Finally, it seemed like they reached their destination, standing in front of a door identical to all the others systemically covering the hallway. His steward knocked twice, then knocked twice again after a brief pause. After only a few seconds, it opened up to reveal a Legion officer in off-duty attire.
“It’s good to see you, Grand Praetor. What can I do for you, sir?”
When he learned his chaperone’s title, Wayne gulped.
“It’s good to see you as well, Jaemeson. Let us in, I’ll need to give a quick debrief before I leave to file the necessary paperwork.”
“Ah, so this is him. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Wayne. Your father has been a great leader and mentor to me, so I’m going to enjoy paying it forward.” Jaemeson said with an easy smile.
“Inside.” The Grand Praetor said.
And inside they went, the door closing behind them with a thud.
“Jaemeson, Wayne will be joining Unit 67 upon completed training. The young lord is only 16 right now, but we don’t have time to keep him here for the full year. Two seasons is all we have.
“You are already aware that he is a Mortal with no formal martial training. He will still have to join the Noble Scions in their training due to his age, so take care that he isn’t killed by an errant Skill. Catch him up on the Forms at least, before really tossing him in the deep end.”
The Legionnaire responded to the Grand Praetor.
“Understood, sir.”
Wayne felt his hands shake. He wanted to say something, but before Wayne could muster the courage the Grand Praetor nodded, turned and strode out the door. Wayne still didn’t even know his name.
Then, it was just Jaemeson, and Wayne. He looked at the other man, who had dark stubble and reddish hair with slate gray eyes that had more warmth than Wayne would have expected. An easy smile was clear on his face.
Otherwise, his features were rough and stocky, and he perfectly filled the neatly pressed and lined white Legion attire he wore, even though this was apparently time he had off duty. The man’s presence screamed of competence as a Legionnaire, and Legionnaire’s were competent in one thing.
Violence.
“It’s nice to meet you, Sir Jaemeson. I- thank you for agreeing to look after me. Uh, sir.”
Wayne dipped his head slightly with the thanks. When he raised his head, he saw that the easy smile on the Legionnaire’s face had lightened somewhat, but still was noticeable. That’s why, Wayne was completely caught off guard by his next words.
“Me, and every other Legionnaire, are no longer ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ to you. You should address us by rank, or else you will end up running into more troubles than I would like to deal with.”
The other man then put one hand on Wayne’s shoulder, and the other on the side of his head, physically holding his gaze. The Praetor’s eyes were a common brown that Wayne had seen time and time again during his life, but they still struck him as unique, as Jaemeson’s eyes.
“Normally lad, there would be an elaborate ceremony, while the new Hastas are sworn into the Legion, with priests and all of that nonsense. You won’t get that. You get me, as both your sponsor and witness, telling you here and now, you are officially a part of the Legion of the Luminous Empire.”
“The ranks of the Legion and those you must obey go as follows, in descending order; Grand Praetor, Praetor, Grand Triarr, Triarr, Grand Princep, and Princep. These are the ranks of the entrusted Legionnaires who have passed their training here, in these very halls. All of them are above you, but it will be important for you to know and understand exactly how great that distance is in every situation.”
Then, he took a deep breath and a moment to look into Wayne’s eyes before speaking again. Wayne’s prior chaperone’s importance being revealed made his mouth dry instantly.
“The next two seasons will probably be the worst of your life. Most young men your age would join as a Hastas and be given half a cycle's time to develop as Legionnaires. You will have to instead be ready to jump in as a Grand Hastas, a task far beyond your current skill, strength and capability. It will be beyond painful, and you will want to quit and leave. But you can’t.”
The man said all this with a relatively cheery tone, but the words sent a chill down Wayne’s spine.
“Beyond that your accelerated schedule will put you with the group of misfit nobles we have to deal with every year, and some of them will undoubtedly harass you because of your position and your inability to defend yourself. Joining halfway through won’t endear you to any of them, that’s for sure. At least some of them will be trying to force you to quit and leave. But you can’t.”
Once again, Jaemeson paused, and this time he let the silence build for longer. Only once Wayne began to open his mouth did the other man speak.
“Now. This is the time to get ahead of those threats to the highest degree possible. What are you going to do?”
The simple question hit Wayne like a stone to the head, and he choked on his words. What was he going to do?
“I- uh… Well-”
“You don’t have to answer now, if you haven’t thought of it.” The Legionnaire said with a soft laugh. “I can give you until the end of Sistenen. Until next month you can join different squadrons in their training or lead your own individual study. Although, I would highly recommend the former.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“I- Thank you, Sir Jaemeson. And… if I could ask one question now?”
“Sure, lad, go ahead.”
“Well, what… What would be the Grand Praetor’s name?”
Bellowing laughter was the response.
“Hahahaha… You mean you didn’t recognize Durne the Deathless?”
* * * * *
A few minutes later, Jaemeson was showing him the grounds where the Legion trained from its perimeter. It was the central room in the Legion’s headquarters, with the wooden tendrils of the great tree above extending down to the training hall below. Thick walls of heavy slate had been built in between them to keep errant magic away from the streets, and to make a space large enough to hold all the recruits in training.
Groups were running laps, drilling, and practicing dueling at various points throughout the space. Some were even engaging in larger scale conflicts, each wearing the signature pure white that was illegal for those who didn’t tread these halls to wear. It was an intimidating display of large scale coordination, and these were just the recruits.
All of this was also carefully supervised by full Legionnaires in completed Runic wooden armor, sanded down to a smooth pale finish. It was made of flowing pieces of the famous Sacred Birch, a wood with a grain so fine that it was comparable to stone in durability and texture. It gave the Legionnaires wearing it an almost ethereal look, the soft light of the Runes lending a mystic air.
Jaemeson was occasionally giving an overview of what was happening, while the two of them circled around a pathway on the edge of the training yard. Around the inside of the path, carefully grown short trees had their branches cultivated to provide a nice checkered overhead coverage, and to add a degree of separation from the main floor.
Most of the trainees were almost silent as they went about their tasks. Occasional shouts of pain could be heard from the sparring groups, but most of the noise was coming from a single section of the training yard.
“Look at how you flail about!” A giant girl from the group nearest the center of the room roared.
“Quiet, you lout! I’ll flay you for those words.” A boy with bright red hair spat in response
Two Hastas were shouting at each other from barely a few feet from each other, clearly about to begin exchanging blows from their body language.
“Silence both of you, this is not appropriate behaviour.”
“Oh shove off it, Marilyn let them fight. I'm losing my sense of self from boredom in this place.”
“Yes, let them fight. All those two are good for, is a cheap laugh anyways. I was needing a break regardless.”
The rest of the group was gathering around the two, their own training forgotten except for a few dedicated exceptions. Wayne thought the added pressure of the group was going to spark off the incident, but before anything else could happen, another boy stepped between the aggressors and intervened.
“Enough of this. Stop the nonsense or I will.”
The crowd had various murmurs of disappointment, but none of them seemed willing to test the new trainee’s patience. Wayne wondered who they were, beyond obviously being the group of nobles here to train at Light’s Reach. His observing subconsciously slowed his stride, and Jaemeson took notice of his wandering attention.
“Ah yes, that bunch. Not the best Century I’ve had, but not the worst bunch of silkswords to step through here either. The few in the scuffle are pretty well trained other than their tempers, and a few others have some interesting familial Shapings. Then, there’s a couple real monsters there too… and I’m sure that all of them will want to introduce themselves to you later today, so you have that to look forward to.”
“Ah, yes.” That was totally the reaction he had to the nobles' attention. Excitement.
Jaemeson chuckled at his tone, and continued with his explanation of Wayne’s future.
“Every day your afternoons until last light will be spent here. The specifics will be similar to what I’ve been going over, and what you see before you, but you will be here. Practicing, progressing, perfecting.”
“This is something that I personally instituted when I assumed command of the training institution here. I believe the best way to take your skills to the peak is a high duration of training with a high frequency. And I may be a wee bit biased, but compared to before with the stamina training at sunrise I prefer my methods I’ve implemented.”
“You will be spending most of your time with that boisterous group I talked about previously. It’s currently our only Century of Hastas being trained for leadership roles and one of the few that will remain in Light’s Reach beyond their upcoming Assessment.”
“I’m looking forward to joining them then.” Wayne offered diplomatically.
Jaemeson just chuckled and shook his head.
“You probably shouldn’t.”
* * * * *
The next thing on the Legionnaire Instructor’s list was to have Wayne participate.
Wayne wasn’t too worried, because they couldn’t expect him to be perfect, or they wouldn’t have sent him to training. Besides, he had been no slouch among the orphans, and some of them had been criminals on the side.
The two of them approached a group that was doing a series of dynamic stretches over a ten stride length. The Legionnaire in command saluted Jaemeson and briefly dipped their head as he approached. This caused the recruits to follow suit, and stand at attention as they finished their current lap.
“Well met, Praetor Julia, Seventh Century. I saw you preparing for distance stamina training. If you would instruct Hastas Aouris on the routine you have to get ready, I would appreciate it..”
“YESSIR.” The group yelled out almost in unison.
Suddenly over a dozen people were showing Wayne how to jog in increasingly convoluted methods. It wasn’t difficult at any point but it was… stressful. Wayne wished he had a little less attention on him, but the pressure did motivate him to run through the warmups quickly.
It wasn’t long before Wayne was standing with the thirteen other trainees in the group, waiting for the signal to begin running around the training yard.
“Today’s training will be the ladder drill. In the Legion, you are only as strong as your weakest link. Don’t let your links be weak, Hastas. Now the sooner you get started, the sooner you finish.”
So the group of Legionnaire trainees started their jog. Wayne had never run the ‘ladder drill’ before, but when everyone else started weaving into a single file line, he followed suit with the rest of them. The pace being set wasn’t too fast, and Wayne felt confident in keeping it up for a solid amount of time. Maybe this wasn’t going to be too bad after all.
The group eventually fell into a good rhythm, footfalls sounding in sync down the line. It felt like no time at all, and they were back where they had started the exercise. By this point, Wayne’s breath was starting to puff out his cheeks a little bit, the exertion starting to catch up to him.
So he wasn’t paying attention until someone ran right past him on his left, sprinting as fast as they could. They only stopped when they had reached the front of the line, and as a result of the leader changing, it took them another lap to readjust their synchronization. Of course, that was when another trainee rushed to the front.
This time, Wayne noticed that they had been the last in the procession, and the ladder drill was starting to make sense to him. A horrifying sort of sense, at least. It seemed like someone had to sprint the entire distance of the line every lap, meaning that with forteen trainees, they would be running…
“Fourteen laps!” Wayne couldn’t help but yell out.
“Save your air!” Someone hissed back at him.
They were probably right, but Wayne couldn’t help but let out a short string of expletives every time someone ran past him and his turn drew closer. He had ended up fifth in line at the start, so Wayne had to wait for most of the group before he was the last person in line.
It wasn’t even so bad when the entire group had done the drill once. But they didn’t stop there. No, they kept on going, and going, and going.
Wayne had been relatively athletic at the orphanage, not the biggest or the strongest, but no stranger to physical exertion. But by the time he tried to summon the energy to sprint past the other trainees for the third time, his legs felt like they had been replaced with soggy porridge.
Still he pushed forwards, doing his best to up his speed as much as possible. His thighs were burning, and Wayne was struggling to keep his feet moving forwards without tripping. But still, he made it to the front of the group. It didn’t get easier from here, as Wayne had to maintain a strong pace to lead the group even though he wanted nothing more than to collapse in a heap.
Then, as the steps started to blur together and his wheezing started to ache, it ended, and the group fell out of their single file line to recover. Wayne fell over, his chest heaving in air that it had been deprived of during the final stretch of the ladder drill. Distantly, he heard Jaemeson chuckle.
“You’ve got another five minutes, lad, and then we’ll see how you fight.”
Wayne just groaned in response.