Verarde
Pondering Wearing A Hat
Wow. Quite good.
Unbound
- Thread starter the unbound
- Start date
RagingFire
Chieftain
Some of the most epic stories I have ever read have been on these forums. This is one of them. 
mayor
Heart & Mind
and slow but steady all the Civ4 S&T'ers will come, read and become addicted 
great story
great story
Sparthage
Fighting Tyranny
I'm subscribed.
the unbound
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2011
- Messages
- 57
Part I
Chapter X
It's an old man I see leaning over the map.
What secret jealousies lurk in their hearts, these old men. The sight of me must work its way beneath their loosening skin like a barb. No matter how familiarity might grow over it like a scab, there's still something poking at the thinning fibers of muscle, pressing in on the meat of the organs keeping them alive, but not for much longer.
"Our forces have absolute control over all the outlying territories," the old general says, sweeping his hand over the lines of charcoal and animal fat on the parchment. "The Indus valley itself is all that remains of their sphere of power."
Somewhere in the room, someone is thinking to themselves that an epoch before we might have had it. I can hear the whiz of electrons across their axons, but whoever it is won't dare say it out loud. The entire Mexica horde longs to reverse the "Mistake of Mercy," as it is popularly known in the empire.
"We should combine our forces here," a second, equally gray general says, drawing his finger near the sight of our victory over the Indian army all those centuries before. "And cross the river in tandem."
"No," a third chimes in. "We must encircle the city by crossing the highlands to its south."
"Those lands are too rough and food will be scarce. Better to follow the river around the mountains and plunder what we require."
"That would save a great expense," the first agrees, nodding to his rivals.
I grow bored with their prattle. My eyes wander over the lines and ninety degree angles of the room. No rough beams. No makeshift tarps. Plaster smooth as wishfulness and little windows of crude, bottom-heavy glass.
"Shouldn't we be in a tent?" I ask sardonically, but it's lost on them. They beg my pardon, inquire after my meaning, but they do not dwell on it, do not puzzle over my peculiarity. No more the sacred puzzle, I've become simply some constant. A term in their equations that must be factored in at every stage of calculation, but can never be reduced, never be truncated.
I am simply something that is always what it is. An object that they carry with them into battle. Arcane and inscrutable, but no longer sentient. I'm no more real than the gods and idols of the other civilizations.
"We will move over the highlands and take the city from both directions," I say, bored with their bickering.
The generals look up. The face of the one who suggested the plan grows fat with smugness. The rest offer their little bows to the superstition personified, to the god-king. They file out, leaving only a pair of guards behind at the entrance.
I see one of the guards curl up his lip in displeasure.
"What's wrong?" I ask him.
"No warrior should be so old," he says, sniffing after the men.
"No, I suppose not."
"They are all maps and plans. They build forts, and live under roofs. They have lost the jaguar spirit."
"Yes, I was just thinking about the old days, when we would live in tents as we rested between battles."
"I wish I might have served you then, unholy one."
I smile and take my seat before the map. Too settled, too comfortable. A complacent horde seeking out something to reinvigorate it. I will give them what they need.
The answer, as always, is death.
Chapter X
It's an old man I see leaning over the map.
What secret jealousies lurk in their hearts, these old men. The sight of me must work its way beneath their loosening skin like a barb. No matter how familiarity might grow over it like a scab, there's still something poking at the thinning fibers of muscle, pressing in on the meat of the organs keeping them alive, but not for much longer.
"Our forces have absolute control over all the outlying territories," the old general says, sweeping his hand over the lines of charcoal and animal fat on the parchment. "The Indus valley itself is all that remains of their sphere of power."
Somewhere in the room, someone is thinking to themselves that an epoch before we might have had it. I can hear the whiz of electrons across their axons, but whoever it is won't dare say it out loud. The entire Mexica horde longs to reverse the "Mistake of Mercy," as it is popularly known in the empire.
"We should combine our forces here," a second, equally gray general says, drawing his finger near the sight of our victory over the Indian army all those centuries before. "And cross the river in tandem."
"No," a third chimes in. "We must encircle the city by crossing the highlands to its south."
"Those lands are too rough and food will be scarce. Better to follow the river around the mountains and plunder what we require."
"That would save a great expense," the first agrees, nodding to his rivals.
I grow bored with their prattle. My eyes wander over the lines and ninety degree angles of the room. No rough beams. No makeshift tarps. Plaster smooth as wishfulness and little windows of crude, bottom-heavy glass.
"Shouldn't we be in a tent?" I ask sardonically, but it's lost on them. They beg my pardon, inquire after my meaning, but they do not dwell on it, do not puzzle over my peculiarity. No more the sacred puzzle, I've become simply some constant. A term in their equations that must be factored in at every stage of calculation, but can never be reduced, never be truncated.
I am simply something that is always what it is. An object that they carry with them into battle. Arcane and inscrutable, but no longer sentient. I'm no more real than the gods and idols of the other civilizations.
"We will move over the highlands and take the city from both directions," I say, bored with their bickering.
The generals look up. The face of the one who suggested the plan grows fat with smugness. The rest offer their little bows to the superstition personified, to the god-king. They file out, leaving only a pair of guards behind at the entrance.
I see one of the guards curl up his lip in displeasure.
"What's wrong?" I ask him.
"No warrior should be so old," he says, sniffing after the men.
"No, I suppose not."
"They are all maps and plans. They build forts, and live under roofs. They have lost the jaguar spirit."
"Yes, I was just thinking about the old days, when we would live in tents as we rested between battles."
"I wish I might have served you then, unholy one."
I smile and take my seat before the map. Too settled, too comfortable. A complacent horde seeking out something to reinvigorate it. I will give them what they need.
The answer, as always, is death.
Verarde
Pondering Wearing A Hat
Very nice.
Optical
The Fall of the Eleventh
Brilliant. 
Tambien
Theseus, Duke of Athens
Me gusta MUCHO!!!!
DragonHead
Warlord
Whast is teh difficulty level?
DragonHead
Warlord
Best story ever!
the unbound
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2011
- Messages
- 57
As always, thanks all.
You know, Dragonhead, I honestly don't remember. I usually play Emperor, but I may have turned this down to King since I knew I was going to play just to turn this into a story. I don't have the saved games anymore, just the screen caps, so I just don't know.
You know, Dragonhead, I honestly don't remember. I usually play Emperor, but I may have turned this down to King since I knew I was going to play just to turn this into a story. I don't have the saved games anymore, just the screen caps, so I just don't know.
the unbound
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2011
- Messages
- 57
Part I
Chapter XI
What do they feel as it gores them? Is is fear, finally, that crosses into their hearts? Or do they die content, elated even, just to know there are still challenges left in the world?
Is it enough to die, knowing there is an enemy who can kill you?
Gaja. The Mexica have never seen an elephant, so they borrow the Indians' word. I don't know where they got them, but since the last time our army came knocking, the Mahajanapadas have gotten ahold of breeding stock and they've trained up these behemoths into something of a tactical advantage.
Good.
The generals beside me step backward as one of the elephants charges across the field, smashing through the outer lines of our spearmen, a runaway barrel headed right for our camp.
The other animals fall to the ground, bloodied by the barbs of so many spears through their midsections, but this one, this one has broken through.
The old men shriek, try to beckon me away, but I just stand and watch.
Go ahead, big fella, trample me. What a relief it would be to die, to be rid of this life and hurled into another. Crush my skull, I dare you.
It won't get the chance, though.
A warrior from the inner guard dashes, cheetah-quick, toward us.
The wave that bounces through the wood of his spear marks a long sine curve with each step, anticipating a geometry that won't be invented here for a millennia.
With one footfall, the warrior snaps his helmet off, letting it spin through the air like a fallen sun behind him.
On the next he snaps off his breastplate, flinging it into the stalks of dry grass beside him.
He wants speed.
He is charging almost as fast as the elephant, but not toward it. It almost looks as though he means to beat it to its quarry, to stake me through the heart. If only something that interesting would happen, but it won't. I see his real plan. I know what he will do.
I've seen this warrior before. As we marched to Delhi, I remember him telling me--in a giddy, school boy's voice that is inappropriate for a Mexica warrior any time except when given the opportunity to speak one-to-one with the unholy one, the god-king himself--how pleased he was to join the expedition to India.
"Not only for the glory of the great battle to come," he had told me, casting his eyes on all his eager comrades. "But also because of the sea."
"The sea?" I'd asked him. He had told me his name, but it escapes me now.
"When Delhi bows before you, then we will control the Eastern coast and I hope to survey your new dominion for you. I have dreamed of seeing the see. Waters as powerful as the rivers, but without end."
"That's your dream, is it?" I'd asked him. What was his name?
"It is," he'd said.
Now he runs forward, all his dreams forgotten.
He slides to the ground just a few body lengths before me. The generals cower, perhaps as much at his courage as at the animal's rampage.
Deftly, he curls the spear beneath his arm and drives his feet into the earth, sticking the end of the shaft deep into the soft, dry soil of autumn.
The thing does not regard him. The archers perched atop it cannot see him.
The elephant runs aground on his spear, letting the point go deep into its hard, gray flesh. It seems to slide in painlessly, between ribs, through muscle, right into the quietus of the heart, where it stops time and the thing dies in a suddenly silent lump, hurling its riders into the dirt as it falls.
Jaguar guards surge forward and surround the fallen men. They are lifted amidst winces and wails over broken limbs and cracked bones. No matter; their hearts still beat and will until they are opened for the sacrificial altar.
The warrior, of course, is shattered and still beneath the beast's body. There will be no way to move it. They'll burn there together.
Iccauhtli.
That was his name.
Chapter XI
What do they feel as it gores them? Is is fear, finally, that crosses into their hearts? Or do they die content, elated even, just to know there are still challenges left in the world?
Is it enough to die, knowing there is an enemy who can kill you?
Gaja. The Mexica have never seen an elephant, so they borrow the Indians' word. I don't know where they got them, but since the last time our army came knocking, the Mahajanapadas have gotten ahold of breeding stock and they've trained up these behemoths into something of a tactical advantage.
Good.
The generals beside me step backward as one of the elephants charges across the field, smashing through the outer lines of our spearmen, a runaway barrel headed right for our camp.
The other animals fall to the ground, bloodied by the barbs of so many spears through their midsections, but this one, this one has broken through.
The old men shriek, try to beckon me away, but I just stand and watch.
Go ahead, big fella, trample me. What a relief it would be to die, to be rid of this life and hurled into another. Crush my skull, I dare you.
It won't get the chance, though.
A warrior from the inner guard dashes, cheetah-quick, toward us.
The wave that bounces through the wood of his spear marks a long sine curve with each step, anticipating a geometry that won't be invented here for a millennia.
With one footfall, the warrior snaps his helmet off, letting it spin through the air like a fallen sun behind him.
On the next he snaps off his breastplate, flinging it into the stalks of dry grass beside him.
He wants speed.
He is charging almost as fast as the elephant, but not toward it. It almost looks as though he means to beat it to its quarry, to stake me through the heart. If only something that interesting would happen, but it won't. I see his real plan. I know what he will do.
I've seen this warrior before. As we marched to Delhi, I remember him telling me--in a giddy, school boy's voice that is inappropriate for a Mexica warrior any time except when given the opportunity to speak one-to-one with the unholy one, the god-king himself--how pleased he was to join the expedition to India.
"Not only for the glory of the great battle to come," he had told me, casting his eyes on all his eager comrades. "But also because of the sea."
"The sea?" I'd asked him. He had told me his name, but it escapes me now.
"When Delhi bows before you, then we will control the Eastern coast and I hope to survey your new dominion for you. I have dreamed of seeing the see. Waters as powerful as the rivers, but without end."
"That's your dream, is it?" I'd asked him. What was his name?
"It is," he'd said.
Now he runs forward, all his dreams forgotten.
He slides to the ground just a few body lengths before me. The generals cower, perhaps as much at his courage as at the animal's rampage.
Deftly, he curls the spear beneath his arm and drives his feet into the earth, sticking the end of the shaft deep into the soft, dry soil of autumn.
The thing does not regard him. The archers perched atop it cannot see him.
The elephant runs aground on his spear, letting the point go deep into its hard, gray flesh. It seems to slide in painlessly, between ribs, through muscle, right into the quietus of the heart, where it stops time and the thing dies in a suddenly silent lump, hurling its riders into the dirt as it falls.
Jaguar guards surge forward and surround the fallen men. They are lifted amidst winces and wails over broken limbs and cracked bones. No matter; their hearts still beat and will until they are opened for the sacrificial altar.
The warrior, of course, is shattered and still beneath the beast's body. There will be no way to move it. They'll burn there together.
Iccauhtli.
That was his name.
Pieman
Prince
Very good story, love how well you managed to shape the protagonist's detached, almost weary tone. Keep it up.
CrazyHorseSouix
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2011
- Messages
- 27
registered just to sub this thread. Quality work so far, I look forward to seeing where it goes.
Vylinius
College Student
I can't use a smilie for this *eye twitch* this story is too epic for smilies. It makes me want to play civ again. CURSES!
the unbound
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2011
- Messages
- 57
Part I
Chapter XII
Hear me, Jaguars! Hear me, warriors of the Mexica!
How long have we toiled in blood on this soil? How long have we fought and died here? How many suns have set on our encampments here, on that defiant city still outside our control? How long?
Too long. Yes, too long. So long that we are greatly reduced. The numberless horde that marched from our lands years ago is gone. Now, we are few. The bones of many of our warriors will never know the soil of home. They rot here, beneath these plains, their essence feeding their crops and fattening the cattle of the Indian empire.
Too few, now. We are too few. This is what the generals tell me. They say we must withdraw. It is not prudent to remain in the field, with the Indians encamped on the hills to the north east. They warn me that defeat awaits us if we press on, if we do not wait to regroup. This is what they tell me. We must regroup.
Yet if we regroup, will not the enemy do the same? How long would we fight if both sides bolster their numbers, lick their wounds and prepare for another generation of blood shed? How long?
Too long, I say! When we began this siege, I saw a bold warrior charge alone into the face of one of those war beasts the Indians whip into servitude. One man against a gaja.
One man.
Was this prudent of him? Did he not realize that the time had come for him to retire, to prepare for future fighting? Did his generals train him so poorly? Were his instructors not schooled in the proper etiquette of drawing blood from one's enemy and yet living to fight another day?
Too little training. But not too little spirit, I think.
Yes, let us retire, as the generals say. Let us pull back and build comfortable barracks while we wait for more troops to cross the valley and join our ranks. Or, perhaps not. Perhaps we should parry with our enemy. Let him lull us into a comfortable sleep with promises of tribute that will never arrive. Let him bow humbly before us and then speak ill of us and poison our honor before the other rebellious nations of the world.
We are strong, after all, why should we prove our strength. Let us go back to our own cities and trouble no one beyond our borders. Let the gods starve and waste away, we do not need them. We are strong enough. Let no men tremble at our name any longer. We are strong enough.
We need do nothing more to prove ourselves. Let us just lie down here, on these soft, dry grasses and sleep. Put down your arms, my Mexica brothers. Put down your arms and lie down.
Will you not do it?
What would you do, then? Would you fight on? Would you fight on like that brave warrior? Damn prudence, damn everything but glory? Is that what you want? Is that what you would do with your lives? Live them gloriously as your forefathers have done? Yes? Is that it? Would you be true Mexica? Unafraid? Ever hungry to stir the blood of the world? Yes?
Yes! Then seize these generals and let us drain their prudence onto the field. Put their heads atop the spikes of the vanguard's spears so that the enemy knows there can be no peace where they are not on their knees. Let all the world know what cost a nation will pay for defying our will. Let us be glorious, now and forever, or be nothing! Let there be no defeat, ever. There is only victory or death! And they are one and the same!
So, march, my warriors! Fight on until morning, and through it. Fight until every sinew aches, and then fight on. Let us crush the last of India now, here and never be troubled by their insolence again.
March and, at long last, give me that city!
Chapter XII
Hear me, Jaguars! Hear me, warriors of the Mexica!
How long have we toiled in blood on this soil? How long have we fought and died here? How many suns have set on our encampments here, on that defiant city still outside our control? How long?
Too long. Yes, too long. So long that we are greatly reduced. The numberless horde that marched from our lands years ago is gone. Now, we are few. The bones of many of our warriors will never know the soil of home. They rot here, beneath these plains, their essence feeding their crops and fattening the cattle of the Indian empire.
Too few, now. We are too few. This is what the generals tell me. They say we must withdraw. It is not prudent to remain in the field, with the Indians encamped on the hills to the north east. They warn me that defeat awaits us if we press on, if we do not wait to regroup. This is what they tell me. We must regroup.
Yet if we regroup, will not the enemy do the same? How long would we fight if both sides bolster their numbers, lick their wounds and prepare for another generation of blood shed? How long?
Too long, I say! When we began this siege, I saw a bold warrior charge alone into the face of one of those war beasts the Indians whip into servitude. One man against a gaja.
One man.
Was this prudent of him? Did he not realize that the time had come for him to retire, to prepare for future fighting? Did his generals train him so poorly? Were his instructors not schooled in the proper etiquette of drawing blood from one's enemy and yet living to fight another day?
Too little training. But not too little spirit, I think.
Yes, let us retire, as the generals say. Let us pull back and build comfortable barracks while we wait for more troops to cross the valley and join our ranks. Or, perhaps not. Perhaps we should parry with our enemy. Let him lull us into a comfortable sleep with promises of tribute that will never arrive. Let him bow humbly before us and then speak ill of us and poison our honor before the other rebellious nations of the world.
We are strong, after all, why should we prove our strength. Let us go back to our own cities and trouble no one beyond our borders. Let the gods starve and waste away, we do not need them. We are strong enough. Let no men tremble at our name any longer. We are strong enough.
We need do nothing more to prove ourselves. Let us just lie down here, on these soft, dry grasses and sleep. Put down your arms, my Mexica brothers. Put down your arms and lie down.
Will you not do it?
What would you do, then? Would you fight on? Would you fight on like that brave warrior? Damn prudence, damn everything but glory? Is that what you want? Is that what you would do with your lives? Live them gloriously as your forefathers have done? Yes? Is that it? Would you be true Mexica? Unafraid? Ever hungry to stir the blood of the world? Yes?
Yes! Then seize these generals and let us drain their prudence onto the field. Put their heads atop the spikes of the vanguard's spears so that the enemy knows there can be no peace where they are not on their knees. Let all the world know what cost a nation will pay for defying our will. Let us be glorious, now and forever, or be nothing! Let there be no defeat, ever. There is only victory or death! And they are one and the same!
So, march, my warriors! Fight on until morning, and through it. Fight until every sinew aches, and then fight on. Let us crush the last of India now, here and never be troubled by their insolence again.
March and, at long last, give me that city!
Sparthage
Fighting Tyranny
lurker's comment:
Nothing is too epic for smilies!
Excellent update by the way.![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
Blasphemy...
Nothing is too epic for smilies!
Excellent update by the way.
Welcome to CFC, CrazyHorseSouix!
Verarde
Pondering Wearing A Hat
Just yesterday I was thinking, "Hmm, Unbound hasn't been updated in a week or so." and then you deliver!
