The War

[This needs an edit. Do a timeline with footnotes etc]
Happens in The North
Divided Kingdom Army
xxxxx
How it started
Chapter 9:
‘You don’t know? Oh. Well, it was all about this man and a prostitute. You didn’t hear about that?’
‘I’ve not the faintest idea of what you are talking about, so please do continue.’
‘I heard about it often enough in the army. This man in Stake was in love with this prostitute, but then someone killed her and then cut her into twelve pieces and, to be biblical like, he sent the pieces in all directions, some north, some south, some east some west.’
‘This is really true Randy?’
‘This is what they told us. They said that the people that had killed this woman were a tribe in the north and that we were up there to get revenge for that. The death of one tart.’
‘A man in Strake, was it? I wonder how much Sinclair had to do with it. I never heard anything when I was there. Nobody told me anything when I was there. The Acolytes were all arseholes down to the very last man.’
Campaign
‘City after city we went to, all this land jumbled up together up north. Must have crossed a dozen zone lines. Forest, town, desert, frozen lands, back to forest. It was like going through different biomes in Minecraft.’
Nathan laughed at that. Randy laughed too. ‘Yeah, that was the best bit, not knowing what we were going to see next. But it never ended well. Anyone that resisted, and they usually did, we had to fight. The mullahs just didn’t know when to stop. The army hated it, but the mullahs took off the prisoners and killed them in secret places. The women and children were taken as slaves.’
‘Jeez,’ said Nathan in a whisper.
‘And the giants too. The mullahs called them Nephilim, the fallen ones, and wanted all of them killed. Our hearts weren’t in it at all though. That’s when the mutinies started.’
‘But giants?’ asked Nathan. ‘Are the not, like, really strong?’
‘Yeah, they are,’ conceded Randolph. ‘But they are also really big, which makes them really easy to shoot.’
‘How big?’
‘Like, as tall as trees. Tall as this flat. They are slow and ungainly. Honestly, it was like shooting giraffes. They were harmless.’
‘I never know if you are telling me the truth or not,’ commented Nathan.
‘It’s right there in the bible though, innit bro? Thou shalt not kill. Those mullahs just wanted to kill everybody. Not that I care about what the bible says.’
‘You should talk like that anywhere near the muta, you’ll get arrested.’
‘I give a shit what they think?’ asked Randolph. ‘We’re the fucking army and we’re here now. Things are going to change around here.’
.
‘It’s done now though,’ sighed Randolph. ‘No one left up north worth killing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The people up there, you know, they were all mixed in. Hard to tell where they had come from before, just the sweepings of the planet. The mullahs designated one lot Canaanites, another lot Hittites. Those guys over there are Amorties, those are Girgashites, those are Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites. At first it seemed sort of sensible. A way of grouping people, you may as well call them something since they were all from different places. They had all just banded together after the reditus. But what the mullahs were doing was giving them names of enemies from the bible so that we could be justified in killing them or taking them slaves with a clear conscious. What we were doing was a crusade in all but name.’
.
‘I heard today that they are opening up the Stadium again,’ went on Nathan. ‘Not like last time though. There are three hundred slaves coming up from the jungle. They are going to put them there.’
‘How do they plan to do that?’
‘God knows. It’s going to be a big deal though.’
Randolph made a dismissive ‘pftt’ sound.
‘Maybe not a big deal to the army, but a big deal for us,’ conceded Nathan.
Randolph was distant for a moment, then said, ‘those places we went to, where we killed everyone that resisted us. I told you we took the women and children as slaves. You think you have problems with three hundred? There are thirty-two thousand in army camps all the way back along out supply line for fifty miles. There are five thousand in a camp just five miles away. The spoils of war. I dunno bro, I dunno. And those mullahs, every one of them madder than the last. When Fred Bacon gets here… Mashallah…’
‘Whose Fred Bacon?’
‘He was the worst of them. A butcher with the blood of thousands on his hands, bro. I can’t even… I can’t even put it into words the things he did, and the things he had us do. I can’t...’
Randolph got up and went to lie down in his mother’s room. A little later Nathan went to the kitchen to made dinner.
.
‘Giants, was it? And fiery serpents.’
‘All true Jonesy. There will be giants in Evermarch next year. They are already in Harkencourt.’
Shadwell asked more questions, but Randolph was evasive with his answers. Eventually Shadwell turned to Nathan.
~
Chapter 10
‘I shouldn’t really tell you, but since you’re my bruh, bruh. It’s not exactly a secret but we’ve not been telling anyone. We’re not back in Evermarch because we won the war up north. Nah, we’re back because we lost it.’
xxxxx
Randy's Experience
‘They called us in because you Evermarch Cops are too soft, bru. We’re going to shake this place up. There are giants in Harkencourt now, you know? Tame ones. Times are changing, bru.’
Nathan was confused. His brother had been part of a contingent of Templars sent north, like Nathan he had been a guard at Evermarch Temple. They had never been connected to the army.
‘They? Who is “They”?’ asked Nathan.
‘The army, bru.’
‘You’re still a Templar?’
‘Not any more bru, we all got rolled into the army up north. A lot of things changed up there. A lot of things are going to change down here too. That’s what the old man said in the big talk they gave us back at base before we went on leave.’
Suddenly Eveline was awake. She stood up and went to the bathroom.
Randolph took the opportunity to lean in and whisper conspiratorially to his brother.
‘Wait until we are alone, bro. The stuff I’ve seen.’
‘Like what?’ Nathan whispered back, leaning in too.
‘Insane stuff, even for the times we live in. We rampaged through the towns up there. We had soldier dying of lust. There was leprosy, giants, quails.’
‘Giant quails?’
‘Nah. Giants and quails. We fought the giants and ate the quails. We had to be really harsh with the locals, it wasn’t cool bru. If anyone spoke up about anything, then they were struck down the leprosy. We learned to keep our mouths shut.’
‘This sounds mental, Randy.’
‘When we came up against the fiery serpents some of us preferred the leprosy to be honest. Part of the army mutinied. They were swallowed by a pit and consumed by fire. Some others got the plague and died.’
Randolph checked the door then went on. ‘All the time we were mucking about with giants and fiery serpents the mullahs were looking for Cannanites. Didn’t find any though. Found some talking asses. Donkeys, not butts.’
Nathan was dumb struck in disbelief. His brother had always been a joker, a wind-up merchant, but this seems such a strange joke, and delivered earnestly.
~
‘The places we went to,’ said Randolph. ‘We would kill half of them and take the other half as slaves.  We had to. The ones that fought against it died. I don’t know how I deal with this bro.’
Neither did Nathan. He hugged his brother, then went to bed.
~
Randolph was distant for a moment, then said, ‘those places we went to, where we killed everyone that resisted us. I told you we took the women and children as slaves. You think you have problems with three hundred? There are thirty-two thousand in army camps all the way back along out supply line for fifty miles. There are five thousand in a camp just five miles away. The spoils of war. I dunno bro, I dunno. And those mullahs, every one of them madder than the last. When Fred Bacon gets here… Mashallah…’
Chapter 6
‘City after city we went to, all this land jumbled up together up north. Must have crossed a dozen zone lines. Forest, town, desert, frozen lands, back to forest. It was like going through different biomes in Minecraft.’
Nathan laughed at that. Randy laughed too. ‘Yeah, that was the best bit, not knowing what we were going to see next. But it never ended well. Anyone that resisted, and they usually did, we had to fight. The mullahs just didn’t know when to stop. The army hated it, but the mullahs took off the prisoners and killed them in secret places. The women and children were taken as slaves.’
‘Jeez,’ said Nathan in a whisper.
‘And the giants too. The mullahs called them Nephilim, the fallen ones, and wanted all of them killed. Our hearts weren’t in it at all though. That’s when the mutinies started.’
‘But giants?’ asked Nathan. ‘Are the not, like, really strong?’
‘Yeah, they are,’ conceded Randolph. ‘But they are also really big, which makes them really easy to shoot.’
‘How big?’
‘Like, as tall as trees. Tall as this flat. They are slow and ungainly. Honestly, it was like shooting giraffes. They were harmless.’
‘I never know if you are telling me the truth or not,’ commented Nathan.
‘It’s right there in the bible though, innit bro? Thou shalt not kill. Those mullahs just wanted to kill everybody. Not that I care about what the bible says.’
‘You should talk like that anywhere near the muta, you’ll get arrested.’
‘I give a shit what they think?’ asked Randolph. ‘We’re the fucking army and we’re here now. Things are going to change around here.’
Nathan was alarmed, not at what his brother was saying, but how he was saying it. His little brother didn’t talk like this. Even when they had been Temple Guards together Randolph was always acting the clown, he was always joking about and bantering with the other guards. He never swore either, even when others around him were doing it. He had a new seriousness about him that Nathan didn’t recognise and army life had evidently cured him of his aversion to bad language.
‘It’s done now though,’ sighed Randolph. ‘No one left up north worth killing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The people up there, you know, they were all mixed in. Hard to tell where they had come from before, just the sweepings of the planet. The mullahs designated one lot Canaanites, another lot Hittites. Those guys over there are Amorties, those are Girgashites, those are Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites. At first it seemed sort of sensible. A way of grouping people, you may as well call them something since they were all from different places. They had all just banded together after the reditus. But what the mullahs were doing was giving them names of enemies from the bible so that we could be justified in killing them or taking them slaves with a clear conscious. What we were doing was a crusade in all but name.’
The Retreat
Chapter 6, JF sees this:
They waited. More cars pulled up and joined the line. A tractor trundled up and diverted into a field to avoid waiting, noisily throwing out clouds of smoke as it climbed up the muddy hillside.
Eventually a deep low rumbling sound heralded the arrival of the army, and a line of trucks came into view. Like a few of the others, Johnny got out of his car and went up to the roadblock to get a better view. One by one the army trucks rolled past, engines roaring as they changed gear for the hill. Dozens went past. Some had the rear flaps lifted up, with the tired looking soldiers peering out. A few returned the waves and salutes of the locals, but most did not.
Next came the flat beds carrying tanks and armoured cars, taking up the whole road.
‘Jesus,’ muttered Johnny as he watched them pass.
Finally, a mixture of cattle trucks, pickups, tractors pulling wooden trailers, all manner of vehicles, came up. Each of them was packed with slaves, a multitude of forlorn and dirty people, cold and shivering in the winter air.
‘Fucking Hell,’ said Johnny several times as they passed. As he watched agape, he began to catch the eyes of people as they passed, each of them eyeing him with a look of hungry despair. Help us, their eyes said, and to his shame Johnny cast down his eyes and looked only at the wheels of the trucks as they thundered past.
After what felt like an age, the final rear-guard arrived, following the convoy of slaves, then after the final armoured car had gone by the cops got back into their cars and drove off, not even bothering to sort out all the cars and tractors that they had stacked up at the junction.
Major Harper
Harper poured some sweet iced tea from a glass jug and offered it to Thorman who took it gratefully. ‘When the army set off,’ remarked the bishop, ‘reports were meant to be sent back. Neither Evermarch or Strake or anywhere else to my knowledge ever got any.’
Major Harper was a handsome young man. Thorman gauged him to be regular army, probably came straight from officer training and had been in the army long before the reditus. He had a well-spoken English accent. ‘Yes well, it was all rather chaotic when we set off. Everyone all full of religious zeal and what have you, and I’m afraid it didn’t get any less chaotic. Lots of enthusiasm from the volunteers. Not so much in the way of professionalism. The radios didn’t work and I think some messengers were sent back once we’d realised that, but none of them ever got through.’
‘So, what are you able to tell me now? How did it all go?’
Harper sighed. ‘I have to watch what I say around here, but it is hardly a secret that the whole “bring God to the north” thing was a complete and utter cluster... ah you get the idea. There were a lot of very angry people up north and none of them were pleased to see us. There were quite a few biblicals, meaning serpents and giants and those sorts of fellows. What with all that the army was close to disintegrating, and every last one of us would have died you can be sure of that, so they looked to us Chaplains for guidance and we did what had to be done.’
‘What was that?’ asked Thorman.
‘The will of God.’
‘You know how that sounds? It sounds like justification.’
‘Maybe, but there were people from all over the world. The ones we ran into the most were Russians, they were by far the most aggressive. Scattered all over broken lands, forests, tundra, desert, jungle, everything and everybody all jumbled up.’
‘Just like here then.’
‘Much worse. Complete anarchy. Warlords, armed gangs, no form of government. Nothing you could call a government anyway, unless you count the most savage of feudalism.’
Thorman paused to consider what he was being told, then finally said, ‘well, you are back now. All of you, and a great many slaves I understand.’
Fred Bacon
‘You like them, Your Grace?’ said Bacon. ‘Some souvenirs from the sieges of Samara and Tashkentavoi. Sometimes you must treat them like the people of Abel treated Sheba.’
‘This is barbaric!’
‘Oh come now. We did our best, Your Grace. We beheaded them, we hung them, we crucified them. All in God’s name. We slew the Philistines where we found them. We slew the giants. Thousands of our best men died, trying to stop what is coming.’
Category:Paradise
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