The Ill Informed Bystander

Short stories, long stories and stories that fit into a single sentence. Sometimes I'm a writer and sometimes I'm a historian. I do a few pictures here and there as well.

[the-camera-shy-photographer]

It’s a cat kinda week.

(Chivers making his second Tumblr appearance ever).

By the-camera-shy-photographer

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

He know he's going to end up on the internet...

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

The Restless Soul

“Good evening, Father.” The young lad’s breath turned to into wisps of clouds and mingled with the tendrils of smoke rising from the burning coals resting peacefully in a steel brazier to his right.

Father Gascoigne looked up at the night sky and studied the moon.

“By now it’s the witching hour, soldier.” He replied. “Unfortunately for you, it’s well into the morning.”

The soldier smiled. “Why is it unfortunate for me? If we are attacked, well I’m already armed and armoured. I feel sorry for that lot.” He waved a hand at the open doorway behind him. When the creatures of the night come to slaughter them they’ll be too comfortable to fight back, I almost feel sorry for them.”

Gascoigne chuckled. “A soldier with wit! What’s your name lad?”

“Garen.” He replied.

The priest raised his rusted iron lantern and dipped a thin splinter of food into the flames. “Well Garen, make sure you don’t lose that wit when the Corpse-men come for us all.”

“I can’t make that promise just yet.” Garen frowned as Gascoigne lit the candle in the lantern. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing up so late?”

“Same as you lad, watching.”

“You don’t need to do that Father.” The watchman replied. “We have men posted all over this monastery.”

“Oh I’m sure you boys are doing a fine job guarding those asleep right now, but my duty is to those who are awake.” The priest reached into his robes and produced a sewn up bladder. “Here, have a drink. Hopefully it will keep you from freezing in your boots.”

Garen took a few gulps and immediately regretted drinking the liquor so quickly.

“The bee is such a devoted follower.” The priest said as he took the bladder back. “Their devotion to their work is almost Christian at times, so maybe that’s why we Church men don’t feel too guilty enjoying the fruits of their labours.”

“That’s mighty potent mead, father.” The now red faced Garen replied.

“Aye, I do believe that was our intention.” Gascoigne laughed. “I’m afraid this is where I leave you Garen, try not to grow bitter as you grow into that uniform.”

Garen smiled again. “I’ll try, Father. Until next we meet.”

The priest nodded a goodbye and walked through the old wooden doorway. The monastery was older than living memory. Generations before had dragged lumber, brick and mortar to the peak of a hill that overlooked the surrounding country for miles in all directions. The relief created refuge from the endless bogs and mires, bringing travellers from all around. What was once a small, yet imposing, chapel slowly transformed into a community that hugged the now fortified monastery. The old chapel remained, however, and for the night it was home to the Duke and his warriors. Fresh from the day’s battle.

Father Gascoigne carefully stepped over the sleeping soldiers. Men of warfare, of power and destruction, slept now where he had matched many men and women. The contradiction seemed peculiar, the potential for new life was made here so often, but right now it was filled with the potential to end life.

It was dark inside the chapel. Outside the moon and stars gave just enough light to see by, inside however there was no such grace. The light of the candle seemed to bounce off every object in the long chapel. As Father Gascoigne walked down the aisle he saw men and women asleep on benches, curled up on the floor and huddled together in groups. He spied the unmistakable matt of dark brown hair that could only have belonged to Henry Mortimer, the formidable Duke. Some called him the Brown Bear, a nickname he earned very young when his hair came in thick and fast and he grew a full head taller than men twice his age. People flocked to him like moths to a flame, yet like the moth those who served under him lived their lives flirting with death. More than a few of his former soldiers were buried a few yards from where he slept now. Gascoigne had seen to many of their burials himself.

A flash of light caught his eye. From behind the altar and the head of the hall orange light danced around. Curiosity overcame deep thought and the Priest wandered over to discover its origin.

A man was sitting on the floor with his back to the altar. Through the fingers that poked through the holes in his leather gloves he was continuously and delicately weaving a coin that blazed with a beautiful flame.

“Quite the trick.” The Priest said in a hushed voice.

The soldier caught the coin between his index and middle finger and put out the fire. “It’s no trick.” He replied. “Graveyards are full of middling swordsmen, so any man wishing to stay alive must work at his craft. I’m not much of a swordsmen, but that same principle applies to me nonetheless.”

Father Gascoigne coked his head. “Forgive me, but you are practicing?”

The soldier shifted slightly. He was dressed differently to the others. He wore a thick leather jacket, but beneath it he wore simple woollen clothes. Loose, shaggy brown hair obscured half of his face from the Priest’s view, but he saw the man’s rough stubble covering his chin.

“Any fool can start a fire.” He said. “The skill lies in controlling it. Hold out your hand.” Gascoigne obliged him and the man placed the coin in his hand. It was as cool as the night air. “I burn the air around the coin, but keep the metal at the same temperature. Likewise the flames do not touch my fingers. It takes intense concentration, and all the while the coin is constantly moving.”

“A fire, and yet nothing burns!” Gascoigne was impressed.

The man lowered his head once again. “Life is full of such paradoxes.”

“And there it is.” The Priest lowered his lantern to the floor and sat down, crossing his legs.

“There what is?” the man asked in an annoyed tone.

“You’re a lost Soul.” The Priest replied. “Forgive me, but lost Souls happen to be a speciality of mine. So tell me soldier, what is keeping you from sleeping with your friends?”

The man flashed half a smile. “You have courage no doubt, to cut straight to the heart of a conflicted Pyromancer.”

“Can only men of blood and steel be brave?” The Priest asked.

The man was silent for a while. Father Gascoigne knew that he wanted to speak. He had spoken with a thousand men like him before. Men who were torn apart by some unseen Daemon of the mind and he believed that in every case, including this one, could be solved by laying their Soul naked to the world, if only for a few moments.

“I used to hunt monsters.” He said and last, and the Priest knew exactly what manner of beast haunted him. “I was good at it. Really good. But now, all the monsters seem to be gone. A useful man like myself can always find work in the world though and I drifted from one contract to another. Soon I found myself fighting a new breed of monster entirely. At least I told myself they must be monsters, since after all I was hunting them just as easily as the Daemons of old.” The man paused and took a moment to think. “But they weren’t monsters. You see, it is not in the nature of Daemon to choose to be evil. They simply are what they are. A Daemon is no more evil than a wolf that kills to eat. It’s just what wolves do. Men, though…” The thought seemed to flutter away in his breath.

“A man chooses.” The Priest finished.

“And how many evil men are there in the world?” The man raised his upturned palms upwards. “Men are not slaves to nature, they choose to be who they are. For years I told myself that the people I killed must be evil, a convenient lie to settle my conscience. A contradiction to the laws of our world of course. I have killed so many people that I lost count decades ago. The longer I stay in this business, the more powerful I get. But I am not a Pure man, not a good man. I’m just a man, as corruptible as anyone else. So I wonder, how do I stop myself from becoming a monster? What does God have to say about that question? I can imagine He was pretty clear about His views in the Ten Commandments.”

“What does it matter?” The Priest said, scratching his chin. “You do not believe in God.”

“How did you deduce that?” The man replied.

“Because you are talking to me like any other man. There is a lack of reservation in your tone that I deeply miss sometimes. People think of me as a man above simple humanity. The reality is quite different I assure you. I’m no Saint, no matter what I wear.” Father Gascoigne fondled the simple silver cross that hung delicately from around his neck. “There is a question on your tongue, sir, ask it and I shall answer.”

“All of those men, all of those women. They gave me medals and showered me with praises. Does killing them in the name of one Lord or another make me a hero, or a monster?”

The Priest studied what he could see of the man’s face. “I’m afraid to say that the answer to your question is yet another question. But it’s an easy one. Do you feel like a monster?”

The man was silent as a tombstone for a long time then. The Priest maintained his gaze, hoping to peer through his flesh and see what pained him from the inside. Answers were never easy in life, or at least not the right ones. He might take a few seconds to reply, or he might well be waiting there until the sun rose. It made no matter to him. Father Gascoigne had seen three Dukes come and go in his life. Time had never been his enemy.

Slowly, the man began to raise his head just a fraction. “No.” he whispered, gentle as a breath of wind.

He turned his head and looked directly at the Priest for the first time. His hair fell away from his face revealing a set of eyes that struck Father Gascoigne like a blow to the head. One brilliant blue eye and one startling green eye bore into the Priest’s skull as he whispered:

“I’m not a monster. But I’ve worked for a few.”

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

Why Study History?

The pursuit of knowledge of our past often gets criticised for its lack of immediately tangible results. Do we really need a new generation of people trained in historical narrative every 3 years as students pass through their university courses? Why not instead dedicate ourselves to engineering, mathematics or some other scientific subject.

Perhaps this disparaging view is based on the misconception that studying history is little more than reading a few books written by other people. I have seen a lot of people point to a cycle of humanities subjects; students become teachers to more students who then become teachers, with nothing being directly produced except for more books. But this is an extremely short sighted view of the world.

To me, there isn’t really a question. Studying history is studying who we are as a people; as a species. Our cultural identity is directly tied to our understanding of our own past. To take a simplistic example, one need only look to how fiction has developed in the 20th and 21st centuries. How many war movies have reached critical acclaim? How many fantasy stories based on the alternative histories of the medieval world have dominated both the box office and the book charts? None of these would exist if we adopted the approach of only that which can immediately yield tangible results is a worthwhile endeavour.

But perhaps a more in depth example is needed. When I was 12 years old, my history teacher (a formidable woman by the name of Miranda Wainwright) told us that we would be taking a vote on where our next field trip would be. Naturally we were all ecstatic! The class was buzzing with ideas and everyone wanted to make their voices heard. But then our teacher dropped the bombshell. She told us that due to the fact that young boys were too immature and hadn’t yet developed properly the boys in the class would not be allowed to vote.

Bullshit! We cried out. How could you possibly even say something like that? By the simple metric of our gender we were going to be excluded from participating in such an important vote. We were fuming, but our teacher told us that we needed to get on with class, and told us to open our textbooks to a certain page. 

That chapter? Women’s suffrage.

From then on I was hooked. How much has really changed? In my beloved home country the BBC just published the list of salaries for their top earners. The top paid woman made £500,000 p.a. The top paid man made around £2.5 million p.a. for no other reason than they could get away with paying women less.

Without the historical context, social issues such as these that continue to plague our society every bit as much now as they did 100 years ago lose their true impact on people. Some may claim that these issues aren’t really that bad, but this is simply absurd. If you take the time to wind back the clock and examine our past with the proper scrutiny the bullshit that the world seems to revel in heaping on top of us may begin to wane as people begin to realise that no, life is not cheap. It isn’t a commodity to be traded with so easily. Time is the most valuable resource to us all, and our cultural memory is as yet the only means we have of extending the value of our time.

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

501

I don’t remember exactly when I started this blog, but I do remember how gratifying it was to finally muster up the courage to actually put myself out there. That first step was such a difficult one to take, but I’m so glad that I did.

The blog has gone through some changes over the years as I have moved from self contained stories in a single sentence, to more experimental longer form stories that I have been posting recently. Of course, I throw in plenty of pictures as well, but that has never really been my focus.

500 followers is kinda crazy. I didn’t really expect anyone to pay any attention to me, especially since no one I know in real life (bar one person) knows about this blog so those 500 followers simply reacted positively to a total stranger’s blog. To everyone who has liked, reblogged, followed or in any way noticed me, I have to say such a heartfelt thank you. I honestly don’t think I would still be writing if it weren’t for all you guys.

I’ll get back to work now. Promise.

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

Blood Stained Glory - Part 3

Alastair Morden was sitting at a wooden table set for a warlord’s lunch in the centre of a small patch of grass that served as the town square. Silver plates were holding a loaf of bread and slices of ham and various cheeses. The centrepiece of the table was a grand silver carafe made by his favourite artificer. Beside him, a squire was roasting a set of meat skewers over a hastily erected fire pit using bricks from a nearby broken well. On either side of his Lordship three knights were standing in markedly less fine armour to their liege, but all were holding the same silver goblets and chatting away causally. None of them were wearing helmets.

When Morden saw Agatha approaching he stood and raised his goblet.

“Sir Agatha!” He yelled. “Congratulations are in order I believe.”

“Absolutely.” One of Morden’s knights echoed. “Congratulations on a battle hard fought.”

“Thank you, my Lord.” She replied delicately.

Morden picked up the carafe and poured the contents into an idle cup. He held it out to her and she accepted it readily. Red wine. Real red wine. Such a rare luxury she had never seen in the hands of anyone other than the priesthood.

“A toast I say!” Morden called out.

“Aye!” The men all chorused.

“A toast, to Sir Agatha, and her boats!”

“Sir Agatha!” The men all shouted, and drained their cups.

Agatha drank half of hers. It was immediately intoxicating, diffusing out into every limb and seemingly filling her to her crown with a sense of warmth and rich pride. She wished to savour the thick red liquid as much as she could, it was her first ever sample of the precious substance after all.

Morden suddenly clapped Agatha on the shoulder as he shouted some line of praise about her that she was too distracted to hear. The sudden force had caused her to spill most of what was left in her goblet onto her gauntlets, forcing her to shake her hand free from the red liquor. A moment later one of his lordship’s knights approached and refilled her cup with wine.

“I told you all, didn’t I” Morden boomed at his knights. “When you all laughed at the idea of knighting a woman. I told you that when pushed, a woman can be every bit as vicious as a man. Weakness is a choice I say, and why not include women among our ranks? Well, today Agatha you proved your ferocious tenacity before us all. Remember this day Sir. The day you truly earned your title.”

Sir Agatha raised her eyes to her lord’s and forced herself to speak. “Thank you, my Lord.”

“The day was not all her doing, begging your pardons my Lord.” The speaker was another ambitious young knight in Morden’s employ.

“Oh?” Lord Morden said, folding his arms in mocking contempt. “How so, Sir Cassius?”

“I don’t doubt Sir Agatha’s bravery my Lord. Crossing that moat in full plate mail must have been a terror on the nerves.” Sir Cassius had no idea, she thought. Her mind flashed back to the feeling of pure unbridled terror as she had led her men onto a set of ramshackle boats hastily thrown together in order to carry twenty four men and one woman, all armed and heavily armoured, directly towards the main keep in total darkness. The thought chilled her in that moment, and for a while the fires around her were forgotten. The wine in her belly seemed to turn cold. A lump formed in her throat. She looked down at her empty right hand and flexed the fingers. That morning she had become a killer for the first time in her life.

“... ballistae were a nice enough distraction with all the fire bolts, but the real fighting was done by the infantry.”

“And you were doing all of the ‘real fighting’ were you, Sir Cassius?” Lord Morden asked with just the faintest hint of a smile.

“And those with me.” Sir Cassius replied. “We were fifty against a few hundred, and we took no more than a handful of casualties.”

“And you, Agatha?” Morden was looking right at her.

“Eleven of my men are dead, my Lord.” She replied. She knew all of their names. They were brave men to the last.

Morden looked over at Sir Cassius. “Learn to think, Sir. You faced many foes this morning, but they were not their best fighters. They didn’t send their seasoned warriors to put out a few fire and loose a few arrows at your courageous company. Those they saved for the keep. The very beating heart of the castle. And those Sir Agatha faced with an inferior sized force, after scaling the walls with grappling hooks and no doubt shivering with fear. But, they pulled through in the end. And the day was ours!”

Every man raised their hand and cheered. Agatha held her tongue. Lord Morden didn’t have that tale quite right. True enough she had led the men who scaled the walls and Prayed that no one could see them approach. The Pyromancer had made short work of the door to the keep, but when she had rushed inside it had immediately dawned on her that the garrison were not warriors. Inside were those who couldn’t fight. The old, the young, the infirmed. They all fought with the desperate fury of those who had seen their death walk through the door.

A puffy red faced sergeant in a red gambeson approached the knights. He saluted his Lord and relayed the message he had been given.

“Begging your pardons my Lord, Sir Walter has the survivors herded together a street over and wishes to know what your intentions for them are?” He said.

Lord Morden glanced at Agatha. “Excuse me one moment Sir.” He was ever the man of courtesy.

Agatha nodded politely, lost in the memory of slaughter.

“Tell Broadshield to arrange a detail of 10 bowmen and have them loose an arrow each into the crowd. Anyone who can make the journey is to be brought back to the castle.”

With his orders relayed Alastair Morden retrieved the carafe of wine and refilled Sir Agatha’s cup.

“My apologies Sir.” He muttered. “The trivialities of war. One must find a use for these creatures I suppose.”

“Of course, my Lord.” Agatha felt her heart flutter for a moment once again as she tried to bury a convenient conscience that refused to be silent.

“The latrines are overflowing again. Good work for this lot.” Agatha didn’t hear who made the joke, but she heard them all laugh. She smiled at last.

“A final toast!” His Lordship commanded. “But what should we toast to?”

“To victory?”

“To war?”

“To us?”

Lord Morden waved his hand dismissing them all. “All far too common.” He paced around for a moment. “How about something far nobler. To knighthood itself, perhaps?”

“A grand idea my Lord.”

“Aye.”

“An honourable office to drink to.” Agatha said. Her face was stone. A mask of lies. Her Soul was ablaze.

One street over Sir Walter Broadshield barked his orders. “DRAW!”

Lord Morden raised his cup. “To knighthood!” he said.

“FIRE!” and ten people screamed.

“To knighthood.” Agatha muttered as she drank the red liquid.

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

Blood Stained Glory - Part 2

Men were running all around her. Not in fear. The fearful had been corralled into large groups as they watched their town burn. Those who ran now were running between those buildings that were still standing, their hands laden with whatever treasures they could find. There was laughter. A chorus of it that seemed to be carried by the rushing air created by all of the blazing houses. She turned yet another corner to find three strangely dressed men standing around a large flaming pit. All three wore thick leather jackets which proudly displayed the seal marking them out as Lord Morden’s latest military fascination; Pyromancers. Each man had their hands splayed outwards towards the fire. Morbid curiosity overtook Agatha and she stared into the pit, and immediately wished that she hadn’t.

“You’re burning the bodies?” She said in shock.

“Do you think Christ will mind?” The nearest pyromancer asked without turning. “Personally I think not.”

Agatha was too stunned to reply. The Pyromancer turned around and stepped towards her, his right hand raised to his shoulder with the fingers curled slightly.

“Sometimes I wonder.” He said. The collar on the jacket the Pyromancers wore buckled up to their noses, obscuring their faces from view. In battle, they wore steel helmets wrapped in linen, though these were notably absent. The only feature about his face that could be seen were a pair of mismatched and blue and green eyes that struck her like a thunderbolt even through the grubby glass lenses of his goggles. She recognised him immediately. He had accompanied her on the hastily built raft that bore them across the moat that morning, just before dawn, as Lord Morden rained fire from his beloved ballistae on the main gate. They had huddled together on the raft for the hundred yards or so as they Prayed that they wouldn’t be spotted by any watchmen on the walls by the keep. Fortune had favoured them that day.

“When I stand before St Peter, naked as the day I was born, will it be enough to say that I did thusly, because I was ordered to do it? If one man compels another to act, which is the guilty party? This question rattled around in my mind all morning, but then the irrelevancy of the matter struck me. Blood on your hands is blood on your hands, irrespective of who moved you to act. Why dwell on the truth, when I knew it all along?”

“It’s all well and good to develop a conscience after the fact. I don’t recall your ravings about morality when you incinerated them while they were still alive. It sounds to me like you have little more than a conscience of convenience.” Agatha replied. “Besides,” She continued. “I am no philosopher, why ask me these questions?”

“I don’t know really.” The pyromancer replied. “You were the first person to speak to us since we were ordered to incinerate the corpses. They’re the enemy of course. Our boys and girls are being loaded onto the back of the wagons, no doubt Morden has some spots picked out for them. Only the best for those who died wearing our colours.” His eyes burned with hatred. Agatha felt strangely fearful. Here was a man who could eviscerate her with little more effort than was required to tie his boot laces. She noticed a strange knife strapped to his belt. It looked cruel.

“I look around at all this, at all we did today.” The Pyromancer continued. “And I wonder, would Christ do thusly?” With his piercing eyes he looked through Agatha’s and into her very skull as he slowly curled the fingers on his right hand. As he did so, the fire pit began to burn brighter, hotter and higher into the sky. The other two men backed away a little as he increased the intensity further and further until it built into the fiery crescendo that blazed with such ferocity that Agatha found herself involuntarily turning her head slightly and raising her hand to her exposed cheek, though she never managed to tear her eyes away from the pyromancer. And then, he flicked his fingers open and the fire ceased instantly. The heat and light disappeared with the flames, and all that remained was a blackened rectangular hole filled with ash.

“I just realised something.” He said, his unblinking eyes unnerving her. “I’m still here, alive and well. So are you. Here’s the only truth I know of right now. If Christ saw what any of us did here today, he didn’t seem to mind.”

Agatha’s heart fluttered for a moment. She had never heard someone talk in that way before. There was something so dreadfully terrifying about the way he carried himself, and the way he spoke. He had great power, and he knew how to use it effortlessly.

He turned back to his companions. “Fill in the hole!” He ordered. “And use your shovels. They deserve that much at least.” He looked over the burning town and muttered under his breath. “I am done with all this bloody business.”

He began to walk away with the confident stride of a man with purpose. She knew, somehow, that he was not merely abandoning the task of disposing of the bodies. Few things disgusted her more than those who abandoned their duty, and so Agatha found her voice at last.

“Has his Lordship given you permission to leave?” She demanded, her right hand gripping the handle of her sword.

He turned, and looked through her one last time. And then, to her utter shock, he barked at her. Loudly, and sharply. Once, twice and then a third time. Each bark was louder and more pronounced than the last. After the fifth time he stopped.

“Perhaps you can understand that better.” He said.

The cold silence that lingered between them shook her to her core. Maybe she should not have spoken, but she was a knight in the service of Lord Morden. She could not disgrace the title and position given to her by allowing a man to leave in such a disrespectful and unjustified manner. She was saving him from desertion, saving him from the noose. No matter how powerful he might be, none could escape the wrath of Morden once stirred. Despite that, she feared that this pyromancer held a very different world view. But then, the familiar galloping of hooves came her way.

“Sir Agatha!” The boy messenger shouted. “His Lordship is waiting.”

There was no worse time for the boy to have arrived. Without even looking over at the pyromancer, she knew that she had just lost. But the man was not yet done.

“Be a good bitch and run along.” He said. “Your master is calling.”

Her face flushed with rage. She felt her skin boiled hotter than a flame. How dare he?! How dare he speak that way to her in that way? She, who had fought tooth and nail to be addressed as a knight. She, who had stormed the walls of the bailey first. She, who had killed more people that morning than Broadshield could possibly hang in a week. Her nostrils flared outwards, and a thick red fog began to descend over her eyes, but duty restrained her. Duty was her real master, and it pulled her around and pushed her towards Lord Morden. She felt the eyes of the Pyromancer stab through her spine, and without being able to see it somehow she knew he was smiling too, yet onwards she walked and began to put the man out of her mind.

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

Blood Stained Glory - Part 1

Agatha tore a strip of cloth from the hem of her tunic and deftly ran it across the cold steel of her helmet. She had spent years shining the smooth metal to the point of perfect reflection but now she couldn’t see herself in the conical mirror. The night before she had sullied the perfect metal with dust to prevent it from reflecting even the slightest flash of light, but now all she saw was dried blood. So dry in fact that the cloth did little to remove the stains. She tried to spit on the cloth to moisten it, but she couldn’t muster the saliva. Her throat was dry as sand. Beside her on the stone bench her slim young squire was gulping down water from a sewn up pig’s bladder with such carelessness that streams were pouring out from the corners of his mouth.

“Bryce.” She said, a mailed fist held out.

The lad handed over the bladder. His face was a picture of shock. Wide eyed and wordless he stared at the floor, threatening to dig through the earth with his eyes. Water had splashed down the front of his jerkin, mixing with the caked on mud and sticky red blood. She could no longer see her colours emblazoned on his chest.

Agatha poured a few drops of water on the cloth and set about removing the blood. As she wiped away the grime, she saw that metal was damaged. A large dent had been wrought into the steel by the edge of a sword she had failed to dodge. Even with the blood entirely gone, Agatha couldn’t see her face in the dulled and bent metal.

The pounding of hooves in front of her drew her attention away from the task at hand. A boy, no older than ten or eleven, was galloping towards her. She recognised the seal on his shirt from afar. A messenger from her Lord.

“Sir Agatha!” He called out. His voice was sweet and unbroken. “Sir Agatha,” he continued as he drew his horse to an abrupt halt in front of her. “Lord Morden begs your attendance at the town square.”

Agatha nodded slowly. She held her hand out to her left.

“Bryce.” She said again. The squire took the battered helmet in both hands without looking over.

Agatha stood to follow the boy and immediately winced. Her leg throbbed ever so sharply with each movement.

“Run along boy.” She said to the messenger. “I know where to find him.”

The boy bowed his head and turned his horse to leave. Agatha looked around her. The smoke was heavy in the air, and the heat was unbearable. The town sat below the castle and bailey walls like a bloated gut, sprawling out in a semi-circular fashion before terminating in a rough set palisade wall. Around three quarters of the town a formidable moat had been constructed years ago, preventing any approach save for the main gate, which the night before had sat comfortably behind many lines of earthen ditches and wooden stakes. As Agatha carefully descended the dirt road from the keep to the ruined gate connecting the town to the bailey, she gazed out over all of the devastation. A huge plume of smoke billowed out to the west, following the sea breeze. Where once there had been a pleasant country town resting peacefully in the shadow of the grand keep, now there were the burned husks of homes, shops and storehouses. Every now and again the shrill scream of a woman pierced through the cacophony of the scraping of steel, the intense destruction of homes and the laughter of the victors.

Sir Walter Broadshield was hanging men from a willow tree as she turned the corner onto a primitive cobblestone street. The road was uneven but curved slightly, allowing the blood to flow into the gutters where it settled and congealed with the mud. A dozen men were huddled together on the floor as men in mail dragged them forwards one at a time to fix a noose around their necks and kick a stool out from under their feet. Long haired, sweaty and stinking of fear, the warriors that had once been the object of her fear made for a pitiful sight on the floor surrounded only by a few steel clad soldiers. Many were bandaged and clutching wounded limbs. Agatha watched Broadshield’s latest victim hanging from the tree with between the long tendrils of the willow; a boy no older than Bryce, his face a ghoulish grey.

A scruffy, red-haired man stood up from the huddle and reached out to Broadshield.

“Mercy, Sir!” He cried. “Mercy!”

Strange. Agatha was yet to hear one of these people speaking in English. Any hope of his cries of anguish being able to save him were expertly dashed when Walter turned to face the man and shattered his jaw with a well-placed steel clad fist. The red haired men spat out shattered teeth and wailed in agony as he fell back to the floor.

“Hang him last.” Broadshield barked at his men.

Agatha tried her best to look unimportant, but the incident had distracted Broadshield long enough from his task to notice the limping knight as she passed by.

“Hail, sir!” He called out, and Agatha sighed deeply. A smile flashed across his youthful face and his followers each saluted her. “What a day.” Broadshield continued. “It isn’t even time for lunch, and here we are supping on the spoils of victory.” He threw his head back and laughed. Sir Walter was a young man of no more than twenty, and the youngest of Morden’s retinue of knights by some half decade. Despite this, his ferocious reputation had led him to becoming one of the Lord’s favourites right away. He was a wild eyed man with murder in his heart. By no means a wealthy man at birth, he had taken most of what he had by brutality alone, and so far the bloody business of war had proved most profitable for him. As he wandered casually over to Agatha in a suit of plated steel made for another man a golden necklace swayed from side to side across his breastplate.

“Hail, Sir Walter.” Agatha replied. “Forgive me, I have orders from Lord Morden.”

“Of course, Agatha.” Broadshield replied with a wide smile. He waved his hand back to the prisoners, still huddled together in the mud. “I have my own task to attend to. Perhaps you recognise a few of them? I think of few of this lot surrendered in the keep this morning.”

Agatha studied the faces of the prisoners that were looking her way. Most men wore the face of total fear, but a few had come to accept their fate. It had been dark when she had stormed the keep, and between the madness of the battle and the limited flashes of light from torches hanging on the walls she hadn’t taken the time to study any foe in detail as she made her way through the tower, room by room until she was breathing the free air of the great balcony at the apex. Most of these men seemed to be too young to be the warriors she had faced that morning.

“Perhaps.” She muttered. “I didn’t get a good look at their faces.”

“No?” Broadshield replied. “I suppose you saw too much of their backs when they ran away.” Sir Walter bellowed with laughter once more. His throat wobbled with each deep breath. He had tried to cover his chin and neck with a beard, but his age was betrayed by the patches of skin that were clearly visible through the thin hair.

“Alright then, Godspeed Sir.” Broadshield said as he clapped Agatha on the shoulder. He turned and looked back to his men. “Bring up the next one!”

Agatha walked off. Broadshield was too engrossed in his task to notice that she had left without a word in parting. She passed over the collapsed gate and made her way across the bridge connecting the town and the castle walls. She peered over the handrail and saw several bodies impaled on a series of sharpened stakes in the deep ditch below. Which side they belonged to, however, she couldn’t say.

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

Coming Very Soon...

Apologies for the delay folks, 4,000 words proved to be quite tricky to edit all at once for me this time around. 

Coming very soon though (as in probably within the next few hours), Blood Stained Glory. The tale of the awful consequences of victory!

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

Bit of an Internal Debate

So here's the thing. I suck at writing small stories. I don't mean short stories, I mean small ones. Small in scope, style and feel. I just can't help myself. I start writing something that I plan to be no more than a few hundred words, and a day later I'm approaching 3,000 words, I have sub plots woven in an character arcs going all over the place. But here is the problem: I can't write these stories very fast. And when I release them, most people don't like to have to read a wall of text, or to scroll back a few hundred words to start at the beginning. For a little while, I considered cutting future stories short. But then I thought, nah. I can't be scared to show people what I write, no matter how long or short it may be. And yes, there is another story in the works.

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

In case you were wondering what UV paint on animal skulls under a black light looks like.

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

A Change of Pace

I just finished my exams. At the end of last year I thought I was completely done with exams forever. Funny how that panned out completely differently. This year I had two exams, and neither of them were in English. They were not fun...

Anyway that’s all done now, and as you can imagine preparing for my exams was the main reason for the recent lull in activity, but I’m back from celebrating the end of revision, and I intend to get back to work on my own stuff ASAP.

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

Old Fashioned Aperture

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

Arrested Momentum

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

Just how bad am I at drawing out characters you ask? Well...

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

Just Hanging in There!

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

As the Bell Tolls - Part 4

“Get back inside.” Barnes demanded. “We’re not alone.”

Hicks didn’t argue, he just turned and ran. He had been running for so long now it felt like it was in his nature to show his back to danger, but he didn’t let the implication that held bother him. He grabbed a branch and lit it on the fire before pushing on up the stairs. What he would find up there terrified him, but he convinced himself the Souls were gone now, passed on to a sweeter place than this Hell. His foot reached the bottom of the stairs when he heard Barnes bellow out into the night.

“Show yourself!” He called out. “Simon if that’s you I will fucking end you!”

It wasn’t Simon, he didn’t have to run out into the dark to confirm that. Simon wouldn’t be so stupid. Hicks ran up the stairs, his heart threatening to shatter his ribcage from inside, his ear were ringing with blood. There was a tingling sensation in his fingers that was making it difficult to clutch the torch. He turned and ran into the library, taking solitude among the ashes of pages of history. There was a small window in the room that looked out into the town. He took a moment to gaze out into the void, but saw only a dense fog that clouded everything more than a few yards in front of his face. Below him, he could just about make out the ledge that marked the sloped ceiling of the first floor. He sat on the floor by the window, holding the burning branch in both hands and tried to steady himself. He breathed heavily into the flames and tried to concentrate on his own survival. Barnes was a brute, but a legendary fighter. Some even said that he once stood against a Mightyheart in a fair fight, though not even the most gullible of men actually believed that story.

“Get Back!” He heard the bellows from below him. The sound of the chiming kept growing.

Hicks’ hands were shaking so hard the shadows in the room danced all around him. His breath was so shaky and forced that he felt himself choke on the decrepit air.

“Back! Get away!” Barnes kept yelling but whatever it was he saw kept coming. “Get beck foul Daemon!”

Hicks bolted out the window. His feet landed hard on the sloped ledge below him and with only a brief glance over the edge he jumped blindly to the ground. His feet crashed hard onto the scorched soil and he was sent sprawling on the floor. He dropped the makeshift torch but cared not a moment for the instrument that would draw anyone, or anything, to him in the night. He ran straight towards the nearest dark outline that marked out a stone hut, his heart screaming in his ears and his feet carrying him so fast he could scarcely believe it. Behind him, he heard the clatter of steel and the sharp ringing screams of Barnes. He felt nothing but the will to keep running. Barnes was brave, Barnes had fought, and now Barnes was dead. But he could keep running.

He reached the edge of the house, but couldn’t find the door. Desperately he scrambled around until he found the back of the house and stopped. What was he doing? How could he hide out in the open like this?

A hand clasped around his mouth and heaved him to the floor. He tried to cry out in terror but the palm forced his mouth shut fast. Tears flowed down his face and he clasped his eyes shut so tightly he felt the muscles cramp.

He was piled uncomfortably on top of another man on the floor. His breathing began to slow as he felt the slow rhythm of his captor’s heart against his head. At long last, Simon relaxed his grip.

“If I can see you.” The archer said in such a hushed tone Hicks could barely hear him. “If I can hear you, they can too.”

Hicks looked up at the archer. Through the stinging sensation in his eyes he could just about make out his face in the moonlight. It had been a half-moon the night before, but tonight the moon was full and bright. Perhaps that meant something, perhaps it didn’t. Hicks no longer cared.

“What is happening?” Hicks sobbed.

“I don’t fucking know.” Simon replied. “But you were right. We should have stayed far away.”

Simon looked about him. Along the back of the house he spied a partially destroyed metal door leading to the interior.

“Look.” He said, pointing to the door. “We can get inside without being seen.”

Simon walked and half dragged the sobbing singer into the house. The door was mercifully quiet as they entered. Inside there was nothing left, it was a miracle the slate had held long enough to survive the inferno. The front door was in a much worse state, barely hanging on to the wall and standing ajar. Aside from two other windows, the two were hidden from sight.

Hicks was curled up into a ball in the corner, sobbing too hard to move.

“What happened to Barnes?” Simon asked in a hushed voice.

Hicks just shook his head.

“Right.” Simon replied, standing tall. “Well, we don’t have much choice. We can’t stay here, we have leave right now. I don’t have a plan, so I say we just go for broke and sprint out of here as fast as we can and don’t look back until we are surrounded by trees once again.” The archer heaved the singer to his feet. “Look at me.” Hicks looked. “Now you get a grip right this second. We need to leave, now. If you stay here you will end up just like Barnes.  Wipe your face, and let’s go, now.”

Hicks rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, washing away much of the water. He couldn’t stop the tears though, and soon his face was just as slick as it had been. Simon inched over the rear door once again, reaching a hand out to doorframe. He looked back.

“Are you ready?” The archer asked. The singer nodded, only half lying.

Simon opened the door.

A hundred war horns blew at once and shattered the eerie silence as the shadows piled into the house to swallow Simon but Hicks saw no more as he ran out the open front door back into the town. The war horns blared and covered the sounds of the archer’s screams but Hicks did not look back. He just ran so fast he felt like he was flying across the earth. Where he was running he had no idea, his legs had taken over his mind. He was just running. Running.

He passed the open door of the church. Beaten bloody, Barnes was tied up to a stake piled high with kindling as a shadow held a flaming torch in one hand. He made no sounds as the flames approached him, but even from afar Hicks could see his breath in the air. Hicks kept running, there was nothing he could do.

The first few yards of the dock were cracked and broken. Hicks stormed through the seawater to reach the crumbling planks of the jetty. He hauled himself up to the tune of a hundred war horns and Barnes’ screams, and ran across the slick wood as fast as he dared. One misstep, and he would be thrown into the water to meet Barnes’ fate. Yet run he did. He ran and until he saw the tattered sail and threw himself into the small deck of the boat. The whole boat pitched hard as he landed and he heard a rib crack as he hit the mast, but he felt nothing.

The rope, it was still tied to the jetty.

Fear for his life forced him to open his eyes and reach for the rope, but he stopped dead.

Standing on the jetty, looking down on his pitiful existence stood the ghostly grey figure of a woman dressed for a wedding. Her clothes shimmered in the wind and clouds of ash blew off her as if she were afire, but the air was cold. Her face was black and cracked and charred, and where eyes should have been there were only hollow sockets. In her delicate, charred fingers she grasped a small bell, no bigger than a fist.

Hicks curled up into a ball. His hands covered his face.

“Please!” He begged. “I’m just a singer. I never hurt anyone. Oh God, please don’t kill me!”

He felt a chill in the air around him. His hair stood on end and the outer layer of his wet clothing seemed to freeze over.

“The leave.” The chilled air whispered gently into his ears. “And sing a song of what you saw.”

The boat shifted under him, and the ice melted. Hicks did not move for a very long time. He panted and coughed. His ears rang with such a painful note that his head pounded unbearably. Eventually, he began to accept the fact that he was not dead, and slowly, ever so slowly, he picked his head up from the deck of the boat. As he pried open his eyes, he saw the sail of the boat was pushing him out to sea. Then, with more care and fear in his heart than he dared to admit, he forced himself to look back at the town. He saw very little. The fog covered almost everything, but he saw two pillars of bright orange light by the entrance of the church.

And the church bell tower was ringing.

[the-ill-informed-bystander]

As the Bell Tolls - Part 3

Hicks cursed his over active imagination. It had brought him success in life but now he wished he was as dull witted as Barnes. He couldn’t sit there anymore watching the warrior light a fire. He didn’t have Simon to protect him if Barnes decided to lash out at him, so he decided to make a terrible choice.

“I’m going upstairs.” Hicks said, drawing wax candle from within his satchel and lighting it on Barnes’ creation.

“Suit yourself.” Barnes muttered as he pulled his heavy leather boots off and began to warm his feet by the fire.

The candle was short but Hicks praised his fortune for having them in his satchel when he fled. They had been an effective tool of his trade as of late. Nothing quite enhanced the retelling of a ghost story at night than a single candle lighting the bottom of his face, casting deep shadows over his features as he crafted the perfect tension for his tales. Of course, many of them were based on the works of Longstrider, but since most of those were likely fake he felt no guilt for borrowing from the mysterious author.

To the back of the dais and over in a dark corner to the right was a set of stairs leading to the apartments of the monks that once lived there. Perhaps the stairs were obscured by a delicate curtain to maintain the illusion of mystery about the daily lives of the clerics, but now it was wide open to anyone brave enough to set foot in the narrow staircase and plunge into the darkness. As Hicks made his way up the short steps he cast his mind back to Longstrider’s book. He took comfort in the old stories, finding some light in the darkness from his grand adventures that used to keep him up at night with dreams of his own wanderings.

Longstrider’s description of this town was very different. When he had passed through this way everything had been so heavily overgrown that he had apparently stumbled across the long abandoned settlement quite by accident as he walked along the coast. Trees creeped right up the church, with some of the thick branches poking through the shattered windows as if to explore the contents for themselves. Hicks could remember the description of his journey as he wandered through the lands around Harlech.

Dear intrepid readers,

You may correctly surmise that my reasoning for subjecting myself to the absolute horror of Harlech is to profit from the potential terror that I can express on the page from my wanderlust. While my time in this cursed place was indeed enough to provoke fear in even mine own hardened heart, I would ask my readers not to fear for my safety, and take solace from the fact that this book you now hold in your hands is veritable proof that I did indeed survive.

Longstrider never failed to provide his own sense of comedy to his work. No one could fault him for style, even if it did become a little overbearing at times. Hicks reached the top of the stairs and found himself gazing down a long corridor with a set of doors hanging loosely from hinges at uneven intervals. At the far end he saw the spiral stairs that led to the bell tower.

My journey began to the north, the only way to access the castle lands without having to pass by the haunted structure itself. The approach is marked by a sharp valley with high ridges barren of all life on three sides, and to the south a smaller ridge falling down into a defilade that hides everything from view. The valley floor was filled to the brim with such dense foliage that it took your humble author hours to pass through the trees and unpick his clothing from sharp, thorny bushes. It was so strange to think that such haunted lands were surrounded by so much life. Squirrels ran up and down the trees, birds flew above my head, apparently disturbed by my wanderings and I even spied a pack of wolves out on the prowl. Predators had no lack of prey here it seems.

Hicks was aware of the foul stench of putrefaction. It choked him almost as badly as the thick cloud of ash that would rise from the floor with each shuffle of his feet along the stone floor. He looked to his left, there was little left of the door but the half melted hinges set into the wall. Inside, from the light of the candle and the dying vitality of the sun he saw the destroyed remains of what had once been a library. He wondered how much knowledge had been obliterated in the inferno. So many books, so many centuries of knowledge wiped out in the blink of an eye it seemed. Not for the first time he found himself wondering at the marvel that was the written language. Telling stories was an art as old as humanity himself, and for thousands of years his ancestors had been regaling their audiences around the campfires until the chisel met the rock, and those tales became passed down from person to person in a more literal sense. All of the thoughts that anyone cared to commit to writing could easily be inherited, and the story telling moved away from the campfire. But now fire was the bane of that knowledge, and the books had fared no better than the trees around the church.

I came at last to the coast. It was a chance to breathe clean air once again. I cannot accurately describe it, dearest readers, but the very atmosphere seemed thick with foulness and fear in those woods. When I at last had the chance to wash my soiled feet in the salt water, I had a very brief moment of respite as I fooled myself into taking a moment to rest. Of course, the real journey was still ahead of me.

The singer pushed open a half ruined door and found himself in the old kitchens. Copper pans littered the floor by a huge stone furnace. He considered how lucky he was. Longstrider had not troubled himself to explore the bowels of this church, choosing to move on to the castle without too much thought for the inner workings of the town itself. He had made it further than the famous explorer. If he survived, perhaps he would make a song about his journey. After all, it was through his songs and stories that he had grown a reputation for himself. There was power in stories, Darrow knew that better than anyone. The more Hicks sang, and the further he travelled to pass on the great deeds of the rogue the more powerful he seemed to become, as if the legend of Darrow the Arrow had taken on a life of its own and built the man up to become more than an archer stalking through the woods after his prey.

Keeping the waves to my left, I made my way up the coast towards my abhorrent destination. The mythology of this land preceded me as I walked, and I could not help but cast my mind back to all of the tales I had heard, and remember every fellow traveller who had reacted as if assaulted by me when I mentioned my ultimate goal. It was then, dear readers, that I came across my first surprise of the day. The trees opened up a little to my left and I witnessed the remains of an old fishing town that was once a lively port. Very little remained of the settlement but the buildings stood as vigilant against the sea breeze, all surrounding a central structure that could only have been a church. It was a tall and proud building with a glass window that moved me to the point of tears. Though partially ruined, I could just about understand the basic idea of the picture, and I have done my best to recreate the art in this book for you to glance over at your leisure. This was an old town, with a reputation that I feel compelled to finally put to paper. You see, the townsfolk had taken Valentine as their Patron Saint and had become a hub of young couples fleeing the wrath of their parents by eloping in this grand house of the Lord. Such was the income from these love blinded parties that the town boomed and the monks lived in a certain degree of luxury. It was said that the bells would ring only when a bride and groom were brought together in matrimony, and that once upon a time the bells had rung from dawn until dusk. Now that joyous bell was silent, and no happiness had passed through this way in such a long time that no flock of birds could add enough life to the town to remove the atmosphere of total lifelessness.

The smell of rotten foulness was strongest at the end of the corridor. There was one final door to open, one that had survived the flames better than the. Bravado had gotten the better of him and his chest swelled with a sense of undeserved courage that steered him forwards. What madness had taken over him he could not say, perhaps it was thinking back on the works of a man far braver than he, or perhaps it was his desire to waste as much time as possible before he made his way back down to sit with Barnes once again.

A trembling hand went to the half ruined door and pushed it open. It stuck fast for a while and Hicks had to put his shoulder to the oak and forced it to give way. Inside, the flickering light of the candle revealed a series of crumbled beds stacked on top of each other. He made his way through the ruins of the old sleeping quarters of the priests. In a small alcove to his right there was an image of the Virgin Mary kneeling with her hands clasped together. As his eyes were drawn just below, his heart stopped for a beat.

The smell should have warned him, but somehow he did not think that he would find human remains up here. In his mind’s eye, he saw a flock of ruined birds, or bats or rats or something other than the delicate skeletal frame of his fellow man. There were five of them in total, lying on their backs in a semi-circle around the image of the mother of their Saviour, but the Saviour had not come for them. Only the flames had come it seemed. Hicks leaned forwards, morbid curiosity taking a firm grasp of his body. The remains were mostly charred ruins with very little tissue left. Their lifeless bones sent a chill down his spine. He had never seen skeletons like this before. He had seen the hanging bodies of murderers, some of whom had been in his own crew, but never huddled together in fear like this. These were innocent people, caught in the inferno with nowhere to turn but up to the Lord. Hicks placed his hand on the cross at his throat and prayed that Christ would be there in his time of need.

It was then that he noticed one of the skeletons was smaller than the others. Shorter, and with wider hips. A woman, it must have been a woman. He pushed aside the crumbled remains of some fallen debris to get a better look, and his heart ceased to beat for a several second. He jerked upwards and threw the candle to the floor in disgust. His hands shot up to his face to stifle a scream and tears began to fall upon his cheeks. He shouldn’t have come up here. He screamed curses in his mind but stood silent as the miniature statue of the mother.

It was dark. Far too dark. The window was wide open yet there he stood, paralyzed with shock in total darkness. Alone, terrified and swallowed by the night he began to try and collect himself. When had it gotten so dark? The sun was still in the sky when he had made his way upstairs, but now it seemed to be midnight. He had to get out. There was a fire downstairs, he could warm his Soul there. And then he heard it. So soft and subtle he almost convinced himself it had been just a creation of his own mind until he heard it again. The slow chiming of a bell, far off in the distance. There was a few seconds between each ring, but the sound cut across the vast space from its origin and penetrated his ears. It was too much now. He needed to get out. He threw caution to the wind and ran out into the corridor, determined to cast out the image that had paused his heart. Try as he might though, the sickening sight crept back into his mind as he ran headlong down the stairs. The coiled mage of pure innocence nestled delicately between the hips of the woman would haunt him until the end of his days for sure, but he would immortalise them in song. He would bring other to tears with the soft melody of his lute and the sweet notes of his voice. These people would not be forgotten, and nor would the unborn child that died without even knowing what fear was.

Hicks burst into the main room and ran across the dais. The fire was still young and full of life with the bundles of kindling piled neatly next to it. He didn’t stop to consider how curious that was, he simply ran to the doorway. There, he could see the rough outline of Barnes standing intransigently with a flaming torch held high in his left hand and the shortsword in his right. Hicks came crashing to a halt just behind him, thankful that Barnes did not trouble to turn and look upon his tear steaked face.

“Simon isn’t back yet.” Barnes muttered. “That book of yours,” he continued. “Did it say why they burned this place down?”

“No.” Hicks replied breathlessly. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat. “Longstrider passed through here decades ago, and this town was only burnt a few weeks ago.”

“Who did it?” Barnes asked, his eyes fixed into the dark void before him.

“The sheriff was passing with a patrol they say.” Hicks had heard the tale from someone at a tavern only a few days before Darrow was captured. “He ordered his men to surround the town and set fire to the woods, engulfing the whole place as they retreated up into that far ridgeline.”

Barnes turned his face back half an inch without changing his gaze. “Why?” He asked.

“Someone heard the bells ringing.” The chiming was growing louder.