A Solemn Leek

"Prime yer pans!"

The cry came from behind the rusted visor of Serjeant Hazzlerigg, a slavering man with rather too much jaw and not enough teeth left to fill it. His bald head and twisted, warty face gave him the look of some sort of potato creature, and for it, he had been uplifted to command.

Unworthy-Is-Your-Existence Pratt didn't voice it, but he felt that the visor hiding Hazzlerigg's face was something of a blessing - exalted he may be, yet fearsome ugly to behold. Such was the price of true purerootan righteousness. He obeyed the command, and grabbed for one of the wooden powder bottles that hung around his scrawny neck like a necklace of bones. Each one carried a charge of crushed fire fungus, a volatile thing that grew and squirmed on the underside of bridges all over Cist. The thing could be carefully harvested with a blunt bone knife, so as not to set off it's crippling explosive nature, then dried and crushed to make a foul-smelling, slightly greasy powder. He fumbled with the screw top, his fingers slick with the lazy drizzle, and poured some of the contents into his arquebus. It had clumped together, but it was still good. A few grains was enough to set the relic roaring when the time came.

"About!"

Pratt lowered the butt of his weapon to the ground with a wet splat. The mud here was thick, cloying; claiming anything that dropped into its embrace. The rest of his powder flask was emptied down the barrel, with a little tapping to coax the last slimy grains out. He put the barrel to his mouth and spat the rough lead pellet down after, then kicked the arquebus against his boot to settle the ball. He rooted around in his satchel for another bullet, which he settled in the blackened and cancerous pouch of his cheek. He liked to chew them.

The cry came up again. "Make ready and present!"

Somewhere ahead of him, cloaked by smog and swamp gas, a rabble of unbelievers was bearing upon them. He could hear the wet slap of their clogs and the reedy whistle of a fifer, long before they hove into view. They were known heretics, followers of some wretched and foul faith. Pratt's chest swelled, as much as it could ever be described as swelling, at the thought of his own righteous role in the killing of such apostates. He brought his firearm up in front of him, pressing the wet stock into his shoulder, smearing the rough tan leather in foul muck. He gave it no mind. In his mind's eye, he could see his enemies - staggering fools with tall hats rammed on their heads, and without even the decency of wearing a visor. Such immodesty made his stomach turn - though the greasy remnants of the mixed root broth they'd all eaten didn't help. The unsteady stomp of footprints were getting closer, and no more than twenty paces ahead, he could see the ghosts of unrighteous soldiers swimming into view. He looked to Serjeant Hazzlerigg, his heart thumping as he awaited the order.

"Bi' the powers, fire!"

The order was answered by a click-hiss of a dozen matches plunging into powdered pans, and the fiery boom of discharging arquebuses, spitting their loads of bullets, nails, teeth, and whatever detritus was rammed into their maws. Figures in the mist staggered and dropped, but Unworthy-Is-Your-Existence Pratt didn't see it. The barrel of his weapon, ill-maintained and crammed with shot, had burst. His unit roared with laughter as what was left of him, twitching and pulsing with the last of his lifeblood, sank slowly into the peat. They lowered their weapons, and reloaded. Such was life in Pulsifer's Regiment of Root.