At the time of the Fall, world population had been just about one billion. The aftermath of the Fall had not seen as much die off as anticipated, mostly because of small towns like Raven’s Mill. But the effectively total loss of technology had created enormous implications that were just beginning to sink in. The one that was near and dear to his heart was military manpower. The military technology available was pregunpowder because of the explosive prohibitions still slavishly followed by Mother. Historical battles in pregunpowder days meant that each side had a near parity of forces. But raising large armies was practically out; there was too great a labor shortage. Conscripting large groups meant that something vital simply wouldn’t occur; farming, manufacturing, something was going to fail.
Thus it was up to relatively small handfuls of soldiers to protect civilization from the barbarians. And to protect the new and faltering United Free States from the various feudal warlords and the technological despotism of New Destiny.
Like a ship captain of old, Herzer lusted for more men, more soldiers. Too many times he had had to fight in battles outnumbered. Mike would make a superlative soldier but he needed to be right where he was, farming.
Some of the pressure was relieved by new/old technology. The harvesting that Mike was engaged in would have been done by a team of six, at least, in preindustrial times. Powered looms, Bessemer forges, meant that there were fewer people producing more per person. But even with the productivity increase there weren’t enough workers for all the potential positions. Which meant fewer soldiers as well.
It was an insoluble problem, but one that Herzer wrestled with constantly. The dispatch rider, for example, was supported by way stations in the controlled areas of Overjay. Each of the way stations had to be manned, and what’s more had to have horses at it. Figuring out a better means of communication would mean freeing up all of those people, and horses, for soldiers. Which might have meant sending more than one barely trained lieutenant to Harzburg and ending the problem in a week instead of a year and a half.
These musings carried him through the fields on the way to town and up to the gates. Most of the fields had been cleared before he left but he saw new orchards on the hillsides as well as new outbuildings. The town, whatever Courtney might think, continued to build.
There was work going on at the top of the hills north of town as well but it was more martial in nature. A wooden gate was under construction and a stockade stretched up the hill to the Academy on the right. On the left the stockade had been torn down and a bed of gravel followed the track of the top of the hill.
“Lieutenant Herrick,” the team leader of the gate guards said, nodding his head.
“The duke’s pushing ahead on the curtain walls?” Herzer asked, nodding at the gravel that was being dropped by ox carts then leveled out by prisoners. More than a few of the prisoners were Changed, taken in the brief foray by Dionys McCanoc against the town. They were, as far as anyone could tell, normal people who had been caught up by McCanoc and converted, against their wills, into soldiers for him.
The actions of the raiders even before their attack on the town had been such that life sentences had been handed down for all of them. There was, however, a good bit of sentiment suggesting that at some point the “normal” humans might be rehabilitated. The Changed, however, short of being Changed “back,” were subject to no such sympathy. Generalized sympathy for what had occurred to them, yes, but not direct sympathy for their plight because they were as vicious as a pack of oversized weasels. They were incredibly strong, short, and brutish in appearance and had the personalities of rabid pit bulls. They had been christened “orcs” on first sight and the name had stuck.
Whenever Herzer, personally, felt sorry for them he just watched a group of them, like this one, working, and got over it. They were unwilling to work except under threat of immediate punishment and even then spent more time fighting among themselves than working. Slowly, over the last couple of years, their numbers had been reduced through one accident or murder or another until it looked like clemency might be unnecessary; in another couple of years they’d have killed each other off.
In a way the use that the prisoners were put to was a shame; they’d make decent sword fodder. For that matter, the Changed were apparently New Destiny’s idea of what made good soldiers. Which just showed that New Destiny had its head firmly up its ass. They were tough and aggressive but they also had a strong tendency to break if they took too many casualties and were impossible to discipline. They were just fine with scream and charge but no damned good at holding a shield line.
Using them as garrison in a town that was being particularly resistant to reason had its attractions. Renan came to mind as did Tarson. But Raven’s Mill, not to mention the Freedom Coalition, couldn’t do something like that; they were the good guys.
Diablo knew the way home and had broken into a trot beyond the construction on the wall so before Herzer knew it he was at the gates of the Academy. He realized it when he heard a familiar voice.
“You appear to be thinking deep thoughts, Lieutenant.”
“Just considering the lack of manpower, Gunny,” Herzer replied with a grin.
Master Centurion Miles A. “Gunny” Rutherford had been a reenactor prior to the Fall. In his latter career he had specialized as a noncommissioned officer in the Norau Marines, a position called “Gunnery Sergeant,” and he had lived his life for years in that role to the point that he lived, ate and breathed the model, in his mind, of such a person.
As it turned out, he had more background for the role than most people had realized. He was born shortly before his parents decided to move to the province of Anarchia, a region that was maintained, prior to the Fall, in a nontechnological environment. Gunny had never been too sure what happened to his folks after they emigrated but it was probably similar to what had happened to Duke Edmund’s brother. It was an area used as a “bleed off” for people who didn’t want to live in paradise and it was anything but. Anarchia, in those days, had been run by groups of feudal warlords, and newcomers had a tendency to die in distressing numbers. Gunny had grown up in that environment, eventually becoming one of the punk soldiers of the “Baron” of Melbun. It was there that he had first run afoul of Duke Edmund, when the man born by the name of Charles came looking for his missing brother and decided that Anarchia needed a good shaking up. The “Baron” had learned, the hard way, that undisciplined gang members didn’t stand a chance against a disciplined army. The survivors of the Baron’s men had been inducted in the burgeoning army of Charles the Great.
That had been years ago, centuries before Herzer was born. Afterwards, when Anarchia was pacified and the sad story of his brother pieced together, “Charles” had returned to the world and become “Edmund Talbot,” just another reenactor. And with him had come his friend, Arthur Rutherford.
After the Fall, Gunny made his way to Raven’s Mill and took up his position again, trainer for the new corps of Blood Lords.
Of which Herzer was, by far and away, the best known member.
“You do what you can with what you’ve got,” the NCO at the gate said with a shrug. “We’re doing well enough,” he added, gesturing around.
The area at the base of Raven’s Hill had been part of the Faire grounds prior to the Fall. As the town began accepting refugees the area had first been used as a processing area, then with the establishment of the Blood Lord Academy the Hill had been turned over to the Academy.