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Dosser
Half a bridge
Part I
-Little hungry shit-
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Kaeso’s Rangers
Group B (Dosser)
Part of fourth attempt at reconnoitering in depth
-First month of Fall-
Operation Day 147
Northeast banks of the River Groin
Framtond’s east tributary
-Battle of the Half Bridge-
River peninsula flank
Dosser rolled in the mud, reeds snapping and a water snake snapping its jaws near his calf, cold nostrils touching him. A gasp and he went over a rotten trunk, a bright-green gecko beating a hasty retreat chirping like mad, but not half as mad as the ranger that found himself in the cack again despite relocating.
Drills will only get you so far in the field.
The scout waiting him by the white-barked birch tree –the river peninsula flooded with them- and the tall cattails loosed his arrow the moment Dosser went over the obstacle.
Moth’rfucker had run around in a circle and got a lucky guess, or this is a bigger patrol.
Which was the difference between findin’ one turd floating in yer soup, or a couple more.
“Eah!” Dosser cried unintelligently twisting mid-air, the arrow striking the protruding fletching over his left shoulder.
Shot too soon.
Nervous cunt!
Dosser landed on a knee and rolled to the side, pants soaked and unable to breathe from the exertion. Or panic.
Fear even.
Aye, fear.
Most fighting is done by people scared shitless.
You start not wanting to get hurt and end up just taking the win.
Even slightly maimed.
Dosser stood on the other knee, not even thinking of going for his bow. Worst thing you can do in a scrap like dis, is fumbling wit shaking hands for an arrow, then nocking it and trying to aim with a mean motherfucker looking to do the same, but being ahead of you by a couple of blasted seconds.
So he just got his large dagger out, flipped it once in his hand, the scout following his movement with bowstring drawn and another arrow nocked to nail his spastically moving person between the tits.
Piece of Lesia scum!
The scout loosed the arrow, but saw Dosser’s fat-bladed dagger tumbling in the air screaming the short distance between them and flinched in panic messing up his aim.
The arrow whistled over Dosser’s head, the dagger thudding on the scout’s left thigh, as he’d made a mess of the hurl in his haste.
“GAAH!” The scout groaned like a pig getting knifed in the groin, more shocked than hurting, although he was probably plenty hurting too and Dosser jumped to his feet, feeling equally shocked and probably equally hurting to rush him.
He made two quick steps, his right arm on his shortsword’s handle, but another scout came out of the bloody cattails, this one a taller thinner version of the first with bow in hand.
A patrol then.
Well that well and truly sucks arse.
“Eh,” the second scout gasped seeing his friend doubled over and Dosser who was moving towards them already –a stupid decision to begin with- kept the momentum going for lack of a better plan and cause nine times out of ten, most folk just do random shite in a fight.
You just hope something sticks, or you get Luthos in a good mood.
Luthos being the cunt that he is, was probably on vacation and Dosser got to roll this one out solo.
The second scout raised his bow and fired almost at point blank range, the arrow catching Dosser on the left cheek and ripping it away from his teeth partially. It felt that way at least to him, his left eye turning bloodshot, a red curtain dropping over it. He had managed to close the distance at least –obviously- and at arm’s length the man holding the bigger blade had advantage.
In this case the only blade.
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“Arggh!” Dosser mumbled in pain gulping down blood five minutes of intense killing later, insects crawling up on his wound and that gecko now watching him from atop a piece of rotting wood. The cunning small lizard just needed to wait him out and he’ll have food for weeks.
“Plisse… o’ slit…” Dosser grunted with difficulty eyeing the green little reptile. “Ruffian!”
Goff’s voice reaching his ears and the gecko disappearing at the snap of one’s fingers.
Fast as death.
Eh.
Oh fuck me life.
Here.
“H-liar!” he groaned and Goff’s disheveled muddy face appeared above the trunk he’d jumped over. The ranger looked at the two dead scouts intensely and then at the bleeding down his face Dosser, the latter’s only eye ogling at him irate. “Flack arr ye lookin’!”
“Fuck!” Goff gasped in horror. “You live! Good fucking grief Doss, I heard someone yelling liar or something and thought it a trap!” He went over the trunk and approached him. “Dude I thought you gone, shit. Eh, I can see yer teeth from two places.”
“I’m… fine!” Dosser blasted him.
“There’s a piece of yer face skin flapping…”
“Suck… a-clock.”
“You’re not making sense chief. Right,” Goff puffed out and looked around them. “Anyone else?”
“Arrgh,” Dosser groaned and fumbled with his med kit.
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“Let me do that,” Goff told him and stooped to get the needles out. “Placus and Lond are near, we got the other one.”
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“Mmm,” a swollen, bloody faced Dosser moaned an hour later. Whatever stitching Goff had done on his face had made it difficult for the ranger to open his mouth and it was still leaking.
Lond, or Lund the other Northman of their patrol, with Dosser being half-Issir and Placus -a Lorian scum from Anorum wanted for murder- smacked his lips, wild red beard dancing and then stared at the others.
“Kaeso wants the bank cleared so we can move on their camp,” he said.
“We are well aware of the plan Lund,” Placus rustled, blond hair cut very short on his ovule head, pale blue eyes cold.
“I think that qualifies as cleared,” Goff said. He and Lund were from Maza Burg and had joined after Placus. Kaeso had found Dosser first whilst looking for recruits for his special unit. Dosser didn’t have to be asked twice. Being a half-breed in the north meant you take whatever is offered if it pays for food. Kaeso wasn’t looking for builders, or scholars. He wanted nasty fucks that can get nasty stuff done, was the sales pitch. The Centurion being the worst of them all.
“Can you make it?” Placus asked, as they had quite the jungle to traverse.
“Mmm,” Dosser grunted and got up after finishing tying up a bandage over his head and half his face.
Goff stared over their heads at the cloudy sky and then pointed with an arm.
“West is that way,” he said and without another word they got moving again, leaving the corpses for the gecko.
Lucky moth’rfucker.
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The second day near noon, following a grueling trudge through the wilderness and after almost getting lost for a couple of hours when the skies opened up for a hellish downpour, the small group found the road cut by the Lesia engineers and the other advanced groups waiting nervously. They were the last to make it. Kaeso came to talk with them as he wanted to move immediately towards the bridge.
“Have it cleaned up, put this salve on it,” their leader grunted and tossed him a small square vial. “You’re late.”
Dosser murmured with half his mouth, the left side of his face a nasty dark blue, red and yellow color, the eye itself resembling the inside of a tomato.
“Anyone has eyes on the shores Centurion?” Goff asked the wiry officer. Kaeso a man of medium height of unknown years, narrow-faced and with piercing wolfish eyes grimaced, deep lines cutting into his unshaven cheeks.
“Leys Boars are guarding it, but I was looking for the crews,” Kaeso replied staring at Placus working on Dosser’s wound. “Same as them really,” he added.
Kill the crews and you stop the project.
The project being the stone and wood bridge over Framtond, the massive undertaking ‘almost’ finished, though the final part of it was only long beams and supports over the deep running waters. The narrow flatland where they had attempted it just under two kilometers across, one of the narrowest points of the main river. It made use of two tiny islets near the middle, the bridge wider there, from almost four meters to seven, but the last four hundred meters were still under construction. The great Asturia Bridge in comparison was built over four islets out of cut hardstone, steel and concrete. It reached two kilometers and six hundred meters from bank to bank, secured by a hundred and twenty stone arches at a comfortable eight meters width that allowed three wagons to pass side by side.
So it was a third fully built, two and something thirds of material put down enough for a couple of brave people to cross at a time, whilst allowing a flow of boats at its protected side. Most though called the still unfinished project half a bridge.
In order to finish it fully, they needed complete control of Framtond’s west banks and Lesia wouldn’t let them have it. Durio had in his turn put a stop to their opponent’s attempt to cross over the Groin building two smaller bridges over the tributaries. They had managed one, but the other had cost them a lot of people since Kaeso was setting ambush after ambush in the wilderness of the river peninsula.
Armando Leys Boars responding in kind.
“Can you talk?” Kaeso asked, when Goff moved away to clean his hands and eat something.
“Es…” Dosser hissed, his mouth hurting, left side of his face tugging and making his eye tear up constantly.
“Kato has made a wall a couple of hundred meters from the shores with the material brought from the other side,” the Centurion explained. “Not much of a wall really, but it’s something. The problem is I’ve seen Iron Fists banners in the mountain pass and they’ll have machines with them.”
“Numb…ers?” Dosser muttered.
“Cohort sized, a bit bigger than the ‘300’,” Kaeso replied.
“Mmm,” Dosser thought the number manageable, but Kaeso seeing his expression added.
“Old Legion cohort size and as for the three hundred part, the bank’s mercenaries are pretty peculiar in their naming schemes.”
“How… ye know?” Dosser grunted, wiping the tears from his face with a cloth.
Kaeso stared at the wilderness. The engineers had cleared four meters of road and packed it with rough gravel, but the reeds were creeping back again. The flora of the large land between the tributaries very aggressive and unwilling to give up to the humans. A good winter and spring and then the road would be gone, Dosser thought.
“My father worked the Green Coast for a moon,” the hardened Centurion rustled reminiscing. “Run on to them in my youth.”
“Wher’… is lee?”
Fuck’s sake, I got to get a couple of words out!
Kaeso gathered spit in his mouth, worked it and then spat a solid blob of phlegm and saliva on a green-black dancing bug between his legs nailing it dead center. Crushed it with his boot next.
“Most of him is in Parmaport,” he replied soberly and brought two fingers in his mouth to whistle for the rangers to get moving.
Operation Day 150
Early morning
Lesia wooden bridge at the River Groin
Goff was supposed to fire that blasted arrow with Dosser nearer the sentries. The idea being to give him enough time to jump them with Placus and Lund in the confusion. Well, he fired it early, confusion did occur, a mercenary nailed through the chest and tumbling down the muddy terrain towards the water. His friends recoiled and went to help him, but the bastard cried out murder -too fucking loud- before gurgling and lost under the current, still much better than what Dosser could, given his condition. The sentries warned sufficiently twisted about and caught them approaching blades in hand, all gnarly teeth and mean looks.
“What… to arms!” One of them boomed forthwith as there was no way to explain away their intentions differently.
Dosser sprinted the last couple of meters, hobnailed boots splashing in the mire, rotten leaves and pieces of cut grass covering his soaked pants. The scout swung at him with a sabre, Dosser overcompensated in the sort of dodge sort of plunge and went right by his blade, the man missing in his swing. Dosser saw the next one lowering his shortsword to stab him in the face and since Dosser had already gotten mauled enough to have to pay extra in Anorum to have his cock sucked, he jerked away to save what little looks he had left.
Even cheap harlots have standards these days.
The blade found his left shoulder, scratched the iron plate over his leather armour and as he kept on dipping and flaying, both boots slipping in the sludge Dosser stabbed the scout through his right bicep afore he took his legs out.
Never had a more unconventional attack been attempted.
Successfully.
“Gaah!” cried the hapless scout, his left knee breaking with a loud crack, leg snapping violently the wrong way and a sharp protruding bone almost plucking Dosser’s good eye out after tearing out of the scout’s skin and hemp pants. Dosser lost his shortsword, got mud in his face and mouth, dragged a couple of meters in it with the scout collapsed on his back screaming and came to a stop near the river.
Dosser rolled to the right shoving the shuddering and cursing his mother scout off of him, stood on a smarting knee just in time to see Placus chopping the first sentry’s arm off at the wrist and Goff killing the third with the time tested manner of a dagger in the jewels to the hilt.
“THERE!” Someone yelled from the now visible bridge to their east about fifty meters from them and Goff’s arrow intended for a sneaking up returning from somewhere Lesia scout, smacked Lund instead high on the back and dropped him to his knees.
Plate full of cack!
Dosser jumped on his feet reaching for his dagger, but the newly arrived scout swung his wood axe not paying any attention to him and caught the moaning Lund right in the face, chopping everything above his nose off.
Shite!
“Fuck me!” Goff cried out seeing what he’d done, Dosser stumbled to reach the retreating scout and Lund collapsed on his face, bloody brains mixed with the mud. Placus got to him first, almost lost an arm at the wild defensive swing of the bloody axe, but recovered fast like a seasoned killer and stabbed his shortsword through the scout’s neck dropping him in turn.
“Fucking idiot!” Placus growled at the devastated approaching Goff. “Blind motherfucker!”
“Me darn fingers slipped,” Goff mumbled distraught his face pale and eyes haunted. “Gods what have I done?” he added and stooped to help his friend.
Lund was missing half a head and most of his brains.
It was pointless.
“Leave him. Got… to move,” Dosser grunted managing to get the words out this time, everything hurting, his face bleeding anew and mouth flooded with foul mud. “Kaeso… is at the bridge.”
A gecko appeared on top a soaked rock, energetic scaly head scanning the situation with enthusiasm.
Little hungry shit.
This is the worst blasted place in the whole realm.
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