“Yes,” nodded Senior Captain Thoheeks Portos, grim-faced, “but in the present state of affairs, we’ll be very fortunate do we not have to put down a mutiny or two during this campaign … and if not then, then surely when we get back and our units once more go under these ridiculous, divisive camp strictures of no women, no alcohol save the thoroughly watered issue and no movement outside the perimeter save on organized details.”
“It seems to me, and God grant that I’m wrong, in this instance,” opined Captain of Light Infantry Ahzprinos, “that our esteemed Grand Strahteegos is dead set upon splitting up our army—destroying any rapport between the officers and the common soldiers of their units, fomenting dissension of all sorts between the units and the officers, first playing foot against horse, then playing mercenary against regular units and so on.
“Take the beginning of this business today, for instance. He knew damned good and well that Captain Opokomees Ehrrikos and Captain Vahrohnos Bralos have had differences and are not on the best of terms even yet, and it seemed he could not rest but had to pick at that scab.”
“What was or is between Bralos and me is our personal affair,” said Captain Ehrrikos bluntly, “and I did not at all like him using or trying to use it as a foil to make more bad blood between me and a military peer. Bralos, I didn’t and don’t want the responsibility of a double-size squadron thrust willy-nilly upon me, but as you must know, I had, have and will have damn-all choice in the matter, not so long as I continue to serve under this increasingly strange, new-model Grand Strahteegos Pahvlos.
“But Bralos, comrade, you have my word of honor before all of these gentleman-comrades that your troops and officers will in no way be made to suffer while under my command. They’ll be asked to perform nothing that my own troops are not asked. I will deal with them at all possible times through their senior lieutenant or troop-lieutenants and they will be stinted on neither remounts nor supplies. Our Grand Strahteegos is both my military and my civil superior and I am sworn to obey his orders, where such orders do not impinge upon my personal honor, but I’ll be damned if I’ll serve him as a rod with which he can punish an officer to whom he has taken a dislike or that officer’s subordinates, either.”
Sub-strahteegos Thoheeks Tomos Gonsalos said, “That is a good and a most noble gesture, Captain Ehrrikos. You other gentlemen should take it to heart, recall it when next that old man makes to set two of you to fighting, tearing at each other like alley curs. Remember that the continued cohesion and existence of this army is vital to the continued power of Council and to the very survival of these Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee. If you don’t want, to see a return to conditions of anarchy and chaos in these lands, then you must all cooperate to defeat whatever schemes this once-great man’s mind is apparently concocting. For all I know, he wants to be king, but if he does, it would seem to me he’d be trying to bind the army to him, not erode its discipline, fracture its cohesion and drive its best officers and common soldiers away from it.”
The army was gone for six weeks. Immediately it had marched back into the camp, while still the trains were making their dusty way to their depot, with a cracking of stock-whips and the shouts and foul curses of drivers and drovers, Captain-of-squadron Opokomees Ehrrikos of Panther Squadron and Senior Lieutenant Hymos of Rahnpolis reined up and dismounted before the building housing the camp headquarters of Wolf Squadron. After slapping as much dust as they could from their sweat-stained clothing, they entered to confront Bralos.
The first look at the officers’ faces told Bralos that something was amiss, and he suffered another cold chill of presentiment. Even so, he saw both the tired, sweating men served cool, watered wine and waited silently for the bad news for as long as he could bear it before finally demanding, “All right, how many men were lost from my squadron, Ehrrikos?”
“One killed, neck snapped when his horse fell at the gallop; the horse had to be put down, too. Three injured; one stabbed in the thigh with a spear, one knifed in some senseless, pointless brawl of a night— the eeahtrohsee give him a forty-sixty chance of living— one with his clavicle broken by a fractious remount horse.”
“Then why the long faces, gentlemen?” demanded Bralos, still more than certain that something was terribly wrong.
The senior lieutenant opened his mouth to speak, then, but kept silent when Captain Ehrrikos spoke first. “Almost to the old royal capital, there was a small bit of action on the road, you see.”
“Bandits?” said Bralos with incredulity. “They must’ve been mad to nibble at a column so large and strong.”
“No, not bandits, but certainly mad, nonetheless, Bralos. There was a gang of state-slaves at work at a crossroads, not working on the main road, but on the one crossing it there. A troop of your boys was riding back down the column to relieve another troop—one of mine—that had been riding rearguard for some hours. When some damned farmboy wight of an infantryman dropped a spear, one of the slaves grabbed it up, used it to slay two slave guards, and then two more slaves were armed. The other guards happened to be on the other side of the road with the marching column between them and the action, so your Lieutenant-of-troop Gahndos of Rohthakeenonpolis bade his men encircle the murderous slaves and disarm or kill them. He’s a good officer, that one, Bralos, but of course his early training was under me.
“The troopers had to finally kill all three of the slaves—that’s where your trooper got the spear wound in his thigh, he came in under your man’s lance only to get another in his whip-whealed, scabby back before he could withdraw the point of the spear. At the very end of the action, the Grand Strahteegos and his guards came pounding back from the head of the main column.
“Now in that ruckus, one other of your common soldiers, a sergeant, had been thrust in the armpit by one of the slaves he was trying to hit with the flat of his saber; in the withdrawal, the hooked blade of the slave-guard spear caught in and tore loose a good part of the upper sleeve of the sergeant’s arming-shirt.”
“Uh-oh!” said Bralos, shaking his head. “Pahvlos saw the mail lining?”
“No, not at first. In fact, he was reining about to go back when his damned Ilios Pooeesos saw and pointed it out to him,” replied Captain Ehrrikos sourly. “But he just stared, then rode on back up to his place in the column, and the march resumed from there.
“That evening, however, when we were barely done with the horses and the cooks were minding the rations, the old man rode in with his guards and a troop of heavy horse, fully armed and with Senior Captain Portos along for good measure, though he had left his pegboy in his pavilion, sitting on his peg, I suppose.
“He ordered me to fall out all of your troops— officers, sergeants and troopers. I did, what else could I do, Bralos? He ordered that they be assembled in ranks unarmed but carrying their arming-shirts, and this was obeyed. Then he and several of his guards dismounted and stalked up and down the ranks, using knives to cut the sleeves from off every arming-shirt save only those of the officers, throwing the sleeves out on the ground before the formation.
“That all done, he preached your three troops a long homily that concerned mostly his belief that an excess of useless armor slowed down troopers and needlessly overweighted their mounts. Nor could he stay a few stabs at you, it seems, telling them that they would not be punished unless they should try to reaffix the sleeves without first removing the forbidden mail inserts from them. He chided them for continuing to serve under a base, thieving, forsworn, arrogant, impudent, insubordinate … have I forgotten any, Hymos, my boy?”