Trench: A Fantasy Novel of Epic Inconsequence by Ethan Childress

Author:Ethan Childress [Childress, Ethan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-03-01T22:00:00+00:00

- TEN -

Miller Gets an Ass Full of Arrows and Then Things Get Awkward

Miller sat on a rock overlooking the medical tent and the engineering shop. It was a beautiful day. The sun shone warmly, the breeze carried a smell other than death and mold, and the enemy seemed to be doing nothing more than existing in their trench. This was the kind of day only seen once every two or three years on the Fringe. It was the perfect day for killing fairies.

Over Miller's head four of the angry creatures buzzed. Their long time at the Fringe had made them aggressive and erratic. They had fashioned for themselves weapons made of bone and sinew, and had started to protect territory they seemed to feel was theirs.

This had actually been working out as the fairies tended to stay away from the trench proper in favor of more isolated locales. Unfortunately, the latrines were isolated. This behavior had been realized three weeks earlier.

It was Miller himself that made the discovery of the fairies new homeland on a dark night when a large helping of trench-hog began to assert itself on his digestive system. He hadn't bothered to bring a light. Like most soldiers he simply followed the smell. More than one trooper on the Fringe had met their end face down in a too-often used latrine because the enemy camp saw the light and used it as a target. The troops referred to it as "The Fitting End." The usual procedure in such a case was simply to fill in the hole and dig a new latrine. The letters to the family simply said the trooper met a "fitting end" commensurate with their rank and importance to the war effort. Hence the name.

Miller had found the bench with the holes cut in it easily enough. He had even managed to take a seat without falling in. But before he could accomplish his true mission the attack began.

Hours later in the medical tent Miller would recount the horror. The nightmarish details and mind shattering trauma suffered lost most of their impact as he had to tell them while lying face down with his pants pulled down around his ankles and with his ass hoisted above his head in a sling. The tiny arrows and hand tools embedded in his posterior were being removed by Bruinhilda and Flora.

Whatever hopes he entertained about keeping this indignity quiet were quickly lost as, with every new guffaw from the medical staff, more spectators arrived to see what all the fuss was about.

"Looks like they got your good side," Treesinger smirked as he stood by the doorway. "Still, I blame the schools. They should do more to help those troubled fairies with no direction. Maybe a sports program."

"Well, they certainly seem to have archery down," Flora said while removing one of the nasty barbed arrows. "Wow, how did they manage to barb these things? They're the size of sewing needles."

Captain Bozeman entered and looked Miller up and down, "No, no, don't get up.

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