MONTH OF THE SPARROW, FOURTH TENDAY, 9th day, 767 KD

I have not written in these pages for some time. I had thought maybe I would give it up entirely, but I need a place to put my thoughts.

During training, I put all thoughts away.

I was one recruit out of dozens. We would wake before dawn, fall into formation, perform calisthenics outside in the dark cold. Then we marched in formation to the mess hall, where we had ten minutes to eat a cold breakfast. Then we ran. Miles and miles we ran, up and down hills, in the mud, in the snow, across streams. We ran without equipment. We ran fully armed and armored.

We learned outlander time and outlander measurements. Outlander tactics.

We did everything together as a platoon, twenty-four of us, four squads of six. Davin was named our squad leader. He hated me because the sergeant, Cochran, said I did not belong. Because of me, our squad did extra running, extra pushups – which of course were quite difficult for me.

They told me a dozen times each day I should quit and become a clerk. In unarmed combat training, I was paired against Grady, the biggest man in the platoon. He was encouraged not to go easy on me. I suffered black eyes, cracked ribs, a broken nose, bruises all over my body, a broken arm. For the serious injuries, I had to be healed by our mage, another recruit whose skills were yet raw. Healing by an unskilled healer can be more unpleasant than the injuries themselves.

I would lie awake in my cot every night, covered in bruises, every inch of me hurting, inside and out, unable to sleep, the men snoring around me. During those nights I would make the decision to quit. But when morning came, for some reason, I did not.

We were expected to gain proficiency in every weapon. Without my right hand, I would never draw a bow again, or so I thought. A carpenter fashioned a wooden hand, which I strapped to my stump. Eventually I could hit the target just well enough to pass.

We ran, we swam, we climbed, we swung on ropes, we crawled through the mud. We had to take cover while instructors shot arrows at us. We learned to work together as a team, to help each other, to always watch out for our buddy. We learned codes, terminology, tactics. We were cold, we were wet, we were hungry. We were not permitted to fail.

We learned to navigate the forest at night. They taught us which foods we could eat and which to stay away from. We practiced hiding. We practiced hunting.

The final days culminated in armed combat – swords, bows, spears, axes, wearing full armor. Our mage stood by waiting to practice healing. She did not have to wait long. There were some close calls, but every man and woman in our platoon survived. I was shot with arrows and crossbow bolts, stabbed, slashed, burned, knocked unconscious.

At last, we had our final formation before Cochran. He dismissed us, and we were no longer recruits. We stood in line to receive our pay – twenty-one gold for twenty-one days. We had the next day off and were no longer confined to our barracks.

Most of the recruits went off together, but I was on my own, still an outcast. I heard a grumbling or two that I should not have been passed. Cochran himself told me that I was probably the worst soldier he had ever seen, but a soldier nonetheless.

I walked about town, feeling stronger and more fit than ever in my life, and more aware of my surroundings.

I found myself at the Great Stone Inn. I had not intended to go there. Certainly I looked forward to a night of sound sleep away from the barracks of snoring men, but there were other inns I could have gone to.

“Hello Handice.”

“Ruby,” I said. I had not expected to see her. I was drinking my second ale, feeling the tensions of the twenty-one days slowly dissolve.

“Always a man with a gift for words,” she said. “Are you going to invite me to sit, or are you too good to talk with me now that you are a tough warrior man?”

“Sit, if you like.”

She sat across from me, and ordered an ale from Dyana, who was serving me herself. I had thought perhaps I would drink enough to get up the nerve to take the innkeeper to bed. Now that Ruby was here, Dyana’s smile was more sisterly or motherly than the one she had greeted me with.

“You do not have to pretend to be glad to see me,” Ruby said.

I grunted. “I am not pretending to do anything.”

“I know. It was a joke. Lighten up, soldier.”

“Do not call me that.”

She sipped her ale and looked at me for a moment. “Do you wish for me to go?”

I hesitated for perhaps a moment too long. “No,” I said.

“I thought perhaps you might be happy to see me. I thought we were friends.”

“We are. It was you that called me an idiot for joining the army. You were right, by the way.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “Perhaps not. I was wrong to say what you should or should not do. Only you can say what is best for you. I should not have…reacted the way I did. I am sorry.”

I did not expect that.

“I thought maybe you came to gloat.”

“No.”

I finished my ale and ordered another, along with whiskey. “I am the worst soldier to ever don armor.”

“That is not true.”

“No? My sergeant told me that. About an hour ago.”

“Cochran?” she asked.

I looked up, startled. “You know him?”

“No. I have heard of him. He knows what he is about, he knows soldiering, but he is an asshole. Or so I have heard. He would not have passed you if he did not believe you qualified. He could have made you a clerk at any time.”

“How do you know?”

“I asked around. I know how to find out things.”

“Well, they need some soldiers to merely be fodder. That is likely why he kept me.”

“I don’t believe that. You will be a great soldier.”

I laughed, without mirth.

“Any word on your first assignment?”

“I would rather not talk about it. Or think about it. I just finished training this afternoon. It was fucking hell. I am rather tired.”

“Do not worry about what Cochran thinks, or what anyone else thinks. You made it through the training, did you not? At times, I bet you thought you never would.”

“Every day I thought that.” I drank my whiskey down.

“Perhaps slow down a bit? It is only the sixth hour.”

“I don’t care,” I said.

“Dyana, I would like a whiskey also, please. And another ale.”

I looked at her. “I thought you hated whiskey.”

“I do. But perhaps it will make this conversation less depressing.”

I laughed, with a bit of genuine amusement this time. “Sorry.”

“Enough about you, anyway. You have not bothered to ask how I have been.”

“How have you been?”

“Fine.”

“Excellent.”

She looked at me, thinking about something. “Did I ever tell you why I joined Trang?”

“Yes. You needed to get away. Because of your…you know. Talent.”

“That was part of it. I did not tell you all of it. I never speak of it.” She drank her whiskey and grimaced.

“What is the rest of it?” I asked her.

“My father disappeared when I was a little girl. Just…went out and never returned. My mother said that he abandoned us. I never believed it. Never.”

“I am sorry.”

“Under imperial law, anyone who has the Talent must go to Sanctuary, in Meridea. You know, the place you tried to take me.”

“Right. I am sorry, again.”

“I know. That is not why I am telling you. Well, I suppose I had to rub it in a bit. Beside the point. Anyway, my father had the Talent. He discovered it late, after I was born. He told no one. I…somehow I must have figured it out. I do not know how. I asked him about it. He tried to lie at first, but then he told me. And he told me I must tell no one. I never did. Not a year later, he was gone.”

“What do you think happened?”

“He defied the law. Defied the Empress. What happens to anyone who does that?”

She had tears in her eyes now. In all our days together, even after she killed the villagers, I had never seen her cry.

I did not know what to say, and said nothing.

She wiped her eyes with one angry motion, and the tears were gone, but when her eyes met mine, they shined with a fevered intensity. “I hate the fucking Empress. Trang is going to take that cunt down, and I want to be a part of it.”

“I want to be part of it as well,” I said. For the first time in quite awhile, I was almost glad I had made the foolhardy decision to try to become a soldier.

She smiled at me. “Enough of this serious shit. You look good, Handice. You really look like a soldier. They made a man out of you.”

“I don’t know about that.”

She drank her whiskey. “One more of these, and I might take you upstairs and finish the job.”

“Dyana!” I yelled, loud enough to be heard in the noisy common room. “Two more whiskeys please!”

Ruby put her hand on mine. “I was joking.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t need whiskey for this. Let’s go.”

Our orders came quickly. Three days later the company moved out, leaving at dawn and setting a brisk pace along the Marwoth, heading southeast.

We were at war with Fedra now, and on constant alert. Elyscia, the queen of Fedra, had been deposed and replaced by Varina, who vowed to drive all outlanders out of the country. General Trang seemed eager to meet the challenge.

Not that we ever saw the general. There were many outlanders among us. They came and went, delivering messages, passing along information about enemy positions. Whenever an enemy force was spotted, we went after them. Varina had underestimated our strength and spread her army too thin, a grave tactical error on her part.

My unit fought in three battles during the following eight days. We won every battle decisively, but there were losses. In our very first action, Grady, the enormous, indestructible giant who had beaten the shit out of me every day of training, took an arrow to the head. He died immediately. I did not witness it but saw him after, lying in the tall grass, eyes unseeing.

I killed a man for the first time in that battle. He was trying very hard to kill me, coming at me with a steel mace and murder in his eyes. The training had been burned into me until it became instinct. I ran at him, my sword moving of its own accord and slicing the man’s throat, his blood gushing. He died very quickly and quietly and I did not think of it all until much later, and after that, not at all.

Trang was a brilliant tactician. We outmaneuvered Varina time and again, and soon she became desperate. She sent all of her forces at us, down to the last man. She abandoned her castle in Barone and personally led her troops, in an act of misplaced courage or perhaps vanity.

Our forces were divided, protecting Glen Falls and a few other strategic positions. My unit was part of the force sent to confront the queen for the decisive battle. By now my platoon had survived three battles, losing only two men. We were quite confident in ourselves and each other. Whenever battle began, we fought for each other. But we loved Trang. We were in awe of him. It seemed he could not lose. In a year or so, we might have the entire continent.

Varina had us outnumbered slightly, but her troops were of inferior quality, and she had no mages at all.

We suffered some losses, mostly from her archers. Four men in my platoon died, including Davin, my squad leader. He was a great soldier, a natural leader and natural for combat, but arrows do not discriminate. I myself was shocked to have not suffered any injury, in four battles.

We defeated Varina’s force. Afterward, thousands of bodies littered the battlefield. Varina herself was captured.

We marched into Barone and took the great old city. I had never been to Barone, and my first experience of it was marching down empty streets, eerily quiet, catching glimpses of citizens peeking at us from windows or scurrying away down alleys.

There was a bit of resistance from some, and they had to be put down. It angered me. Why attack us for no reason other than to be killed? It was a waste. Eventually, much later, I would come to understand.

For a week, we were on top of the world. Barone was ours. All of Fedra was ours. Trang refused to declare himself king, did not believe in kings. He was a man of the people.

Soon word came that more fighting was imminent. Enemy outlanders, marshaling together a force to rival ours, led by an outlander named Vasha, First Sword of Fedra, a title given by the Empress herself. We had to mobilize fast to meet them.

My whole company was wiped out in the Currin Hills. We were sent to intercept a smaller force on its way to bolster their main army. It seemed like easy work, which should have been a warning sign. It was a trap. A battalion sized force came from nowhere, their mages unleashing fury on our numbers, the very ground exploding around us.

How I survived, I will never know. It was I and just four others, all badly wounded and hiding in the forest. I was the least wounded and able to move about. I found the others, one by one, and we assessed the situation, formed a new detail with me in command, our mission to locate our main army and regroup with them. That took us three days, and we nearly lost Taylor to his injuries. But we found the second division near Valise. We were Healed and reassigned to new units. Every face was grim. Trang had a target on his back. Half the outlanders in Friedor were making a concerted effort to take him down. A massive battle had taken place, while we were gone, and we had won by the skin of our teeth, our losses severe.

Worse news came. In a shocking betrayal, one of our own outlanders turned traitor, and took the city of Barone for himself, garrisoning the castle and declaring himself king of the new “city-state” of Barone. Trang, we heard, had nearly lost his mind in a fit of rage over this.

A few more of our outlanders simply left, taking men with them. A few others were killed by the First Sword of Fedra and were unable to resurrect. There was a new weapon, Permakill, that permanently killed outlanders. The Empress declared Trang an outlaw and offered 100,000 gold for his permanent death.

Despite all this, we somehow regrouped. Glen Falls remained strong, we heard, new troops training every day to begin replacing the thousands lost.

We still had a large army of over a thousand. We began methodically eliminating pockets of enemy outlander forces. Then we heard the worst news yet.

General Karn, king of Mukan, was leading an army to attack us from the south.

General Karn was a legend of the Unification Wars. He had never lost a battle, ever. Without him, the Empress never could have formed the Empire.

Trang showed no fear. He sent us to meet Karn’s army and fight them man for man, our forces lesser in number but having the advantage of outlander warriors and mages.

It was a costly mistake.

Karn never would have engaged us if he thought he could lose.

In the midst of a tough and brutal battle, new enemies arrived from the north and from the west, outlanders who had aligned with Karn.

Facing certain defeat, we retreated to the east, away from Glen Falls. Fewer than five hundred of us made it, driven all the way to the Frontier.

Word came later that we lost Glen Falls.

The enemy showed no mercy. No soldier, no mage, no citizen was spared. Dyana. Ashleigh. Most certainly dead. Ruby as well. The entire town was reduced to rubble.

One thing was made quite clear. The Empress had claimed credit for the victory. Anyone who followed Trang was a fugitive, subject to immediate beheading on sight. We were exiled to the Frontier, banished forever from our homeland. Traitors to the Empire.

We had chosen poorly.