Chapter 2: Yasht to the waters of the sky

Chapter 1 - https://steemit.com/story/@fromage/an-introduction-and-chapter-1-yasht-to-the-waters-of-the-sky

Chapter 2: Pient

Pient shifted uncomfortably against the wall of the infantry bay. Five minutes ago he'd been dead asleep in his bunk, and now he was half-asleep standing up in the bay as his knight barked orders at the entire lance.

As far as he could remember the knight’s name was Bareaux. He was a bear of a man, half a hand taller than any other man in the squad. Pient twitched with discomfort in his harness as sweat rolled down his back. Bareaux was a merchant’s son. All the stories and songs said knights were good men of lowly birth that would rise to marry princesses and inherit kingdoms. What they didn’t mention was the requirement that you buy your own sword and armor, or that while knighthood afforded you the privilege of owning land, it came with none. Bareaux was quick to lord his title and his command over his men; but the same could have been said of many of the old men that slept on the sides of the roads back home, beneath the hedges. The sort that would still insist on being called Sir as they begged passerby for scraps. Bareaux surely figured that would never happen to him, or maybe he just never thought much about the future. Pient did little else.

A month ago he’d been slopping pigs for his father when the man with the Marquis' seal had seen him in the pens and waved him over. He was thirteen then, fourteen as of a week ago, but tall, broad-shouldered, and strong from farm work. His father had been furious at him for being drafted. Since his growth spurt the old man had told him to always stay hunched over to hide his height when he saw the Count’s men, but the fact was Pient had been intrigued. He'd played the same war games that all the other boys had played, imagined himself a brave and noble knight fighting to protect his king from the barbarous republican rabble. To go to war seemed like grand adventure compared to cleaning up pig shit.

Besides, before he'd been mustered he'd never been to the manor. He’d never even seen a locomotive much less ridden on one; now here he was on an airship, hundreds of miles from anyone and anywhere he'd ever seen, about to be dropped in an exotic foreign land. Sure, he hadn’t eaten anything but rations for the last week, and sure he was holding a weapon he barely knew how to use, but this was adventure!

A low rumble in his stomach snapped him back to the present. He retched slightly, thankful for not having had the time to eat anything he could have thrown up. Bareaux finally stopped screaming and settled into one of the harnesses along the wall just in time for the door to begin to crack open in anticipation of landing. Pient gripped the charm he wore on his neck and muttered to himself as the wind whipped furiously through the chamber. His stomach did backflips as the door slowly revealed the drop below.