Alright, Ardent in that case your replacement will be arriving at the Guild tomorrow at eleven and I want the both of you to be on hand when he does to welcome him to the Company. I would be there myself but I have a meeting with the Chapter Master of the Guild and the captains of the other companies that is scheduled to occur at the same time. Now unless you have any questions for me I have things to take care of that I missed out on while I was away.”

“Well Sir, why are we meeting him at the Guild and not here in the camp?”

“Well he’s not currently a member of the Mercenary Guild so he has to sign up with them before he can officially join the company. Until recently he was a lieutenant in the Town Watch of Tippure, in the Dukedom of Laric. Some scandal involving someone higher up in the organisation led to him being dismissed along with some of his other colleagues of which three will be joining him in the company, a corporal and a pair of privates. Hopefully, he and the other three will have no problems transitioning to their new roles as mercenaries. It’s a great change of pace if nothing else and from what I have seen over the years not everyone manages to do so but I have great hopes for him at least.”

“We’ll see sir I suppose, I was a Guard for a lord for a while before I became a mercenary and at least one of the scouts was in the Guard of another town and we managed to make the change without too many problems, what’s his name?”

“Terry Bracton, he’s about thirty with the weirdest looking beard I’ve ever seen and his eyes are two different colours.”

I’ll be sure to welcome him to the company, captain and hopefully, he’ll last the distance. We’ll leave you to it, good day.”

After leaving the Captain’s office myself and Lieutenant, sorry Sergeant Ardent had a brief chat before parting ways.

“Well Ashton it looks as if your out of uniform let’s hope you won’t end up regretting it and it turns out that this new guy is not too set in his ways and can adapt to his new reality.”

“Hopefully it still fits me after all I wouldn’t want to give the new Lieutenant a bad first impression of myself and hopefully he returns the favour. And if not I’ve served under some real bastards over the years and I survived them all and I doubt his one will be any worse.”

“Time will tell.”

After lunch, I headed off to town to see if any of my former colleagues in the Brothers n Arms Mercenary Company who had expressed an interest in joining the company as scouts at the wake a few months ago were about and had yet to find alternative employment. My first stop was the mercenary Guild and after running the names of those on my list passed them I was informed that they were all still looking for work, two of them had returned to town and the other hadn’t done so yet.

Since we needed to find four new scouts and only three of my former colleagues had still been looking for work back then I also took the chance to see if there were any other unattached mercenary cavalry about. They gave me a list of three individuals who meet my requirements and I planned to go looking for them later.

The first lot wasn’t all that hard to track down though it did take a might longer than I had anticipated. In the end, I managed to recruit one of them on the spot and the other didn’t turn me down outright. However, he was of the opinion that it would be better for him if he joined a cavalry company.

I also managed to find the three individuals whose details had been passed to me by the Guild and after asking them all a few questions I was able to determine that two of them possessed their own horses and kit and met the other criteria I had come up with to weed out the chaff. I turned the other one down gently and had the two who had passed my theoretical test join me on a ride out of town so I could see what kind of horsemen they were. Only the younger of the two impressed me enough to offer him a position with the company and he readily accepted.

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Having appraised the Captain of the individuals I was looking to recruit and having been granted permission to hire them and any other scouts I thought up to the task I returned to camp with the two new hires in tow, after informing the Guild of course. Sergeant Young my replacement as commander of the scouts had returned to camp earlier in the day along with some of his subordinates and so I left them in this capable hands. There were still two positions in the scouts to fill but I was sure that with young's I help wouldn’t have any problems doing so. As for the rest of the Company, I would leave that up to the captain.

Myself and Ashton Ardent, who was once again wearing his sergeant uniform waited

outside the Guild the following day well before eleven just ereencase Terry Bracton happened to show up early and it was a good thing because that is exactly what occurred. Captain Walker had just entered the Guild for his ten o’clock meeting with the chapter master when Bracton and his party turned up and it was a larger one than expected. Instead

of there only being three others in his party there were actually twenty-three of them not including a woman and a toddler.

“Hello, are you with the Ebony Hyenas?”, asked the oldest-looking member of the party who was sporting a most unusual and distinctive-looking beard, a kind of a cross between a Goat patch, a circle and a chinstrap.

“Yes my name is Lieutenant Niel Ryder and this is Sergeant Ashton Ardent, you must be Terry Bracton.”

“Yes that’s me is the captain not about As you can see I’ve come with more men than originally planned though not all of them are technically with me or are planning to join the Guild never mind the Ebony Hyenas. We just met some of them yesterday and since they just happened to be head to the Guild I let them travel with us. As for the child and his mother from what I can tell they are just here to visit some relative who works at the Guild or something like that.”

“Unfortunately the captain is tied up in a meeting with the chapter master of the guild and won’t be available until after lunch.”

“Right, do you think he will be amenable to the additions?”

“That’s between you, them and the captain but between you and me I’m sure that as long as they are accepted into the Guild and meet the standards expected of members of the company he will be amenable. Of course, he may decide to split them up amongst the other platoons but then again he might stick them all together in yours. Now exactly how many of them are looking to join up with us.”

“Other than the original three only seven others are definitely looking to join up, as for the rest I don’t think they’ve decided on anything beyond joining the Guild, but who knows.”

“In that case by the time you’ve all successfully joined the Guild the Captain should be finished with his meeting and you can discuss with him how he wishes to proceed.”

“Yes that sounds about right, we might as well get started then.”

“Before we do so from what the captain told us about yourself you were a lieutenant in some town watch until a scandal forced you out or something.”

“Yes, something like that though I wasn’t implicated in it the captain of the watch was. I never exactly got on with his replacement and after putting up with him for months I couldn’t endure it for much longer so I decided on a change of careers.”

“And the others who are looking to join us, were they also in the watch.”

“Yes, though not all of those who travelled with me all the way from Tippure were. I understand some of them had been forced out after the scandal broke, any particular reason you wanted to know”

“Just curious I suppose after all everyone enjoys a good scandal now don’t they?”

The actual process of joining the Mercenary Guild wasn’t all that difficult, first they checked to make sure you had a relevant class, then you had to prove that you met their basic physical standards and show a basic level of proficiency with a weapons of your choice from the list of those they found acceptable. The only other hurdle you had to face was a short interview under Truthstone, one of the few Magitech items Telondian allowed to exist on Telondia and then only under certain conditions. The whole process tended to take less than two hours, though when large numbers undertook the process at the same time it could and usually did take longer.

The Guild allowed the eleven individuals wishing to join the Ebony Hyenas the chance to go first but still, it took almost twice the usual time to process them all, though they did at least all meet the requirements set forth by the Guild. The captain’s meetings lasted longer than expected but still, it ended shortly before then.

When he was informed of the additional manpower that had come with Terry he was happy to allow them to join. Even then the company wasn’t nearly up to full strength. Unfortunately with the other local mercenary captains also attending the meeting they heard about the other applicants and he was only able to recruit a single additional mercenary. As for the mother and child, I never did hear what happened to them or why they actually paid a visit to the Guild in the first place.