Blood & Iron

Chapter 1: The Dragoon

 The woods were raucous in the early morning hours; the wind rattling the bare boney branches of the frozen trees. The sun was still behind the east ridge of the valley, but the air was awash in a blue twilight light and the ground was laden with thick wet snow. Each day the first thaw of the new year came closer, plaguing the forest with interminable slush and thick black mud. A figure, a woman cloaked in earthen greens, moved through this morass. She was short and petite, struggling to lift her tall boots up and out of the muck with each step. It was slow going, but only likely to get slower when the sun arrived and softened the ground further. So in a stymied hurry this lone woman pushed through her morning constitution. She bore a large wicker basket on her arm, filling it with various samples of plants she found along her way. The season's growth was still a long way off, but a practiced hand could find all manner of interesting things hidden in the dead undergrowth. The woman clambered up a snow bank in pursuit of a particular bush and upon reaching the peak, noticed a flurry of tracks in the snow leading into the gully below. This forest valley was a rare passage for travelers, and no native fauna so greatly disturbed the snow. Nothing good or normal could have made those tracks, at least in the mind of a young woman roaming about in the wee hours. The woman cautiously moved closer, her eyes following the path cut through the snow. In one direction the footprints were many, seeming to lead over the horizon towards the south end of the valley. In the other direction they stopped abruptly just a few yards away, terminating in a large dark mount of something pressed into the snow. The woman edged closer to the tracks, picking out the shoe prints of men and horses. The woman clutched her basket close as she slowly approached the shape entombed in the snow. As she neared she could make out that the shape was cloaked in a jacket before letting out a gasp at the realization that the shape was a man. He was face down in the snow, wearing a black woolen uniform. Laid at his side was a saber, and fallen near his head was a helmet of some kind. The young woman looked around hesitantly. There was a time where hospitality would dictate she help, but there was a time when hospitality would dictate people not leave bodies in a perfectly tranquil forest for that matter. The woman feared the strange man, but even more so she feared that his assailant might come back.

"Monsieur? Monsieur, are you all right?" The woman called out, steeling herself. She stepped a bit closer, trying to peer into the snow at the man's obscured face. The woman sighed when she got no response, setting aside her basket, and moving to kneel beside the body. She grabbed fistfuls of the man's stiff frozen coat as she shook him bodily, calling to him in hopes he would wake. "Can you hear me, Monsieur?"

The man finally let out a light groan, soothing the worst of the woman's fears. She rolled him onto his side, getting a proper look at his person. His face was pale and gaunt, his half opened eyes bloodshot and glazed over. Under his black jacket he wore a cuirass, but not much in the way of winter clothes. It was a small wonder he'd made it this far. Lodged in the lower left side his breastplate was a chunk of wood that the woman measured to be the size of her fist. It was as if he'd been stabbed by something large and the shaft of the weapon broken off. Spectacularly the wound and ground around the man was devoid of blood. The woman placed a hand on the man's cheek, patting it to wake him. She winced when it was cold to the touch. Truly this man was in dire danger if he was still among the living at all.

"Please don't be dead." The woman pleaded as she pulled the man's arm over her shoulder. His fingers slowly curled tight around her shoulder. She tried to lift his weight but could little more than drag him. The movement roused the man a bit, letting out gargling moans as his leg moved limply.

"If you can hear me, my house is just up the way. Please just hang on." The woman whispered, struggling to pull the man along. The man was easily a head taller than her, and the snow put up a fight but the woman managed to move him a few feet. It wasn't much, but it was a start. Something stirred in the man. When his rescuer attempted to pull again he offered a kick, striking the ground with all his meager strength. The flailing helped push them both along.