Paucelry

Paucelry is a Pal trooper, a rank-and-file soldier in the Pal army, who appears only in the opening pages of a single chapter in House of Open Wounds. Found by Banders among the stragglers left behind during a Pal rout or retreat, he is one of three troopers gathered into an improvised group with Trooper Lidlet and Klimmel as Banders assumes command of the survivors. Paucelry's entire narrative presence lasts the duration of one chapter: the group walks toward the Pal lines under cover of darkness, stumbles into a Loruthi patrol, and is killed in the confused close-quarters firefight that erupts when both sides draw batons simultaneously.

He matters to the series not as an individual but as a representative of the Pal army's expendable rank and file. His death-swift, inglorious, occurring mere pages after his introduction-enacts the same indifference to individual life that the broader Pal military machine inflicts on its own soldiers. That Banders rifles his pockets after the skirmish, looting his body before the survivors mount up on captured horses, makes the point explicit: in the calculus of the field, Paucelry's value is exhausted the moment his breath is gone. His arc, such as it is, is that of the anonymous dead who make up the landscape through which the named characters move.

The Term

Meaning

In the context of House of Open Wounds, Paucelry denotes simply a Pal trooper-a regular soldier, unnamed in rank beyond the generic designation, left behind during a rout. The name carries no special military significance or title within the Pal hierarchy; it identifies an individual within the undifferentiated mass of the Pal army's enlisted men.

Usage

The name appears only in third-person narration during the straggler sequence. No character addresses Paucelry by name within the surviving text, and the trooper himself is given no line of dialogue.

History

House of Open Wounds

Paucelry is a Pal trooper, a regular soldier in the Pal army, who is left behind during a rout or retreat. He is discovered alongside two other troopers-Trooper Lidlet and Klimmel-by Banders, a former Cohort-Broker now serving as an orderly, who scouts the field and gathers the three of them into a combined group of stragglers; Banders appoints herself de facto leader, and the group resolves to wait for darkness before walking back toward the Pal lines - ch 15. They do not make it far. The group stumbles into four Loruthi soldiers, and both sides draw batons simultaneously; in the confused close-quarters firefight that follows, Paucelry is killed. In the same skirmish, Klimmel stabs a Loruthi to death with a knife, Lidlet is shot through the breast, and Accessory Masty is also shot, while Banders kills the remaining Loruthi woman - ch 15. After the fight, Masty returns with three horses taken from the dead (one Loruthi animal having been shot during the engagement), and the survivors prepare to ride two-to-a-horse toward the Pal lines. Before they mount up, Banders rifles Paucelry's pockets, looting his body - ch 15.

Relationships

• Banders - The former Cohort-Broker who scouts the field and gathers Paucelry, Lidlet, and Klimmel into a single group, appointing herself de facto leader; after Paucelry is killed in the Loruthi skirmish, Banders returns to his body and loots his pockets before the survivors ride on-ch 15.
• Trooper Lidlet - Fellow Pal straggler collected by Banders alongside Paucelry; Lidlet is shot through the breast in the same skirmish that kills Paucelry-ch 15.
• Klimmel - The third Pal trooper in the straggler group; Klimmel kills a Loruthi soldier with a knife during the firefight that kills Paucelry-ch 15.

Tags

1. soldier · #trooper · #palleseen · #killed