Art of War: Anthology for Charity

395 Pages·2018·1.54 MB·English

by  Petros Triantafyllou (ed.)

Art of War
Edited by Petros Triantafyllou

An Anthology for Charity:
All proceeds from Art of War will go to MSF (Doctors
Without Borders)

© 2018

http://booknest.eu/

Cover art by John Antony di Giovanni
Cover design by Shawn T. King
Interior art by Jason Deem (Print version contains 40 B&W original art pieces.)
Editorial assistance by Tim Marquitz
Created in Greece
Worldwide Rights

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or
distributed in any form, including digital, electronic, or mechanical, to include
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without the prior written consent of the author, except for brief quotes used in
reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and incidents are
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents

Foreword – Brian D. Anderson
The Breaking of the Sky- Ed McDonald
The Last Arrow- Mitchell Hogan
Dear Menelaus - Laura M. Hughes
Warborn - C.T. Phipps
The Greatest Battle - John Gwynne
This War of Ours - Timandra Whitecastle
Shadows in the Mist - Sue Tingey
The Art: Post War - RJ Barker
The Fox and the Bowman - Sebastien de Castell
Arrow’s Wrath - Charles F. Bond
Hard Lessons - Michael R. Miller
A Battle for Elucame: Leah – R.B. Watkinson
The Revolution Changed Everyone - D. Thourson Palmer
Misplaced Heroism - Andrew Rowe
Violet - Mazarkis Williams
The Two Faces of War - Rob J. Hayes
Grannit – J.P. AShman
Asalantir Forever - Steven Poore
Tower of the Last - Steven Kelliher
The Waving of the Flag - Thomas R. Gaskin
The Art of War - Brian Staveley
Hero of the Day - Nathan T. Boyce
Sacred Semantics - Nicholas Eames
The War God's Axe - Anne Nicholls
The Feather and the Paw - Benedict Patrick
Until the Light had Faded – Graham Austin-King
Under the Queen’s Throne - Ed Greenwood
Good Steel - Zachary Barnes
The Cost of Power - Ulff Lehmann
The Undying Lands – Michael R. Fletcher’s Doppels
The Fall of Tereen - Anna Smith-Spark
Valkyrie Rain - Dyrk Ashton
Chattels - Stan Nicholls
The Storm - Miles Cameron
Shortblade – Brandon Draga
Rendered Chaos - D. M. Murray
The Best and Bravest - M.L. Spencer
Exibition - Ben Galley
Flesh and Coin - Anna Stephens
The Hero of Aral Pass - Mark Lawrence
Acknowledgments
Foreword

“I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have
neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded, who cry
aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.” - William
Tecumseh Sherman

When I was asked to write this foreword, I was unsure how I should
approach it. Or even if I were qualified to make the attempt. Many a great mind
has written on this subject. From revered generals to spiritual leaders, war is a
preoccupation of the human condition that has been explored in tremendous
depth. Given this, I was more than a bit intimidated by the prospect of throwing
my own two cents in. I am no general, nor a spiritual leader, and I have never
considered myself among the great intellects of the world. But wars are not
fought by great intellects. They are fought by soldiers. Men and women no
different than myself. So rather than give in to self-doubt, I thought I would
simply go talk to some soldiers. It felt like the right place to start.
I knew that my own perceptions of war had very little, if anything, to do
with reality. After all, I’ve never been a soldier; never been close to a war in any
significant way. And yet most of my books depict massive battles, where good
and evil collide to determine the fate of the world. I practically sing songs of its
righteousness and virtue. I use the most sinister and violent aspects of our nature
to paint a picture of valor, bravery, and kinship. Even though I know that war is
among the most reprehensible acts perpetrated by humankind, I have yet to find
a better way to illustrate who and what we are as a species. Even never having
been near one, its horrors are as familiar as they are terrifying. I shudder at the
thought of sending our young to their deaths and yet am utterly transfixed by
tales of bloody conflict and heroism. I curse as fools those who claim war to be
glorious or say that it is a necessary and unavoidable evil. And yet I cannot tear
my eyes away from the images splayed across my television screen. The more I
thought on this, the more I felt as if I were a true hypocrite, hating war yet
unable to stop writing about it.
It wasn’t until I went on one of my visits to the VFW that I understood, at
least in a small way, what was behind my fascination, and why I was right to use
war and its horrors to display laudable and even beautiful images of humanity.
For those of you who do not know, VFW stands for Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Though a private club, it welcomes the public to visit, vets and non-vets alike.
I’ve been going there for some time, favoring the company of older people with
milder temperaments who are not prone to getting into bar brawls. When you
walk through the door, it’s not much to look at. Just a bar, a pool room, and a
small hall where they hold the occasional minor event (dances, karaoke, and
whatnot). The casual observer would see little more than a bar full of crusty old
men speaking to one another in slurred voices over mugs of cheap beer. But I
assure you that it is much more than that. In a very real way, these crusty old
men are what gives war its virtue, if any is to be found.
With a plan in mind, or at least a vague idea where I would start, I jumped
in the car and headed off. They know me pretty well there and were more than
happy to give a “youngster” such as myself the skinny on war and what it was all
about. In truth, I think they were excited that someone else beside the other vets
wanted to hear their stories. These men have been going to the VFW for years;
long enough to have told every story they know a hundred times over. A fresh
set of ears was obviously welcome.
So, after buying several rounds and listening attentively for hours, I
discovered a common thread woven into each story. But it was not what I
expected. It seemed that regardless of the war in which they fought, none of
them spoke a single word about the fighting itself. Very little suggested they
were speaking about their time in the service. Except for the mention of officers
and technical terms only a soldier would use, they could have been telling me
about their time at college or a trip with friends. I heard about bar brawls, loose
women, pranks they played, the trouble they found themselves in, even being
arrested. But the words enemy, firefight, bombs, and combat never came up.
What did this have to do with war? I wondered. Maybe they would come to it
eventually. But they didn’t. After the first try, I went home quite discouraged. I
still had the option of watching a documentary or two and then faking my way
through it, as if I knew what the hell I was talking about. But I shoved this aside
and marshaled my determination. I had resolved to give this my best, and I
intended to do precisely that. Perhaps I was approaching this from the wrong
angle. I hadn’t wanted to lead them in a specific direction, thinking spontaneity
would be better, more genuine. But I had either been wide of the mark or hadn’t
given them enough time to arrive at that point. After all, they had decades of
tales to tell, and I had only given it one day.
On the second trip, I was still reluctant to lead them where I thought I
needed them to go. Don’t get me wrong; I was thoroughly entertained. The
stories they told were interesting, deeply personal, and often side-splittingly
hilarious. And with men ranging in age from 55-95, I could have spent weeks,
possibly months, and still not heard them all. But I didn’t have that long. My
deadline was fast approaching. So finally, I was forced to press the issue.
Initially, I had assumed that they were avoiding telling me about the actual
fighting because the memories were too painful. And in many cases this
assumption was proven accurate. However, there were a few who seemed
unbothered and were willing to describe their combat experiences. But the
stories were unvaryingly bland and lacked any flavor or depth. The vets
appeared disinterested, and sounded as if they were reading from a dry textbook.
And oddly, they didn’t understand why I would care about it in the first place.
After all, everyone knew about the fighting. Only they knew what happened in
the in-between moments, when the bloodshed ceased and the bombs stopped
falling.
I had hoped to hear of strategy and heroism, the adrenaline-fueled rage of
battle, where the average soldier finds courage he never knew he possessed.
Instead, I was regaled with accounts of frivolity and almost juvenile mischief-
making. What little I had heard of battle I could have read from any book on the
subject. No closer to my objective, I went home, again on the verge of giving up.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time to use veterans as a resource. But
maybe I should just go with my other idea and watch some documentaries or
read a few books by famous generals. But that didn’t feel right either.
On a whim, I read one of my early works, flipping forward until I reached
one of the battle scenes. It was the first book I had written, and the prose left
much to be desired. But it wasn’t that which struck me. As the scene progressed,
I came to realize what I had missed. I’d thought I had left the VFW empty-
handed, when in fact they had given me everything I needed to understand why
I, along with many other writers, use war as a vehicle to explain human nature in
its entirety.
Soldiers don’t concern themselves with geopolitics. They serve. They fight.
For their country, true. But for the soldier standing beside them as well. In many
cases they fought for their friends more than they fought for their country. Each
story about some local girl they met or bar fights they were in was another layer
to be revealed. Each word I was hearing was a slice of humanity in its purest
form.
Taken individually, in the grand scheme of things, nothing they had said
was of any particular significance – amusing anecdotes at best. Yet when
patched together, even sitting at that greasy bar, drinking that cheap beer, I
began to see a wealth I would have missed had I not taken on this assignment. It
encouraged me to delve deeper. So, I spent several more days listening with
renewed vigor and excitement. But this time, I didn’t ask them a thing. I simply
listened to these men interact with each other. There was a bond between them
that I imagine could be only formed through a mutual experience like war and
service. I found myself feeling a stab of regret for not having served; unable to