Bunny de Guerre
06-09-2011, 05:24 AM
My first attempt at trying to write Iron Kingdoms flavoured fiction. I'm a big fan of George MacDonaled Fraser, so I rather wanted to try a fictional memori style of writing in the style of the Flashman books.
Upon the tragic passing of Durwin Redgrave, I have been asked to sort through his numerous personal effects on behalf of the Crown. Amongst the detritus of a life lived poorly, which is perhaps befitting a man who had fallen so far in his later years, I have found an attempt by Redgrave to turn notes from his diary in to a memoir. It is my hope that some profit could be made from this memoir, so that his debts may yet be paid. I include a sample, with my own annotations where required to provide further details.
- Devlin Roane.
The tell-tale whistle of a shell screeched overhead. I didn't really fear the beastly thing; the perk of being a good mechanik is that your superiors don't mind you hiding behind the company Mule. The worst I could expect from this engagement was the boiler exploding in my face and that, dear reader, is why the most important part of a Mule are the pressure gauges. Any mechanik with a face will tell you that and those without a face, well, they'd tell you that if they could.
Joining me in this mess was my apprentice; a young chap who was surely considering whether or not this was the life for him at the time. The last I had heard from him, he was pursuing a quieter career with the Radliffe lot. Wilson - or it might have been Watson - was going to be my replacement, or so I thought at the time, so while I was obliged by a sense of professionalism to teach him the tricks of the trade, I was also nursing dreams of a large home to retire in.
"Wilson," I recall shouting delicately into his ear, "keep an eye on the dials, I'm going to find the boss."
The after action report mentioned how, with my keen senses and battlefield awareness, Mechanik Redgrave spotted a plume of smoke rising above the trees, behind our own line. How I had bravely gone to investigate the source of the smoke plume and, finding it to be a nominally friendly Cygnaran patrol, delicately negotiated their intervention in the fight with the alarmingly well armed bandits we were currently engaged with. As for the truth of the matter, well, the patrol was a small spot of luck on my part. Bolis was smiling at me that day, because the patrol was being led by one Sergeant Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh, or to the fellow inmates of the Ascendant Rowan Orphanage of Caspia, "Snotty" was, like me, cast adrift in to the world and, through fortune foul or fair, spent his formative years in the care of the Morrowans. I plan to write a play one day, "The Adventures of Snotty & Red", which will go in to detail about our shared misadventures. The price of keeping my silence at the time was aid, which I shrewdly negotiated while grovelling on my knees and pulling at his uniform.
After the battle, Wilson and I got to the task of repairing the Mule. While he was busy denting the armour back in to shape, I was busy re-calibrating those precious dials. There's a certain benefit to keeping your apprentice on his toes, you don't want them getting complacent, and a pressure guage reading "safe" when it should be reading "see you in Urcaen, Apprentice" is just one part in the battle against complacency. Unfortunately at the time, one of the runners interrupted my calibration, summoning me to see the Boss.
I had my story straight by the time I made it to his tent. Failing that, I a plan involving sabotaging the Mule, stealing a horse and riding as quickly as I could to the Khadoran border. There I could assume a false identity, sell some "military secrets" to the Northerners and start a new life there.
"Good show Redgrave," the Boss blurted out as I entered, his bulky frame barely held by the folding stool he sat upon, "the intervention of your allies has saved us more than a handful of crowns."
Kavanaugh was sat at the table too. I've seen some horrors during the wars. I've had to pick my way across a scorched fishing village after some monstrous raider attack. I've watched a line of Trenchers pat each other on the back and then throw themselves over the top in to certain death. I've heard the screams of the injured go through the night. I've watched my second apprentice lose his face to an unlucky boiler explosion on a Mule.
None of these sights have haunted me so much as the look on his face. Kavanaugh said nothing as the Boss blustered on about savings. No, Snotty just smiled. The look in his eyes said that he knew what was going on and, just as my silence about past indiscretions had been purchased with a favour, his silence would have to be bought.
Even at this ripe old age, I am not allowed to say which of the many fine mercenary organisations I was working for. I cannot go into the specifics of who we were hired by at that time, but in order to explain my dread, I shall provide details to at least partly illuminate the precarious situation I found myself in.
The Company, during Dolven 598, was hired to bring a pair of crates north, from a notable city in the south to a particular fortress nestled in the middle of Cygnar, for a fair sum of money.
During the time that the Company was within this notable city, a string of daring robberies were perpetrated. Judging by the skill at which the dashing rogue disabled various security measures, it was concluded that this undoubtedly handsome man was a dab hand with mechanika. After the Company left, the robbreies stopped. Social commentators whispered how strange it was, that this burglar would simply give up and disappear. It was said that a number of important women, and even some men, longed to have their bedrooms plundered by this masked man.
Kavanaugh, and his damned patrol, was under orders from some shady organisation. Kavanaugh put two and two together. I may have got fiercely drunk during my stay and spilled the beans to him at a wretched bar. Either way, he was now ordered to bring me back, along with my stolen goods, no doubt netting himself a fat bounty.
To make matters worse - the goods we were diligently transporting were those stolen from homes of a particular guild of merchants operating within that city. The original goods, some flour or bread or - frankly, the details of the food parcel are now both long forgotten and rotten, switched with my stolen goods. The bandits we were fighting had just performed a lightning raid on our camp.
The crates? Missing.
The contents? Well, it had been a warm summer night in the City of Ghosts when I met the Captain.
I counted myself lucky that our meeting and potential game of incriminate-counter-incriminate was interrupted by the sound of a boiler exploding somewhere near the edge of our camp. Even if the Boss would love to hand me over to Snotty there, Wilson would be in no fit state to repair that Mule.
Note A: Redgrave, in life and in death, was not a tidy man. Numerous pages of thie memoir were found scattered across the house. It is entirely possible that his house was looted as the news of his death spread. Once the remaining pages are found and placed in a correct order, this work shall continue.
Note B: Redgrave, somewhat notoriously, assumed many identities during his life. While he refers to his commander calling him Redgrave, other notes indicate that he had signed up to this company as a "Giacomo Pescar". Having personally seen sketches of Redgrave, as well as one chance meeting in Caspia, I find it highly doubtful that he could successfully pass of as a Tordoroan.
Upon the tragic passing of Durwin Redgrave, I have been asked to sort through his numerous personal effects on behalf of the Crown. Amongst the detritus of a life lived poorly, which is perhaps befitting a man who had fallen so far in his later years, I have found an attempt by Redgrave to turn notes from his diary in to a memoir. It is my hope that some profit could be made from this memoir, so that his debts may yet be paid. I include a sample, with my own annotations where required to provide further details.
- Devlin Roane.
The tell-tale whistle of a shell screeched overhead. I didn't really fear the beastly thing; the perk of being a good mechanik is that your superiors don't mind you hiding behind the company Mule. The worst I could expect from this engagement was the boiler exploding in my face and that, dear reader, is why the most important part of a Mule are the pressure gauges. Any mechanik with a face will tell you that and those without a face, well, they'd tell you that if they could.
Joining me in this mess was my apprentice; a young chap who was surely considering whether or not this was the life for him at the time. The last I had heard from him, he was pursuing a quieter career with the Radliffe lot. Wilson - or it might have been Watson - was going to be my replacement, or so I thought at the time, so while I was obliged by a sense of professionalism to teach him the tricks of the trade, I was also nursing dreams of a large home to retire in.
"Wilson," I recall shouting delicately into his ear, "keep an eye on the dials, I'm going to find the boss."
The after action report mentioned how, with my keen senses and battlefield awareness, Mechanik Redgrave spotted a plume of smoke rising above the trees, behind our own line. How I had bravely gone to investigate the source of the smoke plume and, finding it to be a nominally friendly Cygnaran patrol, delicately negotiated their intervention in the fight with the alarmingly well armed bandits we were currently engaged with. As for the truth of the matter, well, the patrol was a small spot of luck on my part. Bolis was smiling at me that day, because the patrol was being led by one Sergeant Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh, or to the fellow inmates of the Ascendant Rowan Orphanage of Caspia, "Snotty" was, like me, cast adrift in to the world and, through fortune foul or fair, spent his formative years in the care of the Morrowans. I plan to write a play one day, "The Adventures of Snotty & Red", which will go in to detail about our shared misadventures. The price of keeping my silence at the time was aid, which I shrewdly negotiated while grovelling on my knees and pulling at his uniform.
After the battle, Wilson and I got to the task of repairing the Mule. While he was busy denting the armour back in to shape, I was busy re-calibrating those precious dials. There's a certain benefit to keeping your apprentice on his toes, you don't want them getting complacent, and a pressure guage reading "safe" when it should be reading "see you in Urcaen, Apprentice" is just one part in the battle against complacency. Unfortunately at the time, one of the runners interrupted my calibration, summoning me to see the Boss.
I had my story straight by the time I made it to his tent. Failing that, I a plan involving sabotaging the Mule, stealing a horse and riding as quickly as I could to the Khadoran border. There I could assume a false identity, sell some "military secrets" to the Northerners and start a new life there.
"Good show Redgrave," the Boss blurted out as I entered, his bulky frame barely held by the folding stool he sat upon, "the intervention of your allies has saved us more than a handful of crowns."
Kavanaugh was sat at the table too. I've seen some horrors during the wars. I've had to pick my way across a scorched fishing village after some monstrous raider attack. I've watched a line of Trenchers pat each other on the back and then throw themselves over the top in to certain death. I've heard the screams of the injured go through the night. I've watched my second apprentice lose his face to an unlucky boiler explosion on a Mule.
None of these sights have haunted me so much as the look on his face. Kavanaugh said nothing as the Boss blustered on about savings. No, Snotty just smiled. The look in his eyes said that he knew what was going on and, just as my silence about past indiscretions had been purchased with a favour, his silence would have to be bought.
Even at this ripe old age, I am not allowed to say which of the many fine mercenary organisations I was working for. I cannot go into the specifics of who we were hired by at that time, but in order to explain my dread, I shall provide details to at least partly illuminate the precarious situation I found myself in.
The Company, during Dolven 598, was hired to bring a pair of crates north, from a notable city in the south to a particular fortress nestled in the middle of Cygnar, for a fair sum of money.
During the time that the Company was within this notable city, a string of daring robberies were perpetrated. Judging by the skill at which the dashing rogue disabled various security measures, it was concluded that this undoubtedly handsome man was a dab hand with mechanika. After the Company left, the robbreies stopped. Social commentators whispered how strange it was, that this burglar would simply give up and disappear. It was said that a number of important women, and even some men, longed to have their bedrooms plundered by this masked man.
Kavanaugh, and his damned patrol, was under orders from some shady organisation. Kavanaugh put two and two together. I may have got fiercely drunk during my stay and spilled the beans to him at a wretched bar. Either way, he was now ordered to bring me back, along with my stolen goods, no doubt netting himself a fat bounty.
To make matters worse - the goods we were diligently transporting were those stolen from homes of a particular guild of merchants operating within that city. The original goods, some flour or bread or - frankly, the details of the food parcel are now both long forgotten and rotten, switched with my stolen goods. The bandits we were fighting had just performed a lightning raid on our camp.
The crates? Missing.
The contents? Well, it had been a warm summer night in the City of Ghosts when I met the Captain.
I counted myself lucky that our meeting and potential game of incriminate-counter-incriminate was interrupted by the sound of a boiler exploding somewhere near the edge of our camp. Even if the Boss would love to hand me over to Snotty there, Wilson would be in no fit state to repair that Mule.
Note A: Redgrave, in life and in death, was not a tidy man. Numerous pages of thie memoir were found scattered across the house. It is entirely possible that his house was looted as the news of his death spread. Once the remaining pages are found and placed in a correct order, this work shall continue.
Note B: Redgrave, somewhat notoriously, assumed many identities during his life. While he refers to his commander calling him Redgrave, other notes indicate that he had signed up to this company as a "Giacomo Pescar". Having personally seen sketches of Redgrave, as well as one chance meeting in Caspia, I find it highly doubtful that he could successfully pass of as a Tordoroan.