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A first rate description of the battle. :cool: Poor Father Gorny, he can't get in or out without the risk of being bitten by some farm animal. :D

Joe
 
You've done an excellent job I think of capturing the disorganized state of armies of the period. That's a great scene, even though it's essentially a dream of the old Baron, and a great line:

"He still managed to notice a rough couch under him and nearby men speaking in an unknown language. Then he heard blackbirds singing…”

“No… No blackbird this time…”

That could be something that actually happened to the Baron on one of his campaigns, perhaps? It is a beautiful line.
 
Well done, Nil. I've finally caught back up and I must say I am impressed. I like the back and forth in time you have been giving us, with no detail spared in either. And this past battle was superbly done - chaos and confusion. Keep it up and I'll try to stay more current.
 
That was an impressive battle scene, Nil. The confusion and the fear of Gimnec's son were palpable.

...Small green spots appeared like glow-worms of rapidly growing numbers and size. They quickly filled his view and darkness followed them. He never felt the ground. He awoke a few seconds later. Pain welcomed him. His head was nothing but a sphere of pain, with a blade of fire running through his face. He still managed to notice a rough couch under him and nearby men speaking in an unknown language. Then he heard blackbirds singing…”
To me, that's a touching paragraph, because the ending suggests that Gimnec is hoping, against all hope, that his son is still alive, captured by Turk but still alive. And then maybe Gimnec's last line, about there being no blackbirds this time, can be read as his realization that his son is, indeed, dead.

Or I could be completely wrong. I'm just making this up as I go along. :D

Anyway, nice touch to have the Serbs lose yet another battle at Kosovo Polje. In real life, I believe there was another battle (and Serbian defeat) somewhere in the 1440s.
 
Storey: Thanks for the kind words. Have you met a gander already? .
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Director:
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Indeed, Gimnec is an old veteran. As a side note "Kosovo Polje" means "Field of the blackbirds".

coz1: I'm really happy that you enjoyed. And also relieved because the installment seems to effectively carry what I wanted to put in it. :)

Duke of Wellington:
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Herm... I just have a question though. Have you read the last installments of "Here there be dragons"? And the answer to your conclusion is "no", I fear.

Stuyvesant: Ah, you were a good choice indeed! :cool: See above answers. I think that with Director's comments and yours, this paragraph doesn't need any more explanation.
And yes, a second battle in Kossovo Polje occured in 1448 and was a second defeat for the Serbs. Besides, I think I've read that a third one saw a victory for the Serbs later on, but I can't put my hand on that reference again at the moment. So take it with a grain of salt.

To all: I won't be able to post any update before Thursday or even Friday due to a little technical problem. Please note that "little" is not an euphemism: no crashed hdd, corrupt files or anything along the line... I'm already writing it though.
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Duke of Wellington said:
So it is not Serbia, hmmmmm :confused:

No I haven't read Here There Be Dragons. I shall catch up on it :)
Beware, it's a big addictive tale. So if you don't have enough time on your hands for the whole thing, just read the three or four last updates and you'll understand my former question :p .

I've made up my mind for shorter installments. That should allow me to keep more or the less regular updating, eventually keeping some pieces up my sleeve when I happen to write faster than expected to serve as "buffers" for less prolific times. For instance I think we'll got installments 6, 6 bis, 6 c and 6 d. I've just noticed that "bis" doesn't appear in my english dictionnary. I'll keep it nonetheless since I doubt anyone will wonder all that much what it means :D .
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Okay, update #6 is ready. I'll post it tomorrow. #6 bis is well underway and I'm still trying to keep the plot from eating my ass. Kinda have to run faster than the story!
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But Duke of Wellington's obsession regarding the country I'm playing with has made me wonder how this is percieved by you all readers. I'm just curious to know your guesses. :confused: Then, I'll tell you: wouldn't like to be responsible for an heart attack! :D
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Nil-The-Frogg said:
But Duke of Wellington's obsession regarding the country I'm playing with has made me wonder how this is percieved by you all readers. I'm just curious to know your guesses. :confused: Then, I'll tell you: wouldn't like to be responsible for an heart attack! :D


I really don't know but how about the Ottomans? ;)

Joe
 
# 6


Cozy Cat Club, Wednesday in the evening

The taxi slowed down in the desert narrow street and finally stopped right under the Cozy Cat’s sign: a cat of pink neon tube enjoying some sweet roundness. Three men dressed in black unimaginative suits and wearing bowler hats got out of it and one of them, a tall big blond-haired guy with watery eyes paid the driver, giving him a small tip. Clouds have obscured the sky all day long and the evening air wasn’t too cold, barely allowing faint plummets of vapour to escape the mouth of the man as he waved a goodbye to the taxi driver.

The three of them hesitated a few seconds in the sick light of the streetlights at the prospect of plunging in a notorious den of sins. Just like neat office workers afraid of their own naughtiness. The club was the only lit building. An old district surrounded them with peeled off walls and foul street gutters. The immediate vicinity of the Cozy Cat had been cleaned up though. They took time to read some posters on the front wall and in the entrance doorway. Then the second man, a podgy black-haired in his fifties and wearing a narrow moustache, gave a nod to the others and showed them the heavy door. The third man, a nervous redhead with blossoming freckles, went to it and knocked. The door opened quickly, revealing a robust doorman in a groom outfit who stared at them intently, from their polished leather shoes to their hats.


[Note:] Si tu passes par là, Denise, je te prie de bien vouloir m'excuser d'avoir massacré la perspective...[/Note] :D
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“I don’t think I know you…”

The podgy man had a shy smile:

“Indeed, we’re first-timers sir. We’ve heard that would be a great club for honest lonely men.”

The doorman smiled.

“I see. Enjoy your evening then. But behave yourselves! We do not like trouble here.”

He stepped aside and closed the door behind them.

They passed a thick curtain and got in a wide smoke-filled room. Lights were dim, except for a stage where a luscious singer was murmuring a naughty love song in duo with a piano. Her sensual warm voice wrapped the audience far better than what her glittering dress would do about those wonderful shapes she had to show. The podgy man had to jog his companions to get their attention. Neglecting the tables, they headed to the bar, a chrome counter highlighted with some pink neon tubes. They managed to find three free stools and sat, the redhead and the blond on both sides of the other one. They had to wait a few minutes due to the number of customers, but the barman, a playboy in his twenties, finally came to them. The podgy man moistened his lips, bent over the bar and whispered:

“Do you have something to really cheer up a weary man?”

The barman smiled and answered on the same tone:

“We’re specialised in barely legal things my good man. But still legal. So, what is it you want?”

His customer was obviously disappointed.

“Bah, never mind. Give me a coffee with some vanilla ice-cream in it. And I guess a little drop of rum would be feasible too, wouldn’t it?
- Of course it would.”

He observed the other customers leaning on the bar while his buddies were ordering a strong hot black coffee without sugar and a mug of ale. The pink neon lights under their faces gave them an interesting Frankenstein’s monster touch, in a pinkpantherish kind of way. He did not recognise anyone. More precisely, he did not recognise anyone he wanted to, and fortunately this desire was reciprocal. The three of them peered in the rest of the room until their drinks arrived, but it wasn’t easy to distinguish details since the bar was a little more lightened than the tables, not to mention that anyone in the cubicles along the opposite wall was out of sight. In spite of the attention dragged by the singer, many conversations were melting in a consequent background noise.

The podgy man just had time to relish a couple of spoonfuls of his ice cream when a young woman dragged a stool and sat in the narrow space between him and his blond big colleague. She wore a heavy make-up and her dress was essentially made of a deep cleavage competing with the vent running along the left leg from her high heels shoes almost up to the haunch. “Damn, he thought, fashion is keen on minimalism in this club.” He smiled. She dragged on her thin cigarette and slowly exhaled the smoke between her shining red full lips. He was pleased to notice that her lipstick was good enough not to stain the cigarette. She looked at him.

“Maybe you could buy me a drink? There are very comfortable private places over there waiting for us to take our time and taste those cocktails.”

She bent over him and slipped her hand in his back. She did not have time to touch him though, for the redhead man grabbed at her wrist and sprained it in the same motion. She shrieked in surprise, slipped from her stool, and fell on her back in a spinning motion. Her overly tight dress dissipated its sudden tension with a loud tearing.

This caused some emotion around, catching nearby customers attention. A man went to rescue the shocked damsel in distress, but was intercepted by the big blond-haired acolyte who grabbed his blazer and single-handedly lifted him from the ground.

“Easy! The podgy man interjected, are you mad? You have no manners. I won’t party with you anymore!”

He helped the puzzled woman on her feet while the blond man let the scared customer go.

“I’m sorry miss, these bears shouldn’t be allowed to wander in civilised places.”

She stared at him, seemed about to say something and gave a look around to the thickening wall of curious eyes peering at her gaping dress. She grabbed both sides of the ripped up stitching to keep them together.

“Hum, never mind… I… I really have to go, you see…”

She had a crisp nervous smile and slipped away as quickly as possible, trying to repress some big tears. The redhead guy kept his eyes on the floor as he tried to justify:

“It was a reflex. I’ve overextended myself a bit.”

The podgy man was reddening and muttered:

“No, absolutely not. Just brandish a tommy gun and fire at will in the crowd next time. That might be overextending.”

He spent a few minutes trying to minimise the incident and calm the other customers down. Then he went back to his coffee, obviously exasperated. The ice-cream had completely melted and the resulting blend was tepid.

“This moustache suits you well Mr Kallistos.”
 
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I'm still waiting your guesses!
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Even yours, Duke, if you're not fed up with it already.
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[edit]Just missed your post Storey. Won't answer immediately though :p [/edit]
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What an excellent way to bring attention to themselves! As for the nation, the map you put up in an earlier update had Kosovo in it, which would seem to indicate Bosnia or Bosnia-Hercogovina<sp>. But I could be wrong...
 
So Mr. Kallistos is hiding out in a whorehouse. An upscale one, but still a whorehouse. Only to be given away by his goons. Oops! A change of venue is called for, it seems.

Thanks for the picture, by the way. It helped me understand the slightly mysterious phrase: "...a cat of pink neon tube enjoying some sweet roundness." Pictures telling more than a thousand words and all that. :)
Si tu passes par là, Denise, je te prie de bien vouloir m'excuser d'avoir massacré la perspective...
Now, lessee, straining my long-defunct highschool French into action... "If you pass through there, Denise, I would beg you to well excuse me for having massacred the perspective"? Anything like that? Just curious (I get the same curiosity whenever the Danish or Swedish clans on the boards start throwing out their secret messages, but my French is somewhat better than my Scandinavian - which is non-existent - so at least here I can take a wild stab at it).

As to the country you're playing, the three countries I would hazard a guess for (simply because they have featured in your writings) have already been mentioned: Byzantium, Serbia and the Ottoman Empire. If you next write a historic scene from the perspective of, say, Castille, I'll gladly also consider that country as an option. In other words: I'm clueless, just guessing whichever country you most recently mentioned in your story.
 
Half of me is kicking myself for not recalling my French as I should after five years of it in school. However, I liked the picture and it added to the feel. Did you do that, or Denise? Very effective in establishing mood, and the details were lovely. :cool:

And the mood of the update was perfect. These are some hard gents and they are probably up to no good.

The country? I'm thinking somewhere in the Balkans, obviously - Turks or Serbians perhaps?
 
Duke of Wellington: Breathe slowly. Good. Again. Very well. Forget this little topic regarding the country. OOOPS. Calm down. Breathe again... I'll tell you after the next update anyway... (I've written it already, but as I explained earlier, it'll be out in the middle of next week, while I try to write down the following one.). ;)


Amric: Indeed. I mean it for your first sentence, of course. For the second one:
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Stuyvesant: Yeah, social life gets complicated with bodyguards, eh? Thanks regarding the drawing. Seems like your french is raising from its grave!
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And it's quite vigorous at that! Good translation sir. You could write an AAR in that weird language, couldn't you?
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coz1: Thanks too. No, Denise wouldn't torture, hack up and twist perspective like that! She knows her drawing.
Half of me is kicking myself for not recalling my French as I should after five years of it in school.
Herm... Cough, cough... <N-t-F Points at his sig>
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Nil-The-Frogg said:
The pink neon lights under their faces gave them an interesting Frankenstein’s monster touch, in a pinkpantherish kind of way.

I see you managed to work the 'pink panther' into the story. :D

Joe