Dorian’s POV

“Bout time you manned up Senator Boy.” Small Paul snorted as I placed my breakfast tray next to his on the table. “I was wonderin’ when you’d stop that piss poor stalking thing and just come out and ask whatcha wanted.”

“My name is Dorian, and it couldn’t have been that bad.” I said, getting comfortable and taking a bite of bland eggs. “Gods above, would it hurt to season this slop?”

“Yeah? You the only son of a Senator, so Senator Boy works just as well. And be thankful we are getting food. Anyhow, you weren’t starin’ at me with puppy dog eyes all morning to bitch about the food. Whatcha want?”

“Can’t a guy want to get to know his squadmates?” I deflected.

“Free word of advice Senator Boy, don’t go into any gambling dens. They’ll have your tells in a split second, and you’ll have an empty purse in ten hands.”

“And you’ve spent time there? Didn’t you just come of age?”

“Listen, ain’t nobody care about age in the slums. You’re either lucky, get real good at reading people real quick, or you end up dead. I’m here, and you know I ain’t lucky. Can ya figure out what I am with all that learnin’ your family spent on ya? Now I know you’re after something, so just ask away and I’ll think about it.”

I stared at him digging immediately into his breakfast, and mentally shrugged. “Fine then. It’ll be, refreshing, to just come out and say things I suppose. What are your thoughts on that Brandon fellow?”

“Sangui-something dude? Now I want you to think real careful like, because your answer is now one of those live or die type moments. Is this about the idiots that just got executed? They had it comin, far as I can see, and I ain’t about to sit back and watch somethin else come about and see if I’m one of the ten percent that die next time. Like I already said, I ain’t ever been lucky.”

“Whoah, easy there.” I immediately replied, hoping to calm him down. “Fuck, I went about that all wrong. No, I’m not about to try and off the guy, nothing like that. No, something about him is just, off. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what the hell it is.”

“Ah. That. Everyone’s got secrets, him more than anyone. I don’t care to find out.” He said.

“Wait, you know what I’m talking about?” I asked, shocked.

“Yep. He’s from a small town, but talks like you. He should be talkin’ like me. That’s what’s got you in a twist.” He dug back into his meal, while I rocked back in my seat. By the gods, that was it! How in the world did I never put it together? I finished my breakfast in a fugue, kicking myself for not putting it together sooner.

“Finish up Senator. Don’t wanna be late for drills.” Paul elbowed me in the side as he got up and headed out to the practice yard. I practically inhaled what I had left as I headed to put my tray up, manners be damned. Paul was right, it wouldn’t do to be late to drills.

“Hey Dorian. You ok?” Frederick asked as I fell into line beside him for our warm ups.

“Yeah. Just distracted by a few things. You ok?”

He just nodded, not wanting to talk as we walked up to our turn at the pells. I guess we had graduated something or other, as there were four pells instead of the normal two. It was about time in my book, as we could finally get some decent time in with more people attacking.

“Clayson! Ease up a bit. You are practicing your form, not trying to blunt the already blunted training swords!”

“Yessir!” The guy immediately replied. No matter what happened, there was always something up with that guy. Even now something was up. It wasn’t even a day after they executed someone who tried to kill him, and he was as jittery as a kid the night before Harvest Festival. Ignoring him for the moment, I focused on my own strikes. Everything was going well, until the instructors decided to change life up for us once again.

“Alright, listen up!” Instructor Daniels shouted, and everyone immediately stopped and gave him our full attention. “Good. You all are doing well, so we are going to increase the difficulty of the exercises. Split into two teams, and I want a line of five people facing each other along these lines. You will be in shield wall formation. The rest of you will form an empty square behind your team.”

We silently got into position as Daniels drew two lines on the ground nearly a foot apart for us to line up on. “Today we work on the shield wall strikes, and you will finally get to feel what its like to receive a blow on your shield. Remember, we are still working on form, so no full power strikes! Strong enough for your opponent to feel it, but that’s all, understand?”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“Excellent. Remember to take the blow with your body slightly forward, left leg bent. For those of you attacking, notice the three colored circles on your shields. The silver one is your target for middle blows. The gold your targets for high and low blows. I will call out what blows we are practicing before we begin. The exercise will work as follows: Frederick’s side will be the right side, Paul’s side will be the left side. I will call right, left, right, and each side will strike the shield of the other before moving to take the return blow on their own shield. After three blows, the initiating side will rotate one position. Right side will move sunwise, left side will move widdershins. This way everyone gets to trade blows with others. The instructors and I will be watching and noting mistakes. A leg out of position, a missed strike, anything out of form will net you a point. Every ten points you earn will gain you a level of punishment. Questions? Good.”

As soon as he asked for questions, everyone was immediately focused on their temporary opponents. “Right. Left. Right. Rotate. Left. Right. Left. Rotate.” He started out slowly, giving everyone a full nearly two seconds before the next order so that we could all get used to the drill before he started working us harder and faster. I couldn’t help but start getting excited, as this was more like what I envisioned the Legion as! Two shield walls trading blows! We started out with middle strikes for a while, then went high and low. Finally, we were given the most difficult drill, alternating high middle and low blows in conjunction with our opponent. The side attacking twice would attack high and low, while the other side took the middle strike.

We worked up until it was nearly time for lunch, and the instructors were comparing notes. Eventually Daniels stepped forward and spoke again, “Congratulations! You guys get a pass for today since it was the first time working on this drill. Before we dismiss for lunch, some bits to work on. Paul, you earned 8 points today, most for missing your high blows. Tomorrow morning, you will perform only high strikes during warm up. Joffrey! Fifteen points. Work on getting your shield back in position and braced before you take the return blow. Brandon, you are today’s winner! Twenty-six points split between overpowered attacks, missed targets, and over extensions. This goes for all of you, as he wasn’t the only one! The hilt of your gladius shouldn’t extend past your scutum! If you don’t present an opponent a target, you won’t get hit! This is why we get so close. Let your blade be the only thing your enemy can target, as it can take a lot more punishment than your arm can. The rest of you all earned between six and twelve points, and we will be dropping by during your lunch to talk about what you need to work on. Dismissed!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Michio welcomed us after lunch with his usual, “Greetings class! Those of you wanting to go into the scouting corps will want to pay extra attention to today’s lesson. The rest of you will need to pay attention, as reading a field map is essential. We will start with rivers. Any guesses as to why?”

“Strategic advantage.” The soldier’s son, James was it? Replied. “Rivers can be used in many ways. An impenetrable guardian to a weak flank is the most common. They can also be used to launch surprise attacks, especially if you are able to ford them in areas that your enemy isn’t expecting you to.”

“A soldier’s answer, and a good one. Yes, a raging river can be a great guard to your flank. This will be covered later when we go over tactical formations. Today we will focus on the fording of rivers and how you can tell at a glance based on the markings. The first thing you need to note, is that the river key is hidden within four wavy lines. Everyone has seen how a child marks a river, with wavy lines coming to a peak, yes?” We all nodded, and he continued, “Excellent. Changes in the river are denoted by changes in the lines. We always start reading at the top line of four. A completely flat line denotes where to stop reading, and anything after that line will be lines with four peaks.”

He made several drawings, each with the blank line in a different spot. “First line peaks only are the easiest to cross, and are the traditional fords. One peak will get your boots wet, two your knees. Three are waist high, and four peaks are slightly dangerous chest high fords. The second line will only have either two or four peaks. Two peaks means that wagons will be able to ford it, possibly with difficulty. Four peaks require the construction of rafts to ferry your forces across. If all four lines of a river have peaks, then the river is uncrossable.”

“Sir?” Virgil asked. “Did you mean to skip over what three lines means?”

“Three lines is a very special case, and will always have four peaks. Anyone here joining the engineering corps?” Michio asked, looking around and getting disappointed when nobody said they were. “Ah, no matter. You will have some assigned to you, and you had best hope your leadership not only listens, but uses them properly. Now, back to our example. Like young James said, three lined rivers are going to be the best for you to gain an unexpected advantage over your enemy. With enough trees around, the engineering corps will be able to create a temporary bridge over the river. Being able to cross gives us so many options, but the two best are being in unexpected locations and being able to strike an unsuspecting enemy. And remember, the fates always favor those who stack the odds in their favor. When going into battle, we never want a fair fight.”

I raised my hand at that, confused. “Sir? Does that mean we don’t have honor on the battlefield?”

“Not at all Dorian, not at all. We still fight with honor, it separates us from the barbarians. But we also fight to win, and in order to win you need to set yourself up with as many advantages as possible.”

Question answered, he went back to discussing map issues that we would find. Hilly areas were marked with a dome, cliffs with interconnected V’s, with the peak pointing toward the lower elevation. Enemy forces were easier to deal with. Each thousand soldiers received a mark. Scouts were arrows, light infantry a sword, heavy infantry a shield, and cavalry with a horse shoe. Eventually I was distracted with other things, as my father had gone over most of this with me beforehand. Of course, most of my interaction with maps didn’t require enemy positions, but that was fine. They were designed so that any soldier could understand them. The hardest part was always going to be landmarks, and determining where to meet the enemy. Instead I found myself wondering how I could pry Brandon’s history from him without coming across as hostile. I didn’t need another repeat of what happened with Paul.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Hey Brandon, got a minute?” I asked after we all made it back to the barracks after dinner. He was heading out the door, but stopped to look at me.

“Uh, sure. Dorian, right?”

“Yep. I’ve been wondering about your speaking. You say you are just the son of a simple farmer in an outlying village, but you talk more like I do than the rest of us.”

“Really?” He asked, looking around. “Huh. I never really noticed before, but you may be right.”

“May be?” Little Paul scoffed from his corner. “That right there! You and the Senator never use contractions. Always prim and proper like.”

“Sorry guys. I just don’t know what to tell you. Everyone talks like this in Mountainhold.” He said with a shrug.

“Hold up.” Someone spoke up. “I know you gotta leave and all, but something just isn’t right. Where the hell is Mountainhold?”

“Like I said, we’re a small village in the mountains. I doubt we would have half the amenities we had if Elder Stannich hadn’t used his personal wealth to build a lot of the public buildings. But why are you surprised you don’t know it? I don’t know half of the towns in the empire.”

“Look, my dad’s a cartographer. I’ve studied maps of the empire ever since I was a bored little kid, and I could prolly draw a more accurate one by memory than half the hacks out their claiming to be cartographers. And I have never seen a town or village named Mountainhold.”

“Well, if it helps we are a two days by caravan out of Stonebrook, which is a few days away from Arrowhead.” Brandon said. “Know anything about those two?”

“Yeah. Stonebrook is where a lot of the finer stone comes from, and Arrowhead is the seat. Of. A. Gods above, I’m an idiot!” the cartographer said. The entire room quieted down to stare at the guy. “Look, this may be crazy, or not, but the Baron of Arrowhead, Germanius, hated the old emperor Nero with a passion. But, he knew he could never cross the emperor and live, so he did what he could in secret, as a lot of the senators did back then. I’m sure you all remember how Nero went mad and burned the city, well what isn’t told a lot is that there should have been more bodies. A lot more bodies. Rumors always swirled that Germanius helped to spirit away a lot of the more vocal families that spoke against Nero before the fire could kill them, but they didn’t know where he stashed them. There was even a Praetorian Guard permanently assigned to his barony to search. I bet your town is those lost families.”

“Hold on now.” I interjected. “That is a heck of a tale, but what makes you connect the two?”

“Simple.” He replied. “The lead senator that disappeared. Meridius. His wife’s family owned several tin mines. Stannum. Stannich. He couldn’t take his wife’s name or anything too obvious, so he changed the mines they owned. His own family was famous for a lot of their construction, even in the capital. And he was known to enjoy his comforts. Even if he were camped out on a mountain, I guarantee that guy would have a bath house at least, among other amenities. I’ll bet all the families there started out as servants here in the capital, picking up their master’s speech patterns. Since it was just them, with only the occasional caravan of supplies, it would be simple to just keep the same speech and not try and hide their accents.”

“Gods below, they’re all fuckin’ nuts.” Alfred said from his seat next to Paul. “Give ‘em a bit of a story, and they go right looney. Senators runnin’ away in the night? Serious? And I thought your specialty was maps, not history.”

“Yeah? And do you think history doesn’t change a map at all? It isn’t just modern maps I know about. I can tell you what era a map is depicting just based on the borders of countries and the spelling of cities.” The guy countered, staring down the pair of street rats. “Why don’t you guys stick to things you are good at, and leave the history and maps to me?”

“Easy now.” I broke in, trying to calm them down. “They aren’t the only ones who were doubting you friend. I find it hard to believe myself, especially since the leader of that Praetorian Guard unit was a former hunter. Ecclenian would never have let a town that close to the seat of the barony go uncovered.”

“What makes you so sure of this Ecclenian guy?” Brandon asked me.

“Simple. He was one of the best hunters in his day. He’s cleared out entire nests on his own, and they said he could sneak up on damn near sneak up on Hoori himself.” I explained, having had somewhat of an idolization of the guy when I was growing up. “Pity he retired after Nero died and moved off into seclusion.”

“Huh. Former hunter? I wonder if Old Klein knows anything about him?” I heard Brandon mutter. Before I could ask what he was talking about, he said to the room, “Well. Sorry guys, but I have to go. My teacher really doesn’t like it when I’m late.” With a halfhearted wave, he headed out into the night with two of his friends. The rest of us broke up and got ready to go to bed, though I tried to keep my eye on a few people. Soon enough they were going to pick two leaders for our unit, and they would need seconds. I fully intended on being a leader, and that cartographer would make a great second. Coming in right on his heels was Small Paul. He had a vicious, no nonsense side of him that I knew would work great with me.