The notebook hadn’t come from the system.
Erwin had written it himself, one word at a time.
Rhoen closed it and set it on the table.
“That can wait,” he said.
“For construction, our priority in the near future is the fortifications and the training grounds.
The walls and watchtowers come first.
We can leave the collapsed section of the main keep alone for now—as long as it’s still livable.”
“Once the training grounds are finished, the soldiers’ daily drills will become much more systematic and efficient.
Both projects fit within our current budget, so we can work on them at the same time.”
“When I’m away, you and Karl will handle everything at the estate together,” he continued.
“Tomorrow, I’ll make the appointments official.”
Erwin’s pen stopped over the page.
He said nothing, only looked at Rhoen.
“You’ll be the steward of the Calradic Estate.”
“Karl will be the military steward.”
Erwin set his pen down and nodded.
“Very well.”
…
Two mornings later, a group arrived from Crow’s Perch—the first patrol detachment the fortress had sent to garrison the estate.
There were about a dozen men, carrying rusty halberds that looked as though they had seen far too many years of service.
The patrol leader at the front wore a half suit of armor, with an old Velen longsword hanging from his waist.
Judging by his appearance, he’d probably served under the Baron for quite a few years.
Outside the estate gate, ten sergeants had already formed up, waiting to depart with Rhoen for Crow’s Perch.
It was one of the Baron’s conditions.
Every week, they were to take part in the garrison and patrol duties at Crow’s Perch.
Whenever Rhoen wasn’t available, his soldiers would rotate in his place.
This was his first trip there since receiving his appointment as Sergeant.
The moment the two groups met face-to-face outside the gate, every soldier from Crow’s Perch froze.
They knew why they had come, and they knew the men opposite them were here for exactly the same purpose.
Yet standing side by side, they didn’t look like they belonged to the same army at all.
The soldiers from Crow’s Perch carried spears of uneven lengths.
Their spearheads wobbled on worn shafts, and their armor was a patchwork of mismatched pieces.
Across from them, the estate’s ironclad soldiers stood motionless, their long spears held perfectly upright, as straight as if measured with a ruler.
The two sides exchanged glances without saying much.
After handing over the patrol sector map and the password for the changing of the guard, the soldiers from Crow’s Perch entered the estate, while Rhoen led his men onto the road toward Crow’s Perch.
…
Rhoen’s first day there was uneventful.
He patrolled.
They circled the outer perimeter twice in the morning, then spent the afternoon following the main road through the village.
The villagers of Crow’s Perch had gradually grown accustomed to seeing these soldiers in purple surcoats coming and going.
Even so, when they spotted Rhoen riding past on horseback, some still instinctively shut their doors.
But compared to before, more people reacted differently.
Fewer doors slammed shut, and those squatting by the roadside no longer scrambled to their feet and ran.
A few children even followed the patrol for half a street before Miko glanced back at them, sending them scattering.
The biggest change, however, was among Crow’s Perch’s own soldiers.
The first time they patrolled together, the men from Crow’s Perch walked on the left, while the estate’s soldiers kept to the right.
Neither side came anywhere near the other.
When they returned from patrol, the patrol leader muttered, “Damn it…
It wasn’t a matter of stamina.
The two groups marched to completely different rhythms.
The estate’s soldiers weren’t moving quickly, but every single step landed in perfect cadence.
After following them for a while, the men from Crow’s Perch were already breathing hard, their own marching rhythm completely thrown off.
During their second joint patrol, one veteran noticed that one of the cavalrymen kept looking at him.
Not a casual glance.
He was observing him, noting his position.
Later, while squatting outside a doorway drinking with another soldier, the veteran remarked, “When those people are marching beside me, I don’t feel like I’m on patrol.”
“I feel like I’m being inspected.”
On the third day, a young soldier was assigned to help the estate’s men move supplies.
He hoisted a crate of salted meat onto his shoulder and was about to ask where it should be stored when he happened to glance toward a corner of the wall.
A man stood there with his back to him.
A bow rested within arm’s reach.
The young soldier had grown up in a village in Velen.
Since childhood, he’d followed his father into the woods to hunt deer.
The finest bow he’d ever seen had belonged to Old Tom, the village hunter—a longbow with an eighty-pound draw weight.
Only two men in the entire village could pull it to full draw.
His father had been one of them.
Old Tom treated that bow like his own lifeblood and never let anyone else touch it.
Yet the bow resting beside that man was a full foot longer than Old Tom’s, its limbs nearly twice as thick.
It wasn’t ornamental.
The sheer bulk came from solid material, built for strength.
The bow had never been painted, leaving the wood in its natural color, while the places where it had been gripped over and over had been polished smooth with use.
The man looked up, noticed him staring blankly at the bow, and smiled.
Then he nocked an arrow and drew the string.
He wasn’t aiming at anything.
It was just a casual draw.
The bow bent into a deep arc, the string coming all the way back to the corner of his mouth before he held it there for a moment and slowly relaxed it.
The entire motion looked utterly effortless, as though he were pulling on nothing more than a clothesline.
“That bow…” he asked hesitantly.
“How many pounds?”
The man smiled again and replied with something he couldn’t understand.
Then, in clumsy Common Speech, he managed two words.
“Very heavy.”
He only learned later that it was called a Heavy Woodland Longbow.
After returning to the barracks, he quietly told two of his comrades about it.
When the others weren’t around, the three of them sneaked into one of their temporary armories and found the bow.
He gripped it with both hands and strained until his face turned crimson.
Even then, he couldn’t draw the string halfway as far as that man had with a casual pull.
He carefully put the bow back.
The three of them stood there in silence for a while before he finally muttered, “Damn…
what the hell did these people grow up eating?”
…
Another evening, the same soldier crouched beside the training grounds, secretly watching them drill.
Two men sparred with wooden swords.
But the sound wasn’t anything wooden swords should have made.
Instead of dull thuds, every clash cracked like splitting thunder.
Then one of them executed some technique he couldn’t follow.
His opponent’s wooden sword was knocked clean out of his hand and slammed into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
“Nice!” he shouted without thinking.
The two men stopped and looked at him.
He tried to run.
His legs refused to cooperate.
The man who had disarmed his opponent tossed the wooden sword toward him.
The hilt bumped into his chest, and he fumbled awkwardly before catching it, his palms already slick with sweat.
He charged forward.
Three seconds later, he was lying flat in the mud, convinced his backside had shattered into who knew how many pieces.
The man reached down, pulled him to his feet, patted him on the shoulder, and said something to the person beside him in a language he couldn’t understand.
The other man laughed.
He only found out later that the speaker’s Common wasn’t very good.
What he’d actually said was:
“This kid’s got guts.”
…
One night at the Crow’s Perch barracks, several soldiers gathered outside the barracks door, drinking barley ale.
One veteran from Crow’s Perch who had crossed paths with Rhoen three times drained half his mug in one gulp before setting it heavily on the ground.
“That Sergeant,” he said, “when I first heard about him, I figured the Baron had handed out another title on a whim.
You know what he’s like.
One time he got so drunk he almost appointed a stray dog as patrol captain.”
The two men beside him burst out laughing.
“But this one’s different,” the veteran continued.
“That day he walked into the Baron’s hall and spent half the afternoon talking with him alone.
The Baron personally stamped and signed his letter of appointment.
Have any of you ever seen the Baron stamp someone else’s commission himself?
Because I sure haven’t.”
Another soldier picked up the conversation.
“And those soldiers under him…
I don’t know where they came from, but they’re definitely not Temerian.”
“I’ve stood guard with Temerian veterans before.
Those men sigh and grumble all the time.”
“These ones don’t.”
“When they’re walking through camp, they barely even chat.”
“It’s not that they don’t chat,” someone beside him said.
It was the young soldier who had been thrown into the mud.
“They’re speaking a different language.
I’ve heard it before, but I couldn’t understand a word.
It’s not a dialect from anywhere in the North.
The pronunciation is short, every word hits hard—like stones smashing into each other.”
The group fell silent for a while.
The veteran lifted his mug and took another long drink.
“I only know one thing.”
“Thank the gods they’re on our side.”
“If they weren’t, instead of sitting here drinking, the lot of us would be lying out in the swamps, waiting for the Drowners to collect our bodies.”
No one argued with him.