(OOC: Joint Post with [mention]Meagharia[/mention])
(OOC: GRAPHIC CONTENT AHEAD, LOTS OF SWEARS AND YELLING TOO)
15th November 2020
4th Haoine, 40 BA
Orzieu Plains
7:00am
Colonel Brigid was tired, but in that familiar way that had defined her entire childhood. Tired from constant fighting, fortunately a year had not been enough to dull her tactical or fighting skills. She had decided on a morning attack, her scouts had been watching their positions, this time was right before their last night watch switched out, when they would be at their most vulnerable. Her Comrade-Soldiers gathered, and silently made their way to the enemy encampments, war paint making their pale faces harder to see in the brush. Suddenly they emerged, and quickly overwhelmed the initial resistance against them, quickly advancing with Bayonets and Machetes facing forwards.
Most of the Balistrians in the camp were still half asleep. The only ones fully awake were the Ursines on patrol. The moment a flood of…children? The Ursines on patrol were very confused until the weapons were brandished
Then all hell broke loose.
Immediately, The sounds of gunshots startled most of the Ursines who were sleeping awake, but for most of them it was too late. Some were bound and gagged better than they were in training. Others tried to fight against the children and we stabbed to death quickly. The Ursines on patrol loaded their guns, and without thinking about it, started shooting at the rushing children. The Balistrians had not seen such fighting tactics since…well, themselves. It was a panic, and there was no room to consider what was going on. One Balistrian tried to send an SOS signal over the radio and was brought down within seconds.
An almost mad smile came across Brigid’s face. She had entered a state that was often described among officers in Meagharia. A state of serenity, despite the chaos of the battlefield. The initial attack had gone incredibly well, but they were facing harsh resistance. Brigid’s Machete was out, and she was able to continue to give orders while fighting. She felt a Ballistrian bullet graze her cheek, that would leave a scar.
But as the battle continued some of the Ballistrians were able to come to their senses, especially the surviving Patrollers. The small positions they held were hopeless, but they were able to hold back many of the children before those outside of their range could surround them, and wipe them out. But after about an hour, the battlefield became quiet, and the captured Ballistrians were rounded up and put under guard.
Brigid and some of the others quickly began surveying the captured camp in order to look for casualties. Casualties were lighter than they could have been, but higher than expected. Brigid found one of the bodies face down in the dirt, she turned over the girls face. Brigid recognized her, it was Caetrin Caelin, the daughter of the Meagharian Ambassador to the International Forum. In all 30 of the Lambs Brigade were found dead by the end of the search, and Brigid was filled with an indescribable rage, as were the rest of the Brigade, they all nodded silently, they knew what they had to do. Brigid called the Alkari regional command, she needed to get her wounded out of there before she could deal with her prisoners.
“Holy shit, who the fuck…” the Alkari said on the phone.
“Sir, the operation is complete. We have a group of prisoners, and some casualties. If you could arrange for my troops to have a funeral this afternoon I would appreciate that, they definitely need some closure.” Brigid waited for the officer to respond.
“Who…” the officer started to say before his brain turned on, “Did you say you have prisoners and dead soldiers?? Ma’am, who authorized your mission???”
“Someone higher up the food chain than you I assume. Point is there’s a wiped out Ballistrian encampment.”
A sigh could be heard on the other side of the line, “I’ll have support out to you in 20 minutes. Don’t do anything stupid in the meantime. Fucking children…” As the line cuts off, Brigid could hear the Alkari officer swearing at himself.
Brigid sighs. If there was one specific thing she missed about Meagharia, it was being treated like actual soldiers instead of just being children. She and her men probably had more actual combat experience than any of those other soldiers, but they still treated them like they were incompetent. Brigid called out to her troops “Get the prisoners ready for transport! And …Prepare our casualties for a funeral…”
8:44am
The first of the transport convoys arrived. The sight of dead children unsettled the Alkari soldiers. They knew of the dead in the south, but the sight of them in person…a couple Alkari considered defecting to get away.
The trucks pulled up as close as they could, and the drivers got off and helped transport the dead into one truck and started chaining the prisoners in the other. Another couple trucks pulled in before a deep voice pierced through the morning air,
“WHERE IS BRIGID?” the officer yelled.
Brigid was marching alongside her troops. Her head perked up as her name was called. “I’m right here!” She raised her hand as she spoke.
“Over here. Now.” The officer commanded. Most of the Alkari around knew what was about to go down. The question was who was going to be begging for mercy first: Brigid or the Officer.
“If you insist.” She gestured for her other commanders Nuala and Brenden to follow her. Her senses told her she would need the support. “What is it you wish to discuss? I don’t want this to take any longer than it has to. I have some important things to prepare this afternoon.” She gestured to the bodies of her dead soldiers, all wrapped in their Burial shrouds, coated in a certain tree sap only found in Meagharia. “And then of course there are the prisoners to deal with.
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll deal with those later. Who told you that you could sneak into enemy territory and capture a whole squad WITHOUT allowing an Alkari officer to be present??” The Officer barked.
“The Arrival of an Alkari officer could have tipped off the Ballistrians to an incoming attack. It was decided that it was too much of a risk. Besides, the mission was completed with haste. This was all authorized by Grandmaster General Jacques.”
“I’m sorry. There’s no way the Grandmaster himself would let a child into a warzone, let alone authorize a dangerous operation like this. I am seizing command of the brigade and I’m going to have you all sent home. This is no place for children.” the Officer ordered.
“What is your rank Soldier?”
“Soldier??? I am a Lieutenant of the 18th Division.”
“I am Colonel Brigid Aodha of the Lamb’s Brigade, even if you had the rank to dislodge my men, I have sanction from Her Majesty to fight here.”
“Whatever. Get your ‘men’ into the trucks. We will phone back to Her Royal Majesty when we get back to safety.” The Lt. said before walking back to one of the trucks and getting into it.
“Alright, lieutenant, just cease your insubordination until then.” Brigid and her officers organized her soldiers and prepared to roll out.
9:12am
The first of the convoy trucks arrived from the encampment. The dead were offloaded, and the living prisoners were shown where they could go. One of the Sergeants of the Alkari army approached Brigid.
“Ma’am, what what you like to do with the berauqes…I mean, the Balistrians.” the sergeant says.
“Well Sergeant, theres a little method we used during the Civil War that I think would work perfectly here, if you’re amenable to breaking a few ‘rules of war’.” Brigid whispered what she had in mind to the sergeant. “We’ll need a couple hammers and nails of course, but the trees should work pretty well for our purposes.”
“Right away ma’am.” The Alkari soldier saluted Brigid and went and organized his fellow soldiers to get hammers and nails. An odd request, but honestly, fuck the Balistrians. The entire nation is still mourning the loss of Roshal.
While she waited for the requested materials Brigid walked over to the funeral pyres being prepared for the dead. Her troops had gathered brush from the nearby woods, each small pyre being exactly 2 feet away from one another. While the Shrouds on each Soldier were of the same shape, they each looked slightly different, each made by some family member, either a parent, or a sibling, or in some cases, themselves, with different cloth being visible.
Brigid’s gaze fell on the shroud of Caetrin, the daughter of the ambassador. It was a shame, these soldiers had fought all their lives, only to die thousands of Kilometers from home. She couldnt help the tears welling in her eyes. “Too soon.” Brigid waited for the requested material to arrive, she wanted her troops to be able to take vengeance immediately after the ceremony.
Some of the Alkari noticed what was going on and came to help build the pyres themselves too. Slowly, the remaining resources were brought to Brigid.
“Ma’am, we have all the nails and hammers we could find. Is there anything else you need us to do?..more specifically, do you want us to give you all some time?” the Sergeant asked.
“No Sergeant, I think this should be sufficient. They have passed, we need to find closure as quickly as possible. Just bring the Ballistrian prisoners over here for us, we can handle the rest, unless some of your men would like to join in the aftermath.”
With that said Brigid called over the 29 other soldiers she had chosen to light the pyres, choosing the ones who had been closest to each of the deceased. As they wrapped the oil soaked cloth around their torches Brigid focused on one 14 year old boy, Eoin, standing over the body of his older brother, Padraig, with steely determination. Brigid stood over the body of Caetrin, in the center of the display, and starting with her, all 30 torches lit one by one. Brigid shouted an order “Engulf!” and every torch was stuck deep into the pyres simultaneously, the sap soaked shrouds burning like candles in seconds.
A sigh of closure spread through the Meagharians, and then Brigid gave one more silent order, snapping her fingers three times. The children immediately took up the hammers and, in groups, seized the Ballistrian prisoners, dragging them over towards the treeline. As Brigid and the other Pyrelighters gathered a small collection of the ashes of each of their dead comrades, the living hoisted the prisoners up into the trees, and nailed their limbs spread eagle into the trunks. As Brigid completed her collection, she called out to the Alkari “Feel free to join in!”, before gingerly placing the Standardized Urn into her pack, and rushing to join the crucifixions.
For a moment, the Alkari soldiers went from being in silence respecting the children that went off to war to sheer shock at watching the barbarity of the crucifixions. Slowly however, the Sergeant walked up and said, “Wait, I have a better idea on how to crucify them.” He went to collect a couple large poles that look like they could support an Ursine and gathered a couple men together. They strung the poles together as tightly as possible, even carving the poles to fit together better, and then nailed the Balistrian to it laying down. Spreading an Ursine wide was a challenge, especially as the Ursine screamed and roared in protest of the nailing. Once the Balistrian was successfully nailed, the group of soldiers dug a wide enough hole to put the cross in and hoisted the Balistrian up.
The screams from the Balistrian pierced the air over the water, but his screams were met with cheers of excitement and happiness. To the Alkari, this was not just cathartic, but also a form of revenge. Killing vast amounts of Alkari had its consequences, and they were going to pay. The last thing one of the soldiers did as the Ursine screamed and gasped for air was douse the Ursine in the oil from the funeral pyres, and lit the Ursine on fire.
The Alkari didn’t care about the screams of pain and anguish from the cross they put the Balistrian on. At this point, all they saw was something to celebrate.
Brigid, giggling the whole time, shouted “That’s the spirit!” The children laughed as they took the Alkari’s idea, and even set a few of the Ballistrians already nailed to the trees alight with the Pyre torches. Many of them haven’t felt this excited since the Milofite Council had been beheaded.
All of a sudden, one of the last convoy trucks arrived. The celebration was cut off quickly for the Alkari who all realized who it was. They all knew what was about to happen…and hopefully none of them would be Marshalled for their actions. Just as the truck slowed down enough, a man jumped out of the truck screaming his head off at all the soldiers.
“GET THE FUCK INTO FORMATION! WHO IN THEIR RIGHTFUL XAETHOS’S MIND GAVE YOU THIS COMMAND??? AND WHERE THE HELL IS THAT IDIOT BRIGID???” the Lieutenant yelled, “ALL OF YOU ARE WILL BE UNDER MARSHALL ONCE I CALL HER ROYAL MAJESTY ABOUT THIS!!!”