Fellow Quar fanatic Maccioniath has written an number Quar story's this one the "Last dawn ' is similar to my vignette. There are a number of story's that he has posted and are all worth the read give them a look you wont be disappointed especially if your a Quar fan
It was the ninetieth day of the siege. Is-Caerten Hyg’glo stood on the firing step of the nearest line of trenches, the rest of the 3rd Platoon gathered around him. His unit – the 41st Regiment of Foot – was new to the scene. They’d only cycled through in the last four days. It had been long enough. They’d been to Fidwog for a spell. They’d seen Inishcol up close. They’d spent six months on the line up by Alv, throwing gourds around with some of the boys from Maer Braech, while the Coftyrans sat up on their Wall and threw rotten fruit at them. Nobody had been too keen on fighting there; it was just too hot.
It was different here.
The sea breeze from the Bay of H’nddae always carried the stink of gunsmoke and burning things. Kites and krates never stopped buzzing overhead. Some dropped bombs, some strafed the lines, some didn’t. There was no rhyme or reason to it. The city itself was a mile off, right on the water. The Wall was down, breached in a dozen places between here and Parch, but H’nddae was still in Coftyran hands. The only thing between the city and the Crusader army was the fortress they were laying siege to.
Pryz’myl was huge, easily the size of Hyg’glo’s village back in Sleveen. Most of it was underground; the only parts visible were towering concrete bunkers mounting the heaviest guns, firing around the clock. Every side was bristled with pillboxes and machinegun nests. A hundred thousand rhyflers were supposed to be in there. Inside the ring of concrete, a dozen heavy flakkers kept all but the heaviest airships at bay, and the kites from the aeries down south took care of those. The burnt-out skeleton of a Goana-class loomed out of no-quar’s-land, shreds of fabric still fluttering in the light breeze. Eighty-nine days of dropping shrapnel shells – High Command still hadn’t sorted that out, the fools – on fortified positions and concrete had done nothing but give everyone ringing ears. Those same fools had decided it was time for another frontal assault, that surely by now the quar inside Pryz’myl must be worn down and vulnerable. So they’d brought in a dozen new catrawds, fired the heaviest guns all night, and had six wedges of tractors ready to exploit any gaps the infantry forced.
Hyg’glo, with all the experiences of a trencher, was less optimistic. He’d given his orderly a letter for his wife and a small box for his kit, and an envelope for the Special Union quar detailing how to prepare his body and where to send it. Gyll had wept when Hyg’glo gave it all to him, but he was a good adjutant and would follow his instructions to the letter. GHQ had told the officers to have their quar ready for just after dawn. The Coftyran guns had stopped firing about three hours ago. It puzzled Hyg’glo. All the intelligence they’d received said Pryz’myl was stocked for no less than two years of constant siege, from guns to shells to foodstuffs. Maybe the gunners knew something was coming and were just taking their rest. Either way, the is-caerten was enjoying what he could out of this last dawn.
The guns stopped. Hyg’glo snugged his helmet down tight and checked the clip in his Bogen. He fished the whistle out of his pocket. His father had used that same whistle, had carried it home from the Borderers against Leitrom in the 40’s. There was a special section of his letter reserved just for it, and an extra gold piece. The rest of the platoon didn’t need the whistle to know it was time. They all lined up on the firing step, waiting for the final signal. Thousands of Crusaders in a wide arc around the fortress were doing the same things, feeling the same cold knot in their bellies. Either way it would be over soon.
The signal came. A single, bright purple starshell exploded high above the fortress. Just as Hyg’glo put the whistle to his lips, he heard gunfire. Distant, muffled, but definitely gunfire. Not to be unexpected, given what was about to happen. Someone getting a touch overzealous, he assumed. He blew three long, loud blasts on the whistle and pulled himself out of the trench. The platoon followed him, good lads all.
The steel girders of the crashed airship were already far behind them when Hyg’glo noticed something strange. The Coftyrans inside Pryz’myl were shooting at them, but the fire was desultory, disorganized, almost nonexistent. Not a single rhyfler in the platoon had stopped a bullet yet, or even been grazed. It was too good to be true. The officer winced. He knew better than to think things like that.
Whatever it was, though, it kept up. The platoon – and hundreds of other rhyflers all around them – got right up to the walls of the fortress. He could see guns tracking them from the pillboxes, but no one fired. The crowd of rhyflers got bigger and bigger as no one knew where to go. Hyg’glo had been in the army for three years, first fighting against the Crusade, then for it. He’d never seen anything as strange as this.
Off to the right, a steel door sunk into a sally port cracked open. A dozen Crusaders spun and fired, their Bogens sending sparks off the thick metal.
The door cracked open again. Hyg’glo put himself between the platoon and the doorway.
“Parley,” a voice inside croaked. A skeletal hand holding a filthy white handkerchief waved through the opening. Hyg’glo held up his own hand, trying to calm the jumpy rhyflers all around him.
“Parley,” he agreed. The door opened wide enough for the trooper inside to slip out. He didn’t need much room. His uniform was disgusting, threadbare rags barely hanging on his bony shoulders, and his pants weren’t even regulation trousers, just a barley sack cut and restitched. A Doru hung on a sling over his shoulder. There was no magazine in it. The quar had almost no belly at all. The stench coming off him was palpable.
“What happened here?” Hyg’glo asked. He had to put a handkerchief over his snout against the stink of unwashed bodies. Other troopers were filing out the door, tossing their empty weapons in a haphazard pile.
“No bullets. No food. Water ran out.”
“You’re Coftyran?”
“No. Craesilian. Came here after the Crusade took the Citadel. Didn’t want to give up.”
“But… but you just did.” Hyg’glo was confused. Surrender was not an option typically open to quar.
“Yes. This was different. We came here to fight for what’s right.”
“So what happened?”
“It was okay ‘til the wall fell. The Coftyrans, the rhyflers and line officers, they fought right next to us. But the caernerols, their staff, their mistresses – they locked themselves in the keep. Ate fresh meat, vegetables, wine, every night. We didn’t even have weevils or moth dust. They sold it all before the siege. Bullets, shells too. For ninety days we had nothing. I ate my shoes.”
“And the staff?”
The Craesilian said nothing. He unslung his Doru and held it out to Hyg’glo. The barrel was still warm. After a time, the trooper whispered, “We saved our last bullets for them.”
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