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I didn’t break it. But while you’re here feel free to enjoy something a special below.

Rory of Basisk (Excerpt from uncompleted and unpublished book.)

Prologue

News gradually spreads throughout the Branellian nation that, after years of bloody combat, the Border War between Branell and Embrey has finally ended. As both sides claim victory, controversies and debates continue to rage over the actual border between the two countries. These issues must fully be hashed out between Branell’s King Josiah and Embrey’s King Hiroyuki, with encouragement and guidance from Interim Governor Theo.

“Sorry to hear about your wife,” was the one phrase Branellian Army Lieutenant Jason heard over and over, within the past few weeks. If the young officer had a gold coin for every time he heard those six works, he’d easily retire at the grand old age of twenty-one . . . Jason was on his way to the Embrian front, when the Border War ended. 

Arriving in Wallingford, this young lieutenant of logistics was assigned to move men and equipment back to their home base in Basisk. There he learned that his wife of thirteen months had died during childbirth, leaving a stillborn son. Maintaining a stiff upper lip despite this ill news, Jason copes with a form of subtle devastation. Never once does he shed a tear of Charlene’s passing. He gets to work on time, while managing his duties in a respectable manner. His outward appearance and features reveal no emotional scars or wounds. Jason’s father, a veteran soldier named Colonel Norman, hammered home the idea to always be a man, no matter what life throws at you. Always be a man . . . 

Colonel Norman was killed at Mount Patten, when Jason was just a youngster. Even if Jason disliked his father, he wished to make the man proud. Strangely, it upset him knowing that he never wept for his pa, either. With sleepless nights and gut-wrenching despair, Jason somehow smiles pleasantly whenever people kindly paid their condolences for Charlene. As an officer and a gentleman, he cannot afford to show emotion, or seek words of comfort from the local clergy. He even ignores the Army chaplain’s requests to meet at the base’s house of worship. Jason had sworn to be faithful and loyal to Charlene, vowing to never remarry. He loved Charlene since their school days, and figured he always would. On that lonely Thursday night, Jason does the unthinkable. He seeks the love and affections of a woman. Any woman, despite her background and reputation. Not prone to enter such establishments, Jason enters a saloon frequented by military personnel, for the sole purpose of buying one of their sporting ladies. Sitting alone at a corner table, Jason sips his glass of wine while convincing himself that he isn’t all that interested in a woman’s company. Jason and Charlene were virgins on their wedding day. Indeed, Charlene was the only woman that Jason had ever been with. He prefers to keep it that way. Lost in an inner debate on whether to leave the saloon, or give into lustful desires, Jason gulps down the remainder of his drink. He hates returning to the base, to a dark, lonely, miserable bed, with his guts twisted around in knots. What difference does it make? He still has a job to do, with fighting men under him who require his attention and devotion. It agonizes him knowing that his soldiers are all battle-hardened men, as he never once tasted the bitter sting of combat. He remains a novice, untested, peach-fuzzed lieutenant. And the men know it. With no war to fight, for the exception of a minor insurrection in southeastern Branell, Jason figures he’d serve, and eventually retire in a time of peace . . . . . . and never win the respect of a stern man who died several years ago . . . . . . a man Jason may have loved, but never truly liked. Like many citizens of Basisk, Jason attends the execution of the three Branellian separatists. 

Unflinching when two of the traitors are killed at the end of their ropes, Jason is disturbed to see the third, only a lad, die slowly and horribly. He wonders if the kid was indeed a fanatical supporter of the Castellano Rangers, or an unwitting participant, placed in the noose by cruel trick of birth. What difference does it make, now? The kid was dead. As dead as those thousands of Branellian soldiers who fell during the Border War, as dead as his father Colonel Norman . . . . . . and as dead as Jason’s wife and unborn child. Jason frowns, in disgust. What’s he doing, entering the drinking parlor for the sole purpose of lying with a woman of ill-repute? Untested or not, he owes his men the necessity of setting a better example than that.

“Sorry to hear about your wife,” someone says to Jason, in the noise and confusion of the busy saloon.

Taken a bit off-guard, Jason turns to see a close companion and superior officer approach the table.

“General Carr,” he greets, embarrassed to be sitting in the saloon, pondering a night with a lady of the night.

“Relax,” says Carr. A man in his early fifties with a graying mustache and sideburns, he welcomes himself to Jason’s table, and requests a bottle of the saloon’s finest whiskey. 

“Sorry to hear about your wife,” he repeats, smiling as the waitress delivers the bottle. 

“Thank you,” replies Jason, shifting uneasily in his chair. Though his voice says ‘no big deal,’ his pained expression says otherwise. “That’s life. People are born. People have to die.”

“And what are you going to do about it?” Carr demands, in a pushy voice.

Jason shrugs his shoulders, while thinking himself the fool.

“Move on, I suppose,” he says, quietly. “God Almighty didn’t ask my permission when he took Charlene from me . . .”

“What does God Almighty have to do with it?”

“When I was a schoolboy, I was taught that God loves us all. What loving god takes a man’s wife and son from him?” Sighing, Jason is ashamed to make such a revelation. 

“Frankly, General, I’m not even sure I believe in God anymore! I wonder if it’s all just fairytales and bunk!”

“Sorry,” apologizes Carr, pouring Jason a drink. “I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that, when a man goes through what you are now, they often rethink their place in the Army. Either they end up quitting on me, or carrying on in such a way where I almost hope they would. You’ve been a reliable officer, Lieutenant Jason.”

“My father wouldn’t think so,” Jason says, absently, lost in his own grief and uncertainty. Carr squints at the younger man.

“What makes you think that?”

“When did I ever make my father happy?”

“You know as well as I do that your father was not the man he so claimed to be,” says Carr. “He was frustrated in his career, felt he wasn’t given the credit or glory due him. I’m guessing that was on his mind before an Embrian swordsman decapitated him at the base of Mount Patten.”

“He was an ogre to my mother and me,” admits Jason. “Even if I won the Branellian Medal of Honor by leading a victorious charge through the heart of Sykes, do you think my old man would acknowledge it?”

Carr sighs. “You’re not your father.”

“No, and I didn’t get my head cut off at Mount Patten.”