“It’s time for combat training! There’s squad drills and there’s individual fights. These aren’t for standing in the army, but don’t think we aren’t watching! If you’re losing every fight, well, you’re fucked in the battle! If you’re not pushing yourselves to the absolute brink with each fight, then you’re a disappointment,” Sergeant Laurel, one of the two women sergeants that Ezra’d seen, shouted. The four elite recruits welcomed the opportunity to get some vengeance on the other recruits that’d been excluding them. It was stupid, but Ezra’d found his feelings a little hurt to be looked down on by everyone around him.
Standing in the middle of the square where they met every morning, that news was received in various levels of concern up and down every rank and file.
“Will we be using blades?” one of the other recruits asked, his voice quivering.
“Let me see if I understand the question,” Sergeant Laurel asked, her voice sickly sweet. “You want to know if, under the Duke’s command, we’ve gone and gotten another fifty recruits for the army for a Dragonkin extermination expedition, and now we’re going to have you all fight to the death when you’ve never used anything more dangerous than a fucking fork?”
The recruit quailed before her as she kept her voice loud enough to carry over the assembled soldiers. She marched down the line until she stood in front of him and asked, “What’s your name, recruit?”
“Adam,” he answered, hesitant.
“Wrong,” she replied. “Your name is Spoon, recruit. What’s your name, recruit?”
“I… A… what?” the dark haired man answered, confused. Laurel didn’t dare to leave him confused for long as she reached up to his head, grabbed a fistful of hair, and yanked him down so she could speak directly in his ear.
“Your name is Spoon. Now tell me, what’s your name?”
“Spoon?” he answered.
“LOUDER!”
“My name is Spoon, sir!”
“Good! Maybe, if you prove yourself in these fights, you can be called Fork!” With that, Laurel released the young man and turned to walk away. Little snickers travelled up and down the ranks as the sergeants turned and left the recruits and veterans to their own devices for a few minutes.
“Ain’t no way I’m ever letting someone call me Spoon,” Boyd scoffed as they all fell out of parade rest. “I’ll die first.”
“You don’t get much of a choice,” Amy said, approaching the four with what looked like an armful of leather. “Someone from my year’s still called ‘Goblin’ cause he got caught pissing by a goblin while he was on watch. Then there’s Brick the idiot, Pebble the guy who brought a sling, and a couple others. If you get a nickname, you’re stuck with it. Don’t be an idiot, and they’ll call you by your name.”
“Why can’t people call me something cool, like… Destroyer, or Victor?” Boyd insisted. “I can earn that nickname!”
“Because nobody gets a nickname like that in the army. You’ll have to be at least a Pseudo-Knight for soldiers to stop taking the piss at you,” she scoffed. “It’s better not to get a nickname when you’re a recruit, because you’ll never get one you like.”
Boyd started to open his mouth but Cord elbowed the taller brother, and he went silent.
“What’s this?” Ezra asked as Amy dropped the stack of leather on the ground with a heavy thump.
“This is your armor,” she said. “Typical boiled leather. It’ll go over your uniform coat.”
Despite having been told that this was almost certainly going to happen, Ezra felt a flash of disappointment. After all, the stories talked about Knights in shining plate armor of steel, or even some of the more mystical metals in the world, and this was just… leather.
“Look, it’s good, and it’s free to you,” Amy said, seeing the disappointment on his face. “If you’re using your spear and shield right, most hits won’t even reach your body. Those that do will be at the end of their life and should be turned aside by the leather.”
Before he said anything, Ezra saw the disappointment in the others’ faces, even Leah, and he didn’t feel so stupid having gotten his hopes up.
“Now, these’re all mostly in your size, so keep track of the one we give you. Boyd, yours might end up a little tight, but you’re pretty damn big, so deal with it,” Amy continued, tossing the leather pieces at each person one by one. When Ezra caught it, he was surprised by how heavy it was. Of course, it wasn’t several kilos, but it weighed more than he’d expected. It was something like a sheet with a hole cut for his head, but instead of sleeves, it hung open with some ties to hold it together. While he tried to figure out what to do with it, Amy stepped up to Leah and helped her put it on.
Once he had a visual reference, Ezra understood and put it on. Once the armor was on, he probingly thumped it a couple times. He supposed it would work well, since it covered his chest and stomach, but the warning to spend what money he could save on more equipment made more sense, at the thought of his legs, groin, and arms being uncovered.
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Even as he thought that, Ezra was happy as he looked down at himself. He could imagine how much he looked like a real soldier now, and wished he had his shield and spear to show off with. The thought made him blush, though, and Jormun’s words made it worse.
You feel like a big boy now, huh? Wearing some regular leather armor and you’re an adult all of a sudden?
Ezra calmed down and looked at the other elite recruits as they put on their armor. True to Amy’s warning, Boyd was a bit too tall for it to fit well, but he looked twice as excited as Ezra felt, while Cord kept looking down at the armor again and again. They four hadn’t talked a whole lot about life before they’d signed on, since they all felt like they knew what the others had done—they were slum survivors, it’d been hard, and they were here to try to change their lives. Of course they all had similar thoughts about this being their chance to escape what they’d always been.
“Once you’ve got your armor,” Sergeant Oscar called out, “gather here! We’ll have the squad fights first, teams of four! Have your leader come up to me to get your weapons order.”
“Alright, go get the weapons, prodigy,” Boyd slapped Ezra on the back.
“You’re just going to volunteer me?” Ezra chuckled as he looked at the other three recruits.
“Well, it won’t be me,” Boyd shrugged. “Cord?”
“Hell no,” the elder brother scoffed. “Leah?”
“I’m a better follower than leader,” she said. “Now let’s go. No reason for you to carry all our stuff.”
“Alright then,” Ezra grinned as he stepped forward. He didn’t mind being the leader for now, since Georg was the Lieutenant. He just needed to learn how to fight enough to become a Knight anyways.
“Squad of the elite recruits?” Sergeant Oscar asked as Ezra led the four forward.
“Yes, sir,” Ezra confirmed.
“Name?”
“Ezra, sir.”
“Good luck. I know they’ll all be trying to tear you down.”
The serious looking sergeant didn’t say anything more, his dark eyes down at a piece of slate he was using chalk to take notes on. He handed a fist-sized stone over to Ezra, who took it and then followed directions to get spears and shields for the rest of his team. Then, he remembered Laurel’s insults to “Spoon” and reminded himself that no, they weren’t going to be spears. Staves.
The quartermaster took the rock that he was given and didn’t question it.
“Four shields, four staves,” he said as he handed them over. “Bring ‘em back after and you’ll get your rock back.”
“Why… do we want the rock back?” Ezra asked.
“Because if you don't, you don’t get paid.”
“Alright, thank you sir,” he answered with a quick nod. Easy enough answer.
Then, as soon as he got back to his squad, Ezra passed out the weapons and said, “We should probably have a plan, right?”
“Probably,” Cord said as Boyd scoffed, “Nah.”
Ezra blinked twice at the taller brother, who grinned and laughed. “I’m just not gonna listen to you for now.”
“You wouldn’t be the first,” Boyd shrugged.
“We’ve seen them drilling,” Leah said. “They’re not as good as us. There’s no reason to do anything less than just show them that we’re better and beat them that way.”
“Fair point,” he nodded. “Leah, you’ll be second in line. Boyd, first, Cord, third, me last. Boyd, more than hitting them, your job is to hold the line. If they circle around you, I’ll collapse in on them from my side, and you do the same if they come towards me. Leah, just keep moving. Cord, try to disrupt the formation. Sound good?”
“Sounds fine to me,” Boyd said. “No clue if it’ll work though.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ezra said. “Most important thing is to be confident. If we go out there and hesitate, we’ll lose.”
Jormun made a noise over Ezra’s head that he couldn’t quite understand, but there was no time for him to try to understand what the old ghost was getting at. Instead, he heard as the calls for the fights to come together went out.
“Ezra!” called the sergeant. “Get over here!”
Ezra led the others in a jog towards the man that called them, and he mentally noted that his three friends were moving confidently as well. Yes, they’d be fine.
“You’re against William and his squad.”
Ezra nodded and realized that he recognized the enemy he was fighting. The boy with the waxed hair sneered at him, and he didn’t wear boiled leather armor but chain mail with a simple metal helmet.
Yes, he was a rich kid. It would be a privilege to put him in his place. What a blessing that he could in his very first fight as a soldier. Going off the burning look in William’s eyes, he was thinking the same thing.
“You’re both the leaders for now,” the sergeant said, pulling the two’s attention back to him. “It’s your job to make sure that these rules are followed. Don’t hit in the head, we don’t want any concussions. William, lose the helmet. If we call out an injury or loss, that person retreats. If they don’t, the whole squad is penalized. This isn’t a fight to the death or to beat the shit outta each other, it’s to train. If you’re going to cause trouble instead of training, say so now so I can kick that idea out of you before you cause trouble for someone else. Got it?”
Ezra nodded, as did William.
“This is a fight, people’ll get hit. If you don’t follow the rules, people’ll get hurt. You or one of your squad gets themself hurt for a stupid practice, your pay’ll be docked. Clear?”
“Yes sir,” Ezra said as William only nodded.
“Alright. Fight hard, listen to the calls from the referees, and we’ll have a good time. If you don’t listen and the results are bad, you or the person getting called out might get the boot. Otherwise, get ready, the fight starts in one minute.”
The two youths stared at each other but bowed their heads to the instructing sergeant as they turned to speak with their squad.
“You hear what he said?” Ezra asked under his breath as he gathered up with the others.
“Don’t kill ‘em,” Boyd spat to the side. “Listen to what he says.”
“And don’t aim for the head. I’d guess if your hit slips off a shield you won’t get into too much trouble, but try not to. I want to be able to beat them without any complaints about unfairness or cheating. We’ll beat them up without breaking the rules. Got it?”
The other three nodded in response, and Ezra smiled as they all got into position just in time for the sergeant to step forward.
“The fight begins in five, four, three, two, one, go!”
With shouts, eight angry people charged at each other.