It was so damn dark in the jungle. Iâs donât know how the men who lived there could stand it. I didnât know why our ancestors tried so desperately to take this patch of overgrown land in the first place. Knew even less why the Erisians were so desperate for it that theyâd fight us. And I knew least of all what Iâa man from Duncasterâwas doing in this godless hellhole.It was only the first week of the first month of our three year long war to hold the province. Rade Mozoroff wasnât even here yet. The only real commander was the girlâand she was just a wisp of fifteen. Iâs thought she was even younger the first time I met her.Sheâd grow up fast. Not yet, though. It was the first week. She looked so small buried in her coat of plates. It didnât help that the man beside her was a giant. Cadarn was an enormous Kroridian knight with these startlingly black eyes that Iâs never was able to read. Iâd grow to hate that man in time. Hate him more than the Erisians that weâs fighting. But back then? Trudging through the jungle with the kingâs bastard daughter at the head? I thought Cadarn was the real commander. The Marshal was just there to fulfill the whims of her shitty father.What were we even doing that day, Iâs canât remember. A patrol, of some kind, maybe? I just remembered the slog. Hell take the man who made us march. It was bad even before Iâs took an arrow through the leg. I just remember how much of a storm I cursed up, angry at it all.But the Marshal never complained. Thought it was madness that she was here in the first place. Iâs had a definite soft spot for the princess, ever since I met her. I knew she was talented. But to have her here, at the head of an army? Insanity. She of all people deserved the least to be here.But Iâs kept cursing and she was quiet.For every hour spent fighting in a pitched battle, there are a dozen days spent slogging. Slogging. Slogging through the mud. It was hot. The air was like water. Iâs couldnât remember why, but we were in armor that dayâall of us. We were thirty strong, maybe. Half were Kroridian rangers with shortbows and crossbows. The rest were infantry from Kanton.The violence in that jungle was always very suddenâthatâs what sticks in my mind. One moment, I was marching with my head hung low. The next, someone was screaming. I nearly snapped my neck with how quickly I turned to spot the Marshal. I was relieved to see her okay. But a second later, the man in the column just ahead of meâcanât say whether he was Kroridian or Kantonianâseized up and died right there in the grass.His head was split open by a smooth stone from a sling. I saw the shiny rock embedded in the bone, coated in his brains and blood.It just happens so quickly. And the fear that seized me wasnât even for myself. At that point, Iâs didnât care whether I woke the next morning. I was just worried about the poor girl at the front of the patrol. Never was able reach her, though. The Erisians came out of the brush around us.That was the worst part. When the fight would begin and the one person you wanted to save more than you even cared to live was out of reach. How often did weâs just throw ourselves at the feet of chance and gamble everything? Never understood how the men could play dice. They already rolled them every time they stepped outside the fortress walls.It wasnât Erisian land. They didnât know it like these rangers did. But they were deathly silent and had been waging their war of conquest here for months before me and the Marshal made it.Iâs remember screaming her name. And I remember she went out of sight when the chaos rolled over our column. Rangers and footmen all turned to face the ambush as the horse-folk came out of the brush with swords and axes. It was the first week of the first month of our time here, and we were given quite a welcome.The Erisian came at me with a curved saber under the cover of a hail of missiles. I tried to raise my spear but he was in my face before I could. The bastard kept hitting me, his sword just bouncing off mail but hurting like hell. I had been in plenty of fights before this. Iâs made a living as a career soldier. It was the only reason I was in Sobikâs employ.It never got easier. Never. The fear wasnât something Iâs or anyone can control. It wasnât a fear of losing what Iâs living for. I had nothing; my wife and child were gone. Yet I was horrified. Animal fear. Gut fear. I can still remember that same look in the Erisianâs eye as he battered me.I can still remember the sound he made when I split him open.I dropped the spear and drew my sword. He was too close for me to rear back my weapon, so I just struck horizontal and cut him right across the belly. Iâs certain he died, but I never was given the chance to finish the job. As he fell I turned around, scanning for the girl, but I couldnât find her.I then got grabbed from behind. Another Erisian had emerged out from the brush and wrapped his arm around my neck. He jammed down with a knife, aiming for my face or my throat. Iâs thrashed like an animal and his blade caught my breastplate. He lost balance on the slick ground and we both went tumbling off the trail and into the mud.I got pinned there, face in the ground, as he pounced on top of me. I was drowning. He must have lost his dagger in the struggle because I didnât end up stabbed. He just pinned my head under and kept it there. Iâs remember the taste of the dirt. How it got caught between my teeth and stuck to my gums and shot up my nose. When I pushed my head back up, I heard him screaming in his foreign tongue, burning with the same fear as mine.I wanted to liveâbut not for myself or for the family that I lost. I just wanted to make sure the kid was okay before Iâs passed. It was the only thing on my mind. If I died here, Iâd never be able to get her out of this jungle alive.So I just kept bucking. Every time I thrashed and my ears came out of the mud I heard the muted sounds of dying men. I strained to listen for the Marshalâs voice and never found it. Eventually, I thrashed enough. I wedged my knee up high and pinned it into his groin. It mustâve hurt him bad because his arm slipped away.I took the brief moment to reverse our positions. Iâs a few inches taller and at least forty pounds heavier than the man, and he stood little chance. He was not that much older than the Marshal, actually. Without a weapon, I had no choice but to kill him like how he tried to kill me. Iâs choked him and he drowned right there in the mud.As soon as he stopped moving, I pulled myself out of the muck and stumbled back onto the road. I couldnât find my sword. Couldnât even hear well with the mud in my ears. I scrambled for the closest corpse and stole his weapon. I didnât end up needing it, though. By the time Iâs rejoined the battle, it was over.I tallied up the report later that night. Weâd killed seven Erisians, captured one. Four Kantonians were either dead or would wind up dead later from their wounds. Two rangers were killed.I ran for the front of the column, coughing and sputtering. I was spitting out mud and hopping over the dead as I went. I found Sir Cadarn there, and the girl, too. The Marshal was straddling a manâs chest, hammering his face inward with the rim of her shield. It was a rhythmic crunch. Every second, another hit.The Kroridan knight watched her, arms folded over his chest. Couldnât see his expression from behind, but Iâs could imagine it well. Smug and approving. Happy that his little weapon had turned out so lethal on her first ever patrol.I shoved without saying anything him as I came running by. And Iâs rushed over to the girlâs side and stood frozen in shock as I saw her. The Marshal let out a screech, this horrible yell as she rammed the shield back down again. Her whole body was shuddering with each breath.A second later, I came to my senses. I stepped over to the girl and touched her shoulder. She flinched and screamed, then leapt off the body. She hit the ground and rolled back, scrambling on her rear, searching for the sword she must have lost. But then she saw me, and her eyes went wide.There were still three years of hell awaiting that girl. Weâs had barely started. The Marshal couldnât speak for hours after the ordeal. I can still remember her stumbling on her words. I tried to hold her, to comfort her like the kid she still wasâbut she wouldnât allow it. I couldnât touch her, hug her. She pulled away and screamed.It haunted me more than the pleading of the Erisian as I held him under and he begged in his tongue for mercy. Haunted me more than the silence after he went still.There would come a time when the screaming would stop. Couldnât tell you precisely when. There would come a day when the Marshal became a better killer than I, when sheâd carve out a manâs throat one moment and issue orders the next. And that haunted me more than anything else in Krorid.---[Darin and Male Marshal]It was so damn dark in the jungle. Iâs donât know how the men who lived there could stand it. I didnât know why our ancestors tried so desperately to take this patch of overgrown land in the first place. Knew even less why the Erisians were so desperate for it that theyâd fight us. And I knew least of all what Iâa man from Duncasterâwas doing in this godless hellhole.It was only the first week of the first month of our three year long war to hold the province. Rade Mozoroff wasnât even here yet. The only real commander was the boyâand he was just a lad of fifteen. Iâs thought he was even younger the first time I met him.Heâd grow up fast. Not yet, though. It was the first week. He looked so small buried in his coat of plates. It didnât help that the man beside him was a giant. Cadarn was an enormous Kroridian knight with these startlingly black eyes that Iâs never was able to read. Iâd grow to hate that man in time. Hate him more than the Erisians that weâs fighting. But back then? Trudging through the jungle with the kingâs bastard son at the head? I thought Cadarn was the real commander. The Marshal was just there to fulfill the whims of his shitty father.What were we even doing that day, Iâs canât remember. A patrol, of some kind, maybe? I just remembered the slog. Hell take the man who made us march. It was bad even before Iâs took an arrow through the leg. I just remember how much of a storm I cursed up, angry at it all.But the Marshal never complained. Thought it was madness that he was here in the first place. Iâs had a definite soft spot for the prince, ever since I met him. I knew he was talented. But to have him here, at the head of an army? Insanity. He of all people deserved the least to be here.But Iâs kept cursing and he was quiet.For every hour spent fighting in a pitched battle, there are a dozen days spent slogging. Slogging. Slogging through the mud. It was hot. The air was like water. Iâs couldnât remember why, but we were in armor that dayâall of us. We were thirty strong, maybe. Half were Kroridian rangers with shortbows and crossbows. The rest were infantry from Kanton.The violence in that jungle was always very suddenâthatâs what sticks in my mind. One moment, I was marching with my head hung low. The next, someone was screaming. I nearly snapped my neck with how quickly I turned to spot the Marshal. I was relieved to see him okay. But a second later, the man in the column just ahead of meâcanât say whether he was Kroridian or Kantonianâseized up and died right there in the grass.His head was split open by a smooth stone from a sling. I saw the shiny rock embedded in the bone, coated in his brains and blood.It just happens so quickly. And the fear that seized me wasnât even for myself. At that point, Iâs didnât care whether I woke the next morning. I was just worried about the poor boy at the front of the patrol. Never was able reach him, though. The Erisians came out of the brush around us.That was the worst part. When the fight would begin and the one person you wanted to save more than you even cared to live was out of reach. How often did weâs just throw ourselves at the feet of chance and gamble everything? Never understood how the men could play dice. They already rolled them every time they stepped outside the fortress walls.It wasnât Erisian land. They didnât know it like these rangers did. But they were deathly silent and had been waging their war of conquest here for months before me and the Marshal made it.Iâs remember screaming his name. And I remember he went out of sight when the chaos rolled over our column. Rangers and footmen all turned to face the ambush as the horse-folk came out of the brush with swords and axes. It was the first week of the first month of our time here, and we were given quite a welcome.The Erisian came at me with a curved saber under the cover of a hail of missiles. I tried to raise my spear but he was in my face before I could. The bastard kept hitting me, his sword just bouncing off mail but hurting like hell. I had been in plenty of fights before this. Iâs made a living as a career soldier. It was the only reason I was in Sobikâs employ.It never got easier. Never. The fear wasnât something Iâs or anyone can control. It wasnât a fear of losing what Iâs living for. I had nothing; my wife and child were gone. Yet I was horrified. Animal fear. Gut fear. I can still remember that same look in the Erisianâs eye as he battered me.I can still remember the sound he made when I split him open.I dropped the spear and drew my sword. He was too close for me to rear back my weapon, so I just struck horizontal and cut him right across the belly. Iâs certain he died, but I never was given the chance to finish the job. As he fell I turned around, scanning for the boy, but I couldnât find him.I then got grabbed from behind. Another Erisian had emerged out from the brush and wrapped his arm around my neck. He jammed down with a knife, aiming for my face or my throat. Iâs thrashed like an animal and his blade caught my breastplate. He lost balance on the slick ground and we both went tumbling off the trail and into the mud.I got pinned there, face in the ground, as he pounced on top of me. I was drowning. He must have lost his dagger in the struggle because I didnât end up stabbed. He just pinned my head under and kept it there. Iâs remember the taste of the dirt. How it got caught between my teeth and stuck to my gums and shot up my nose. When I pushed my head back up, I heard him screaming in his foreign tongue, burning with the same fear as mine.I wanted to liveâbut not for myself or for the family that I lost. I just wanted to make sure the kid was okay before Iâs passed. It was the only thing on my mind. If I died here, Iâd never be able to get him out of this jungle alive.So I just kept bucking. Every time I thrashed and my ears came out of the mud I heard the muted sounds of dying men. I strained to listen for the Marshalâs voice and never found it. Eventually, I thrashed enough. I wedged my knee up high and pinned it into his groin. It mustâve hurt him bad because his arm slipped away.I took the brief moment to reverse our positions. Iâs a few inches taller and at least forty pounds heavier than the man, and he stood little chance. He was not that much older than the Marshal, actually. Without a weapon, I had no choice but to kill him like how he tried to kill me. Iâs choked him and he drowned right there in the mud.As soon as he stopped moving, I pulled myself out of the muck and stumbled back onto the road. I couldnât find my sword. Couldnât even hear well with the mud in my ears. I scrambled for the closest corpse and stole his weapon. I didnât end up needing it, though. By the time Iâs rejoined the battle, it was over.I tallied up the report later that night. Weâd killed seven Erisians, captured one. Four Kantonians were either dead or would wind up dead later from their wounds. Two rangers were killed.I ran for the front of the column, coughing and sputtering. I was spitting out mud and hopping over the dead as I went. I found Sir Cadarn there, and the boy, too. The Marshal was straddling a manâs chest, hammering his face inward with the rim of his shield. It was a rhythmic crunch. Every second, another hit.The Kroridan knight watched him, arms folded over his chest. Couldnât see his expression from behind, but Iâs could imagine it well. Smug and approving. Happy that his little weapon had turned out so lethal on his first ever patrol.I shoved without saying anything him as I came running by. And Iâs rushed over to the boyâs side and stood frozen in shock as I saw him. The Marshal let out a screech, this horrible yell as he rammed the shield back down again. His whole body was shuddering with each breath.A second later, I came to my senses. I stepped over to the boy and touched his shoulder. He flinched and screamed, then leapt off the body. He hit the ground and rolled back, scrambling on his rear, searching for the sword he must have lost. But then he saw me, and his eyes went wide.There were still three years of hell awaiting that boy. Weâs had barely started. The Marshal couldnât speak for hours after the ordeal. I can still remember him stumbling on his words. I tried to hold him, to comfort him like the kid he still wasâbut he wouldnât allow it. I couldnât touch him, hug him. He pulled away and screamed.It haunted me more than the pleading of the Erisian as I held him under and he begged in his tongue for mercy. Haunted me more than the silence after he went still.There would come a time when the screaming would stop. Couldnât tell you precisely when. There would come a day when the Marshal became a better killer than I, when heâd carve out a manâs throat one moment and issue orders the next. And that haunted me more than anything else in Krorid.
darkfictionjude.itch.io
H's Flowers - coded short story - smutty
it's on itch.io with password of course, on their Patreon it says the password is: ARoseByAnyOtherName but when I entered it it didn't work, I really want to play it, I'm really craving this game, I've been loving it from day one, so I would be very grateful if someone knew what happened or if they changed the password, thanks
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