I put myself together and joined the rest in camp. I took my time walking in their direction. My rage slowly cooling from a boil to a slight simmer. It would remain that way till its target surfaces.
"Squad leader John. Captain Brutus commands your presence" a soldier by the name of Dax informed me.
I was not too pleased by this, but I had my orders.
I passed through the busy camp. Bedrolls lined the grass, facing the forest. The injured were placed behind those along with the kids and the comand tent was even further back.
It displeased me greatly. The squad leaders were much stronger than the soldiers and the captain even more than the squad leaders, yet instead of mixing with their men and positioning themselves in a better place to respond, they left the common soldiers, experienced and new, to their own devices.
I walked into the tent. My much larger frame overshadowing the captains. Apparently the gentic enhancements were tested on us and if they showed promise, the rest of the army was to follow suit.
The procedure was done only to the men in my baracks. A 100 total, and each of us were appointed as squad leaders over the more experienced troops. It was a great idea at the time because most skirmishes on the wall were basically probing actions taken by the fallen queen. It was meant to be a learning experience, not a massacre.
Half of us were on the walls during the attack, so now only 50 remained. We were each as strong as 5 men and the energy flowed through our bodies with as much ease as the elves. I bet we could learn magic and store mana just as easily, even if our commands over the elements would be piss poor. They made many enhancements, but the one they couldn't change was the generaly inferior talents of the human race. I was just lucky to be one among billions with affinity for the arcane, but the level of my talent would remain a mystery till my heart was healed in its entirety.
I marched into the command tent and stood at attention. My arms were held still at my sides and my back was straight.
"Squad Leader John greets the Captain"
"Sit" Captain Brutus replied.
I took in my surroundings, there was a long table in the middle with Captain Brutus at one end and the squad leaders were seated at its sides. Of the original 5 under his command only 2 remained. Legatus, one of the squad leaders under captain Eleron like me, was also seated.
Normally we would have been excluded from these meetings and told our orders by the other squad leaders, but this time, since he was low in man-power, he called in the rest of us.
It was much harder to bend when one was 8feet tall and covered in full plate. I managed to sit on the small cushion beside Legatus after a short struggle.
"We need to move as quicly as possible. We can not rest here for the time we need. Our energy will not recover in such a short time, except for you and the mage" he gestured at me and Legatus. "We have to be on the move again to join the main camp. Squad leader John, you will take over the deceased Squad leader Eco's subordinates. That should replenish your ranks."
A whopping 7 added to my group would put me as the lead in number. We only had 26 battle capable people in the camp and 10 of those, if the medics could patch up James's sword hand, were in my squad.
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The two squad leaders under Brustus glared at me. Their combined forces matched mine. It wasn't my fault they were complacent and failed to send out more than one person on night watch. Their sole watchers were killed silently, and their side of the camp was decimated. That was how the 8 got killed. The fallen managed to slit the throat of 3 of the sleeping squad leaders and critically injured 6 soldiers. Those 6 were only alive because of their failed ambush on me. It led to the assassins being discovered before the men bled out unknowingly in their sleep.
Despite their unwillingness, his commands were followed. I found the 7 men and introduced them to the rest of my squad.
James was patched up enough to use his spear and was exempted from night watch duty till further notice.
I spent some time with the twins and Malcom. He told me they were basically hand fed arcane texts and taken through even more helish training than we did. They weren't given physical enhancements like the rest of us in our baracks because it was still largely experimental and they were too prescious to damage.
It wasn't like they needed the extra mana or energy conductivity. Most of them were already on the same level of ours that was enhanced.
They were given serums that helped with their physical training.
While they weren't as strong as us, they were all at the peak of humanity.
I took the remaining time to rest and replenish my reserves.
I took my bedroll from the tent I was supposed to sleep in and decided bonding with my new squad members was a better use of my time.
My eyes were closed in meditation for the rest of the night.
At the sign of first light, someone raised the alarm.
I rose up from my bedroll and called my squad members to me. We rushed to the edge of camp and waited with weapons in hand. Everyone who held spears had shields and the few with glaives stood behind them, except for me. I stood at the front as their leader and the strongest in the squad.
My group was the first to sortie. The other squad leaders were gathering their subordinates when I spotted rustling leaves in the thicket of the forest.
It was at that time I got a mental message from Legatus that his squad was ready behind me.
Spears were held forward and glaives were lowered according to the imperial army's glaive style.
The rustling spread and got closer with every passing second.
I wished we could just ask Legatus and his mages to bombard the forest with spells, but there was a possibility it was another group of survivors.
The first form broke out of the forest, it was a man in medic garb.
We visibly relaxed but held our position. We watched the rest, mostly medics carrying in the injured in haste.
Then the soldiers came running behind them. They hastily formed up beside us, their squad leaders screaming orders at them.
The last to come through were Captain Eleron and his mages. I could barely make out the thin translucent barrier they formed in front of them.
It was clear they were holding something back.
"Legatus, fire your spells into the forest now! Don't hold anything back. Raze it to the ground!"
Legatus wasn't an elf. He was human like me, and so were the rest of his squad. So instead of a barrage of uniform fire spells, they cast destructive spells in line with their affinities.
While they were much weaker than a squad of elf initiates, they made up for it in imagination and diversity.
Wind and fire merged in the sky to form a storm of fire. The earth mages flung clouds of sharpened rocks they kept compressed in their pouches. The water mages formed a quagmire to slow down the march of whatever was left in the wake of destruction.
This gave captain Eleron time to retreat behind our formation.
He waisted no time beginning another chant. I felt the movement of mana in the air, he had taught me how to do that in the little time I was assigned under his command, and I felt the space infront of us shift.
What was previously a fairly translucent shield of mana, formed into something more tangible. The air warped and bent and even others without mana sense could feel it's power.
It formed quickly with help from the other mages. With that no one could tell there was anything infront of us at all.
Out of the now burning forest, a thick spear was launched. It colided with the barrier and shattered, but it had enough force to cause a violent ripple in the shield.
A haunched blackened figure strode out of the forest. It was a huge hulking monster with growths oozing puss all over it's body. It stood nearly 15feet in height.
It was a fallen giant.
As it stomped out of the flaming forest, I recognized the spears it carried on it's back. In fact one of them was the very same spear that killed Gabriel. I could make out the gouges he dug into its shaft from stopping it.
I saw red.