Reclusland

The Fish we used against the Garden People came from far off, and bringing them here was a hard task of luck and love.  We brought them from the River Hern, and hid them like cows in summer fields of long grass and hay.  Then we sat to wait. Soon the Judge came down from The Mountain and said it was time for war.  And we used the Fish to great effect in the Battle of Eltern’s Garden.

To be true, it was horrible for the Garden culture. Using Rabbits from the warrens of Augenblick would have been kinder.  Even the Great Wagoners fought the men and women of the Garden with thousands of Rabbits from the green pastures of Blumenbeete, and did so with much success.

But we used Fish from the Hern, and the enemy shook, and some went into seizures when they saw us astride the great Salmon, dying in waves of hopelessness, all lying face down in the green grass.  The others ran, or stood their ground to fight, but none could stand long against the terrible Fish…

Then the battle was won, and the Vogel came, as is their want, to wipe the fallen warriors’ foreheads and cover their eyes with cloth.  We fed the enemy to our great Sturgeons, (the fish used the world over, those great Sturgeons, for clearing away what the other fish had killed), and they feasted on the fallen enemy ranks from sunset to sunrise.

Once the fields were emptied of the frenzied fish, all that was left of the dead was their weighted armor, and among the armor sat the Vogel, angered at the lack of respect. We chased them from the fields with a loud clamor and by quickly rushing at their heads…

At dawn, we let the Fish rest. Often had Fish been pushed to hard on the battlefield, and, going mad, turned on their masters.   Such a fate had befallen the Vorhange, leaving a dire warning in the pages of history.  So dire, in fact, that mammals have been preferred ever since for the purposes of warfare and the feast afterwards.

We then went out onto the emptied field and drank fermented Kerzenrauch in memory of the enemy who had put up such a valiant fight.  To not show even this little respect to the fallen warriors went against the ways of the Gods.  And since we had use the Great Fish, those ferocious weapons of war, we must appease the Gods thus, to ensure that our tale does not fade with the night.

art by Michael Cheval
© 2008
(used with permission from the artist)