Chapter 24: 24. Prepared to Fight

Sat under a candle lamp in the main room of her three-room cabin, Reida peeled streaks of wood from a stick with her carving knife.

Two ferals worked for her outside, putting together the last parts of a small courtyard under instruction from one of the Imperial acolytes.

It was the third bow she was attempting to craft. The other two were serviceable but a disgrace compared to those that her former clansmen carried. Hopefully, the third wouldn’t be.

A bend formed in her brow as she glanced over to the two poorly made bows. She might let someone use them if it was desperately important, but she would rather no one else ever saw them. The poor craftsmanship left a bad taste in her mouth.

But if she could get bowcrafting down, it would not just make her a lot of money but also help the fort survive. Even if her bows were only as good as the worst ones crafted by her clan, they would be among the best found within the Frontier.

As her knife hit a knot in the wood, it flicked outward, sending a split running down its length. “Argh! Curse the winds,” she hissed, throwing the bow away.

Another failure.

Exhaling and curling her hands into fists, she shook her head. Carving bows was eating into her hunting time. And that meant less meat to sell. And that meant less money for her family. But the stakes were too high to give up now.

She was no fletcher, but she had wasted away countless hours of boredom watching the clan bowmakers when she had nothing better to do, and she swore she could do it herself.

“This time, Reida. You’ve got this,” she muttered under her breath as she took another piece of yew from her pile.

**Imperator**

Mark stood on the wall, watching the new ferals coming into the fort. He counted at least forty all up, including their family members.

With all the new ferals within the fort and his elected tribunes, Mark guessed he would have over forty willing fighters amongst them now. A figure he could likely double if he opened the floodgates to those who wanted entry. But that would have to wait, especially with the cultist army still outside.

Stemming the flow of ferals into the fort wasn’t just about security. They needed homes. And the activity of ferals building log cabins already filled the tiny, narrow alleys they called streets every day.

Nonetheless, his attacks had reached the ears of the ferals in the surrounding area, and they had swelled their confidence. Or destroyed their confidence in the cultists—it was hard to tell. But the result wasn’t.

Several feral families had also begun moving their huts beside the fort’s walls, and a small community was developing outside of the main gate.

Mark mused how it wasn’t that long ago the ferals had literally run to his wall when they had wanted shelter. They were skittish and scared. Now, they proudly lived beside it.

He considered expanding the wall again to encompass these new huts, but there were still many cabins that needed to be finished and they just didn’t have the free hands to complete all that work.

He turned his gaze in the direction of the cultist's camp. From here, all he saw was a forest. But he knew they were out there. Likely planning something. And as good as raiding them and building up his legend was, he knew that it was risky to leave them for too long. They were, after all, humans. And humans could be ingenious when put to the test, he reminded himself.

Not only that, but the other tribunes had been begging him to let them join the raids. And it wasn’t just them. More and more of the ferals wanted to join the fight.

But what did he expect? His raiding party had become legendary within the fort. They were literally going out and killing the boogeyman; these people had spent their entire lives fearing. And they made it look easy. That was the kind of glory everyone wanted a slice of.

Trumus had been training ferals in combat for close to two weeks now. But after the raids, the number of volunteer students had doubled in size to over twenty.

And it wasn’t just war his people were developing. Venjimin was no fighter and had never been expected to join his army. Instead, he had started transcribing and explaining Imperium Law to the other tribunes and ferals. It was needed since Mark was still claiming to be upholding said law, regardless of how much he might have hated being bound by it.

It did, however, worry him a little. And it wasn’t just that he didn’t like the backward Imperial laws. The thought of Venjimin learning the laws better than he understood them himself intruded. That could be embarrassing if it got to that.

Still, as long as Henric and the other Imperials liked it, he thought it best to keep up the charade. Hopefully, when they saw how much better off they were working with the ferals rather than against them, they might come around.

Increasingly, everyone seemed to be finding use for themselves in the fort. Even Trayox had been more social recently. And had ended up as the fort’s muscle, hauling around and positioning logs for others when levers and pulleys were unable to do a jump for whatever reason.

Two of his other tribunes, Culla and Damox, had taken to patrolling outside the wall with a couple of others they had recruited into their personal retainers. Both men had scored quite high during the combat exams, and armed with shields, spears, and hatchets, they were a decent little show of force.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Mark was increasingly impressed at his tribunes' quick adaption to their roles, and new tasks were constantly added to their roles. Security within the outer walls had been their responsibility from the start, but now he expected them to keep the huts huddled against the outside of the walls safe as well.

This was all part of his plan. It was great that the ferals chose to live here, even if they weren’t allowed in yet, but Mark wanted them to feel like they were a part of society. That way, when he did extend Fort Winterclaw’s security branch to them, they would already be accustomed to their way of doing things.

And finally, there was his tribune, Gorzox. The man’s main attribute was his speed, and damn, did he run fast.

The Imperials had some basic maps drawn of the fort and its surroundings, but Mark realized they needed something better.

It wasn’t just details they were lacking, but distance. He wanted every yard paced out and recorded. Not only would this make logistics easier, but it would provide them with a better idea for range finding if they found themselves under siege for real in the future.

What he needed Gorzox to do, was run marked strings to the surrounding landmarks. With these strings they could measure the distance between the fort and points of interest around it that would be both easy to mark on a map, and easy for the user to make sense of.

The lack of good maps had almost made Mark laugh when he first looked at them. He knew that the Imperials were arrogant, but the more time he spent here, the more that sunk in. It was just one more example of the disrespect and overconfidence they had for the region. Elowen even confirmed this and explained that they just didn’t really care about their surroundings all that much.

***

Riding back through the gates after another successful raid, Mark raised his hand as the crowds gathered around to cheer. They had taken out another ten cultists. Things were getting bleak in the enemy camp. They hadn’t managed to replenish their losses again like last time, and bodies had been left to lie where they fell.

“How much longer are we going to keep doing this?” Henric asked as they rode through the crowd. “I doubt they even have thirty abled bodies remaining in their force. We could easily cut them down in a frontal attack.”

“I think you’re finally right about that,” Mark replied as he waved.

“Seriously? You’re ready to actually fight them now?”

“Sure, don’t act so surprised.”

Mark was certain they could continue with their raids with little risk. The enemy hadn’t gotten smart. Just a depressed shell of what they once were remained. But he couldn’t lose sight of why he wanted to fight them, to begin with.

It was easy to get caught up in the heroics, but when the wargs came, he knew he would need to rely on others. If his people didn’t get some real experience, it would be a bloodbath.

All I need to do is prevent anyone from dying, right? Mark cringed at the thought. Even if he could easily defeat the remaining cultists, making sure not a single person screwed up and got themself killed was almost impossible.

“What made you change your mind, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“It’s always been the same plan, Henric. We need to turn these people into warriors. We need them to be people you would trust to watch your back. And they’re not there yet. I just wanted to weaken our enemy. But the time has now come for everyone to show us what they’ve got. It’s time for a real battle.”

“I trust your ways, Imperator. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t overjoyed at your change of heart. Soldiers should face each other down before fighting.”

**Acolytes**

Callum eagerly slurped up a special stew that had been prepared by Treff at Mira’s request to make him feel better. But in truth, it was just the fort’s regular stew with ginger added to it. And he wasn’t sure it even made him feel any better. But everyone else had been on rations, which involved increasingly large portions of rigar dough. And increasingly less stew. So he wasn’t about to complain.

Grinning, he brought the bowl to his lips and poured the last of it down; he jumped in his bed, splattering his face as Erin slammed through the door.

“What are you doing?” She bent a brow as Callum cleaned his face with his shirt.

“What are you doing,” he hissed.

“Duties. Stupid, stupid duties,” Erin let out an exasperated sigh. “Whatever happened to getting pardoned?”

“Making you clean again?” Callum said as he finished cleaning his face.

“Everything is cleaning. Clean this, clean that. It’s never-ending,” she whined and threw herself onto her bed. “And I hate cleaning.”

“They still won’t let you on the wall?”

Erin shook her head as she pressed her face into the blanket. “Apparently I still can’t be trusted with a crossbow,” came her muffled groan as she talked into the blanket.

“Well, to be fair…”

“You didn’t forget who I did it for, did you?” Erin turned her face.

“Hey, I never told you to go shoot Radic. How was that supposed to help me anyway?”

“Vengence!”

“You need help.”

“You need help,” Erin mocked, trying to imitate Callum’s voice.

Callum opened his mouth to reply but turned as he heard footsteps. It was Clay, silently entering the cabin. It was obvious he didn’t want to. But he still shared the same cabin as them, and if he needed something, then, well…

“Look who it is,” Erin muttered.

“Sorry, I’ll be quick. Just need to grab a few things.”

Callum locked eyes with Erin. This was uncomfortable for all of them.

“It’s whatever, Clay. You can be normal now. What’s done is done,” Callum said.

“Okay.”

“What’s done is done,” Erin agreed pointedly.

“I know,” came Clay’s sober reply as he shuffled through his drawer.

“Ease up,” Callum mouthed to Erin.

“Fine,” she mouthed back.

“Look, I’m not angry anymore. It’s not like you did this to me. If anything, we should be angry at Radic.”

“Okay.”

“I’m being serious, Clay. We’ve seen things out there,” Callum said, thinking back to the Daggers. “If those feral cultists really do serve the wargs… who knows what’s going to happen? We might not make it through this. And I don’t want this… whatever it is, to continue. It’s too uncomfortable. Let’s just move on.”

“Well, we’re probably going to need brave people to survive the wargs, aren’t we?” Erin added.

“Ease up, I said,” Callum mouthed.

“Yeah, I get it. I’m a coward.”

“Sooorry,” Erin rolled her eyes at Callum.

“I really just don’t want this feeling to be the last thing between us, okay?”

“It’s fine, Callum,” Clay said, rising as he packed the last of his things. “It’s not like any of you are going to trust me again,” he shrugged and turned for the door.

“Wait up. That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Erin interjected.

“Shh, you.”

“She’s right,” Clay shrugged again. “Don’t worry about it. It is what it is. I was never meant to be a fighter anyway. If I’m lucky, I’ll get a nice, safe apprenticeship,” Clay said as he left the cabin.

“Alright, bye,” Erin called out.

“Would you quit it?”

“What? He’s right. Like I can trust him to have my back against wargs, or cultists, or whatever else is out there if he couldn’t even stand up to Radic?”

“You don’t know that. People change. Besides, do you really enjoy this dynamic? Seeing him moping around like this every day.”

“I dunno,” Erin shrugged. “I don’t hate it.”

“I thought you were the nice one.”

“Hmm,” Erin tapped her lip. “Am I the nice one? Maybe that changed when I was kidnapped and almost murdered. Maybe. I dunno. Just a thought.”

“You know I’m just… actually, don’t worry. Forget it.”

“Jeez, Callum. I’m just being real. Tell me, would you really trust him to have your back?”

Callum clenched his jaw. He hated this, but she wasn’t wrong.