he ripped open, spilling out the contents, mostly mouldy potatoes and spotty carrots. Without invitation, Skavos proceeded to stuff his face.

“Oi!” cried Alog. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Me?” said Skavos innocently. “Nothing, nothing…” He made a show of cleaning up his mess, while quietly dropping things into his lap. “Just thought I’d sample the goods. Make sure they’re not gone rotten, you know?”

Alog sighed as he looked the other way. He hated his job.

Skavos was an old friend, from his old tribe no less. Alog still remembered the old days, before he was ‘recruited’ into Sally’s army. His tribe had the dubious honour of being one of the first. Sally, with her big axe and a mob of burly Ogres, had barged into their village, unannounced, and demanded an audience. Ferals were not usually receptive to outsiders, but since Sally had come such a long way and slaughtered their chieftain, with all his bodyguards, they decided to hear her out.

She spoke at length about being part of a crusade thing, conquering the world for some reason and helping her assume her apparently rightful place as supreme ruler of everything. In return, the Ferals would each be rewarded with a ‘princely’ gift of earth and power beyond their wildest dreams. It was an impressive speech, somewhat undermined by the dead silence that followed it.

It turned out that nobody wanted to follow the crazy murderer they had just met, vague promises of land and power notwithstanding. Thinking quickly, Sally decided to sweeten the deal. She decapitated the nearest Feral and promised the same to anyone else who didn’t follow her. Soon, she had an army.

Alog’s musings were interrupted by the grotesque sound of Skavos shovelling three potatoes down his gullet at the same time. Ignoring the look Alog gave him, Skavos leaned in, like a conspirator in a crowded tavern. “Guess what happened just now?”

Skavos happened to be the biggest gossip in the Feral Army, a condition not improved by his standing as an army messenger. Most of it was bad news though, and Alog got enough of that in his day job.

Alog sighed. “Go on then.”   

Skavos leaned in further, a big idiot grin plastered on his big idiot face. “Sally’s Garden’s got a new bulb in it.”

Alog’s eyes widened. ‘Sally’s Garden’ was the nickname given to the various trophies that surrounded Sally’s personal tent. For the most part, it consisted of heads mounted on pikes. These heads usually belonged to those who fought her, challenged her, insulted her, bothered her, or were around when she was bothered.

Alog gulped, and unconsciously reached for his own neck. “Who’s it this time?”

“General Urok,” said Skavos, still grinning, “saw to it just then, where everyone could see it. Surprised you didn’t hear it”.

“Hear it? I was on the other side of camp”.

“Yeah, and I’m surprised you didn’t hear it,” said Skavos. “She howled loud enough for the gods to hear. Coward this and failure that. She was livid. Off her head. Then she off’d his.”  

The only surprising thing in all of this was that General Urok had lasted this long. He had been in command of Sally’s army during the assault on Nox de Tolly the previous week. The attack had been a resounding victory, but not for the Ferals.

Alog had stood in the rank and file that fateful day, alongside thousands of battle reluctant Ferals. On the right flank stood a mob of Ogres, grunting about how clubs were better than cudgels. On the left, a clan of Trolls, grumbling about how cudgels were better than clubs. Lined on the hilltops were a set of ramshackle catapults. Two Giants stood in reserve.

Everything was going fine. Then the order to attack was given.      

In hindsight, it should not have been surprising that the tactic of ‘everybody run at the enemy’, which had won so many comfortable victories against the untrained militias the Ferals had faced so far, failed to impress the Imperial garrison, sitting safe atop the fortress walls. Imperial archers reaped a heavy toll on the tightly packed invaders. For every arrow they launched, five Ferals were felled (one actually being hit, and the rest falling down and pretending).

Things didn’t improve when the horde finally reached the fortress. Assault ladders were put in place, and Ferals scrambled up the walls. As they neared the top, however, it was belatedly discovered that every ladder was at least two metres shorter than they needed to be. To the Ferals below, it was very funny to watch, but not exactly helpful.

As the attack stalled, the Trolls and Ogres decided now would be a perfect time to settle the longstanding differences between their races; the result being that there were now significantly less of both. When Sally tried to separate them, the Giants, who were bored, began a spirited game of ‘who can throw the catapult further?’ A Feral liaison, sent by Sally herself, ordered them to cut it out. After a short conversation, he went twenty-two hundred yards.

The attack, which swung between disaster and embarrassment, was eventually and mercifully called off. The end result was five hundred dead Ferals, a thousand wounded, and an aggressive expansion of Sally’s Garden.

This was how Alog inherited his current nightmare. The previous Supply Master had failed to impress, if his sudden disappearance was anything to go by. Alog had made the mistake of being literate and was promoted on the spot. Regardless, he tried to make the best of the poisoned chalice he had been handed, something that got harder with every passing execution.

“By the way, you have a message,” said Skavos, offhandedly, “a pair of them in fact.” He rummaged around in his saddlebag and produced two parchments, both rolled up with string. He handed them to Alog. “The Raven Master sends his regards.”   

Alog wasn’t listening. As quickly as his fumbling fingers could manage, he tore open both parchments and pored over them.

Skavos tried to make out the messages through the ink outline. One was a map. The other was a letter. He recognised the map as Ostwald, but couldn’t make out the written message. “Anything interesting?”

“I’m dead,” replied Alog.

“Worst kind of news that,” said Skavos. “Anything else?”

“No mate,” said Alog, quite seriously. “I’m a dead man.”

“Really?” Skavos sat up. This was heavy news indeed. “Damn…”   

“There’s not enough…” Alog said, more to himself than the Feral beside him. He looked around the barn. “There’s never going to be enough…”

Last week, scouts reported that an Imperial relief force, comprising at least two thousand men-at-arms, marched towards Nox de Tolly. Sally intended to destroy them before they linked up with the fortress garrison.

As Supply Master, it was Alog’s happy duty to prepare twelve thousand Ferals for this incursion into the Imperial heartland. Knowing what was on the line (his life), Alog resolved to do the impossible, the unthinkable. He was going to fight the good fight and turn the logistical arm of the Feral Army from a bad joke into a well-oiled, bureaucracy machine.

He failed. He failed miserably. His efforts to improvise, adapt and overcome had all fallen flat. The army was not ready, not even close. Now Alog had the privilege of explaining that to his murderous warlord.     

“I’m going to be a garden display!” Alog’s head collapsed into his hands.

“It can’t be that bad.” Skavos gently plucked the twin messages from Alog’s trembling fingers and read them, nodding thoughtfully when he felt it appropriate. Finishing, he turned back to his companion. “Old age is overrated,” he said, wisely, “it’s true, ask anyone. All the misery of life, at half pace – you’ll be getting off very lucky. No burdens of living will find you, no sir.”

Astoundingly, this didn’t help.

“I’ll be off’d just like Urok.” Alog shivered and groped for his neck. “Planted in the ground for all to see.”

“It ain’t so just yet,” Skavos assured him. “Have you considered running like a coward?”

Alog certainly had. He wasn’t the only one. Desertions had plagued the Feral Army since its formation. Enterprising Ferals had quickly learned that the best way to survive a battle was to be on the other side of the continent when it started. As such, more and more Ferals were going on impromptu night walks, never to be seen again.

To a Feral like Alog, however, this simply wasn’t an option.

“I can’t just run away from this,” Alog gestured to a window and, as if on cue, an Ogre shoved its ugly head up against the glass. “The damn pickets will tear me apart.” 

In response to the desertions, there was now a posting of Trolls at the camp perimeter every night. Their standing orders were to convert any departing Feral into field rations, a task they carried out with unsettling gusto. Feral officers had an even better deal. Every one of them had an Ogre assigned as a bodyguard. Those found wanting were later found dismembered.

“You can’t run…” said Skavos, scratching his oily head. “You can’t hide…” he added, looking around the packed farmhouse, “so…what’s the plan then?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” said Alog. “I’ll just have to confront Sally and tell her the truth”

Skavos blinked. “Confront Sally?”

Alog nodded.

“Tell her you stuffed up?”

Alog nodded again.

Skavos looked at Alog as though he had just suggested a quick dip in an acid lake. “Mate…”

“Look, there is no running from this thing,” said Alog. “I’ll have to confront her eventually. When I do, I can’t just nod my head and say that everything is fine, she’ll find out the truth sometime, it might as well be on my terms”.  

“And you don’t think a little…” Skavos coughed quietly, “adjustment of the facts might be in order? You know, something that will make you come across as the type of guy who deserves to see the sun rise tomorrow?”   

“No,” said Alog. “She’ll see the value in an honest servant. When she sees that I’m not just someone who nods and says, ‘I completely agree’ to everything, she’ll realise I’m valuable to her, and the campaign thing, and she’ll keep me alive”.

Alog smiled. It was a wide, exaggerated kind of smile, the type that had to be forced out at knifepoint. He rubbed his trembling hands together. “It’ll go great!”

Skavos frowned and scratched the back of his head. He was about to comment on Alog’s delusions when something very heavy crashed through the barnyard door. Splinters, and former pieces of wall, exploded inwards as a pack of Ogres, huge and ugly, piled in.

There wasn’t much space in the old barn. Now there was significantly less. These were the biggest and burliest Ogres in the whole army, the ones that Sally used as personal guards and errand runners. They grinned hideously at Alog. It was time for the meeting.

“It’ll go fine,” said Alog, as two Ogres yanked him off the ground. Skavos watched, from under a table, as his friend was dragged away. “It’ll go fine,” repeated Alog, fidgeting his fingers. “Completely and absolutely fine. You’ll see”. 

#

It did not go fine.

“S-s-supply Master, r-reporting as requested,” said Alog.  

Sally regarded him with supreme distaste. “Approach.”

Alog forced himself forwards. One foot, then the other. All too soon, he was kneeling before the Warlord Supreme herself.

She towered over him, even while sitting on her throne. Larger than all of her Ogre bodyguards, two enormous biceps protruded from either side of a heavy iron breastplate, that valiantly fought to contain the rest of her. Sally was, by popular opinion, what happened when humanity and giants got too friendly with one another. She didn’t waste a moment. “Are they ready?”

Her question sounded more like a threat. Alog swallowed hard, and tried to put on a brave face, or at least one that didn’t quiver so hard. So focused was Alog on trying to be brave, he entirely forgot to speak.

Sally’s narrow eyes narrowed even further. “Well? Is my army ready or not?”

It wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Alog, however, decided that maybe if Sally was in a good mood before he broke this rather controversial news, he might lose fewer limbs as a reward.

“Ode to my Master, the Warlord Supreme…”

She likes titles, give her titles.

“To the Hammer of the Imperials, the Scourge of Man, the Butcher of… er… people, the Despoiler of… the Imperials…”

Sally’s eyes rolled in their sunken sockets. “Get on with it!”

Alog nodded his head, and desperately tried to think of something, anything, that might put her in a less murderous mindset. Nothing came up. This was his first journey into Sally’s tent. The interior design was just as pleasant as the garden outside. Bits of creature hung from the tent’s roof. So there was that. Pikes lined the walls, featuring, what else? Heads. Why not? But apart from the horror show and a billboard with a map of Ostwald on it, there was nothing to suggest anybody with an actual personality lived here.

Alog had seen the homes of wealthy Imperials. They collected art, clothes, music machines, books, wine, and stuff like that. Sally didn’t. There wasn’t a wardrobe, trunk, table or even a bed in sight. Did she not have hobbies? No pastime distractions? Was there nothing in her life save running around the Imperial countryside, ruining everybody’s weekend? 

How the hell do you make small talk with a mindless sociopath?

“Speak worm!” bellowed Sally. “Is my army ready or not?”

Her voice hit Alog like lightning. Or a big axe.    

‘No’, was the correct answer. It was also the answer that would get him a first-class ticket to the tent’s roof. Alog tried to respond, but the words crumbled in his throat. Sally’s axe, in all its ten-foot glory, was impaled in the ground beside her, and seemed to be getting closer every second. The fact that Sally’s throne had evidently been made out of Alog’s predecessor was not helping.

“Sorta…” Alog looked up and wished he hadn’t. The colour red was working its way into Sally’s eyes. “I would say that I have been ninety-five percent successful” he added, hastily, averting his gaze back to the ground. “Ninety percent at least, just one or two little problems that are… relevant to the upcoming attack … thing.” 

That was absolutely the wrong answer. Calling Sally’s crusade thing a ‘thing’ while she was in the same hemisphere was a supremely unwise thing to do. Even looking at the ground, Alog felt her eyes boring into him.

“The attack – thing?” she spat. Alog felt beads of sweat working down his forehead. “Is that all it is to you Ferals? Just some thing?”

‘Yes’, was the correct answer. It was also the answer that would get Alog a reservation to the garden outside. Fortunately, he didn’t have to think of a response this time. Sally had more monologuing to do.

“When I found you rodents,” she said, “you were a scattered pack of tribes, wandering the Brenna Forests. You did nothing. You achieved nothing.” She leaned in close. “You were nothing”.

Alog considered the point. “True enough.”

“I raised you up from that,” continued Sally, “showed you something greater, made you something greater, turned you from a rabble into an army”.

That wasn’t exactly true thought Alog. We always resembled a rabble more than an army. A very big rabble, but a rabble nonetheless.

“I gave you a choice…” That was an outright lie “…to become one with the greatest crusade ever known to man, my crusade…” Her lips curled into something that was probably supposed to be a smile. “A crusade to march from one side of the world to the other” said Sally, closing her hands into fists. “Sacking cities, burning empires, changing destiny! Correcting the world and restoring its truth!”

Alog arched an eyebrow and looked up. Sally was no longer addressing him. Her mind had wandered off to its happy place, and she was now speaking to an audience that existed mostly inside her own head. 

“It is the right of the strong to rule the weak!” Sally catapulted off her throne and threw up her mighty fists. “Power demands strength, and I am stronger than any man who ever lived! The world is mine! Mine! My own! Mine to control. To mould. To build. To burn!” She raised her arms, like a conductor at crescendo. “I am the Devil’s Own and the Fear of the God Himself! His world is mine to take, and I dare anyone alive to oppose me!”  

She stood like a statue, trapped in her dramatic pose.

A few seconds passed. Alog cleared his throat.

“Yeah… um… about that…”

The world turned cold. The world turned dark. Sally, still in her triumphant stance, slowly lowered her face, towards Alog. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Her pupils were turning red again.

“Er.” Alog swallowed hard. “Um.” Now that the bridge behind him had been unceremoniously burned, there was nothing for it. “We were unable to amass the food supplies necessary for the upcoming attack. With our current stores, we have about three weeks’ worth of food. Four tops. Not enough to see out this siege and probably not enough to advance any further into Imperial territory.”

No response.

“So, I guess we’ll have to… call off the attack.” 

It was a long shot. It was the long shot of a long shot, but if Sally could just recognise the value of an honest subordinate and the importance of good advice, then maybe, just maybe, against all odds, he might be able to keep his life.  

With this in mind, Alog glanced up and instantly realised just how wrong he was. Her face was contorted in rage. Veins of all shapes and sizes pulsated and throbbed. Her eyes burned hellfire. Sally, thrice the size of any Feral, loomed over him like a mountain, shrouding him in a literal shadow of death.

Alog gulped.

I’m going to die.

This pessimistic outlook was seemingly vindicated a moment later, when he was yanked off the ground by his neck. 

“It wasn’t my fault!” Alog said, or at least tried to. Sally’s grip tightened around his neck like a snake. He couldn’t breathe, so he didn’t.

“That. Was. An. Order!” Sally’s reddened face was half an inch from his. “Who in the hell do you think you are!?” Alog tried to speak, but all that came out was a vaguely apologetic gurgling noise. “I give you the simplest of tasks…” continued Sally, unconcerned by Alog’s death throes, “find food in an Imperial farming province, and you couldn’t even manage that!”

“It… wasn’t… my… fault!” croaked Alog. His voice barely made it through Sally’s death grip. “There was… nothing… I could… do!”

“Oh really?” Sally rolled her eyes. “You might have noticed this, but we are in Ostwald, the Imperial’s breadbasket! Did it ever occur to you that we could just forage some food from them, you imbecile!? Do I have to think of everything?” 

“We… did… that!” cried Alog, “we did exactly that, and that’s the problem! It’s gone… all of it is gone! There’s nothing left!”  

Sally opened her mouth, but the words died in her throat. “What?”  

“The food,” said Alog, “it’s… all gone”.

Sally blinked. She was having trouble digesting this. Her grip loosened, ever so slightly “What do you mean all gone?”

“I mean… it was a breadbasket farmland, but now it isn’t,” said Alog. “We’ve burned down every farm, looted every town, there’s just nothing left!”

“The fires burn fear into their hearts,” said Sally, coldly. “With nothing behind us but cinders, they see the price of resistance.”

“That’s great,” said Alog “but we have nothing left to eat! We needed their farms and stockpiles, but now it’s all gone.”

Sally thought for a moment. “We’ll live off the land. Everyone does that. We’ll do it too.”   

“Live off the land?” said Alog. “We’ve lived off the land, now there’s nothing left of the land! The crops have been picked clean; the trees have been stripped bare; the animals hunted into extinction. Even the birds know not to fly when we’re around.” He reached into his tunic and produced the map Skavos had delivered him. “I’ve had Ravens sent to every known source of food in the region, every farm, town, and hunting spot. There is nothing left, nothing! The land is dead. Soon enough, it’s going to be living off us!”

Sally stared at him. Evidently, in all her plans for world conquest, she never considered that her soldiers would need to eat and that twelve thousand soldiers would need a lot to eat. This was something of a rude awakening. “Well, how were you rodents eating before my campaign started?”

“The Brenna Forest has plenty of game and the lakes had fish,” said Alog, “but that’s a few month’s march away, on the other side of the province.”  

“Can we just send horses to collect it and bring it here?” said Sally.

“Er…” replied Alog.

Ferals were not known for their forward thinking. This was their first real campaign. Until now, their idea of war was to throw javelins and childish insults at each other from a long distance. No one died, land didn’t change hands, and everyone went home when their throwing arms gave out.

This was something else altogether. For exactly that reason, there were no horses left. After the livestock was gone, the Ferals turned on the oxen, horses, donkeys, and mules, oblivious to the long-term consequences of devouring their only means of transport.  

 Alog explained as much to Sally.

“Then we have no choice.” said Sally. “We must advance further into Imperial territory and capture Imperial stores”.

“Well…” said Alog. Sally winced. “I don’t think that’ll work; you know how the last three farms we passed were already burned to the ground before we got there?”

“Yes?” said Sally, sharply.   

“And the town of Roderick? Everything burned before we had a chance to burn it?”

“What of it?” snapped Sally.

“Well,” said Alog. “I think we now know why they’re destroying their own stuff before we can get to it.”

Sally’s teeth grinded together. She looked this way and that, as if hoping a solution could be found in the confines of her tent. Alog might have felt sorry for her, but she still had him by the neck.

“The Imperial relief column will be here in one week,” she finally said, “they’ll have a baggage train, yes?”

“Probably, yeah,” said Alog “but that’s enough food for two thousand or so men, for a few weeks. It’s not really a permanent solution”.  

“I see,” said Sally, sharply “And the fortress?”

“Probably well stocked,” said Alog, “but would require taking”.   

Sally nodded. “So what you are telling me is that we can’t go forward because they’ll burn their farms, we can’t go back because there isn’t enough food to get back to Brenna Forest and if we stay here we will be either slaughtered by the Imperial relief column or die from hunger?”

Alog thought a moment.

‘Yes’ was the correct answer, so that’s the one he gave.

Sally nodded again. The gravity of the situation was now clear. They were screwed. Completely and utterly screwed. No matter what they did, the campaign was more or less over. In celebration of this revelation, Sally shook Alog around like a ragdoll.

“How could this happen!?” she barked. “How could you fools allow this to happen?”

“I don’t know!” Alog pointed at Sally’s throne. “Ask him!”   

“We’re trapped.” said Sally. For the first time ever, Alog heard something very close to uncertainty enter her voice. “In all directions are enemies or hunger. We move forward and they’ll block us and burn the farms before we get there, we go back it’s a month’s march at least before there’s any fresh supplies. And if we stay here, we’ll starve in front of a fortress we can’t conquer”.  

Sally, the Warlord Supreme, Conqueror of Men and Fear of God, was without words. She looked at Alog, the same way a lost child does to the first adult that finds them. “What do we do?”

There was a delicate moment where both Sally and Alog just stared at one another. It was Alog who broke the silence. “Please don’t turn me into a chair.”

Sally’s eyes widened with surprise, and then narrowed with fury.

“Feh!” she lobbed Alog headfirst into a rack of pikes, smashing a great deal of them. Alog groaned as his scrambled brain tried to decide if it could be bothered remaining conscious. Sally, meanwhile, had decided upon a new course of action. Marching back to her throne, she yanked her mighty battleaxe out of the ground. Hauling it over a shoulder, she marched back to Alog, and raised it over her head.

The axe came down hard. The billboard was cut in twain. Then it was cut in twain again, and again, until it was nothing more than matchwood. This small act of unnecessary violence, however, was not nearly enough for the hyperventilating Sally. The rest of the tent was soon to follow. The throne was smashed into a hundred smaller pieces, the remaining pikes were shattered, and the trophies destroyed. Several Ogres, investigating the commotion, had mere seconds to regret their decision. There hadn’t been much in Sally’s tent. Now there was even less.

When Alog eyes finally opened, he was greeted with a scene of destruction. Everything in the room had been demolished, razed, wrecked, and ravaged. Everything except him. As the world came back into focus, he noticed that his warlord, big-axe in hand, was staring at him. Her breathing was heavy, her chest rising and falling in quick succession. She loomed over the downed Feral, her eyes once again blazing hellfire.       

Tentatively, Alog emerged from the debris, dusted himself off, and cleared his throat. He was well aware that his next words would be the most important of his life. Consequently, they needed to be picked with the upmost of care and diligence. Swallowing hard, he forced a smile on his face and stepped forward. 

“I completely agree,” he said.

Sally regarded him with bloodshot eyes. Droplets of foam dripped from her mouth. The grip on her axe tightened and, with a banshee like shriek, she raised it over her head.   

Alog nodded his head and fidgeted his fingers.

“Everything is fine.”

                                                            #

The Feral Army marched single file down what used to be a dirt path. The past two weeks had been nothing but rain, and the ground was now nothing but mud. Sally had decided to retreat with her army while she still had one. They were heading back to the same forest they had marched out of almost ten months ago. There they would regroup and rebuild.

Sally would likely have to ‘recruit’ more Feral tribes. Most of her current army wasn’t going to make it. The Giants had left of their own accord. Here and there, an Ogre lagged along with the crowd. The Trolls were at the back, ensuring those who fell behind didn’t become repeat offenders.    

Everyone was moving. Everyone except Sally. Every now and again, she had stopped to look over her shoulder and glare at the pile of stones that had thwarted her. It boiled her blood just knowing Nox de Tolly was there, defiant and unransaked. She still couldn’t believe what had happened, that it could have happened. That she could have been defeated because she didn’t bring along enough pack lunches for her useless minions. She clenched her teeth and looked away.      

“Next time…” she growled. “Next time…”

With that said, she stormed off. If any of the nearby Ferals had anything to say about that abrupt remark, they kept it to themselves. They may have been starving, exhausted, defeated, and pathetic, but they were not stupid. Say what you want about Ferals, but they are, at heart, survivors.

Some of them were, at least.

THE END