Princeps

It took a little while for Atef to overcome the fear induced clumsiness and match the skill of Karuk in sharpening a stick to resemble an improvised spear. He broke the point two times and was reprimanded with threats of great bodily harm by the closest overseer, but in the end the quality of his work was indistinguishable from the work of others. He took the time while sharpening to try to understand what might be happening around him. There was a lot of shouting, moving, carrying back and forth, piling, storing; a lot of what seemed like pointless thrusting, positioning and maneuvering and all that mixed with a healthy dose of loitering by the ones not as closely observed. A large tent on the opposite side of the forge was teeming with life as the servants ran to and fro passing orders, overriding previous orders, disputing responses and expressing general anger with disorganization of the whole ordeal. Atef estimated that it would take good three laps round the Pit to go around the camp, meaning that it was a sizable strongpoint that can fit at least three hundred souls with double the space left to spare. And it meant that Atef still measured things in comparison to what he knew all his life, the Pit.

- What are you waiting for gits!? To the fire with those! – shouted a passing overseer, waving his club menacingly as he navigated with frustration the tumult.

Vorod was the first to pick his freshly sharpened spear and rush to the fire blazing next to the forge. As soon as he made his first step, he got his second slap.

- Spear on shoulder, watch where you are going with the pointy end you dog!

Vorod didn’t see who punished him as he lay prostrate on the ground, trying to dull the heavy throbbing of his jaw. A minute later a kick to the ribs reminded him of his duty and, as he stood up, he saw that Atef and Karuk were already executing what was demanded of them. The points of their spears were already starting to turn black and a smith’s apprentice was carefully watching over to signal when to take them out of fire. Vorod quickly approached with full observation of the safety protocols brutally pointed out to him and joined in, picking a place next to Karuk. Atef heard him whisper, but couldn’t guess what was being said. Soon, their spears were blackened and hardened to withstand a collision without shattering and they were forced into the line with others.

- Position! Thrust! Heave! Back! Position! Thrust! Heave! Back!

It went on and on and no one gave any indication of what kind of conflict they were preparing for, when will they take a moment to rest or when will they eat. Atef was feeling parched, utterly exhausted both physically and mentally. He contemplated dropping down, curling up and just putting up with all the abuse the overseers could inflict before letting him be. However, his provenance rebelled, his wiry frame steeled itself ready for much more hardship before his faltering mind conquers the tenacity of the body. And so it continued. He was in the third row of seven, crowded in a small square in the center around which all other activity circled forming a uniquely interesting pattern to the bird soaring over the camp. The repetition was only varied by the occasional command to turn left or right, with the objective of the grinding effort to instill a killer instinct, memorized and distilled into one efficient, murderous move. Lita fully embraced Sur, and Baor just slipped over the horizon when the barking order to stop was issued.

- Men! Attention! – sounded the leading man at arms clanging his sword on the overturned pot lying about. – Lord Daemas will speak now!

A gruff, short and stout man in late summer of his life came about from the big tent and positioned himself in front of the crowd taking his time as if there wasn’t more than two hundred men uncertainly waiting on him. He did it with the poise worthy of the god of the battlefield, practiced to perfection as if it was a theater play and his performance would be the talk of the day at the court.

- Men, I am proud of you! Today we completed our muster! Too long have the sons of Empire allowed the Untar vermin to roam free in our lands! Too long we were distracted with our internal bickering to answer to their destructive raids in kind! Consider yourself the champions of the Empire, the chosen to destroy the menace coming from the north! You have all heard that they rolled in like a savage horde from the north, melding with the woods and avoiding the Golden Boneyard like the cowards that they are! You have all heard that they pillage and rape just days march from here! You have all heard the pleas of the refugees trickling into Jarat, destitute and believing that we cannot protect them! I say we will not have that! I say we will cloak the north in crimson of their blood and guts!

- Blood and guts! – hailed the man at arms clanging again the sword on the overturned pot.

Everyone howled with bloodlust at the hint and Daemas had to wave to the assortment of warriors three times before reestablishing silence.

- I am glad you are eager! I see the bloodlust in your eyes! I encourage it! I reinforce it! I beckon it! I thirst for it! I want you to feel it, embrace it, cherish it, make it known!

A roar from the man at arms echoed in the hundreds of throats sounding like the mountain-crushing hurricane. In its many layers, inferior, humbled shouts, such as that of Atef, were its weak and untraceable links that could swing the fate of the military formation at first contact with the enemy. The underlying fear, sought to be trained out and eliminated was to drown in the righteous fury that Daemas presently summoned.

- Again my heroes! Roar again, roar to the heavens! Let Sur and Baor hear you! Let the enemy hear you! Let the whole world hear you!

Shouts continued, rising like an unstoppable tide and Atef became one with the group. The uncertainty disappeared, fear dispelled, washed away in the deluge of elation. Adrenaline pumped hard through him, his hands were trembling. It was like a drug to invoke the spirits of slaughter. He could see the enemy in his mind. They had bosses’ faces. They were evil just because. They were worthy of the worst.

- Yes my heroes! Yes my sons! You are the vanguard of the Empire! You are the offspring of Jarat! You are meant to end their arrogance! We march tonight, we march as victors! For you are the champions of Sur and Baor. I proclaim you the Bannermen of the Twin Suns!

The resulting glorious hurrah was laden with the burst of bloodthirsty euphoria that men of humble origin almost never experience in their life. Before the other knights could establish control, the men started pouring forth seeking to march now, to get to the enemy and bleed it dry. Men at arms barely caught up with the most eager and formed a vanguard.

- You should have kept it a bit tamer. Such kind of speech you should have saved for the eve of battle – said Julian, Daemas’ second in command.

- I can’t help it. I love to put fire in the hearts of men! Sound the horns, we’ll march until their elan is spent and then we’ll give them time to rest.

- Just to start the move will take time, all weapons are not handed out yet, the provisions are not packed, the pack animals are tired from all day of hauling.

- Didn’t you hear! The Twin Suns are on our side! We march tonight.

- The Twin Suns are not in the sky Daemas! Gods are blind to our efforts!

- Do not question my leadership! Or I will have you watch the caravan while real men fly to glorious battle!

Julian waited for a good moment, staring with scorn at the blasphemous way things are to be run. It contradicted everything he knew and believed in. It was the anthesis of disciplined warfare.

- Lord, your command is ours to obey – he said dryly considering which of his officers and soldiers he is to task with organizing the frenzied lot.

- Execute then. I expect to catch up to the vanguard within an hour, just as Lita gifts her first kiss.

Atef was pushed away from joining the vanguard. A tall, powerful warrior scoffed at him and gestured that he scrams to the safety of the throng. He was too small and scrawny to live up to the glorious fantasy that the vanguard harbored as they marched into the night singing the March of the Dreaded. While waiting for the move out, his heightened senses slowly seeped away the energy of the just fury to the mundane sobriety of reality and he slowly began to notice that all the frantic activity he was brought into earlier when he arrived was ratcheting up to a heedless frenzy.

Food was being packed without order or care onto pack animals causing wastage. Soldiers were nervously discussing how to corral the levies and put them into marching formation. Some argued that a fair number were recruited only today and would need a week before they were worth anything in a fight. The smith was finishing the final emergency maintenance of weapons and shouted at his apprentices to get the last batch of arrowheads done. A group of artistically gifted soldiers were using red, black and brown paint to try to make a Twin Suns banner on a piece of white cloth. Shouting among the levied conscripts, talk and threats to the invisible, distant enemy still kept them warm and ready to march, but the effect of the rousing speech slowly evaporated like the morning dew. And his empty gut felt like it would vomit as adrenaline subsided. As he leaned over onto his knees he thought that the only thing he could retch was dust and now pointless fighting eagerness.

*

Everything was ready, if that could be a fair way of calling it, at Lita’s second kiss. A dusty speck of purple over Lita’s surface, what the inhabitants of the Empire called her kiss, made it evident that it is unsustainable to postpone the march any further. So the men at arms were let loose. Thunderous threats, clubs, punches and kicks got the conscripted men in line. Atef got separated from Vorod and Karuk, he thought he glimpsed Karuk even managing to join the vanguard. Maybe in that man resided a heart of a lion that just needed to be dusted off and pointed in the direction of the enemy. Or he reckoned it would be easiest to desert if you are part of the vanguard. With this rising doubt as the fury further ebbed, he stepped next to a lad a few years his elder and marched into the night blessed by Lita’s kisses.