Fiction for my "Players Guide" to my setting..

[Odinsgothi]

[ooc]At the suggestion of one of my Amigo's im working with on my Campaign Setting, i am writing bits of short fiction to inject throughout my guides. I decided to focus on the early career of an NPC who later rises to become an Ally and confidant for the Players. In short, it is a Pathfinder RPG setting best described as "Flintlock Fantasy". This is my first draft of the short story that i start with. Please let me know what you think. Note- posting it here lost all of my formatting.. sorry!! >_< [/ooc]


Captain William Coyet was surrounded. He had told Colonel Lennox that he thought the position was over exposed, being at the far left of the main line of battle, and on a ridge actually lower than the surrounding hills.  “Don’t over think the thing lad.” He had told William, “Those Orcs have no serious  heart for the thing. A few shots of canister , and they’ll high-tail it back to those hovels they call a home.” Lennox put an immediate end to any further conversation by sharply inhaling a pinch of snuff from a small silver container he quickly pocketed.
   That memory burned in his mind. Around him the men of his Company had been dying for more than three hours, and there was no quick end to the slaughter in sight as the sun had set beyond the horizon an hour before.  The fighting continued despite the darkness, and the torrential rains brought about by the great oceanic storms this time of the year, the combination of powder smoke, horns, the screams of dying men and beasts all in the mud and rain. This was a waste of lives William thought , a bloody waste, and in his mind it was all for the sake of one man’s glory.
The Orcs had long harassed the far flung way station of Jacks Landing, the only human settlement on a series of moderate islands in the far south western oceans. The Settlement had become critical to the Navy once the Setaanese and their allies closed all ports to Cambrian shipping. Now, the Orc hordes seeing a kings horde in supplies and wealth to be had, layed siege to the small settlement, having only the crudest of firearms, and in small number the siege dragged on while the helplessly outnumbered men and women in the settlement defend their home for three months before a squadron of Royal navy ships with Marines and the 66th Regiment of the Line. Colonel Lennox, long out of the battlefield, too long in Williams opinion, had taken command of the expedition and strategized a single knock-out blow, a stand up fight for the ages.
   To William, Colonel Lennox’s ideas about glorious victory stank of vainglory, of an old man’s last shot at a reputation, at glory.  A dangerous thing Glory is thought William, seemingly back in that moment walking out of Lennox’s office weeks ago. Now he stood shouting, not even he knew what as his boots sank into the mud formed by rain and blood beneath him.  Sergeant McCrea stood beside him, holding himself upright with aide of the company standard, showing bright the flag of the Cambrian Empire, and the 1st Company of the 66th Line.  Sergeant McCrea snapped up his left arm holding his pistol, heavily fouled by use, and fired. The bright flash forced Williams gaze away and forward toward the fray.
   Before him stood two ranks of now drenched and mud covered Redcoated soldiers, some still wearing their tall black Shako hats, others having been lost in the fight, or simply flung off by the wearer.  The first rank stood against a makeshift breastwork of felled logs, some branches left on in order to increase the difficulty in climbing over them,  and fired madly, having long ago been ordered to fire in their own time, which in this case was frantic. The second rank a few feet behind loaded their muskets with drill like precision, and readied their volleys on the order of Leftenant Miller.  Miller, a heavy set man in his late 30’s, old for a leftenant due to his having formerly been a ranker who was raised up to an Officer for an act of extreme bravery in battle. Miller stood with a violent, but professional look, his sabre and pistol ready. 
   “Front rank fall back and reload!” Miller screamed, and man by man the first rank along the breastworks peeled off and ran, sliding into position in the mud just behind the standing rank of leveled muskets.  One luckless soldier turned to run from his firing position on the breastworks, only to be knocked forward suddenly, a large and wicked hand axe lodged in his back, seeming to come out of nowhere from the darkness beyond the felled logs and rain.  The Soldier was dead before he hit the mud, another man turned to see as he slid in behind the standing rank of redcoats and yelled out to him.
“Oh mother of gods, Thomas! Sweet sun lords..” the soldier cried aloud seeing the fate of his friend.
“Quiet that man!” a nameless voice rang out.
For a long moment nothing was seen in the darkness beyond the felled logs, now draped with the crumpled red bodies of the dead. The sound of volley fire and cannon fire rang out from off to their right, a good sign that other companies were still holding their ground. Up and down the line bright red burning flares shot up and arced overhead toward the orc horde beyond. The illuminated was hellish red, washed out by the banks of powder smoke and rain. The scene illuminated for a few brief seconds was even worse.
   The entire valley, small as it was with it’s small creek running through the middle and out to sea, was alive, like a treat left out for the ants. It swarmed with movement like some living, evil thing with no other purpose than to kill. The red flares arced down over the mass, and the orcs eyes reflected the red glow like some nocturnal predator. Then suddenly the flares were out, and two, or three dozen Orcs crashed into the barricade and started chopping and climbing their way through.
Leftenant Miller dropped his sabre swiftly and fired his pistol hitting one of the brutes in its bared forehead knocking it back off of the log it was climbing over.
“Fire!” Miller screamed with a voice seasoned by years on a parade ground.
The Standing rank of Redcoats fired their muskets in perfect unison, the cloud of thick smoke instantly obscuring everything beyond.
“Second Rank, at the ready! First rank kneel and reload!” Miller snapped without pause, reloading his own pistol.
The redcoats smartly executed Miler’s orders, the first rank having now fired it’s volley now knelt and began reloading their muskets, drawing out the long ramrods, taking a paper wrapped cartridge from the white pouch on their crossbelts. They tore the paper cartridge pouring the powder down the barrel, rammed the paper, used as wadding, don with the ball on top. This entire process taking no more than 20 seconds for any Redcoat.
The second rank, the men who had fallen back from the log defenses, having now reloaded their own muskets stood and formed up quickly just behind the kneeling men, and clicked the ‘dog-heads’ back that held the flints in place, then raised their muskets up and to the ready.
As the smoke from the first volley cleared, a dozen or so of the offending orcs had been killed, or wounded badly enough that they would die in time anyway. Yet others still came through the breastworks, cleaver like swords and spears in hand, crude armor and clothes adding to the barbaric look of the already savage race.
“Second rank fire!” Miller shouted , raising his own pistol up to add to the volley.
William, watching this before him raised his own pistol again and took his shot, not in time with the volley but effective nonetheless. The first 8 Orcs charging the kneeling soldiers fell while others continued their charge only to be skewered on the long strait bayonets of the waiting Redcoats beyond the powder smoke.
“Back to the wall! Back to the wall!” Miller cried and ran forward, sabre swinging, at some target not visible to William through the smoke and gloom.
As  the first of two ranks of Redcoats ran forward with muskets at the charge, Bayonets pointed before them,  yelling and screaming,  as the sounds of metal on metal and animalistic cries could be heard through the chaos.  Thankfully the smoke cleared quickly as the rain increased, though this was a mixed blessing. They could see they were successful, they held the line, and pushed back the Orc charge, but soon the Misfires would begin.  This blasted rain would force them to win by push of the bayonet William thought gloomily. In close combat the Orcs had the advantage, but if discipline could be maintained, if the line held, they just might live for a few hours more.
   William’s thoughts were interrupted suddenly by another savage roar from beyond the felled logs,  and another charge of the savage beasts came pouring on.  The front rank, back at their positions along the trunk wall, the only thing separating them from the seemingly  endless hordes beyond, fired their muskets with frantic haste, then braced their bayonets for impact, some of the dumb beasts impaling themselves in what would have in another time and place, been almost comical. More rankers, freshly reloaded ran to aide their fellows, discharging their muskets then rushing forward to stab with their bayonets.
   William hardly realized he had been running toward the melee while he was taking this all in. His sabre was clutched firmly in his gloved right fist, while his smoking pistol was gripped in the other. When had he fired that shot? He wondered to himself for a moment before he slammed his body into a cleared space of the trunk, a Redcoat on either side of him. He gazed on and almost fell back in the mud as one of the beasts tried to charge his way through the tangle of branches facing outward from the log barricade.
   William regained his footing quickly as the Redcoat next to him stabbed forward with his bayonet to pierce the beast above the right shoulder.  William roared something incoherent aloud and chopped down onto the creatures face, slicing it’s features off clean, exposing bone and gore. The beast recoiled and fell back into the darkness screaming terribly. Another quickly took it’s place and William again thrust forward with his sabre using both hands having dropped his pistol in the mud and gore. Arterial spray shot up and across as yet another creature fell across the log, gurgles and croaks turning to gasps as one beast leapt up onto the back of his dying comrade and then leapt clear of the barricade inside the defenses. It came down next to a Redcoat frantically reloading his musket. He looked up in terror and froze, ramrod in his left hand mid way through the process. The Orc chopped down with a vicious Falchion cleaving the boy’s Shako and head and lodging itself in the boy’s collarbone. 
   Up and down the line Orcs were beginning to break through, at first in ones, then two’s, faster than could be put down. William turned to the Orc trying to pull it’s weapon out of the limp redcoats torso and ran at it Sabre arching in a brutal backhand left to right sweep, then William kicked the beast with all he had, knocking it, and himself backward into the muck. The tumble knocked the wind out of him, and his foot hurt enormously where he had kicked the beast.
   William looked up and froze as another beast, apparently also having followed the first’s example, lept beyond the barricade to land just behind him. The beast snarled in what may pass as a smile and raised it’s own axe over it’s head with both hands. William froze, realizing there was nothing he could do before it was too late, and stared up in horror.
   A bang rango ut and suddenly the world was filled with a bright burning red fire, and howls of pain. William snapped to his senses realizing he was alive and began to roll and claw his way up and to his feet. Before him he could see his would be killer grasping one of the glowing red aerial flares burning wickedly lodged in the beasts neck. Blood frothed and foamed and the stench of burning skin and hair was sickening as it slowly fell to it’s knees, then keeled forward limp and lifeless.
   William glanced back up the slope behind him and saw the flash and snap of multiple muskets, not in a neat line but in a loose groups of two, in skirmish order. By the gods, those aren’t muskets, those are rifles! It was the light company, and some clever little bastard had shot that Orc with the signal flare. He’d have to shake that little man’s hand when this was all over, William thought.
   Around him Redcoats started cheering once more as Orcs that had come through the line over the barricades began to fall, snapped backwards by sharp, precision shooting.  From beyond the far left of the line a howling of small high pitched voices crying out in the ancient sing-song language of the small folk, shouting ancient war cries and charging with more fury than would be expected given their size.
   The Halfling light company, their small rifles in one hand, and long wicked strait double edged daggers in the other, rose from the tall grass where they had been creeping along the depression beyond the ridge, up the slopes to outflank the assaulting Orc party. They rose as one, and ran, leaping over obstacles and spring-boarding off of rocks leaping at their foes, slashing with swift precision and finesse. From somewhere back up the slope where the light companies sharpshooters were firing at the Orc’s now stopped in confusion, a set of small shrill bellow-pipes sang out, the tune clarifying into “The Cambrian Grenadier March”, lifting the spirits of every soldier in earshot as they all began to cheer once more.
   The light company, having outflanked the main Orc assault party put them into disarray, the sharpshooters picking off the most aggressive and brave, which made the others falter.  The Light company’s charge from their hidden positions to the left of the line became a slaughter. In the dark and rain the Orc’s lost cohesion as the lightning quick little soldiers came slashing and chopping with a primal ferocity. The Orc assault quickly began to retreat, and as the signs became apparent a shrill bugle call from far left halted the Halflings from pressing the charge any further.
   William stood staring at the slaughter around him. Off, and up the line far to the right Cannon fire still sounded, and musketry continued, the pace not slowing. William though this a good sign, and for the moment it looked like they might get a brief reprieve to reorganize and rest. Sgt. McCrea and Leftenant Miller both struggled to walk over beside him, exhausted from battle and from the mud that sucked at their boots.
   “Good god’s that was a rare fight” Miller said half out of breath.
   “Second that sir. Too bloody close though if you ask me sir.” McCrea added just as spent.
William took his tall, braided Shako off and looked upward letting the rain wash the gore from his eyes and face before speaking;
   “And thank the gods for that damned light company! Sergeant, find me their officer I want to thank him.” He added.
   “Right away sir!” McCrea said with little enthusiasm and a half hearted salute, then trudged off.
William and Leftenant Miller stood wordlessly, watching their men in good order clean out their fouled weapons, check their flints and drink rain water gathered in their Shakos and cups, greatful for the respite. Some of the light company troopers came over the barricade with deft little hops and were greeted with the cheers and slaps on the backs from the Redcoated human soldiers. Some of the Redcoats pulled out small flasks they had secreted away, the ones they thought their Sergeants didn’t know they had, and started to pour some into the waiting cups of the Halflings now gathering around.
   Many of the little Halflings grinned ear to ear, having played the heroes yet again and now enjoying the rewards. One of them pulled out a little tin-whistle, a small simple tin flute, and began playing a lively little tune. Two of the Halflings hooked arms and began dancing, waving their Shako’s over their heads.  More of the Halfling light company troopers were coming in now, the sharpshooters from up the ridge had joined them as well as a finely dressed little officer, his sabre still bloody and in his hand marched right up to William and Miller.
   The Halfling with his smart red coat and green facings, his tall shako braided with light company cords. He wore a large mustache that was waxed up into twists, and had large styled sideburns down to his jaw. He had the swagger , and confidence of a professional soldier. He snapped his sabre up into a crisp salute, then introduced himself.
   “Captain Slingsberry of his majesties Royal Halflings, at your service gentlemen.” And bowed with a flourish. The other Halflings in earshot tipped their Shako’s in respect. Some raised little tin cups.
William quickly snapped his heels together and raised his own sabre in salute.
   “S.sir..” he coughed a bit. “It is my honour, and pleasure. I owe you the greatest of thanks on behalf of myself and my men..”
Now some of Willam’s Redcoats raised their canteens and lifted the Shako’s from their heads with words of agreement.
Slingsberry interrupted William with a dismissive wave;
“Ain’t giving you tall lad’s no special treatment, you’d have done the same for us any day I would imagine!” He added loudly looking around in approval at the dirty Redcoated soldiers around them, nodding in agreement.
“Ye’ll also be pleased to hear, you are being pulled off the line and repositioned behind the field guns. There’s a Cleric up there tendin’ to the wounded, and I hear she’s quite the pretty lass” He said with a wink to the cheers of the Redcoats hearing the news. Miller snapped about and his gaze instantly quieted those men now looking sheepishly downward.
William spoke up questioningly; “The Field guns sir?.. Forgive my asking why?”
Slingsberry sighs heavily and spoke in a low tone;
   “Between you me and the ghosts lad, our Colonel Lennox bit off a bit more than he could chew here. He’s consolidating the line and the light company, is to be the new Left flank, and slowly we fold back inwards.” He paused almost slipping in the mud.
   “The hope is those dumb brutes keep charging the line and we can cross em with canister fire, then we can pull our little flanking number once more and maybe, maybe, we send the bastards a packin’..” he concluded with a little nod.
William took this all in and nodded in agreement and understanding. Folding the line back in on itself one Company at a time and consolidating the fire on the tallest ridge, flanked by two batteries of field guns they could make slaughter all night and on into the day without losing any ground.
William turned to Miller, standing nearby and listening intently on the conversation.
“Miller, order each section to strip the kit from the dead and distribute the ammunition.  Then have them form up back beyond that ridge yonder..” he said pointing up the slope and continued; “I want sections A and B on the barricade until we retire”
Before Miller could say “Yes Sir” Slingsberry chimed in;
“My lads will cover you as you retire gentlemen, have no fear.” And puffed out his chest a little
Miller and William both smiled a little and nodded; “Yes Sir”

[Kindling]

Some very exciting action! I always think it's hard to write a good action sequence like that without falling into the "and then this happened and then this happened" kind of blow-by-blow commentary (which is why I often try to keep my action more abstract) but you've certainly avoided that trap admirably.

My only slight quibble is that although napoleonic infantry did aspire to 3 rounds a minute in any weather, surely with the kind of torrential rain you described at least some of their powder would have got damp? The Cambrian musketeers might well be struggling with soggy cartridges almost as much as with the Orcs.

I'm not entirely sure why you felt it necessary to change the spelling of lieutenant, but I'm sure you have your reasons :P

[Odinsgothi]

{ i know, i have debated the "weather" issue, and for all 15 or so of us history wonks out there i thought about making that an issue, however after a long debate i sort of sided with the "pulp action" side of my brain, which thought that details like that may actual detract some from the game flow. I had considered introducing a minor magical device called a "hot flint" which replaces a normal flint and will ignite the powder in the pan, even when wet via arcane means. I have been trying to make variations of titles/ranks but only slightly. I want to keep aspects of the familiar so players without knowledge of the era  can relate, while keeping it.. sort of original. What are your thoughts on these? ]

[LD]

I would go with the 'hot flint' (a wizard did it/unobtanium) angle. Shooting during that period in the rain is something that really stands out. Good luck! :)