The dimly lit warehouse was filled with the thwacking sound of halberds striking halberds, and those inside were so focused that no one noticed the four students standing in the doorway. Yaric and the others watched for a moment longer.
His chest clenched slightly at the sight of all these people putting so much effort into helping themselves and doing their part, and yet, through no fault of their own, they were doing so in such an utterly ineffective way that their efforts were entirely pointless, simply because they didn’t know any better. They were doing the best they could with what they had.
Sven waited until the woman having a coughing fit got control of herself before he stepped forward.
“Good afternoon,” Sven said, speaking loud enough that he was sure to get everyone’s attention. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to the doorway, but most were dismissive of the four teenagers standing just inside the gloom.
“Make a bed anywhere,” someone said, already turning back to her ‘opponent’.
“We’re not here as part of the militia,” Sven said, speaking even louder. His words got the attention of a few more people, though some stopped what they were doing with more interest than others. “We’re arcanists from Lekton, we’ve been sent to support your efforts to clear some goblins from this area.”
“Yeah?” a dark shadow near the back asked.
“You kids do magic?” someone else enquired.
“Welcome,” one of the younger kids said.
“Don’t you have your own practice to get to?” the unhurt dwarf asked gruffly.
The group was at least self-aware enough to step back from each other and raise their halberds, though Yaric knew that habits like that came as much from practical experience as they did from training. He couldn’t help but wonder about the limp.
“Our support isn’t simply magical,” Sven said. “We’re also here to help train all of you.”
“We can’t learn no magic.”
“I fight like a soldier, not a wizard.”
“Can you teach us how to use these properly?”
Sven chose to reply to the question. “We can. We’ve all spent a lot of time training with polearms. Even more importantly, we’ve spent a lot of time training to fight as a unit, which is what your militia is going to need to learn more than anything else.”
“Won’t do us much good if we can’t fight with these,” the sick woman replied, choking back her cough at the end.
“We’re going to show you all of it, you won’t be fighting unprepared.”
“Why would you learn to fight with weapons like these?” the gruff militiaman asked, though his tone was curious and not disbelieving.
“Would you want twelve-year-olds to be taught how to throw fire in a fight?” Lauren asked in reply.
The dwarf looked down in thought for a moment. “No, don’t suppose I would. But I wouldn’t want no twelve-year-olds running around with swords neither.”
“Luckily, we’re trained with more military discipline than that,” Sven replied confidently, though Yaric flinched slightly. Lloyd and the Corporals had told him plenty of stories about the things soldiers got up to when no one was looking, and he wasn’t sure how much confidence anyone would have in them if anyone else had heard something similar.
“Before we continue, why don’t we all introduce ourselves,” Sven suggested.
There was a brief moment of awkward silence, but then Li Na and the gruff militiaman spoke up at once.
“We’ll start -.”
“I’m Kost -.” He began hoarsely.
Sven laughed, breaking the silence. “This is how these things always go, isn’t it? Please, continue.”
“I’m Kostas Samaras,” he repeated. Sven stepped in once again when it became apparent that he didn’t intend to say anything more.
“Well, it’s good to meet you. Do you have any fighting experience, Kostas?”
“Nope.”
…
“What experience do you have?” Sven prompted. “What do you do for a living?”
“Baker.”
Seeing that Kostas wasn’t likely to volunteer much, Sven quickly moved on to the next person.
“Orrell Trantor, brick maker. I don’t have any experience with weapons.”
“Evan Reed, brewer. I don’t know how to use this thing.”
Yaric was surprised he was old enough to have a job like that, though he was hardly in a position to say anything.
“Andriy Jordan, musician.” This time it was the grey-haired man who stepped forward. “I wrestled when I was younger, but I doubt it will help much here.”
“Lali Marinos, bookkeeper.” Lali also looked very young, even for an elf. She also seemed to be particularly nervous.
‘Maybe that’s how I can tell that she’s very young?’
“Darwin Weston. I don’t have a job.” The kid looked like he should still be in school.
“My name’s Bertram Shandiin,” another teenager said. “I also don’t have a job.”
“Carina Lexa,” the sick woman said before breaking into another coughing fit. “Cheesemaker.”
“I’m Jude Murray, and I’m a bookbinder. Don’t fight much in my line of work.”
“Halvar Seki,” the male elf said. “I’m an engineer.”
A surprising number of people had decent jobs, and as Lloyd had said, most were working inside large towns. It seemed like an odd group to be called up to defend their Barony.
“I’m Elinor Odell, I’m a store assistant for Brushed Stationery and Art Supplies.”
“Hi, my name is Raynard Murray. I’m not working currently.” The young man hesitated for a moment before adding, “No relation to Jude.”
“I don’t know,” Jude said, looking Raynard up and down. “You remind me of someone. Does your mother make candles?”
“Uh, no…”
“Could she have been making candles before you were born?”
A few of the others chuckled at Raynard’s face.
Cedric Hayden, Danylo Melville, and Michayla Flannery introduced themselves as well, leaving only the injured dwarf. Yaric expected something similar to Kostas’s abrupt demeanor.
“Good evening, my name is Beso Metaxas. I am a tutor to those in need of assistance while acquiring a higher education, and I am fortunate enough to have never had a need for combat skills. Until now, I fear. Being summoned to defend the Barony was beyond my expectations.”
“I doubt anyone here expected to be called up,” Lauren replied consolingly.
“I volunteered,” Orrell said, followed soon after by several others, including Kostas.
“Most of you volunteered?” Lauren asked.
“I have children farming out there,” Kostas muttered. “Need to keep those fools safe.”
“They don’t work in the bakery?” Li Na asked in surprise.
“Like I said, they’re fools. Got scammed into buyin’ some vineyards. Now they make wine or some nonsense. Don’t even grow wheat. Could have bought from them if they did. But they’re still my kids, an’ I’m not lettin’ them get overrun by goblins because I didn’t raise them right.”
“It also helps if you know how to defend yourself,” Orrell said, not giving Li Na a chance to reply. “Clearing out some goblins in exchange for learning how to fight is a good deal. I can take what I know back home afterward.”
A couple of others also wanted to learn to fight, while yet more had simply wanted to help protect the land they lived on, although some, like Michayla, had their own reasons.
“My husband died during a different outbreak a few years back. I relocated here to get away from it all and move on, and now another infestation has cropped up in my new home. I’m not sitting around making soap when there’s goblins out there, I’m going to kill as many of those bastards as I can.”
Kostas grunted in agreement.
“Knowing why you’re fighting will help,” Sven acknowledged.
“How did you hurt your leg?” Lauren asked Beso, hoping to change the subject.
“I’m afraid I twisted my knee rather badly on the journey here. No one had been able to recommend anything better than strapping it tightly and giving it time to recover, so here we are.”
Lauren nodded.
“It’s good to meet you all,” Sven said, addressing everyone once again. “It’s our job to help you learn to fight goblins, and we’re going to do everything we can. Of course, it’s only fair that you know something about us as well. My name is Sven McDavids, and this is Lina Jakobson, Lauren Silver, and Yaric Miller.”
Sven went on to give some background on the years they’d spent training, as well as things like their expedition against the kobolds. He also mentioned a few of the appeals they had answered in the hope that it would increase confidence in their abilities. Everyone was well aware of how young they looked.
“It’s too late to begin any meaningful training tonight, but I recommend you get your rest. Tomorrow we will start showing you how to wield a halberd properly, and we’re going to get you all started with your first training session as a unit. I’ll be covering the basics of the halberd with Lauren, while Lina and Yaric cover formation drills.”
Kostas kept glancing between the students, eyeing them skeptically. “You four have some kind of writ?” he grumbled.
It was a reasonable request, so Sven handed over the appeal they had received without complaint. It wasn’t a regular appeal but one issued by the Academy, which didn’t really do anything more than authorize their mission, but it would be enough, particularly since it was now too dark inside the warehouse for anyone to read, even if Kostas made no sign of it.
“Do your best to learn the formation drills,” Li Na said. “We’re going to spend more and more time on that every day. Nothing will do more to save your lives and clear out those goblins than learning to keep a wall of spears up, even when waves of goblins are charging at you. It’s not your skill with a halberd that will save you; it’s your discipline.”
Kostas stepped forward to hand the appeal back to Sven, but he kept his eyes on Li Na as he walked. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to learn how to save myself first. Relying on others will only get you killed. No offense, we’re just not from some special magic school. We don’t all have big strong friends to save us, we have to save ourselves, and I aim to get back home. So I’d rather spend more time with these two, learning how to actually fight.”
Li Na’s smile never faltered. “Most people feel that way at first. You’ve just never seen a properly coordinated unit. We can show you quickly if that would help?”
“Go ahead, girlie, but I doubt you’ll change my mind.”
This time Li Na’s smile dropped, and her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, everyone was moved back into their lines, and then split once again. A double row of four halberds faced their mirror copy.
“See how much more dangerous this is?” Li Na asked. “You can all cover each other. Goblins that attack you will just be throwing themselves onto pointy metal.”
“What about the axes?” someone asked.
“Don’t need them. They would take far too long to learn how to use, and they need a lot of skill. They’re also not going to be much help against waist-high opponents.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ever chopped wood?” Li Na asked in reply. Several people nodded. “This is like that, but you have to swing when the log is two meters away, and it’s running right at you. How easy do you think it would be to get that right? Now lift that heavy axe head back up from near the ground, with it held out in front of you, and keep doing it over and over. You’ll get tired real quick.
“The axe head is designed to cut on the drawback, or to chop down on people sized opponents. You can even target people in the second or third rows. But you really want a simple spear for fighting goblins.”
“Then why even have it?”
Li Na shrugged. “Dunno. Your Baron wanted to give you a more advanced weapon, I guess.”
“Or he thought we could learn how to use one in a few days,” Kostas groused.
“Isn’t a spear lighter? Should we try to get these changed?” Lali asked.
“It’s no big deal. The axeblade will keep goblins from moving too far up the halberd, so you’ll get them off easier,” Li Na said.
“You’ve had to get goblins off spears before, girlie?”
Li Na stared at Kostas for a moment. “Not goblins. But plenty of kobolds. They skewer themselves right up, trying to reach you through your spear. Then they die, and their stinkin’, scaly bodies weigh your spear down so you can’t lift it for the next one. You have to get them off, or have a proper bludgeoning weapon to switch to,” Li Na said, reaching behind her back to unholster her mace.
“Who in their right mind would want such a short weapon against a horde of goblins?” Kostas huffed.
“A real fighter.”
“Haven’t seen you do no fighting, girlie.”
“Oh yeah? And what will you say when me and my mace save your life, little man?”
Li Na and Kostas were both staring intently at each other, the gloom growing so deep that Yaric almost missed the slight smiles playing at the corners of their lips.
Kostas spat on the ground. “Then I’ll be ‘girlie’.”
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They shook hands, but neither let go for an uncomfortable moment, with both squeezing their grips increasingly hard. Kostas looked satisfied however, and he never raised another complaint for the rest of the evening.
Not that they stayed much longer. Freshly lit candles scattered some weak light across small portions of the warehouse, but as Sven had said, there wasn’t much they could do in the time they had left. It would be far better to have a fresh start in the morning.
“Can we do something about their accommodations?” Yaric asked.
They were walking back to their rooms after saying goodbye, and he was acutely aware of how poor their conditions were compared to what they would all be used to.
“They’ll probably be camping at some point,” Sven replied. “It’s not a bad thing for them to get used to rougher conditions now.”
“But Carina is already sick. It might even spread.”
Sven did look a little troubled at the mention of Carina’s health. “I doubt there’s anything anyone can do. Even if the Baron was willing, where would you have an entire militia sleep? Unless there’s a spare barracks nearby or an empty apartment building somewhere, this is probably the best that’s available.”
Yaric still didn’t like it, or more specifically, the situation those people found themselves in.
Their rooms came with meals, but the meals had to be requested and fetched from the counter, so Yaric went to get the food while everyone else got a table. He was still trying to find a solution to Carina’s illness and Beso’s knee when he felt Lauren’s hand on his shoulder.
“I thought you were going to be okay?” she said, frowning in concern.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. I saw your face when we walked in on… whatever it was they were doing. Lloyd even warned you.”
“No,” Yaric replied, his exasperation leaking through. “Lloyd was talking about soldiers getting hurt, and casualties in battle. It’s not like I don’t know that… I’ve always known that. But these people, they’re not soldiers! Most of them aren’t even fit for muster! Half of them would never get past a recruiter, and they should never have been called up in the first place!”
Lauren stared into his eyes for a moment before stepping closer. “Yaric, most of those people also volunteered. Would you take their choices away from them?”
“No one told the volunteers what they were really getting into. None of them have even mentioned being hurt or killed, this is just any old job to them. And not everyone volunteered.”
“Yes, Andriy didn’t, and he would be too old for service. Carina, Elinor, Darwin, and Bertrum didn’t choose this either. But it doesn’t matter how unfair this all is. They’re here, we’re here, and there’s a job to do.”
“The biggest cause of death will be because people who shouldn’t be fighting were thrown into battle. Lauren, when we cleared out those kobolds or fought those skathári, we were fighting to protect people like them. Those people aren’t supposed to stand beside us, they’re supposed to stand behind us.”
Lauren wrapped her arms around Yaric and leaned her cheek against his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her in turn. “You’re right. But what’s supposed to happen and what is happening are two different things. You’re usually the one who points out this kind of thing. You did understand that soldiers would suffer casualties, right?”
“Yes… why does everyone keep asking that?”
“Because you don’t have soldiers. You have bookkeepers, soap makers, and musicians who are going to be doing the same things the soldiers should be doing. Even soldiers would have casualties, and these aren’t soldiers. I don’t want to upset you; I just don’t want you to be unrealistic.”
“I’m not,” Yaric protested. “I know what’s going to happen. That’s the problem. It isn’t right.”
“No,” Lauren murmured, “it’s not.”
Lauren held him for a few more seconds before letting go and stepping back. “Don’t think this is the end of it,” she warned, though the tone of her voice gave her real feelings away.
Yaric smiled. “I know. And I am okay.”
“Good. I’ll get the drinks they wanted.”
Fetching a round of drinks proved to be much faster than fetching the food, and Lauren was back at the table while Yaric was still waiting for half their order.
“Is he upset about the kind of people that got roped into this,” Li Na immediately asked.
Lauren sighed. “Kind of, I guess? I mean, that’s what he’s complaining about.”
“But?”
“I saw his face when we walked in, Lina. If those people had been lying around or knew how to train properly, I don’t think he would have had any problem. But he saw how seriously they were taking the situation and how much effort they put into preparing, even the sick and injured, while at the same time, they hadn’t been given any of the tools they needed to succeed.”
“So they made something up by themselves,” Li Na added.
“Exactly! I’m sure that’s what got to him more than anything else.”
“He’s a soft little puppy.”
“But he’s not,” Lauren countered. “I understand why he gets annoyed when people assume he is. You’ve seen him make hard calls during exercises. He was the one firing back when we got ambushed that night, and he even wounded one of those bandits. It’s just… people in certain situations. You know it when you see it.”
“I know,” Li Na said more softly. “Which is why he’s a soft little puppy. Puppies bite. And chew.”
Lauren nudged Li Na, but they both went quiet when Yaric approached with their food. Sven just observed quietly.
They spent over an hour making plans before going to bed. One of their most significant issues, however, was information. How much time did they have? What would the total number of people be? Would they all be given halberds? And what about things like armor?
Still, they could only plan for what they knew, and then discuss options for the things each of them knew they didn’t know.
The next morning was another clear spring day. Once again they found everyone already up and practicing, although this time the future militia were doing nothing more than stretching and warming up.
“Has everyone eaten?” Sven asked. Seeing everyone nod, they decided to start right away. “Fetch your halberds.”
Two lines of eight were formed, each facing Sven in the middle, and he demonstrated how to hold the halberd and how to stand correctly. Yaric and Lauren walked up and down the lines, making corrections wherever necessary.
“Psst… Where’s girlie? Sleeping in?” Kostas grumbled.
“She had her own errand this morning,” Yaric replied, though he didn’t explain further.
Li Na arrived half an hour later with a bag in hand. She quickly pulled Carina out of the exercise and took her aside, where she explained how some pills were to be taken, along with a tea that needed to be drunk every six hours. Carina made her first batch and rejoined once she was done.
The entire morning was spent lowering the halberds, thrusting, and withdrawing. They hadn’t even begun to add things like moving forward yet, and usually it wouldn’t be something to even consider, but all four of them kept the unknown deadline at the back of their minds.
Yaric and the others left them at lunch with the hope that they might start bonding more as a team, while also not wanting to disturb whatever eating arrangements had been made for the militia.
“Did anyone stand out as officer material?” Yaric asked. They were all sitting down for lunch in a much nicer restaurant.
“After only one morning?” Lauren asked.
“It’s what we have,” Yaric replied, making her smile.
“There’s some potential,” Sven acknowledged. “Hopefully we can wait a little longer before making any decisions.”
“We won’t have much time at all,” Yaric said. “There’s only going to be so much time to train those people to command the militia, and every day we wait to choose is a day they lose out on.”
“Jude might be a good option,” Lauren said. “He seems levelheaded, and the others all seem to respect him.”
“Halvar as well,” Yaric added.
“Michayla has, uh, fire,” Li Na said. “I’m just not sure if she won’t be reckless. She silently throws herself into everything. And I hate to say it, but Kostas is… decent.”
Yaric smirked, but he didn’t say anything. The old dwarf seemed to have taken a liking to Li Na.
They decided to forego any weapons that afternoon, and simply focus on getting everyone into formation. It was far, far more straightforward than it would be when the entire militia assembled, but it still took some pushing and shoving to get everyone formed up. And that was without weapons in their hands.
The next day was much the same.
“No, pull back quicker,” Li Na instructed.
“But I already stabbed it.”
Li Na moved to stand in front of Evan.
“Look, now I’m a goblin,” Li Na said. Kostas choked back a laugh in another row. “There’s another goblin next to me. Kill it.”
Evan stabbed forward hard, showing surprisingly good technique for someone who’d only started learning the day before. Unfortunately, his withdrawal had far less effort behind it. Li Na casually stretched out her hand and grabbed hold of the halberd.
“Now stab the one on the other side of it.”
The halberd shifted slightly, but Evan wasn’t able to overpower Li Na’s grip, particularly with the leverage working against him.
“And that’s why you pull back quickly. Your weapon is only useful if you’re the only one holding it. What happens when other goblins run around me now? And what happens to the people next to you?
“Besides, that’s not the only reason.” Li Na let go of the halberd and stepped back. “There’s to goblins there, side by side. Kill both. Quickly now!”
Evan stabbed the first without hesitation, then pulled back for the second.
“Too late! Do you think the goblins are going to stand and wait for their turn? The quicker you withdraw, the sooner you can attack again. The thrust is not just the strike, it’s the reset as well. Do you know how many goblins you can kill in five seconds?” Li Na asked.
Her only reply was a shake of the head. “Time how many full thrusts you can make, including the reset, and that’s how many goblins you can hope to kill. I hope you aren’t going to face more than that, because otherwise you’ll need to withdraw faster.”
Li Na left Evan furiously practicing his resets.
Beso’s injured knee was something they could only work around, so he was practicing at a lower intensity while his knee recovered. Li Na had found an ointment for the injury, but it was more focused toward comfort than healing. Still, Beso was very appreciative.
Over a dozen more people arrived that evening, all armed with the same halberds. There wasn’t any word on armor yet, so everyone continued to practice as they were.
However, the new additions did mean splitting their focus.
None of the new arrivals had any military experience, just like the original group, and they also seemed to have similar backgrounds and occupations. The key difference between them was that every single one of them had been summoned for duty. There were no volunteers from the group.
Sven spent his time with the new group, with Lauren spending most of her time there as well, while Yaric and Li Na continued helping the original group. They were starting to get the hang of pulling sixteen people into two rows of eight, but both Yaric and Li Na knew that it wouldn’t help much when the numbers started increasing.
More people started arriving after that, with between six and fourteen new arrivals each day. The warehouse was getting livelier and livelier as the number of new residents increased.
Basic skills with the halberds were still relatively simple, but the formation exercises had become a complete mess. Li Na showed everyone how they could form up around a few key individuals, which helped somewhat, while most people struggled to see past those in their immediate vicinity.
Yaric and Lauren once even stood at the opposite end of the warehouse and charged them while they tried to form up, in order to impress upon everyone just how important the exercises were, but there just wasn’t enough discipline amongst the militia. Several people began to get very frustrated, Kostas and Michayla included.
Li Na also picked up that several individuals had far more talent than the others, at least when it came to using the halberds. It wasn’t that they were particularly good, they were simply better than those around them.
“Creatures like goblins always gravitate to the center,” Yaric pointed out.
“Yes, that’s why there’s usually a deeper line there. What about it?” Sven asked.
“Place the more talented people there. We need to teach everyone to hold formation, and that will be much easier if the place with the highest pressure isn’t about to collapse.”
“That might not be possible,” Sven said. “They can’t even form up properly as things are. How are we going to get a formation going with precise arrangements like that?”
Everyone was silent while they thought it over, but Lauren soon remembered Hiawatha’s original lesson. “Squads,” she said.
“Squads?”
“We had to learn how to form up from anywhere, because we could be anywhere in the group when the order goes out. But Hiawatha said it’s less of an issue in the army, because they always form squads. Everyone has a set place.”
“I didn’t hear him say that,” Yaric admitted.
“I don’t remember when it happened. But he said that the army would form small squads, and each squad would have a junior officer in charge. One of their jobs is to keep the squad in position relative to the rest of the formation. Those officers watch where the others are at all times, and when they have to form up, the officers move into position and the rest of their squads follow.”
“Do you think that could work here?” Yaric asked. Sven looked dubious as well.
“It sounds complicated, but it’s supposed to make the whole thing simpler than what we had to do. Our training was so we could form up under any conditions. Their training was to control the conditions. That might be our best bet as well.”
All halberds were put aside the next morning so they could test out Lauren’s idea. Each of the original members was made squad leader, while the rest of the militia were divided into the squads.
There was a big adjustment period in the beginning, where the squad leaders had to position themselves relative to each other, but things started falling into place once they had the hang of it.
Kostas and Michayla had all the stand out fighters in their squads, and they were expected to make up the very center. Every other squad leader then had a position relative to them, including in the second row. Everything went well so long as the members of the squad stuck to their leaders.
Which was also the biggest weakness. Squads would have to keep their positions even when marching. There couldn’t be any movement up or down the line, or any major shifting of positions. It shouldn’t be a problem in practice, but anything that could go wrong usually did, so they also practiced with ‘missing squads’. The goal there was simple, close the gaps.
By now the militia numbered one hundred and forty, and there were still more arriving each day. Yaric hoped that the numbers would continue to increase, both to provide more training time, and to hopefully give the militia a more overwhelming force with which to engage the goblins.
“We need to start teaching them about goblins soon,” Yaric mentioned over dinner one evening.
“You think we’re running out of time?”
Yaric chuckled darkly. “We’ve been running out of time right from the beginning. But yes. Lloyd said they were waiting for the weather to turn. The last four days have been the best so far, and no one can deny we’re fully into spring now. If they’re going to sound the horn, it’s going to be now. The rest of this militia will probably start arriving over the next couple of days.”
“We’ve already discussed their weapons and physical characteristics while teaching them how to use the halberds,” Sven said. “Do you want to talk about how they fight together?”
“How they fight as groups, how they set up outlying villages for early warning, how they group together. Everything they need to know.”
“The squads can’t get any bigger either,” Lauren said. “We’ll need more squad leaders if the militia grows much bigger.”
“They can make their own squad at the back,” Li Na suggested.
“But they still need a squad leader so they can get into formation.”
“Not if they don’t have a place in the formation,” Li Na countered. “These guys are still struggling to fill in gaps when we pull people out as casualties. And we don’t know how many more are coming, or how long they will have to train. Spread the most inexperienced guys out in a third line, and have them pull the wounded out and fill the gaps when someone gets hurt.”
“That could work,” Sven admitted.
“’Course!”
“We can spend the next few days working on that,” Lauren said.
Two days were spent working on it, and then their time was up. The militia was deploying in two rows of seventy-two, with almost thirty more forming a third row that shifted to wherever they were needed, when several large wagons pulled up outside the warehouse.
An important-looking official walked into the warehouse and started directing the unloading of the wagons, without a single word or even a glance toward the occupants inside. Nothing about his uniform or clipboard made him look particularly important, it was his expression that declared his importance to all around him. Everyone who had been near the entrance backed off and gave him room. All except one.
“Hey! We’re training here.”
The man stiffened slightly, but he continued giving orders without acknowledging that he’d heard anything.
“Hey! I’m talking to you! Keep dumping that crap here, and I’ll toss it all out the door.”
That made the man turn around, although he seemed more amused than anything else. “You’re going to toss hundreds of kilograms of equipment, are you?” he asked, his voice oozing with disdain.
“Yeah.”
“And how do you think you will accomplish that?”
“With magic,” Li Na replied, forming a fireball over her hand as she spoke. The bright flames shone like a beacon in the gloomy warehouse, drawing all eyes to her, while the official literally jumped away and twisted in midair.
“You’re a mage!”
“Novice, actually. But that won’t stop me from tossing this junk and putting you out on your ass. What do you think you’re doing?”
The official seemed to collect himself, even if he still looked slightly pale from his earlier shock. “The Barony’s official militia force is to be equipped with the supplies outside, and I have their deployment orders as well. If you obstruct this del -.”
“Yeah, yeah. I was asking what you were doing. And now I’m wondering why you were doing it without informing anyone. But I’m one of the arcanists attached to the militia, so you can give those orders to me.”
The official looked like he had intended to relay the orders to the militia personally, but Li Na’s blank stare was enough to push him to hand them over. She started reading through them while the others made their way through the crowd.
“Their armor and other stuff,” Li Na mumbled, gesturing to the piles of equipment being unloaded while still reading. “These are the orders.”
“This is the armor?” Yaric asked incredulously. There were a few steel helmets, and the odd piece of metal armor mixed amongst the rest. Most were leather, however. Not that leather armor was much of a problem in and of itself, but while most of the items were leather, they weren’t armor.
Dozens of leather aprons were being dropped off in several piles, along with leather riding chaps and other forms of leggings. There were even a few pairs of leather gloves that looked like they were designed for use when stoking a furnace.
Yaric felt his blood boil.
“Two more days,” Li Na said quietly.
“What?”
“That’s what it says. We’re allowed two more days to wait for any stragglers, then we leave. There’s directions and stuff, but we’re meant to head straight for the goblins to clear them out. And that’s six days.”
“Six days to get there?” Lauren asked. “I thought the goblins were close by.”
“No,” Li Na replied, only looking up from the paperwork now. “Six days to get there, clear them out, and get back.”
“But we have no idea how long it will take yet. We don’t know anything about their numbers, the terrain, how the militia will perform, what kind of inj-.”
“You don’t understand,” Li Na said, raising the paperwork in her hand and cutting Lauren off. “This says that the supplies outside are enough to last for six days. That’s how much food there is, for one thing. And the Baron expects all of his equipment to be returned after six days. Oh, and that’s what they’re being paid for as well.”
“What do you mean? Most of the militia have been here for far longer than that already.”
“Says here that they start in three days, so they get paid from then. And they’re expected to be done in six days, so that’s what they get paid for. They get six days’ pay, total. Minus the cost of anything that isn’t returned when the six days are up.”
“This can’t be what they agreed,” Yaric growled.
None of the militia members nearby seemed to have heard about any of this before. Most were scowling, and a few were already having heated arguments.
“It also says failure to leave on the third day will be desertion. They have no choice.”
“This is nothing like what Lloyd described. Something else is going on here,” Yaric declared.
“It doesn’t change anything for now,” Sven sighed. “Lina’s right, they have no choice. And there’s nothing we can do until afterward.”
“What about this so-called armor?” Lauren asked, giving the neared pile a poke with the toe of her boot.
There was silence for a moment while everyone thought through their options. The news about the threat of desertion had made its way through the warehouse by now, and most of the militia were completely silent as well.
“We do what we can with it,” Yaric said finally, breaking the silence. “The front row and especially the center will get the best armor, and we work out how best to use the rest. We march down to those goblins and hit them hard, then we come straight back here and look into what’s really going on.”
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s get started,” Lauren said.
Sven was still staring at the piles that were being unloaded before them.
“What’s wrong?” Li Na asked. “We have a plan.”
“Yes, but I’m going to need more paper for my report. A lot more paper.”