Yasht to the waters of the sky: Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Pient

"Get DOWN you idiot!" Bareaux screamed over the whine and wheeze of the enemy gunnes and the roar of fire bombs. "Dig a damn hole and get some cover or you're dead already."

Pient was very willing to do as he was told. He'd always been good at taking orders. Getting out of fire wasn't exactly a tough sell in any case. He felt a pang of guilt for cowering in fear, but the longer he stood in the open the more that guilt turned to fear.

Digging wasn't going well though. It'd been a dry spring, and the ground was rock hard. More frustrating was that he'd never actually been issued a spade. He had to use his helmet, which put him at even more risk. Then again according to Djen the helmets did nothing against shrapnel anyway. Pient hadn't believed him, but then they’d found Djen dead just a few days later with shrapnel holes in his helmet, just as he'd said.

Djen had been clever. He'd been a scribe for the grand temple in Frax before he'd been mustered. He could write in three languages, and read four. Said he was a noble's bastard.

“Pient, you dumb clump of dirt. You don't understand strategy like I do.” Always a lecture.

“No, Djen, I don't. I don't want to understand it. We got knights for that. Bareaux will tell us if...”

Djen snorted. “Bareaux, right. Knight's job ain't strategy Pient. We got officers for that kinda thinking. You think the nobles running us into fire wanna be anywhere near us when we get there? They're gonna be back in the air, laughing. Or back in a keep somewhere.” Djen shifted in his bunk and sighed melodramatically. “Used to be a knight had a sacred duty to uphold truth and justice,” his bunk shoot as he burst out laughing, “sorry, couldn't keep it up. You just love those old stories, don't you? Somehow I doubt being on a horse made knights any nicer. Did you know that you used to have to be a noble to even be a knight? I know for a fact that can't have been good for their temperament. Knights now, they're what they've always been; thugs with a title. Just now you can buy the title instead of having to be born into it, like Bareaux's daddy did for him.”

“Come on, go back to sleep. They're gonna call us up any minute.” Pient knew there was no chance it would end there.

Djen leaned down from the bunk above. “Exactly. Who can sleep in these conditions anyway?” He looked around with exaggerated disgust at their berths. “I'm telling you, Pient, they're putting us down too far away. I've read all about this. Those boys on the other side? They get eyes on us they'll just shell us to oblivion. Only chance we got is if we get in there, close, before they know it. Before they can calibrate their gunnes. It's how they took Mazovia.”

He was probably right. He usually was. But so what? If he was right, their commanders were incompetent or indifferent. It amounted to the same thing, Pient didn't want to think too long about what that meant. Finally he began to make some headway into the ground. His hands were caked with blood and dirt.

Thunder exploded in his hands and he was knocked onto his back. His helmet shook so badly it bit at his hands and he dropped it as he fell. His ears ringing as he pulled himself up to his feet and stumbled over to pick it back up. It was distended oddly, a large shard of shot embedded inside that would have torn through him.

Something wet was dripping down his face as he scanned the area. He was the only man in his lance still standing. His legs gave way, and as his knees hit the ground pain stabbed through his head and he fully collapsed. As the blood flowed over his eyes, he saw his airship climbing back into the sky.

Chapters 1-6 - https://steemit.com/story/@fromage/yasht-to-the-waters-of-the-sky-chapters-1-6