The Lost and Forgotten, Part 1

The small scattering of trees enshrouded the small squad in a thin cloak of foliage. Their progress through the undergrowth was marked by the cracking of twigs and the muffled cursing of the armoured infantrymen. 'Quiet' one of the men hissed, by his rank markings the sergeant, 'Do you want the whole fraggin' enemy force down on us.' Most of the group stiffened, and made a conscious effort to reduce the noise they emitted. 'Sarge' One of the soldiers next to him hissed, 'We haven't seen those bastards in days, do you think its likely us of the whole regiment meet them now?'. The squad winced almost as a whole, whatever you did, you didn't bait fate, because you might need him the next time you found yourself faced with a barrel of a large callibre pistol. Without ceremony, the forest was suddenly alive with the sound of gunfire, and the squad hit the floor of the wood, mostly with their pulses racing. 'Move!' The sergeant bellowed, his weapon already up and firing at their unseen adversaries, before he'd even raised himself to his knees. 'They've got the pin on us, just move!' His cry had barely left his mouth before a shell landed and three of the squad were ripped apart by shrapnel. The sergeant ran to the site of the impact, and hauled something from the crater, firing as he moved.

The steady rain of projectiles shredded the forest as the squad fell back, all sense of formation lost as the retreat descended into a rout. The sergeant ducked behind one of the stouter trunks, as his men fled around him. "Command, Section 3 Alpha is coming under concentrated and sustained assault by the enemy." He yelled into the long range communications unit that he had liberated from the back of one of the fallen soldiers. "We're being forced back. If you don't do something soon-" he continued, before a mortar shell shredded a tree next to him, covering him in a rain of splintered wood and shredded foliage. When the haze left behind evaporated, he looked down at the comm-unit, to find a foot-long spar protruding from it's casing, and the electronics firing and stalling erratically. "Sh*t" he cried, and tossed the comm-unit aside, as it began to smoulder. With that, he scrambled to his feet and followed his scattered troops.

Sergeant-Major Malicant Foivre awoke with a slight shudder. That'd been three years previously, on a planet he no longer cared to remember the name of. His squad had run right into the heart of an ambush that'd been waiting for them three miles along their line of retreat. The abruptness of his waking had nothing to do with the trauma he had suffered, but rather to do with the trauma that had followed it. His unit was listed as being entirely destroyed, and the memory of their mutilated and desecrated bodies still turned his stomach. He had managed to avoid the ambush because of his late arrival, and managed to find an alternate route towards their field base. When he reached it, he found it in flames. He managed to commandeer a small biwheeled vehicle left behind and drive back towards the Command Head-quarters. He was accepted back into a refugee camp, to be processed, a few miles out from the building, and was found to be listed as killed in action. He was then told that he could take a fresh serial code, and continue to serve, or join one of the crews who were part of the army's auxilliary staff. He chose to continue serving, preferring it to the life of the pions who's job it was to manufacture munitions, and lay roads through the seemingly impenatrable forests. Stick to what you know, his father had told him in his youth, and so he did. He received his orders, and joined the one unit of the collected armies who's sole purpose was to account for anomalies like him: The First Irregulars

The Lost and the Forgotten.

Pearl in the Hilt, Part Four

The flame danced merrily upon the rope, the wind of the open plains marring it's progress but dispersing the black smoke which rose from the flame nicely. The kobold within the cage looked at the flame in an amused sort of way, the light reflecting in its eyes and giving light to an otherwise dull face that did little to conceal the kobold's facination, and ill-gotten mirth at its situation. However, the guards had more pressing issues on their mind, most pressingly how to ensure that the young sire Markelhay made the final stroke upon the small lithe and tricky, and too little interest in dealing with Kobolds to recognise but their most common emotion as seen upon the plains; that of terror. The flame danced its dance to the conclusion, going out just before the cage was released. The guard in charge of the release cursed mildly, made his excuses, and jumped off his horse, tinderbox in hand to relight the, mostly, charred and blackened rope. As he neared the cage, one hand clutching the rope, the kobold spewed another gout of flame that took the guard in the centre of his chest, knocking him backwards onto the ground, and burning the length of the rope through.

The cage clanked through, and the kobold slipped through the newly created gap, while the horsemen were still milling about in confusion as their horses reared and whinneyed. The horizon held no easy options for the kobold, as the nearest cover was the city of Fallcrest, less than a mile to the north-east was less than inviting. The kobold took off at speed to the south, it's limbs pushing it far faster than would have seemed usual or possible to the puzzled riders. Lord Markelhay the Third, called to his riders, and to his son. "To Arms! Our blades shall taste this creature's blood this day!" The riders caught the look of his eyes and made an impressive movement to line up once more, but their pace was ultimately dictated by the slugish pace of the Young Lord Markelhay, as the riders continued to mill about until the young lord was fully ready. Then, in a thin line, the riders surged forward after their prey.

Behind them, the fallen guard lay motionless beside the cage, as the horse gently prodded him with its muzzle.