writing HawkMoth's Fiction

[Hawk Moth 390]

Gonna start trying to write everyday. I want to be a writer and make a living off of it, so I should get in some practice. Also it's a good way to introduce you all to my fantasy world. I'm going to try to make this a regular thing, so I'll just post small pieces. Eventually this will all be collected into a story of sorts, but think of it as a collage. Instead of one, whole narrative, you see the story in fragments from multiple points of view. Questions about the world are appreciated if you wish to know more about the background.

 

 

Stories from the 3rd Midlandian War of Independence

 

2nd Sword Aericuo Mat'Simiss, 19th Banner, 3rd Army of Midland

 

"Landing on the Beach on Sunny Afternoon"

 

I remember not being able to take me eyes off the bulwarks where the Osterran boys had dug in and was having at us with repeaters and bombards. I weren't looking at the 'peaters or 'bards though - just the bunkers on the hills. I remember thinking to meself, "I wonder how long them bunkers have been there?". Did they pile up the dirt and dump all that cement there last month, or had there always been earthworks that the Grays had but built over? Five hundred years ago, I wondered, had our boys landed on the same beaches and being met with longbows and mangonels 'stead of 'peaters and 'bards? I wondered what that would have felt like, seeing arrows and hunks of rock falling from the skies. Must've been scary, those big rocks. Still, I'd take the rocks over bullets. Least you can see the rocks - jump out of the way or at maybe make a short peace with Heaven before getting crushed. Can't see the bullets at all unless you count all the flashes what come from the muzzles, but even then you can't tell where the little lead devils is gonna end up. You could think one was coming straight at you and jump to the left only to get straight in front of its path instead. Nasty things they is. That afternoon, was like trying to dodge raindrops. All you could hear was the sounds of guns and screaming. Barely even the waves.
 
But I weren't thinking about the noise. Just them bunkers. Even when a sniper's bullet hit the boy in front of me and painted me face with his brains, I was still thinking 'bout them. I wiped his sticky life off me face so I could keep staring at them too. So when the ship got close enough that I could see they was new cement, and me question was finally answered, that's when I first realized just how dead I was gonna be.
 
The hatch on the bow clanked down, and all the boys 'front of me ran off forward, some of them torn up by the 'peaters before they could take two steps only for the others to near drown, as the gate went down too early, and we wasn't close enough to the beach yet. I think twenty of us got it there while the rest of us stood back, ducked trying to dodge the fire. Eventually, we heard the bell ring which meant it was our time to die, and we jumped off too. Again, the fire from the hills took most of us out, and it was looking so hopeless that we weren't even bothering to shoot back. Not like we had the chance to aim or nothing - just pull off rounds 'till our rifles jammed, we ran out of ammo, or died.
 
Farther down the coast our kettle boys had already hit the sand and were soaking up 'peater fire right good, none of them little lead peas getting past their armor or shields. They weren't too far off that I couldn't see bullets hit their armor and bounce off, sometimes flying into unarmored soldiers. At the time, I thought that was really funny for some reason, like one of them jokes that's real wrong, and you feel bad after laughing at it.
 
Some of us tried running toward the kettles for cover, but they'd get shot up trying. Me and B'thane were hunkered down behind a tank block, and I remember thinking hard on that one too. I thought about how you couldn't drive a tank up the beach on account of all the blocks, but 'cause of that, all us soldiers had places to hide. Were those the hard decisions their officers had to make? Choosing whether they wanted tons of soldiers running up the hill or tanks? Over to the right a bit, three boys was sharing the same block, and a forth one had just crawled out of the water. He was trying to take cover with the other three, but they kept yelling and waving him away, saying there was no room left. He wouldn't have any of that and crawled up anyway, so one of the three started wrestling with him to try to push him back, but the boy from the water overpowered him and pushed him out of cover so that he fell on his back. That one got eaten up by fire which didn't make his friends all that happy, and before the new guy knew it the friends of the guy he just killed were on him with their truncheons until he was dead too. That didn't make me laugh.
 
B'thane had figured out the rhythm of the 'peaters and could tell when the one that had our stretch of beach covered was reloading, and when he signaled, we'd duck out and pop a few off up at the hills, me trying to remember where the muzzle flares had been coming from, taking real careful shots and squeezing the trigger rather than pulling it, so I could make me pike proud wherever he was in Heaven. B'thane was just firing like mad, not even bothering to reload, grabbing fallen rifles and firing 'till they were empty or jammed. He took a lucky shot in the shoulder and fell backwards, and I remember him smiling because he knew the wound wouldn't kill him but was still bad enough that he'd never have to jump off a boat, run through a trench, or crawl through mud ever again.
 
About fifteen minutes later, I heard whistles blow, and looked to me left to see the kettles trudging up the sand toward the hill. One of them had fallen, and it made me sad to see one of them bears dead, but I was happy too on account of the Osterrans only being able to take down one of them even after pumping hundreds of thousands of slugs their way. They had locked shields to give cover for a handful of League engineers, and they was doing a fine job, as not one of them engies died on that beach. Our pops back on the ocean must've planned this out well enough too 'cause none of the 'bards could angle in well enough to hit the kettles as they marched up the sand. I guess they was fixed in place - none of them slow-cookers what get used in the trenches that a man can just sling over his shoulder and move someplace new.
 
The Grays, I'm guessing was getting all scared, and as I looked up toward the crest of the hill, I could see them running this way and that, trying to move equipment to focus fire on the kettles, so the pressure got taken off the rest of us, and we could start moving up the beach too, though it did get mighty scary once I ran past the last tank block and realized that I wouldn't have anymore cover 'til I reached the hill. I saw more boys go down in this stretch, where the sand turned into rough grass, but still no lead found me. Me eyes teared up or me head fogged over, 'cause everything started to get blurry. I thought I could see the bullets now, that they was flying all around me, one just going over the top of me head while other flew between me legs, nearly making a woman out of me. It felt like each second was one second longer that I shoulda died, and that had me feeling down sicker and sicker, just waiting for the one that would send me to Heaven. It never came though, and before I knew it, I was hugging earth, me face pressed into the base of the hill with grass in me mouth.
 
The kettles and engies was dug in slightly 'fore of the hill, shields still locked into a wall of iron while the engies was putting something together, two of them tinkering around with a bunch of tubes and springs while the others was digging a hole. For a few minutes I just watched them, but was snapped back to meself when 3rd pike Haedlew grabbed me shoulder and stuck a bomb in my hand, telling me to throw it up to the left at the nearest bunker, said we all had to cover the engies while they readied the breach. I pulled the pin out the top and turned the percussion cap, reading to throw when Haedlew started yelling at me, saying it wouldn't do no good if it was just me throwing, said I had to wait for the whistle. I looked back over at the engies and kettles, and they had finished building their whatever-the-hell-it-was. Looked like a slow-cooker only bigger, probably taller than a man if it was standing straight up. Some wider tubes was buried in the hole, one engie looking it over while two others was looking the hill over with spyglasses. After a few moments of this, one of them threw a high sign left and right, and I heard a loud whistle echoing far down the beach to the west. Haedlew sounded his no more than a second later, so all the boys chucked their bombs wherever they was told to chuck, and I remember trying to think about how loud the sound of all them bombs going off was only to jump in fright when I heard the engies' cannon go off and blow a chunk of that hill into the sky.
 
Next all I could hear was more whistles and "Go! Go! Go!" from all over as soldiers rushed up the hill and through the breach. I hesitated a bit but got me courage back at the sight of so many of us running at the same time. We was all pushing to fit through the breach until some boys in the back figured it was all the same to just run up the hills to the left and right, seeing as how all the Grays cared about now as plugging that hole. I followed a dozen or so others up the hill to the left of the breach, and five or so of them got cut down by a Gray who was still at his gun. The rest of us broke, running around the side or hit the ground to dodge the fire, and it weren't long before the few that got around was in the bunker, shooting up whoever was still there. That was going on all down the line, and I remember seeing then that there weren't even that many defending the hills - only enough to man the 'peaters and 'bards along with a few riflemen and snipers. Grays was running for their autos as well, trying to fall back to the road to join the defense at Sengerheft.
 
It was then that I decided I'd find that bunker what had taken so many of us. I weren't scared no more, and even though there was Grays out with their rifles in the trenches behind the bunkers, I kept running, joining a few more who were going this way and that from bunker to bunker. All the 'bards were abandoned now, some of their barrels still smoking, and a handful of boys was trying to turn them around to fire on the trenches, but it weren't no good, and they'd give up after not too long. I nearly tripped over one 'bard what had come out of its birth somehow, but that didn't stop me. I kept running until I could look out over the hill and see just where I had been hiding only minutes before. With a smile, I ran into the bunker, yelling up a storm with me rifle shouldered, but there weren't nobody there. There was no place to hide neither and, besides the 'peater and a few boxes of ammo, the place was completely empty. Thinking I'd made some mistake, I ran to the next bunker, but save a single dead Gray, it was the same deal.
 
I didn't leave that bunker for awhile. A few times other soldiers ran in, looked around, looked at the body, looked at me, and ran off. For a few minutes I just stared through the rectangular hole in the cement at all them dead, holding the 'peater 'tween me hands and looking down the sights, realizing just how easy it was to kill so many people with that thing, and I wondered how any of us had made it off them beaches at all. It frightened me to think about it, as if this world was so fragile, that just remembering it all would shatter the here-and-now and send me right back to the sand, one of them bullets what whizzed past me the first time finally getting it right. Other times, I'd curl up in a corner, looking at the body. Who had shot the man, and why hadn't he looted the corpse? I took the ring off his finger, two silvermarks from his breast pocket, and the pistol out of his hand, wondering if that one bullet he managed to get off was at one of us or himself.