Baron Nosferus, Commander of the Grand Mercenary Company of Mimos, watched the embers framing what had been the back wall of his tent burn brightly. His gaunt face gave no indication of what he was thinking, but his pin prick ruby red eyes glowing in their dark hollows made it clear that he was thinking. The demonstration had been impromptu and convincing. Whilst the acrid smell of burnt animal hides hung heavily in the air nothing of the actual wall, or the two tents that had been behind it, remained. Nosferus’ particularly well-developed sense of smell allayed him of any concerns that anyone had been in the other tents. Burnt flesh was something he had become all too familiar with over the centuries.
He sat calmly, looking through the hole, and out into the camp beyond. The silence of shock had subdued the camp. Several hundred halflings were collectively readying themselves to either give, or receive orders, just as soon as they had worked out what those orders should be. He smiled, as he tried to guess how long it would take his captains and sergeants to decide how best to deal with the accidental discharge of a swamp dragon in their commander’s tent.
Of course, none of them would be worried about his personal safety. His condition was an open secret amongst most the company. They would be weighing up how far they could believably say they were from the incident at the time and why the clean-up, and any paperwork, was best carried out by anyone other than them.
“So that’s progress is it?” He said quietly to himself, reflecting on the rather surreal experience. As a celebrated sell sword, he was regularly approached by inventors and engineers claiming to have developed the latest kill-o-bot or corpse mangling machine for the battlefield. Frankly, on many occasions the contraptions’ names were more fascinating, and more effective on the battlefield, than the actual machinery. In spite of this he would always make time for them to see him, it was important to know what you might be facing the next morning. Especially if it worked.
He had sat through a number of demonstrations and presentations that had started out strongly, with impressive machines quite beyond anything he could ever have come up with. They were generally covered in spikes, blades and steam canons, and many demonstrations ended abruptly as it became apparent the machines were ill thought out and would never live up to the boasts of their creators, especially not in the face of an angry giant that was upset that its next meal was trying to kill it. Today’s demonstration had gone quite the other way. It had not started well, even the apprentice Sauceror with the vegetable grenades had started better than this one.
When the chefs had wheeled in the bloated dragon Nosferus had wondered if it was a practical joke. He wondered if some new recruit had not believed just how little of a sense of humour he had these days, but then the incident had happened. The older of the two chefs had been mumbling away, all but inaudibly, when suddenly the reptile had gagged, then choked a little before releasing a massive burp. Clearly the chefs knew exactly what that meant as all the Baron could really say for sure of the next few seconds was that the dragon, or rather his attendants, or maybe the chair the obese lizard was nestled in just a little too comfortably, was remarkably manoeuvrable.
In the blink of an eye, the beast had been turned to face the tent’s back wall, which subsequently disappeared, evaporated by a great gout of super-heated flame. Then a rapid retreat was beaten accompanied by a flurry of fearful apologies.
Nosferus’ thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Anya, the company’s mistress of gastromancy, staring into the tent through its absent wall. Her bright red robe with its broad golden yellow hem made her instantly recognisable around the camp. Her eyes traced around the frame of fast fading embers before meeting the Baron’s gaze.
“Progress.” He explained.
“Aaaah.” She hummed quietly, “been a lot of that recently.”
The words caught Nosferus, and for the briefest moment his gaze broke from her intelligent eyes. They still burnt with the same flames of excitement and optimism that he had seen in them on the first day she had appeared at the camp in her thread bare, dirt covered dress, selling potions that could barely get a brave out of bed before midday. It was hard to believe there had ever been a time when she hadn’t been with the company. He tried to stop the thought before it took him to a time when she would no longer be there but wasn’t quick enough. He swore age had crept up on her. How had he not noticed those bright eyes were now surrounded by the scars and shadows of age, that more than the odd thread of silver ran through her once vibrant purple hair?
“Indeed.” He replied, realisation dawning on him. In the distance a guttural cry could be heard. The comrades continued their silent exchange, both acutely conscious of the pained exclamations of the Greedyguts as it shook its cage. They both remembered Gaston before he had stolen that bottle of Anya’s, the one no-one was meant to know about, the one she swore no one would ever consume. The mischievous wild runner had been popular throughout the camp, and was a natural with a rifle, yet no one had spoken his name since that day.
“I’m sure it will be for the best.” She paused, before adding, “in the grand scheme of things.”
Change, Nosferus had realised centuries ago, was inevitable, and yet despite his acceptance of this it still managed to catch him off guard. Long ago he’d gotten over what he called the small changes; days turning into weeks, weeks to months, that sort of stuff. He’d come to terms with his condition, his death and his rebirth. He’d even navigated the introspective navel gazing that led the more conscientious of his kind (and by that he meant vampires rather than halflings) to confessional conversations with bards where they compared their tales of woe to the great Dwarven epic Dagrid Copperfeld. He’d fought a thousand wars and razed a thousand cities to the ground, only to watch them grow back, making him question whether what he did really changed anything. Time, he often considered, was a bit like a goblin mincer, a relentless whirring machine that pulled you towards an inevitable, and invariably messy, demise. That had certainly been the case for the brave, yet reckless, Muster Captain Stryder. The formidable cavalryman had led the Juggers on many a cavalier charge, somehow managing to navigate challenging terrain and delivering hammer blows that few enemies could stand up to. But all things came to an end, and in Shamus Stryder’s case it had been his luck.
It hadn’t been that long ago, a few days at most since the funeral. Nosferus forced his brooding thoughts away. Now was not the time, after all it was not every day that someone wheeled an overweight dragon into your place of work, with breath that could melt the walls of the inner circles of the Abyss. He stood up and walked purposefully towards Anya.
“You know, I have a feeling things are about to get quite interesting.” He said with a smile, “but right now, we have a couple of chefs and a rather large reptile to track down.”
This is an unofficial short story based in the Kings of War setting and is a narrative account inspired by my Mantic Halfling Army.
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