The Order of the Eagle

I had a curious dream last night. A little nugget of thought. A snapshot of a story. Maybe it will develop into something larger. Maybe it will become incorporated into something I’ve already written.

The dream was about a group of fighting men who have been backed into a corner and know that defeat is upon them. These were swordsmen, and they had retreated into a stone building for shelter amidst a battle against an unseen enemy. They’ve accepted this defeat and are determined now to run boldly into the enemy’s army, hoping that some will escape an almost certain death. Survival is of the utmost importance to these men. Though they’ve accepted defeat and know their fighting days are over. As an act of surrender, they plan to offer their right hands to the enemy, in return for life.

If their hands are cut off, they will call out the cry they call “spit fire.” (Why it’s called this, I don’t know.) This is the whistling cry of the eagle, as it circles overhead. This cry will let others know their fate.

These men are united in some manner of brotherhood. It was after awakening, and just as I started to write this post, that I decided to call this the Order of the Eagle, because of several references to eagles, specifically bald eagles, in the dream.

The uniform feature of the men was that they all wore black leather gauntlets. The four fingers of the left hand (excluding the thumb) were dipped in white paint. On the right hand, only the index finger was dipped in paint. These markings were meant to represent the white wingtips of the bald eagle. (Which is funny, because bald eagles don’t have white wingtips. This is more like the wingtips of black vultures. But in my dream, I was clearly thinking of bald eagles. Maybe there’s some weird subtext there.)

I don’t know why the right and left hands were painted differently, and it clearly was painted, not white leather. The paint flaked off as it dried, exposing the black leather beneath where the knuckles bent. I wonder if maybe the difference between right and left hands was just because the paint tended to wear off the more used hand, or equally, that it was left off to ensure the men could grip their weapons.

This is the extent of the dream I had. It’s an interesting start, or end maybe, to a story. Let’s see where it will lead…