Accountability, day one.

Here I am, at the low.  Just like I was last year at this time.  But LAST year I just sort of fell over and died until the last week when I got up and brushed past with barely a "B" and a couple of A's (Most pretty much undeserved. )
So, this year I'm not going to do that, I have made a set of commitments and I'm sticking to them, they are requirements.
It's going to be hard, but it'll be doable.
Along with that I'm going to try to give an update of how I did each day. I'll publish it each night.  Here is today's: (Tuesday's)

So, today I did four Aleks topics (Right along schedule)
And I did one Study guide.
This is  in 6 1/2 hours.
I could have done better... But that's acceptable for today.

Also, AHHHHHHHHUUUUGGGGG!!!!
I'm trying out for Aida the musical and I'm so worried!!! I don't know what I'm going to get!! And I won't know until Thursday...

Also, if you want to read Final Stand in it's entirety, here it is
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FU6cs1d9uq5poaO08_gm_KPbWEfdj6uWKMAnG9rPrBs/edit?usp=sharing

Part four.

So sorry! I accidentally posted part 5 before part four... here's 4.

Chapter Four

Jett was awakened by a shout; he sat up and, with the training from being a scout for four years, instantly took in his surroundings.  He was in a tent, there was shouting, light… Then, he was awake, he remembered everything and he jumped into action.  Grabbing his sword he peeked through the folds of his tent entrance.  He had expected to see chaos but it wasn’t anything like that, his men were running, that was certain, but they were running in squads, to wherever they were needed.  Jett ran over to a large rock that jutted out of the ground near his tent, he climbed up on it to see better what was happening, mostly it was dark, but around 120 yards away, next to the opening of the pass, there were some tents on fire. Even squinting Jett couldn’t tell how many, there was too much glare in the darkness to tell.  Jett took off running towards the flames; he wanted to be there, leading his men if they needed it.  After a minute of running Jett got to the place that was on fire, only to find that it wasn’t really that bad, they had repelled the attack well, they had lost maybe 30 tents, usually a tent fire was a crushing blow, taking out over half of the men’s sleeping quarters, it was considered one of the best surprise attacks by the best military strategists.  Thinking about this Jett hadn’t realized that the enemy was still there, and that his men were holding them off.  Jett ran up and helped, it gave the men an extra boost of moral seeing their leader fighting alongside them, risking his life to save more of their lives.  After around five minutes the enemy had all died or had ran off.

Jett gave some orders to a few of the squads to clean up the area, told some of the commanders to set up a heavy watch to make sure the intruders wouldn't come back, and then took three companies of one hundred and fifty men each with him to Dan’s camp, which he knew would be the least prepared for this attack and would have suffered the most losses. They jogged over to his camp, so as to conserve energy if fighting was needed. When they arrived Dan’s forces had beaten off the enemy, but hundreds of tents were still blazing.  They all set to work with buckets of water prepared for this purpose and saved what they could.  After three hours they had finished with the ‘clean-up’, and Jett’s companies returned back to base.  Jett stayed up all night, helping with whatever was needed, and running back and forth between camps and trying to figure out how much they had lost in this attack.

Finally, when morning came, Jett looked around; there was black smoke billowing everywhere, the sunrise looking blood red through it casting a dark mood on the land.  All was quiet, except for in the background, the muffled sound of men talking in hushed tones and shovels constantly hitting the ground, they were burying their dead comrades. In the end, eleven thousand men had been killed, and fifty nine were still missing.  Five thousand of those had been killed by the fire in Dan’s camp and three thousand more had been killed in the fighting there afterwards.  This hadn't been some simple ambush to throw them off guard, this had been the first stroke, the first attack.  Most interesting to Jett, the casualties in his camp were only two hundred and thirty seven, a ridiculously low number compared to the other camps.  Jett would have thought that his camp would have taken the most casualties, since they were right next to the entrance…  perhaps, he reasoned, they had figured that his would be the strongest and had sort of, skipped over it.  Yes, that was probably it.

  As Jett was thinking about this, he saw Keth and walked up to him, “Are you alright?” Jett asked, “I forgot about you in the heat of battle…”

“Hah,” Keth said, “I’m fine, slept right through everything in fact…. Quite a show your men put on though, they were hardly even scathed!”

“Perhaps…,” said Jett, “I have suspicions that the enemy sort of skimmed over this camp, thinking it to be very well defended.”

“I suppose that could have happened,” Keth said, “but I kind of doubt it.  From what your men say it seems as though they fought just as many men, they just handled it better than the others.”

“That could be,” Jett said skeptically, “I still doubt they faced quite as many as Dan’s camp…”

“Well, I suppose that you could be right, and you are right sometimes… just not usually.” And with that Keth gave Jett a wink and walked off.

Jett sighed; he never could win with Keth.  After about half an hour Naphe and Dan showed up at Jett’s command tent to talk of strategy.  With a 6^th of their forced gone they’d have to revise it a bit.  Not that any of them knew what to change; they had already had a pretty good plan.  Jett suggested staying in the valley and making the enemy come to them.  Dan and Naphe still both thought that they ought to fight them on the open plane. Jett rolled his eyes, “Fine, what if we set up some sort of contraption that can help us, like a make shift catapult?”

That might work, “Naphe said, “But we don’t have materials.”

“Then what should we do Naphe?” Jett asked.

“Well,” Naphe said, “I’m not sure…”  Jett sighed. It would be a long day.

That night they had finally figured out what to do, they were going to strike camp in the morning, and move.  Jett passed the orders down the line so that by morning everyone would know what was going on.  Jett lie down and fell asleep almost instantly, since he’d been awake for nearly twenty four hours.  

Second to last installment.

Well, This is going to be a LONG post, this last Chapter is around ten pages. 0_0

Chapter Five

The next morning he woke up nicely rested. He visited the wounded, of which there were around a thousand.  They would stay in the valley hidden in a grove with 500 men to guard them; hopefully they would not be discovered.  At Ten o Clock he went back to his camp to head the preparations for leaving.  Most of the tents were already down and were being backed into sleds that would be pulled by men and horses.  By noon they left, leaving the safety of the valley.  Just as they did so the scouts at the watch towers reported seeing the main enemy force about thirty miles away.  Seeing the dust cloud it made, Jett thought it looked huge.

After everyone had reached the destination on the plane, half of Jett’s men left the main group and followed Jett up into a steep trough cut into the mountain.  When they got to the top, it sort of plateaued, Jett and the other commanders had decided to rig a trap, so Jett’s men started cutting down trees, these weren’t just some regular trees, some of these were fifty to one hundred feet tall.  They cut, moved set up, and tied off all of these trees to form an elaborate contraption that would release the logs, along with a few huge boulders, down on anyone in the mouth of the trough.  After all afternoon, with ten thousand men working, they finally finished.  They all marched back to camp, where the other half of Jett’s men has set all of the tents up.  They even had ten watch towers built around the three camps.

The first thing Jett did when they got back was climb up a watch tower; he wanted to get a good look at the enemy.  Once he got to the top, he could see everything. A mile away, over a small rise, the entire enemy’s army was camped.  Looking out, it didn’t look good. It looked as if the other army had a third again as many troops as their combined forces, and losing the eleven thousand men earlier didn’t help.  This would be no cake walk… in fact, even with their supposedly brilliant trap, there was no guarantee that they would win.  In fact, it looked like the odds were very, very, much against them.  

Before the sun was up the next morning, Jett snuck out to meet with his spies. They had sent spies into the enemy camp months ago.  Now that the army was this close, they could contact Jett directly without too much hassle. They would meet him just outside of the camp, so if they were discovered they could claim that they were misleading Jett. There were three of them. Jett, cautiously approached them and said, “Welcome men, it’s been a long time!”

The first man replied, “Yes, it has been. Be ready, they will attack at dawn tomorrow.”

Apparently they weren’t in the mood for small talk. “Thank you,” Jett said, “Could you start a rumor that we’re smaller than we really are and that many of our men are wounded and thus won’t fight?  It might give us the element of surprise in the morning.”

“We can try,” the lead spy said, “but I don’t know if it’ll catch in just a day. We’ll do our best though sir.”

“Good,” Jett said, “Now go.  You don’t want to be seen talking with me.”

“Yes , sir” They said in unison. They walked into the darkness back towards the enemy camp.  After returning, the day seemed very long to Jett. He didn’t pass the order to prepare for attack until the sun had set that evening. If the enemy had spies in his camp, he didn’t want them to know that he knew their plans. He did tell Naphe and Dan though. Right after the sunset, Jett walked to his second in command and told him what was to happen. He would pass it down by word of mouth only to those he knew, who would then pass to those THEY knew. Hopefully any spies would be kept out of the loop. Everyone was instructed to get a good night’s sleep, so they all went to bed early. The next morning Jett was up by 3 am.  Jett did the rounds and made sure that all of his officers were awake and readying their men.  By 4:30 all of the men were ready and waiting for an attack, the sun was due to rise any moment.

As the sun rose, Jett looked over to the enemy camp from the top of a watch tower. He saw men just milling about, not preparing for war, not charging… Nothing! And so, the army waited, and waited… and they waited some more.  It was just about reaching noon when the watch horn was sounded. The enemy was on the move. They all ran to the gathering place. Soldiers were flocking in from everywhere; lining up and prepping weapons. The enemy was just a mile away, but Jett’s army had dug a trench in between the two armies and filled it with makeshift spears and such. So, rather than risking the trench, the enemies went around and planned to fight them next to the mountain. Jett smiled. This was exactly the response he had been hoping for. Now they could spring the trap and perhaps that would help them defeat the enemy.

Ten minutes later, all fifty thousand men were standing right next to the opening of the trough. Dan and Naphe had elected Jett to be the general of the three armies, because he was one of the best strategists.  They knew that he wouldn’t call the retreat again, he couldn’t this time. It was all or nothing.  The reason for having one main general was for leadership. You couldn’t just have three people telling the troops different things, it would be chaotic. So, Jett was the leader and would tell everyone what they should do. He got up on a watchtower towards the back of the army. It would allow him to see and make quick battle changes.  They had many pre-rehearsed battle strategies and Jett could change them with a blow of his whistle. There were also twenty of the fastest men in all of the army working as messengers. They could tell the generals what plans had been whistled, if the fighting got too far away or if no one could hear over the din.

Suddenly, the enemy attacked! Jett whistled out the three short blasts that signaled the infantry to get in front and for archers to stand right behind them. Once the archers were safe, they would start firing in rotation by companies and would be launching an unending wave of arrows down upon the enemy.   A minute later the battle truly began.  The enemy hoards smashed into the line of soldiers. Here was the moment of truth. If the line held, even for a minute, they might have a chance.  They could then rotate the line safely without breaking it. They could also be orderly and pass messages along. If the line broke, all could be lost. Jett blew the whistle to send a group up to the trap. He’d wanted to send overwhelming force, but knew that he couldn’t spare even a single man. He’d been forced to send the ones who were unfit to fight. He sent those who had injuries which prevented them from being effective. He’d also sent 10 very fit men, just in case. They ran off to head to the top of the trough, where the trap was ready to be sprung.  Jett figured that they’d do a good job; at least he hoped they would. He looked back over the battle and was dismayed to realize the enemy must have known just how many men Jet had had. How else could they have matched his line, which they had done? So much for the false information he sent.  Perhaps he didn’t give the spies enough information…  Perhaps, there was something more sinister...  Jett threw out the idea and put his focus back on the army in time to see some of the enemy troops break off the main group.  Where were they going?  “Oh no…” Jett murmured. They were heading towards the troops heading up the trough and there were twice as many of enemies as there were Jett’s troops. They fell upon the small band and slaughtered them. There was hardly any fight. Jett hung his head. Though none of them had been HIS men, he still felt responsible. Perhaps if he had sent more, or if he had gone with them, or, or, or… So many things he could have done differently. He pushed it out of his mind. This was no time to think about that. 

Hopefully they could survive and even conquer without the trap.  Jett whistled for the next step in the strategy; the feint.  Jett’s men would turn and run as though they were retreating. When the enemy broke lines to chase them, they would turn around, already be formed up and hopefully scatter them.  Jett gave the signal.  His men all pulled back, as if making a strategic retreat.   The enemy ran forward, anxious to attack their broken line.  Then, Jett’s troops pulled together to charge and broke the enemy line! But, there was a second line. It was as if the enemy had known what was going to happen… They shifted and the entire side that had feinted was shoved back twenty feet!  This was devastating. Taking out a side was an excellent way to break a formation.  Jett whistled for a push forward. It was risky.  If you weren’t careful, you could lose formation.   But it was the only way to fix the damage.  It seemed to be working.  They were pushing forward!  Then, Jett’s line broke! The enemy came flooding through and it was a free for all.  Somehow the enemy must have KNOWN their maneuvers!  Jett couldn’t figure out how, unless someone with direct knowledge had told them. The only people who had the ability to do that were the spies Jett had hand-picked… He shook his head to clear his mind and focused on the battle.  

Jett kept directing the other armies.  They were all holding their line pretty well.  He looked at his line.  He could call a retreat.  Considering the enemies apparent knowledge of his plans, It would save lives and maybe they could come back and help from another side.  But the sudden change of plans would probably break Dan’s line.  He thought about it and was just about to give the order when a thought came to his mind.

“Trust. Believe. They are strong.”

Jett took the whistle from his mouth. Why start something that you can’t finish? If he was fighting, would he retreat? No, he would fight to the end, till death or victory.  And he would let them do the same.  He ordered the 500 horses to charge into the flank of the enemy.  It worked brilliantly.  That part of their line broke.  Now both sides were sustaining heavy casualties. Ten minutes later the battle was not going well for them.  They had lost a fifth of their men.  And, while the enemy had lost at least that many, they had started out with more.  Even so, Jett would not give up, they could still conquer. 

At that point, from a valley behind the enemy, came what looked like a few companies of horses.  “We can take them” Jett muttered.  He ordered some spearmen from the back of his army to go head them off.  But then, from behind the horses, men started appearing; line after line of men.  There were thousands of men marching towards the battle.  Somehow, Jett had been misled as to how many men the enemy had.  Again, he thought about his spies.   After a minute, over thirty thousand men had appeared; all marching towards Jett’s position.  Jett could only watch them come, keep on commanding and hope for a miracle.  When the new army crested the hill, they were in full view of Jett’s army.  Jett waited, to see if anyone would run.  No one moved.  They still fought.  They still died.  These were men. 

Then, to Jett’s disappointment, two squads from his own army routed.  The thirty soldiers broke off of the main column and ran.  Jett was disgusted.  How could any person, who did something like that, call himself a man?  How could they…?  In the midst of this thought, he saw something. The routing men weren’t running away.  They were running towards the trough!  They knew that it was the last hope.  They knew that anything else meant defeat, no matter how skillfully they fought.  In the distance, Jett saw something that almost made him want to sit down and cry.  A hundred men from the enemy lines had seen the quick rush.  They had run to stop the two squads.  It was to be 100 verses 30; three to one.  There was no way.  It was over for them and they would die, just like the others.  Neither army was close enough to help now…  They would surely put up a good fight and though they might not win, perhaps they would inspire the other men.  Inspire them to fight to the very last man trying to protect their country. 

Everything else seemed to freeze as the small battle began.  Jett’s troops formed up into the triangle he had taught them.  It was the best way to fight when one anticipated being surrounded.  Rather than just standing and awaiting the charge, they started running. They would meet death straight forward, with their head held high.  Soon, the two armies crashed together.  Jett expected to see the line break and his army be simply run down like the others.  But that didn’t happen.  Instead, they held their ground and fought bravely.  They fought with the strength of three times as many men.  And they were winning! Jett was confused.  Simple, common sense didn’t explain this.   With odds of three to one, there is no way, (well, he revised, almost no way) to win.   But, he remembered something Keth had taught him. In wars, one would think that two men of equal skills, who battled each other, would be pretty equally matched.  But often, that’s not what happened.  Usually, one beat the other, quite soundly.  The reason, he had said, was motivation.  It was passion and their reason for fighting.  And sometimes, no matter the odds, the weaker man still won.  It was not because of luck; but because the weaker man knew that he could NOT lose.  He knew that he HAD to win.  This, Jett realized, was the reason for how his men were standing strong.  They knew that they could NOT lose. They were fighting for something bigger, not for money or power, or even for their lives.   No. They were fighting for their families.  They were fighting for their homes.  They were the last line of defense.  What they did here would directly affect how many of their family and friends died.  No, they could not lose.  They had to win, for they were the final stand.  It was obvious that Jett’s men had stopped being pushed back.  In fact, they started advancing!  They beat back the enemy, until finally, the enemy retreated.   They ran to save their lives.  They simply ran back to their main army. 

Looking, Jett could see that he had only lost four men.  Four men…  Perhaps there still was hope for them.  The two squads ran towards the trough, not even stopping to lick their wounds for they knew that time was of the essence.  Jett gave a whistle order: To stand firm no matter what. If they were pushed back far enough, then the main enemy army would escape and the trap would be useless. As long as they held firm, the enemy couldn’t retreat.  If they retreated, they would be overrun and would probably lose anyways. So the enemy pushed back.  Jett watched as his army held firm, but it was like holding back the floodgates. It was like trying to stop the wind or a river.  Wherever they pushed, the enemy flowed around them, flanking them, forcing them to thin out and push it back.  This was casualty heavy to both sides, but the enemy had so many more people that it didn’t matter.  Slowly, Jett’s army got pushed back; slowly they got further and further away from the mouth of the trough.  From afar, Jett saw a flash of light from the top of the mountain, where the trap was.  It was the signal.  They were flashing the signal to him with mirrors!  He was about to call the order to push ahead when he realized, it was the failure signal.  Something had gone wrong.  Something was stopping the trap from working. This wasn’t going to work.  They would have to figure it out without the trap.

Jett spent the next few minutes giving orders.  Though they were losing, they were performing well.  They were putting up a good fight.  Jett was about to give the order to change to Dan’s army, when he heard someone climbing up the watch tower.  Assuming it to be one of his messengers, he gave the change order and turned around.  He turned just in time to see a man jump and lunge at him!  Before he even had time to think, instinct took over and he grabbed the man’s outstretched wrist.  He used the man’s momentum to throw him forward onto the platform of the watchtower.   Jett looked over the side to see four more men standing on the bottom.  He couldn’t tell see clearly since they were underneath it.  Then the tower started tilting to one side.  “Oh, blast it!” he said, while grabbing the railing.  The man, whom he had knocked down, fell off when the tower started tipping. Apparently he hadn’t been warned of the next step in the plan.  As the tower started to fall faster, Jett remembered that they often folded in on themselves if knocked over.  In order to prevent himself from being injured or trapped he’d have to jump off before it hit the ground.  He timed it.  And just before it hit, he leapt free, tucked and rolled.  Luckily, he was far enough away from the mountain that there weren’t rocks to land on.  He was mostly uninjured.  Though by rolling on his shoulders, he expected they would be a bit bruised and quite sore by morning. 

He drew his sword and prepared to fight the four men who had toppled the tower.  As they started advancing towards him, he saw a spear lying on the ground behind him.   He picked it up and readied it to use.  At least it would take care of one of them.  He raised the spear to throw and it was yanked away from him from behind!  Sensing this new danger, he immediately rolled sideways and popped up to see that there were four more men behind him!  There was a chance he could have beaten four… especially with that spear… but eight?  He was good, but he wasn’t invincible.  Looking around there was nothing to do but stand and fight.  There was nowhere to run since everyone else was fighting.  And if there was anywhere he’d like to die, this place was as good as any and better than most.  He would die fighting for his home, his friends and his family.  He looked around. There was no one else.

Good.  No one to sneak up behind and finish him off.  He turned back to the enemy soldiers and raised his weapon.  They each had a sword and a shield.  Jett carried no shield as he was far from the battle and had deemed it unnecessary. They slowly tried to circle him, but he kept moving, flanking them, so that they were all in front of him.  Seeing that he would just keep moving, they attacked.  They all ran, but one man was there first.   Brave of him to lead the charge, but very stupid.  Jett grabbed his sword with both hands and swung out, beating the man’s sword to the ground with brute strength.  Then he swung back the other way, moved the man’s shield and stabbed him in the abdomen.  He went down with a gasp.  Jett then turned to the next man, blocked the sword blow, then turned and hit another sword to the ground.  He came back around for a swipe right across the chest.  That was two men wounded and hopefully out for the count. 

Since he was being overwhelmed with people, he jumped back and reset his footing.  If he could get hold of one of those shields, his chances would go up dramatically.  He began luring them over, so that he could be in a position to grab one of the downed soldier’s shields.  They noticed and held their ground, just rotating.  When Jet moved closer, they all attacked again.  Jett just started blocking, his training and muscle memory kicked in.   Block, turn, swipe, feint, block, block, and then one of the men scored a hit.  The man nailed Jett in the helmet with the side of his sword.  Jett fell to the ground, stunned.  The men surged forward to make a final blow, but they would have to do more than that to take him down.  Jett rolled and swung his sword blocking the down strokes after him.  There were just too many of them.  One of them was going to score a hit soon. 

Just when Jett thought that he would be killed by a missed swipe, something happened.  The men in the back were distracted and one of them screamed and fell.  This made the men in the front line look back.  Jett, not knowing what was happening, took the moment to stand up, sword at the ready.  Seeing the men still distracted, he stabbed one and slashed at the other.  The third turned back and blocked Jett’s next blow, but Jett disarmed him and gave him a stroke as well.  He fell and didn’t stand again.  The second man was only injured, so was up fighting again.  Having only three enemies left, showed Jett who his savior was.  It was Keth.  He had somehow shown up and taken out a man.  Now he was fighting another man, leaving Jett to deal with two.  Jett sprang into action, blocking and spinning between the two men.  After twenty seconds, they were both dead. Jett looked over to see that the man fighting Keth had disarmed him; his sword rose for the killing stroke.  Jett saw this and started to lunge for him.  Unexpectedly, Keth flicked his boot and something flew out of it, right into the enemy’s throat. It flung the man backward into the grass, dead. “Never underestimate your enemy,” Keth said with a smirk.  Then answering Jett’s unspoken question, “Spring powered knife, made just for times like these.  We old fellows have to rely on cunning and smarts to win, since we aren’t so fast anymore…”

“Heh,” Jett chuckled, “You mean cheating?”

“Eh,” Keth said with wave of his hand, “Call it what you will, I’m still alive aren’t I?”

“True, true,” Jett said, “and thank heaven you’re here.  If you hadn’t shown up… I don’t know if I could have taken them.”

“You’re lucky I came. I noticed that the orders stopped coming and there was only one thing that really would have stopped you from leading your men.  So, I hurried over here to help you out.  Now, let’s get you somewhere you can help.” 

They both ran to the last remaining company of horsemen, where Jett acquired a horse. Keth jumped on another and they rode to a knoll at the back of the army.  Jett gave a few orders, adjusted things that had gone wrong and then realized,

“This isn’t what they need…” He instructed Keth, “Here, take this whistle.  You’re as good as I am at this.   They need me at the front lines and if we lose, I’m not going to be up here when it ends.  I’m going to be down there, fighting.  They need that right now.”

Keth replied, “Then go, have fun down there.”

“I will,” Jett said, and then started to ride off. “I will!”  He rode to the place where he had battled the small group of soldiers, grabbed a shield, grabbed the spear and then rode off towards the front lines.  As he approached, he called to the men, and they made a gap for him to ride straight to the front at a quick pace.  Jett knew that he was riding to his death.  There was no Keth to save him now; no fancy traps; just fighting and dying.  Fighting for what they all believed in.  When Jett got close he gave a mighty war cry and hurled the spear at the enemy’s front line.   He leapt off the horse and sent it back out of the battle.  He jumped into the line and started fighting.  He heard generals giving orders over the noise; the order to push forward.  So they did; Jett pushed forward with all his might, making a slight triangle where he was.  It bent the enemy line and made it easier to fight, while at the same time making a good standing ground for Jett’s army.

 They would still lose.  There were too many men falling. But perhaps they would take down a few more with them. After just a short time, Jett almost couldn’t hold out any longer.  He was taking the brunt of the point’s attacks, and still fighting.  Then, a man from behind grabbed his shoulder, yanked him back and took his place.  Until then, Jett hadn’t realized how tired he was. He almost fell over, but knew he couldn’t. Someone passed him water and it helped greatly.   After a few minutes he had recovered and was about to take his place, when two things happened.  The first was that he noticed that he was in a group with only the men from his portion of the army.  There were probably 50 of them in one group and these were the men he could trust.  If he had to die, these were the men with whom he would most want to fall with.  Then, the lines further down at either end broke.  There was chaos.  But Jett acted fast and instantly called, “TRIANGLE!!”  His men, conditioned by months of training, formed the protective formation.  They were surrounded by enemies, but they were still fighting.  They were not getting separated.  Jett made his way to the front and relived the man there.  It seemed hopeless, but still they fought on. The rest of the army was getting pushed further and further back. 

As the army was getting overrun and the enemy was starting to break Jett’s triangle, Jett heard a noise.  There was a great rumbling that sounded like thunder, but the sky was clear.  Perhaps it was an earthquake, the ground was shaking.  Or, maybe it was the one thing no one expected, but the one thing that they had all hoped for.  Then, with a crash, out of the trough came thousands of logs.  Tumbling down, they smashed into the side of the enemy soldiers, who had become very cramped with the newly added men.  It took out the back half of the army, but wasn’t done yet.  The next thing that came down were rocks; giant boulders flying down the canyon and smashing into the remaining men.   They took out hundreds each time.  All of this threw the enemy army into a panic.  With a yell, Jett picked up a fallen flag and raised it high.  They charged!  His troops followed him.  The rest of the army, strengthened by the blow, charged as well. They swept over the enemy like waves smashing into a battered shoreline.  Nothing could stand in their way.  There were only half of them left, but they charged the enemy and started winning.  They were unstoppable. The enemy was unable to make a good line, since Jett’s company jutted out in front taking out any line that tried to form.  All along their line, more of Jett’s soldiers did that.   It was like a wall of spikes smashing through the enemy.  When they had killed about half of the remaining enemy, the enemy routed.  They turned tails and ran.  They ran back to their homes.  They could not take a land protected by such as these; by men with something to fight for; with other good men to fight by, and with someone who led them well and who trusted them to do their jobs well.  That day was a victorious, a day of glory and honor

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

Story done!

I feel like I've finally made a huge step in my journey for light to which this blog is dedicated.  I have finally written an entire story.  Now, I'd written some before, but I hadn't ever ended one.

This took quite a while, it wasn't very long, but it takes way more work than one would think to actually write down a story.
Anyhow, it's going to start being edited so perhaps I'll start posting chapters on here! (there are only like 5 chapters)
Also, it's called: Final Stand.