Chapter 52: Volume 2 - CH 1.02

The fortyards.

Drumming through the air were grunts and clanks, the stamping and sliding of heavy feet, the huffs and hisses of swung weapons. For there was gathered the soldiery, busied in its exercises at my behest; before all else, I needed to measure the might of these men—or lack thereof.

“What think you, Commandant?” asked Ebbe, his face strained with a great grin.

“The men are meagerly armed, but they move well enough—each on his own, that is. A flock of headless chickens coordinates better than they.”

“‘Coordinate’! Hah!” Ebbe snorted. “Eagle-eyed, are we, Commandant? Tell me, how sweet ‘pon that beak o’ yours was it t’squawk such lordly words, hm?”

“This soldiery is oddly sorted, to start with,” I continued, unheeding of the vice-commandant’s vitriol. “And the platoons… I see too great a difference in prowess between them each.”

Whoever organised these men had long abandoned any notion of balance. Clearer than the summer sun was the intent to match the strong with the strong, and leave the weak to wallow on the wayside. A warped piece of wood this was, one in need of some honest planing. Left lop-sided as they were, the men would remain incapable of coordination, even if their lives depended on it.

“Do you, now?” Ebbe sighed. “Sing t’me more o’ this lullaby, my dear balladeer.”

“You first, Ebbe—those men over there. What are they?” I asked, flicking my chin off to the side. There in the distance was gathered another group of men, a score and a half in number, each encased in argent armour. Just by the look of them, I could tell they were the standouts of the soldiery: well-armed and well-trained.

“Why, they’re mine, o’ course. Guardsmen o’ the Vice-Commandant, yours truly,” Ebbe explained, but seeing my unimpressed response, he blinked. “Hmm? Are they not mete with your measure, my man?”

There is no fault to be found in surrounding a commander with a group of select soldiers, highly-skilled and made separate from the rest of the pack. The Orders’ Owlcranes attest to this. No, the problem laid elsewhere.

“Not in numbers, they are. Why so many?” I inquired keenly.

“Because many’s what I require,” Ebbe answered with pomp. “What? Your eagle-eyes failing t’espy why, now are they?”

Well, let sleeping dogs lie, as they say.

Balasthea was a fort, defence being its primary charge. Were a battle to break upon its walls, certainly these men under Ebbe could prove useful as reserves, sent to match swords with any overly ambitious aggressors. Besides, leaving but thirty men at the rear would not necessarily amount to a tactical flaw of any substance.

It was readily apparent that Ebbe’s personal guards were a point of pride to the man; in exchange for turning a blind eye to them, I would have the vice-commandant himself consent to another matter.

“Fine, then. They’re your men; I’ll not shuffle them about,” I relented. “But of the others—all of them—they’ll be mine to reorganise as I see fit.”

“Yes, yes, almighty chessmaster. Play with your pieces however you like.”

As I thought.

Ebbe is a man jealously protective only of that which is his own. Aught else is trivial as rags to him. Right then. Changes for the good were on the horizon at last, with not a peep from Ebbe to bar their implementation.

“Good. You’ll be briefed on the results once the re-sorting’s done with.”

“Oh, do take your time, Commandant,” Ebbe waved off disinterestedly. A dim grin remained on his face, its corners propped up by contempt.

“Ebbe, I’ve said this once already: you’re free to mislike me as you like—privately. You all well-risk life and limb to defend this fort, I know, and know very well. That your commandant’s seat was unceremoniously re-suited for the Order’s designs is certainly something to scorn. Howev—”

“Well now, kind hawk o’ a Commandant! Is that an olive branch I spy in your talons? Hm? A fort is but a sprig sprouted far from the Order’s boughs, oh certainly. T’be taken over by a noble—disgraced and rotted fruits, the lot o’ you—is not so rare a sight, yea?”

That simper of his wrinkled deeper as he continued.

“Yet Balasthea is an aegis essential t’Londosius’ defence. But you? What’re you but a broken, knightless blade, ill-pair’d with the pavise o’ Balasthea? And you would have me respect you. How precious.”

“Precious indeed, respect. A man pays it to whomever he pleases, sure,” I conceded, before turning a glare to Ebbe. “But I am your superior officer, and I will not brook insubordination.”

“Well! Yoná be merciful—oh! The squawk o’ this hawk! How it affrights my meek soul!” the farceur squealed smilingly, shrinking back and clutching his shoulders to great theatricality. “Yes, yes, Commandant. Tuck ’way your talons! I shall heed your every word.”

What a pain in the arse.

Further troubles would surely follow with this pierrot snapping at my heels at every turn. But no greater good was ever achieved without much toil: Balasthea’s situation must be turned around, lest it remain a graveyard ever-piling up with the vainly deceased.

Reform.

That was what this fort needed, and what I resolved to bring about.

♰

One grey day led to the next.

Under the dull and misted morrowlight, the platoons were assembled in the fort outskirts. The air of the early hour was broken by barks from whom but Ebbe’s men themselves as they paced here and there, proud in their silver armour.

“Wot’s it now, eh!?” screeched one of those elites. “4th Platoon: late in settin’ out fer patrol! 5th Platoon… no’ yet done fettlin’ the bloody rampart! Ye wankers, can’t even do a ‘andyman’s work, is it!?”

“S-sir, right ‘bout t’set off, we was,” bleated a platoonsman of the 4th. “But y’see, we then got ‘anded orders asudden, t’patrol some other place, an’ er…”

“We ain’t got many ‘ands fer the job, sir,” a 5th platoonsman chimed in. “We should like t’fix up the rampart right ‘an proper, only command’s not ‘eeded a word o’ us request fer more men, see.”

“Excuses! All I ‘ear is wet excuses! Whimperin’ windfuckers, the lot o’ ye!”

“A-a-apologies, s-sir!”

On and on, this went. A pitiful repetition of lambastings from the high-ranks, answered with naught but sorries from the low.

“Ebbe,” I called, watching with not a wisp of warmth. “What’s with this nonsense?”

“Morning assembly. What, can’t tell, good Commandant? Eh? What’s it look like t’you? Tea at dawn?” yawned Ebbe. “We gather ‘em all up, y’see. Drill into them all they did wrong yesterday. That way, they know the proper thing t’do t’day and t’morrow. A try’d and true tradition, if I do say so myself.”

A self-important summary. It would seem he was the very culinarian who cooked up this sorry stew of an exercise.

“Tried, yes. True?” I shook my head. “No, Ebbe. No more of this farce from here on out.”

The grin vanished. “…What? How’s it a farce, ey?”

“How’s it not a farce, is more the question. You but line these men up and drown their ears with the queerest quibbles. Why, I’d wager you do all this just to stroke your egos against your subordinates, to drill into them instead of who’s high and who’s a hound,” was my bitter assessment. “Naught but a tree that ill-bears a single fruit is all this is.”

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“Oi you! Think t’make us yer hounds, is it!?” came a shriek, one from the veiny throat an Ebbe-elite.

From the look of him, he seemed the youngest of that guard: a trace of childishness yet lingered on that fuming face of his as he stamped his way closer.

“Thass quite the tongue fer an Actin’ Commandant, yeh!” he went on wildly. “An’ proper swollen! Bit it bold on yer way down, did ye? When they kick’d yer arse off the Order’s saddle! Well, ye can clam it up f’good, ye’ll be glad t’know! Fer Master Ebbe be the one runnin’ the show ‘round ‘ere!”

“Karl, my boy. Show a bit o’ pity for the man, will you?” Ebbe soothed the youth with uncharacteristic calm.

“Pity? Wot’s this ‘bout, Master Ebbe?” blinked this ‘Karl’.

“Us good Commandant here is ungraced. A sad and sodden-wit’d lad who knows not left from right on the battlefield.”

“‘Ungraced’? Wot’s that then, eh?”

“Spurn’d o’ Yoná’s good graces, as it were. The man has got nary an iota o’ odyl in ‘im, see. A full slap t’the arse was all he got from Her, I reckon.”

A revelation that inspired a stunned silence from both Karl and the other elites. But another moment, and they were all of them in stitches, laughing their lungs out.

“W-wo—hwaha! Wot’s this!? ‘ows ‘e even alive, eh!?”

“Thass a proper bit o’ kiddin’ there, Ebbe! An’ look—got sent t’this ‘ellhole o’ all places! A sad lot fer this sad lad!”

Through the midst of that commotion cut the sound of an unsheathing sword. Gripping it was Karl, who then trained its tip to me.

“‘ow ‘bout it, Commandant? Spare a lil’ spar for good ‘ol Karl? I promise I’ll be easy, yea!” the foul youth smiled, his threat rousing a ruckus from the elites.

“Bwahah! Ye teach ‘im a stinkin’ lesson, Karl! Show ‘im wot a stellar schoolboy ye be!”

“Come on, Karl! Stand down! Ye makin’ the commandant cry!”

“Ahah! Ahahah!”

The Ebbe-guards continued their guffaws, clutching their bosoms from the hilarity of it all. My duty it was indeed to scold their nonsense, but it was painfully apparent that they had not a mind to heed their ungraced commandant.

What other duty was left to me, then, was but to produce results. Decisively so.

“No more morning assemblies from this day forth,” I announced sharply. “And the 5th Platoon’s short on hands—too short to shore up some stone walls. That in itself calls for a thorough restructuring of every platoon. I’ll see to it myself that it gets done over the next couple of days. That is all. Dismissed!”

With my motive made clear, I left the ever-laughing scene.

♰

Less than a week later found me standing in the command chamber, eyes fixed upon some papers in hand.

“Ebbe. This report—whoever penned it certainly wasn’t in a hurry. Not in defining the gap between both projected and verified damages, that is. Why’s that?”

“Why the hurry t’go nowhere?” shrugged Ebbe. “Knowing just the actualities well-suffices. You split hairs, Commandant!”

“I split hairs that we might survive another day, Vice-Commandant,” I shot back, lifting not an eye off the report. “You and your men. I would have you all be more thorough from here onwards.”

A snorting scoff. “‘Thorough? What’s this now?”

“Make certain that you write in your reports both projected and actual results,” I elaborated firmly. “And while you’re at it, go and inform the platoons that henceforth they are to include in their reports the reasons for such disparities.”

Balasthea well-lived up to its name: a facet of Londosius’ vast frontlines such as this had its fair share of skirmishes over the last few days. Par for the course, but what had changed was the number of fatalities, lesser now than before my arrival.

I pulled out all the stops: platoons were reorganised, chains of command were recomposed, posts were repositioned, shifts were rescheduled. Much ado it was, but the results were unmistakable. Balasthea saw its silver lining at last, and it was a vivid one, at that.

Only, Ebbe’s attitude towards me had not improved in the slightest, as our conversation sadly attested.

“Come now, Commandant! We are warriors! Men o’ battle! Not miserly bookkeepers!” he whined.

“You might’ve made yourself a more whetted warrior had you learned how to keep a book, Ebbe. Your years of service yet find you dim to following orders—now’s a good time to learn, I’d say.”

“…Hmph. Fat talk for an ungraced—”

Ebbe’s snide remark drowned in the bellowing air. I glanced up from the papers. The warning horns were sounded—an attack was upon us.

I sprang up and went to the window, finding men scrambling about in the fortyards below. Before long, a platoon captain burst into the room.

“Commandant! We’ve enemies at the gate! They strike from the east!”

“Their numbers?”

“Us surveyors be countin’ t’this moment, but the Nafílim number the same as yesterday’s, from the looks o’ it!”

“Can’t deploy the 1st… their wounded have yet to recover,” I thought aloud. “Have the 2nd and 3rd Platoons defend the west gate! The 6th goes to the east!”

Unwelcome words to Ebbe.

“Have you got wax stuff’d in those ears, Commandant?” he quipped, taken aback. “The devils’ve come t’the east gate, the man said. What good’s it do t’guard the west so thickly, eh?”

“We do ourselves much good to sniff out ruses wherever they rustle. Yesterday’s attack—the Nafílim struck the east gate then, too. A trick to train our noses there, that we might not catch their scent coming from the west today,” I reasoned. “A bait-and-switch. We best be on our toes.”

Yet again, Ebbe snorted in scorn at my words. Paying no mind to his subsequent giggles, I turned to the soldier.

“Captain. You have your orders.”

“Right away, sir!” he saluted, and quickly quit the room.

Gearing myself up, I followed him soon after. It won’t do to idle by, safe and divorced from the struggle; I would dictate the battle right in the thick of its throes.

Balasthea Stronghold—the fatal fort and veritable mound of the war-dead. No longer would it be so dreaded. This, I swore. But for now, I would see to it that starting on this day, not a single soul would be lost to the fighting.

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