Among the Spires of East Fleet

Chapter 3: Something For Nothing

His footsteps boomed like war drums as he marched across the porch of that small stone keep somewhere north of Delita. In the air, there was a discombobulated orchestra of warfare that had yet to be finely tuned. To the tune of steel clambering against steel, and spears striking against shields, young men honed themselves for a battle they were ill prepared for. From where he stood, he could just manage to see over the whole lot of them. Silently, he studied them, measuring their timing, examining their footwork, weighing their resolve. Like a farmer preparing for spring, he looked out over that company of young men as if they were a field ready to be cultivated – fertile soil ready to nurture the seeds of freedom that would be watered with the blood of a tyrant. Though, to his dismay, it would have been a barren field at best.

As his gaze shifted back and forth over the young men, one among them caught his attention. He was young. Tall and skinny, he struggled to grow a beard, let alone hold up a shield. What's more, the fear in his eyes were a dead give that despite being dressed like a soldier, he was hardly a threat to anyone other than himself.

'Pity,' Darius thought. 'Poor boy will probably be the first to die.'

As the leader of this rag-tag group of troops made his way into the yard, one of the soldiers approached him.

"Captain Darius," he offered with a salute.

"Sergeant," Darius flatly replied while keeping a watchful gaze on the young men now under his command. Eyeing them up and down as he passed by, he began to walk through their ranks as they went about their drills.

"Our numbers, Sergeant?"

"Sir, we have one hundred, seventeen fighting men. All volunteers and all eager to serve."

Darius hummed. "Tell me, Sergeant. How do you know these are fighting men?"

"Sir?"

"How do you know that these are fighting men?" Darius asked again, this time with a tone that demanded an answer.

"Well, we have been training them for nearly two weeks, sir."

"On what?"

"Mainly small unit tactics, sir."

"And?"

The Sergeant struggled to come up with an answer he thought might suffice. "We have also been training them on battlefield first-aid."

Darius shot him a cold, unimpressed glare.

"Uhh... We've been teaching some of the local farmers how to "

"Trading their pitchforks for spears is hardly considered training, Sergeant!"

"Sir, I "

Stopping in the midst of his new recruits, Darius's brow furrowed as he stared straight through the young Sergeant's would-be resolve. "These are not fighting men, Seargent! These are boys! Children!"

The Sergeant struggled to say anything in return.

"Do you even know how old any of them are?" Pointing out to the taller young man he had noticed before, Captain Darius waved his hand around in disappointment. "That one there doesn't even look like he's old enough to have had his first bought of morning wood, let alone know how to hold his own in a battle! Poor boy looks like a stork dressed in leather! He'll amount to little more than arrow fodder in a few weeks, and you expect me to believe he's a fighting man?!"

The Sergeant could feel his heart dropping into the pits of his stomach. Defeated inside and out, he hung his head. He had known that this hodgepodge group of young men were far from being considered battle-ready, but they were all he had to work with at the time. Hoping to save what little amount of self-respect he had left, he said the only thing he could think of.