"And turn!"That was as horrible a turn as he could have feared. Boys! They were only boys. Most from the marches north of Verd, from parts of what had once been the duchy of Levs. Before the raiders strangled all trade they grew up to be craftsmen, merchants, some even sailors and not a few joined the very regiments Keen sought to replace. But not in the thousands, like this.
Trindai sat on his horse repressing a wince at one awful manoeuvre after another. The training fields hugged Verd"s southern walls, and they were huge. With the dismal performance in view they had to be. The training spears were maybe half the length of the pikes they would be issued later but they could still inflict horrible damage when used right, or in this case wrong. The ranks were spa.r.s.e, with enough room between each man that Trindai could easily have ridden his horse through the entire unit.
The spears could still kill though. And the way the boys handled them it was more likely than not that one of them would have unhorsed him by sheer happenstance.
Wiping rain from his face he glared at the subaltern shouting his commands in a frenzied attempt to bring a resemblance of order to what would hopefully become a unit one day.
Late spring had brought on of the torrential thunderstorms that usually heralded summer. The earth and gravel where the recruits marched in disorder would soon be a maze of shallow pools. It couldn"t be helped. In battle you couldn"t be picky about weather. Besides, they needed to train the green officers as well. And they were green, almost as green as the recruits they trained. The brigade hadn"t seen service in his lifetime.
Trindai cursed silently and rode to another unit performing only marginally less abysmal than the previous. The slugged through mud and water with the determination only a promise of a hot meal later could bring. Soon enough that determination would be of a different kind.
The boys he"d forced through the only soldier"s school worth mentioning only a few eightdays earlier were veterans in comparison. Veterans by any comparison, he corrected himself. Those who survived the mutual slaughter on the streets of Verd had solidified into a unit. A silent, solemn unit, but still. They would become the core around which he built his army.
Water splashed as Trindai"s horse waded through an especially deep pool, and he had to right himself to stay saddled. b.a.s.t.a.r.d day to be out here. A white spear of lightning and the sharp crack shortly after brought his thoughts back to the unpleasant scenes after he"d appropriated over a hundred men from the Merchant Brigade.
The merchants had pleaded and threatened, even tried to bribe him. He had answered by having one of them whipped in public. Minister de Verd"s scathing words afterwards were like soothing balm to him. Minister de Verd was to blame for Verd lacking a full three professional regiments. Greed had sent them on a fool"s errand east. Trindai swore. There would be repercussions for that later. Vimarin was not organized enough to protest, but Erkateren would make demand after demand as soon as the imperial troops crossed their borders and vanished up the mountains, and Erkateren had the only friendly fleet still afloat.
Trindai ran de Saiden"s errands now, and happily. He had a mission, and he wouldn"t see any greedy merchant allow it to fail. That it turned out a legal impossibility to refuse a misfit named Arden de Krante to bribe himself to the commission of general, regimental cla.s.s, was unfortunate, but if the man didn"t perform he could always have an accident. If he didn"t perform, well he was likely to have one on the field of battle without Trindai helping him anyway.
He pulled in his reins to let a column of recruits pa.s.s. A silent curse from their officer told him he hadn"t been recognized. Should he dress the man down for insubordination? He dismissed the thought, he had ridden too close to the untrained men. Instead he just threw the soldiers an ironic salute. A few even made tried to return it. Their officer shouted at them and they quickly fell in line, or whatever made for a line considering the training they had received.
He needed his men to fight for Keen. Not for the merchant houses, not for Verd, not for himself but for the Empire. To do so he had to have a unit the rest of the army looked up to. One that would carry the banner into the jaws of death and stick it up its ugly throat to choke on. That unit must be paid by the empire, not the merchants who had done the actual recruiting.
He rode on. It was time to bring out the Marble Dogs, Keen"s finest, the boys who two moons earlier wouldn"t have known which end of a spear to put on the ground.
General de Markand had promised to keep the Imperial Guard occupied elsewhere. It wouldn"t do to have any unfortunate accidents, like five hundred men in the yellow and black laughing so hard they fell off their horses.
They"d do it twice, two hundred at a time, in perfect order, with the last hundred to salute the thuds, just to spite me.
#
Harbend stared back at Escha er Khanai, Khar of Khanati.
"As much as I share your pain I am not sure this is the path Lady Weinak would have chosen."
No, it is not. Listen to him your fool! Harbend trod on that inner voice with mental riding boots. "She was killed like an animal, used like an animal before that. They will die like animals!" he said instead.
"That is the voice of revenge, not that of vengeance," Escha said. He hesitated slightly. "I will do this for you. You stood by my side when I was mad with rage." Once more he hesitated. "Lady Weinak, sweet Nakora, I would honour her memory otherwise."
"I will be with you when and however you chose to honour her. This must be how I honour her." The inner protests were so subdued this time they hardly merited his attention.
It was decided then.
Escha had arrived only a short while earlier together with three more of his kind. Mindwalkers, Harbend guessed. He suspected Escha needed more than one. Neritan had been an exception, maybe even stronger a mindwalker than Escha was a jump khar. With the golden you never knew.
What did they call mindwalkers in Khanati? Thought khars? It didn"t matter. They were here. That mattered. Harbend a.s.sumed the price would be steep. Khars didn"t come cheap, but he had the money to spare for once.
Together they would find Gring with their magic, and with that knowledge Escha would jump them there. Harbend doubted the mindwalkers would join them. Escha had more likely than not dug up khars who already planned to travel here. They might even have paid him for his services, services that Harbend would have to pay for a second time.
Escha turned to confer with his colleagues and Harbend took the reins of his horse and started walking. They had jumped here and would jump from here when the four mages were ready. Harbend doubted Escha would want to bring the horse along. He had refused to do so when they were searching for Arthur.
Nakora"s horse. I wonder if it is still alive? The thought came unwanted, like the tears to his eyes. He forced them back. With tears came weakness, and he couldn"t afford to be weak.
He stared at the nearest farm. A year ago the devastation would have made him aghast, now it was just another reminder of an uncaring world. Besides, he was a thief himself now, he had to remember that. Revenge came at a prize. Well, he would pay it when that day came, but first he would have something worth paying for.