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The Garden of Our Sins - Ernest Miller


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I laid prone on the melting frost behind the crest of the hill, awaiting the attack. It was a cold and fresh early morning and the sun had just begun to rise over the hills and although there was the crunch of snow underfoot not far beneath was the grass of the hills and the mold of the leaves and needles of the trees. Romantics imagine the fighting of war to take place on foggy and clouded days but really these are the days of rest and respite from combat and movement. The days of action are days like that one was, when the weather is clear and it is not too cold and maybe winter has just removed its talons from the back of the earth, so that the air is chilly but the sun is warm.

In those days we were fighting the Suticans, but after a while it is not about who you are fighting but what you are fighting for. I still do not know what I fought for but I do know that I fought, and I believe I fought well but I fought with fear. Perhaps that is why I fought well, because I had the fear. My column of irregulars was eighteen strong, and we ate and drank what the foothills of the Northwestern Mountains would grant us, which was sometimes nothing, and our horses we had gotten from a surprise attack on a short wagon train in the winter. They were strong animals bred and trained for war and we had twenty-two of them but not all soldiers rode so we used some as pack horses. We made camp in the valleys and there was much merriment but also some sickness and conflict. We had grown restless in the winter and that is not a good thing for soldiers, even irregulars, to feel. But we were refreshed and ready to resume fighting even if there was some nervousness.

Our first assignment of the war-making season came from a man under MacDroch who handled our detachment. His name was Petersen and when you spoke to him it seemed like he wanted to end the conversation as soon as possible. He was a wiry man with a small face and fading hair but we respected him even though he did not fight anymore. A regular cavalry brigade stationed in a camp north of Aegrothond intercepted a Sutican aide-de-camp and found a docket which was promptly brought under MacDroch’s eyes. A Sutican supply wagon with few escorts would be moving north and we were stationed closest to it. From the beginning I did not like the assignment, which was to intercept the wagon and deliver it to friendly lines. It was the poor kind of assignment, the kind that is not of the utmost importance to the planners but where some attempt to carry it out must be made regardless.

We had a week to organize and plan and this part was left entirely up to us. As a collective we decided it would be best to split into two squads of nine on either side of the road and await a signal before releasing a volley of bolts, then charging. If the enemy was insurmountable then we would fall back into the hills which we knew but the enemy did not, and where we could not be found if we were careful. But much of war is luck and in this war there was no exception, so there was still fear that we would fail, and there was much talk of this. But if you fear failure and death you cannot fight as well as one who does not, and we all knew this.

The day came and it was chilly and clear like I have said before, and all day we awaited the caravan but it did not come. When the sun had nearly set and the brilliant tapestry of orange and purple was being woven, our scout in the forest reported that he had seen our mark on the dirt road which ran close to the stream. So, silent as mice, we got into our positions and readied our bows and waited until finally we heard the tumbling of wheels. In the front were two mounted officers, clad in blue jackets and stained white breeches with the crests of the cavalry on their breasts and helmets. There were soldiers similarly colored with cheerful faces and of all races who rode the wagons, sometimes walking alongside them. I aimed my bow at the chest of one such man, closest to me, and traced his path as he moved along. And then the order to fire came and I pulled the metal trigger of my crossbow, and for a moment feared that it had caught but the bolt flew straight and true and embedded itself in his throat. All around was the twanging of drawstrings and the whirring of arrows and the foot soldiers fell like sacks of sand onto the ground, some clutching at their wounds, shrieking and crying with agony, others silent but breathing, others writhing, others dead or dying, but all with faces contorted in pain as blood pooled on or beneath them. The first officer lay dead on the ground among his men, two bolts protruding from his chest, the other had a bolt through his eye and remained attached by his stirrups to his horse, which was pale and white with black eyes. Its dead rider leaned to the side and fell off several moments later with a thud and a cloud of dust. Crimson blood quickly pooled beneath his head and he breathed his last breath. The carriage horses were stopped and the officers’ horses ran, and the second signal to approach came from the opposite side of the road. We ambled forward, down the slope of the hill.

The scene there was more gruesome than it had been from afar but we were used to the gore of the dead and the agony of the living. Some were not wounded quite as badly as others and these cried out to us, but many of their voices were warped by pain. “The war is over! Ended this morning!” cried one, his voice marred by the gurgling of blood.

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