Short Story About Officer and Soldiers

"Who are you?" The officer on horseback, dressed in light armour and a fur streaked to repair the cold pointed his sword. He watched his nine soldiers around the traveller.

"Could a name save me?"

The sword slid down, touched the horse. The officer inhaled the pungent air, waited.

"Sh?rki?ay Hir'tjena" the traveller said no more. Canvas clothes, amaranth eyes, the name. Everything was proof of the strangeness of that world.

"I don't think I will remember ..." the officer's face went lazy, he would have struggled that day and also in the following ones.

The way to extort information was imprinted on his mind like a wound.

"I'll talk about something else if you ask."

The officer observed the other nine, in a hurry. He shrugged his shoulders in almost part of his fur and felt a shudder, the most obvious condition on that day from the milk sky and beaten by the cold. "Yes, you will."

The amaranth eyes went down, the hands prayed, but it didn't help.

Get quality help now

Marrie pro writer

Verified writer

Proficient in: Soldiers

5 (204)

“ She followed all my directions. It was really easy to contact her and respond very fast as well. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

"An appropriate gift for such a noble soldier"

The gaze of the Emperor's adviser invested him with an unjust commiseration, linked to appearance.

"I accept with honour," he was awakened and answered solemnly. He grabbed the most beautiful sword on which he had ever posted his eyes with the desire to use it against him. He didn't feel he was unfair.

"Soldier, perhaps you wish ..." Councillor Teurat could not finish.

"No!" Spit saliva, he woke up for the second time.

The long line of soldiers that started from his side watched him in silence. He was guilty of interrupting the ceremony.

"Do you not wish to express gratitude to the supreme Tusna?" Teurat's attitude lost its former magnificence and commiseration was evident.

Hiulo nodded sheepishly. He wiped his forehead, listened to the silence in the square of the imperial castle. He couldn't look up at him. "This sword will prove it without words."

The councillor tilted his head to the side and turned to the next soldier. Stressed out. The sound of the horns and the announcing of the value of each in the row continued for a long time, but Hiulo's thoughts only came back to him.

CHAPTER 1: THE BEGINING

"We will spend the night over there."

The eight soldiers turned to the houses and to Lisphra's order.

"And tomorrow, further south, beyond that side."

A series of rocks covered the horizon.

The rest of the mountains stretched as far as the eye could see, meeting the smoke of the small shepherd village.

"The detachment is three days old," Luviath looked at the others, stared at Lisphra.

"Yes." Lisphra pointed south, "two days ... and then back."

"Winter is near, commander."

"And our almost finished rest," he returned his gaze.

Luviath smiled. "Well," he touched the hilt, "my sword is tired of the sheath."

Silence. The cold north wind whistled over the grey indentation, against the thoughts of the southern battles, the Southern Kingdom. They remembered. There was no silence there.

Nine horses. The hooves popped the frost-hardened earth to the largest house. Then they observed. The cautious wind like the shepherds frightened by the passage; the smoke of the chimney pots thinned out at times, broken before rising more than necessary. They waited a few moments.

"Cheers to you soldiers" an old man greeted the highest in rank.

"Do you know the laws?" Lisphra was cordial, but he never forgot his authority.

"This area has already been the passage of the representatives of the Empire."

The commander nodded. "Then tell us where."

"Here," he replied, "my house is the largest in the village," he nodded. "And my four children long went."

"Dead from the cold?" Ihar?go's voice rose as he usually did. A mixture of insolence, naivety and sarcasm.

The old man pointed to the left, to the south. «Enlist in ground troops. I have no news beyond the destination ".

Lisphra bent to the opposite side.

The intention to part the wavy hair, which annoyed him due to the wind, to leave the old man's eyes.

He dismounted; the other eight did the same. No hypotheses on the fate of absent children.

They tied the bridle to a fence and moved to the door. The proud aspect of superiority at every step.

"Welcome," said the old man. He showed a large hall and a similar fire - for a few moments - to the glow of B?caras, far from their eyes for days.

They entered one at a time, without gratitude.

The dinner was excellent for the nine soldiers. Goat meat, cheeses, even stale bread - almost a rarity in the area of the mountains - but it was not that to enhance the cuisine of the old wife of their host.

"Come on! One more glass! "

Lisphra smiled at Hiulo, the soldier refused with his hand.

"My mountain herb liqueur is the best companion of the winter" the old man's cordiality masked the desire that the nine would not finish the stocks of the precious liquid.

The soldier, with short legs and the clumsy appearance of a bull, moved away from the table. He almost never wanted to talk and Lisphra made it obvious to everyone. He took another sip and stood up cautiously, to avoid staggering too much.

"My good friend ..."

Hiulo watched the smile of a glass too many. He didn't answer.

"My good friend ... I said" Lisphra would not have left, not before an answer. He was more curious in those conditions.

Hiulo grabbed a stool and brought it to the window beside him, noisy with small drafts. The cold would help Lisphra find herself.

As he sat next to him, Lisphra noticed the unnatural shoulder width and baseness. He could just look over his hair. "I wasn't wrong," he lowered his eyes.

"What?" Hiulo surrendered to insistence.

"You have always been a good friend."

Hiulo sighed, put his hopes to drafts.

"You also carry it in reconnaissance ..." he pointed to the soldier's sword.

"I should not? It is the most important gift of my life ».

"From Emperor Tusna himself," Lisphra raised his voice. He remembered the day they were rewarded for winning the battle of Hreisik, almost two years ago, in the south.

Hiulo stared at the sword and blushed. The same feeling of that day.

The laughter of the other seven, aided by the herbal liqueur, rose to the point of disturbing Lisphra who tapped his foot. The silence lasted until he spoke again to Hiulo. "What went through your head that day?"

The redness became more intense. The tips of the ears - asymmetrical and perhaps bent too far forward - were on fire, the round head on the wide and short neck pointed it, highlighting the left eye and fixing too much on the outside. "Nothing ... the emotion," he stammered.

"The most skilled soldier in the entire garrison of land, perhaps the bravest ... excited?"

The commander's tone and expression made it clear that the window was not working, not yet.

"Is it solitude?" He insisted. Lisphra's smile became sharp.

The soldier's eyes dropped to the sword touched it. Short and wide hands, moved by muscular arms accustomed to the fatigue of battles. Anyone who had observed him without a uniform would have recognized him as the slave of a farmer, suitable for heavy work.

"Oh yes, it's that ..." Lisphra chuckled without realizing it, "but it's not that bad."

Hiulo failed to observe him, to recognize the severe commander confused by the aromatic poison. The worst filter of truth ever drunk until then. "It's not," he replied mechanically, confused.

"No, it is not," he continued, "but one day the emperor might allow you to marry a woman. One that he himself chose for you. "

Still silence.

"There is no man with so much courage or devotion to the Central Empire," the commander insisted. "Why should our emperor not?"

In the mind of Hiulo took shape the memory of the battles, of his own strength, the screams and the death inflicted on the enemies. "Should he?" He trembled without knowing it.

Lisphra observed it more carefully. His back bent on his short and muscular legs, his shoulders proud. His face ugly with embarrassment and all the rest of his misfortunes. He felt no pity for him. "I am sure that in your place, in your own presumed ugliness," he remarked presumably, "I would have my own wife. Perhaps even more beautiful.

"I could not wish him a good friend" he defended himself in order not to succumb to the truth exploded by words. "I'll wait. Good luck or the emperor will know how to reward me ".

Lisphra's expression changed, the voice lost its noisy tone. "Good," he pointed to the right, "the drafts of your window have worked now."

The new day seemed to the soldiers colder than the previous ones.

"Summer and autumn have been a condemnation" D?fak observed Ihar?go, standing, wrapped in the blanket used for the night. No desire to joke.

"And instead of being gutted? Over there ... to the south ».

D?fak peeked at the chimney, the size of a furnace, remained lit the entire night. He saw the commander listen. "You will have to go back there," he raised his voice, "with the rest of the Eikh troops."

He didn't answer, nobody did. The lightness of the previous evening - of the herbal liqueur - vanished. Soldiers were remembered, the current war, the Empire; the mountains a thankless pastime. They went out regardless of the old man and walked in the cold steam of breaths to the horses. They were in a barn nearby.

Lisphra rolled her eyes. Cold clouds. He stared at the eight to take a little heat from the proximity of the beasts, distracted, deaf to the screams of the mountains in the thin wind, helpless. All but one. "Hiulo!" He called him, almost forced to do so "I will drive D?fak, Aranth and Ihar?go to the south, beyond the wall of rocks".

The soldier touched the horse's back, nodded.

"We will follow the west in a straight line to the woods," he pointed to the others. "From there to the south, parallel to your path".

Luviath made a face. "We will be at least two hours away".

"Not a problem," the commander pulled on the bridle and left the stable. "A group of four is enough around here.

Hiulo paid no attention to Lisphra's confidence; it was part of the habit. It's Impossible to think otherwise.