Excerpt from Chapter 1: Sylvainth's Warrior Men
Introspection of the Dragaãnh: Who knows what is in the heart of a formidable warrior whose steely intentions monopolize the interest of his soldiers to the point of paralyzing in them, the slightest desire to disobey? But could we say that I was one of those?
Searle supervised the training of his men. Since the day before, the day after they returned from one of their expeditions into the danger zone, none of them had really rested; starting with himself. The officer was furious. Against himself, against his warriors educated with a relentlessness bordering on insanity, furious also against this woman who had been savagely torn apart and who had died of it. Furious also against the naivety of the latter. He hated this derisory and sterile work, of a degrading absurdity, but he had no choice of another goal. Only he could protect the barracks; only he had the knowledge.
His gaze swept the scene. About fifty battle-hardened Sylvaneeths, scattered in apparent confusion, were at that moment occupying the imposing inner courtyard of the garrison paved with reddish-brown stones extracted from the liquid bottoms of the aqualids. The immanent tint impregnated the military camp, of a bloody redness which accentuated the morbid atmosphere reigning permanently within the iloth. Bloody as the butchery that had taken place two days before, bloody as the body of this carefree Sylvaneeth that had served as a decoy and bait for some Draegs spotted during the previous incursions in the area of the ancient city, where these non-human monsters swarmed, month after month, year after year, reducing the number of Sylvaneeths and their companions.
"The City of the Dead", that's what they called, at home, the old city abandoned on the banks of one of the most impressive aqualides discovered to this day. It was because of the proximity of the huge loch and the lost city that the sylvaneeth soldiers had set up their base camp here, a little more than a day's walk away. The bitter war between the two races was so old that they had erased even the memory of its origin. The Draegs had only appeared three cycles ago, the officer said, feeling a singular and fierce hatred for the past. If one had known to foresee..., he often repeated himself. If the Humans of that time could have foreseen? Then it was too late, and now they were all still paying the price.
Searle felt the familiar anger that he had always tried in vain to control, to tame. The cause they were fighting for horrified him, like an anachronism from a bygone era that would pound the reality of tomorrow. Searle's blood boiled in his veins from the frustration of the past few weeks, from the inadequacy and powerlessness of their brigades against the hordes of vicious Draegs they faced year-round. The Artifice Woman was dead, dead from their incompetence; and he, Searle, could do nothing but watch the slaughter, like everyone else. There was no recourse; they were so helpless that it was sordid; sordid as well as grotesque. He clenched his fists; his lips closed in a barely visible line. His eyes crumpled under the foul sight. One of his men made a false move, and his capitanh became enraged, glaring at the clumsy man with a cold look.
- Get out of the ranks, Briehaemnt! Return to the junior section, for seven days, before you dare to return to us. Your impulses are abysmal, and you know it
[1] One cycle of time is equivalent to one hundred years.
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Your author Christine Barsi,
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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