In the quiet between attacks, she reviews her mildly resurgent garrison. Their ranks form into twin companies for the counting, one red, one white. In battle, the white is charged with the outer defenses while the red ferry ammunition and supplies.
We live by weekly muster. Too few reds and our mage-general delays the trebuchet. Too few whites and we stand a night watch against an anticipated counter.
After each attack their numbers dwindle to critical levels before reinforcements trickle in. Exhausted, they appear insufficient to endure the continued onslaught. Each fortnight, replacements appear, mostly women gray before their time and girls too eager to learn, not caring that they, too, could be ravaged by our own fire, casualties of a trebuchet targeted so tightly to the wall.
In the latest assault, the grendel deployed his newest ally. A horde of hemogoblins broke through, loping across the bailey on bandied legs and slaughtering ranks of the red and plundering her energy while cat-toothed shamans wove an evil spell that clouded her thinking in confusion by raising a malevolent fog of war.
Pestilence, the grendel's opportunistic cavalry, lurks in a nearby copse of trees ready to flank her forces with lightning quickness by setting spurs to motley steeds, bacterial, viral, fungal. My job is to root them out and break their formations by scouring the walls and purifying each approach with fire. The first sign of contagion results in instant quarantine.
Our battle plans shredded into tattered pennons at first contact, the contest devolves into a test of wills. Shoulder to shoulder, her companies bridge the gaps, refusing to cede their ground, eyeing the black banner hanging ominously above the grendel's command post knowing no quarter will be offered and none bartered or exchanged.
Battle weary with less than half the siege behind her, she summons her far-flung fyrd with a baritone blast from the citadel horn each week. From deep within her demesne their answer resounds in a crescendo rung from steel trapped between hammer and anvil as blacksmiths reshape plowshares to repulse this evil tide.
© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III
--------------------------------
ReplyDeleteNotes and asides:
--------------------------------
Every week during treatment, the doctor’s analyzed Karen’s blood samples. White blood cell counts, red blood cell counts, lymphocyte counts, and all manner of breakdown of each. The reports had at least a dozen numbers, marked as being normal, high, low or critical, plus comparisons from previous weeks.
We lived by those weekly counts. They told us whether Karen was vulnerable to viruses and infections, whether the fatigue she felt was from low hemoglobin or something else. They said whether she needed red or white cell boosters from week to week. If any of them came in too low, the oncologist would delay treatment. Fortunately, that never happened.
We became adept at reading them as they gave us clues to where we were on the journey and how the next week might unfold. I still get nervous when Karen goes in for a follow-up oncologist until I see the paper that says her counts are still ok.
Picture notes: Another set of D&D figures, the same female fighter along with two goblins that I painted many years ago. The backdrop is the box of a puzzle we had lying around which shows the base of a castle. The figures are standing on a piece of slate our innkeeper gave us during our stay in Wales.
ReplyDelete