If war is diplomacy by violence, then the currency of exchange is in the bodies of the youth. And so a General must make his bitter calculus, choosing which men to hurl at the enemy defenses in the grim hope that the righteous side is victorious. -- Deathshead419
The best kind of war, say many philosophers, is the one you don't have to fight. Many war hawks have ignored this wisdom and prefer to throw fighting youth at the enemy until one side or the other runs out. When it comes to the biggest army wins, only one has consistently won with a smaller number of soldiers. According to many, he cheated by being an assassin. According to many, he should have hired one like any decent lord of his era would do.
As for all the others, they were slow to learn the important difference between tactics and strategy.
One such example came in the repeated attempts to conquer the Wyldewood. A deep forest that was the realm of Wood Elves and Rock Elves, with hidden cravasses and sudden spikes of stone. There were whispers that they shaped strange beasts within the labyrinthine depths. Nightmares made flesh. Some whispered that they shaped the very land around luckless adventurers that stumbled into their territory. Nobody knew for sure because, once they went in, they never came out again.
The most tenacious whisper was that the elves glimpsed within had to be hiding a vast, grand treasure. Because why else would they be so savage to guard it?
So army after army got spent in the effort of conquering the Elves that their leaders declared were selfish and greedy. So young men ventured in on the orders of the old, to fetch a treasure that had never been seen. To enrich the warped and twisted trees with their blood and bone.
One would think that, after one of the more famous approaches got named "Ironground Vale" after the armour of the fallen, they would give up and let the Wyldwood be. One would be very, very wrong.
They just spent all their gold on arms and armaments for the men they spent on a whisper. Younger and younger men, in the case of the neighbouring Fortenbras Duchy, until he was sending in stripling boys who could barely lift their swords.
Pel had left his behind half a league ago, preferring to use both hands to hold his shield. He was a coward and he knew it, but the brave ones died by running in and screaming, swords high. Pel had gone further by being quiet and keeping his shield between himself and the obvious path deeper in.
The crunching and scraping bones beneath his feet did not fill him with confidence.
To go back was death by his Lord the Duke. To go forward was death by unknown and unknowable causes. But if -and this was a big if- he could come back with news about or a bit of the treasure, he might be lauded enough to go back to the farm and help out his Mama.
Pel glimpsed over his shield. There was still a deer trail ahead. He ducked back down and crept slowly forwards. Stomach trembling so much that it refused to be hungry. Mouth so dry that it would never stop being thirsty.
Something blocked him. A solid something in front of the shield, where there hadn't been anything before. Pel whimpered and cringed, shaking from head to toe. Tears already shedding on behalf of his Mama.
He should at least look at the face of his enemy, yet it took him all of his fragmented courage to do it.
Tall. Slender. Impossibly beautiful. Hair like burnished bronze. Eyes like amber in the sun. Skin the exact colour of a red hen's egg. Their armour was leather with bits of salvaged armour stitched or tied on. Armour salvaged from the blanket of corpses now growing moss.
Pel forgot to breathe.
They lowered Pel's shield with a single finger. Their touch was warm as they lifted Pel's chin, and tender as they wiped away his tears.
When they spoke, it was with a thick accent, and hefty contempt. "A baby. The blunt ear send baby to fight."
That was when the light left him.
[Photo by Anna Hunko on Unsplash]
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