Alfred’s POV

My eyes were wet as Brandon ended the connection to Paul, and I felt a sharp pain shoot through my heart as a heavy weight seemed to press down on me. Struggling as my vision darkened at the edges, I heard it. His voice. Clavis. The bastard who send my Paul to die alone. As my world turned red, a plan coalesced. Brandon was staggering as he spent his strength to keep Paul from falling into enemy hands, so he wouldn’t be able to stop me. There were others though, so I would need to do the aura blast. I didn’t have the skill for fine manipulation, and the blast wouldn’t really affect anyone past a few feet or for a fraction of a second, but it would give me what I needed.

“DIE!” I had to scream to let out some of the energy raging through me. Spinning on my heel, I drew my gladius as the energy ripped out in a wave, staggering those close. The end of my scabbard splintered as my blade tore free, my world shrinking to the blade, its path, and Clavis’ neck. Time slowed. My blade was creeping ever closer to his neck, the tip at the perfect length to slash through the soft tissue without risk of lodging into the spine. Halfway there. One foot left to go. Why is his chin there? No! NOOOOOO! He stumbled! I won’t allow a stumble to keep Paul from heading into the afterlife alone! I refuse! Instead of his throat, the tip of my blade cut into his cheek and ripped out through the bridge of his nose.

No matter, this is battle! If nothing else, I will adapt! Keep the momentum, draw back the blade as my left foot follows the path of the blade, turning my body and setting up the follow through. Foot down, bend the knees as my blade returns to my hip. Lunge from the back foot, tip leading. Even if another freak accident makes me miss his heart at this range, I can still spin the blade and take him out.

*CLANG*

I couldn’t resist the force that slammed down on my blade, nor the body that crashed into me and took me down.

“GET OFF ME!” I roared.

“Calm down Al!” James yelled as he grappled with my arm. No matter how I tried to resist, he had the leverage positioning and quickly disarmed me with a twisted wrist.

“Not until he’s dead!” I shouted back. “Don’t you get it? It’s him or us, and I’m gonna make sure its him!”

“Al.” Dorian said in a calming voice while squatting by my head. “He’s not out to get us. He can’t, as long as we don’t talk about it.”

“Pfft.” I snorted. “Easy for you to say. You’re practically nobility. He wouldn’t take it out on you anyway.”

“What’s this?” Someone in the crowd asked, confused.

“Nothing.” Clavis said. “He’s just mad-“

“YOU SENT HIM TO DIE AND CAN’T WAIT TO DO IT FOR THE REST OF US!” I roared. “We may be commoners, but we aren’t stupid. We know this is retribution for your idiot cousin getting himself killed.”

“Those are some treasonous accusations.” Clavis said, glaring at me. “Since this is the frontline, we can’t have sedition like this. Stand him up, I’ll perform the execution immediately.”

“Well, looks like I got here in just the right time.” Everyone turned to look at who spoke, only to see one of the hunters walking up. What was his name again? Eustace?

“Eugene.” Clavis said in a dead voice. “What does your arrival have to do with anything?”

“Well, I’m the new commander of this fort.” He said, holding forward a scroll. “And you are right, those are some serious accusations. Very serious. So serious, that I might have to launch a thorough investigation. After all, if we have an officer sending his men in to die for no reason.”

“You said might.”

“Indeed!” Eugene chuckled as he looked between both of us. “I heard about Paul, my condolences.” He said while staring at me. “Now. I could throw you both into the brig while I investigate all these accusations, and you can both rot there until it is complete. Or. Or I could treat this as Alfred here losing his mind temporarily to grief and lashing out. What’s it gonna be?”

I glared at Eugene, until I noticed that he was tapping one forearm with two fingers. Taking as deep a breath as I could with someone pinning me down, I closed my eyes and decided to trust in the guy who had spent so long helping train Paul. “I apologize for lashing out. Paul’s death hit me harder than I thought it would.”

Smiling, Eugene clapped his hands. “There we go. Now, I need one century to head out and collect bamboo. The rest of you get back to whatever you were doing. Clavis, you’re with me.” Spinning around, he headed to the command tent while the rest of us slowly dispersed.

“Sorry about tackling you like that, but I couldn’t let you throw your life away.” James said as he helped me up.

“Don’t worry about it.” I waved off his apology. “It hurts, but it’s probably for the best.”

“So are you gonna keep quiet about it?” Dorian asked.

“Look around you Dorain.” I said, spinning with an arm extended. “How many green units get volunteered for building and defending a forward base to assault the front line from? At best we should be the third reserve somewhere that hasn’t seen battle in years, learning what they didn’t have time to teach us in training. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve already broken their promise with us and I’m no longer bound by our promise.”

A throat clearing interrupted my little rant. “Sorry about that. I’m Yukimura, did some training with Paul in the past. There’s a bunch of us wondering, what exactly were you talking about? Is your centurion really trying to kill you guys?”

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“No.”

“Absolutely.” I interrupted Dorian’s answer and glared at him. Luckily he stopped, as I had every intention of punching him. “You know one of our guys is a Sanguimancer, right?”

“Never heard of it, but we know your unit is a little strange.” He nodded. “What’s a Sanguimancer?”

“Basically he has all the benefits of vampires without any of the negatives. Most importantly, he’s a follower of Solaris. Anyhow, Clavis’ nephew or cousin, something like that, got it into his head that our buddy was evil. The idiot got a group together to kill him and was executed for it. Clavis of course blames us for not letting him kill Brandon and is trying to get us killed in ways that can’t be proven was his fault. And when we aren’t being thrown into danger, we’re given the shittiest jobs around.”

Yukimura had a conflicted look on his face while I was explaining things, but eventually started nodding. After a few seconds, he seemed to come to a decision. “I can’t really condemn Clavis just on your words, but from what I’ve seen his actions seem to be in line with your story. Besides, Paul was a good guy and didn’t deserve getting left out there like that. That’s not what the Legion is about. I know you guys are a few men short now, if you ever need someone to fill in, look me up. I’d be proud to stand with you guys in battle.”

I gave him a small bow. “Thanks.” As he started walking away, I called out, “Hey. We’ve got this tradition we started where we gather round after dinner and tell stories of those we lost recently. If you or anyone that knew Paul or anyone else who we lost today wants to, they are more than welcome to join us.”

“Sure.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Eugene’s POV

I strolled into the command tent, barely suppressing my rage. Before I could even get behind the war table, that idiot had already flopped down into a seat. “Did I give you permission to sit? Get your ass up.” I snarled to the shock of Clavis.

“Who are you to talk to me like that?” He retorted.

“I’m the commander of this fort, and if I didn’t have to be at least one rank above you I’d be demoting your ass. You had one job, and I can’t believe you managed to screw it up this badly.”

“What are you talking about? We’ve got the double wall and plenty of trenches.”

“Yeah, and when the vampires finally get tired of slowly bleeding each other, they are going to casually stroll over your idiotic defenses and slaughter all of us in our beds!” I had to stop and take a calming breath, rubbing the ache between my eyebrows. “There’s a reason the center of each stronghold has a tower in it. The Solaris runic array negates a lot of the vampire’s advantages, but it needs to be in the air for maximum coverage. Those trenches? Almost all of them are out of range even with the tower. So the vampires are going to easily avoid them. Your walls are barely regulation height, and the bamboo spikes at the base are going to make a lovely ladder to give the vampires a boost.”

I started pacing back and forth to try and release some of my anger. Before Clavis could interject, I continued, “Beyond that, you were only supposed to fortify the base. What’s the first thing I hear when I get here? Not only did you manage to screw up that simple order, you managed to lose an entire scout group and one of the most promising recruits we’ve had come through in the past few years!” I ended by slamming my hands down on the table. “Explain!”

“We had the base fortified, and I didn’t see the harm in exploring the Stone Maze to get it mapped.”

“Don’t insult my intelligence.” I snarled. “We both know you are trying to get rid of that group, and doing it one at a time has the greatest chance. Don’t!” I held up a hand when he opened his mouth to explain. “Listen. I can’t demote you, but it’s coming. I also can’t punish you, because despite your ineptitude when it comes to actually killing these kids, you are surprisingly competent at covering your tracks. Just know that command knows what you are up to, and it isn’t going to fly. As of now my aid will be your shadow. You are not to give any orders, nor are you to continue retaliating against these kids because your idiot cousin got himself executed. The Legion is supposed to be above this kind of petty revenge, and you are disgracing it.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“While I would love to take a page out of your book and put you on permanent latrine duty, I can’t. So you will work with the quartermaster, out of sight of the majority. You will become the epitome of soldiers, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now get out of here.” Once he left, I collapsed bonelessly into a chair and let out a sigh. “Keep a close eye on him. He’s not going to take this well.” I said quietly to the darkness. Shaking my head as the door flap moved slightly even without a breeze, I looked at the map they had been building. The Stone Maze was already going to be an issue, but at least we now knew a few of its traps. Sadly, the only other ways we really had to infiltrate the vampire territory were to go through a somewhat narrow valley or scale some cliffs before heading through an old growth forest.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Brandon’s POV, three days later

“Get your century together.” Eugene pulled me aside after breakfast. “While we have a group making siege towers to make scaling those cliffs easier, I can’t sit back without any form of intelligence. I need you to head through the valley and see what’s on the other side. Fill out any missing spots on your group, and I’ll have a few hunters shadowing your group just in case.”

“Distraction?” I asked.

“Yeah, go ahead and make as much noise as possible.”

Several hours later

“Sir.” Yukimura said as he jogged back. “Got something strange going on over the next few hills. Lone human sitting under a tree playing music.”

I furrowed my brows, wondering just what was going on. “This is something we have to look at. Lead on.” I said. “Everyone, make sure your blades are loose, but don’t draw them just yet. Keep a look out.”

Nerves on edge, we followed the newest addition to our group as he led us through the waist high grasses. I could faintly hear the plucking of a koto on the breeze, followed by soft singing.

One green day,

The wind seemed to play,

The warm breezes danced,

In a ballet.

Cherry Blossoms,

Are swept across the air.

They swayed sleepily,

Pale and fair.

Before the song could go further, we came across someone sitting below a tree. His face was obscured by a kasa, and a cloak hid most of his features. “Sir!” I called out. “It’s rather dangerous to be out alone.”

“Oh I’m well aware of that, Sanguimancer.” He chuckled. “I’ve been waiting for you with my demons. TENGU!” At his shout, several black cloaked figures dropped from the tree above and surrounded him. They all had red faced masks with elongated noses, and their cloaks looked like it had some sort of feather attached. Our group dropped back into a square formation, while the Tengu spread out slightly.

“Show them your claws.” The guy chuckled as he stood up and removed his kasa. At his order the Tengu flared back their cloaks and took out a strange instrument with the clanking of metal. One end had a hand scythe, while the other had a simple block of metal. The loops of chain played out between them as each warrior started one end twirling.

“PILAE!” I shouted as the ragged line started advancing. The Tengu started flipping around and over each other, expertly dodging every single spear sent their direction. With a horrible premonition growing in my heart, I called out, “TESTUDO! BRACE HIGH AND LOW!”