Fresh off the victory of Brock's Pass the collection of reprobates that deemed to call themselves Claudell's Marines staggered away drunk both literally on a lot of pints, and figuratively on its own sense of power. I say we called ourselves Claudell's Marines because, well we did, none of us had managed to figure out a new name to attach to our mast, and therefore we wandered around as Claudell's Marines. We were just missing Claudell, and as mentioned before none of us were in any shape, form, or fashion marine material. Hell, I couldn't even swim. We had won the battle of Brock's Pass, and we thought that maybe this fighting thing wasn't so tough after all, and therefore, full of piss and vinegar we stumbled onto Power's Gate.
By this time, Wilson had managed to find a new 'leader' to be the semi-loyal second in command to. His name was Apple, like the fruit. He was far, far from a fruit. He was a hard man, tough as a two dollar steak, and as dumb as a box of hair. Perhaps, that was what endeared him to Wilson. Hard but stupid is a lot easier to control than a thinking man who doesn't really want to die, but realizes that he has to fight for a living. I wasn't involved in the command decisions of the group who by now had decided that Lobar's Wolves had a intimidating ring to it. Therefore we were newly christened Lobar's Wolves. No one had to know that Lobar was the cook of the outfit, who it seems had one goal, which was to poison us with his terrible cooking. Perhaps, we could wreck terrible revenge forcing Lobar's 'stews' upon the unsuspecting populace of the world. If the stew didn't kill us first.
Victory, no matter how easily achieved, has an affect on people. Win one, and you start to think maybe you are a lot tougher than you really are. I mean after all, Brock's Pass was a walk in the park wasn't it? Maybe Hester's Reach was just a mistake, an anomaly that wasn't a true expression of our fighting abilities. Yes, that had to be it, Hester's Reach was just a foolish mistake made by that damn fool Claudell and now that he was rotting, unmourned, in his grave, we could move on to victory after victory, and become the men our mothers wanted us to be. Of course the problem with becoming the men our mothers wanted us to be just meant we were becoming our fathers, a terrible idea for a lot of us.
Avoiding falling into the trap of "becoming my father" was the main reason that I took the King's Highway away from the small, small town that threatened to "swallow me". But, as I have said, victory does crazy things to people, and despite our most fervent sputtering to the contrary. We marched the direction they told us to march, because that's what dogs do, they follow the path the master has pointed out. Apple was a bastard, but he marched right with us, no fancy high horse for him. Apple ordered you to march with him, not for him. That makes a very, very large different once things that can kill you start getting thrown around.
Swaggering away from Brock's Pass, our newly christened band of idiots now known as Lobar's Wolves, decided to go north. I mean on maps north is up, and we all want to get "up" in the world right? We packed our death dealing baggage and hit the road. Thankfully for us, the powers that be had built a fairly easy road north. Striding north, on good paved roads, led us to getting what was, for us, considered "happy" not the smiling, giggly type of happy that most people experience, but a brief lifting of the gloom which is what passed for happy for us. When things seem to be too good to be true, they probably are, it was on that gentle walk north to nowhere, that Lobar's Wolves ran into Powers' Gate.
The flatness of the road was a lie, a trick played by the god(s) of geography into making us think we had a easy run in front of us. As usual, we were wrong, it wasn't Apple's fault per se, but a few of my fellow 'wolves' weren't best pleased with him. Flat land does funny things to time, climbing up, or falling down a hill or mountain has a way of making time flow a bit differently. It slows at some points, and speeds up at some points, but when walking on flat grass and seeing nothing much more than flat grass all around, time drags. Eventually, the fattest among us started to complain. It seems that the fatties of the group could tell when they were walking uphill.
As we topped the rise that the fatties had told us we were climbing we stopped for a second. Most people, if they are actually human, stop for second at the sight of Powers' Gate. The South River tore a great, gaping hole in the landscape in front of us. It made zero sense that the South river would be north of where we had been, but who are we Mercator? The South River had at least one unique quality about it. For reasons none of us could figure out, drinking from the South River made about 1/3 of us puke our guts out. We had a doctor with us, and one would think he would have sorted out what made the water make some of sick, but when he was sober (which was one day in three) he would say it's in Gods hands.
A religious doctor was as useful as tits on a boar hog, but he was all we had. And when it is the only opinion you are given, well then it has to be true. The power that the South River threw against Powers' Gate was amazing to behold. The cannoning of hateful water against the iron gates of disdain was enough to make a man deaf as a post. The news that we were dreading, but assured of, happened within minutes. Our task was to force/take those gates to slam into those gates like the South River, but with the added benefit of capturing the gates for the Empire.
Powers' Gate didn't fuck around, it was very tall, very solid, and very much storm proof. The son of a bitch that had designed Powers' Gate was a real bastard of engineering. I don't think the Empire was ready to pay the bill that it would cost them to have us force Powers' Gate. But, funny thing about Empires they pay those costs all the time, need a garrison of men to die for the cause in some desert wasteland? The Empire can provide, need a band of heroes to die in the flat grasslands of the East? Ask and the Empire shall provide. Want to launch a winter crusade? The Empire will provide a multitude of men wearing crosses on their armor prepared to die for whatever God you are crusading for, and a few for the God you are crusading against just to make it interesting.
However, Empires be damned, we weren't Empire men. We were Lobar's Wolves, and Lobar's Wolves didn't want to get sent home in tiny, wooden boxes to the few loved ones they had left behind. But we had been paid, and Lobar liked to say that "once I've been paid, I always see the job through." It would have made a nice epitaph for his tombstone, problem was we never found enough of Lobar to bury, so he received no tombstone. The main problem was we weren't experts at this fighting business one crushing defeat, and one walk over victory do not make hardened mercenaries out of farm boys, shop clerks, and degenerate gamblers. Powers' Gate was very much a bridge too far for Lobar's Wolves, and it was at Powers' Gate that Lobar's Wolves ceased to exist.
I somehow managed to stagger away from the disaster of Powers' Gate, one of the few of us that did. I don't remember much about it. I take that back, I remember way too much about it, but every time I think of it, I go and get mind numbingly drunk to make myself unremember it. It is not a pleasant memory, nothing about the massacre that happened at Powers' Gate bears remembering or repeating. Apple died, Lobar died, and most of Lobar's Wolves died. I almost died, there were and have been many, many times that I wish I had died there, and Wilson almost died, which is saying something, because Wilson is not the dying kind.
Powers' Gate was the kind of life altering experience that most men don't walk away from intact. I damn near didn't. Powers' Gate made me consider the priesthood, and I don't believe in any of the Gods. That's how bad it was. I counted the steps away from Powers' Gate in inches, not miles. Every inch away was a minor miracle. It was nasty, brutal, but not short. Time has a way of elongating when you think you are about to die, and I felt that the 'battle' of Powers' Gate lasted as long as the Trojan War.
I did manage to make it away from Powers' Gate alive, I had no dignity, I had no pride as a fighting man left, I was a husk. Someone who the battle had ripped open, and sucked out all but the very last dregs of life. It was a massacre, it was a disaster, and to this day we do not speak of it. All of all the bruises left on our collective souls, Powers' Gate is the biggest by far. It has never healed, and I doubt it ever will. It was nearly the end of me (us), and the less said about it the better. It was many years before I even considered re-entering the lists again. Many, many times after Powers' Gate, I considered joining my fallen comrades in the most simple of ways. It took a lot of will power that I didn't know I had to not just end it all, but I figured I owed the fallen something. I owed them the chance at redemption. It just was going to take a while to achieve anything close to it.
