Rituals or Exceptions

Rituals of Exceptions is a short unpublished story about the Red Exemplars during the second battle of Nazada in the year 1993 [2:1501]. The basic idea of the story is that rituals set the Red Exemplars apart from the rest of the world, but it is when they make exceptions that they will receive greatness.

This story is also known as "50,000 Red Exemplars".

Synopsis

Captain Nelenar of the Red Exemplars is going to lead his soldiers into battle against the Dark Lunari Mathol at Nazada. Despite the fifty men of the Red Exemplars being the most elite soldiers in the world, the strategy devised by Great King Emanpugnikam and the Lunari calls for the Red Exemplars to add fifty-thousand horsemen to their ranks. Their purpose is to charge the defenses of Nazada and clear a path for the rest of the army to follow. It is also said that no Red Exemplar will survive the charge. Unable to go against the orders of a Lunari, Captain Nelenar reluctantly agrees to take the horsemen under his command.

Because they were all destined to die, the following morning before dawn, Captain Nelenar gathered his 50,050 soldiers and held a ceremony to prematurely observe a Red Exemplar ritual: the slicing of the forearm in memory of one's fallen comrades. He made the ritual optional for the horsemen but later found that every one of them had also slit their arm.

The charge swept forward as the first rays of the sun illuminated the snowy plain. The rest of the army watched as the Red Exemplars surged forward. Their numbers decreased as they fought against the ice creatures and it is unknown how many actually made it to the gate of Nazada. It is known that Colonel Ved, former commander of the horsemen, rode beside Captain Nelenar and that the two of them had fought their way into the very chamber of Mathol.

The story then moves to the perspective of one of the common soldiers, Merak. He tells of the advance of the rest of the army and how the Dark Lunari Mathol unleashed torrents of freezing rain. One of the more gruesome details of his story is how the army marched forward stepping on the bodies of the slain Red Exemplars in an attempt to keep from being frozen in the rising slush. Merak tells how he found a wounded Red Exemplar asking to be killed. The Red Exemplar died seconds later. Merak then entered the tower in which Mathol resided.

At the top of the tower, Merak found the corpses of Captain Nelenar and Colonel Ved along with the three Lunari who had gone to defeat the Dark Lunari. He was ordered to take up the red armband of the Red Exemplars. One of the Lunari then cut Merak's arm, officially making him the new leader of the Red Exemplars.

Merak then leaves the tower and gathered several other soldiers. Together they rescued Great King Emanpugnikam and several others from the white plague which had been unleashed by the death of Mathol.