Chapter 1

My smallish kingdom of Acquila has been at war with our equally small neighbor of Helden for something like 116 years now, give or take a year or two. Historians in the nearby great empire of Caester next to us are calling this the Great Acquila-Helden War, but most of us generally refer to it simply as the Hundrao-gearrim (One Hundred Years War). We were once together parts of a larger kingdom and our peoples share far more in common than now divides us. Our king in those days divided his kingdom upon his death between his two sons that he favored equally — unfortunately, with tragic results for the rest of us. Apparently they did not play together well as children as they certainly did not want to share with each other once each became king of their own separate realms.

The land to be 'shared' was a great rift river valley that divided these two petty kingdoms. The lower flood plain of the valley had rich soil for many leagues between the great wilderness of the north and west and the river delta where it meets the Great Sea. For awhile, there was peaceful coexistence with each kingdom controlling affairs on their side of the river — until further up in the remote wilderness areas silver was discovered. It was a safer land in those days, even in the remote wilder places where few human ventured.

It is silver and gold that makes magic work they say (or at least it appears to fuel it) and supposedly the mountain sides of this deep great river valley are full of it ... in theory. I think very little ore ever made it back before the war began in earnest. Both kingdoms resolved that they could not take the chance that most of the rumored riches would be eventually found on their side of the river, and accordingly both began claiming the entire river valley as its own. Most wars are fought over greed, to one extent or another, but this is probably the first war fought to prevent its rival from 'maybe finding' instead of to seize or protect any actual known assets. Each country was afraid that the other would find 'the Motherlode' and could thus be potentially able to out-magic the other one. Silly.

Some storytellers say that long ago this was Dweorg land once, supposedly. Maybe even the lost homeland of that legendary lost race of short, dwarf-sized folk. Where they are now no one knows but they probably should have never left it. If they ever return they'll certainly not be very happy with the condition the land is in now.

Claims and counter-claims led to small skirmishes and eventually increasingly greater armed battles between rival military units. The problem was really that neither side ever had the manpower to securely hold and keep any captured territory. Battles that might have been decisive for most other larger kingdoms became mostly pyrrhic victories here. The entire river valley had become a festering wound that was slowly bleeding both lands dry.

Mercifully, the great Caesterian Empire next door to us had issues of its own, or they could have easily marched in with their armies and conquered us both without raising a sweat. While stolen meat always seems tastiest to them and their armies are respected if not outright feared, they've always had a weakness for civil war and in-fighting amongst themselves. Military adventures abroad fortunately have taken a back seat to recent lengthy bouts of eliminating internal rivals for power. May it ever remain so!

Things were at least simpler and less bloody when, for the first four-score or so years of this pointless war, it was mostly nobles and adventurous younger sons of landholders getting themselves killed in pointless cavalry charges with each other. More and more though, thousands of us peasants started to be buried along side them. This strategy worked fine I suppose for at least the first few sets of Kings on both sides until one of them was smart (or insane) enough to realize that the nobility should now be spending their time in classrooms learning magic rather than learning to fight on horseback as was traditional. The next battles became ghastly, bloody affairs involving more and more wizardry and magic (of an increasingly foul nature) from which there became fewer and fewer survivors. The only sizeable town, the river delta port of Neuport, I think has changed hands at least thirty times and is now mostly a smoldering ruin that no one ought to shed even a single drop of blood for. I pity our marine soldiers who now guard that worthless pile of swampy rubble.

My father and grand-father had both survived their time in the militia and served here for their duty tour of five years each. Each had seen relatively little action and few of the actual horrors of this war. This all changed when the current set of rulers for both countries took power about 8 years ago. Now it has become "Total War," from what I hear on both sides. The young men and women from both lands are brought in as fast as they can be press-ganged or scavenged from their farms as they reach military age (or close enough to it). Few live now to see even their first full season of battle. By the time my beloved master, 'Old Venial', died three years ago, about only 1 in 5 young scouts would survive past 'training' and less than half of those would complete their first year of duty. Now I think the odds are even slimmer, of the 20-odd young scouts I personally trained last year only one is still at his duties. I try not to think about it, despair only gives the evil spirits strength so that I might hear their words. This truly, is the worst curse of this utterly pointless war.

Now instead of a relatively low level war of attrition, we have a scourge of noble wizards, sorcerers, necromancers, demonologists and the other baneful practitioners of magic each with their own little ideas about how to decisively win this pointless war. Allowed full use of all of their demonic and forbidden toys, they have gleefully run amok and our world is now a living hell that even the Caesterians' probably want nothing to do with. This once beautiful and bountiful river valley then truly became a place of the damned. About five years ago, the winters became especially and most fearfully harsh, with little relief when spring or summer came. In many places snow remains on the ground nearly all year long, which only added to the misery. It is thought that 10,000 poor souls from both armies froze to death that first terrible long winter when neither Spring nor Summer ever came.

What was once a fertile valley is now largely a wintery wasteland for most cycles of the seasons. There is no summer at all now and winter lasts much of the year with the brief respite of a rainy thaw for barely two moons. It's possible to go an entire cycle of moon without ever seeing it due to the constant rain or snow clouds. Currently it should be harvest season, but as it is now, it's nearly time for our first serious blizzard of the long winter season and it can become far colder than it ever was in deepest winter back home in the Uplands of northern Acquila when I was just a lad.

Bloody damned wizards and their bloody thrice damned silver!

This was plenty bad enough, but then for our sins came the Orkneas — one of most terrible of the many demonic evil spirits that now utterly curse this land.

What I know truly of the Orkneas comes from my wizard friend Eilmer of Malmes, possibly the only 'good' wizard I have ever met. This is the title given to them by the few holy priests that we have, but Eilmer, who is much better educated than I am, says that this is just the old elder language word for "Evil Spirits". My fellow soldiers, on both sides, just refer to them as "The Terror" or the "Pink Terror," or even just "Pink!" if we're in a hurry. They occasionally come at night for us and seek to seduce and devour our souls that we might join them in their unholy misery forever. They plague all mankind equally with men and women from both kingdoms fearing their glowing misty lights equally. They are foul beyond measure and even their hissed utterances doth poison the air and bring an unwholesome stain to our souls. Only silver can keep them at bay and no mortal weapons appear to harm them. Eilmer believes they are demonic in origin, brought here from another plane effectively without masters and no longer under any mortal control.

Who summoned them to this unhappy land he has no clue, but as they feed on each of our armies both sides will usually call 'truce' upon the first hint of their malevolent presence. We pity our enemy and few of us truly do hate them, but each of us fear the "Pink Terror" to the depth of our souls. The more disheartened and more war-weary we become, the clearer their 'calling' is to us, should we hear and heed them, and they can attract and devour the old tested veteran just as easily as young and innocent. To hear and listen to their words is to hear death itself.

Whoever was responsible for summoning these creatures of evil to our land in the first place must have been absolutely insane. May his or her soul (assuming they still have one) be judged harshly by the Gods - should they ever return to us...

Other ill-advised feats of necromancy (on both sides) have raised armies of our own dead to face us. Individually these pose a common occurring but relatively ineffectual threat. The dead are slow and fight with little skill save an unnatural strength and easily dispatched by a moderately skilled warrior. If found in larger groups though the relative invulnerability of the living dead to anything else other than a strong debilitating or mortal wound makes them a danger to even an experienced war band. As an unarmored swiftly running scout, this particular threat poses little danger to me.

Nowadays this war has changed to simply become a struggle for survival. Fewer now actively seek out our mortal rivals in combat; most officers simply try to keep what is left of our forces alive and intact. It is now simply a war of attrition. The last country with any remnants of an army left in the valley becoming the winner. The winners will be the merely the survivors, until the next terror wrought of magic appears to feast on us all. It is likely that neither side can hope to prevail and within a few years there can be naught left here but the dead — and the terrors of things are not even of the living.

I shan't even for the moment discuss the many mundane Eotenas or monstrous creatures that are said to roam the uninhabited remote reaches of this wilderness area. Most of these creatures are not unknown to me and are but mortal foes that can be taught to fear our stinging arrows and swift spear strikes. They normally pose little threat to our forces in the lowland parts of the river valley, but can prey with success upon lone humans or incautious small war bands. Someday when our great supernatural foes have been defeated and removed from this land then men shall come here in great force and these creatures shall either bend knee to us in submission or flee from our lands. For now I am well content to avoid their attention and shall avoid their paths whenever possible.

You can tell I have little faith in Kings and even less in magic and wizardry. It was two foul magicians of our own nation that gave me the terrible burns that I still display today across most of my left side of my body. Still, things could have been so much worse.

Oh, have I mentioned that our Gods have been missing for at least the last two hundred years also? I'll expound on that little 'problem' later.

I heard soft, very gentle footsteps towards the clearing but nearer to me than where my tracks lay. My foe was paralleling my trail to the side, rather than directly following it. Very clever. This reduced significantly the chance for getting caught in any trap that I might have laid. A good thought, I did have a few magical traps that I could have laid but these were for situational use or emergency use only and wouldn't have hurt my shadow stalker. Most mages, even my good friend Eilmer, are a bit too busy nowadays to prepare anything much in the way of useful goodies, even for their most senior scout. Besides, I always liked my few hoarded magical toys to be defensive in nature. They've saved my life more than once.

I could just make out a hazy shape about 30 yards just inside the clearing to my right. I had good cover and it was getting a bit dark and even foggier. I had a shot — a point bank shot than even the greenest recruit new to a longbow couldn't miss, but there was a problem. All I could see was the back of a long cloak, I could see nothing of my foes front or face. My opponent had froze in place, looking across the small clearing facing away from me but made no move to fully enter the clearing or follow my trail. Anyone else would have released the arrow into their back for a certain killing shot. But not me - that would have been plain murder.

To keep myself sane for these last 15 years that I had been a scout, I had pledged that I would never shoot an opponent in the back. I have killed my share of the enemy but all fell from an arrow from the front. This is probably madness and a chivalry that they do not return as when I had been shot at earlier by surprise and from behind. It is like going into a melee battle with your shield hand tied behind your back but this silly "Code" keeps my mind sane and I think makes better able to resist the call of the Orkneas. As Old Venial preached, it is much better and safer to avoid a fight than to go looking for one. I think most of the other scouts know of my Code, but none share it.

My foe was still not helping matters by still standing frozen at the edge of the tree line, remaining in place listening and seemingly sniffing the air rather loudly. The breathing did seem a bit forced and ragged but I could not tell if it was a man or a woman. At least know I knew that I only faced a single hunter tracking me.

After a moment they suddenly took off like a bolting rabbit directly away from me into the far side of the tree line, undoubtedly going to came back around under cover. I couldn't now make a sure killing shot even if I had wanted to. The wind had been to my back and my tracker was apparently sensitive enough to detect my scent and figure out exactly where I was lurking. Damn!