The (hopefully) creative writings of Huhuran

[Huhuran]

Ok this site is way better than i thought.
Thanks again guys for the feedback, these are good ideas and someof things i had put thought into in creating the bear. I guess what happened is that i was timid about expanding the length of the story "too far" for the time being. And i will say that i typed it on my phone and the small screen restrictions were bugging me. I did build the character quite abit more inmy head and it will be fairly easyfor me to elaborate now that I'm thinking about it.
thank you again guys, it'll take me a while to rework it.

[Delta40]

Do that Huhuran and I'll be interested to see The Bear grow...

[hillwalker]

Unreadable I'm afraid.

H

[Huhuran]

Alright, so here's a new try at it. It seems to me like it drags on a bit much, but I figured i'd see what you guys think. I ended up pulling names out of space to help with my own sanity in keeping things straight.


The Bear
version 2

I looked across the field, somewhere around sixty Landanites were charging across the plain towards our hill. Fifteen of them were knights in full armor, riding armored horses. Great, red-clad monsters with beating hooves. In the midst of these knights was the Count Tredian, some noble or other of Landan, garbed in some of the best armor money could buy. You knew it was him by the ridiculous wings flaring from his emotionless great-helm. If I were part of any other company I would've feared for my life...But this band was different. This company of mercenaries was led by "The Bear" and he alone could level this fight in our favor. The tales played in my mind, reminding me why I fight. I remembered when I first joined the company.


I had been working my family's farm when my father called me in from the field. A troop was passing through the town. When I got to the elder's house I saw a number of villagers already there. And there next to the elder was a man. No ordinary man either, a giant of a man. The only name he had was "The Bear". He had a thick, scraggly brown, almost black, beard and mop of hair. He was muscled well and scarred. He stood a head and a half taller than me and broad shouldered. He already had a small band of men with him and asked the village for volunteers, his voice deep and gravely. I and three of my friends stepped forward and he kindly paid our parents for the loss also saying that he paid by the week and we would have our own share in the take. We said goodbye to our families and set out.


We spent a number of days going from village to village, hunting robbers, recruiting more men, and gathering information. The company was led by The Bear, his seconds were Roald and Truman. A couple of Rodoans that had been with him from the beginning apparently. Every night we received training from one of the three. Tips and tricks on survival and fighting. We also learned from our experiences fighting bandits, robbers, and highwaymen. We took our weapons and armor from fallen enemies.

As it turns out, the reason The Bear had been gathering this company of mercenaries was to be prepared to fight in a seemingly unavoidable, upcoming war between my homeland, the Kingdom of Novoron, and the Kingdom of Landan to the south. The Bear was from Rodoa, a mountain kingdom on the other side of Landan that made peace with Landan a month ago. From what I gathered from Roald and Truman, something happened between Landan and the family The Bear used to have that hadn’t been repaid before the war’s end.

The Bear himself was a strange character, he took in anyone we found prisoner in the bandit camps we attacked. Gave them a place in the company so that they too could fight. None more so than a young woman that had been a captive of some bandits. Noone asked, but we assumed what she probably went through with those bandits. We had been sneaking up on the camp, but when The Bear had seen her there he went into a rage and charged alone, not one bandit escaped with his life. She was given The Bear’s own tent, and when she showed interest in fighting, The Bear himself contacted the Sword Sister’s Order for armor and a weapon for her.

Soon enough war broke out, as expected, our company signed on with Novoron and was now deployed in battle against other "real armies". I gained a nice set of armor myself thanks to Truman. After one battle he passed his claim on a poor knight’s armor to me assuring me that a crossbowman like himself didn’t need heavy armor. We all improved greatly during this time. We grew close as friends, we mourned as old faces departed, and celebrated when new faces survived their first battle.

Unfortunately The Bear, like all of us, is not perfect. There were a few times where his lack of a grasp on tactics caused the deaths of several, even with Roald and Truman trying to keep us in line. Then there was the time The Bear almost died. I don’t mean “almost died” as in fighting with sword, he was in life-threatening situations every day. I mean his spirit. Without his warrior spirit and morals he could have been any old lumberman, or even one of the greatest bandits to be known. It started with a fight against the Landanites. Their bowmen had moved forward unprotected to fire at us, and The Bear had charged alone on his horse to scare them back. As he cut in to one of them, killing the archer, the others ran. And a band of knights came charging down out of the forested hills to either side. They surprised and overwhelmed The Bear, a lance collided with the top of his great helm and cast him to the ground, unconscious. We charged forward to protect him like he had done for us, we ran off the knights initially. The Bear recovered consciousness but was weakened, and we camped there for him to recover. Our watchmen saw the knights returning with a force much greater than our own. The Bear ordered us to fall back to friendly territory while he distracted the enemy. Truman and a handful of others went with him to distract the enemy, while Roald led us away north. I turned back to the valley in time to see Truman get stabbed through and The Bear overwhelmed, the haft of his great-axe split.

We were quickly caught by another force that had been moving to cut off The Bears retreat, for the Landanites wanted to make sure this “pawn” was removed from the board. We laid down our weapons before them and were taken prisoner. We learned that The Bear had been taken alive with most of the men that had stood with him. We were beat on as prisoners of the Landanites. They had to drag our force through the field with them till they could stop at a castle and they were too busy yet. The men had been inspired for The Bear’s respect for women and the weak, and defended the woman from our company that had also been captured. We also worked to help each other. We shared rations as needed, and were able to steal some things from our captors at night. A couple days after our capture I saw a sight that surprises me to this day.
A man that had gone and stood with The Bear was suddenly among our number, after all no one notices an “extra” prisoner, who would want to become a prisoner voluntarily? He told us that The Bear had broken free with them and had already freed half our company from the other Landonite Forces. He and the men were rearmed for the most part and were going to try and free us. We developed a plan for the escape. We managed to receive a couple knives for the attempt.

The day of the escape we ate all of our rations to build strength, when the force stopped to make camp, we jumped the prisoner’s couple guards and slit their throats from behind. A small group of us snuck into a nearby supply tent for weapons and armor, while the ones in the field quickly switched clothes with the dead guards to give the illusion at a distance that we were still guarded. When the time came we charged out the south side of the camp when The Bear came charging in the south side. The whole force made it out, but we had more than a few casualties on the way. The Bear himself was already heavily injured from the blow to the head, and several new wounds, including an arrow wound in his right shoulder. We got out of the camp and we bundled the giant man onto a horse so we could keep pace and outrun our ex-captors.
A Novoron foray into Landan caught the force chasing us and we made it back to friendly territory to rest and heal. The Bear was depressed and struggling with the idea that he had almost left us all as war-prisoners of the Landanites. I came to realize something there. Whatever happened in The Bear’s past to drive him against the Landanites so harshly, having his whole company captured reminded him of it. He became even more withdrawn when news came in that a Landanite Count was ravaging a number of western Novoron villages and farms, raping, burning, and looting the livelihoods of many of my people. The biggest insult of this? The Landanites only had around sixty well trained men with them. The defending forces of that region were taking part in a siege at a Landanite castle on the border. The Bear wanted to march right then from the capital, but we were all still recovering. He had his great-axe repaired at the capital.


Soon enough we came to where I stand now. Looking across at the Count, trying to flee back to his own home. I looked over at the Bear on his horse next to me. I fight because I follow someone worth following. I fight for my home. I fight because the man leading their army is a murderer of the defenseless, shielded by money. I remind myself so that I can deal the killing blow to the young men that are mirror images of myself. I know that as much as The Bear fights for revenge, he would die for those of us that he has gotten to know. I remind myself of the maneuvers, blocks, and attacks I have learned from training and from my own experience in the field.

There force came charging at us. The Bear shouted his orders: "HEAR ME!! Infantry form a line here!! Archers ten paces farther up the hill!!" he rode his horse and motioned the positions with his sword. We kept a careful eye on the advancing enemy as we took our positions on the steep hill. The archers were already able to fire and The Bear took off down the hill on his horse. He circled round the back and, with some clever horse work, and fighting, he managed to kill a bodyguard, a pair of archers and the count's own horse before returning to our line with a handful of cuts and an arrow in his shield. He dismounted and pulled his massive battle axe from the harness on his back and readied himself. Our lines collided, I jabbed down and dropped some poor young man like myself but inexperienced. I couldn't watch The Bear directly in the fighting but I didn't have too. He passed me a number of times.


A knight crashed between my friend and me, and there The Bear was. The Bear leaped through the air caught the knight with his axe and pulled him down we moved in for the kill, The Bear would bound from one side of our line to another, killing the enemy as he went. He targeted the knights as they charged in and cut them down before they could make too much of a difference. The battle raged for a while, at one point the count himself in his heavy armor charged in swinging his great sword, he killed four men before The Bear reached him. He struck the count in the back where the count's shield was hung, the blow cracked the shield and stumbled the count. The count turned and swung his sword. The Bear side-stepped the swing and brought his axe down full force on the count's shoulder. The count collapsed and what was left of his men began to run. "CHARRGE!!" shouted The Bear. HA! We chased the blighters for a ways, killed several more. It was a right grand victory. We mourned, and buried, our dead. We stripped off armor and weapons from their dead to improve ourselves, and discovered that the count had woken up and fled while we chased his men. All-in-all we lived to fight another day.....beside...The Bear...

[Huhuran]

One more note on an idea I'm thinking about trying. I've been figuring and I think I could another story like "the board game" but focus more on the intrigue of the nobles, their personalities, and the political fighting of a 15th -ish century England, the events being wholly made up of course. The part that intrigues me about this is that while I will be completely building their interactions and personalities, I have a way to make the obstacles occur randomly. Given I would add to make the story better when chaos theory fails me, but so far in my experience with what I would use, it leaves the story more interesting than you think it could, and creates twists that are wholly unseen, which allows me to make the character's reactions more realistic because i have to react to an obstacle that I did not personally invent. Again I would retain the right to ignore the randomizer or add my own twists For the sake of the story.
I guess what I'm saying all this for is, anybody interested in this at all?
And if anyone has ideas for issues that would go before British parliament in that period I'd appreciate any extra ideas that i could add to the research I will do

[hillwalker]

I think your talents lie elsewhere - maybe designing computer games. Your plots would seem to have potential for those who enjoy such things, but unfortunately I still find your style of writing rather monotonous.

H

[Huhuran]

haha well dang
thank you though for your thoughts hillwalker, i'll keep trying at this though. I have many ideas floating around in my head and I love the opportunity here to not only get them out onto "paper", but to get feedback to improve my abilities as well. you are quite right though my new plot was incredibly "helter skelter" I believe the term is...I ended up trying more to get a tale across rather than make it more interesting.