Christ.

It wasn't a word he said with the appropriate holy awe. No, it came out like a curse. Like Hawes had always said, poor devil. In battle you don't want a peaceful savior, you want a God of Thunder.

After all this--after years and years of campaigning--and what got him was the black rot. Digby hardly remembered the previous night, but he did recall drinking quite a lot, after the perfunctory funeral. He did recall running into the dam' physician and threatening to cut his legs off. One of his men had pulled him back. A little boy. Sixteen if he was a day, and he'd managed Digby's muscle-corded body as if he were a limp toy.

He was getting too old for this. But damned if he'd let himself give up, now. Now they finally had a chance with the dirty barbarians. Killing, it was all they damned well knew, and he was--he wasn't just as bad. Someone had once told him a bit of old philosophy. 'We make war that we may live in peace.' It sounded like jingoism but it wasn't. What he wanted was to get back to his farm and finish raising Roderick and...

He could almost believe it.

The sun had just risen, and Digby tramped toward the mess hall. No one spoke to him. His rage, his unkempt, unslept, unconquered rage, billowed around him like a foul odor.

Breakfast was sausages of murky origins on bread. Digby found he didn't have the stomach for them, but he had to meet with his newest Sergeant, who was--he'd heard--a foreigner. Foreigners! There weren't enough Thiasans, and true, but he'd been here from the beginning.

He plunked his tankard of small beer down on the table reserved for infantry officers, across from the only face he didn't recognize. A younger man than he. Of course. These days, most were. He had a wild look about him, thought Digby, almost like a barbarian or an Arab; but most likely he was just from some little inbred duchy or fiefdom or what-have-you.

"Lieutenant Digby Tremaine." He offered a hand.

He'd ridden in that morning, on a borrowed horse. It was a bony old mare, and he'd bee worried the nag might collapse before he reached the border. Fortunately, he'd made it to the Garrison without having to walk. He'd have a new command of men here, they'd told him. Some other officer had apparently snuffed it, resulting in Evander's reassignment. He'd been given a bed in the barracks, and promised a small officer's quarters within the week - probably once his unlucky predecessor' belongings had been cleared out. After dropping off his bedroll, knapsack and armor at his temporary lodgings, he'd headed for the mess hall, where a passing private told him he'd be most likely to find the other officers.

With a hunk of bread and sausage in one hand and a watered-down ale in the other, Evander sat quietly at the end of the officers' table, nodding to the others. A few nodded back, then returned to the furious consumption of their breakfasts, eating as if the food might vanish into enemy hands at any moment.

They were soon joined by a rugged, older man, face scarred and marked by more experience than most of them combined, if Evan was any judge. As he looked the man up and down, he found his new companion doing the same to him. This mutual sizing-up lasted only a second, before words broke the silence that had fallen on the table.

"Lieutenant Digby Tremaine."

Evander reached out and shook the offered hand, keeping his grip firm and steady. "Sergeant Evander Kincade, report'in' fer duty, sir." His north-western Scalian accent – a thick Scotian brogue – had waned over the years, but traces enough remained to suggest he wasn't native to these parts.

"Good to have you." Digby's voice was clipped. He recognized the accent, though vaguely. He himself was from the South of Scalia, from the Lewfeld Barony close to the coast. "We've only just lost a sergeant. A good man. You ever fought these barbarians before?"

He made a gesture vaguely in the direction of the border. "It's a whole different thing, trust me, from anything else you ever seen." He shook his head and leaned forward, elbows planted on the oak table. Vibrations rolled up through the bones of his arms, from the noise and chatter and general bustle of the start of a military day.

"F'rinstance," he said, taking a sip of his drink and then setting the tankard down with a businesslike but not overstatement thump, "F'rinstance, we don't do pikes any longer. We do haches, our infantry, all of 'em. We're trying out different techniques--they do godawful ambushes, do the barbarians, and they have the terrain on their side, so we're working on splitting up--you sergeants have more authority that way."

Digby realized he was launching a barrage of clipped information at his new sergeant, and shook his head, rueful. "Sorry. Sorry, mind on business--as usual--tell me, Sergeant, have you a family?"

"We've only just lost a sergeant. A good man. You ever fought these barbarians before?"

Evan shrugged. "Reckon' any man'll die with a sword in him. Dun' matter where 'e's from."

Tremaine leaned forward, eyes bright with intensity. Was it excitement? Hate? "It's a whole different thing, trust me, from anything else you ever seen. F'rinstance, we don't do pikes any longer..."

Evan listened to the Lieutenant's description of tactics, marking the differences mentally and cataloging strategies as he heard them. It made sense. From what he heard of the barbarians, they were more wont to ambush an enemy than march into battle face to face. The terrain here was conducive to guerrilla tactics. Small groups armed for melee combat would be the most efficient way to go about it. Evan had fought in standing armies, and in tiny bunches of guards protecting a caravan from bandits. Tactics learned doing the latter might be useful here. His dark brows knit together contemplatively as he chewed on a toughened bread crust, mind already on the field of battle.

Tremaine quickly changed topic, pulling Evander out of his musings. "Sorry. Sorry, mind on business--as usual--tell me, Sergeant, have you a family?"

"Hm? Och, aye. Big one. Way to the north." He swallowed the bread crust and washed it down with a bit of ale. "You?"

Digby smiled distantly. His own family was a memory etched by a quarter-century's halcyon and gentling acid. Surely, his mother and father were now dead. And even if he had known to read and write when he was a young'un, the mail between Scalia and Thiasa hadn't been anything to speak of, when he'd first enlisted.

"I've got a wife and son, that's all." Digby shrugged. "Thank God, Rick's too young for conscription, and I plan on getting this war and over and and nailed to the bloody ground faster than he can get old enough." He raised his tankard to that one, and took a long ruminative sip.

"You'll have to come out and help us with the recruits," he added, "when the meal's done. Hawes always had charge of 'em, but we need every sergeant and el-tee we've got, to manage 'em all. Country lot! Some of them never even held a sword. An army of grain-threshers is what we've got, grain-threshers and serfs, and I'm not afraid to say it. But first, tell me--Evander--" There was no reason to stand on ceremony with another officer.

"Tell me, what brought you here? Glory--riches? I came over only to protect my brother, I'm not afraid of saying, but there's something about milit'ry life. Riches aside, and there'll be plenty..." He lapsed into silence. "Ah; ignore my mulling-overs. It's always a dark day for me when I lose a friend. I get downright philosophical."

"I'm sorry. It must be hard to lose a friend," Evander offered by way of awkward consolation, tearing away another piece from his hunk of bread and chewing it. "I just go where the fightin' is, personally. Never stay in one place too long. Less there's a good fight and good pay for it."

Granted, he had heard stories of the golden hordes of the Baskar natives, and he had gravitated towards Thiasa after running into a bit of trouble in Scalia. But these two facts were not reasons he planned to give voice to just yet. Truth be told, it was fighting he cared most for. Money was what you got to keep your sword sharp and your armor fit. "Counties 'r like eggs, way I see it. Inside's all soft, but once ye get to the edges, they're needin' to be tough an' strong, or the whole thing shatters." He washed down this bit of philosophy with another swig of ale, then shrugged. "Course, I grew up with border folk, so I can't say as to my not being biased." For a moment he felt a pang of longing for the moors of his youth, but quashed it quickly. Sentimentality was a fool's stock in trade.

"Tell me more about the infantry forces here," he resumed. He'd done fine by his troop in Thiasa, drilling and the like, but hardly a man beneath his command had seen combat. From the sound of it, neither had most of the new conscripts, though that was soon to change. Anything more he could learn about the men, the officers, and the enemy would make for useful knowledge.

Digby sighed. "We've some likely lads. Most are much too young. Some are half-starved; a few actually know their way around a sword or a hache, and most of 'em are at least handy with a flail--" He flashed his new comrade-in-arms a rueful grin.

But he wasn't willing to be completely open with the man, though he liked his brash brusqueness. No, there was something not quite right about Evander. Something hidden. Digby didn't like hidden; the only parts of himself he kept locked away were the kind ones and the ones he reserved for the barbarians, but he knew it wasn't the case for every man.

"The good thing is, our ironworks are strong, though they waste too much time on plate armor instead of mail--useless against the barbarians! They've only bronze weaponry, and a few stolen steel blades. Sure, they bend like butter against mail, but they shoot down the damn horses and get the cavalry into a mashup--granted, plate steel will hold you on the ground, but in this heat? And when it's a question of terrain and maneuverability? Add to that that no one can outride the natives and what you've got is an infantry war, infantry and cannonades. We've got the men, we've got time to train them up. We even have some of the Old Guard, like myself." He nodded, not unhumbly--simply matter-of-fact. "What we need's new tactics. And to get the idiot paid-title cavalry out of their cookware and into something less heavy. You're from the North, but take it from me, heat's our biggest enemy here--not the barbarians."

He raised his tankard, and drained it. It settled back on the table with a tinny wobble.

"And that's the story."

Evander mentally recorded everything Digby said for later reference, including Digby's dislike of the cavalry. Not that he blamed him. Here, instead of putting soldiers on horses, they put nobles in armor and sent them trotting out without knowing the right end of a sword.

Evander liked Digby. He seemed an honest, straightforward sort of man. The type who knew his trade and spoke his mind, and made no pretenses. There was a weariness to him, though, and Evan wondered how he did in the (literal) heat of battle.

"Boiled leather," Evan stated abruptly. One of the other sergeants to his left proved he'd been listening by giving him a perplexed look out of the corner of his eye. "Saves steel, not too hard to make, and it's tough as hell. And ya won't roast lik'n yer in a skillet," he explained with a shrug. He'd become quite fond of his leather and plated cloth armor since arriving in Thiasa, particularly in the summer months (though he still longed for the cool northern mists).

Tactics, Digby had said. Well, they'd be fighting in undeveloped land. Wilderness. Unmapped territory. Plenty of cover the enemy could hide in. Plenty of cover we could hide in too... "Other advantage to leather," he mused aloud, "Is it dun' clank like a bloody brass band. Can fight stealthy-like."

"And you can eat it in a tough spot," Digby joked, relaxing a little. This man had a good head on his shoulders, and he cared about the right things. That was, he hadn't come and immediately started pandering to the higher-ups. Digby was used to career soldiering, and he could tell a fellow fighter when he saw one. No nonsense, no idiocy, no sticking to the cavalry like a limpet hoping for a fool's promotion.

Still, only time would tell on the final judgment.

"But you're right. As is, there aren't too few who do wear all-leather. The old-timers, some of us, though some still don't trust aught except mail against those axes; and the new recruits can't usually afford much of anything. The issue is the axes. Arrows... not so much. The infantry isn't even what they go for with the arrows. All you can really do in this kind of a war is pray to God and rely on luck and reflexes. Armor be damned.

"Besides, I always said--" The bell for morning practice rang, and everyone got up. Digby did too, speaking over the great scraping of chairs. "I always said, don't let the bastards near enough to you to do any damage. Come on, let's go and watch the recruits learn their hache-work. You can help with the ordering about, we need more sergeant with some grit."

Axes. Evander would have to ask around to see if he could examine one of these barbarian axes. Were they small, thrown weapons, or long-handles cleavers? It was something to think about, and then equip accordingly. After all, 'Know thy enemy' was the oldest maxim of war. Know thy troops should have been a second though. Meet them, know them, find out what they could do, then work them until they learned the rest or died trying. It was how he'd been raised, after all. He didn't doubt that Digby was right – these country boys would be soft, and unless they planned on hoeing the enemy to death, he probably had his work cut out for him.

He stood up from the bench where he'd been seated, brushed a handful of crumbs away from his lap, then followed Tremaine and the other officers out of the mess.

"I always said, don't let the bastards near enough to you to do any damage. Come on, let's go and watch the recruits learn their hache-work. You can help with the ordering about, we need more sergeant with some grit."

Grit. He could do grit. A sardonic smile tugged at the edges of Evander's mouth. He could do grit, and he could do 'Sergeant-from-Hell-itself' if need be. "I'll do my best t'be obligin', sir."