#arquebus bros

[dogsagainstbenitojuarez]

Learning about the Imijin war (because autist) and once again I'm thinking about the whole "Samurai didn't like guns" thing. Which is an interesting myth and I'm not 100% sure where it came from.

Was it like Edo period cope that Oda Nobunaga had come up with Japanese Pike and Shot tactics? Like the thing fire arms did was it made Ashigaru much more valuable since learning to load and point an Arquebus was easier than the advanced bow training Samurai would do.

Was it the Japanese guy who tried to impress the west by saying Bushido was similar to European Chivalry? Bruh who knows.

But what is funny is that during the Imijin war (Toyotomi Hideyoshi invading Korea) is that the Japanese had spent so much time shooting at each other that when they showed up in Korea and shot at the Koreans the Koreans were like "Bro WTF." And that was not good.

[falkewolfe]

To Be A Good Man ... To Be A Brave Man

"I'll not argue the point." But in truth, Wolfe did. In truth, Wolfe knew his value and the value of what a good man ought to have been. Wolfe lacked the redeeming qualities that might have made him a good man. He could have been one ... once ... but ... He shook his head. That way lay madness and grief. Now was not the time for maudlin thoughts. Only, maybe now was the time. In the jaws of death and the only prospect of saving their asses dependent upon a hare-brained scheme of extraordinary danger and foolish recklessness. Niall would have something to say about it all no doubt. Perhaps mostly along the lines of: Ye shouldn't have gotten drunk and wandered off out towards the Broken Front and gotten caught up in Nightguard business. Niall would have had a point, Wolfe had to concede, ignoring that he was his own internal monologue berating himself. He sighed and then turned his mood more jovial, perhaps a little forced so, but he clapped his thighs. "I'll certainly not argue the bit about food. Ha!" The food was good but perhaps the prospect of being caged within a tower, surrounded by hordes of wights had that effect of enhancing the flavour of cooked food. The benefit of knowing a last meal is potentially a last meal. With his meal finished, coffee drank and a swig of his hipflask, Wolfe stared at the coals of the nearest fire even as about him the nightguards worked and prepped. Working towards a plan. A fool ass plan, but a plan nevertheless. A possible means out of this. That strange concoction of the nightguard, the one drove off wights was being gathered for the proposed idea, was brought close to the doors, ready to be deployed. The men prepping it, trying not to stare at either of the ginterghasts upon whom the plan to save their lives depended. WAS THERE GUILT IN THOSE CAST DOWN AND AWAY EYES? Not just for the expectation that the pair would place themselves in danger. But guilt at the ill treatment of so many ginters over the years by the nightguard, with ginterghasts scorned and rejected by the Guard, made to sleep in stables when barracks were available with cots in them. When conflicts were sought when they ought to have been partnered together, working for a better result. But so many of them, far too many of them, were young and unaware of the wider world, caught up in a service that expected them to show courage in the face of terrifying monsters and risk their lives for a paltry coin with nary a thanks from society at large more often than not. He thought of Arden, that little wooden figurine whittled and sat upon Matty's shelf. Did it stand there still? Gathering dust in an empty room? How many of these men ought already to be dead but for the leadership and sacrifices of others? How many more would die if he and Grey could not make a difference? That was the moment when Wolfe sat the coffee mug aside and his countenance grew determined. The time for songs, falling away, at an end. It was time to prepare, before it was a time for action. Wolfe took a jar of the wight scaring smell, soaking an old ragged scrap of a nightguard coat in it and wrapped it about the chest containing the skull. He looked up to meet Grey level in the eye. "This ought to mask some of the draw, yes? If I can gain a little distance from the tower and the walls, I can break the horse into a gallop, whilst I unfurl this cloth, then reveal the skull and then draw the wights. If it's bargheists outside... we may be in luck. Not that I ever thought I'd eve say that! Huh. But it means there won't be fallowhaunts lurking on the tower walls ready to drop down on us." By us, he meant he. He would be the bait. But he needed Grey to trigger the trap. Grey was the trigger. The point of the sword. "You ... they all need to be ready to move, once the wights follow. There won't be a second chance to return here. They have to flee. Keep going. So the priests and injured need to be made ready to move and rushed out." Wolfe nodded at Alistair hoping he agreed. But the difficulty lay in allowing all of that to happen first. That

was where Grey and whomever else he tasked to the challenge to assist needed to come in. And this was the bit that cause Wolfe to gulp down fear. He did not understand how men like Grey, like Arden had had the courage to do what they did, more than that, to have the courage and fortitude to ask it of those who served under them, to place people in danger, mortal danger and perhaps make that ultimate sacrifice. Wolfe could make that choice, could take that risk, for himself, but to ask it of others ... he shook his head troubled and uncomprehending of it. "You'll need to act as a diversion. To buy time for me and for the others to line up to make the break and then to hold that line until the wights follow. I can't see how ye get around it without risk. But ... ye'll have to face whatever horrors are out there. Drive them back. Just enough. Pick them off. Have my back until I can get the horse clear. Is that ... is it doable?" It had to be. And Grey had to be the one who would stand against whatever they faced and make everything fall into place. Wolfe tried to discern what the man would say and what his eyes read. But his eyes rested not on Grey's face but on the hilt of his sword. "A man, a man who wore a sword like that one," Wolfe nodded to the famed Blackweald Sword in Alistair's scabbard. His face constricted into a frown, his lips a thin line of sorrow and contemplation, before he came back to his senses and continued the flow of his words. "He ... he ... Arden. He-he- were a Nightguard Captain. I never knew him. But I knew him to be ..." Wolfe teared up slightly, thinking of young Matty's first conversation with him and how he had described his father, the Nightguard Captain, "the bravest of the brave." Johannes turned his face away and wiped the tear away before he faced Grey again. Wolfe raised his shoulders and took a deep, steadying breath as he tried to explain the risk he was willing to take. The why of it. The reasoning behind it. He wanted not to get caught up in memories of years ago, but around these Nightguards, the spectre and ghost of Arden's sacrifice loomed large. And his loss to Caroline and Matty. And how Wolfe had come into their lives, had been embraced and then ... and then he brought calamity upon them. Wolfe's teeth grew into hackles, his teeth dragging across drawn back lips, as he struggled to contain the sudden memory of it. A memory he had to push and shove back down but not without explaining to Grey that he had to do this. That he owed this. "I was supposed to protect his family. I failed. Oh Gods I failed, Grey. And no, fer that reason, I am not a good man. But ... but ... I want to be - they made me better. They made me want to be better, to believe I could be better. And Gods, if only I could be. If only ... if only I could have been. I guess this ... I guess this is a piss poor way to repay a debt - not a debt - a piss poor way to try and make an amends. Even then, even if it helps, even it works and we drive them away, that act - it will pale with my failure. But I owe the memory of that man, at least that much. To try, to try and help. To try and ... try and be brave ... to try and be a good man." To not be the bravest of the brave, simply just brave enough. To try and be a good man.