“Can’t give too much attention to the trivial things, otherwise you will end up not having enough to give to the things that really mattered.” - Old folk saying.
“Done already? Guessing they didn’t give much of a fight, then,” asked Elfriede when the wagons that carried Reinhardt and the platoons left behind caught up to the head of the caravan.
Elfriede was lying down on top of one of the larger wagons in the caravan, and next to her, their daughters were engaged in a grappling match. One done on top of the moving wagon. It was training for them in case they had to fight in conditions where their footing was unstable, mostly for Alycea, as Reinhardt knew that Erycea could practically perform acrobatics on top and around a moving wagon with ease.
“Yeah, they scattered off once we killed the lead and some of their commanders,” replied Reinhardt nonchalantly, as if he had just been dealing with pests or something instead of an army.
Just around then, Erycea overpowered her sister and sent Alycea stumbling off the side of the wagon. Before Alycea could fall, though, she managed to hold on to the wagon’s roof with her hands and braced her legs against the structural supports beneath the fabric, hanging on the wagon’s side like a splayed frog for a precarious moment.
“Not bad, caught yourself on your own this time,” noted Erycea with some pride in her voice as she lent a hand and helped her little sister get back on top of the wagon’s roof. Ery would have caught Alycea had she failed to get a hold on the wagon, since it was just part of their training. Even if she missed, both sisters had been trained to fall properly, so a fall from atop the moving wagon was unlikely to hurt them much.
“Hope we don’t get many pests like that one. They’re just annoying wastes of time,” mentioned Elfriede while Reinhardt hopped over to the wagon she was on. “They don’t even give any proper fight. Did you get the newbie’s people blooded at least?”
“Yeah, they didn’t get to actually fight per se, but the fruit of their training at least showed itself,” replied Reinhardt with a shrug. He had hoped for a bit more of a fight to test out the company’s newest platoon, but things didn’t always go the way he planned them out. “Some of them got good with their javelins and crossbows, at least. Didn’t miss any throw or shot.”
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Most of the Free Lances – other than a few outliers like Mischka’s platoon – typically carried some manner of ranged weapon with them, to be used prior to melee engagements as well as to give the platoon more flexibility and the ability to respond to skirmishers. This typically took the form of javelins or smaller crossbows, as those were easier to carry and use compared to regular bows, which needed more skill and training.
It was a practice that Reinhardt and Lars had spread through the company over the years, as when combined with their irregular tactics, the ranged weapons – even if they were only good for one or two attacks – still gave them even more tactical flexibility and allowed for many convenient uses. Shock tactics prior to a melee was one obvious use, as was discouraging pursuers.
The company even invested in ensuring that every single one of their members had at least one of the medium-sized storage artifacts, so they could carry their additional equipment with ease, and more importantly, without giving any signs of its presence. Naturally the equipment was considered company property, and was only given to those who did not already have a suitable one.
Most people who applied to become a mercenary only brought their bodies after all, and the company had to equip them accordingly. Former soldiers or mercenaries were a different case as those typically already brought their own equipment, even if they soon traded in their old ones for better gear made by the company’s smiths at cost.
Given the year of training they had undergone, even Astrid’s platoon had overhauled their equipment with items crafted by the company’s own smiths, ones that put their previous equipment to shame. Much like Alvaro’s platoon, Astrid’s people chose to adopt a unified color scheme, though they appended their former state’s emblem beside the one that belonged to the company.
Reinhardt never minded small details like those. People became mercenaries for all sorts of reasons, and those who had prior loyalties that they might still hold on to were far from rare. As long as it did not cause complications during the execution of a mission, nobody really cared about those. Even people whose nations were enemies might just grow to become comrades in a mercenary company.
The rest of their journey through former Lavianey territory fortunately proved uneventful. The warlords of the last territories they passed were circumspect ones who gave them no trouble and just wanted them to leave already for the most part. After another two days the caravan reached the border between the former Lavianey territory and Ezram.
Their journey through Ezram also went by uneventfully, the nation letting the mercenaries pass without any hassle. Reinhardt noticed a military buildup on the northern side of the nation, however, and guessed that Ezram might not maintain its neutrality to the former empire for much longer.
After all, the fragmented former Lavianey region was greatly weakened by all their infighting. It was fruit ripe for the picking, and Ezram seemed to want to be the one to pick that low-hanging fruit for themselves. When he considered how Caroma was still busy incorporating the territories they took from the Southern Coalition, that meant that Ezram would not likely face much if any competition if they did attempt to subjugate the former Lavianey region.
Maybe they would even hire some mercenaries to help pad their forces, but given how they just let the Free Lances through without giving any offers, maybe not.