Droran. "Deserter"

Chapter 1 "Circles of Red"

Attention! 

This is an early release if Chapter1. English is not my first language, so there will be grammatical errors here and there. A corrected version is under construction but please, enjoy this early version of "Circles of Red"

Images

The image that surrounded Haze, where he lay with one half of his face buried in the cool grass-covered ground, was an image that was clear as crystal one moment, then faded to black the other. He wasn't even aware of his slow drowsy blinking.

There stood his comrades and bredren in neatly lined formations. Soldiers with grim and absent faces. Men from every corner of Naron's vast lands and borders. Their armour shone like black polished onyx and gold in the merciless midday sun. Waves of heat rose from the tightly packed rows of ghastly unbending silhouettes.

His sight failed once again. The pain was like nothing Haze had ever experienced before. He felt his own red fox fur getting soaked in blood, making his back dark and sticky and moisten the ground beneath him. His body burned but all sound had fled his chest several minutes earlier. His strength was slowly running out in the dry summer grass.

His sight returned slowly. For a moment, it became painfully clear and vivid. In the middle of the beast-men soldiers stood the Naronian banner. The two heads of the black dragon circled and danced in an intricate pattern before facing one another against the golden background. They slithered and danced in the light summer breeze.

As his sight faded again, the vision of what had happened the few days ahead swept across his mind, as vivid as the sky and soldiers around him had been just moments before. He sank deeper and deeper into his memories as all his senses changed focus. The pain drifted away in a black fog, and he welcomed the darkness that followed.

Chapter 1

Circles of Red

Just a few days before, he and his decuria in the Naronian army had been standing outside the massive walls of the city of Vanborg. He stood dead still, together with the others, waiting while screams and clash and clangs of arms filled the air. The black and golden dragon banner behind them hung limp and motionless in the tense lukewarmth of the summer night. The soldiers stood like statues in the darkness. The buildings closest to the city wall had already been set aflame. Many of the city's forces would be busy hindering the fire from spreading. The small squad that had infiltrated the city in the night had now spread as much chaos a group of twenty could possibly muster.

It had only required a couple of prisoners, a few visits to the local taverns and a lesser bribe to get General Kahán the information he needed about the city wall and all its pits and passageways. It was a strategy that had been around just as long as there had been sieges in the world. Simple but almost laughably effective.

Soon, the gates opened for them and the drawbridge fell down. Haze could see that their infiltrators had their hands full defending themselves up there, in the gates winch chamber.

The waiting army ran through the open gate like a cataclysmic river. No screams, no shouts. They met the first wave of defenders with relentless silent efficiency, shoved them back with their tall dragon ornamented shields and cut them down. They quickly shaped their pushing phalanx into a sharp shield-clad wedge and ploughed their way through the mass of defending soldiers. Haze and his men took part in the wedge's right flank. They hacked, slashed and thrust their way forward.

Many times, enemies came streaming and screaming from the smaller alleyways on the sides of the main streat, trying to overpower the giant wedge of black and gold. The shields were always there to meet them though, and they fell upon them, smearing the black dragon with their blood. Every now and then, the front man in the wedge fell. He was quickly replaced by the man behind. Where a shield fell to the ground, another was always there to fill the gap and the shield wedge kept advancing. Behind them, the Naronian army pushed its way into the city. With this shocking first attack, they hoped to push the fight all the way to the city's big square, where they could form up, meet the defenders on an open field and eventually set camp. From there, they could easily and comfortably empty the city of all resistance and occupy the most important points of strategic interest. That was the plan, anyway.