Oil And Water

Sheldon Burnston

April 2008

Author’s note: At a Springfest a few years ago, I sang a biographical song of my life as Brother Bart. In it there was a line: “I fought with a king, then against him.” This is the story of that time.

It was cold.

And wet.

The not-quite-rain began to condense on the bronze of his helmet, and drips ran from the cheek guards and flaring back into the already sodden cloak, and then under his chest and backplate. It added to that already sucking the warmth from his skin. The horse-hair crest on his helmet had long ago rotted down to a mere line of fuzz, its original blue fading into the green-black of mold. His boots squelched in the swampy muck under foot, and cold water oozed through the waterlogged leather to bathe his feet in cold and dank.

With a sigh, the sergeant let fall the woolen blanket that helped keep a bit of warmth in the shelter, built on the small rise that kept its dirt floor dryer than the surrounding slough, and began his “rounds.”

As he expected, the soldier at the first guard post was alert and heard him coming.

“ ‘Mornin’, Sarge.”

“ ‘Mornin’, Jask. Anything new?”

“In this swamp? An’ in this weather? Only the brace of dancin’ girls in skimpy silks in my dreams, Sarge. ‘F I was King Hemby, I’d be snug in my bed right now, an’ I ‘spect that’s where his troops are as well, damn their asses.”

The sergeant chuckled. “Well, at least we can dream, can’t we?” He clapped the younger man on the arm. “You keep it up, Jask. Relief’ll be here in a candle or two, and then you can get some hot soup in you, and some sleep as well.”

“Thanks, Sarge. You keep dry, too.”

Both men laughed wryly at the old joke. The soldier hitched his wool cloak a little closer around his shoulders, and the sergeant continued on his way. As the senior non-commissioned officer, he was the highest ranker left in the mercenary corps they had so proudly belonged to a short four months earlier, and with the death or desertion of all those above him, the responsibility for the two hundred or so men and women left fell to him. And he was the kind who took his responsibilities seriously.

Right now, he was more worried about food and water for his troops than of any attack from their former employer. Hemby the Fourth was a far cry from his warrior ancestor who began the line. Oh, he could talk a great war, and his promises of full payment in gold also sounded good. But when his neighbor to the north, who had sworn to stay neutral when he went to war with his neighbor to the east broke that promise, Hemby quickly settled his differences with both kings, and left Crajack’s Cougars abandoned to their fate outside the walls of his citadel, surrounded by the conjoined armies of the other two kings.

The small contingent he and Lieutenant Connover had commanded had managed to break through the enemy lines with minimal losses, and some three hundred of them had taken refuge in this gods-forsaken swamp. The Lieutenant had taken a nasty leg cut covering their rear during the flight, and in the swamp there was little hope once it began to fester. When he died, the sergeant became the de facto commander of the young men—and a few women—he had helped shape into an effective fighting force. At least, of those who were left.

The one blessing they had gotten was the strange black liquid that bubbled up in sections of the swamp, turning to tar when it dried, but which burned with a strong although smelly heat. It kept them warm as the season turned from autumn to winter and when soaked into rocks it also heated their shelters. In wooded splints it provided torches.

But now, with the food supply running low and the area completely hunted out, the sergeant and his troops faced a difficult choice: surrender or starvation.

“Not on my watch,” he said to himself. “You’ve faced worse than this in the old days, and you still managed to pull your men through. There’s another answer, if you can see it.” The trouble was, he couldn’t, and within a week their supplies would be all gone.

As he slogged through the ankle-deep muck, his thoughts dwelt on the couple at the next watch-post. Kimber and Trent, no, Corporal Kimber now. He had promoted her just a week or so earlier, and while she was getting used to being a ranker, she was still new enough at it to take her sentry duty seriously. Especially with young Trent, who looked up to her as a big sister even though he was a head and a half taller.

There would be no fooling around between these two, he was sure. Besides, he had spoken to Kim several times about setting a good example, especially when she was “Officer of the Watch,” and she had listened and learned.

Sure enough, she was at her post, and young Trent was some twenty paces off, looking down the other trail from a blind under a cypress. She greeted the sergeant with a crisp salute worthy of a parade-ground inspection rather than two dirty and wet non-coms in the middle of a swamp, and he returned it with a small smile.

“How goes the watch, Corporal?”

“A quiet night, Sarge. Nothing to report. Not even an animal for the pot, more’s the pity.”

“I know, Kim, I know. Well, try to keep your spirits up. And your squad’s too. You’re coming along well, youngster. Keep it up.”

Her dimpled smile gave away her youth. A good ten years older than most of the rest, the sergeant often felt more like their father than their officer, and though he was still a few months shy of his 30 th birthday, he had lived through experiences that most of them had never dreamed of, and that too had matured him beyond his years.

After a few words with young Trent, he continued on his way. None of the rest of the guard posts had anything special to report, although one enterprising young man had caught a few small fish in an especially clear section of the swamp. The sergeant had praised him and given him the usual reward: one-third of his catch for himself and his friends and the rest into the communal pot. Outside of that, a typical day in the Great Swamp. Cold and wet. And hungry.

He was contemplating the latest revisions in the supply list from the quartermaster when some laughter drew his attention. A group was gathered around a campfire, and their laughs and shouts were loud.

“Hey Sarge, c’mere. You gotta see this!”

“What’s going on, Bon?” He strolled over.

“Well, y’know that Tur’s Da is an alchemist, right? Well, he was able to get this clear stuff outta the black oil, an’ it’s weird. It floats on water, an’ if you light it, it burns on the water! Crazy, ain’t it? I mean, we put fires out with water, y’know? Here, take a look!”

The sergeant made his way through the circling troopers and saw Tur squatting beside the fire with a cooking pot full of the black oily stuff from the swamp.

Squatting down beside him, he asked, “What have we here, Turinellany?”

“Oh, hi, Sarge. Uh, my Da called it ‘rock oil.’ He was able to extract it from the same kind of black sludge we found back home. It seeps out of the ground, Sir, and becomes very sticky. Sometimes it gets covered with dust and is hard to tell from solid ground, but animals can get trapped in it and smothered. People too, if they’re not careful. It’s not too well known, unless you’re an alchemist, y’see, Sir, because the oily black seeps aren’t too widespread.”

“Yes, well, that’s all well and good, but what are you doing here?”

“Uh, I, uh, just heated some of the black oil, Sir. If you get it right, and you don’t heat it too much, this clear watery stuff kinda separates out of it and gathers on top. It’s tricky, sir, because it can evaporate away if you aren’t quick enough, or if it’s too hot. Now if I had an alembic and proper distillation equipment…”

“Yes, whatever that is,… but tell me more about the clear stuff.”

‘Oh, uh, well, it may look like water but it sure doesn’t smell like it, Sir. And I wouldn’t drink it, Sir. It’d make you real sick. Oh, and it burns real easy, almost like strong spirits. But with a bad smell. Sir.”

“Hmm. Interesting. Well, carry on, soldier, but be careful. We have enough problems right now without burning down the camp or injuring any of your comrades.”

All through the rest of the day, the things Turinellany had said nagged at the back of his mind.

Burns easily...

Floats on water...

Tricky to deal with...

Floats on water…..

In the middle of the night, it hit him.

He had fallen asleep over his “desk,” the camp table in his shelter where he kept all the records and parchments dealing with the administration of his troop, and the guttering candle showed that perhaps an hour had passed since he started.

What he had dreamed, he never remembered, but it woke him with the answer to his troop’s problems, and their revenge, fully laid out in his mind. Quickly, before he forgot them, he took a lead pencil and parchment and wrote out notes for the morning.

After that, he took to his cot and had the best night’s sleep he’d enjoyed in weeks.

When his aide awakened him before dawn, there was a new spring in his step and energy in his manner. After his morning inspections, meant to reassure the troops as much as check on their preparedness, he disappeared into his shelter for the rest of the morning.

Shortly past noon, he called his corporals and senior squad leaders in for a conference.

After laying out his plans, there was some resistance from a few who didn’t think it would work, but when Turinellany was called in for his expert advice, all objections seemed to… evaporate, he thought wryly. A suitable word for what they were planning.

The next morning, they began the raids.

“Hit the farms and small towns,” he had told them. “Try not to kill anyone; only if you have to. But bring back what you can and torch the rest. We want to drive them into the town. The King here has traditional obligations to protect his people, and if he wants to keep his crown he’ll have to come after us, sooner or later. And bring back barrels. As many as you can.”

It took a pair of weeks for Hemby to react, and the Sergeant was getting a bit worried. Much longer, and the coming thaw would spoil much of his plans, but finally the drawbridge came down. The King and his troops marched out of their walled city and headed toward the swamps. Their goal was obvious, or so his scouts told him; to wipe out the rest of the mercenaries, who would be weakened by a hungry winter spent in the cold and wet.

Hopefully, they were in for a surprise.

As the days passed, the sergeant was proud of the youngsters under his command. They led the King and his soldiers on almost perfectly, stinging them with arrow fire and then eluding the pursuit as they led the small army further and further into the swamp. The King’s own scouts were intercepted and eliminated.

In the meantime, others had taken the barrels of the clear liquid Turinellany and his friends had coaxed out of the black ooze and secreted them in strategically sited spots. Still others had built small dams and barriers to divert the flow of swamp water from a particularly chosen area, creating a dry clearing in the middle of the slough. Finally, all was in place.

It was early morning when he began. The barrels were broken open, and once they had spread their contents atop the dammed waters, the barriers were breached and the resulting flood spread quickly towards the campsite.

Once the waters had reached the King’s army, the sergeant himself fired the first flaming arrow into the camp. With a gigantic WHOOSH! the entire field went up in flames, trapping the King, his men and all their supplies. The few who were able to escape the flames were quickly cut down by the mercenaries waiting for them. It was almost anti-climactic.

A day or so later, the sergeant met with his staff one last time.

“Are you sure you won’t come with us, Sarge? There’s money to be made in Toolibrie, so I hear. Guard work, or caravans, or marines for the merchant ships. Easy work, with good coin.”

“ No, Merton, I’ve been to Toolibrie. Nothin’ there for me. But I hear that Lutenburne and the East are good areas for a sell-sword as well. Besides, I ain’t never seen the Isle of Long. Hear it’s pretty in the Spring. But I wish you well, all of you. May the Gods keep you safe.”

With that, he swung himself into the saddle of one of the late King’s horses, conveniently picketed at the edge of the swamp with a small (now deceased) group of guards, and started eastward.

Sergeant Bart, once Bartellany of Ram’s Neck Bay, and more recently Black Bart the pirate, began humming a sea shanty as he rode.

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