[table][row][/row][row][cell][center][color=2e2c2c]____________________________________________[/color]
[url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5588024][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/738562e4-b260-4e43-a770-bfada35e3ce4.png[/img][/url][/center][/cell][cell][center][justify][color=cfbcae]𝕭ack at camp, Szaalm's first order of business was to away to the stream. Plucking the feather from his hat, he drenched the latter in the green, languid waters, drowned it 'til the bubbles stopped and the felt was altogether logged. This he upturned over his neck, over his scalp in buckets, before restoring it to good order again, smoothed and panached upon his head. His next visit was to the hogsheads, where, flagon in hand, he gulped until his belly had gone round and sloshing, where he gulped until the spigot spat and sputtered and his cup was more froth than smallbeer, where he gulped until he could taste the dregs at barrel's bottom, rich and yeasty. When one of his captains declared Szaalm's daily ration spent, his gut liable to pop, and the man himself nigh unfit to sit the saddle without oozing right out of it—or better yet, leading his rouncey clear over a cliff—he switched over to posca and switchel, and kept on quaffing.

An hour later, while the enlisted men set to breaking the tents, Szaalm had vomited the half of his contents, and was pissing out the other half when he informed the first of several captains and [i]aides-de-camp[/i] that they would have to lead the parade without him. Poker still in hand, tucked modestly behind the foliage or a bramble at camp's edge while his water poured from him, he withstood several rounds of interrogation in obstinate silence—unwilling, for a time, to reveal that Her Majesty had personally requested his company on the long road south to Calaria. But the questions did not relent, and soon enough the need to assuage the men had bested his false humility, and after calling a few assemblies of the officers, Szaalm had boasted the truth of it to all of them.[/color][/justify][/center][/cell][/row][/table][justify][indent][color=cfbcae]"But, your speech," rang the prevailing sentiment—"your drills—" to which he disappeared, for a time, behind his tentflaps. When he appeared again he had incised several pages from his diary: scrawled on the lines and between them, scratched out in places, crossed, dotted, circled, underlined, annotated, but its spirit, all told, entirely recoverable. (It did not yet occur to the captains to wonder why most of the omitted words were simply drawn through with slapdash strokes, while a select few others were most carefully blotted over until entirely illegible—nor why that same ink stained Szaalm's fingertips even at that very moment.)

"Change what thou must," he commanded. "The speech I leave to the chaplain, the drills to Captains Iorlaf and Arkosias. As for the procession: to thee only the horses of the finest coat, and the greatest measure at the withers; the rest I shall bring along to provide to the wounded. Likewise to the men: only the tallest, broadest, and the stoutest of song shall accompany thee, and to them full dress and arms, well-buffed..."

And so it went for some time, the colonel dictating to the others every minutia of the route and the routine, suggesting the hymns and the maneuvers which he knew the men to know the best by heart. Soon the steel was polished, the leather oiled, and the sashes scrubbed; soon the veterans with the most barreled chests were winnowed from the wounded and the sick and the lean, and sent away to assail the towns and their villages with song, with cheer, with slogan. Soon Szaalm knew in how many days to expect the contingent returned to him (and hopefully with a great many volunteers in tow), just the same as the lieutenants knew by what route to find themselves rendezvoused with the main force. And hours later, when every pot was scrubbed and every tent was broken, when every chair, barrel, and chuck was hauled up into the wagons, when the last stakes were pulled and the last flags furled, the Firestripes struck forth.[/color][/indent][/justify][center][color=#2E2C2C]_[/color][color=#312F2E]_[/color][color=#353231]_[/color][color=#383534]_[/color][color=#3C3937]_[/color][color=#403C3A]_[/color][color=#433F3D]_[/color][color=#474240]_[/color][color=#4B4643]_[/color][color=#4E4946]_[/color][color=#524C49]_[/color][color=#564F4C]_[/color][color=#59534F]_[/color][color=#5D5652]_[/color][color=#615955]_[/color][color=#645D58]_[/color][color=#68605B]_[/color][color=#6C635E]_[/color][color=#6F6661]_[/color][color=#736A64]_[/color][color=#776D67]_[/color][color=#7A706A]_[/color][color=#7E736C]_[/color][color=#82776F]_[/color][color=#857A72]_[/color][color=#897D75]_[/color][color=#8D8178]_[/color][color=#90847B]_[/color][color=#94877E]_[/color][color=#988A81]_[/color][color=#9B8E84]_[/color][color=#9F9187]_[/color][color=#A3948A]_[/color][color=#A6978D]_[/color][color=#AA9B90]_[/color][color=#AE9E93]_[/color][color=#B1A196]_[/color][color=#B5A599]_[/color][color=#B9A89C]_[/color][color=#BCAB9F]_[/color][color=#C0AEA2]_[/color][color=#C4B2A5]_[/color][color=#C7B5A8]_[/color][color=#CBB8AB]_[/color][color=#CEBCAE]_[/color][color=#CBB8AB]_[/color][color=#C7B5A8]_[/color][color=#C4B2A5]_[/color][color=#C0AEA2]_[/color][color=#BCAB9F]_[/color][color=#B9A89C]_[/color][color=#B5A599]_[/color][color=#B1A196]_[/color][color=#AE9E93]_[/color][color=#AA9B90]_[/color][color=#A6978D]_[/color][color=#A3948A]_[/color][color=#9F9187]_[/color][color=#9B8E84]_[/color][color=#988A81]_[/color][color=#94877E]_[/color][color=#90847B]_[/color][color=#8D8178]_[/color][color=#897D75]_[/color][color=#857A72]_[/color][color=#82776F]_[/color][color=#7E736C]_[/color][color=#7A706A]_[/color][color=#776D67]_[/color][color=#736A64]_[/color][color=#6F6661]_[/color][color=#6C635E]_[/color][color=#68605B]_[/color][color=#645D58]_[/color][color=#615955]_[/color][color=#5D5652]_[/color][color=#59534F]_[/color][color=#564F4C]_[/color][color=#524C49]_[/color][color=#4E4946]_[/color][color=#4B4643]_[/color][color=#474240]_[/color][color=#433F3D]_[/color][color=#403C3A]_[/color][color=#3C3937]_[/color][color=#383534]_[/color][color=#353231]_[/color][color=#312F2E]_[/color][color=#2E2C2C]_[/color]
[color=#2E2C2C]_[/color][color=#312F2E]_[/color][color=#353231]_[/color][color=#383534]_[/color][color=#3C3937]_[/color][color=#403C3A]_[/color][color=#433F3D]_[/color][color=#474240]_[/color][color=#4B4643]_[/color][color=#4E4946]_[/color][color=#524C49]_[/color][color=#564F4C]_[/color][color=#59534F]_[/color][color=#5D5652]_[/color][color=#615955]_[/color][color=#645D58]_[/color][color=#68605B]_[/color][color=#6C635E]_[/color][color=#6F6661]_[/color][color=#736A64]_[/color][color=#776D67]_[/color][color=#7A706A]_[/color][color=#7E736C]_[/color][color=#82776F]_[/color][color=#857A72]_[/color][color=#897D75]_[/color][color=#8D8178]_[/color][color=#90847B]_[/color][color=#94877E]_[/color][color=#988A81]_[/color][color=#9B8E84]_[/color][color=#9F9187]_[/color][color=#A3948A]_[/color][color=#A6978D]_[/color][color=#AA9B90]_[/color][color=#AE9E93]_[/color][color=#B1A196]_[/color][color=#B5A599]_[/color][color=#B9A89C]_[/color][color=#BCAB9F]_[/color][color=#C0AEA2]_[/color][color=#C4B2A5]_[/color][color=#C7B5A8]_[/color][color=#CBB8AB]_[/color][color=#CEBCAE]_[/color][color=#CBB8AB]_[/color][color=#C7B5A8]_[/color][color=#C4B2A5]_[/color][color=#C0AEA2]_[/color][color=#BCAB9F]_[/color][color=#B9A89C]_[/color][color=#B5A599]_[/color][color=#B1A196]_[/color][color=#AE9E93]_[/color][color=#AA9B90]_[/color][color=#A6978D]_[/color][color=#A3948A]_[/color][color=#9F9187]_[/color][color=#9B8E84]_[/color][color=#988A81]_[/color][color=#94877E]_[/color][color=#90847B]_[/color][color=#8D8178]_[/color][color=#897D75]_[/color][color=#857A72]_[/color][color=#82776F]_[/color][color=#7E736C]_[/color][color=#7A706A]_[/color][color=#776D67]_[/color][color=#736A64]_[/color][color=#6F6661]_[/color][color=#6C635E]_[/color][color=#68605B]_[/color][color=#645D58]_[/color][color=#615955]_[/color][color=#5D5652]_[/color][color=#59534F]_[/color][color=#564F4C]_[/color][color=#524C49]_[/color][color=#4E4946]_[/color][color=#4B4643]_[/color][color=#474240]_[/color][color=#433F3D]_[/color][color=#403C3A]_[/color][color=#3C3937]_[/color][color=#383534]_[/color][color=#353231]_[/color][color=#312F2E]_[/color][color=#2E2C2C]_[/color][/center]
[justify][indent][color=cfbcae]The fighting had spared the village of Pelposyensis; spared it so thoroughly, in fact, that when the company's banners breached the horizon, many believed themselves beset. Those who had not seen the smoke issuing from the hills just a fortnight ago gathered in disquiet at the wattle fence which marked their settlement's southwest edge, squinting, whispering, wondering aloud whether anyone recognized that flag, those regalia, but especially the orange sash worn over every cuirass from hip to shoulder. At once apprehensions cleaved neighbors, clansmen, even kin atwain. Some believed the outriders mere messengers; others, foragers. They considered, for a time, gathering their dried victuals, their tools, their jewelry, leaving these at the village's convergence in a heap, that the invaders might pass through and feel no need to draw steel, light torches, and press for the supplies they sought. But then there were those who had been working the northern slope that day, who [i]had[/i] seen the smoke—who knew the flames from the manor as no mere accident. These seized the former by the shoulders, dragged them into the throes of their panic; urged them right away to shuttering windows, barricading doorways, hiding their children in pantries and in cellars and instructing them to open the doors for no one else. Sending the few huntsmen and sport shooters to the attics, and the rest to the lower floors—fowlingpieces to the first, and to the latter any bill, fork, or scythe which in sufficient numbers could clog a doorway. Only a very few of either rank, however, tried to make off into the orchards and vineyards with what possessions they could carry, and even then, only because they had not stayed long and seen the horses. How easily they would be run down if the visitors willed it.

But they were not run down. Emerging from summer's silvered shimmer, coalescing over the dusklit hilltop, the soldiers marched calmly, slowly; in unbroken file and good order. So as their banners and feathers and sashes fluttered on the balmy breeze, so too did their hips and shoulders sway above the rhythmic plodding of their warbeasts. And so too did their eyes look out into the village with the very same wariness as the eyes which watched them from behind the eaves and shutters. This force, at the least, had not arrived to burn and to rape—a curiosity which drew scrutinies, dark but gleaming, to the slats of boarded windows; to vents and keyholes. Soon enough the cavalrymen rode not toward the village but through it, near enough for their buffed and oiled breastplates to glisten with the purples of gloaming, for their spurs to rattle in the ears of every villager who had not absconded in harelike terror. The billowing of the flags¹—white bends fimbriated gold, on fields chequyed red and black—beckoned the onlookers' attentions to befall the motto embossed thereon. The swirls and serifs drew only a passing interest from the illiterate, of course. But those who gleaned the message—who studied it and comprehended it—there stirred in them a change. The air itself transposed around them as they realized what these men had come for as they paraded past, rank after rank after rank, their oath repeated on every square of cloth despite the disparateness of their arms and dress.

[i]Glorioſus et Liber,[/i] read the flags, each and all of them. "Glorious and Free."

Marching alongside the company was a priest, his cassock dark and simple, his shoes worn and battered but still holding. He was one of the very few not seated in a saddle, and unlike the others he had scraped any traces of a beard from his handsome face, and shorn his scalp also where the rest wore curls and lovelocks. The trek down the hillside in the summer heat had wrung a reddish moisture from his face, and hot breath from his parched lips. They filed around him, the others, and ceased when he did; each rank of six to eight horses called to a halt, then a wheel, by various blasts from voice and from trumpet, until two columns of men stood at the ready, facing away from each other (toward the houses). It seemed the priest held the only book among them; until all music ceased from the drums and the flutes, and there resounded from the formation a moment's massive silence, and he cried to the others from amongst it, "Number six-and-forty." And the drummers and the flautists listened for the rustling of the pages pulled from the soldiers' every pocket, and watched for the strike from the priest's uplifted hand.

"I am Vasian. We are the 2[sup]nd[/sup] Regiment of Horse, hailing from the Red Wyvern Army of Ariana Hasikos, rightful queen of the Inburs," he declared. "Thy Lord Respen lays dead! His house destroyed—his line erased—his wicked works undone! Behold, mine brothers-in-blood, and hark!"

And when his hand fell (despite the murmurs issuing from the huts), and the instruments struck up, from the bosoms of the men burst forth resplendent song.[/color]

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