IX

It had turned into a bloody festival, practically the entire town had turned out to see what was going on between Major Koplin and the new Lieutenant. Even the rain which was coming down in sheets at the moment did not deter the crowds of onlookers. Adrian glanced over at Isi, she was dancing a little dance, her cavalry boots splashing in the shallow lake that had become the ground for as far as the eye could see her head thrown back and up towards the sky and her arms moving in intricate patterns as her feet splashed out a rhythm,she chanted the words to her rain prayer as she danced.

Adrian always found this ritual in particular fascinating, her movements were fluid like water flowing downstream and the haunting melody she sang was catchy enough that he knew it would be stuck in his head for many days to come. Turning he looked at Major Koplin, who was kneeling in a puddle, covered only by the cavalry pants he wore and his boots. His shirt and jacket had been confiscated, seeing as there was no point in damaging the man’s clothing. He had his arms bound to a flogging cross and he rested his head against the smooth wood and openly wept. The first blow had yet to be even given and he wept, the tears going unseen in the downpour of water from above.

“Major Koplin,” Adrian spoke up, his voice carrying over the low rumble of rain. “You are hereby sentenced to lashing for the dereliction of duty regarding your task at fort Nolheim.”

“Baseless accusations!” he shouted, twisting to see Adrian, he could only get a glimpse of Adrian from out of the corner of his eye. Adrian walked slowly in a circle like a predator stalking its prey until he came to the other side and the man could look at him without twisting and contorting in some odd angle.

“It is not up for debate and I am not here to hear your excuses, the order has been given, it shall be followed through,” Adrian declared.

“You can't do this I am of noble blood!”

“All blood is the same to the army, we are all noble and we are all base, war cares not for either.” he glanced at Torin and nodded, catching his eye on Isi who still danced the rain’s prayer where he had left her. Torin nodded and advanced a step forward, the four-clawed slash sliding through the muddy water as he dragged it into place.

“Bu-”

“Began!” Adrian barked and locked eyes with the man who tensed when the sound of the lash whistled through the air, his eyes screwing shut. A scream left the man’s lips before the lash ever caressed his back and quickly turned into a moan of pain as he felt its touch. The metal tipped lash that was used for punishments like this didn't actually rip the flesh on the first blow, it simply tenderized it. In fact most of the time it would only score the skin if the lashed was particularly savage and even then it typically required somewhere like six or seven consecutive strikes. This was a good thing as it meant that the minor offenses that required five lashes would not impede a soldier’s duty for too long after he had received them.

“ONE!” Torin called out his loud voice booming out across the silent clearing.

“Please I be-” his words were cut off as the lash whistled through the air again, the words in his mouth twisting into a cry of pain.

“TWO!”

“I’ll-Ill do anyth-”

“THREE!”

His eyes were wild, with fevered movements spurred on by pain and fear he attempted to twist out of the restraints that bound him to the last pole, attempting to escape through brute strength alone. But the restraints were secure and he was going nowhere.

“FOUR!” Major Koplin’s back arched as he writhed attempting to twist his body out of the lashes way.

“FIVE!” Koplin’s head slammed into the pole as his feet slipped out from under him and he fell limp sagging against his restraints. Torin went to raise the lash again but Adrian held out a hand and stopped the Sargent. Slowly Adian walked forward and kneeled in front of the man. With careful fingers, he opened the man’s eyelids seeing only the whites and knowing the man to be unconscious. Sighing he reached into his pocket and withdrew the small tin of reagents, making sure to keep the box of powders our of the rain and under the protection of his tricorn hat. Carefully he stuck his damp fingers in the small bottle of Ichor and the powdered Nitre, his fingers came away one covered in the powder the other dripping with the sticky black substance and he shut the tin replacing it with his other hand into the pocket and looked at the man.

Standing back up he held one hand over the other, shielding the reagents from the rain and he focused. Blue light swirled and he felt a cooling burn on the tips of his fingers as the reagents were consumed to fuel his spell he opened his hand and the blue light swirled around his fingers a ball of white and blue energy between his two hands he pulled them apart fighting the Magic's attempt to pull his hands together. The light died, leaving his hands open, simply held in the air like he was posing. He looked at his hands, feeling the spell inside of him, feeling it ready to be unleashed and smiled.

To cast a spell a mage needed three things, the first was to know the ritual to cast, meaning what reagents were required and what movements were needed. The second was to precast, essentially like loading a musket, each step of the casting ritual needed to be followed exactly or the caster risked a backlash were the energy of the spell was fed back into the caster themselves, which was a particularly unpleasant experience, like every vein of your body was on fire… The third and arguably the most important was to focus the spell, a spell once precast remained on demand for a short time, if it was not used in that time then it was wasted, the time varied from caster to caster, but no matter how good someone was at casting they to would lose the spell if it was not used quickly enough.

He pointed at Major Koplin, his hands flashing white for the briefest of seconds and a white light engulfing the man as well. He screamed, his eyes flashing open as the electric shock caused his muscles to start to spasm. Adrian had not used that many reagents on the man, just a few, nothing more than enough energy to wake the man and cause a few of his muscles to twitch. He once again kneeled down in front of the man. “Pass out again and I will wake you again,” Adrian growled. Major Koplin’s eyes were wide with terror. “After all, what good is a punishment if the punished can escape to the peaceful realms of unconsciousness?” he asked the man softly. “Sargent! Begin again!”

“Sir!” Adrian stayed there, at eye level and stared into Major Koplin’s eyes as the lash whistled through the air for the sixth time…

***

He watched as they dragged Major Koplin away to be tended to by the army medic, the rain had washed away the majority of the blood, whisking away the constant trickles of red and diluting them into pink puddles that spread out from the lashing post. The rain had not stopped simply slowed and Adrian glanced over at his side to see Isi ringing her hair out her head to the side seemingly not caring one way or another about the entire affair. He glanced at the pole and remembered his own time spent lashed there, remembered his refusal to cry out, his bloody fingers from gripping the wood of the pole to roughly. He hated it, hated everything about that cross and he was pretty sure Isi felt the same way.

The faster they were away from this place the better.

“Sargent!” he snapped, Torin was at his side in a heartbeat.

“Sir?”

“Congratulations, you re now a Staff Sergeant.”

“Thank you, Sir!” Torin snapped a salute.

“Now, I want this camp packed and this sorry lot on the road in half an hour am I clear?”

“I'll see to it sir,” he said, making a strange sort of head movement halfway between a nod and a shake.

“You do that,” Adrian nodded and watched the man walk away barking orders at the men assembled. He glanced over at Isi she was soaking wet. He had offered her a parasol but she had refused it, simply wishing to stand under the rain. She smiled at him, making damned sure she avoided looking at the whipping pole, after all, it had to be much more humiliating for a woman to be lashed to that pole than for a man, seeing as she had to have her chest bare and have no way of covering herself. He often wondered how she had come by those scars, as he had made damned sure she had not gotten any while at the camp, but he had never asked, and she had never told.

Some things were better left untouched…

***

Adrian was impressed, it had only taken the men twenty minutes to pack up their belongings and form a few ragged columns. Four hundred men, well, just shy of four hundred, and there were only four or five that were enlisted officers and not simple troops. This was his army, a second attempt at command after the disastrous failure of the first one. And he would be damned if this command was going to fail. He assessed the men, all of whom besides the chosen honor guard that had come to receive him were unkempt, to put it politely. To put a sharper point on it he would say that the majority of them looked like a ragtag bunch of deserters and thugs. It was going to require quite some work to get these men into shape.

In that sense, they were like the fort they were going to occupy, and he was sure it was going to take a lot of back-breaking work to get both them and it back into shape…

“Alright, men!” he shouted but there was really no need, every eye was already on him and he looked over the lot of them, seeing some hopeful, others angry and still others not caring. The latter making up the majority of the men. “My name is Adrian Nashoba,” he shouted, the name still filling strange to him like it was not really his. “You may call me Sir or Sir Adrian, or refer to me by my rank is that clear?”

“Yessir!” Torin shouted, followed by his men, there were a few sounds of “Yessir” and “Sir” from within the crowd but the vast majority of the men didn't say a word.

“I see,” Adrian said softly to himself, a grim smile on his lips. “This is the Helheim army, we respect our superior officers here, any who are found out of line or refusing to do so will be subject to disciplinary actions,” he growled. A small murmur went through the crowd of gathered men, no doubt thinking of the last disciplinary actions they had just witnessed. “Follow orders and you will be rewarded,” he said, “If you do not...” he didn't finish his words, he didn't need to, almost every eye turned to the cross planted into the ground.

“Bloody noble,” a man called out from the crowd, but Adrian couldn't pick him out.

“You get to sit relaxing while we toil and if we don't toil enough then we get beat is that it?” another called out.

“No,” Adrian said, turning his back to them, “You will not toil alone, I will be there with you,” carefully he raised his hands, showing the scarred palms, hardened from years of work. Most couldn't see them, but enough did that word spread through the ranks. “We march,” he said turning and taking Isi’s arm. “We have a lot of work to do after all...”