It was now December. The war had been over, completely, for over two months. Both rebel and Astarte priest had been caught, and had been executed along with Chalak the spy just a week ago. Things had returned to normal quicker than K'rar had anticipated. K'rar was popular in the city. When he had returned to the city with a queue of captive rebels, they were calling him the Iscalan Knight too, and he had thus come to be known as the Iscalan Knight. Anyone who hadn't known anything about Iscalan knew it now. There had been no movement on K'rar's project yet, at his own instigation. He was planning on beginning it at the start of the new year. Now, he was on a much-needed vacation. However, the project was underway, just without K'rar. On the Kaffrarian Islands, his subjects, the Nephilim, were waiting for the new year while scouring the islands for chemar by themselves. On many occasions people had asked him to have them brought into the city for a spectacle, which he declined.
Still, he was already laying the seeds for his regiment in secret with the king. He had had the king begin a search for skilled men in many fields from medicine to carpentry to metalsmithing and many other fields regarding nature. He had even included a "dog handler" in his list of professionals. At first this search was conducted in Zadok, and names had been catalogued—old Sahar's name too—but K'rar had figured that many more were needed, and the names already on the list had been used to find others like them. K'rar had added Qallio's name as the head of metalsmiths, and that man would travel to Zadok soon with Chio and a very large team of Iscalan youth according to Chio, who had also been at work in the southwest.
Very few of these people had any idea about what was going on, and one of those few was Tanihuchi, an Ettite living in Zadok. Tanny's expertise was in physical nature. He liked to refer to himself as an astronomer. K'rar had found Tanny in the first wave of scouring the city. He was a lively 33 year old man from a rich family, who was excellent in arithmetic, stars and patterns. He was very engrossed in his studies of the physical environment, questioning why it did what it did. When he had met K'rar, the two had immediately struck a strong bond because their interests matched, save for K'rar's inclination to the military. After the first month K'rar had introduced to Tanny an idea involving the propulsion of a sky lantern. K'rar had had to explain what a sky lantern was, as this was a thing in Moab, largely on Kai Island, but not in Xaxanika. Made of a translucent covering, the Kayan lamp was simply a flying light balloon kept aloft by a fire. Kayans used it to commemorate their dead and on select festivals involving the dead. He had created one and demonstrated it—and it had marveled many who saw it—and asked Tanny to find out if it was possible for the same method to propel something horizontally, on the surface of the earth. After weeks of near-lunatic studying, Tanny had figured that there was an even better method for propelling a ship based on the same technique.
So on a dry and cold winter morning, Tanny showed up to the palace, while K'rar was visiting the tailor. A servant told him, and K'rar ran quickly to meet him in the fourth courtyard. He found Tanny directing some men from the Gulta to place a sizeable model ship next to the pool in this courtyard, and to stay there for further instructions.
'It's been long, my friend,' he said.
'No kidding,' K'rar's eyes were on the miniature ship, 'you have been busy.'
'Of course,' said Tanny. He was almost always smiling when he spoke, 'come on, I'll show you what we added.' He squatted next to the model to show K'rar the new additions to the ship. He loved to explain his contraptions, so before he started to do so, his face beamed with excitement as he pointed to the keel of the model's stern.
'These here, these are like the ship's cart wheels…what are you doing?'
'What?' K'rar said.
'Get down, I'm trying to explain.' K'rar almost laughed as he went down on his knee next to the man. Tanny went on, 'Now I call these propellers. They propel the ship forward by rotating.' He looked K'rar in the eye, raising his eyebrows. K'rar knew he wanted him to be interactive by asking the relevant questions. Smiling, he said,
'Who will rotate them? They're under the ship.'
'They are. But they don't need who to propel them, but what. Steam. Hot air, but given off by steam, not live fire.'
'That requires an unceasing supply of steam, for a big ship.' K'rar observed.
'Alas, that is the problem. Also, a real vessel is not big enough for an engine room. Needs an entire station, by my calculations. Besides, a real ship is wooden, and fire and wood are not friends.'
K'rar had never told Tanny anything about his concept metal ship, nor about the one sitting somewhere by an island in the Kaffraria. Tanny's model ship was based on Xaxanikan fishing vessels. K'rar said,
'No, don't worry about it. Go on and demonstrate as if it will not destroy the ship.'
'Right. I added a small chamber here, which would be the steam station on a real vessel,' he was bending, 'there is no steam, but I connected this bag, it's an air bag, to the propellers. When I squeeze its belly, it creates a strong wind, as it were, which pushes the propellers to rotate, moving the ship.'
The Gulta men standing there had picked an interest. When Tanny asked them to place the ship in the pool for the demonstration by sliding it across beams, one of them asked curiously,
'I'm sorry for asking, sir, but where are the ship's sails?'
'No need,' smiled Tanny, 'this ship can move even faster with wheels under its keel at the stern. Just place it right…there.'
'It does not need sails?' K'rar was attentive.
'Not at all. More space on the deck, you know. Fantastic, eh?' The last time, they had used the same mechanism to blow air into the sails from the deck, but for a full-rigged ship this would be a waste of time. They had tried and tried again with different additions and omissions, and the ship had still been just a normal fishing vessel needing natural air currents to move. But when Tanny squeezed the air bag, the model sailed seamlessly for about a meter before coming to a halt.
'Behold, gentlemen. Tanihuchi's steamship,' Tanny said, grinning recklessly.
'I'll be damned,' one of the Gulta men said.
'Okay, take this away,' K'rar ordered them, 'put it in the junk room.' That was K'rar's name for the old storage room no one used. He pulled Tanny aside and told him, 'now listen. It's time for me to tell you a secret. In a few weeks we will be inviting the people on the list to the palace, and the project will begin. You will spearhead the construction of ships with that new system.'
'Well, I don't know the details of this, but of course. Still, this concept, like I said, can't work…'
'They will be metal ships, and they will have an engine room too.' said K'rar.
'What?'
'Come on, I'll show you something.' He would now show him the Behemoth, and many of his other concepts.
Later that night, a steward came to K'rar as he read a scroll from the Writ. K'rar had also resolved to learn more about this northern god, Ihanga, especially after he had learned details about the goddess Astarte, whom K'rar thought was extremely similar to Ashtoreth. But K'rar was also studying this Ihanga for more major reasons. The steward was telling him that the palace tailor had asked for him,
'Right, got it. Summon Shaniz and Bekka for me, will you?'
'Of course, young sir.'
'Tell them I'll be at the textiles, with the tailor.'
The two girls had been training in combat with him seven days of the week, and were either good students, or K'rar was just a good teacher. K'rar thought it was the former. That they were just excited about being female warriors, trained by him of all people. Tonight, K'rar would tell them of something more, so when they came, he told them,
'I have something for you two.'
'Is our training finished?' Bekka asked quickly, and K'rar laughed.
'Not even close,' said K'rar, pulling them into the room, 'go put those on.'
'Put what on?'
'Will you go and put it on, now?'
Shaniz couldn't guess what it was at first, but she figured it was a uniform. The uniform of a female warrior.
They looked splendid in them. The uniform lacked body armor, which was for later, but might have been even better without it. The uniform was black only from top to bottom. A tight sleeveless top, made with much leather around the thorax to keep breasts in place. The top also had a wide opening for the neck, and some part of the chest was exposed and would be covered in armor. A separate piece of armor, made in round shaped flexible aluminium, was to be worn over the shoulders and upper chest. On these, K'rar would design and fit insignia for officers depending on their rank, and these two ladies would be officers. Their capes, which K'rar was yet to design, were also to hang from this piece. Another simple piece of armor, made of thin, but strong, steel plates, made up the armor to cover the abdomen and back. The lower section comprised of flexible leggings up to the lower knee, and over these, a short skirt with a hem above the knee. Additionally, two pieces of armor would be worn, made also of overlapping aluminium rings, over the lower thighs. This left much of the legs exposed, but they were taken care of by comfortable knee-high leather and copper boots, which K'rar had had a metalsmith make in Zadok. A wide copper belt separated the top from the bottom, but it was also for the soldier to tuck in his or her shirt frocks. Of the same design as the aluminum collar blades were forearm-length arm guards, which were fitted with a compartment for a blade, as a last resort defense mechanism. The blade was retractable, so that it was not visible inside the manica (arm guard) until its wielder wanted it and deployed it by pushing a valve and closing it to hold it in place. It would come out from under the palm. The last piece to complete the uniform was a dark grey piece of cloth like a large shawl around the back, fastened to the body by a button on the chest. This was the distinguishing mark of the soldier in K'rar's regiment. On its back was emblazoned the conspicuous white figure of a crested eagle with its wings spread out, either landing on a perch under its feet or preparing to take off from it. Every soldier would have this mark. It was the emblem of Korazin, borrowed from its national flag. His foreign army would know nothing of this until its time.
'You ladies…are fantastic!' K'rar said when they came out from the back room, fully dressed. He added, 'but those aluminium plates on your shoulders are for officers, a rank you two have not achieved yet. As of now, you are privates. The lowest rank.' K'rar had devised new ranks in his army, including this one. He was revolutionizing the entire concept of an army, including its chain of command, as his regiment, he envisioned, would be the greatest in all the earth, therefore unique in all aspects. Some of his new devices he had learned from the Nephilim, who from long ago possessed an entirely different organizational setup among themselves. Bekka now said to him,
'Rank?'
'Yes, rank. You are soldiers. There will be an army.'
The ladies stared at each other. K'rar said,
'Shaniz, remember when I told you that I had plans for you?'
'No, but you better have plans.'
'I am training you two in combat, but I have other prospects. It is not just so you can fight for yourself. The king and I have been preparing resources to create a new military regiment, my regiment. I will make a regiment that will return with me to my kingdom, trained in all my methods and devices, and I would like if you two would join me, especially you Shaniz, because I will go with you anyway. As we speak now, the Nephilim are preparing for us a base for training on the Kaffrarian Islands, where I hope many others, thousands of others, will join us to begin training as Kaffrarian Knights.'
'Kaffrarian Knights? That rolls off the tongue nicely,' said Bekka.
'Oh I certainly was training,' said Shaniz, 'but not just so I can fight for myself. I saw the woman soldier in your book. I never knew you and father had any plan to put it in action, but I certainly will be part of it.' The ball was now in Bekka's court, but K'rar knew she would join him. She was built even for leadership, in his assessment.
'Then of course I am coming along too.'
'Fantastic. I was hoping you would accept my invitation. The project begins in January. And you two will encourage other girls like you to subscribe.'
'But, why do you need to return to your land with an army?' Bekka said.
'And how will you travel back to Korazin? I thought it is extremely far off into the southern sea, and there's a killing box guarded by the mother of the giants.'
K'rar was expecting both these questions.
'Let's go and see the king. I'll answer those questions with him. Keep your uniforms on.'
The girls looked at each other, and followed him across the wide courtyard. He always walked briskly, but this was no problem for them now. K'rar's lessons involved much more than wielding and swinging weapons. For many weeks, K'rar had also been making them run, do pushups, do lightweight lifting etcetera. It had involved a lot of massaging and pain ointments after these sessions, but they had acclimatized easily. K'rar cast a glance back at them and said,
'Shaniz, you once said to me that I am not like a normal person. That I do not behave too…obsequiously to you royals.'
'It is why I liked you from the start.'
'Well, why do you think that is?'
'I don't understand what you're saying.'
They were now in the halls of the main building, just outside the interior access to King Sargios' throne room. This access was only for the royal family, but the king had made an exception for K'rar, so the guards just stood out of his way. The king was talking to the crown prince Ghita, something about Hananite traders and their trawlers. The king's secretary, Illora, was with them. K'rar didn't interrupt them until they finished. Illora remained with the king, but Ghita came toward the hallway K'rar and the girls were standing in. He had to stop upon seeing his sister and cousin in military uniform.
'Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. This is new,' he said, directing his speech at K'rar, 'you gave them uniforms? Very nice ones at that too.'
'Yes, indeed, Prince Ghita. Don't they look smart?'
'Not the usual uniform, I have to say.'
'Not the usual soldier, either.'
He shrugged and left them, and K'rar went to stand before King Sargios. The king knew why he was here, so he dismissed the chief advisor.
'What is it, K'rar?' the king asked. His daughter and niece had not walked in yet. K'rar beckoned them now, and the king said of them, 'now that's a humdinger,' he stood to approach them and take a closer look. He said, 'will your father like this, Bekka? You were almost engaged before all this. Now your consort complains there's something changing about you.' Bekka's father knew nothing about any of this, but the king and his wife both knew of the military training the girls had been going through. The queen, though, had also been kept in the dark about the larger fulfilment of all this business.
'He will be okay, uncle,' Bekka said plainly.
'I'm sure he will,' said Sargios. He added, this time to K'rar, 'is it time?'
'It is time.'
'Then I will summon the men. Do these girls know?'
'No. I wanted to tell them here,' said K'rar.
'Tell us what?' Shaniz asked.
'Remember, the Resistance rebel called himself "the king of the south"?' K'rar said.
'Yeah, I read that scroll many times. It seemed true,' said Shaniz.
'Well, he's dead now,' he reached into his shirt and removed a folded sheet of paper, 'so obviously he is not the king of the south in the scroll. Besides, why would an Astarte prophecy be written in the Sacred Writ of Ihanga? But the king of the south does exist.'
'Okay, what has this got to do with anything?' Bekka said. K'rar gave them the paper from his pocket. On it was the map of the whole continent of Moab, and on the land of Korazin, he had listed the names of its last ten kings including himself.
'Are these the names of the kings of your country?' Shaniz asked. Bekka knew of K'rar's origin, but this was the first time she was seeing the map. Shaniz said, 'this is your name.' She and her cousin both imbibed the information on the map at the same time and gasped. Shaniz clapped a hand to her mouth, 'are you…'
'He is. He is the real king of the south,' said her father, 'he fits into the entire prophecy.'
'Oh my goodness! A king? You're a king!' said Bekka. Shaniz was on the other hand almost catatonic, wide-eyed and agape, her eyes transfixed on K'rar, her mind connecting so many dots that had been inexplicably blank up to that point. Bekka added, 'does mother know?'
'No. It's just us in this room, and Governess Yrma of Fimron,' said K'rar, 'this is why I need an army, why I need the Kaffrarian Knights. Now, you will be training also with the eight other senior officers who will be summoned now to the city, and learn from them. You will also undergo more rigorous training, not the training of a regular soldier. My Kaffrarian Knights are not regular soldiers. We will be an army such as this world has never seen. And we start from scratch tonight.'
'Is this why you have been treating him so well, father?' Shaniz was still dumbstruck, while Bekka couldn't even form words, 'there have been two kings in this palace!' her father nodded, smiling. He said,
'I told K'rar when I found out that I wish he would develop more than just friendship for you, and from what I have observed, you two are more than just friends. So, apart from the great future of this nation as a result of opening up to the world, I am hoping that our families will be joined. So, K'rar asked me to approve of an engagement between you two, and I approve.'
K'rar took Shaniz's hand and kissed it, and said,
'Where I come from, I have to be eighteen to do this, but I am only a couple of weeks from turning eighteen. So, Shaniz Santillan, at the end of all what we are planning, I want you to be Queen of Korazin.' Shaniz blushed, and Bekka even redder. Shaniz jumped in his chest,
'I didn't know I was older than you, but yes, I want to be Queen of Korazin.' She was older than him by more than ten months, and the two would be the same age only for a month and some weeks. King Sargios said,
'The queen will be appraised soon about all this. She will not be impressed if she's the one that doesn't know.'
'K'rar and I will go and tell her.'
'Very well,' said Sargios. He added, to K'rar, 'well, king of the south, I will send out word for the preparations now. Now you go explain to her mother why she's dressed in military uniform.'
'Of course.'
The queen was in her chambers with two maidservants when Shaniz walked in, with K'rar still outside. He heard the ensuing conversation.
'What on earth are you wearing? Is that armor?'
'Yes, mother. I am a Kaffrarian Knight.'
'I did not know your activities with K'rar involved you becoming an armored soldier. What is a Kaffrarian Knight?'
Shaniz explained what it was, drawing an agitated reaction,
'None of that! I was okay with you learning how to wield a sword, but I will not have my daughter thinking about getting on a battlefield.'
'Too late, mother. Father approves, and I want this, okay? I will not go out to fight rebels as a career, but I am going to the islands to train. Don't suffocate this, mother, please!'
'Girl knights? This will never work. K'rar ought to know this. An army of men and women?' she scoffed, 'but I am no military man. If your father approves, you can go. Become a soldier as you like, but I don't think this army will even last.'
'Oh, but it will. Now, mother, there's another matter.'
'Has he proposed to marry you?' the queen said quickly. K'rar's heart missed a beat. He knew Shaniz's heart had too.
'You…you know?' she said.
'Oh, I do. I know more than that. I know he is a king. Go and be queen of Korazin.'
'K'rar get in here,' Shaniz said. K'rar's blood was cold as he did so. He avoided the queen's gaze. Shaniz added, 'how do you know?'
'Really? Your father is my husband, you know.'
'It was a secret,' K'rar protested.
'Don't blame him. He kept it, but I squeezed it out of him. You two were very cozy with each other, everyone noticed. But I did not approve of you at first, as I did not know anything about you except your war exploits. I didn't want my daughter fraternizing with a poor Iscalan villager just because he is handsome and has black hair. So, I badgered your father about you two, until he had to tell me.' She arose from her bed, 'you have my blessing, king of Korazin. Go and make my daughter a warrior queen.'
The preparations involved sending the royal decree to all the provinces for all the shortlisted experts, including eight military generals, and Bartle Frere, to whom K'rar had already sent his own letter, detailing the project. He and Bartle Frere had become close friends, even writing each other. Bartle Frere was already raring to sail a giant ship and travel across the open sea.
In a week and some days' time, many of these began flooding the palace in large numbers. K'rar was again in the fourth courtyard with Shaniz and Bekka, mock fighting on the morning snow, and perhaps enjoying the snow more than fighting. K'rar was taking on both of them with two weapons when a royal guard came to fetch him. The man first stood to watch them. He was impressed both with K'rar's ambidexterity, as well as the good skills that the princesses had learned in five months. K'rar had still not moved them to fighting with real weapons, but to the guard they looked like they had progressed to this level, so he said,
'Master K'rar, pardon me,' K'rar paused what he was doing, and he and the ladies came closer to the guard, 'aren't they ready to wield steel?'
'They are, indeed,' said K'rar, looking at his students. They had changed the way they treated themselves around him, as they were part of what was now a state secret, that K'rar was a blueblood, just like them. K'rar added, 'they will have their own weapons soon, but not like yours.' K'rar's regiment would wield curved stainless steel blades rather than the conventional straight broadsword. The regiment was different in more than just a few disciplines.
'Right. The last of the senior officers for the regiment is already here, sir. They are waiting in the audience hall.'
'Let's go, then, shall we?'
They were in the audience hall because the whole group of professionals apart from the military men had heeded the king's call in a multitude, and their meet with the king was also scheduled for today. They couldn't all fit in the throne room, as they numbered nearly a hundred. K'rar found the king just arriving too, and both went into the audience hall together. There was a low constant murmur in the hall when the wide doors were opened, but all those inside stood up and hushed when the king was walking in. Many of them weren't resting their gaze on him as he walked to the platform with K'rar. They were all stunned into silence at the sight of Bekka and Shaniz, who were wearing their regiment uniforms, including their armor. The Kaffrarian Regiment armor was also unlike the regular all-metal armor. The breastplate was much lighter, made of a thin layer of aluminum stuffed between thick hides, making the armor suitable for cold weather. On top of the exterior hide, thin rectangular strips of steel were glued onto the armor vertically to complete it. The only thing that was missing was their weapons. Another murmur started again because of them, until the king reached the platform and shut them up with a wave of his hand, and said aloud,
'Generals. Please come with me. I will speak to you separately first.'
The nine men, the ninth being Bartle Frere, who was not a General, separated from the large crowd and followed the king and his party into a separate room where old regalia was kept, like old armor and sculptures of soldiers in the armor. The king said to them,
'Well, now you're all here. You men have been invited to be part of a new military project. You probably already know who this young man is.'
'The Iscalan Knight,' Bartle Frere said, smiling at K'rar.
'That's right. The Iscalan Knight. Now, months ago when I appointed him to be part of the war council during the war, he appeared to me, and to the other men on the council like General Zeljko here, to be just a fantastic young man with astute military expertise. He has turned out to be more than that,' he turned and nodded at Bekka, who reached into a cabinet and pulled out a detailed map of Moab, with Korazin was highlighted as the area of focus. The men moved closer to the wall where she pinned it.
'Soldiers,' the king continued, 'this is the map of Moab, a continent to the extreme south of the Bovidian Sea. In case you have ever wondered why K'rar doesn't look like many of us, it is because he hails from this continent, being from this country, Korazin.'
'No way. Another continent?' the general called Benjoin said. He was a Hannish man with a dark brown mop of hair and a long, broken nose.
'Yes. Sailing to this continent is the ultimate objective of the regiment, which you men will be training for the next four years. You will be going there specifically to help this young man regain his throne. The throne of Korazin.'
'Pardon, Your Majesty?' General Zeljko said, 'a king? You are a king, son?'
K'rar explained the details surrounding this. He concluded by saying that his experience is what had made him the youngest military prodigy that he was. He even told them of his exploits with his guerillas, and mentioned the names of some of his best men, and a woman, Rubio of Moon Province, the inspiration behind the concept of a female warrior.
'We will use the Kaffraria as the training base, hence the name of this regiment. The Kaffrarian Knights will not be trained as regular soldiers that you men have taught in your wonderful careers. It will be new to you too, so I have prepared copies of documents detailing the structure of my regiment, its new devices and methods and organization. You men will train a new breed of soldier. Something that will make Goldoran armies look like a horde of rustlers. My knights will be trained in combat on land and sea. There will be new technology, which the men and women in the hall will help to make, among other things. The regiment will comprise of both male and female soldiers, like the princesses. Because of this, discipline must be instilled as the first rule. We believe you men are suited to do this. Princess Shaniz and Bekka will be your first students. They already have five months training, but they will also need to learn the remaining lessons as you will see in the documents I will give you. You will have only today to decide if you accept this offer, and then we will start recruitment immediately. Once we have a hundred recruits, the first drill will be to march from the Gendarium Headquarters, which will host them, to the Caudan coast.'
'I don't need a day to decide,' Bartle Frere said, stepping forward, 'I accepted the invitation the first time I heard of it.'
'So did I. I cannot miss the opportunity to be a part of this,' said Zeljko.
All the other seven men declared that they were in right then and there, and the stage was set. They had been specially chosen because each of them was an expert at something, whether it was discipline, archery, sword fighting, hand-to-hand combat among other things. They would also be able to quickly implement K'rar's new additions, such as what he called "amphibious" assault in which soldiers could conceal themselves under water, breathing through pipes. K'rar gave each man the book that contained this and other methods and devices and rules, and said,
'This is what the Kaffrarian Knights are made of. You must not share this information with anyone not in this room right now. It is your secret as senior officers. From this moment on you are part of the Kaffrarian Knights, and I am your Commandant. Starting tomorrow, we will make a schedule, see how we will train the recruits, which should come first, and things like these. Right?'
'Yes, sir,' they said.
'Great,' King Sargios now took over again, 'now we wanted to speak to you privately first to tell you about why we are conducting this project. K'rar being king will also be a secret. Is that understood?'
'Yes, Your Majesty.'
'One more thing,' said K'rar, 'you men are from different provinces of the land, but not anymore. No one shall referrer to themselves as Benjoin of Cauda, Zeljko of Bar'sha or Isaki of Andria. You are all Xaxanikan. This is the second rule of the Kaffrarian Knights. Mark it down and remember it, and you must instill this during all the years of training we will go through. If you forget, the repercussions are obvious.'
Now they all went to brief the other crowd in the hall. They were still murmuring speculations and rumors about why the king had asked random people to visit the palace. Some thought it was a building project, and that he king was trying to appeal to the population by bringing together workers from all parts of Xaxanika. A bell had to be tolled for them to keep quiet and listen, even though they had already seen the king and stood up to receive him. Once he sat them down, he invited K'rar, who began by saying,
'Friends of Xaxanika. You have been invited to the palace as part of an entirely new project. You are men and women skilled in various fields. The project will require you men and women to be part of the same network. You will pool your strengths to make many devices that will be assigned to you, and to make any necessary improvements to already existing devices. You must all be ready to be away from your homes for many years, because all the work we will be doing will be based on the Kaffraria, the islands off the Caudan coast. This is a military project for those who are wondering. Others will join you, and you will all have paid commissions.' K'rar finished, and handed over to the king again,
'You are to begin in two weeks,' the king said, 'with the preparation of the islands for habitation. So those who are builders and lumbers and loggers or anything like that will travel to the islands first. The Gendarium Headquarters is where you will be setting off, and the transports are ready for any of those who wish to start. First, though, you will be required to register yourselves. The Gendarium Superintendent will do that.' Many of them who had showed up were not on the shortlist, having been invited by those on it, and some on the shortlist had not arrived yet. Once they emptied the hall and left K'rar and his officers, K'rar said,
'The second phase may begin now.'
This was the phase involving recruitment. A message, drafted by K'rar and the king, with the king's stamp, would be sent to all the provinces and pinned in all the public places, inviting all those aged between seventeen and twenty six years, male and female, to be soldiers for the crown under the new regiment headed by "the Iscalan Knight". On the message was also included a preview of what the Kaffrarian Knights were about, as well as their prospects to be the greatest force man had ever seen. The mention of the Iscalan Knight was suggested by the eight senior officers. It was very easy for the Regiment's age group to pick a leaf from his book and subscribe to the project. K'rar also included an automatic invitation to all the homeless, and the maximum age of this group was forty. K'rar intended to simply secure some employment for these, mostly on the Stingers and Behemoths.
At the close of business it was late in the afternoon, and K'rar quickly went to secretary Illora, whom King Sargios had assigned the job of recruiting in the city and in Allon-var at large. He was at the back of the audience hall doing preparations to that end, when K'rar found him. He began to speak without getting his attention, startling him.
'Master Secretary,' he said, 'stop what you're doing.'
The man swirled around to look at him. Illora was a bald, short man. K'rar was taller than him and still growing.
'Pardon, Master K'rar?'
'I am relieving you of this duty. I will foresee the recruitment in the city,' said K'rar, 'it is my regiment after all, no?'
'But His Majesty has…'
'His Majesty will not slaughter you, will he?'
The man relinquished his duties, and assigned his team, a group of ten gendarmes, to K'rar. K'rar asked them to wait, and he went to fetch Bartle Frere, Shaniz and Bekka. He wanted the girls to come with him to plant the flyers on the walls in the city. Shaniz and Bekka had already changed back into her regular attire, so K'rar asked them to change back into their uniforms. He and Bartle Frere would wait at the gate with three of the men assigned by Illora, so it allowed him and the soldier to reminisce on old days.
'Governess Yrma told me you made many trips back into the mountain to find me,' K'rar said, 'I haven't thanked you for that. I am now.'
'Don't mention it, Commandant,' Bartle Frere wanted to get used to this title straight away. After all he was speaking to a king. He said, 'the governess commanded it anyway.'
'Don't be modest,' said K'rar. Bartle Frere smiled from one side of his face. He said,
'So, why did you not say from the start you were a king?'
'I had thrown in the towel. I had thrown it all away, and I only began to think about my throne again when with the Nephilim.'
'Context is for kings,' said Bartle Frere, 'the former kings instilled the desire into you.'
'That's right. They showed me it was barbaric to surrender my people to my enemies when I could help it. "A king ceases to be king only upon his death," Asthenes, their oldest, said to me,' K'rar looked a bit nostalgic, 'made sense, considering the lengths Garrera went to trying to kill me. He made a mistake wasting too much time in humiliating me.'
'Achieved his purpose anyway,' said Bartle Frere as a matter of fact.
'Yeah. Anyway, I ended up here when I was only a boy. Who would have entertained the story that I was king, let alone of an unknown land? Even King Sargios believed it because of a prophecy in the Writ.'
'Wow, now you're the fulfilment of a prophecy?'
'Yeah. I would have trashed it immediately if someone said so to me, but thinking back, I survived a water spirit who kills anything in her path, then I somehow resurrected an old myth, about the Nephilim, which was also part of the Nephilim's own prophecy, blah, blah, blah.'
'Nonetheless, you are a capable leader. Your people should at least have a taste of you.'
'Then I may die?'
'Yeah,' Bartle Frere chuckled, 'then you can die.'
The princesses were now arriving, dressed to kill. K'rar said to them,
'We're going down to the city on foot. We'll get your weapons from a metalsmith I've employed to make them, and then you'll have full uniform.'
They would use another exit, taking the steps to the left of the main gate. Rather than take the paved road directly in front of the gate, the steps, nearly three hundred of them, spiraled left, culminating in the city. There was a wall either side of them, and they would be concealed all the way to the bottom of the steps, a large playground for small boys from the city, enclosed by a semicircular building. This was once some sort of arena, K'rar had learned, but upon construction of the Grand Colosseum, by the Nephilim, K'rar knew but not the Xaxanikans, this arena had lost its place and had become a place for itinerant merchants. Still, this little circle was used to herald some of the king's decrees and announcements, and the people would be always on the lookout for Illora or some other herald in the king's employment. Today, the small boys and the merchants were in for a stunning sight. K'rar intentionally placed the princesses ahead of the group. Everything became still wherever they passed. First they had to cross the arena, so the boys playing there had to pause and watch too. Athwart the arena was another flight of long steps descending into the heart of Zadok. The incessant buzz and activity was the blood of the city, and it had only recently returned to its state because the south was open again after the rebels had been silenced. Now the city was looking at the princesses, esteemed ladies of the realm, moving through the city's buildings, not only without their normal security details, but also in the military uniform they were wearing. To some, the girls actually looked sexier than frightening, especially to the men. The short skirts and tight trousers displayed more than what the gazers of the city were used to. The uniform let off more of the girls' bodies than the unadventurous royal garb that concealed much of the body. Bekka was especially curvaceous, and many eyes that appreciated her shape as they did Shaniz's stunning beauty, landed on her. Then also, they were walking with the popular Iscalan Knight, who was arrayed as the next man, though his garb told much about his status.
They did not put up any flyers until after they had visited the home, and workshop, of the smith who had made them their curved weapons. Before they left the workshop, K'rar said to them,
'You should ponytail your hair,' he said, 'you'll attract even more attention that way.' The girls acquiesced and tied up each other's hair into ponytails, having now strapped on their belts and their sheaths. Shaniz said,
'The city is seeing more of us than they've seen in many years.'
'Yep. You two are the forerunners of this venture. You walk through the city more as Kaffrarian Knights than as royal darlings. We put up the first flyer in the central market. Let's go, ladies.'
The central market was one of four around the city, and K'rar had decreed that they would plant the flyers in all four, on foot. The central market was also the closest to them, being closer to the palace than the other markets near the city's walls. This market was situated in a very wide rectangular section surrounded by the magnificent Avillan Temple, the courthouse and a theater. The temple comprised three floors. The ground floor was the market, and the other two made up the temple. Its pillars towered more than twenty meters, which is why K'rar knew they could not have been raised by men. At the very top of the temple was the king's special appointee for Allon-var, who carried out the duties of a governor. He heard the slight change in the demeanor and noise of the market, which is why he had now walked to the balcony and was looking down into the market. Many others inside the temple, librarians and priests and janitors alike, all came out to peek over the balconies. The entrance to the market was another flight of high steps, laden with bodies coming and going out of the market. The bays of horses and the bleats of sheep and chirping of birds were all mixed up together with voices of haggling merchants and consumers. At or near the stalls of fresh meat, huge flies constantly buzzed, having learned to coexist with the human multitude. This wasn't a place for royals to roam about, but everyone who saw them recognized them at the large landing above the steps, and the normal sounds changed tune for the minute that many of those who spotted them stopped talking or moving. Those at the entrance with them, upon noticing them, created a huge distance between themselves and the royals, so everyone as far as the other end of the market could see them. K'rar and Bartle Frere looked at each other and smiled at this. The former turned around to the men carrying the copies of the message, and from them retrieved two copies. K'rar waved the papers in front of the girls, who took them. He said,
'There are girls in this market who don't want to sell fish and red meat. They'd rather be like you two. Shaniz, paste that one on this wall,' he was pointing to the side of the wall facing the market. Shaniz took the message, and while Illora's men assisted her with the glue, the gendarme officer in charge at the market for that day was fast approaching through the crowd as she plastered the paper on the wall. Those nearby pulled closer to read the large characters, and the officer had to brush them aside with his ten-man entourage. The gendarme office was stationed across the market in a small space stolen from part of the temple. There were underground cells there for incarceration of petty nuisances to be released later in the day. Many of these included young homeless boys who stole foodstuffs or caused problems with their incessant begging. K'rar intended to liberate them, so when the officer reached them, he stepped forward before he said anything to Shaniz or Bekka.
'Officer, how is the going?'
The officer knew him, as did most of this place, so he knew better than to treat him as he would have other men. The officer said,
'It is well, sir,' he hadn't yet bowed to his princess, so he briefly did, and went on, 'if I may ask, why are the royal highnesses moving around this place in armor?' The real question would have been about why they were pasting decrees on the walls without authorization. K'rar chuckled to himself, saying,
'As you can see, officer, they are capable of defending themselves. Besides, Bartle Frere here and I can protect them, can't we?'
The officer concurred with downcast eyes for suggesting otherwise. K'rar said,
'Officer, I understand you have some prisoners in the cells at the post, no?'
'Why, yes, sir. Lots of them too.'
'And some of these fit the description in this announcement, correct?'
The officer perused through the message. It did contain a mention of homeless ones, but the officer was not in the least interested in that once he saw the whole context. He was as surprised as everyone else who was reading it, when he said,
'Blimey, sir. This message invites girls, too?'
Bekka stepped forward now.
'Officer. That is not what was asked. And, yes, as you can see, Her Highness and I are the first members of the Kaffrarian Knights, and we're females.'
'My lady, there are some prisoners in this description, yes.'
'Right,' K'rar said, 'let them know about this offer, and take them with you to the headquarters when you go back.'
'Of course, sir.'
Now a rich merchant who once worked in the government's treasury office was in the market at the time. His name was Klaavos, and he was the father of the young man who had been destined to take princess Shaniz's hand in marriage, before K'rar returned from his three year adventure in the Red Mountain and derailed his prospects. K'rar knew nothing about any engagements, so he didn't understand why Shaniz and Bekka both muttered something when Klaavos spoke and got their attention. He had just read the message on the wall. The man bowed his greetings to the royals, and so did his three escorts and two other men with him. He also greeted Bartle Frere, but when he came to K'rar he stared him in the face expressionlessly.
'The Iscalan Knight,' he said between his teeth. K'rar still hadn't got the clue that the man was hostile, personally, to him. He was about to say something in response to the man's words, but Klaavos went on, loudly enough to be heard by those in close proximity, 'so, sneaking into the king's palace wasn't enough. You now want to turn our daughters into soldiers?'
'You will speak with respect, lord Klaavos,' Shaniz said immediately.
'Apologies, Your Highness. Shall I not speak to the man who pushed my son off the cliff?'
K'rar was looking from him to Shaniz in wonderment.
'I pushed your son off the cliff. Now you will walk away and not embarrass yourself.'
'So, then, the whole palace is bending to the whims of a strange boy? He is also now attempting to overhaul the principles of our people as he did the army?'
'What the hell is going on, Shaniz?' K'rar had not signed up for any of this on any day. Shaniz said,
'Don't worry about him, K'rar.' Before she could add something, Klaavos went on in his tantrum,
'You're the princess of this nation, and you are clad in military garb at the invitation of this boy? What family will allow their girls to wield weapons alongside men?'
'The royal family,' Bartle Frere stepped in now, 'officer, what the heck are you doing, watching a pantomime?' he yelled at the gendarme with them.
'Silence, soldier!' Klaavos was edging on bellowing now. He knew the gendarme wouldn't dare touch him on the command of Bartle Frere. But K'rar didn't like insolent, wealthy men who confused money with power. He drew closer to the man and stood centimeters from him.
'If you've got a problem with me, sir, you tell me now,' he said.
'So,' Klaavos said after swallowing the impudence of the boy, 'the princess didn't tell you? She didn't tell you that for three years she was promised to another, before you, mister Iscalan Knight, came along with colorful hair and a weird accent?'
'I chose the Iscalan Knight, ser Klaavos. I never once chose your son,' the princess spat back, just as K'rar walked back from the man, laughing at the stupidity of his complaint, 'how could a mere merchant choose for a princess what she wants and what she doesn't?'
Now the gendarme officer stepped in to interrupt.
'Sir, you will not continue this insolence against Her Highness. Walk away before anything happens that nobody likes.'
The merchant scoffed.
'Female soldiers. What is happening to this nation?'
K'rar then approached one of the gendarmes, reached for his sheath and drew his sword. A moment of silence. Klaavos flinched a bit, looking at him in shock, while Klaavos' two men planted themselves between them. The officer said,
'Sir, what are you doing?'
K'rar said loudly,
'Princess Shaniz is not a mule that you should choose for her whom she should live with, let alone anything personal. Neither are the daughters of this land, who can be every bit of soldier as the next man, if they so choose.' K'rar handed Shaniz the weapon.
'What the hell are you doing?'
'Take your weapon, sir. See for yourself,' K'rar said.
'I will not swing a sword at Her Highness…'
'Take the weapon, merchant,' said Shaniz from behind. She intentionally referred to him as such. One of Klaavos' men drew his sword, and it sufficed to K'rar. He stepped away from him, and waved to Shaniz to take him. The princess had learned from K'rar the trick of striking at lightning fast speed when the opponent was still wasting time sizing her up. The man was himself just a mean-looking bouncer with no real combat training, so when Shaniz lunged at him, all he could do was swing his weapon above his head and back down, which Shaniz parried easily, and drove the sole of her boot into the joint of the man's knee. The man buckled. He hadn't touched the ground with that knee when Shaniz drove the front of her right boot across the man's cheek and grounded him flat on the concrete. With her left boot she then stepped on the fingers still holding the sword, and landed her right knee on the man's thorax.
'If you move I will hurt you,' she warned, and took the weapon to give it back to K'rar. She then stood up and stared Klaavos straight in the face, and said,
'Now if you were choosing a husband for your daughter, would you choose one like your son, or one like the one I chose? I will not mention this to the king, so you can relax. But try anything crazy like that again and I will do more than yell at you.' She turned back and stood behind K'rar, who said to her and Bekka,
'Well, that should do our job even better than making an appearance.' He added, 'officer. Hang the other messages for us, now. Will you?'
As they walked away from the scene, all eyes were glued on them, what K'rar had wanted exactly. Shaniz was glad that the event hadn't jittered K'rar at all even if she had kept it from him that she had been promised and had in fact began courting Klaavos' son.
In one week, on his eighteenth birthday, K'rar was informed that more than 300 recruits had flooded the Gendarium, most of them from Allon-var. He was with the senior officers in the same regalia room he had first met them, revising the canons of his regiment with them. In Korazin, he would have been in a hall with family and some invitees of the aristocracy, feasting and toasting away to honor his birth. But not here. A Xaxanikan's birthday was just another day, even the king's. K'rar hadn't learned the reason until today. He hadn't pushed for a feast, but he had been the one to remind those around that he was eighteen, only for them to give him a pat on the shoulder and a smile. In this land, which K'rar still found strange, a person's death was more honored than their birth, which made a lot of sense in the end when he learned the reason: that one has accomplished something at death than at birth. K'rar had agreed instantly when it occurred to him that all those birthday feasts he had for thirteen years had been a waste of money and time after all that happened.
He went down to the Gendarium with all his officers, and had all 324 assemble in the large open space in front of the buildings, while he and the senior officers, including Bekka and Shaniz in civilian clothing, stood in the center building's porch. The ground was white with snow, one foot tall, and many of the recruits were clearly underprivileged youths from Allon-var and the other nearby provinces. These were standing on the same side of the assembly, and on the other side the higher status individuals, many of whom were even opulently dressed, had automatically separated themselves. K'rar could see many of them scowling at the other group, while the other group just remained silent and looked like they were considering returning to the street or to janitorial roles or to peddling. There were also cocoons of boys and of girls standing apart from each other, and many boy cocoons were sneering at the females. The older group near the maximum age had also stood apart from the young ones, while many who were from the same family or community were also standing in groups. The Chief Superintendent, Haller, a namesake of one of the senior officers, was watching the disorganized group with disbelief. He pulled closer to K'rar, who was standing between Bartle Frere and Shaniz, and said shaking his head,
'You're going to turn this bunch into a military regiment?'
No one answered him. Another minute passed as K'rar and his men studied the assembled group, and then K'rar descended the steps to the paved contour between the steps and the assembly ground. All his officers did this, and stood in a queue next to each other. All were clad in woolen winter cloaks, which K'rar required to be of the same color, black. He was himself arrayed in black. This was not uniform, because as Commandant he would have been wearing a different color from his officers, who were also not in uniform. K'rar looked behind at the officer called Haller and nodded to him. Haller would be the overall head of discipline. He was also louder than the others, and was good with his words.
'Attention!' Haller shouted. There was silence, and many imitations of attention by any who had heard or who knew anything about the military. Haller went on, 'I want ten lines, and each one at arm's distance from each other to the left, right and back! Now!' there was slight movement as the assembly attempted to execute this. Haller stepped down onto the snow with them, and Bartle Frere, Isaki Hagawi, Garay and Bastene followed him. Haller was shouting,
'I said, arm's distance front and back, right and left, maximum silence! You, what are you doing? Did you come to a party? I said stand in line!' the other officers were ensuring this too with less hoarse, but just as serious, tones. Once they had all finally stood as required, all but two of the officers, Haller and Isaki, returned to the high ground with their colleagues. Now K'rar spoke to them, and yelled,
'Everyone, sit down where you are!'
They sat down on the snow. Many of them knew him even by face, and those who had only heard did not need an introduction, because it was not difficult to put a face to the description of an eighteen year-old general with black hair.
'If any of you are of the mind to return to your former employs, stand up now and leave! If you do not leave now, you must stay another three days, nine after that, and a month after.' No one twitched, and K'rar walked down to them, and began walking from one side of the assembly along the first line of recruits, to the other, looking at random faces, 'this venture you are signing up for will tear your flesh and break your bones. It will sear the hair on your head, and you will regret it. At first. So no babies should be here, and no wooden sculptures. So I say again, and this is the last warning. Anyone rethinking their decision, stand up and leave now!'
Not a soul twitched. Haller shouted at someone to keep silent. He and Isaki were circling through the lines of the assembly near its center and sides. K'rar went on,
'Very well. My name is K'rar von Caspar, and I am your Commandant. I have a dream. From this day forward you are part of my dream. But I cannot guarantee that you will reach the finish with me, and I only make friends with those who endure this perilous journey we are about to embark. Now, who wants to be friends with me?' K'rar raised his hand to indicate how he wanted them to answer. He spotted that the first hand that went up was a girl's hand. A large, mean-looking girl. He said, 'hands down!' and all lowered their hands having raised them initially, 'you there. Stand up!'
The girl stood up. K'rar went on, addressing the crowd, not her,
'The first thing you will memorize are the names of your senior officers.' Now the senior officers began introducing themselves. They were in full Kagian Haller, Bartle Frere, Zeljko Horvath, Uruk-Ali Benjoin, Isaki Hagawi, Ephes Garay, Ozian Morriffere, Inigo Sanmartean, and Bokian Lemos.
Many had not recognized the princesses until they introduced themselves. Many of the officer ranks, other than these two, had more to do in their roles as training instructors, not as leaders of the army themselves. These would have to be appointed from among the recruits themselves. For all the new methods of operation that weren't already known by the nine senior officers, Commandant K'rar himself would oversee those, including, inter alia, trench warfare, poisons, amphibious assaults, camouflage, new battle formations weapons and stewarding a warship. The other experts K'rar had already began transporting to Cauda were there to assist him in all these. Now K'rar returned his attention to the girl who was standing.
'What is your name?'
'Daena Milshkin.'
'Say Daena Milshkin, sir!' Haller reminded her. She then said just "sir!", and Haller said, 'is your name "sir"?'
'Daena Milshkin, sir!'
'Good,' K'rar said, 'Daena of where?'
'Bar'sha, sir.'
'Wrong. Sit down,' she sat down, 'you, stand up…what is your name?'
'Lyon, sir.' Many Xaxanikans were known by just a single name, like this Lyon. K'rar said,
'Lyon, where do you belong?'
'Allo…'
'Wrong. Sit down. You, stand up.'
This went on with about nine others who gave similar answers, until someone realized what K'rar was doing. This one was a silver head from Andria. A slender-bodied fellow with a long chin and a humble look.
'Name?'
'Xherdan, sir!' he said, and when K'rar asked where he was from, he said, 'Xaxanika, sir!'
'Excellent!' K'rar said, 'say again, Xherdan of?'
'Xaxanika, sir.'
'Daena Milshkin of?'
Daena Milshkin arose and said, 'Xaxanika, sir!' and so did four of the rest who had been picked, and all said the right thing this time. K'rar then said, still pacing through the first two or three rows of recruits.
'The strength of a wolf is the pack. When the winter comes, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. The strength of the pack is the wolf. The wolf that fights its brother injures itself, and the pack. An injured pack can't hunt, and a wolf that can't hunt is the wolf that will die.' K'rar turned to Zeljko Horvath, 'General Horvath, do you see a pack here?'
'Not even close, Commandant. No wolf ever existed that shuns its pack members. This bunch all sat in groups of girls, boys, neighbors and age mates.'
'Yet, they said they are Xaxanikan.'
This first contact went on for close to an hour, and by the time it finished, K'rar had made it clear that no kind of segregation, tribal or social or age-based, would be tolerated, and those who didn't learn this quickly would be cast out. To complete the session, Zeljko Horvath said to them,
'We will begin marching to Cauda tomorrow morning. If anyone does not know twenty five teammates by name, they will be left behind.'
The recruits were sleeping in Gendarium cells converted into lodgings. K'rar secured also the Gendarium's common room for the recruits to use that night. He wanted to return once more before the journey, and he told the two privates why.
'The two of you will pay them a visit tonight. You must learn their names too. All of them, as you will be leaders.'
'Right. Will do. Are you coming with us?'
'Well, the Commandant ought to know even the rats on the ship. You two are also Kaffrarian Knights, so no preferential treatment for you, so when you come back tonight make sure you don't accept any. They should refer to you by your rank, not your title.'
'The strength of the wolf,' said Bekka.
'That's right. You will help them behave as equals. You saw how they grouped each other. That is the first thing that needs to be removed.'