Sergeant Wulfric breathed through his cold nostrils, because it was stupid to do anything else. His armour was rusty and dull, for he was not an attentive man, and his helmet sat uncomfortably upon his head, for he had used it's padding to feed the fire. He'd lived his life without small comforts like shiny armour, and a fitting helmet; wasn't about to start now because some jumped-up merchant-son told him to. Now, here, in this swampy, ruined ****hole, he was going to die, and Wulfric didn't like the idea of that. Right now, he was desperately wondering why the buggery he'd joined up! Come, come, said the Recruiter! Fight the Darkspawn, earn wealth and plunder! Well, Wulfric had just lost his boat, Renya had died of fever the previous winter, and he had some debts that he couldn't pay. So Wulfric The Fisherman became Wulfric the Warrior, and the lads on his boat had followed along aswell, so he'd been made a Sergeant. Then came the fishguts. The offal. The bit that didn't bear thinking about. The bollocking from a noble youth who's balls hadn't even dropped yet, the ****ty food and worse pay.
"Oi! Sarge!" Came a voice to rip Wulfric from his reminiscence. Along the line, a soldier had called out. Gallet; tall, big, brown haired and starry eyed, with an old hatchet he'd once used to cut fishing lines.
"Wha' is it?" Wulfric bellowed back, not stepping from the line. They'd been waiting here since the middle of the bloody night, and he'd just got used to the whole 'standing in a muddy ditch' thing.
"Wha' we fightin'?" Was the reply, and this made several men chuckle.
"We're fightin' the ars'-end of the black. The nasty sort of 'appenin' that don't like you all that much." Wulfric answered, with a slight grin. That seemed to shut him up, but chatting went on all around anyway.
Some said he had been educated; they were lying bastards to the man. No fishermen knew a word of the letters. Still, Wulfric was educated enough to know that his previous assumption, that he would die here was, at worst - stupid. He was tucked in, neat and tidy, at the back. No darkspawn eating his skin today.
He rolled his neck as a Noble began to stride along their line, followed by a Chantry Priest; both were thin and beautiful. As they passed, the men fell to one knee and spoke a prayer to the Maker. These were not the finest soldiers in Thedas, far from it, but they still knew that a prayer may incur divine blessing, even if it was for quick feet. As they passed, Wulfric himself did not pray, or kneel.
Such caught a sceptical glance from the Noble and the Priest, but the Sergeant's bowed head meant that nothing was made of it. Good. He would be torched for heresy had they known his thoughts. That the Maker could go to the black. To the depths. Why should he worship someone who'd turned his eyes from them? Oh, there had to be a Maker, but that by no means meant it was a benevolent one.
All around them, the Army of King Cailan took a breath, just as the Darkspawn whispered from the woods. Once a single vile skull was visible, sharpshooters were taking shots from the bluffs of Ostagar. One or two even struck a hit. But that was nothing, of course. It was less than nothing to the men at the rear; Wulfric only heard of the darkspawn's arrival a few seconds before he caught their shrieks of bloodlust upon the night wind.
"We're all going to die 'ere..." murmured a man. He was silenced by his comrades, as the tension rose. The ranks infront stood up straighter as they caught glimpses of their King's golden armour. Oh, it was a very stirring sight, for most men. But Wulfric always associated shiny armour and well-sharpened weapons with a boot to the crotch, and a Guard fisting him because, apparently, trying to stop a crime was, in and of itself, a crime. But only if the culprit is a Nobleman.
Couldn't forget that, Wulfric noted. He spat upon the earth, trying to remember something he'd been told about, long, long ago. When he was naught but a tadpole in the ocean of life. Chantry. Sitting in the marketplace and being told such wonderful bloody stories. Always remembered one thing: "Magic is meant to serve man, and never to rule over him."
Does that mean that man is one...thing?
And if man is one thing, does that mean we're all...as good as each other?
He'd asked that, and got a whipping.
A Grey Warden strode past, his cloud-coloured cloak skimming the ground. For a second, he turned and looked at the men he would soon be fighting beside. A broad, short man with an ill-fitting helmet and rusty armour, and a scar down his throat. He looked stubborn, but untested.
"What..." Spoke the Warden, speaking slowly to conceal his accent "...is your name?"
"Call's me Wulfric Mongerson, Sir. Sergeant, Arl Urien."
"I asked for your name, not your job description." The Warden growled, glaring at this insolent peasant. Where he came from, the glorious city of Montsimmard, you answered your superiors and nothing more. However, in reprimanding the fool, he had revealed his accent.
And Wulfric had lost a sister to an Orlesian Chevalier. In grizzly fashion.
But he'd also been taught how to shut up in a similar way. So he did not speak. He did not hammer the Mage to the ground; he just stood there and hoped some arrow would fly past and gut this ****ing Orlesian ****. Because that was what Commoners did. They shut up and prayed. A lot.
Nonetheless, the Warden did not move on, giving Wulfric a long looking over. He noted that this tramp was the closest thing to a tall man he could find amongst the common men; five foot ten inches, at best. Acceptable for a messenger; long legs and good vision.
"Follow me, Sergeant Mongerson." He spoke, with a sneer, and Wulfric obeyed, stepping quickly from the lines. He passed his brother, Leofric, who didn't even bat an eyelid at his older sibling. Never one to give a damn about anyone else, that Leofric. They soon came to the eastern end of the line, where the Arl Urien had planted his horse. He was a red-haired man, in his late forties; he bestrode his horse with casual ease, even though his legs were long broken. His glittering platemail was well-burnished and of immaculate make.
The bodyguard of the Arl shocked Wulfric to his core. Bronze-skinned Giants wearing Fereldan armour. Their weapons were old and battered, and their heads bore scars the like of which Wulfric had only seen upon old sharks, the ones which threw themselves into nets when their teeth fell away. Had he been smarter, he would have surmised that this might be a similar thing for these proud Warriors. He wasn't, so he just stared, dumbly at them, clustered a few metres infront of their charge.
"Warden." The Arl greeted the Orlesian, not bothering to acknowledge the ragged soldier beside him until he absolutely had to.
"My lord, this is Sergeant Mongerson. He will act as messenger between you and King Cailan."
Wulfric frowned slightly at that, before realising it's implications. ****. He was going to die. Instead of snorting angrily, he just let his shoulders fall, slightly. He'd come to terms with dying an hour before: now he had to do it again. Bah. That was all that could be muttered, as Urien focused his attention on his subject.
"Stand up straight in the presence of your Arl!"The Grey Warden ordered, which caused Wulfric to snap to attention, like a tree branch retreating from the touch of a traveller. Urien glazed over the scraggy man with a brush of his glance, before nodding.
"Go tell the King that the left is prepared. Be quick, man!" The Arl said, and Wulfric was instantly turned around and shoved away from both the Grey Warden and the Noble, with only a few words of encouragement.
Well, if "Thank you for taking the foul job, knave" counted as encouragement.
Still, Wulfric was a smart sort of lad, and it didn't take too long for him to guess where King Cailan was. Guarded by his immaculately-garbed and renowned Royal Guard, Wulfric was not permitted to actually speak to the King, nor even get within ten feet. His words were passed to a retainer, who in turn told the ruler of Ferelden. That was royalty for you, Wulfric noted, before turning away. The Army itself was eternally prepared, raring for the get-go, for the charge, as they released the arrows, and then the Mabari. Wulfric was perhaps the only one near the front who wasn't ready for the Theirin King's words.
"For Ferelden!"
"Oh, **** it!"
The man wasn't a fighter. Brawler, maybe. He could throw a nasty rabbit-punch when someone insulted him. Fade, he'd even won more fights than he'd lost. But he knew one thing: a battle is different. It's blood, ****, gore and brutality on a level that no man can ever experience another way, and that's without filth-blooded darkspawn. He knew because they'd told him.
It was as Sergeant Mongerson was forced into a charge by his own side that he remembered his father's only non-fishing-related piece of advice.
Never join the nug-****ing Army.
Ostagar was the place that Wulfric learnt why. As they charged, he only just managed to get his weapon out, a blunt shortsword with little in the way of sharpening. As the lines clashed, he cut his lip against the helmet of the man infront; they'd stopped abruptly and Wulfric had been pushed forward, stumbling into half a concussion. Blood dripped from his mouth, but noone gave a damn. Arrows whirled around them; some darkspawn, some human. As Wulfric was jostled by his comrades, tightly packed against the Horde, he had no time to think about it. He was terrified. Screams echoed from every corner, and all those around him pushed and shoved as they held the line. Wulfric felt his arm bashed and pulled, again and again. It was difficult to not impale the soldier directly before him, who was fast becoming the only thing between him and raging darkspawn. Behind him, he smelt a cesspit, and saw a Knight, armoured from foot to neck in steel, cringing in satisfaction. Maybe fifteen feet infront of him, the Hurlocks were tearing at men like frenzied barracudas. Genlocks clustered around proud Knights and stuck serrated daggers through the joints in their armour, before ripping off their helmets and destroying their features. The man next to Wulfric disappeared into the ground; how? How? Screams echoed to every side, and the shrieks of the foe pierced his mind, made the battle into nothing but a fade-dream of blood and pain.
It was when the man infront fell to the ground that Wulfric pissed himself in fear. It was not some voluntary display of cowardice; a claw tore straight through the man's breastplate, and splattered the Sergeant with the heart and lungs of a man, with some blood and bits of rib for good measure. The smell! Oh Maker, before it had been just blood and sweat, but now it was offal and gore and **** and everything wrong with the world! But Wulfric did not hesitate in his duty. Though terrified to his core, he stepped forward and aim a sword thrust at the Hurlock, who was still preoccupied with it's former victim. While he was pissing himself.
His feeble attempt at valour did not succeed. It was badly timed, his arm wasn't even straight, and his training had gone out the boat like nothing else. The beast simply jerked back, screamed, and gripped the weapon with it's very teeth. Vile blood smeared over Wulfric's hand, shortly before the Darkspawn wrenched the shortsword from his grip in a sharp tug of it's neck.
He was dead. Wulfric Mongerson was going to die!
Maybe it was because he was thirty-winters old. Maybe it was because he'd been brought up to acknowledge that his life would end prematurely. Or maybe it was down to the fact he was too scared to scream. Whatever the cause, Wulfric just stood there as his enemy gripped it's own weapon and went straight for him.
And he muttered "No more nobles."
Then Andraste swooped down and carried him off to The Eternal City.
Atleast it seemed like that.
The Ogre fist crushed it's fellow darkspawn, and as such only broke a single rib of the Fereldan Soldier. The adrenaline had inured Wulfric to the arrival of the Ogre, and by the time it was throwing it's great paw at him, he was already consigned to die. Not some noble acceptance of fate. Just a normal man realising he's probably ****ed. And as the unbearable pain struck his entire body, he reckoned that was the end. No more. A cluster of men fled over him, several collapsing near and around him. Didn't care. Didn't matter. Just blurred images, fading from sight, into the light...
Modifié par Housecarl, 19 février 2011 - 07:26 .
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