General Matrick (Companion piece to "Forged in the Breach")

TW: the occasional fuck, cursing that is, not the other : )

The battlefield lay before General Matrick, etched in ink, stained by blood, fraying at its singed edges. Tapping a wooden infantryman’s head, he sighed. A simple task to slide it across the parchment landscape, towards Tormun's mountains, through that godforsaken Breach, and into their world. A little push would do it, and yet those figurines grew heavier with every passing day. Perhaps it was age? Or the wicked cold seeping bone deep? Or dare he even think it: that he’d lost the will for it all. Almost thirty years with your finger in the dam you start wondering if drowning’s really that bad. Some say it's peaceful. Whatever that is. 

“Sir?” 

Matrick ignored Korvis' nasal appeals for a third time. Standing there all stiff jawed, arms full of scrolls, starched uniform half as rigid as he, brass buttons shining, full of that hopeful vigor only youth provided. What a bastard.

"Sir, I hate to press but–"

"Well don't!" Matrick held up the soldier statue, features worn and polished from decades of handling, the royal coat of arms adorning its shield practically unseeable by the flickering flames of wind kissed candles, “Do you know what this is?”

“A figurine sir.”

“Very fucking astute,” Matrick squeezed the miniature in his liver spotted fist, slumped into a tall ladder back chair, then reached for a goblet. 

“What's in my hand, Korvis, is thousands of lives. Put it on the wrong spot, or even the right one, and thousands of able-bodied soldiers become hundreds of maimed and broken survivors. All that training, time, expertise, armour, life…lost. And guess who's tasked with replacing them?” He gulped some wine, too much, coughed, choked, coughed even more. Nothing screams authority like a purple faced old man bent double in a battered uniform, but there was little he could do about that now.

Korvis leapt forward, eyes full of pity. The worst emotion to receive, and one Matrick hadn’t given in years. Can’t have that, or guilt, or remorse, oh no, not in this line of work. Cold and stoic, just as Commander Panzar beat into him.

“Here sir, have some water, you’ll be–”

Martick slapped the proffered cup from Korvis' hand, its contents splashing across the navy canvas tent and hissing in one of four spluttering braziers. 

“Get your hands off me fool." Matrick snorted bull angry, “What’s so bloody urgent then, bedside auditioning for my fucking carer.”

“Sorry sir, I am, I…”

“Spit it out, or get out, I’ve a war to plan, remember,” Matrick narrowed his eyes waving the figurine.

“Best you read it yourself, sir,” Korvis handed over the unfurling scroll, wax seal already broken, and took a step back, then an extra one for good measure.

Few words raised Matrick's rancor and yet, somehow, most of them appeared in this short missive. He read it again. Hand quivering, jaw clenched, he crumpled the insulting command, tossed it to the mud crusted rugs, ground it under his heel. 

"Retirement?" Matrick spat the word so sharply if could cut a lie from the air. 

"Find my own, fucking, replacement?" Matrick drew out every word andthe colour from Korvis' face as he stood.

"Return to take a lordship in Alpsilon? Alpsilon!" Matrick whipped his cane from the tabletop, scrolls, ledgers, and goblets scattering in its wake.

Dragging his damn twisted right leg, he hobbled closer.  Three days he spent crushed and trapped under a dead horse during the campaign of the Black Sun, survival forced him to squeeze water from gore flooded mud and yet that was nowhere near as degrading as this.

"A wife has been arranged! A wife? A fucking wife!"  Matrick rolled his good shoulder, brandishing the cane as though it were a rapier.

"Sir please,” Korvis whimpered, shuffling backwards, cane mere inches from his nose. “I'm just the messenger,"

"My wrinkled arse you are! Korvis Von Eckles, scuff free uniform, dropped into a position safe from the fighting. You're as much a pampered pooch as all those other royal inbreds in the south!" The brazier rocked, Korvis grimaced, back pressed against the hot metal, swaying light casting lurking shadows to every corner.

"Arrrrgh!" Korvis dashed away.

"You send a raven tonight, you tell that pubescent pus bag of a boy Emperor I'll hold to my promise to his father. Victory or death. You fucking got that? Victory or death!"

"Yes sir, sorry sir, yes—"

Clattering steel rose beyond the tent's confines, hooves and panting, someone screamed to clear the way. Matrick swiveled to the entrance flap, ignored the pain shooting up his back for the effort,  and held the cane striking ready.

Red faced and panting, a partly armoured soldier burst in, "Fighting, sir." 

"What?" Matrick growled, snatched the water jug and pushed it into the soldier's chest.

He drank deep, wiped his mouth, drew in a big breath, "Soldiers fighting sir, up on the Anvil, thought it was just a drunken brawl, or the smithies revolting but…there's more joining them, their burning the standards sir."

"Joining them? Them?" Matrick asked, exiting the tent.

"Yes sir, lead by some big bastard, a smithie I reckon and a —" the soldier swallowed.

"And a what?" Matrick unhooked a looking glass from his belt, extended it, put it to his eye. Sure as day follows night there on the plateau overlooking the sprawling encampment tongues of flame lashed hungrily at the Empirical banners. To either side of the vast flat hill the two roads were alive with clashing swords, twanging bows, and gurgling death.

"A Pharinesse sir."

The eyeglass fell away. Matrick spun, brow knotted in confused disbelief, "How?"

"No idea sir, none, at all."

"But you're sure?"

"Seen the vile mouthless creature myself sir, scaled skin, yellow eyes, no mistaking it."

Matrick raised his eye glass once more in the opposite direction, tracking the path up the mountain, past the sentry's and mounted guards, towards Tormun's gate. Beyond the peaks of the snow capped mountains the constant flickering yellows remained the same, like the burning edges of paper sizzling between two universes.

"With me!" Matrick snapped. Marching back into the tent he noticed the two pips on the soldier's collar. "Name, Captain."

"Jenrick, sir, Archibald Jenrick of the thirteenth regiment."

Matrick stared at the map, palms pressed to the table he sucked at his teeth ignoring the rising echoes of panic. That was the last thing needed in a camp this big. He could almost feel the water trickling round his finger, was there finally a crack in the dam? Were the Pharinesse about to flood over the mountains?

"Captain move your men to the Breach," Matrick dipped a quill, began scratching out an order. "Take this with you, anyone sober enough to hold their cock between and the pass is to go with you, by my decree, no matter the rank. Understood?"

No sooner had Jenrick lowered his vibrating salute than he rushed away, orders in hand, shouting to any and all.

"Korvis," Matrick roared, not realising the page stood by his side.

"Yes, sir?"

"My armour and horse boy."

"You can't be serious sir?"

"No, Korvis I've taken this moment to become a fucking jester. My armour, now!"

Matrick's hand glided over the table, repositioning figurines as though lighter than air, scribbling orders. It seems when the water comes splashing around your feet, even the old and frail will try to swim.

"Sir?"

Matrick lifted his stare to Korvis, scrolls replaced will gleaming armour and sheathed long sword.

Matrick smiled. Perhaps he would drown. But it would not be peaceful. Oh no, that has no place in this line of work. Victory or death.

***