A Snippet

So, today I thought I'd give you all a clip of "First". I don't post a lot of actual writing up here but I kinda liked this small section. It comes on the ass-end of an unexpected battle that went bad and is a case of my characters asking"What else can possibly go wrong?" (which we -as writers- know is the perfect time for more trouble!) This is just a small clip from the rough draft but I'd welcome any comments or thoughts any of you'd care to leave under the comments. As usual, copyright discalimers, all rights reserved by me, etc.

Enjoy.
******************

Whisper had stopped, his smooth black features troubled as he squinted toward the west. Jaim followed his gaze, his good hand dropping reflexively to the haft of the short spear at his belt. He let his eyes flick back and forth across the terrain without any particular focus, seeking motion more than form but he saw nothing.

“What do you see, Scout Commander?”

“Look to the sky.”

Jaim did, his breath hissing out from between his teeth in a mix of awe and frustration. “Gods! Look at the size of it!”

The western skyline was completely covered in a roiling wave of brown and red clouds that moved with frightening speed directly toward them. The clouds spread as far as Jaim could see to the north and south. Beneath the clouds the land was dark, covered by the shadow of the brown clouds and . . . something more. Jaim squinted, straining to see what it was that lay under the mass of seething cloud. It moved and shifted, part of it lost in heat haze and part of it simply a twisting mass of brown, tinged with rust where the pulsing sun touched it.

“Dust storm, Lord Cap’n. Big one. Tsa’tsumi, my people say: Brown Winds.”

“How bad will it be?”

“Very bad. Tsa’tsumi can take flesh off man’s bones. Small one can be survived . . . sometime. This one big; very, very, big. Much damage. If it catch us in Fringe . . .” He shrugged to show the futility of such a happenstance.

“Perfect,” muttered Jaim, rubbing bits of grit from his eye. Already the wind was picking up. They’d have to step up the pace, that storm was moving damn fast. “How long before it hits?”

“Two, maybe three hour, no more.”

Jaim raised his right hand over his head, pumping it up and down three times. The patrol, seeing the assembly sign moved quickly in to see what he had to say. When they were assembled, he pointed out the approaching storm on the horizon. “We do not want to be caught in that, gentlemen,” he said calmly. “We’ve got maybe three hours to get back to the Hold before that storm swallows us.”

“Three?” Cynderi, a small man with thinning hair cried out. “Hell, it took us the better part of a day to get out this far, Lord Cap’n!”

“True enough, troop,” Jaim replied, “but we’re already come several hours toward home. If we travel in Campaign Step we have a chance of outrunning this storm.”

Campaign Step was what the Legion used for covering large distances over flat ground. It was a quick-march step, just short of a run. It allowed troopers to cover a lot of distance at a pace they could maintain for hours. It was part of basic Legion training and it was widely used in the plains of the Central Empire but rarely outside of that.

“Campaign Step, sir?” said Tomaro, frowning. “In this heat? That’ll be hard going. Very rough on the men. Not only that but we’ll be moving too fast to watch the land. I don’t fancy running into another Dreadbeast. Sir.”

“I imagine that if there are any more, they’ll be taking cover from this storm as well,” Jaim shot a questioning glance at Whisper, who nodded agreement. “Even if they’re not, it’s a chance we’ll have to take. That’s a dust storm coming in gentlemen, and the Scout Commander assures me it’s a deadly one. I know a few of you have done duty in the Nihami deserts, you’ve seen the damage sand storms can do.” He looked back over his shoulder at the swelling brown wall closing on them. “That thing is coming straight out of Dreadland and it’s the biggest damn storm I’ve ever seen. We do not want to be caught outside First Hold when it hits.”

There were no more objections. Enough of them had seen sand storms to know the danger and even those who hadn’t had heard the tales. They all looked at the approaching storm and steeled themselves for the forced march ahead. Anything that came out of Dreadland was deadly. Every last one of them knew the truth of that and they tightened their packs, pulling Browncloaks tight about them and raising hoods against the flying dust that would be hot on their trail. They fell into standard two by two Legion march formation and Jaim set Tomaro at point, himself and Whisper bringing up the rear. When they were ready, Tomaro looked back toward Jaim, awaiting the Lord Captain’s order.

“Call the cadence, Fist Commander! Let’s move them out!”

“Patrol!” Tomaro’s voice boomed across the Fringe. “Campaign Step . . . move out!”

The patrol moved into quick step, followed by double time and within twenty paces they were in full Campaign Step. Jaim was pleased to see his men were in perfect lockstep, even at this speed. It was a minor concern at the moment but he was glad to see they held discipline. Tomaro’s thundering bass voice rolled out ahead of them as he sang out cadence for the men to keep time. The rhythm was quick and the words simple; a soldier’s tune that Jaim had learned in his first days as a trooper. He couldn’t keep a smile from his face as the men began to sing along.

“Left my mama, left my farm . . .” sang out Tomaro.

“Left my mama, left my farm!” the patrol called out in response, echoing each line the Fist Commander sang.

Left my girl in the old wheat barn . . .
Left my pa and all my kin . . .
Don’t think I’ll ever go back again . . .
Taught me to fight and break some bones . . .
Taught me the Legion was my home . . .
Gave me a sword, and got me a shield . . .
I’ll fight till I die, cause the Legion don’t yield . . .

The song had been a staple of the Legion for time out of mind, maybe back as far as the Empire had been around. Jaim imagined the first troopers had done Campaign Step to the same cadence and he wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the words hadn’t changed much either. The life of a soldier was the same no matter what age, or what army, they came from. They were the poor, the desperate, the younger sons of the common folk, with no prospect of inheritance nor any means of procuring a decent education. The Legion gave them a place and a calling. It gave them purpose and it gave them a home. It called men of similar attitudes and station from all across the Empire, throwing them together in deadly situations and forged from them the most powerful military force that the world had ever known. Together, they were the Legion. Together, they could accomplish anything.

Together, they were a family.

A family, yes, and Jaim was the head of this particular branch of that family. It was his job to see these men safely back to First Hold. He’d already done enough damage, leading them to Dreadland when he should have known better. He kept pace with the men but Jaim didn’t sing out, he bent all his attention on scanning for anything that might present a danger to his Browncloaks. Two strides to his left, Whisper did the same, both of them holding the step, but with their heads constantly twisting this way and that. It became more difficult as they went, the hot winds rising at their back, blowing dust and debris in their faces. Jaim ordered all hoods drawn up, though he and the Scout Commander kept theirs down. The grit tossed about by the winds stung, reddening Jaim’s cheeks and making him squint his eyes tightly to see but he couldn’t afford to lose his peripheral vision beneath a hood right now.

“East!”

Whisper had to raise his voice to be heard above the shrieking wind and the rhythmic chanting of the men. Jaim scanned the eastern horizon, catching the slight movement along the ridgeline of a small row of hills. The creature was large, not the size of a Shrika, but big enough to do damage to the patrol.

“What is it?”

Whisper shook his head, raising one hand to block swirling dust from his eyes. “Too far, Lord Cap’n. It moves away from us . . . seeks shelter from storm.”

That was a mixed blessing. Jaim was glad the creature was moving off but that meant the storm bearing down on them was going to be a true bitch. Dreadbeasts did not veer away from prey, ever. He’d learned that much during his time in the Fringe. If that beast was willing to forego easy prey in favor of shelter it meant the storm was going to be even worse than Jaim feared. He looked for landmarks as they went, trying to judge how far they’d come and how far they still had to go. It was difficult with the wind blowing so much dirt into the air but he recognized a blackstone pillar standing a few dozen paces off to his right. That put them about . . . two hours out from the Dreadgate. Damn! He glanced back over his shoulder, cursing once more when he saw the massive wall of heaving brown death that was bearing down on them. They’d been at Campaign Step for the better part of an hour now and the storm had closed the distance between them by a good bit more than half. It would be on them in less than an hour now. There was no way they were going to outrun it. The best they could hope for was to stay on its leading edge until they got inside the Hold.

Tomaro fell out of point, trotting back to Jaim’s position and falling into step beside him. One of the other men had taken up the cadence, though it was hard to hear the singing over the wailing of the wind.

“We ain’t outrunning that storm, Lord Captain!” The words were half shouted but pitched low enough so they wouldn’t carry to the men. “Maybe we ought to look for shelter of some kind!”

As if to underline the Fist Commander’s words, a stray gust of wind whirled about them, filling Jaim’s mouth with grit and small stones as he opened it to reply. He broke off in a fit of coughing, trying to clear the debris from his throat.

“In the Fringe? There’s nothing out here to protect us from that.” He gestured over his shoulder with one thumb. “That storm’ll eat through stone! If we get caught in the eye of it we don’t stand a chance. We need to outrun it. We’ve got an hour –maybe- before it’s on us. Once it starts biting out heels, we’re going to break cadence and make a flat out run for it. Let your men know, Commander. When I give the order, I want them running for their lives! Every man for himself; if anyone falls behind we won’t be waiting for them, understand?”

“Aye, Lord Captain!”

Tomaro moved forward again, stopping at each pair of men to pass the word. The singing died out as the men looked back at what was coming for them and they began to worry about conserving their wind for the race to come. Jaim finally raised his hood, gesturing for Whisper to do the same. The visibility was so poor now they couldn’t see far enough out to give any type of meaningful warning to the patrol anyway. No point in losing their eyes to some stray bit of rubble if they could help it. Jaim moved over so he was trotting shoulder to shoulder with his Scout Commander.

“Suggestions?” he asked, hoping that Whisper’s greater experience in these wastes might provide some additional insight.

“Run,” he replied simply.