{"id":1421,"date":"2012-01-05T00:01:31","date_gmt":"2012-01-05T06:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1421"},"modified":"2012-01-05T00:01:31","modified_gmt":"2012-01-05T06:01:31","slug":"christmas-present-snippet-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1421","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Present: Snippet #12"},"content":{"rendered":"

Episode 12 of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol during the Pargunese invasion.<\/em>\ufeff<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

She ran forward, counting in her head…one, two, three…ten as she heard footsteps in the snow to either side, moving away.\u00a0 A few yells from the Pargunese; one of the lights went out, but more flared, closer now.\u00a0 Halt, re-span the bow, the bolt this time coming easily to her fingers and into position.\u00a0 She heard the others coming forward, then halting as well.<\/p>\n

“Ready…now!”\u00a0 Again they shot.\u00a0 “Back twenty!”\u00a0 When they regrouped, she shifted them thirty paces to summerwards, and repeated the pattern–a volley at the lights, then forward and another volley, then back.\u00a0 The Pargunese were making a lot of noise–if only she’d known Pargunese.\u00a0 Orders being shouted, questions, responses.\u00a0 Suddenly, above them, she heard the thin, deadly whistle of falling bolts.\u00a0 “Overhead! Shields!”\u00a0 They had only a few shields left–she didn’t have one–a helmet was no protection–she heard them hit–some on the snow, some with the distinctive wet crunch of armor and bone and human flesh.\u00a0 The survivors dragged the fallen back to the trees, silently, as Vardan directed.\u00a0 Vardan herself fumbled in the snow for the bolts she’d heard land near him, finding only two she could pull out by the fletched ends.<\/p>\n

They lost six to the blind volley…five in the head, one in the shoulder that went down through lung and heart.\u00a0 Berol, Little Tam, Mol, Segre, Celin, Lir.\u00a0 Vardan thumbed their eyes closed, and they all recited two prayers to Falk and one to Alyanya, as they laid the bodies out decently.\u00a0 Several rangers brought boughs to lay on them.\u00a0 Vardan hoped their own four volleys had done at least that much damage to the Pargunese.<\/p>\n

As the snow continued to sift down through the trees, Vardan prepared to endure another cold, uncomfortable night.\u00a0 The rangers reported that the nearest shelter was a half-day’s walk away–in daylight.\u00a0 They did know where a low rise supported evergreens, and soon they were all crammed in under the low hanging boughs of a clump of cedars.\u00a0 The rangers had left observers nearer the farmstead; Vardan let her people sleep, if they could; if the Pargunese moved in the night, let them.\u00a0 She fell asleep at last.<\/p>\n

Morning brought a cold fog between the trees; the snow had stopped.\u00a0 One of the rangers had a tiny fire going on the back side of the rise.\u00a0 He said they were far enough from the farmstead that the smoke wouldn’t be seen, and he’d started a pot of sib.\u00a0 One by one the Halverics woke up, ate a meagre breakfast of dried fish from Pargunese packs, and had each a few swallows of sib, but she could tell they felt as she did–nowhere near full.<\/p>\n

Would the Pargunese move that day, or was there enough food to feed them for several days?\u00a0\u00a0 If that smokehouse had been full–and the dairy and granary–winter stores for the twenty or thirty who lived there–perhaps they would stay…they had looked burdened enough and they had no wagons.\u00a0 She could not imagine those riders dismounting to use the horses as pack animals.<\/p>\n

If they stayed, she should take her troops on south to Chaya, meet up with the king or Aliam or whoever was coming.\u00a0 But if they moved, she should help the rangers slow them on the way.<\/p>\n

The ranger put his hand on the ground, where he’d brushed the snow away.\u00a0 “The king’s coming,” he said.<\/p>\n

Vardan put her own hand down, but felt nothing.\u00a0 “How do you know?”<\/p>\n

“The taig.\u00a0 It is pleased.\u00a0 That bad fire was stopped, and the taig has recovered enough for me to sense it as more than just anguish.\u00a0 The Lady is again in our land as well.”\u00a0 The ranger smiled, a relaxed smile this time.\u00a0 “She will heal the land; the king will defend it.”<\/p>\n

……………………………………………………………………………<\/p>\n

And that is the end of the 12 snippets…for anything more would be spoilerish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Episode 12 of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol during the Pargunese invasion.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-1421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-snippet","tag-snippet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1422,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421\/revisions\/1422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}