Someone Else's Kingdom, BOOK II - Scene LXXV

Ship, lumber, mast, hourglass, past. Tattered Brynnyfirdian ships slowly ruined on the high seas. An old cat with tired reflexes, fending off the pecks of a thousand soulless birds; in the last moat of water around their green, sodden island. Were all the slain ghosts from previous wars to rise, to make battle against the living, they would be but a drop in the turmoil. The enemy so numbered, the war so total in its reach. In the far away mainland harbours more were yet ready. More sail, more soldiery. Only the hope of a second tempest giving promise to halting a second swarm.

The eastern seas were a near mirror. From the far red skies came ever more galleys of war. The endless forge of men, wood and metal. The entire Eastern Kingdom a mine dug for the rocks of siege. Still, Prince Reach's counter-offensive managed somehow to burst through the massy line. The cannon ends a crimson glow, as they crushed stray ships with heavy shot. And where ships collided, so too did men. The Maiden Land sons, with angered sword in hand, fighting through the smoke for their blessèd daughters. The cry raged, the flags billowing: "Death or Glory!" The shallow thoughts - the lemming-like rush to throw bodies onto the naval pyre, or into the swampy deep - allowing for depths of bravery and honour that no thinking man could aspire to. Which side had the higher hand was impossible to tell, but as the blood, in its endless effluence, failed to taint the blue-grey sea, it was clear that nature could be the only winner.

On land nature did however feel the mar of Man. The bloody fields red with glory, and shinny with blooded metal. A testament to the violent advance of the vengeful Maiden Landers. Their lycanthropic fury bowling through the conquering Eastern Kingdom troops. The pageantry now manifesting a thirsty, murderous lust.

As the Queen sat in her cool, concealed parlour, her men, partly inspired by her golden casket, went forth to reclaim her land. The rout being far from complete, but at least on land, where nature remained under foot of man, the tide was turning.