Waking up rather early had quite a few benefits.

For a start Bertrand only had to deal with minorly offensive sunshine, while also being able to have a decent hot meal.

In fact the soup was too hot, it had only just recently been cooked so it was still boiling.

He scooped a few spoonful's into his bowl and then hurriedly made his way over to one of the ruined houses.

He had to move carefully so he didn't spill the boiling soup on himself.

But at the same time he had lacked the foresight to wear gloves or wrap some fabric around his hands, so it felt like he had them pressed on some charcoal instead of a bowl, which obviously made him want to hurry up and put the bowl down already.

After what felt like years though, he reached the side of the house.

Kneeling down and placing the hot bowl on one of the fallen bricks. Before leaning back against the wall and rubbing his hands on his trousers, it didn’t really help him cool off any faster but it did make him feel better.

By the Seer did he have to wait though.

It took twenty minutes just for him to be able to take a sip without scalding his lips.

And a further twenty for him to finish the bowl.

Eventually he was done though.

And so he walked back to the cooking area, and placed his bowl beside the other fifty or so used bowls.

Then he walked over to take his position at his watchtower.

Three other skirmishers were assigned to it, one for the morning and one for the afternoon, followed by one last skirmisher who would stand watch during the night.

They decided who got which shifts by playing a quick game of mage, cannon and battalion.

Battalion beat cannon, cannon beat mage and mage beat battalion.

It was a game that used rather outdated terms as in the current age of beamer and musket, not to mention the variety of other weapons that each army had access to, mages were rendered rather powerless before a battalion.

A company was sixty men and was hardly a challenge to most mages, a regiment was five companies and was considered the equal of most mages. While a battalion was three regiments.

Needless to say, over a thousand soldiers was more than capable of dealing with a singular mage.

Regardless it was a quick and simple game to play and so it was how they decided who got what shift.

So far Bertrand had been rather lucky at the game and had only ended up on the night shift once.

You couldn't exactly play the game with someone who fell ill though, so even though he won last time and should be on the afternoon shift, here he was taking over the morning one instead.

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It wasn't that the morning shift was bad, it was just that the afternoon one was better.

Sure the sun beat down on you harder but it also left sooner, in the morning shift you had to put up with it the whole time, in the afternoon one at least you got some shade near the end.

Climbing up the rickety ladder, Bertrand got up onto the top of the watchtower.

It wasn’t the most stable of constructs.

Having been made out of a bunch of boards nailed together alongside some bricks at its base to support it.

But it was good enough and gave a decent view of the north side of the walls.

Bertrand couldn't see anything within twenty yards of the wall but it hardly mattered.

The tower was there to give him and any other skirmisher using it a clear view of the walls themselves as well as the area behind them.

Any breeches would be in full view of Bertrand, allowing him to cleanse the area with his beamer.

Even those twelve seconds of suppression would prove invaluable in repelling any assaults.

However, just like yesterday, there was no overwhelming attack, no siege.

There was nothing but a few dozen zombies that charged them periodically.

Honestly, it was rather concerning.

If all those previous small hordes had just grouped up and attacked them, then they could probably have breech sections of the wall and started pouring into the town.

But instead they came one by one.

Perhaps it was meant to demoralize them, they weren’t dealing with human commanders after all.

So the tactics and ideas they had would be different from the ones their officers or the coalitions came up with.

It wasn’t really his place to care about that though, it was his place to just keep watch and make sure nothing inhuman entered the town.

And he fulfilled his role perfectly.

Not a single zombie breached the wall while he was on guard duty.

Mostly because no zombie managed to make it to the walls, they all got gunned by the linemen before even getting within a hundred yards.

Bodies littered the plain now, some of them were close, roughly a hundred and fiftyish yards out from the wall.

Clearly having been wiped out by less experienced linemen as everyone who was on the walls for his shift had managed to wipe out the hordes at about the three hundred yard mark.

His shift was finally over as a fellow skirmisher clambered up the ladder, relieving him of his duty.

Bertrand pitted the poor bastard as throughout his shift the sun had gone from being overbearing to being like the eye of some eldrich horror which radiated pure fatigue.

He was actually able to slide down the ladder, as his palms were greased with sweat.

And upon reaching the bottom he tiredly headed off to his tent.

Walking past or around the various crowds of disgruntled soldiers.

Before he at last reached his beautiful blue home.

Stepping into it gratefully and casting off his sweat stained clothing in favor of new clean fabric.

He dearly hoped they reached a river soon as he was starting to run low on clean clothes.

He only had another rucksack left before he was all out.

Once he had finished changing he headed back outside, he was going to head over to the barn they hung out at.

Olivier and Césaire had afternoon shifts so they wouldn't be there but Francois had gotten unlucky and would be pulling a night shift so he would be there.

After a few minutes of walking Bertrand had made it to the barn, it reeked of sweat and even some alcohol which was a little surprising.

Skirmishers got a pass but other units normally only got to drink in moderation and that was just when they were marching.

When they were in a combat zone there almost always was a strict ban on the consumption of liquor.