Final stand part three

Alright, here's the third installment of the Final Stand. :D

Chapter three

Jett walked out of Dan’s command tent, they had just finished the post battle debrief.  They had, of course, talked of Jett’s retreat, both Naphe and Dan agreed that it had caused more casualties than it had saved.  Reluctantly, he had to agree with them. It wasn’t necessary and it had cost lives… And yet, what if his men hadn’t been up for it?  With a sigh, Jett forced the issue out of his mind, he’d think about it later.  For now, he was going to meet Keth, who wanted to look at the area where the commanders had decided they should fight the enemies.  Jett went to Keth’s tent to meet him, when he got there, Keth was ready to go.  They walked off towards to outer watch towers.  On the way they talked of what had happened in the recant days, Jett trusted Keth quite a lot so he asked for his opinion on some things that had been going on.

 After a while they reached a point in the path when the person taking the path had to move aside some branches. Jett had always thought that it would be the perfect place for an ambush since the target couldn’t hear, see, or move very well while going through that area.  But he hadn’t ever encountered anyone else around here, so Jett started moving through.  As soon as he started pushing through the branches he heard the sound of people behind him start to run, it sounded as if there were perhaps three of them.  He looked back, and his suspicions were confirmed.  For a moment Jett worried that Keth might be injured, but then remembered that Keth could probably still take him in a fight, he’d be fine. Jett kept trying to push through the brush as a distraction.  At the last second before the would-be assassins reached him Jett ducked and fell backwards, so he was lying on the ground.  The people running behind him were confused for a moment as to where he had gone. And a moment was all that was necessary. Down where Jett was lying on his back there were no branches, so he had about two and a half feet to work with, while the other men were still entangled in the branches. Quickly rolling and then turning, Jett brought his leg into contact with the first man’s ankle.  The man fell to the ground and a quick hit to the head from a thick branch Jett had found knocked the man out cold. 

The second man tried to jump out into the open but didn’t make it before being tripped and knocked out as well.  But the third man had plenty of time to work his way out and into the open clearing. Where had Keth gone, Jett wondered?  Jett grabbed a stone off the ground, threw it at the standing man’s head and then dashed out into the open.  Suddenly from his left a man stood up, a man with a fully drawn bow.  Jett turned, knowing that there wasn’t really anything he could do, other than take the arrow and hope that it wouldn’t do too much damage.  But, he decided just in case, he would duck down to the ground, which he did.  Suddenly the archer went stiff, and then fell over, his bow and arrow falling useless to the ground.  Distracted Jett almost didn’t see the sword swing of the third man, but drew his dagger and parried it in time, then spun and stabbed the man right in the shoulder.  Apparently the rock hadn’t knocked him out… After dealing with this, Jett turned to try to process what had happened, and saw Keth standing behind where the archer had stood. “You got him?” Jett asked.

“Yes,” Keth said, “I did, did you think that I wouldn’t? I saw him early, I’m surprised you didn’t”

Calming himself down Jett said, “I was sort of preoccupied at the moment thinking about my troops…”

Keth responded, “Ahh yes, your troops. I suppose that this could be a lesson…”

“Another lesson?” Keth said, reminded of his years as a student of Keth’s

“Hmm, yes.” Keth gave a small chuckle, then went totally serious. “You have to trust people, if you hadn’t trusted me then you wouldn’t have been as efficient, you would have been worried about something like the archer happening.  By trusting me you were able to focus on what you needed to focus on, and by you not trying to tell me what to do, by trusting me to do my job, you allowed me to do it well.”

Jett thought about that… Perhaps he would try it tomorrow… But for now, they needed to go to that watch tower.  

Once they got to the watch tower Jett looked around before revealing himself and he realized that the men were doing just fine… There really wasn’t anything that he needed to fix.  Usually there was, so he was confused.  As soon as Jett stepped out and his men saw him the place went crazy, everyone was rushing to do their jobs faster than was really possible, they were messing up, and in general doing a mediocre job of it.  He then realized, perhaps they were not doing their best BECAUSE of the micromanaging rather than in spite of it.  With a little prodding from Keth… he decided to test this theory.

Going to sleep that night he resolved, he wouldn’t try to tell any solder what to do the next day, in fact he would make an effort to not even think about them.

The next morning he got up and rather than checking on a watch tower he took three of his strategy advisors and spent the day climbing a close mountain and figuring out exactly where they were going to make a stand against the enemy force.  They found a great place; it was right at the bottom of a steep straight slope, which, they figured could be used to form some kind of trap.   They got back just as the sun set behind the mountains, so around four or five. Jett went to his tent to check the reports, as he read through he was pleasantly surprised, they had had record efficiency today.  They had cleared more ground than they had since the first few days when EVERYONE was working on it, and they had not made any mistakes.  This was truly enlightening… Keth walked is while Jett was thinking about this. “Well? How did it go?” He asked.

Jett sighed, then said, “I hate to admit this… but it went excellently, perfectly even!  I don’t know that I could do this every day, there are some things that I do have to take care of… but I guess I’ll need to stop breathing down their necks.”

Keth smiled, “Ahh, now we see progress.  Good luck.”

“Heh,” Jett said, “Thanks, I’ll need it I bet…”He trailed off as his eye caught movement. HE turned to see one of the messengers running towards him.

When the man reached Jett he said, “Sir, there’s an emergency meeting of the generals.” 

“Thank you” Jett said, nodding to the messenger.  He then stood up and walked to the meeting tent.

When Jett arrived the whole place was a flurry of activity.  There were men going in and out of the tent, presumable receiving orders as to what to do.  Jett walked in the tent to see Dan talking to a captain about fortifying some bit of border or some such thing.  The man gave a salute and walked out, and Jett said, “What’s going on?”

“Ahh, Jett!” Dan said happily, “We were just looking for you.”

“So I was told,” Jett said, “Where’s Naphe?”

“Oh, well…” Dan said, “You were taking a while so he went back to his camp to make some preparations…”

“Ahh, okay,” Jett said, nodding, then, confusedly, “Wait, preparations for what?”

“Right,” Dan said, “we’ve had word from our spies that there is rumor of an attack tonight.”

“Oh, that’s fantastic!” Jett said sarcastically, “When?”

“They don’t know,” Dan said, “Though they expect either early morning or late evening… By the way, do you think that you could spare any troops for this evening? I don’t have many experienced men, and I’m worried that if they’re attacked while they’re asleep they’ll panic.”

Jett really didn’t want to give troops away… that was like breaking part of a wall to fix another one. “Look, I’ll check, but I don’t think I can. I want to not change anything or it might throw them off… Sorry.”

“No, that’s fine, I’ll manage.” Dan said. “Anyhow, I’m going to go change up a couple of patrols, good luck.”

“To you as well.” Jett said, then he went back to prepare his soldiers for what was to come.

Late that night Jett finally returned to his tent.  He lay down and, with his sword out next to his bed, fell into a light sleep.

And that's it for now! Perhaps I'll post more later today.

Alright, here's the next chapter if anyone so wishes to read it. :D

Chapter 2

After about ten minutes of walking they arrived at one of the squad campfires.  The men were all listening to someone speaking to them, giving the occasional comment and laughing uproariously every couple minutes.  This was just like Keth…  Watching this for about five minutes Jett stepped into the circle. All of the men stood up immediately and saluted.

The man who had been telling the story looked up from the campfire, “Hello Jett, It has been a while.” Keth was not a young man, he looked to be around 70, though he had aged very well.  He had short white hair.  He was wearing light leather armor and had a beautiful walking stick set across his lap.

Jet turned to his men, “At ease, men.” He then turned to the visitor, “Hello Mr. Seventhor, what did you want to tell me so much that you were sent all the way out here from the capital?”

“Oh, I was just dropping in to say hello.” Keth said.

“Oh, I’m sure…” Jet said while walking over to talk to him, “Why don’t we go back and talk in the command tent.”

“But,” Keth said, “I was just going to tell these fine men another story!” He winked at the men in the squad, “Ahh well, I suppose I best follow you.  Have a good evening.” He nodded formally to the men and a couple of them snickered. Keth smiled, then walked off following Jett.   Jett chuckled to himself. Knowing Keth; everyone in the camp would probably know him personally within the week… 

After chatting for a while, Keth said, “Jett, I’ve been talking to your soldiers.  They all respect you, but they wish that you would let them actually do things that are challenging for them.” 

Confused Jett said, “What, do they want more work?”

“No, they have plenty of work, but most of it doesn’t take skill.  It’s just manual labor.  They joined this army because it’s the most elite. You train some of the most skilled fighters this country has, but they haven’t seen any of that.  They haven’t seen any brilliant leadership; just control.  They want you to believe in them enough to let them actually be productive.”

“…Okay,” Jett said, “But I’m not going to risk their necks just because they’re bored.”

Keth sighed, “Jett, this is why I was sent. You have the most skilled troops ANYWHERE, but you have to make use of them or they are not going to be of any use.”

“Right,” Jett said, “I’ll think on that.  We should probably get some sleep.  It’s late.” Earlier, Jett told a few men to set up a tent for Keth.  Now, he led Keth there and told him where everything in the camp was, then walked back to the tent.  “Ahhhh,” He sighed, “It’s been a long day.”  He undressed and went to sleep.

The next morning Jett woke up early, as he always did.  The sun was still hours from coming up… It didn’t rise until around 9:30, because of the mountains. Jett walked out and began to inspect the men and see what they were up too.  He then went around and checked on each of the things that he had assigned the other day; a new watch tower, a supply of grain coming into the camp from the capital and some new hidden bunkers in the pass. He could have waited for the reports, but it was better this way. He could tweak some things. He really expected the men would mess up from time to time and there was a certain way one had to do these sorts of things.

The sun came up over the mountains just as Jett got back to camp and the view was breathtaking. The green mountains still had traces of fog on them, though it would be a totally clear day.   There was a nice breeze blowing. On the way back to the camp, Jett had met Dan.   When he saw Keth he said, “You’ve been micromanaging again, haven’t you.”

“You like that word way too much…” Keth said, “Besides, it’s not micromanaging, it’s called ‘giving them instructions and knowing what’s going on.’ ”

“…Right.” Dan said, obviously not convinced, “Alright them, did you hear any news from the towers?”

“Oh! Right…” Jett said, “You distracted me… It looks as if there’s an advance force of men coming to test out our defenses. They should be here in maybe four to five hours.”

“What?” Dan said, “How many men are there?”

“They were too far away to really tell.” Jett said, “But it looked like there were close to five hundred. My men will send a message once they find out how many there are.”

“Alright,” Dan said, nodding, “I’ll tell my men then and get them ready.”

A few hours later, they were marching out of the pass, each with three hundred men.  They had received word that the advance force had 400 men.  So they had sent overwhelming force.  Anymore and it would have just been inefficient.  It was kind of confusing as to why there were so few men, the enemy had to have some idea of the number of forces they were against, it seemed like a suicide mission. Regardless, they would have to stop them, or else they’d just start killing, this way would result in a lot less casualties.  They entered the plane at around two in the afternoon. Jett rode a horse, for while it made him a more obvious target, the ability to communicate quickly outweighed any disadvantage like that. They got in a triangular formation with each man having a ten foot long spear.  While these weren’t as long as SOME which were used, they were long enough to work.

Sometime later, after having waited at the mouth of the pass for a while, they saw the enemy crest a hill in front of them. While there may have only been around four hundred men, it seemed like thousands, they were screaming, waiving swords, spears and bows in the air, it was an unorganized mess of bodies waiving sharp deadly objects.  Jett raised a certain colored flag from the front of his small army. They all straightened up, rolled their shoulders, and in general got ready to move. Jett waited for one more minute, he wanted his men to have to run as short of a distance as possible. Finally, he dropped the flag, his men rushed forward in a spear of sharp steel while the other two armies went at the approaching force at an angle from each side of him.  The enemy line, such as it was, was instantly broken.  Jett noted that this force was nothing like the trained, ruthless, brutally efficient force that he had been expecting. In fact, he couldn’t figure out how an army like this broke through the front lines...  Suddenly a shout from behind him made Jett turn around.  There were hundreds of men running up the slope behind him! Jett rode to the back of his military formation and shouted, at the top of his lungs, “company two, turn about enemies in the rear!!!” The back third turned around to engage the enemy and while they were outnumbered they should have been able to take this force, it was only perhaps two hundred men… But what if they couldn’t, they hadn’t been in a battle for months… There were just too many things that could go wrong.  Jett pulled out the white and red striped flag, waving it in the air signaled that his men were to make an orderly retreat.  Jett figured that he could draw the attacking men away while retreating letting the other armies deal with the big one. 

His men pulled back while still fighting. They pulled about two thirds of the rear attacking force back but the other third attacked Dan’s army, inflicting some casualties, though not many, since he had seen them in time.  Jett then realized, if this had been a Major battle, that could have lost the entire thing, that one move right there… “Oh, blast it…” Jet muttered.  A few more minutes passing by was enough to finish the battle, after the enemy had all ran off or were killed Jett’s army searched the battleground for the living, once all those had been found and helped they gathered all their dead soldiers and carried them back to their camp, the enemy soldiers were all put in a pile and burned, it would have been nice to bury them… but It’s hard to spend days on end working to honor someone who died trying to kill you. 

The Final Stand

Well, it's been a long time in coming, but here it is. The beginning of my first true story, The Final Stand. 

I wrote this last semester and it's gone through a few revisions and some grammar editing.  But not THAT much, so if you see anything, just point it out. :D 

Also, I'd love some plot/story feedback as well if you have any. :D
(Also, if it's a bit small, one zoom [Ctrl +] should fix it. )

Chapter one

Jett walked through the forest trail towards the encampment.  He had dark brown hair, blue eyes, and was a tall well-built man.  He’d just been out to the watch perimeter to make sure everything was running smooth. Jett was a very scheduled person; he always had his days completely planed out. Because of this, there wasn’t much change in the routine every day.  So every morning at dawn he would visit a tower or outpost, and would make sure that things were running smoothly.  Of course, he could have sent anyone out to check… but they wouldn’t know exactly how he wanted it, and thus wouldn’t notice small discrepancies and then things might really get bad.  Jett looked around while he walked, the forest was beautiful. Looking up he could see the morning sun shining through the leaves, casting a light green shadow over everything.  Looking down, Jett saw the myriad of roots which crossed the dirt path he walked on.  While looking around, something bothered him; he kept noticing things that weren’t the same as they had been on his way to the tower.  An overturned leaf, a branch that had been across the trail now moved to the side; small things like that.  And then he heard it; the small, but distinct, sound of someone trying to match his footsteps. It could almost have been the wind, but there hasn’t been any sort of wind whatsoever today.  Without changing his stride, Jett listened more carefully and could definitely hear that someone was following him.    He assumed that they bore him ill intentions, since otherwise they would step out and call to him.  Five minutes later, his suspicions were confirmed.  Two men with fully drawn bows stepped out of the brush. The one on the right gave an ultimatum.

“Stop or be stopped.”

Before he had even finished, Jet had started to move.  He pulled out a throwing knife from his belt and threw it at the man talking.  Then he lunged to the side behind trees to avoid the second man’s arrow. Jett rolled out of the lunge and stood up facing backwards with his sword drawn.  A dull thud and a small gasp confirmed the hit.  Three other men were running up the path toward him, about ten feet away.  Jet deflected the first man’s sword with a swipe and dealt him a strong blow to the left shoulder. As the first man collapsed, Jett turned to the next man, caught his sword on the flat of his blade and gave him a kick to the stomach, then a pommel blow to the head.  Since the first bowman was recovering from the surprise of losing three men in about ten seconds, Jett turned so that he was behind a tree for cover. He then picked up a decent sized rock, feinted to the left, then leaned right and nailed the bowman in the head. The bowman’s taunt bowstring launched the arrow ineffectively into the air.  Now that he had taken care of the major threat, Jett turned back to the final man, disarmed him with a twist of his sword, tripped him and as he fell, hit him in the back of the head with his gauntleted hand. Out cold.  Jett jogged the rest of the way back to camp, which was only another 80 yards down the trail.  When he reached the camp, he ordered to some of the soldiers watching the perimeter of the camp,

“Go see to the assassins.  Help those who can be helped and bring them back under armed guard to be questioned. Hurry, they’ll be waking any minute. Two of them are in dire need of medical aid or perhaps they’re already dead, I’m not sure. See to them.”

Once the soldiers left, Jett walked toward the second command tent where there was a meeting of the army generals today. The military camp was nested in a sort of bowl shaped valley.  It was oval shaped and on one side there was a pass that opened down into a large plane.  The entire bowl was heavily wooded. There were three decent sized camps in the bowl.  Each camp was set in a circle with three watch towers around the perimeter. They had to do quite a bit of ground clearing to make space for the camps, but since they had been here for months, it was worth it.  Jett’s camp was the one in the middle, directly in front of the opening to the pass, where Jett had gone to the watchtowers, facing out onto the large plain. The three armies were stationed here as sort of a last line of defense between the invading army and the populated area of the country.  It looked as though they were going to be needed, since messengers coming from the front lines had said that the other armies sent to fight had been practically decimated.  Luckily, when Jett had been out looking, there had been no sign of the enemy army anywhere.  Walking through his camp, Jett noted the straight tent lines and how clean and organized everything was.  The men were doing well. Leaving his middle camp and crossing to the southern camp, Jett also noticed how very unorganized this one was. It wasn’t terrible, but the soldiers obviously didn’t take pride in their work and didn’t care much for the appearance.  Arriving at the command tent and stepping inside Jett saw the other two commanders.  Naphe was a tall man with a tan complexion. He had black hair, deep green eyes and always wore a small golden arm cuff.  Dan was a broad shouldered well-muscled man of average height.  He was as pale as pale could be, no amount of sun could change that. 

“Jett,” Naphe said after he they had all been seated, “what have your watchmen seen?”

“Well,” Jett responded, “I was out thirty minutes ago and I saw no sign of the enemy anywhere.”

“You didn’t have to go out yourself…” Dan said, “That’s why we stationed the watchmen out there in the first place.”

“I just like to see how my men are doing,” Jett said, “they’re all still new.  Many haven’t had much experience.”

Naphe rolled his eyes, “Not this again… Jett, most of these soldiers have been fighting just as long as you have!  Half of them are older than you.”  

“Still…” Dan and Naphe sighed at the same time. “Look,” Jett said, “Soldiers have to be told what to do. They have to be lead along.” Jett stood up. “They don’t do well independently. For instance, look at your camp, Dan.  The men aren’t disciplined enough.  They need to be orderly.  That’s what will make them efficient.”

“Okay,” Dan said resignedly. “We’ll agree to disagree. But even with your opinion in mind, you’re over the top, don’t you think? You go way beyond disciplined and into micromanaging.  Besides, you’ve disciplined them enough; they could walk through a field of cacti without breaking ranks.”

Naphe cleared his throat, “Terribly sorry for interrupting your philosophical debate on leadership, but we have to talk about the very much non-philosophical problem of 70,000 men marching on our position now.”

“Well actually that could be a-” Dan started, Naphe glared at him.

Jett snickered; sometimes Naphe could take things a bit too seriously. A few hours later they had come up with a plan.  Jett was skeptical, but Dan and Naphe liked it; so he was willing to go along.  It involved making their way south by the mountains next to the plain, setting up a group on the hill and trying to hide their numbers.  It had promise.  But Jett was worried that the men wouldn’t be able to do it right. He also worried that with so many men, there could easily be spies mixed in. Dan had suggested that they do random checks to make sure everyone was there.  But even with Jett’s army, which was the most organized and with leadership all the way down to groups of ten and with squad leaders in charge of them, it would take way too long and would miss too many people to be useful.  In the meeting they’d also talked about the assassination attempt, which was the fourth this week and the second on Jett. Dan and Naphe each had faced attempted attacks on them.  They were increasing in number, which meant that the enemy was getting closer.

Finally, after three hours of talking, they ended the meeting and went back to deal with their respective duties.  Jett wished that he could just stop working, eat and sleep. It had been a long day.  But, considering that it was still only midafternoon, he headed back to his command tent to work.  He had just arrived and settled down to work when a messenger came in. “Sir, a man has shown up with five other men and is now waiting to talk to you.”

Jett sighed, “Alright, tell him he can come talk to me.”

“Well, uh,” the messenger hesitated, “He said that he wants you to come talk to him.”

Annoyed, Jett said, “What does he think? That I just sit around all day doing nothing? I don’t have time to wander around looking for him.”

The messenger said, “He, uh, he said that his name is Keth, Keth Seventhor.  He also said that that would change your mind. Uh, sir.”

Jett got up with a sigh, “I suppose I should go talk to him, blasted old man…” Jett stood up, buckled his belt, adjusted his shirt and put on his gilded cloak.

Turning to the messenger he said, “Lead me to him.”

With a salute and a quick, “Yes, sir,” the man left the tent.  Jett followed him to find his old mentor.

And there's the first chapter!  That's about one sixth of the story. 

Also, I think that the formatting got thrown off a bit when copy-pasting. 

Anyways, yeah! If you want the rest I'll be posting it within the week. Or just like tell me and I'll give it to you. But yeah, if you got this far I guess you read it, so thanks for reading! :D