Chapter 15
Breaking camp
I went to go find Staggy. I wanted to check that he was okay. He had done the same for me. When I was in need, he had checked in on me. That was the first time I had truly appreciated what he had done for me. He had been more than just kind to me. He had been loving. Loving? Was that the right word?
Yes.
Loving.
Staggy had been loving.
Interesting. Correct, but interesting.
I really wanted to go find Staggy, but the bell rang out across the camp. It was calling all of us who could walk to the green. I had no choice but to obey, even though I wanted to find Staggy, so I made my way to the green.
I didn’t want to hear what the fucking commander had to say. He was a useless fucking dick. He had no brain and no compassion. He was probably about to tell us that the reason the Tiffer found our camp was because we stunk. He would tell us to take a bath, and all would be well. It definitely was not because they had multiple days where their undivided attention was on trying to find our camp. Definitely not that.
Stars, I was sick of the commander’s shit.
I made it the central green. The mood of the gathered men was subdued and melancholy. None of the normal chatter emanated through the crowd. We had all come to the silent agreement that that battle had been worse than the others. It was terrifying that they had managed to find the one place we were meant to be safe. They hit us at our weakest. They were ruthless. This was just another reminder of how much stronger the Tiffers were than us. The only reason any of us survived that battle was because we had the power of numbers.
It was interesting that we had more people. Our intel had told us that the Tiffer army in just our area was about double our size. They had more supplies and people, yet they had sent in a surprising small group to our camp. They hadn’t even fought their hardest. They had retreated far too easily and quickly. The Tiffers weren’t normally so easily scarred away. The more I thought about it, the odder that battle seemed.
That was when it hit me.
A hand. While the hand hit me, so did a thought. The Tiffer hadn’t really aimed to do that much harm. They were more likely just seeing what our defences were. We had just let them in on a secret. The secret was that we had the flimsiest defences. We had just told them that we were weak as shit. Fuck. This war was only getting worse and worse.
After the thought (and hand) had stopped hitting me, I looked around to see who had hit me. It didn’t take me long to find a very angry-looking Da-Biwana staring straight at me.
“Pay attention, Fi-Rico, or I’ll have to hit you even harder.”
“Sorry sir.” I gave him a bow.
Once he was done telling me off, I turned my attention to how hard he had slapped me. Da-Biwana had hit the same cheek as my scabbed over cut was. I bet he did it on purpose. He was teaching me a lesson. A lesson that I would be ignoring. The commander’s speakers were dull as fuck. My own thoughts and worlds were much more interesting.
Even though my own thoughts were much more interesting, I decided to listen to the commander. It was probably helpful to know what was going on. Also, I didn’t want to be slapped again. It hurt.
The commander had already started, but he had only gotten through the formalities. “The events of yesterday morning were...regrettable. To prevent the occurrence of something like that again, we are moving camp further back from the border and deeper into the Ramla Mountain range.” That made sense. “I want the whole camp packed up and set back up by this evening.”
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
This evening! We could break camp in that time with ease, but to have to set it up? We needed more time. Especially when we have so many injured.
We were told to find our lieutenants to get further information and our jobs for the day.
I was told to help the medics. No other instructions from Da-Biwana; he just told me to ask them what they needed help with. I was happy with that. Staggy would be there. I still needed to talk to him.
Pushing back the flap of canvas, I entered the medic’s tent. Medics were hurrying everywhere. Vials were being loaded into crates. Patients who couldn’t walk were being loaded onto stretchers so the beds could be packed up. Any patient who could walk was being helped out of the tent by medics or other soldiers.
I stopped a medic who was hurrying past and asked what I should be doing. He waved in the general direction of the back of the tent and said to find Me-Wo-Leapum. Very helpful. He then hurried off without another word.
That was my cue to go wander around aimlessly searching for Me-Wo-Leapum.
He turned out to be easier to find. He was the one who was yelling at everyone to do shit (he also had a nametag). I waited for him to stop yelling before saying anything. “I was told to talk to you for instructions.” I bowed to him.
“Just help load things into the carts. If someone passes you something or a crate looks full, then put it in one of the carts outside. Got that? Good.” He spoke with a strong eastern Ossory accent and with a tone that said clearly that I was wasting his time.
Immediately after I turned away from Me-Wo-Leapum, he began shouting again.
I found a pile of crates that looked full. I picked one up. Fuck! It was really heavy. I looked into the crate to see what was making it so heavy. It was just full of porcelain bedpans. Gross.
I carried so many crates. My arms ached by the time they were all cleared. I don’t understand how the medics have so much stuff. They seemed to have three sets of bedding for every single bed. Once I was done with the crates, it was people.
There were a lot of patients who couldn’t walk. They had all been loaded onto stretchers. Me and a pîdantrës, who I never got the name of, carried stretcher after stretcher to the waiting arts.
By the time the medic’s tent was fully collapsed and loaded onto one of the many carts, the rest of the camp was fully packed up. The moment all the pegasi were hooked up to the carts, we moved off. I had no idea where we were going. I hoped it was as nice as where the last camp had been. It had an amazing view of the stars.
* * *
Even though I had spent hours in the medic’s tent, I somehow hadn’t managed to see Staggy once. I would find him after we got to the campground and set it up. It was already past midday, and we weren’t even at the new campground.
I was off in my own world when the very jarring action of someone hugging me so tight that I couldn’t breathe. Before this person hugged the life out of me, I managed to stammer out a few words. “Can’t breathe.”
The person instantly let go of me. “Sorry, Rico. I was just relieved to see you.”
It was Staggy. Of course, it was Staggy. I didn’t have many friends, and of the two close friends I had, only one of them could walk.
“Why, I was so rude to you.” I was truly shocked. Staggy was kind and forgiving, but he couldn’t be that nice.
“It’s fine. You were just worried. Also, I’m being nice to you for my own sake. I’m sad, and you owe me one, so you're forced to listen to me talk.”
I laughed at that. “I would love to listen to you.”
“I don’t know what to talk about, so I’m going to tell you a story about when I broke my arm. I just need to get out of my own head.”
I knew exactly what he meant. He was in pain and needed to stop the thoughts.
He began his story. I was honestly impressed at how long he made such a simple story go for. All that had happened was that he climbed a tree and fell, but he somehow managed to make the story last fifteen minutes. Fifteen fucking minutes!
He finally finished his story. “But the worst part was that all the nobles just stared at me while I lay on the ground with my arm bent at the wrong angle.”
I wasn’t really paying attention, but at the mention of nobles, something in my mind snapped, and I felt the sudden urge to rant about nobles. I couldn’t suppress the urge, so I began.
“I fucking hate nobles! All they do is sit in their huge places and sip their fancy tea from their fancy cups. They complain about the warrations that barely even affect them. The poor nobles had to cut their five course meals down to three courses. How hard their lives must be. My least favourite part about nobles is that their sons don’t even have to fight in this stupid fucking war. While I’m here at sixteen fighting a war that is likely to kill me, I’m fighting a war that has already taken so much from me.” At that point, I started crying. “Those nobles have no idea what it’s like to be on the battlefield. To watch someone’s life slip from their eyes. They have no idea what we have to go through, yet they are still allowed to make the decision to lower the draft age and lengthen the required service time. Why the fuck are those pampered asses making decisions for us? Nobles fucking suck. I hate them more than I can put into words.”
I finished my rant and looked at Staggy. He looked shocked and confused.
A smile slipped onto his face, and he started laughing. “Hate to tell you this, but in that rant, you just insulted me, my family, and a lot of my friends. I’m impressed.”
Fuck. Of course, he was a noble.