It is the eighteenth year of the reign of Queen Rodenos of Galadiahos. The Exiled Red Brigade of the Rainbow Guard, which has made a living for the last eighteen years as a mercenary company, has recently arrived on the Plains of Kavalarees, fleeing from a disastrous debacle in Zaketa. During a few short minutes we lost our Captain and over twenty of our brothers and sisters.
It is the wish of Captain Thrace that I write a history and journal of the Brigade, so that future Captains can avoid the mistakes which cost Captain Kopto his life and nearly destroyed the entire brigade. I am not a diarist or a historian, just a cooper's son who turned into a soldier, so my history will be sadly lacking in flourish or style, I fear.
At this time the officers of the company are Thrace, Captain, Selas, Lieutenant, Spasmos, Sergeant, Keezato, Quartermaster, Louzo, Sorceror, Teeksos, Engineer and Spasmos, Swordmaster.
The company is currently in the service of Eenda of the tribe of Soulatsoro the wander, a merchant who transports silver and gold from the mines to the tribes and leather and animals back again. Actually, only about half of the brigade is employed in this task at the moment and the rest of us spend our time training and hunting in order to get food. Eenda has been unusually generous with us, perhaps because she fears that the silver and gold on her wagon will be just too tempting for some neighbouring tribe. So far the presence of a glowering Captain Thrace has seen off anyone who might have been thinking about trying.
The brigade is down to about fifty brothers and sisters, the twin disasters of Nekra and Zaketa having reduced our strength from two hundred and fifty. Two hundred friends who we shall never see again, slain not by enemy action but by betrayal by our paymasters. This then is our first lesson to those who would follow us: Remember your oath, and trust no-one who is not your brother or sister.
In the year following my first notes above the brigade has been employed by numerous employers in the plains, mostly merchants. For the most part these are inclined to play relatively straight with us, although most will naturally try to skimp on the number of men they have to hire to protect them, which is in its way as big a danger as being betrayed, because it is insidious and hard to convince a penny-pinching merchant that he really needs twenty guards on his little caravan.
Also, most merchants will pay you no second longer than they absolutely must. No honour guards or last-night-lodgings-on-the-boss like with politicians who are trying to stay on your good side: once they're safe in the city walls or at the warehouse, it is paid off of shove off.
We have discovered that although the brigade has traditionally been an infantry force it is essential that each man carries at least a slingshot and stones and preferably bow and arrow. We have started training the men in the bow because we have found that on the plains one has limited choice of ground but often a very far horizon. Each man must keep at least one spare bowstring and a dozen arrows on him at all times during a march.
We have also discovered that it pays to establish a routine for setting up camp, with the merchant's caravans and carts forming a circle with the tallest in the centre to act as a lookout platform and to allow the archers to gain more range. No fire must be left burning a second longer than necessary on the plains as the smoke can be visible for a hundred miles. Avoid fire if possible; your merchants will not like it but they are paying you to look after them so you can always threaten to walk off if they do not comply with your orders.
Each man must check his armour each night before sleeping and the night watchmen must wear their armour. It is better to choose skilled archers for watches if possible; as this is an unpopular duty, promise an extra share to be split amongst the watch if they spot something or excuse them from other duties like cooking or latrine trenches.
Always bury your latrine trench in the morning. You enemy can still track you but the smell can carry a long way downwind and it is a lot harder to see a latrine trench than to smell one.
It is the twenty-first year of the reign of Queen Rodenos of Galadiahos. The Brigade has been in service to many individuals and a few tribes over the past few years and is beginning to regain both its name and its spirit. We have recently voted to expand the membership for the first time since Zaketa. Although most of the new members are tribesmen who have been fighting with us for the last few months, a few are exiles from Galadiahos.
We believe that the company should always strive to maintain a Galadiahan character wherever we should be employed. First, the strengthens the feeling of brotherhood by ties of culture and of language. Who is going to run if home is a thousand miles away? Second, it prevents us forgetting our history. Third, because we have a Galadiahan military attitude we have the advantage over local commands who have not encountered us before.
Key to maintaining this advantage is the presence of a Kemes swordmaster. Although Spasmos is still filling that role admirably Captain Thrace has wisely decided to ensure that the brigade always has access to Kemes training and two of our new recruits were accepted for that reason as well as for their proven courage in battle. The style of fighting engendered by a four-armed translated to two-armed stance is one that is almost unique to the Royal Guard of Galadiahos and while we fight people trained in other schools all the time there are few foes who have fought us and live to pass the knowledge on.
The second key part of our advantage is the strategic use of sorcery. Sorcery is best used with great subtlety- the best spell is one which no-one notices. Its tactical usage should be strictly controlled by the Captain in case enthusiasm gets out of hand. Sorcerors tire rapidly and there are few things as useless as a sorceror who is sleeping when he should be terrorizing the enemy with a preplanned chimera.
The third key to our advantage is morale and discipline. Do not skim on training nor begrudge the cost for when you cannot afford to train is when you must train the hardest, to concentrate the men's minds and hone their bodies, so that the next commission you are in peak condition and so impress your employer that he tells all his friends. Beware of over-training when the men are tired and perform no training whatsoever in the week after returning from heavy action.
Captain Thrace and I have been discussing this journal some more and we have decided to include some more general advice for future captains and for ourselves when we forget.
Take salt with you wherever you go. Men who work hard in armour can die because of its lack even in the cold of autumn.
Do not drink water from downstream of a battle even if you are so thirsty that you think you may die. We have lost a dozen men to this.
Avoid any area where there are birds circling overhead. It is a sign of trouble and the pickings are never worth the risk.
Do not ride into a town en masse. It is better to slip in in twos and threes unnoticed. Once in the town arrange a signal for the whole brigade to move out. This should be callable by any member of the brigade and do not be too hard if called in a situation which later proves to be unthreatening- better to sleep a few nights out than have your throat cut. If no obvious sign can be prepared or the brigade is very spread out, choose something to set fire to as the signal. If it can be a temple to Ohia the Viper that is all the better.
Attempt to scare off any animals who menace you before attempting to harm them. A simple sorcery spell or a load noise or two can sometimes spare you from a hundred wounds.
Do not stay anywhere where there is a smell of musty cinnamon. Move out as soon as possible, leaving the town or campsite at once. Ride through the night if necessary.
Do not trust the tribes who follow Pelvro the Shieldmaiden in battle as their morale is too changeable. They are superstitious and a black bird flying overhead can cause them all to flee. Never fight behind them, they will even try to trample you in their hurry to flee.
Poison any meat you leave behind you during a war, bury or burn your dead. The year is the twenty-second of Queen Rodenos of Galadiahos. We are in the vanguard of the victorious army of Onomazo the Bold, once simply the leader of a minor sept of the Clan of Soulatsoro the wanderer but now High King of the Plains of Kavalarees.
Onomazo' rose to power in the wake of a series of increasingly damaging incursions from Svika bandits and magical beasts such as the fearsome Fesero, demonic creatures whose fearsome visages are framed by a multicoloured hood like a cobras and who slay by turning various fluids and organs in a man's body into acid slime which then eats its way out of the poor victim's skin. They steal the weak and children and inject them with their venom, leaving the acid to dissolve them slowly from within so that they can be consumed at leisure.
It was Onomazo and his shaman Horestos who discovered that lime could be used to save the lives of those wounded but not slain by the Fesero, who had previously had to be mercifully slain to prevent a lingering and agonising death.
It was the Brigade who, under the leadership of Onomazo, destroyed the nest of Fesero that had established itself in burrows under the burning sun by the salt lakes in the foothills of the Svika mountains. Although we lost two dozen good friends it was worth the price. And we along know where the last eggs of the Fesero were buried under a spell of sleeping for a hundred years, knowledge that can be used to destroy the nest at last... or to save the company, for we learnt the secret of controlling the foul creatures.
Later, it was the Brigade who carried the day in great battle of the unified tribes against the army of the Svika sorceror king Belas who had orchestrated the attacks upon the plains seeking conquest. If we had not held the center of the line when the ivory and jade army rose before us, the tribes would have been slaughtered to a man in the foothills of Kenvolo. Take note of the wisdom of the Captain in requiring the sorceror remain hidden. Had we not had Louzo, or had Belas learnt of his presence earlier, we would have been tied into the same chimerical knots that bedevilled the rest of Onomazo's army.
Let it be remembered that the Sorceror's duty is first and foremost to protect his brothers and sisters from the sorcery of enemies!
The life of a mercenary is not destined to be a secure one. Perhaps the curse on our first captain follows us all.
It is only eight moons since our great victory at Kenvolo, yet we find ourselves packing all our possessions, dismissed from the service of those whose lives we had saved.
Expect no gratitude from those to who you do service. Although Onomazo would keep us on if he could, the financial situation in his kingdom is such that he can feed the dispossessed of his tribes... or em[ploy a guard when there is little left to guard against.
A kings own troops will always seem the cheaper option as they can be coerced into service and not paid the rates demanded by skilled mercenary units. They will usually be poorer for they will principally consist of green recruits and farmers forced to serve in the army. Although the elite units will be able to match a mercenary unit in the field, most will be slower to move, slower to organize on the field and very much quicker to break.
Of course, the great advantage for the ruler is that once the war is over the troops can go back to farming and don't need to be paid any more.
We have elected to move on to Stavrotos, which styles itself the crossroads of the world. The Captain and I are uncertain how much work will be found there as much of the trade that passes through does so by sea, but there is surely more work for us there than here.
It is a dark day in the history of the brigade. For the first time we have been forced to break with our contract totally. This is because of the traitor Selas, who had been making trouble as |Lieutenant ever since Thrace was elected as captain. Never let a jealous man serve as an officer, although it is unclear that Thrace could have done any better if Selas had been a ranking soldier. Perhaps it would have come to its head earlier and perhaps had Selas not had any position of power he wouldn‘t have been able to sign us up to fight ourselves on the field of battle at Eternos.
Selas has been expelled from the brigade although it was exceedingly close and a few of his cronies, especially Estheema and her grease boy Esvalo basically had to be intimidated into voting the correct way. As a result of this debacle we also voted to modify the rules of the brigade. I set out the new ruling below:
In the case that any member of the brigade can be demonstrated to have violated his or her oath the brigade, they may be expelled without a vote. This may be done by the Captain or the Sorceror if present, otherwise by the brother or sister of longest standing present at the time. The member may protest their expulsion to the Captain or the Sorceror and agree to have the sorceror verify their version of events; if found innocent they shall be awarded ten full shares in the next mission by way of compensation, but they must swear to undertake no action against their accuser. The Captain and the Sorceror may be expelled only by unanimous vote of at least two thirds of the company as at present.
Following this, Captain Thrace and Louzo immediately expelled Estheema and Esvalo. Neither appealed, nor to their credit did they cause us any trouble but left quietly. I think even they were secretly appalled by the betrayal of Selas and I suspect that they are going to be the first on his trail in the morning. The Captain has forbidden anyone else to pursue him, for Louzo has placed him under a mighty curse which will be his undoing afore long.
We will doubtless find it very hard for the next few years. I think we should move on, but Thrace decided that it was better to obliterate the blot on our name where it occurred than try to run away from it yet again. After all, running hasn't done us too much good in the past.
It is the twenty-fifth year of the rule of Queen Rodenos in Galadiahos. The brigade is down to seventy men, several having left in order to pursue Selas. They could not remain in the brigade and pursue him as Thrace had ordered otherwise. Still, I hope that some of them at least will return and regard them as on leave rather than gone forever.
We have been working mostly as labourers in Stavrotos, unloading boats and carrying bolts of cloths between warehouse and wagon. The heart has gone out of us since Selas and I don't think many of us can look each other in the eye.
Thrace, Spasmos and I have cooked up a plan that we hope will return some backbone to the men. We have decided that we are going to go on leave of absence for ourselves for as long as it takes. We are not wealthy but our years of service to Onomazo and our expeditions into the hills have left us quite able to survive prolonged trips into the wilderness, so we are going to go into the mountains of the channel. Supposedly we are going in search of Kosmeekos, the legendary temple built where Ohros the Pale first set foot on the clay of this earth. In fact we are just going to wander and kill brigands and beasts until we've got our heart back.
It is several months since I wrote the above. We have been fighting Sathros brigands and Yaika (which are somewhat akin to the Pagoth although Treemoss says they are distinct species but anyway they are carnivorous plant-men) and giant wasps and all sorts of other things. The men hate Thrace with a passion but it is better than the sullen acceptance of their lot that they had before. We found surprising things in the mountains, lots of ruins too tall for men with strange triangular and pyramidal buildings and temples to gods with no faces and three-fingered hands. We have fought giant snakes and scorpions the size of metakeenos. We have lost surprisingly few of the brethren, which I think is the only reason Thrace hasn't stepped down as captain. Despite not finding the shrine we have achieved our goals. The brigade is once more a fighting unit and we have found a surprisingly large amount of treasure and loot hidden in these mountains.
It is time to go back to Stavrotos and try to bring our name out of the gutter.
It is the twenty-ninth year of the rule of Queen Rodenos the Great of Galadiahos. The brigade is settled in Stavrotos with a very profitable business escorting merchants and acting as a de facto city watch during public holidays when the people of Stavrotos (who worship the soft Northern city gods instead of the true gods of the southlands) are too drunk to care if someone steals their purse and often too drugged to notice if someone slits their throat.
Stavrotos is a lively place, where fortunes are won and lost in a few hours and where men gamble huge sapphires on the turn of a single card and laugh if they loose. Although our ways are more formal and we still hark back to the cities of Galadiahos many of the men feel that Stavrotos is the home we have been searching for. Only a few of the older members disagree, remembering past disasters and warning us that the good times will not last. If it were not that these brothers and sisters have survived near thirty years of the life of an exiled mercenary they would be laughed at. Finally I see the benefits of these records.
There was a vote at last nights meeting of the brigade that we should enter regular service here and settle down. I think the vote would have been carried if Spasmos and Thrace had not stood up and told the tale of the priests of Ohia the Viper and the betrayal of Zaketa. Many of our members joined since that time and I have never seen so quiet a meeting as that one. The vote was narrowly defeated when Thracie, Navla, Spasmos, Louazo, Teeksos, Promethea and I all cast our votes against.
After the vote Treemoss took the floor. Sometimes he is hard to understand and talks nonsense but tonight he touched our soul and made us laugh and made us make the most of today for today is good. Surely, winter will come, but as he said, that's why your leaves fall off, so don't worry about winter when the buds are starting to show in spring or you'll never have a summer.
Although we are down to fifty members we have rarely been so prosperous and next month we will probably vote to enlarge the membership once more. It would be good to be a viable military force again... although perhaps that is when the rulers start to get threatened?
It is with a heavy heart that I pick up my pen. It is the third day of the third moon of the thirty-first year of the rule of Queen Rodenos the Great of Galadiahos. Unlike previous disasters which have been military, this one is personal. My friend Captain Thrace has decided to step down as Captain.
I cannot disagree with her reasoning. The brigade is prospering as never before. We have far more contract than we can fulfil and we can almost name our price for each. We probably should have enlarged the membership two years ago but I think we probably got greedy and so we remain at about fifty, rich though those fifty are.
Despite all her talk two years ago, Thracie has decided to settle down here and several of the younger members have decided to stay as well. I wish I could but I cannot, in my heart I am a soldier and a traveller, not a city man. Promethea has stepped down as Chaplain and is to be replaced by Istera who is a bit naive and who I hope will manage as our conscience. She is a priestess of Olomon the Death of Drowning, which seems somehow fitting given how much of our employment involves the river and the sea nowadays. Navla is staying on as lieutenant for a few months until Praktoras can get used to the Captaincy. I think Praktoras was genuinely shocked by the election. Certainly, he is young but he has a shrewd head and I think he will do well.
Spasmos remains as sergeant and I remain as quartermaster. Teeksos has stepped down as Engineer but is remaining with us and I agree with Praktoras that there is no need for us to have an engineer at the moment. There has been talk of creating some sort of office to do with ships and boats but so far we don't actually own any and it seems superfluous. I think some of th people agitating for it are just after the free half share.
Perhaps the greatest loss other than Thracie is Treemoss. We all forget that he is older than he looks and he has decided to head back North towards his homeland. He is under no sentence of banishment- he came south as an inquisitive youth and now that the brigade seems settled I think he has had chance to think and decide that if he wants to put down roots he would rather do it in his frozen forests of the north than here in a pithekos circus like Stavrotos.
We have lost Spasmos, our swordmaster and sergeant and my friend.
We were fighting a minor engagement guarding the caravan of Moneo the silk merchant when we were attacked from two sides. First was a bunch of Sathros bandits but the second were a bunch of fanatics who had clearly been wandering the hills for months and who were drawn to the sounds of battle. They wore spiral tattoos of worshippers of Estasia and Louzo later determined that they were all near death from overindulgence in the black poppy. They charged us from behind and had Spasmos not turned to hold them off we would have been cut to pieces, for the poppy inured them to pain and one had to literally hack them apart before they would cease fighting.
He was magnificent. he held of two dozen of them on his own until others could fight free to join him. Two of his swords broke in the battle and we buried them with him.
May Ohros take you into his palace and stand you as his honour guard before the black throne and may your soul remain pure, my friend.
The brigade is near to collapse. With the loss of Spasmos, none of the original exiles remain. There has been some discussion of returning to Galadiahos but we feel that if we do that we would lose the name and the companionship which we have found; besides there are still several other brothers and sisters who are under sentence of exile from the land and we would not abandon them.
Navla has stepped down in favour of Selahee, a young lad from the border tribes who I think has the makings of an inspired commander, though his roots are cavalry while ours are infantry. Only Louzo and I remain of the officers of a year ago. We have tried to hold the brotherhood together but with the departure of Captain Thrace it has been more difficult to get contracts and our guard contract with th city expires soon. I think the next meeting will be a stormy one. Some are even talking of it being time to disband; many others are saying that it is time to move on.
It is the end of the thirty-second year of the rule of Queen Rodenos the Great of Galadiahos.
The brigade is moving out of Stavrotos into the plains once more, for our old friend and companion Onomazo has the need (and the money) to hire us once more. Few are sorry to go. The golden feelings about Stavrotos are now a distant memory after the haggling and pay cuts in the wake of the departure of Thracie as captain. Merchants and priests never forget- ten years down the road your mistakes will be paraded in front of you and used against you to reduce the price.
We are glad we voted to stay together but more glad to be moving out again. It is the thirty-seventh year of the reign of Queen Rodenos (the Great) of Galadiahos. I am sorry that I haven''t been keeping up with this history but we have been very busy and paper and ink are not so easy to come by out here on the plains. I am sad to have to record that Captain Praktoras was killed in battle eight moon ago, but despite that misfortune we are prospering. The new captain is young Selahee and his initial promise that I wrote about has bloomed into a military genius and political instinct better even than that of Captain Thrace.
The brotherhood has doubled in size in recent months as we voted to allow many of the tribesmen who have been riding with us for years to join. We have bargained ourselves into the vanguard of Onomazos armies once more and our chief fear now is that Onomazo will feel threatened by our successes and dismiss us or even take more drastic action to curb our influence in his kingdom.
We have been employed principally in a cavalry role in th plains, unsurprising since you need to be mounted to find anyone or anything out here. Despite our infantry prejudices, under Seeo and Selahee the men are demons in the saddle. Seeo is our new swordmaster and has carried on the tradition of creating a unique brigade fighting style although as it is basically a mounted style it has an asymmetric quality being based on three sabres and one had to hang on! Sanos, who has been our sergeant since Spasmos' demise has been a terror on the parade ground but we can now perform a disciplined drill better than even Onomazos honour guard. I think it probably this that Onomazo resents most and we have decided to deliberately screw up our parade next year. It is always best to prepare for trouble if you show up the native troops, especially if those troops are elite or honour guard units. Get out into the field as quickly as possible afterwards and stay as far away from them in the line of battle as you can.
My main concern about Selahee's captaincy is that he is maintaining order amongst the new men by dangling the prize of the lieutenant's position before them. Since I am sure that Selahee will not appoint one of them I think it is dangerous and possibly edging towards a violation of the oath, but he is captain and I'm just a grunt really for all that I've been an officer here longer than anyone else.
Well, it had to happen and it could have been a lot worse. Selahee got too big for his boots and challenged Onomazo in public. They had been bickering in private for months and it finally blew up in court two days ago. It is the twenty-second day of the twelfth moon of the thirty-eighth year of the rule of Queen Rodenos the Great of Galadiahos.
Onomazo had been feeling increasingly threatened by the company's success in general and Selahee's Captaincy in particular and Selahee finally shouted down some of Onomazo's plans for taking a small town. Selahee was right and Onomazo and everyone else knew it, but no-one likes being reminded of their own old age by a young buck. It is better not to call the High King your employer a senile old goat in council.
It is a measure of Onomazo's quality as a ruler and of our position of power in his armies that he did not dismiss us or even discipline us- he just forbade us to expand further, limiting our numbers to the two hundred we have at present. It wasn't clear from the edict read out by his messenger whether we'd be allowed to replace casualties- I suspect not. So did the rest of us.
We held a meeting that morning and we voted to leave as soon as our contract expires. I get the feeling we will regret that pride very soon and I pray that Onomazo doesn't find out about the vote soon or will we find ourselves high-tailing out of here with a ten thousand man army after our blood.
I was right. It is a moon or so since I last wrote in this journal. Onomazo found out about the vote and flew into a rage. Thankfully Selahhe had spies in the palace so we could slide out- the elite guard descended upon our camp at dawn and were most put out to find the bird had flown. They chased us for days- you wouldn't think that parade ground grudge would have lasted so long! Perhaps the glue holding Onomazo's army together wasn't so much us as hating us.
Anyway, we have ended up of all places in Galadiahos, but no-one thinks we' will be here too long. The members under sentence of exile are basically hiding, but it is only a matter of time until we are recognized and thrown out. We're going to try to get a contract in Limanos, there are itinerants through there all the time and no-one will find us remarkable. We' are not wearing uniforms for the moment though: with Onomazos spies and Rodenos' militia this is not the safest billet we#'ve ever had! Well, six moons later and we're still in Galadiahos. although it is uncomfortable, at least Onomazo is too scared of Galadiahos armies to encroach on the borders in what is after all a personal and senseless vendetta.
Sadly, those armies are none to keen on us either. Of course, we were reported to the Queen not very long after our arrival. Rodenos' spy network is amongst the best in the world- if we ever end up in charge of anywhere it is well worth recruiting spies. You only need a handful of them and you can pay them a hundred times what you pay your troops and still the cost is trivial compared with moving even a single company three days down the road.
Considering that we are as she put in "masquerading as a part of our royal guard" her decree was surprisingly mild. Maybe she's always felt a bit guilty about exiling our original founders? Anyway, th upshot is that the civil service, the army and the local nobles are all forbidden from employing us now or evermore. That leaves a lot of people who are allowed to hire us of course, but removes the plum contracts and leaves us scrabbling about for grubby merchant contracts and the odd smuggler.
We will have to be very careful who we sign up with. I am sure the local civil service would be delighted to have us sign up with a smuggler or a crime boss: they would have the perfect excuse to have us thrown out and Rodenos would have saved a great deal of face and would still get to us all exiled again. She really doesn't like us. It is probably because of the way she got the throne, which of course has been passed into legend now. Surprisingly, the original members of the exiled brigade are still remembered in Galadiahos. Spasmos and Ksep in particular are revered as almost folk heroes, which must piss Rodenos off no end.
At least there was no ban on recruiting and Selahee and I agreed that we should take the opportunity to renew the Galadiahan character of the brigade. The new recruits are a pretty loathsome and flea-bitten lot, but a hungry man makes a great soldier if you feed and clothe him now and promise him his fair share. There are a lot of people in Rodenos' golden kingdom who don't get to do much other than eat the shit of those at the top.
Still, for almost the first time in living memory we are home and up to full strength of two hundred and fifty brothers and sisters. It is the twelfth day of the seventh moon of the last year of the reign of Queen Rodenos the great and the first day of the first year of the rule of King Ohra who is certainly never going to get called the great by anyone other than his sycophantic hangers on and lapdogs.
It seems to be inevitable that the successor of a great ruler be a spoilt, vain fool. After all, Ohra has spent his whole life being pampered. Shame Rodenos' iron rule didn‘t extend as far as her own family.
Selahee predicts that Ohra will be a disaster. We have mixed feeling towards Rodenos and towards Galadiahos but few of us would like to see it fall to an old wolf like Onomazo or to rot from within.
It is now three months in Ohra's rule and he is turning into a despot before our eyes. Already he has had a purge of his capital and has the kingdom tuning in on itself. Fortunately the army remains large above the squabbles although the civil service and militia have entered into the general grudge settling and blood-letting with great enthusiasm. All that hold Onomazo back is the army and I hope even Ohra isn‘t fool enough to screw with that.
Selahee and the brigade are in a difficult position. We have no official capacity and currently no employer, but although only half of the brothers come from here Galadiahos is our spiritual home and we cannot just let it crumble before our eyes. I wish we were not here, then the decision wouldn't be so hard. I think we are going to take to the hills. The new recruits say that there are many who have disappeared off to hide until the worst of Ohra's purges are over and still more who have decided to fight his murder and rape squads when the descend on their villages. Maybe there a disciplined unit of two hundred and fifty hardened soldiers could do some real good.
We decided to stay here and resist. There is more to our Exiled Brigade than fighting for money. There is pride and there is passion and above all there is our honour.
Last modified 12 Sept 1998
Comments or Questions to: Hywel Phillips.