You and Obren start to walk down to the training field. It's one of the few places that's flat enough to allow such maneuvering. With the Atiming on your southeastern flank and forests all across your northern and western flanks, you've barely had enough room to maneuver or camp.
But in two weeks' time, you know you'll break free from the dense forests of central Kanton and continue southwest. Soon after, you'll be back in Krorid.
It still hasn't fully registered in your mind. You still haven't internalized the grave consequences of what you're doing. Not only have you gathered an army full of boys, boys that are dying of sickness, but you're bringing them down to Krorid. That vile place which tore your soul from your body, and you're bringing more down there.
Though you take small purchase in the fact that you have no plan to stick around. You don't want to stick around. At least the fighting will be beyond the jungles. Or so you hope.
You feel a sudden feeling of sinking dread.
Obren speaks up from your right side, tearing you from your internal debate. "Are you okay, Marshal?"
"Me?" you ask.
"Yes, Marshal."
"Doing absolutely perfect," Obren deadpans. He deadpans so well that you nearly take him seriously for a moment before he smirks.
You raise an eyebrow at this sudden sarcasm. "You're hanging around Darin too much. I think his snark is starting to rub off on you, gov'nor."
He chuckles, and you swear it's the first time you've heard him laugh. Then he sighs, crossing his arms. "Sometimes I wish he took it more seriously. War is a serious affair."
The statement brings a chill to your skin. It sounds so familiar. It sounds way too familiar. Who said that? Who told you that?
But then you realize that nobody ever said that to you. You said that. You said that to Darin.
Back in The War.
Next
"Bloody 'ell. Grisly sight, ay, lad?"
"Quiet," you mutter, swinging down off your Aurora. The farmhouse is scorched, evidence of fire damage. The wide slopes of the valley stretch on for miles. The sun beats down on you. While you may not be in Krorid proper, the sun is still hotter here.
You look over your shoulder and shout to your small detachment of thirty, "Fan out! Look for dead." You can certainly smell them. There's the stench of death in the air.
Darin chuckles. "Or look for puddles at this point."
You shoot him a glance of disgust. "Can't you take this seriously? These are people we're talkin' about."
A soldier on your flank calls out, "Not anymore, gov'nor."
You spin on your heel, turning toward the voice. You see Cadarn knelt down on one knee, examining what appears to be a body. Decay has set in, the body halfway to liquid already in the heat of the raging southwestern summer sun.
Cadarn looks up and sees the expression of horror on your face. He stands back up and moves to comfort you, placing a hand on your shoulder and looking into your shocked gray eyes.
He's a man of sixty, maybe more. His head is hairless, but on his face is a long, white beard. His eyes threw you off the first time you saw him. They're black. Combined with the cunning glint in them, he was quite frightening at first.
"Easy, kid. Stay with us. Think. That's your job. Focus on what I taught 'cha. Think." His voice is calm.
You take a deep breath and nod. You force yourself to look at the body again. Waves of nausea roll up inside your stomach. "I…"
"Lad?" Darin asks, approaching with concern on his face. He looks over at Cadarn with a mixture of annoyance and disgust.
You don't know why. You can't even think. You can't reply. You're frozen, staring at the dead man in front of you. Three arrows jut out of his body. A trail of dried blood stretches back into his fields. And the bugs…
The sight is burned into your mind. You will never forget it.
Next
"Marshal?" Obren asks.
You snap back to reality. "Yeah?"
"You looked a million miles away," he remarks. You quickly take in your surroundings. Luckily, you haven't fallen over. You moved on instinct as your mind was taken back to the dark times. You place a hand to your head and shake it, trying to clear your thoughts.
He looks at this motion with suspicion. You don't offer an explanation. After a few moments of awkward silence, he asks, voice calm and low, "Was it about The War?"
My condolences."
"Thank you."
The conversation trails off before it can even start. You're sure that Obren is curious. But you don't wish to elaborate about what happened. It's too personal.
The two of you spend the rest of the walk in tentative, loaded silence. Questions that he wishes to ask remain unasked. This tension… aggravates you. You're so tired of people constantly asking questions. Constantly asking if you're okay.
Maybe they'll help you, though. Maybe… they'll keep you from shattering.
But you can't bring yourself to admit it. You can't bring yourself to ask for their help. You don't know why. There's this nebulous sense of fear and… shame. You're the Marshal. You aren't supposed to need help.
How are you supposed to lead the army if you're too busy weeping for yourself?
How are you supposed to lead the army if everyone knows you're a mess on the inside? That you're living a day away from snapping? From shattering?
How could they trust you? How could they trust you to hold the line? How could they trust you to stay strong? Strong for them?
A passing thought hits you. Maybe… I shouldn't be in charge. You dismiss it quickly. You fought tooth and nail to become the Marshal. When you lost the army, you drifted without purpose for five years. And they were the worst of your life.
And you've got the army back. You've regained control. And now… you want to get rid of it?
You break out into grim laughter at your own absurdity. Obren shoots you a glance full of concern and confusion. He opens his mouth to say something, but he cannot find the right thing to say.
So he just shakes his head. Shakes his head at the madness of the mad.
The madness of the one in charge of him.
Next
A tenth of the three thousand "professionals" stand before you. You idly wonder for a moment how many will end up dead. How many will still be the original soldiers by the end of it all. You wonder how many will die of the pestilence.
But now is not the time to ponder such ideas. You've got a job to do. While you've been supervising training for a while, this is one of the few times you're actually stepping in. You want to add a bit of a personal touch this time.
You stand at one edge of the clearing amid the forests, Obren at your side. The retinue is set in a square formation, thirty wide and ten rows deep with a gap down the middle. Trying to instruct this large quantity of men is going to be difficult.
You shout from your diaphragm, the technique Cadarn showed you all the way back in the first few months of The War. "Soldiers, at the ready!"
The three hundred rapidly go to silence. You glance over toward Obren on your side, an approving smirk on your face. Such discipline is impressive. It's a breath of fresh air from the rowdy levies you deal with most of the time.
For today's training session, you have an idea. For the past weeks at march, you've been preparing something. You "borrowed" a certain something from Wrido's royal library before you departed.
The old times were, ironically, more civilized. They were the days of professional armies with stable pay and astounding tactics.
What intrigued you the most personally was the ancient Ravarian army structure. You still respect the heathen Ravarians, even if they did raze half of Kanton in wars whose details are long lost to history. That empire long fell, replaced by the coalition of city-states that occupies the far south now.
While the Ravarian Empire may have fallen, some of the ancient knowledge remains. And in that dusty old tome, a translation of a translation of a translation of manuscript written a whole two centuries after their collapse, lies the key to victory. You will use the strategies they used to kill your ancestors to kill your brothers.
You live in strange times.
Next
The reading was dense, as most tactical manuals would tend to be. But you got what you needed to know. The Ravarian army succeeded because of its immense tactical flexibility and self-sufficiency. The army fought as a single unit, subdivided into more units, subdivided into yet more units. There were the commanders and their back-ups, and their back-ups' back-ups.
A regimental sergeant could take control of a group and move semi-independently, keeping the army moving even when separated from the commander. You could oversee the army and leave your retinue behind to fight effectively by themselves.
You begin to walk toward the men in formation, passing through their rough though functional ranks. While they're not motionless, they are maintaining their ranks. Their eyes lock onto you as you walk through them.
You glance left and right, examining the soldiery around you. While still a mixed bunch, you can see a few that look more like warriors than others. You take particular note of these men.
You need leaders.
One man cannot command the whole army. So you will need those who can lead but still respond to your authority. It is a strange balance to strike.
You approach one man, an older one, but still in fighting shape. The way he holds himself is oddly familiar. You stand in front of him. He does not meet your eye, instead staring forward, unflinching. Good discipline.
He's two men from the right of his row, standing out like a sore thumb around his inexperienced comrades around him.
"What's your name, gov'nor?" you ask.
"Sokol, Marshal," he replies without hesitation.
With a raised eyebrow, you ask, "You serve before?"
"Yes, Marshal."
"Where?"
"Under you," he replies with a hint of pride in his voice.
Next
"Durin' The War?" you ask.
"Yes, Marshal."
"What years?"
"Startin' on the second, Marshal. I's arrive with Duke Mozoroff's forces."
This raises a complication. "And you have no issue fightin' Mozoroff?"
"No, Marshal, and if ya'd excuse me language, the man can go sod 'imself, methinks."
The men around him break into snickering.
The men quickly fall silent at your sudden, harsh reprimand.
"Why might Rade need to go sod 'imself?" you ask, voice now emotionless. A handful of men suppress their laughter once again.
He replies, completely serious, "He kept our booze rations, Marshal." You can sense that this is definitely not the full reason. But you're in no position to pry. You understand the need for privacy.
"A most serious crime," you deadpan.
At this, he smirks and says, "That it is, Marshal."
He'll do.
Next
You move him from his place in the center of his line to the rightmost side, keeping a mental note of his position. You then move on to the next group, repeating the process.
After almost an hour of dividing, you've nominated a squad leader for every "contubernium," a team of fifteen men, as they were called by the Ravarians. You then have each "decanus," or squad leader, nominate for themselves a second-in-command. You watch curiously as the newly approved decani make their selections.
Next, you divide these new contubernii into groups of four, creating what you call a "centuria," after the Ravarian term. There are sixty men in each centuria. You then have each of these groups nominate a single man to act as their "centurion."
The one called Sokol wins the election for his centuria nearly unanimously, while the others' elections are more contested. Content with the results, you take a few steps back to converse with Obren.
He whistles appreciatively. "Fine work, Marshal."
You shrug. "It's a start. I've still some more positions to fill, but best not to crowd their heads, aye?"
"We'd need to start issuing these… advancements to the rest of the retinue."
You turn back around, facing the army once again. You say to Obren over your shoulder, "First, we gotta get trainin' goin'."
You must test your new leaders.
Next
You issue the drill commands to the centurion. He issues them to the contubernii. They issue them to the men beneath them. Soon, the whole training ground is alive with flourishing weapons and marching soldiers.
As they move in formation, you test the men with larger and larger formations. You tell the decani to maintain order in their ranks as the centurions maintain the order of the whole centuria. The first centuria moves forward at a staggered pace. It's functional, and certainly better than the average levy, but some men are off step.
One of the decani, unprompted by yourself, begins to call a simple cadence of, "Left, right, left, right, left, right!"
You smirk at the sound as Obren shoots you an impressed glance. You make no attempt to discourage this behavior.
Soon, the entire training ground is alive with all five centuriae moving independently, then as a single unit. The cadence resounds through the air, an intimidating sound coming from three hundred voices.
The illusion is quickly broken, however, as an order to turn right results in the entire formation folding in on itself, man smacking into man and nearly impaling each other on their spears. You sigh and make no attempt to intervene, instead allowing the centuriae and the decani to sort the formation out by itself.
Another few hours of training pass.
Next
You are amid the formation now, taking over a centuria as you show how it's done. Obren analyses from the sidelines, clearly studying your style of leadership very intently.
With a centuria at your heels, you look over your right shoulder and call, "Forward, march!"
The centuria sets out in near sync, walking forward, weapons at their shoulders. You march forward, briefly glancing over your shoulder to make sure the centuria is still moving. It definitely is.
You march for nearly thirty paces, feeling powerful at the sensation of sixty men at your heels. You call a new command, testing the centuria's responsiveness. "Column left, march!"
The command calls for the centuria to turn left while marching. The men in the very front take one step after the command is called, and then step again, snapping to the left at the same time. The man behind him moves to the same spot the first one turned at, then turns as well. This continues down the line until the whole centuria has turned ninety degrees.
Or so what is supposed to happen on paper.
The reality is much less than awe-inspiring. Rather than the ideal well-drilled responses, most men panic upon hearing the command. Some turn left immediately, colliding with the one next to them, or others fail to turn with the proper speed and precision.
You're practicing on flat ground, as well. You dread seeing what their turns would look like on the muddy soil of a battlefield. But you're not surprised.
It's to be expected. They've only been practicing drill commands for a few hours now. Instead of calling off the march and reorganizing, you leave the reorganization up to the decani and continue to march.
After a few moments, those who've lagged behind have caught back up and the contubernii have reorganized themselves. You peek back over and notice that, while everyone may be back into their units, they're on the wrong foot. Any future commands are doomed before even being ordered.
You know you must call a cadence—and you've got the perfect one in mind.
Next