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[thetriangle]

[[Be warned, I have just watched Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet and now I am slightly obsessed with iambic pentameter.]]

Savan took a moment’s thought and listened
While the wind whispered placid on the grass.
He really didn’t like Evan thinking
Of something that he hadn’t. He quickly thought,
And soon knew what he had to do. He said
“We still must move, and if we cannot ride
We’ll walk for now. Take only what we need,
We can get more at any town. We’ll need
To make it look as though you tried to kill
Me, failed, and now you flee while I have had
To follow you on foot. We must prepare.”

Savan dismounted, and trusted Evan
To get ready. He drew his sword a few
Inches and pressed the back of his left hand
Onto the edge until his blood began
To trickle down his wrist. Then with a small
Stick he wrote in his blood on the saddle,
‘Evan is the one you have been seeking,
He killed his accomplice and tried the same
To me, I follow him still, he goes west.’

Savan wondered if he should make Evan
Cut the animals throat, but decided
That the boy wasn’t ready yet. He drew
His sword, slowly, savouring the silence
Of its soundless shimmer in the pale
Light of the moon, the small stain of his blood
Seeming black against it. ‘Shhhh’ he whispered
In the horses ear, as he slowly, calmly
Pressed the cold sword blade to its neck.
He paused and let the animal get used
To the feel of his blade, and then with a
Sudden force he cut through the horse’s throat.
A spray of blood drenched his coat as the horse
Reared up and gave an anguished scream of pain.
Savan stepped back from the dying creature
And it fell to the ground still shaking with
Its dying throes as its blood quickly drained.

“Sir Walter will be there, you have my word.”
Said Savan, removing his bloody coat
And wiping his stained sword on it. He left
It on the ground and sheathed his sword again.
“I will be doing as I wish, and that
Is all you will need to know about it.
We must go now. We keep moving tonight.”
Savan began to walk westwards again.


[[ummm… sorry about that if its at all difficult to make sense of. Ummm… just try to ignore the lineation and it should work.... Actually, reading back over it it’s pretty pathetic as far as the meter is concerned but it basically sticks to it without going all ‘thee, thou and thy’ and I had fun so there. I sort of like the enjambment, actually, especially in speech. I’m going to stop typing now.]]

[Treijim]

[It makes perfect sense ]

Evan watched all the while; sometimes cringing, sometimes blank, sometimes frowning, and with nary a sign of approval. When Savan killed the horse and then wrote on it in his own blood, he shook his head subtly. Then, as Savan began to walk, he thought about what was said. None of it was what he wanted to hear, but it helped him to make his next set of decisions.

There was a few moments of silence, and only the wind blew in their ears. Once Savan had walked a suitable distance, Evan moved to the other side of his own horse, and unlatched something large draped in cloth. With a sigh beneath his breath, he quietly drew the cloth off and braced it against his body.

Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.

Had Savan turned around, he would have only had time to see the repeater crossbow pointed at him, and the four bolts that were now finding their way into his lower leg muscles. Evan held the grip of his sword.

[... because it's not like anybody can avoid crossbow bolts they're not aware of]

[thetriangle]

[[uhhh... ok, umm... the only repeater crossbow ever invented was by the chinese, and it can fire 10 bolts in 15 seconds, so long as you don’t try to aim it, because the action for cocking back the string and adding another bolt necessitates the entire crossbow moving about, and there is no other way to do this, Newtons Laws, you see. The mechanical process requires the same amount of energy as drawing a crossbow, and that energy must have an ‘equal but opposite.’ With a bow or crossbow this is spread out or dissipated or the aim is readjusted, but if you’re trying to fire a bolt every few seconds that energy is concentrated and you don’t have time to do anything about it, but even if you could fire at 10 bolts in 15 seconds with some degree of accuracy, there would still be at least 6 seconds between the first shot and the fourth, which is more than enough time for a reaction from Savan. I must therefore assume that this crossbow fires at a higher rate, or has four strings already pulled, but then the thing would wobble with each shot, newtons laws again, so you still couldn’t get the clustering on a small muscle that you describe, and having it braced against the body wouldn’t help to any approachable degree. I am assuming it doesn’t fire four bolts simultaneously, as you describe four separate ‘snap’ sounds, but even if it did it could not possibly be accurate to that degree, bolts and arrows flex in flight, they would get in each others way, so it couldn’t work...

Right, as I see it, the options are;
1. Savan was hit by a single bolt in the leg, Evan has since pulled back the repeating action and is now ready for another shot, although I assume he had to put the crossbow down to be holding the grip of his sword.
2. Savan was hit by a single bolt in the leg, Evan shot two into the sky, and one managed to end up sticking out of the horse behind him. The crossbow has another shot in it, although I assume he had to put the crossbow down to be holding the grip of his sword.
3. Savan was hit by a single bolt in the leg, and three are in the ground behind him. Evan now needs to reset four separate mechanisms to reload the crossbow (or he could set one mechanism, I suppose, but either way it will take time), and I assume he had to put the crossbow down to be holding the grip of his sword.

I think the first one is the only one that actually makes any sort of sense, so I’m going to go with that one.
Well, I now imagine you’re thinking something on the lines of ‘yes I know all that I’m not an idiot!’ and then some sort of simple and elegant explanation that solves everything but which I totally failed to see, and when you type it out my face shall turn a rather embarrassing shade of red, but since you’re not here, and this is in danger of being longer than my actual post, Onwards! ]]


Savan smiled as the blood from the bolt trickled down the back of his leg. He resisted the urge to move to soon. He would let Evan think, just for a few seconds, because a few seconds is all it takes for the doubt of morality to seep in. He’d never had the time for morality, all it is, is doubt, and Savan was certain, he was always certain, he was certain of it. He counted to six, before bending down and kneeling in the earth, still facing away from Evan, letting him see the sharp tip of the bolt biting and tearing and cutting at the muscle as it flexed.

He reached around, and pulled out with a vicious tug the bolt in his leg, and the blood spluttered and gushed from the hole, and began soaking his clothes and the ground around him. He grabbed a handful of dirt, stood, and turned to face Evan. Slowly; he drew his sword, and stuck it in the ground in front of him.

“Think on Carson,” he said. His voice was calm and even, without a hint of pain or impatience, but his eyes had an unnatural intensity to them, a certain focus that at once drew the gazer in and frightened them with its energy, a gaze almost hypnotic in its ability to capture and command a rigid attention.

“Think on Carson, dead and buried, turned to dust and dirt and clay and swept along on winds and currents and by the heavy boots of men. He’s everywhere, Evan, in the earth and air around us he is floating and falling and fallen and by our footfalls trodden every day of our lives. Think!” A brief flicker of something else crossed Savans eyes, some new emotion, but it was quickly buried.

“Can you think! Can you imagine! That that earth, that earth that was blind but saw the infinite ways of the world in his mind and he understood. He understood it all! He would feel the grain of wood and know the tree and the soil and the wind and the water and the seed from which it grew, he would know the life of the carpenter, the mother and father, the home and the tools and the blacksmith who forged them. In the sound of every drop of rain he heard the wind and rivers and streams and clouds and the waves of all the oceans and he understood!” The emotion flickered into his eyes again, and it was loneliness, but then it disappeared again as he crushed it back into the bottom of his soul. He lifted his hand, and let the dirt trickle through his fingers in a slow stream to be caught by the wind.

“How fitting then, that all that understanding of the universe became a part of universe itself. Breathe him in Evan, and in that breath - feel his soul, and the soul and the life of the carpenter and the blacksmith and their parents and their sons and their daughters and their sons and daughters after them, all dead and gone and dust, you can’t feel them can you? How do you and the millions like you floating on this ocean not understand? How can you not feel them?” another emotion, now in his voice, a desperation, but fought back and gone again, just as quickly.

“Ask yourself that, and then ask yourself how much of this world you really understand, ask yourself if you really know what’s right and what is wrong. I can see it in your eyes, a constant doubt, it’s always there, from the second I met you to this very moment when I see it in you like a child’s terror, you don’t know, you don’t understand, and it terrifies you because you can’t know! Because if you’re certain your right, then you must be certain that anything different is wrong, and difference is what freedom is, if you deny us our difference, then you know your morals are meaningless. Co-operation is the aim of all evil.” Savan paused, seeming to catch his breath, and he looked down at the small pool of blood around his injured leg, he raised his gaze, and looked directly into Evans eyes.

“What have you done tonight? You’ve shot a child, from behind, a child whose life is slowly bleeding out to join the endless nameless dead, and for what? For killing a horse? Or for crimes you haven’t seen? Crimes you only have a liar’s word for? Come on, Evan! You know the war would never happen, the Leotynes are a defensive nation, even if they believed me, believed this letter, all they would have done is fortify their borders and wait!” Savan had withdrawn the envelope from his pocket, the envelope Boris had given him, and now he bent down again, fresh spurts of blood draining from the wound in his leg. He pushed the envelope into the blood soaked ground, and watched as it turned red before rising once more.

“And guess what then? Nothing! Nothing would happen! You know all this, so really, why’d ya do it? Huh? You did it because you're frightened of me, your terrified, because when you look into my eyes you see what you could have been. But for a freak twist of fate, an accident of birth or upbringing or chance of time and place, you could have been like me, you could have been the incarnation of evil in the eyes of all the world. Judge me Evan!” Savans voice was even but impassioned. His face was turning a sickly pale and his body had began to tremble and shake
“ Pass your sentence on me now! Pick up that crossbow and shoot me! Through the heart, Evan! Decide! Decide with certainty right now, and live a life with this one moment of understanding, live knowing that in this moment you decided forever who you were! And when you’re dust, when you’re dead, buried and your bones have finally turned to nothing, in a thousand years, will this planet for your contribution have a few more particles of dust that was once good, or once was evil? But the thing is, for my final trick, you won’t know, you won’t understand, which decision was the good one, and which the evil one, until after you’ve made it. And then you’ll remember something I said to you just minutes after I met you on the road, and you will understand.”

The shaking in Savans body had grown in intensity, until now it seemed he could barely stand, he calmly tried to turn around, to await Evans response, but his leg finally failed him, and he fell. He tried to get up, but his arms were shaking with a violent intensity which soon overtook his entire body with brutal convulsions. And there, with his shivering and shaking body, so small on the bloody ground, with his sword pushed into the earth towering above him like a tyrant lord over his subjects, he seemed the most pitiful and pained creature in the world.



[[ wow, that was obscenely long... but surprisingly fun to write! But I feel I must acknowledge the thoughts of the greater minds than mine that lead me to it, the first is William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 5, scene 1.

“Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!”

And Terry Pratchett, I forget which book, but it was spoken by the Patrician Havelock Vetinari, a tyrant, and a man who understands freedom.

“Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny, free men pull in all sorts of directions.”

And with that, I must await your, and Evans, decision]]

[Treijim]

[[There are no Chinese people in Riiga. They're capable of inventing repeater crossbows without the help of people from earth This repeater crossbow isn't terribly large; because of its slightly smaller design, it can do about four bolts in five seconds, so your estimate of six seconds is close. Still, getting hit by a single bolt is fine.]]

For some time, Evan simply stared ahead, his face shadowed from the pale hoary glow of the moon. The crossbow had been placed on the ground, but it seemed to contain a magazine large enough to be holding a few more bolts. He made no effort to reach for it again, though. It could be heard, even from where Savan lay, that Evan was breathing deeply. He had listened to everything Savan said to him -- as he always did -- and was now clearly deep in thought. His hand was not relaxed from the grip of his sword.

He opened his mouth to speak: there came the distinctive sound of the saliva popping between his lips, but he said nothing until an owl had called in the distance.

"It was not the 'nothing' that would have happened that I was afraid of... It was what you would have done when your plotting would not come to pass the way you wanted. You kill in utter judgment, but I do not. I did not try to kill you. It was you who pulled the bolt from your leg... It was you who chose to worsen your wound almost beyond help... You could have left the bolt there, and you wouldn't be a pitiful blood-soaked heap, but you had to turn this around. You had to become the victim, so that you felt justified."

The wind carried noise of the hooves of horses. From behind Evan came the gentle glow of torches, but they were still a little way off.

"It's not my place to judge you. I brought you to the ground so that more people would not die. It is you who put yourself in this state, so you have nobody to blame but yourself."

He took a couple of steps toward Savan. His tone was different now; it was clearer and louder, but Evan did not sound angry. He sounded sorrowful.

"You seem to want to die, because it is you that is living without hope... you who is living in fear. I am not. I acted in sureness and I would act this way again. I may live to regret it later, but I don't care. At least I acted in a way that did not bring death. I will learn from this and you will not. I don't know much of your background, Savan, and I think it's rude to guess, but since you seem inclined to attack my morality, I will comment on yours: You have distorted views. People are not capable of being entirely good or bad. They do good and bad things all the time. But do you know what separates a good person from a bad person? I don't. It's not my place to judge. It's not yours, either. All I can do is try. We -- people -- are the only things capable of making completely irrational choices, and that's what makes us so clever. So... if you die, it is by your own hands and your own choice. Personally, I hope you decide to live. I shot you so that you would no longer be a direct threat, and so that, later down the track, I could help you."

He took another step closer, seeing that the sleeping tonic on the bolt was doing its work.

"You know, you remind me of my father... He talks about right and wrong all the time, but he always fails to follow through. 'This world is too unbalanced to rely completely on love, though love is the answer'. That's what my mentor taught me. I have to agree with it. There is a right way, but it can't always be accomplished through the immediate right way, if you know what I mean. Everything here is a result of what happ..." He suddenly stopped and his gaze drifted toward the ground. He didn't feel inclined to speak, as though he had gotten tired of his own words.

"Knights are on their way... They have medics and healers with them. You're going to be brought back to the camp to be healed, and they're going to want to restrain you. I'm considering telling them not to restrain you, but that's really up to you. I know it doesn't feel good."

He turned and watched the glow from over the next hill approach.

"Maybe one day you'll learn the difference between killing a person, killing an animal, and killing a monster..."

[Treijim]

[Continued in Troubled Minds landofriiga.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=jevithem&thread=343 ]