The walk back to Lakeview becomes a march at Irami's whim. “Our formation work in the desolation was an embarrassment to the Upper Realms.” she informs everyone. “Your indolence and incompetence may not have been Captain Esbeck's concern, but I plan on advancing your military upbringing. You” she points to Team Twenty-One, “were practically next to us when I told you to cover the right flank. And Team Sixteen was so far off to the left you risked wandering out of the desolation altogether. What were you doing, looking at mushrooms?” Puripagos glowers while the rest of Team Sixteen exchange confused looks. “Team Four, Team Twenty-Four.” Eje steels herself. They should be celebrating their victory, not arguing. “Well done. Good work not straying from formation.” Huh. Perhaps Irami isn't so bad after all.

“You nearly blew my head off during the battle.” grumbles Bolin. “If anyone needs to pay attention, it's you.”

“When we get back to Lakeview,” continues Irami, “General Gamison will be there. We're going to do some work on the road so at least some of you will be capable of doing our camp proud.” Eje looks up to the sky and lets the sun warm her face before the atmosphere chills. Instead of complimenting them for a job well done, Irami needs to remind everyone who has control. In short order, she has the teams marching together, five groups of four. Irami and Team Two at the front, then Puripagos who's still got a face like like he smelled a lavatory with Team Sixteen, Bolin with Team Twenty-One, and finally her alongside Ariel and Salaya. Octave ignores the proceedings and lags behind. Irami is still giving instructions interlaced with admonishments, but she's easily tuned out. From Lakeview to Salkrit, to the Salkrit underground, the desolation, and now back to Lakeview. It's almost too much. She could be back at home in the garden, calling for Trila and refreshments – how is Trila? When they get back to Lakeview, she's going to visit her. Maybe feign sickness, get away for a day or two, and enjoy the last days of summer before frost and brown leaves descend. She can already feel the soft cushions under her back and feel the steam wafting up from the tea. They're climbing a hill now, and at the top the countryside spreads before them in multicoloured detail. Fields of bronze wheat stretch out from a distant village, safe thanks to them. The plains bloom with yellow and blue interspersed with green shrubs and trees. As the leagues stretch on, the trees become thicker and taller until weeping grass and gold caps are replaced by beech and oak. As the trees become woods, heavy vines connect them together, bridging the gap for chittering fox monkeys as they dodge away from overhead eagles.

“You look awfully proud of yourself.” Salaya breaks in on Eje's reverie.

“We all should be. Look around. Everything is safe, and it's thanks to us. Even Irami can't deflate my spirits.” Salaya gives her a floral smile, Ariel a pained look. The marching must be getting to her, and judging by her gait, she needs new boots.

“Octave! You're falling behind. The rest of you, straighten your backs.” Octave ambles on. “Octave, are you listening to me? This is no time for reading. Keep up the pace.” All the groups now are looking back at Octave, who somehow has her book out and is reading as she goes.

“Come on Octave.” urges Salaya. There was a time when Eje would have joined in, not wanting Octave to embarrass the team. Now it doesn't seem so troubling. If Octave wants to stroll, what harm can it do? And after her record of thirty-one orcs in the battle, Eje isn't too worried about the team's image. She'll have to ask Octave what her score was, maybe over lunch.

Octave, with some effort, looks up. “Don't worry. I won't fall behind.”

“You're already falling behind. We're marching and you're dawdling. Correct yourself.”

“There's nothing to correct.” Octave goes back to her book, a heavy black-bound affair.

Irami kneads her temples. “Nothing to correct? Have you been paying attention for the last ten minutes? We're marching.”

“Seems like an inefficient way to travel.”

“Forget it. I can't explain it to slackers a second time. Someone else do this.” She stops to pull a drink from her water flask.

“We're practising military marches.” explains Quennen. Hoping to be Irami's second, no doubt. “When we get back to Lakeview, it will be imperative that we make a good showing for the general.” The whole squad has stopped now.

“We aren't military. We're mages.”

“We are mages. You are a mercenary. Even so, we'll be under their command.”

“No we won't. We still aren't military. If you want to be, I suggest you join. Their standards are at an all-time low.”

“Oh, this is absurd.” Irami slams her flask back into her pack spilling water over her shirt. “Haven't you been paying attention to the world around you? If war breaks out, or more orcs come, or we're deemed to be lacking, we'll be torn apart. This is where it begins. You lack discipline. I can fix that, Octave.”

Irami is so earnest even Eje wants to laugh. Octave looks at her only briefly before answering. “That's your problem. My life needs less discipline, not more.” Someone, probably Brant, starts to snicker.

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“That's enough.” snaps Irami. If Octave had fought back harder or taken offence to her barbs, she might have tried to push it further and mount a serious offensive. However, Octave's disinterest has once again made her an unassailable opponent. “We're still getting military training back at Lakeview. It's imperative in the event of a war that we all be prepared for military manoevers. Get back into formation and march.”

“No.” To Eje's astonishment, it's Ariel who speaks up. Ariel, the girl who talks only when necessary. Ariel who would sooner give up her position in line than argue. “We're not military, Irami. And even if we were, you wouldn't outrank us. Don't mistake running errands for the captains as granting you authority.” As Team Two resumes marching, Ariel falls back alongside Octave.

Salaya breaks rank next. “Your formation is too tight to be practical anyway. Clumping like this only makes us vulnerable to magic attacks.”

Eje finds herself marching alone at the back of the formation. Well, in hindsight it's no surprise that Salaya would find a reason to contravene Irami, and Octave would never go along to begin with. But she never counted on Ariel's newfound courage. Somehow she's become the odd one out in a team she was meant to lead. Annoyance rises like discordant magic in her, but something else pushes to the forefront of her psyche. Shame. Not at her team, but at herself. Standing up to Irami now seems so obvious, but only after Octave did it. What makes it worse, it wasn't her idea. If she does it now, she'll be nothing more than a follower. But if she stays marching, she'll just look lonesome. It doesn't take long to find the less humiliating of the two options. Her pace slows to a stroll and she joins the rest of her team, hoping for once that nobody's attention is fixed on her.

After Octave's mutiny, order falls apart. Brant and Irprinon are the next to break rank, followed by Arrigos and Amiel. Teams Sixteen and Twenty-One lose interest soon after, and a defanged Irami can only fume and vent about the disrespect and how poorly it reflects on them. “She'll lodge a complaint.” says Eje as Irami turns back to her team. Even with her back turned, they can see the sparks flying from her eyes. Team Two is the only team still marching, the poor sods.

“Who cares? It's about time someone put in her place. Good job, Octave.” Salaya pats Octave on the back who returns with a bemused smile. “We all fought too hard to be marched about like that.” She waves her arm eagerly. “I didn't flinch once during the fight.”

“Speaking of which, I didn't see you much, Ariel. Did you get separated?”

Ariel hesitates, but she's been finding newfound courage as of late. “Did you find some, er, wrong with that battle? How we attacked what appeared to be a peaceful village?”

“Orcs aren't peaceful.” scoffs Eje. “I've never seen ones that small though.”

“Orc children.” says Salaya. “I thought that was an oxymoron, but then I never considered where they come from.”

“I thought they just pop out of the ground. Maybe from spores or something. What if they're born from mushrooms? I certainly didn't see any women orcs.”

“They didn't offer a fight.” persists Ariel. “They ran, and we cut them down from behind.”

“Ariel, are you taking pity on them? I only wish there could have been more.”

“Killing a foe who runs is dishonourable, isn't it? If they were people, we wouldn't do that, would we?”

“But orcs aren't people. You're being absurd.” Eje's voice rises against her will.

“No, it's true.” says Salaya. “I've been wondering too, but a little scared of asking. All this time I was told, and believed, orcs exist only to fight, but they seemed frightened when we attacked. I wasn't entirely comfortable either.”

“I can't believe what I'm hearing! And I hope nobody else does either.” Once again Eje is left out. “This sort of discussion could really could ruin our reputation. Orcs are our enemies.”

“Then let's get it over with.” says Octave, stowing her book in a deep pocket. “Do you believe in striking down an enemy from behind?”

“Well, no.”

“Shame. I do.”

Ariel gives Octave an astonished look. “But you stopped fighting partway through.”

“They didn't look like enemies to me. But you clearly did yesterday. What you believe ethically is in conflict with how you act morally. Which will you change?”

Eje grinds her heels into the dirt road with each step, the splendour of the trees and flowers lost. She's losing ground but tries one last time. “If they were people, I wouldn't have done it. But orcs...they're no better than dogs. Worse even. You've all seen what they can do. Look at the villages we've passed.” She can see Salaya looking out at yet another cluster of houses in the countryside distance. “They could have been next for a raiding party.”

“Maybe it was for the best.”

“Maybe.” echoes Ariel. “But once people started yelling Yertza and the smell of burning blood hit me, I couldn't go on. I thought I was going to be sick. I might not be cut out for this.”

“It's a matter of acclimation. You're just unused to blood being spilled. But I'll tell you one thing. I would never abide by slaughtering people. That's why I ran them down, and I can justify that, Octave. We're protecting ourselves.”

“Any action can be justified.” nods Octave.

Salaya as well appears convinced. “So what about this military business?” she asks, changing the subject. “Do you think we'll go to war with Gaskaback?”

“There was a diplomatic incident I heard of.” says Salaya. “When the king of Salkrit gifted the king of Gaskaback a horse last year, the king of Gaskaback had it put down. When the king of Salkrit's envoy came, he was fed meat from that horse at the royal dinner.”

“Is that why we're going to war?”

“It was a pretext. Gaskaback hunters are becoming bolder and more vicious by the day. I'm honestly surprised we weren't killed when we trespassed.”

“Be as that may, I don't know if I have the will to fight a war.” says Ariel. “Orcs I may have signed up for. War I didn't.”

“You technically don't have to. We are neutral as mages, aren't we? I'm sure Irami won't see it that way, but even the King hasn't the authority to order into battle. We won't have to fight unless their armies punch through the border and start taking cities. What about you, Octave?”

“I'd like to say we're neutral as well, but after the mercenary guilds sold us to reinforce mage camps, I can't say I'm sure. If the royal court works out another deal to conscript us again, I won't be the only one taking my leave. We fight for pay, not honour, not duty to our nation. And the court pays...poorly.” She snaps at the last bit like a frog flicking its tongue at a fly, catching it as it tries to escape. Ranim Harki and his logistics team aren't escaping the avarice and ire of the mercenaries.

“Money isn't everything, you know.”

“That's only true if you have enough.” To everyone's surprise, it's Ariel not Octave who says this. Eje resolves to buy her new boots.