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(Created page with "= La Noche del Zombi, Part I = The summer of 1856 was the long summer of despair for our Federalists fighting under president Keum to preserve our young Federation. The Auton...")
 
imported>Luciano
(Created page with "= The Episode in which the Monarch Hhenkiwlur confronted the Sea Dragon and showed great equanimity = The sun's disk was like an icon of bronze in the yellow-grey sky. The m...")
 
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= La Noche del Zombi, Part I =
= The Episode in which the Monarch Hhenkiwlur confronted the Sea Dragon and showed great equanimity =
The summer of 1856 was the long summer of despair for our Federalists fighting under president Keum to preserve our young Federation. The Autonomists kept winning battles, and seemed to have failed to take the capital mainly out of a lack of interest. The merciless General Guang would lead his well-organized militias on forays deep into La Costa, while the harried Federalist troops seemed to retreat and lose at every turn.


After the disaster at Cerro Sombrero in October, 1855, when Coronel Sanpedro was killed, Brevet Coronel Persson led her Apofénicos in several near-suicide missions down into the Delta del Au, but always at great cost in soldiers, horses and materiel. In the unusual rainy gloom of the winter of 1856 she took the hill at Petronio Robilyle and held it for several months, using it as a base for operations further south. But the Federalists always seemed outnumbered and outmanoevered by the Autonomist units, who seemed to move freely through the entirety of Comuna Constitución that year, several times feinting toward Caracol but inevitably rampaging straight north, instead. Their strategy seemed to be one of destruction rather than capture, which suited their character as bandits and pirates under the nefarious Ordon-Grabb and the blackhearted McQueen. The trail of tears left by farmers and merchent families fleeing their homes throughout the south Costa for the relative safety of the Distrito, and their squalid refugee camps stretched the charity of the Chogué monks and lay workers trying to help.
The sun's disk was like an icon of bronze in the yellow-grey sky.


In November, as the temperatures warmed but the rain refused to abate, Coronel Persson's regiment was ordered by General Kim to defend the town of Santo Domingo, nestled along the eponymous Santo Domingo creek at the base of the Cientoocho. The esteemed lady from San Pedro del Amantes politely refused. Her regiment was at less than quarter strength, and furthermore had almost no ammunition. Of course, General Kim was uninterested in such things. So off to Santo Domingo the soldiers trudged. They camped on the northern bank of the Río Yucái, just upstream of the little floodplain from the tiny Quebrada Duraznos.  
The monarch's retinue gathered on the deck of the great long boat, and even the slaves abandoned their oars to peer out at the horizon. A great cry went up from several children, clutching at the cloaks of their parents. A tiny islet of rock lay to the boat's windward side, about 5 boat-lengths distant. This was not the cause of the children's surprise.  


Their chances of surviving an encounter with Guang's forces, known be camped in the town of Colofón just a dozen kilometers southeast and clearly headed toward Santo Domingo, seemed slim.
Nor was the cause of their amazement the unusually tall and gnarled red pine that perched on the island's summit precariously, like a hunting falcon about to take flight. The island, actually, was a familiar landmark, and it conveyed to the travelers that they had reached the mid-point of their journey along the treacherous coast from the channel at Tirello to the harbor at Hallapahhwnasatek, where Holobuseten, Monarch of Lyr, no doubt awaited them impatiently with her famous, intended betrayal churning in her breast.


Now, there was a small Chogué monastery that had been built just a few years prior at Santo Domingo, on the west bank of the Duraznos and close to the town square. In this monastery there lived an elderly monk named Gabriel Ghiuletti, who typically went by the nickname "Fin", after his mother's family name, Finlay. He was not an ordinary monk. In fact, he was a rogue, and he had been a pirate. Even worse, he was a native child of the rebel capital, Cabo Inglés. But some years ago, he had decided he regretted his roguish past and, with genuine repentance after a very long night drinking, he had converted to the Way of Gautama and had adopted the grey and saffron robes. The order, in its wisdom, had placed him in an as-out-of-the-way-place-as-possible - namely, this Templo de Duraznos in Santo Domingo. And he was happy there. He had become the caretaker of a substantial tribe of parentless war orphans, who seemed to roam into the regiment's camp with all the finesse of feral animals.
Earlier, squalls of rain and wind had rocked the boat, and forced the sailors to lower the sail and resort to the slow progress with the oars.  


Coronel Persson is a military woman, and she had little patience for children. Angrily, she and her Cabo, Takayama, rode over to the temple and demanded to see the person in charge of the children.
A child, the young offspring of the royal Pommanuset, cried out again. "Something moves, there," she gasped.  


Instead of arguing, the rogue Fin Ghiuletti invited the commander and her sergeant to dinner. Over plates of pande, cabbage and beans, and with children swarming around, Persson found herself recounting her regiment's difficult straits. Ghiuletti, being a former pirate, had some notion of tactics and his questions were intelligent and perceptive to the extreme. He asked when Guang's forces might be expected - how long did they have? He asked how many soldiers the "Beast from Boreal" had - it was nearly 10 times the number in Persson's underpowered regiment.
Several soldiers, with their short, sturdy bows half-at-ready, stooped closer to the boat's railing and peered at the islet, with its brooding, angular tree.


And slowly, as the night grew late and the moon crawled over the looming Cientoocho, Persson and Ghiuletti formulated a plan.
"Tis just the wind," the captain of the guard muttered, showing her uncertainty with a frown.


- byline Luciano de Samosata for the ''Globo Ardiente'', July 7th, 1857.
Then suddenly, they all saw it.


= La Noche del Zombi, Part II =
The island's rock itself seemed to unfurl like a tattered battle-banner lifted in defiance by a mortally wounded enemy.


- byline Luciano de Samosata for the ''Globo Ardiente'', July 9th, 1857.
People screamed. Soldiers lifted their bows uncertainly, but loosed no arrows.


[[Category:Source]]
The Monarch Hhenkiwlur did not flinch. "Ah, tis more than wind," she said, coldly.
[[Category:Ardisphere]]
 
The sea dragon was not small, as some bards would sing for a thousand years hence.
 
The sea dragon's movement rasped and echoed across the suddenly smooth sea, like the whispering of angry old people. The soldiery's armor clinked loudly, as a quietness fell across the boat.
 
The sea dragon's great, many-horned head, green and purple like a field of flowering radishes in sping sun, rose up until it was above the tree on the island. Its long neck swayed like a lanyard in stiff wind.
 
The Monarch Hhenkiwlur's sword rested comfortably in her cool hand, at ready. She faced the sea dragon.
 
''... more to be posted later ... ''

Latest revision as of 05:05, 1 May 2019

The Episode in which the Monarch Hhenkiwlur confronted the Sea Dragon and showed great equanimity

The sun's disk was like an icon of bronze in the yellow-grey sky.

The monarch's retinue gathered on the deck of the great long boat, and even the slaves abandoned their oars to peer out at the horizon. A great cry went up from several children, clutching at the cloaks of their parents. A tiny islet of rock lay to the boat's windward side, about 5 boat-lengths distant. This was not the cause of the children's surprise.

Nor was the cause of their amazement the unusually tall and gnarled red pine that perched on the island's summit precariously, like a hunting falcon about to take flight. The island, actually, was a familiar landmark, and it conveyed to the travelers that they had reached the mid-point of their journey along the treacherous coast from the channel at Tirello to the harbor at Hallapahhwnasatek, where Holobuseten, Monarch of Lyr, no doubt awaited them impatiently with her famous, intended betrayal churning in her breast.

Earlier, squalls of rain and wind had rocked the boat, and forced the sailors to lower the sail and resort to the slow progress with the oars.

A child, the young offspring of the royal Pommanuset, cried out again. "Something moves, there," she gasped.

Several soldiers, with their short, sturdy bows half-at-ready, stooped closer to the boat's railing and peered at the islet, with its brooding, angular tree.

"Tis just the wind," the captain of the guard muttered, showing her uncertainty with a frown.

Then suddenly, they all saw it.

The island's rock itself seemed to unfurl like a tattered battle-banner lifted in defiance by a mortally wounded enemy.

People screamed. Soldiers lifted their bows uncertainly, but loosed no arrows.

The Monarch Hhenkiwlur did not flinch. "Ah, tis more than wind," she said, coldly.

The sea dragon was not small, as some bards would sing for a thousand years hence.

The sea dragon's movement rasped and echoed across the suddenly smooth sea, like the whispering of angry old people. The soldiery's armor clinked loudly, as a quietness fell across the boat.

The sea dragon's great, many-horned head, green and purple like a field of flowering radishes in sping sun, rose up until it was above the tree on the island. Its long neck swayed like a lanyard in stiff wind.

The Monarch Hhenkiwlur's sword rested comfortably in her cool hand, at ready. She faced the sea dragon.

... more to be posted later ...

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