The running continued, with the Lieutenant finding fault with different people each time they returned. The identification of the fault was usually accompanied by a blow, but fortunately there were no more broken limbs. Niall stopped thinking and just lost himself in the sense of flow for each run. The Lieutenant gave the order to heal and hydrate after each run and Niall used this time to try to regain a much energy as he could. He was suffering, but not as much as many of the others.

The sun was a couple of fingers above the horizon when the Lieutenant addressed them yet again.

“Check your Testimony”

Niall followed the order, but could not see any changes. He kept the look of confusion off his face but continued to pay attention to the Lieutenant.

“Those of you that have gained a level in Acolyte Healer take one step forward.”

Niall did not dare to look around, but from the corner of his eye he saw around half a dozen people take a step.

The Lieutenant glanced around then gestured to them to move back into line. “This morning was unpleasant wasn’t it? I could see it in your eyes. The anger. The resentment. The frustration at not being able to heal your wounds the way you’ve done since you were children. Yet, six of you gained a level in just a few hours. That’s six of you who are less likely to die in the future.

“Understand this. I’m not your friend, or your mother. I don’t care if you like me or not. I’m here to keep you alive and to make fighters. If you have to put up with a little discomfort while you learn then I am prepared for you to pay that price. The Healers here are better than anything you have at home so each day you will be patched up ready to face just a little bit more discomfort.

“No need too thank me.

“Now, it’s been several hours since Dawncall, recruits. Do you know what we were meant to be doing for those hours?”

“No, Sir.” The lesson that there was no such thing as a rhetorical question had been taught by one of the earlier runs.

“We were meant to be learning how to march. Instead, it turns out you’re not even capable of getting dressed or following simple orders. Do you know what we were meant to do after that?”

“No, Sir.”

“We were meant to be having breakfast. However, I am not going to allow you to disgrace the mess hall in the state you’re in. Therefore, I am going to have breakfast while you will get clean, hydrated and dressed. Unfortunately for you, the Sergeant and his instructors are also going to have to miss their breakfast because you cannot be trusted to do those simple things. I expect they will make it very clear to you how happy they are with that. Dismissed.”

Once the Lieutenant had left, the recruits were herded into the barracks by the instructors. A healer was waiting. She quickly healed the man with the broken arm as well as a few people who did not have sufficient Healing skills to keep up with the regime. Lieutenant Bligh’s training methods were clearly not unexpected.

While the Healer was working Sergeant Strang called out. “Men, follow Corporal Greef. Women, follow Corporal Tate.”

Niall did as he was told and followed the Corporal out of a door at the back of the barracks. They were led into a changing room

“Strip.”

Niall looked around for a second but it was clear that delaying would not change the order. Supressing a grimace, he rapidly peeled off his uniform. As they were led out through another door, Niall had a scratchy towel slung over his shoulder, and was handed a wash cloth and a bar of evil-smelling soap. Through the door, Niall found himself in a tiled room with drain in the middle. There was a stack of buckets to one side and a trough of water that was replenished via a continuously running spigot. He barely took any of this though as he stared at Sergeant Strang. The Sergeant was as naked as they were.

“Fall in! Understand that, for the purposes of the army, you know nothing. Including how to wash yourself. Watch. Learn. Remember. You will do it this way every time. Start with pouring the water like this.”

Niall watched in bemusement as the Sergeant showed the recruits in detail how they were to wash and dry themselves. Bemusement turned into horror as the Sergeant and Corporal Greef shouted criticism and corrections at the recruits when it was their turn to get clean.

The lessons in basic activities continued for the rest of the morning. By the time Niall headed into the mess hall for lunch, he was a little dazed at the information that had been thrown at him. From lessons in personal activities such as how to put on his clothes, clean his boots, or make his bed, to communal activities such as cleaning and doing the laundry.

He broke out of his reverie as the man behind the table splatted mashed potato onto his bowl and ladled on stew with identifiable vegetables and unidentifiable meat.

He looked around the hall and saw Huff sitting with two others at a table. He sat down next to them. Huff looked at his face and laughed. “Not what you were expecting, huh?”

Niall shook his head. “I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it definitely was not to see the Sergeant, well like that.”

The whole table laughed. “My older brother warned me that would happen,” said one of the others, he was a chubby red-haired halfling with an easy smile. “He always kids around though so I thought he was winding me up. Apparently not. I’m Penton by the way. My family are hauliers that work the frontier towns.”

“Niall. I’m a blacksmith from Raintor. An apprentice blacksmith really.”

The final person at the table was woman. Although she was clearly also a halfling, to Niall’s untutored eye she was unlike the halflings he thought he knew about. Rather than chubby and cheerful, she was lean and wiry, with her black hair tied back with a leather thong. She looked at him quizzically. “A blacksmith? If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t look like a blacksmith.”

“No offence taken. I agree with you. My Uncle agreed to take me on, I’m going to start once I’ve completed my militia training.”

“Raintor. I know that name.” The woman’s eyes widened. “Wait, you’re Devon’s nephew?”

“You know Devon?”

“Most everyone on the borders knows Devon. He’s the best smith for a hundred miles. To find someone as good as him, you’d need to head to Hallen. To be honest, even though the Smiths there think they are the best, because they work in the capital of the Duchy, Devon could hold his own with most of them. Some people think he’s a Master Smith. Sounds unlikely to me, but his stuff is a cut above most other people. Of course, he famously refuses to make weapons. That’s why I don’t think he can be a Master. Whoever heard of a Master Smith that doesn’t make weapons?”

Niall looked at her carefully. “Who are you again?”

“Oh, I’m Shannon.”

“I’m Niall. But what do you mean about him not making weapons?”

“Why are you asking me? How come you don’t already know?”

Niall shrugged. “I honestly never noticed. Not much call for weapons where we are beyond knives and arrows. He’s very private. He’s never mentioned it to me.”

Shannon leaned across the table. “Well, I’m talking about proper weapons, not toys for hunting. I don’t know much, but the story I heard is that he was a really skilled Bladesmith. Like one of the best, a shoe-in to become a Master within a few years. But then something happened on his Journeyman Quest. No one knows what it was, but now he refuses to make weapons at all.”

“You seem to know a lot about Devon.”

Penton rolled his eyes from the other side of the table. “Shannon thinks she knows a lot about everything.”

Shannon casually clipped Penton around the ear. “That’s why you love me. If I’m going to be a Master Merchant then I need to know where to get the best things at the best price. Devon’s one of the best.”

Penton saluted her with a loaded fork. “And when you do, I’ll be right there with my donkeys to get everything to where they need to be.”

“Never a truer word.”

Niall looked from one to the other. “You two know each already?”

“We’re engaged,” said Shannon with a smile. “Our families have been working together for generations.”

“Just need to get through militia training before we can head off and set up our own thing,” Penton said.

“And I know Penton as his family have been coming through Raintor several times a year since before I was born,” said Huff.

“So, are we all from frontier towns?” Niall asked.

Penton looked around and shrugged. “Most of us, I guess. To be honest, most of the Duchy is pretty near the border, but they try to train militias together with people they know already. Apparently, going through this together creates a bond that will help if there’s a need for the militia to fight.”

Niall was about to reply when the Sergeant came into the mess hall. “Parade Ground. Five minutes.”

The four of them passed on conversation and focussed on shovelling in as much food as they could before they ran back outside.

Once they had all lined up, the Sergeant and the instructors marched them across the camp. As they rounded a corner, they saw the Lieutenant leaning against a rack of spears reading her book. A stand containing large shields was on the other side of her. She closed her book once the recruits were lined up in front of her.

The Lieutenant picked up a spear and planted the butt in the ground. “I will be open with you, recruits. My job here is to get all of you through your Militia Recruit levels so you attain a Militia Class in three months. After that, my orders are to get you to level up to Militia 2 by the time you complete your field exercises. That’s not very hard.

“However, Militia 2 isn’t close to being good enough. In recent months, the skirmishes against the Bulvine have increased in both frequency and intensity. The army is stretched thin. As a consequence, this Militia class will be being deployed to Forward Base Glaive for its field exercise. Put another way, you’ll be spending three months on the front lines.”

The Lieutenant started to pace in front of them using the spear as a walking stick. “There is a consequence to this. Those of you who aren’t at least Militia 2 by the end of these initial three months will undoubtedly die during the first month in the field. Those who are not at least Militia 3 by the end of that first month will similarly die during the second or third months. To be transparent with you, even if you’re Militia 3 you will likely still die. Only those of you who are Militia 4 or 5 at that point have realistic chances of survival.”

She turned and threw the spear. It flew a hundred metres across the field to where a straw dummy stood and exploded through its head. She surveyed what she had done for a moment before turning back to the arrayed recruits.

“I tell you this so you understand what is at stake during your training. If you die in the field, I don’t care for your sake. However, your death may cause the death of those around you and, more concerning, my death. I am very much attached to my life and so I would much rather you died during your training here. The paperwork is very much easier to deal with when we’re in camp than when we are in the field. So, I suggest you pay very close attention to everything Sergeant Strang has to teach you.”

The Lieutenant stepped to one side and took out her book as the Sergeant took her place and started to yell orders. Niall expected to learn how to fight using a spear, however he underestimated how little faith the professional soldiers had in the recruits. As it turned out, the entire afternoon was spent practicing how to put on and take off the shields, as well as learning how to carry the spears in a way that avoided impaling those around them while not tripping over.

Niall was pleased to realise he was by no means the least competent at all of these activities. He had never envisaged being in a position where he would have to fight. That was what soldiers were for, and national service was long in the past for him. He was surprised at how much satisfaction he derived from it. Getting pleasure from physical activities was not something that was part of his prior experience, yet here he was, feeling like punching the air when he was one of the fastest at being able to strap on his shield and stand at attention with his spear.

As a result, he was in a good mood when he joined Huff, Penton, and Shannon in the mess hall for dinner. “Is it just me, or was this afternoon fun?”

Huff looked up from where he was slumped over his meal. “Fun? Didn’t you hear what the Lieutenant said?”

“What do you mean?”

Huff sat upright. “We’re being set up to die.”

“We just need to get up to Militia 4 or 5, right?” Niall said. “That’s not too hard, surely?”

A few people from the other tables looked over at them and Huff hunched back over his food and lowered his voice. “Don’t be so naïve. We’re not going to become professional soldiers in three or four months. Those guys train forever before they go out into the field and then they get months at a soft field posting to consolidate everything that they’ve learnt. We’ve got three stinking months. Fighting on the front line was never the deal.”

Shannon leaned in. “I’ve heard the Bulvine attacks on the frontier have been getting much, much worse ever since the autumn. The regular army is stretched thin. In normal times they would never send a bunch of newly trained militia to the front lines. Things must be worse than we thought. If the brass told the Lieutenant that’s what she has to do, I wouldn’t want to be her.”

“Oh, don’t feel sorry for her,” Penton said. “She’s in a win-win situation. No one’ll expect us to do anything. She’ll get the credit for whatever we achieve. Even if we all get killed, she’ll be the hero for managing to achieve as much as she did.”

Huff slumped further over his food. “Like I said, we’re going to die. Where can I get a drink in this forsaken dump?”

Niall looked around the little group. The body language from all of them made it clear how they felt. Glancing around the room he could see the dejection reflected in the rest of the recruits. The flame of anger that had flared on occasion since he had arrived in Gwilliant sparked once more. He had had enough of being pushed around by people with more power than him. With a shrug he started tucking into his beige meal with gusto. “No, we’re not,” he said.

"Not what?" Shannon asked.

"We're not going to die. Any of us."

“Really?” Penton asked. “What makes you say that?”

“I’m going to come up with a plan, I don't know what it's going to be yet. Just give me a few days. I’ve not come this far just to die.”