The Alternative Battle of Comeria Plain

"You know, Baldor. This running around with swords business seems
kind of silly, really."

Baldor looked at Gregor with narrowed eyes. His younger brother was
looking at the massive Claymore in his hand, a wistful expression
pasted across his simple - a little too simple, at times - features.
Two bright blue eyes shifted to meet his.

"Don't you think so, brother?"

"I think the sun has addled that brain of yours, is what I think,"
Baldor growled impatiently. Gregor had always been a one for crazy
thoughts. Like that one about underground sewers. What a ridiculous
idea that had been. It was good for the health to have raw waste
floating down the streets, every one knew that. Toughened a man up, so
it did. "Here we are about to face the Stinger clan and you're thinking
swords are a bit silly? What do you suggest we do? Run at them with a
stick of rhubarb?"

"No, no, not at all," Gregor looked a bit hurt and his tone of voice
had changed. Baldor groaned inside. He knew that tone all too well. It
meant another of his brother's rambling speeches was coming on. "But
just look at all those men over there." Gregor pointed to the vast army
arrayed some half a mile distant over the sweeping stretch of Comeria's
emerald plains. Thousands of men clamoured together, screeching their
hatred of the Gonner clan. All of them wielded nasty sharp implements
of various varieties. "And all these," Gregor spun to indicate their
own army, a motley collection of warriors and hard-faced farmers. "How
many of these men will die today? And for what? Doesn't it all seem
just the teeniest bit futile to you?"

"That's not the point," Baldor grumbled, shifting uncomfortably. His
salt and pepper beard twitched nervously. He didn't like it when Gregor
made him think. He stubbed his toe on his sword and sent a swift prayer
of thanks to the Halls that he had stolen that lancer's steel-capped
boots in the last battle.

"Damn Stingers shouldn't have tried to take our land, should they?" he
tried to reason with his fresh-faced brother. It did seem a rather
pathetic excuse now he came to think of it.

"Yes, but don't you worry about dying, Baldor? I know I do. Rumour has
it," Gregor hunched down, spoke forebodingly under his breath. "That it
hurts!"

"No! Really?" Baldor sneered.

The Gonner clan's priest appeared before them. He was a thin man with
a prodigious nose, a crown of spiky white hair and a resigned
expression on his face. He threw a drop of holy water onto each of the
brothers.

"May the Redeemer welcome your bloody, mutilated corpses in the Halls
of Galveda," he droned before swiftly moving on to the next in
line.

"See!" Gregor demanded of his brother in a perturbed whirl of blond
hair. "That kind of thing doesn't exactly inspire confidence!"

"Will you shut up, Gregor!" Baldor was getting a tad snippy now. He
glanced down at his sword. It did look sort of silly, he
supposed.

"It's all madness, Baldor," Gregor spun around again, casting his
widely innocent eyes over his clansmen. "Why don't we sit down and talk
this thing through like civilised individuals? That wouldn't be so
difficult would it? Look at these men. They all have brains."

"Erm," Baldor leaned close to his brother, pointed over his shoulder.
"Actually, Mad Fred doesn't."

The Mad Fred in question was a massive ox of a man. Six and a half
feet tall with arms and thighs the size of most men's waists, he stood
in the middle of the Gonner ranks like someone's idea of a large and
particularly violent joke. He sported a fearsome, blue-painted face and
a frizzy, wildly coloured wig. The tunic draped over his barrel chest
bore the insulting phrases 'Come on you buggers. I'll take you all on'
on the front and 'Sorry about the mess' on the back. He was bellowing
wildly at the opposition, his wickedly pronged battle-axe thrashing
from side to side, forcing many of his more sedate comrades to throw
themselves to the ground or risk decapitation. All this shouting was
rather pointless, however, as the Stinger clan was at the moment too
far away to hear a word of his bloodthirsty imprecations. This didn't
deter him in the slightest and the viler of his insults raised a few
eyebrows even amongst the rugged Gonner clansmen.

"Oh, yes, "Gregor looked embarrassed. "Well... apart from Mad Fred,
all these men here have brains."

The clan leader, Arvad, rode his horse up and down their dishevelled
ranks. His heavy voice boomed over their heads, inciting them to kill,
kill, kill. Gregor looked a little faint. "We could just talk it out,
you know," he muttered to his comrades. "Instead of getting our heads
smashed in, don't you think?"

Several men around him began to shuffle their feet. Various eyes
looked with fresh insight at their swords. Hands patted heads. Thought
how nice it was to not have an axe splitting their brains.

Drums sounded from across the field and movement began in the opposing
army. Men sporting bows ran forwards to kneel in a line some three
hundred bodies long.

Arvad wheeled his mount and rode to the rear of his troops. Shouts
rang through the air. Then a curious silence fell.

"Duck!" Baldor yelled.

"Eh?" Gregor looked around then promptly toppled to the ground as a
green-feathered bird landed on his head.

From beneath Baldor's shield Gregor eyed the dead bird with a dazed
expression as countless arrows thudded against the reinforced wood
above their heads.

"But we don't have ducks in this world, do we?" He looked eminently
confused.

"No, it's just here for the joke," Baldor grimaced as an arrowhead
penetrated the shield mere inches from his face.

Gregor looked him straight in the eye. "The old ones really aren't the
best are they?"

Baldor shrugged non-comittally.

Agonised groans rose to fill the silence that greeted the last of the
deadly missiles. A man to their left struggled to pull an arrow from
his friend's back. He finally succeeded and rolled the man over only to
find the glaze of death in his eyes. "Why?" he muttered brokenly, his
leather-armoured shoulders slumping.

"Shouldn't we get up and bang our shields and yell a bit, now?"
another man dubiously suggested as the Gonner archers sent a
retaliatory barrage against the Stingers. The cries of their wounded
enemies echoed across the plain. They sounded like the puppy Gregor had
been forced to kill when it had broken its back in that accident on the
mountains.

"Don't you think that'd be a bit inflammatory?" Gregor blinked away
his sudden tears and turned to face the speaker. "We don't want them to
get the wrong idea."

"Aye, he's right," another soldier hollowly piped from his place
beneath a pile of bleeding bodies. "Them's fighting words where I come
from."

"Is it just me?" came yet another voice. "Or does this all seem a bit
silly? I mean, old Frig here never hurt a fly and now he's lying there
with an arrow in his eye and his missus is going to pull a blue fit
when she finds out what he's gone and done to himself."

"Here they come again!" Arvad's voice boomed from the rear as another
flight of arrows sang through the air.

All conversation ceased as the Gonner clan ducked once more beneath
their shields. Steel tips thudded home in wood and flesh and more
screams filled the air.

Gregor risked a peek from behind his brother's shield.

Mad Fred stood alone amidst the crouching turtle masses. He bellowed
defiance at the enemy as arrows continued to pepper him.

Gregor winced when a barbed shaft finally struck the raging berserker.
Then his gaze widened in astonishment.

"Hey, Fred!" he shouted incredulously. "You've... you've got an arrow
in your head, man! Doesn't it hurt?"

"What?" Mad Fred ceased his shrieking and focused on the tiny critter
over the way. "In my head you say?" His stormy gaze lifted, refocused
on his woad-crusted forehead and the black shaft jutting a few inches
from it. "Oh," he said, realisation dawning. "That. Yes, it does hurt
actually, now that you come to mention it, I wonder..."

THUD.

Mad Fred would take on no more buggers.
"Infantry!" Arvad bellowed as the opposing army's bowmen made way for
the foot soldiers.

Thousands of Gonner men lifted their shields from their heads, looked
across the swaying grasses of Comeria Plain and into the eyes of
approaching death. Thoughts of wives and families, love and joy flitted
through countless minds.

"Hmm," said one man.

"Hmmm," said Arvad.

"Hmmmm," said his army.

* * *

Two thousand swords sailed through the air and clattered in a
meaningless heap at the Stinger Clan's feet. The Gonner clan sat
defenceless before them. Comeria Plain drifted in a timeless moment as
the charge stuttered to a halt and the battle cries died away.

"Is it just me?" said the leader of the Stingers, casting a dubious
eye at the weapon he carried. "Or does this running around with swords
business seem kind of silly?"

-The End-