The path to Humis lead along a similar route to the one we traveled when we were heading to Glasdale, although instead of heading away from the River Shon which would have led us to Lake Nobia, we crossed the river at a convenient ford and headed east. The pace at which we were moving was much more relaxed as there was no timetable to follow, the only concern being that our food must last the entire way. The terrain around us was flat with very few hills throughout most of the journey, but as we were moving further away from the river, the color palette around us slowly began to change.
The grass and trees had a darker green hue to them, although they looked to be not too different from the others to an untrained eye. The surroundings actually reminded me of the forests in Tarli and Targis, but these were a lot darker still. The road itself was well-traveled, our band encountering many other people on it, and the odd group traveling on horseback which overtook us if they were heading in the same direction, or sped past us if they were going the opposite way.
By the tail-end of the journey I was missing Des’ comfortable saddle more and more, as walking on foot for what must have been over a hundred kilometers made my leg muscles ache with extreme pain. The distance wasn’t even the worst part, it was the time. It took us nearly ten days to arrive in the capital of Renia, and the first night there my squad had the honor of being on night watch duty.
The name of the country sounded normal to my ear at first, but when Fisk informed me that it was actually just the word for ‘Republic’ in aswang, I became slightly confused. I asked him if there were any other countries with similar systems of government, and he answered in the affirmative, although most of them were further east. If that was the case then wouldn’t it be confusing if a country was just called ‘Republic’?
Fisk laughed and understood where I was coming from, but he then said that Renia was run not by the vast majority of its residents, but by the priestly class. Since that was the case, calling it just a ‘Republic’ led many people to immediately understand that they were speaking about this country, and not one of the others. It was also apparently quite old, predating the republics in the east by hundreds of years, so they would have no leg to stand on if they sought to change it.
The conversation with Fisk helped me keep my eyes open throughout the night, and at dawn we all entered our squad tent that we had set up the previous evening and collapsed into a deep slumber. It was expected in the band that those on night duty would not be disturbed the morning after, to allow them to catch up on sleep and feel rested afterwards. This of course did not include emergencies, but after a few months of service in the band I noticed that many had the uncanny skill to be able to fall asleep quickly at almost any time.
I asked Gorkas about it before the Blackseed campaign and he just told me that it was important to be able to get rest whenever possible, since it wasn’t guaranteed that you would have set times for sleep in a real battle situation. I didn’t understand his answer at first, so he just told me to imagine that I was on the defensive side in a lengthy siege, where the attackers outnumbered the defenders many times over. They would be able to send attacks in waves, perhaps even at night to try to catch the defenders off guard. In this hypothetical scenario I began to understand that a few hours of sleep here and a few hours more elsewhere would indeed be useful, and if you could fall asleep quickly then it would be even better.
We stayed in Humis for about a week, with there being little for me or my squad to do apart from the odd night shift until we received our replacements. The upper leadership of the band was very busy, leaving the camp frequently on errands the specifics of which I didn’t know. On the very first day, the captain went out once more and left my old squad-leader in command of the camp, and Gorkas immediately ordered all of us to equip ourselves and be ready for an attack at any moment.
I didn’t really see the reason to fear such a thing, but depending on what Captain Lydon was up to it might have been necessary so I dutifully informed my squad of the platoon-leader’s orders, after which came many hours of us sitting about and just talking while ready for combat. When Captain Lydon returned the alertness of the camp went back to normal, although Gorkas never did tell us what the reason for his vigilance.
At about the same time as the Lenaian horses vacated our camp, having been sold to a new owner for a truly outrageous price, new additions began appearing at the camp with Alula. Within the first two days our numbers were back to three platoons of fifty men, with three Renians of varied experience joining my squad.
All three were either my age or younger, for which I was both thankful that they were not likely to throw a fit about the age of their squad-leader, and scared that their inexperience would put myself and others at risk.
Eli was the most competent when it came to swordfighting, and I was present when Alula put one of the more experienced mercenaries up against him for his ‘initiation’. He was the son of a mercenary, so he had been holding a stick to use as a sword in his hand since the time he had learned to walk. He fared quite well for his age which I guessed was slightly younger than mine, providing great entertainment for both myself and the others who had gathered to watch the new recruit.
Luvar was the most useless out of the three, not having used anything other than farming tools as a weapon, and only against beasts who roamed the farms of his family. He was a head shorter than I was, and didn’t have the greatest body for combat from the looks of him. Like all new recruits he was provided a set of armor which would be deducted from his future pay, along with a shield that was of bad quality and a sword.
Castos, the last addition to our squad, was slightly taller than I was, and about the same age. He was a son of a hunter, which I guess contributed to his better frame, thanks to the meat he no doubt ate throughout his life. He showed up at the camp with a bow of his own make, although he had no arrows in the quill he wore on his back. When I asked about his lack of ammunition he explained that he had hunted for food on the way to Humis, and after using up all of his arrows he didn’t have the money to purchase tools to make new ones, although he saved all arrowheads he could.
Apart from Eli who seamlessly integrated into our training routine, the other two had difficulties adapting to fighting with a sword and shield. Castos was prone to tunnel-visioning, so when we were sparring he often didn’t pay attention to anything but my sword-hand, which resulted in many bruises appearing on his face from my shield.
Luvar on the other hand hesitated before every strike, and it took me a long time to get him to put all of his strength into his slashes and strikes. This is to be expected from new additions, but their shortcomings made me worry after a few days as they were not improving fast enough with just mine and Dorian’s help.
I made a request to the other squad members to help the newbies improve, as with extra hands their skills would no doubt continue to improve, but they were not moved by my arguments about ‘improving’ the strength of the band, and saw Luvar and Castos as dead weight, and begrudgingly accepted Eli as a ‘meat shield’.
I promised Cameron, Fisk, Kurt, Edmund, and Opie another trip to a tavern at my expense if they would contribute, which finally convinced them. The loss of money on my part would be offset by the knowledge that the more effective a squad was, the more money I’d earn in the long-term, if one of them didn’t die beforehand.
On the third day of training the new members of my squad, even more new recruits made their appearance at the camp, which also had to be expanded to accommodate the extra men. Many men from other squads were promoted to lead the new additions to the band, and by the end of our stay in Humis our band was up to two hundred fighting men, although the strength of the new platoon was questionable. My squad was left alone, perhaps due to the fact that we already had three new additions, and that I was the youngest squad-leader in the whole band.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
After only a day of our band being enlarged, orders came down that we would be moving out once more, this time headed to an area known as the ‘Hinterlands’.
I had heard of the Hinterlands before, but this would be the furthest east that I had been on Euphelia, and the map of Euphelia that had formed in my head allowed me to understand where it was, and the lands around it. Fisk too drew a rough map on his slate to help me get my bearings the first night we camped, and he also guessed that we would be heading to the westernmost country of the Hinterlands: the Kingdom of Setim.
He gave me some basic information about the country, along with some of the cities that he knew existed within it. His geography lecture was accompanied by the story behind the name of the city in the North-East of the country; Tailor’s Pass.
He didn’t know the specifics, as the story was one he had heard told by another at a tavern, not a reliable historical record by any means. Apparently many hundreds of years ago, there was a King of Setim that was tyrannical even by the standards of the current age, and as such did not receive much affection from the noble lady he took as his wife.
This did not bother the man of course, as a King had no shortage of willing women to spend his time with, but what did bother him was the fact that his wife had an affair with the Royal Tailor, who made the clothes for the entire ruling family. The King executed both the man and his immediate family with no hesitation, and exiled his adulterous wife to a border town near the mountains in the North, expecting her to live out her days there.
The Queen was no fool however, and managed the town well, developing it into an important place for trade after discovering a pass through the mountains that led North-East. The town grew from around one thousand residents to over 15,000 at one point, and the prosperity of the town even allowed her a more comfortable way of living than the tyrant in the capital.
The King was not just a tyrant however, he was also greatly incompetent, which made him commit blunder after blunder that eventually led to his defeat on the battlefield in a conflict with Setim’s neighbors. Before news even reached the capital of his passing, the exiled Queen made a thunderous return to the capital, where she secured support from many noble houses for her rule as regent for the future king of Setim.
Whether her son was of the royal bloodline was a point of contention for a long time, but the Queen’s shrewd management accompanied by her son and his successors made many drop the issue, as an illegitimate good ruler was preferred to a legitimate bad one. Before her regency ended she renamed the town where she spent many years in exile in honor of her late lover, adding much speculation regarding the sire of the Queen’s son.
Fisk’s retelling of the story sounded more like fantasy than reality, but the fact still remained that the town near the mountains in the North-East of Setim was named Tailor’s Pass, whether it was in honor of a dead man who committed adultery with a Queen, or for some other reason. Perhaps the story itself had some modicum of truth to it, and was just overblown with every retelling before ending up in its current state.
The capital of Setim was called Zelan, and it was a city of comparable size to the large cities in Jenusia, and even Meran which was the largest city I had seen so far outside the empire. Our band made little fuss for the locals, as it was in everyone’s interests to be allowed within the city for some rest and relaxation. I made good use of the city’s facilities after the first commission was completed by our squad; an escort mission to the town of which we had heard about from Fisk.
The night before we set out, I came to Gorkas’ tent for some advice about what I should do during the commission, and ended up staying there for many hours enduring lecture after lecture from the man who seemed to be more worried about my first time in command than I was. The young men of my squad were fully armed and armored before the crack of dawn, and as the skies were brightening we were already at Zelan’s northern gate, ready to meet our employers.
Our squad certainly looked the part of mercenaries, with varied armor donned by all of us, and even a bow hanging off the back of Castos. He still had no arrows with which to shoot, but I assured him that we would purchase some at Tailor’s Pass, in order to hunt for food on the way back. The employer was surprised by my youth as I approached him, but the presence of Cameron and Fisk, both of whom looked older and had facial hair, reassured the caravan leader.
There was not even a whiff of trouble during our three day escort commission, and we parted on good terms with the caravan leader in Tailor’s Pass. He even offered to hire us for the return trip, but because he would be here for an unknown period of time, I declined. I already had the numbers in my head worked out for the division of pay, which made me understand why my ability to do arithmetic was a factor in my promotion. The seven of us who weren’t new recruits received a few silvers each, with me getting seven silvers as the squad leader.
The new recruits weren’t allocated a share, as they were still paying off the equipment they had received from the band. They weren’t too happy about that, but I assured them that I would take the whole squad out for food and drink when we returned to the main camp. Castos was worried about how he was to buy arrows with no pay, but I just told him that since we would all be eating anything he managed to hunt, that I would explain it as a necessary expense to the leadership.
Cameron, Fisk, Castos, and I made our way to the trade section of the city, which was neatly positioned near the main gates of the city, no doubt a relic of the Queen’s ‘shrewd’ management. After Fisk bargained for over half an hour with a stingy carpenter who had the skills to make arrows, he agreed to make twenty of them in return for a silver of local make. Since Castos provided part of the arrowheads, the price was discounted and after two hours of waiting we returned to where the rest of our squad was resting outside the city, Castos’ face wearing a gleeful smile.
We were not in a huge hurry to return, as I gave Fisk some money to purchase enough food for a whole week while we were waiting for the arrows to be made, so we were walking back to Zelan at the same pace as we had traveled here, this time without wagons to protect. The others were content to not hurry back, and when we got far enough away from any large cities we veered off the main path, and into the forests.
Castos said that it would be best that not too many of us go hunting, and so it was only myself and him that left the main camp where the rest were busy setting up a fire. Castos’ movements were much more muted than my own, and I asked him to teach me the way he moved so that I wouldn’t disturb any prey that might hear my steps. He was happy to explain the technique, which I was not familiar with beforehand.
He called it the ‘Hunter’s Step’, and it was something that was easy to understand in principle but was very difficult to actually put into practice. I had to bend my knees slightly to decrease my center of gravity, and also had to remain in this stance without going up and down while moving, otherwise I’d make more noise when stepping. The stepping itself was a herculean task in and of itself, with the bent knees I had to leave my balance on one foot while moving my foot carefully forwards. When stepping with the outstretched foot I had to start with the outside part in the front, before setting down the inside part in the front, and only then I could set down the heel.
His instructions were quite advantageous to decreasing the ‘rustling’ sounds when moving around, and after about an hour of searching Castos spotted a deer moving in our direction, so he gave me a hand signal which meant stay still and make no sounds. I gave him a thumbs up to signal my understanding, and while he was focusing on the prey which was moving towards us, I tried to sense the movement of it which I still couldn’t see by closing my eyes and seeing its arcane power.
He was a great shot, bringing it down with only two arrows, the first of which lodged itself in its ‘shoulder’, and the second one hitting it in the neck. The rest of the squad was much more accepting of Castos after they gorged themselves on his kill, which he expertly cleaned and cooked for us with practiced hands.
The morale of the whole squad was even better when I took them to a tavern that was recommended by others in the band and spent one and a half gold coins out of my purse on food and alcohol. This was not as expensive as my first feast in Galles but that was because the tavern was not as high-end as the other one.
The last person to not be integrated into the squad properly was Luvar, and I really didn’t know how to ‘bring him into the fold’. With Eli there were no issues since his swordsmanship was at an acceptable level, Castos proved himself with his hunting ability which will be useful for our squad when traveling. Both of them contributed something to the ‘whole’ so there was a reason for the others to embrace them as true brothers.
All but one of us returned to the tent late at night in much greater spirits. I sent the men into our tent to go and sleep while I went and handed the band’s share of our commission to Gorkas. When I returned everyone was sleeping but Luvar was conspicuously absent from his usual sleeping spot. I decided to see if he was around the tent and found him on his knees praying facing in the direction of Humis.
The guy was quite pious, and seemed to trust in the gods to solve any and all problems that he might encounter. I didn’t really have anything in common with him on a personal level, so I decided to engage him in small talk after he noticed my presence as I watched him pray. He gave him his background as the third son of a farmer’s family, and he was sent away from home to decrease the amount of mouths to feed which is how he ended up in Humis in the first place.
The guarantee of food, terrible as it was lured him to sign up to the band. His outlook on life was quite refreshing as he didn’t blame his parents for what I considered a heartless action of sending their child out on his own into the world. He gave me his thanks for treating him fairly, and assured me that he would keep up his efforts to become a competent mercenary. I got a sense of deja vu as he made this statement and wondered if Gorkas felt anything similar when I first joined up?