Posts Tagged ‘Calere’

Rebirth

Posted in Calere, Fiction on March 19th, 2013 by Annabelle – 10 Comments

He sat on a stump in the village square, leaning on his knees and turning his face up to the sun.  It was finally warm, and he felt a smile blooming.  The interminable northern winter felt like a crushing blow every year, but he could never remember being more grateful for spring.

A delighted shriek pierced the air.  A dark-haired toddler was staggering after a fluttering scrap of yellow just out of her reach, waving her chubby arms and babbling as she went.  She had managed to take off her shoes, he noticed ruefully, and her feet and legs were coated with mud.  He levered himself up and went to the rescue.

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Trifecta: First Blood

Posted in Calere, Fiction on January 28th, 2013 by Annabelle – 36 Comments

“Hang in there, Dane.  We’ll be there soon.”  There was no more response than the last three times.  Cy told himself it was probably a good thing that Dane had passed out.   Easier that way.

Cy winced as the wagon jolted and his fingers, slippery with blood, slid across the increasingly saturated pad above Dane’s left hip.  He swore quietly.  Dane was looking far too white, and as for the wound, Cy was afraid to lift up the pad again to look.  The mouth of the wound had been ragged after the captain had pulled the arrow out, and the blood was still coming no matter how hard he pressed.  Cy was far from sure that yanking the arrow that way had been the right thing to do — it was bleeding so much — but he had no idea what else they could have done.

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Fraternity

Posted in Calere, Fiction on January 17th, 2013 by Annabelle – 8 Comments

“You did that?”  Cy looked dubiously at a length of fabric so sheer that he could almost see through it and then at the sister who was holding it.  She was twelve.

“Don’t touch it!”  Make that twelve and bossy.

“I wasn’t going to.”  Cy looked guiltily at his callused hands.  He’d been a disaster with the finer cloths even before he’d joined up, and now?  Five years of continuous sword drills had left him with hands that would snag silk from three feet away.

A snicker came from the doorway.  “Eleven years of age and all that military training and Cala’s still in charge, huh?”  Their brother Brev, nineteen and the sanest person in the family, leaned against the doorframe, grinning.

“Strategic choices,” Cy responded promptly.  “We pick our battlefields.”

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Orthography

Posted in Calere, Fiction on December 21st, 2012 by Annabelle – 6 Comments

Cy looked down at his pay slip and contemplated the latest misspelling of his name.  Seinen.  It had, in past weeks, been Sinan, Sainnen, and in a bizarre creative flight that he still had trouble believing wasn’t deliberate, Siiniin.  Sinan at least sounded Caleran.  What sort of a guy was Seinen?  Heid, maybe?  It had a Heid sort of an air to it, all E and I.

He shook his head and pushed off the wall, turning toward the offices.  Every week, a new man here in the military.   He’d wondered at first if he should try to correct it — but he was having enough trouble about his foreign looks without making a fuss over the spelling of his even more foreign first name.  It was the least of his problems, really.  If he’d been one of the farmers’ kids, he probably wouldn’t even read well enough to know.

Of course, if he’d been one of the farmers’ kids, the Atan officers wouldn’t all look at him like he was a mercenary.

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Trifecta: Letting Go

Posted in Calere, Fiction on December 10th, 2012 by Annabelle – 12 Comments

The boy was quiet when he told them.  His chin was held determinedly high over the brand new Church soldier’s uniform, and his face was a mixture of resolve and apology for the shock he was giving them.

It was almost enough to make the old man laugh despite it all.  They had been headed here all the boy’s life.  Longer — ever since the moment his daughter had led an Eastern mercenary in the door.  He might never forgive Dyan for marrying Ellin then dying on that pointless campaign, but he’d seen that coming the way he’d seen this coming.  Inevitable.  It had been in every line of the boy from the time he was six, an uncanny anticipation of the soldier now before him.

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