Sitting down on the shabby stool Bertrand prepared themselves for the imminent admittance of Césaire’s betrayal of their trust.

“Before today the only information that we knew was that madmen with an extreme resilience to pain were attacking villages and small towns. Perhaps the officers knew more, it’s unlikely though. A mage task force was sent to investigate and was never heard from again.” They paused to take a gulp from their flask before they continued.

“Our legions have achieved great success primarily due to our reliable information network and mobility. How can we fight an enemy we know nothing about? So we were given orders, to find the missing skirmishers or to discover what happened to them. Our true orders were never spoken but we understood them nevertheless.” This time they paused to play a card from their hand.

Then in a more sombre tone of voice, they resumed talking. “Francois left after winning at Skat and came back with these orders, we even discussed it with you, and we weren't exactly subtle about what would likely happen. Seer I had no clue you were that badly drunk. What do you even remember about last night?”

The only thing that came to Bertrand’s mind was a vow to pay more attention to orders, that and hazy memories of losing cards and downing bottles.

“I only really remember making a vow to pay more attention to what my orders were.”

Upon hearing his answer Césaire sighed loudly.”That makes sense then. How about joining me for some cards, no drinks though”

Bertrand just nodded his head, relieved that his fears had been absolved, as Césaire slid a few cards over to him.

The next few hours were spent playing cards, gambling on dice and watching the odd fight that would erupt.

The more fun he was having though, the more anxious he became, he had plenty of fun last night and the result was being sent on a mission that ended with half of them dead.

Honestly maybe the officers were losing their touch, an army could only take so many losses before breaking. That numbered tended to be thirty percent for the well disciplined legions of the Francia Conglomerate.

Even though they were fighting on home ground there was only so much they could take. If Bertrand had to take a guess he would say that they had lost around seventy percent of the skirmisher corps.

Even if his corps was relativity separate from the other units in the legion, those sorts of losses greatly affected morale. The knowledge of horrific monsters capable of striding through volleys of musket fire probably wouldn't have a great effect on morale either.

Though the fact such a frighting abomination was dead should boost morale. He was no expert though, but Césaire was. Even if they weren't as well learned as Francois they were still a bone button.

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Spinning around in a circle to try and spot them, he discovered Francois instead, at some point during the night they must have joined the crowd in the barn.

Somehow Francois noticed someone staring at them and turned around. Spotting Bertrand they smiled before lifting up their flask and taking a deep sip from it.

While walking over to them Bertrand yelled out.“Hey Francois do you think the officers sent us out there to kill the monster so that everyone's morale would be boosted?”

A few people glanced over at him thanks to his loud words, but as he had already learned, everyone already knew about the battle in the forest and the mage's heroic sacrifice, and grand triumph.

Francois waited until Bertrand was a bit closer before saying anything though. "Morale was one of the reasons, another was that whatever that thing was it acted like a commander. Getting rid of it should mean we face less organised resistance as we push forwards. Which we are still doing by the way. Now that we have a better idea of just what we’re up against it's even more important that we push forwards.”

Bertrand had to take a few seconds to process that, it had been literal hours since he last took part in a conversation that wasn't comprised almost entirely of grunts and curses.

“How do you know so much?” he asked. Unless Francois was just guessing or some sort of private investigator before they joined the military it didn't make sense.

“Buttons demonstrate ability, in most situations people look up to whoever has the highest rank for guidance, even if they don’t technically have any authority. In the event of the officer's demise I will become the ‘leader’. So they let me in on quite a bit of information, not just me but any Bone buttoned soldier.” Francois explained, placing extra emphasis on the leader part.

“Uh right, so is what we’re fighting not zombies then? I thought they were meant to be incapable of coordination and just be reanimated humans. Sort of like the Gaulion berskerers.”

“Information is scarce, even the assassination of that commander was improvisation. We had no actual knowledge of its existence we just assumed that there had to be some sort of leader. It is quite strange though. Perhaps it's due to the unreliability and inconsistency of the information we got but none of the reports or rumours mentioned anything like this.”

Bertrand had been wondering about those reports. Thanks to their poor accuracy almost their entire formation had been wiped out by the zombies. It truly highlighted just how important a role he had, it was his duty to provide accurate information, without it hundred or worse, thousands could die.

“So what did the reports say?”

“They said they had come under attack by hundreds of monsters wearing human skin that had no sense of anything, pain, exhaustion, mercy. These reports were not made known due to fear of them being false and masterminded by the Collition. I still shouldn't be telling you anything but clearly they have been proven to be true, if unreliable.”

Not really sure what to say, Bertrand was about to just start asking whatever came to mind when Francois waved him off.

“Your still quite young, tomorrow is a rest day but after that we will march again, try to get back into routine. That way your not exhausted when we rescue travelling east.”

“Im twenty two.” Bertrand replied feeling a little offended. Francois had a point though, and so after a brief argument he ceded and left the barn. Heading back to his tent to sleep away the few hours before dawn.