The first thing Kang Mujin heard upon returning to the Steel Bastion was not the sound of a hammer.
“Hold the line! Front rank, shields up!”
Rakan’s bellow carried over the low rampart.
The training ground had been newly cleared on the open lot south of the smithy. Straight lines had been drawn into the dirt with powdered lime, and inside them some thirty members classified as the immediate combat unit stood in three rows. With humans and beastfolk, dwarves and demihumans all mixed together, heights and arm lengths differed, and once they were given shields made to a single standard the differences only grew starker.
For the goat-horned demihuman at the right of the front rank, the top of the shield covered the eyes; conversely, the bear beastman’s shoulders were so broad that a single standard shield could not cover his body.
“Spears up!”
The spear shafts of the second row rose all together.
Though “all together” was a slight stretch — two were late, and one struck a front-rank shield, wood and iron ringing out noisily.
Rakan raised a hand.
“Freeze as you are.”
When the young human who had been late stiffened mid-motion of lowering his spear, Rakan walked up in front of him and examined the position of the shaft.
“Why were you late?”
“I couldn’t see ahead of me.”
“Then what did you see?”
“Sir?”
Rakan tapped the young man’s foot with the tip of his own.
“The heels of the front rank. The shoulder of the man beside you. The command banner. You’ve got three things to watch. Don’t crane your neck trying to see the enemy’s face.”
He lowered his body behind a shield and took hold of the shaft himself, and the spear thrust out through the gap between two front-rank shields, a gap one fist wide.
“What you’re stabbing isn’t the enemy. It’s this line. Make the enemy come onto the line.”
Rakan handed the spear back.
“Again.”
The formation returned to its starting places.
Kang Mujin stood at the edge of the training ground and watched the scene, and it was different from the militia before he had left for the forest. Back then they had been people holding weapons; now they were learning how to cover one another’s gaps.
Rakan’s nose twitched and he turned his head.
“You’re back?”
“I’m back.”
“The forest?”
“The discussions have begun.”
Rakan’s ears laid back slightly, then returned to place.
“Then we’d better do ours.”
He faced the formation again.
“Hold the line! Twenty paces forward!”
The shield wall moved.
The first five paces looked passable, but at the sixth the stride lengths diverged, and while a short-legged dwarf fell behind, a hot-tempered wolf beastman pulled a half step ahead, opening a gap between shields. Rakan halted the formation at once.
“Who was fast?”
The wolf beastman bared his teeth.
“Me.”
“And who was slow?”
The dwarf stroked his beard down.
“It’s not that I’m slow, it’s that this fellow’s legs are needlessly long.”
A few people laughed, but Rakan did not.
“On a battlefield they mean the same thing. They mean a gap opened.”
He drew a line before the wolf beastman’s feet, and another before the dwarf’s.
“The fast one slows down. The slow one memorizes his stride. Being fast alone only offers up your flank.”
The wolf beastman twisted his lips.
“Even with the enemy right in front of us, we wait?”
Rakan drew a wooden sword from his waist and threw it to him.
“Step out.”
The formation stirred.
The wolf beastman caught the wooden sword and came forward; his shoulders were solid and his movements quick. A hunter from the borderlands, Kang Mujin recalled — one who had gone out after raiding parties many times since the militia was first formed.
Rakan took up only a shield.
“Knock me down and today’s training ends.”
The moment the wolf beastman dropped low he charged straight in, the wooden sword grazing the shield’s edge as it went for Rakan’s throat.
Rakan did not evade.
He pushed the shield half a hand’s width to alter the sword’s path and stepped forward, and as the top of the shield pressed down on the wolf beastman’s shoulder and broke his balance, Rakan’s foot hooked behind his opponent’s ankle.
Two motions.
The wolf beastman slammed his back into the ground.
Rakan looked down and said.
“You’re fast.”
He extended a hand.
“Which makes you well suited to dying alone.”
The wolf beastman looked at that hand for a moment, then took it and rose.
“Let’s go again.”
“Formation first.”
Rakan handed back the shield and walked to the front of the line.
“This isn’t training to pick out the strong. It’s training to keep the man beside you from dying. Your races differ, your heights differ, your strength differs. So match each other. If you can’t match, we do it until you can.”
Kang Mujin heard a different grain in Rakan’s voice than before.
The Rakan he had rescued from the mine had been accustomed to movements that kept one body alive — his own. After he began following at Kang Mujin’s side he had learned how to stand in front of others, and now he was watching thirty pairs of feet at once.
It was not so very different from working iron.
Heat irons of differing natures to the same temperature and one of them was certain to be ruined. If the carbon content differed, the moment to draw it from the fire had to differ too — and yet the specifications of the finished article could not differ along with it. It had to suit the hand of the one who used it, yet perform the same role when set alongside the rest.
Kang Mujin reached a hand toward the weapons stacked at one side of the training ground.
The sense of the blessing swept over the iron.
Thirty-six spearheads, twenty-two swords, nineteen iron helms, forty-one shield rims. They were the ones he had inspected at the smithy, but their condition had changed in the course of training. Three spearheads had loosened inside their sockets, one sword had accumulated fine fatigue where blade met tang, and two shield rims had nails half worked out.
When he crooked his fingers, the flawed weapons rang low.
A jangle.
One spear was dragged sideways out of the formation, and then swords and shields left their owners’ hands and settled at the edge of the lot. Startled, the members clutched at their empty hands.
“I’ll see to these again.”
Kang Mujin said.
Rakan counted the vacancies.
“Can’t train without weapons.”
“The spares are in the second rack of the armory.”
“All the same specification?”
“The spears are the same. The swords differ in grip thickness.”
“Why?”
Kang Mujin looked at the hands within the formation: thick fingers and long claws, hands with webbing still between them and palms entirely covered in fur, all mixed together.
“Because the hands differ.”
Rakan gave a short snort.
“You tell them to match in formation, but you match the weapons to them.”
“They can only stand matched if they can wield matched.”
“That’s true enough.”
Rakan pointed out three of the members.
“Fetch the spares. Run.”
The three sprinted for the armory.
Kang Mujin picked up the flawed sword; the heat treatment had been done properly, but the corner at the tang’s shoulder was too sharply angled. Repeated impact had gathered there — a defect that had not shown itself at completion.
It was fortunate it had surfaced before real battle.
When he rubbed the spot with his thumb, he felt the grain of the iron splitting finely somewhere inside his fingertip.
“Has the training gotten rougher?”
“Started shield-wall collisions today.”
“I see.”
“Don’t get angry that they broke. A weapon broke instead of a person.”
“Then it broke well.”
Rakan turned to look at Kang Mujin.
“So you say things like that too.”
“A thing that will break ought to break near the forge.”
Setting the sword aside, Kang Mujin judged that he would have to reinspect every sword made the same way; the odds were good that one blade’s flaw did not end with one blade. Standardization was a way of making things quickly and, at the same time, a way of multiplying the same mistake quickly.
Just then Rosen approached from the entrance of the training ground with a thick ledger tucked under his arm, and behind him followed two scribes carrying inkpots and wooden tags.
“Everyone happens to be here.”
Rakan scowled.
“Writing names again?”
“The stage of writing only names is over.”
Rosen spread the ledger open on the long table set up beside the training ground. The one hundred forty-two people registered in the Steel Bastion’s militia and labor roster were divided by role, and beside each name, columns for unit and equipment had been ruled in densely.
“We record unit, branch, issued equipment, proficiency, shift, dependents, and injury history.”
“Why do dependents matter for fighting?”
“So that while a soldier is on the wall, the food doesn’t stop reaching his family.”
Rakan shut his mouth.
When Rosen turned the next page, black and red lines ran alongside the names.
“Total residents number two hundred and two. Of those, one hundred forty-two are registered militia and labor personnel capable of shift duty; thirty-eight form the regular combat unit ready to fight immediately, and twenty-three are the training reserve. The remaining eighty-one are divided among watch rotation, transport, engineering, and cooking. Sixty others — young children, dedicated caretakers, and those recovering in sickbeds — are managed on a separate residents’ roster as recipients of rations and protection.”
He ran his finger down each item.
“We have only twelve archers, and of those, five are capable of long-range shooting. Night watch is rotated in three shifts mixing combat and watch personnel, but the north tower stands empty two hours every day.”
“It isn’t empty.”
“Because Sir Rakan goes up in their place.”
“Then isn’t that settled?”
“If the commander guards the tower every night, his judgment in the day’s training clouds over. Stamina cannot be supplied through logistics.”
Rakan’s tail lashed once, roughly.
“Drop the ‘Sir.’”
“I cannot. From now on, the militia is not a body that moves on one individual’s goodwill.”
Rosen held up a wooden tag with a name and number carved on the front and the assigned squad on the back.
“Issued goods are managed by this number. Receive a spear and it is recorded; break it and it is returned. Food is distributed the same way. There will be no eating more for having fought more, nor receiving less for having arrived late.”
One bear beastman raised a hand from the formation.
“Our race eats twice what a human does.”
“I am aware.”
Rosen opened another ledger.
“I have set separate baseline ration amounts by race. Dividing uniformly is not the same as dividing fairly. In exchange, within the same race everyone receives the same amount.”
A human member at the back asked.
“Then doesn’t our share shrink?”
“No. We calculate the required total first. If it falls short, instead of making people queue, we must go out and obtain more. That is my work.”
Rosen’s answers were gentle, but without a gap in them.
Kang Mujin looked down at the numbers on the ledger; iron he could count by sense, and with his eyes closed he knew where and how much of it lay, and how far it had worn. But people’s circumstances were not like that. Who climbed the tower each night in another’s place, how many mouths there were to feed in whose house, who could not set down a spear even after being wounded — that was what was written in that ledger.
Nor did the wall run on thirty-eight combat troops alone. If the hands that carried arrows and food, the hands that tamped down collapsed roads, the hands that tended the boiling cauldrons were cut off, even the one holding a spear would not last long.
A wall was not built of stone alone.
“What is promised to those who register on the roster?”
Kang Mujin asked.
Rosen lifted his gaze from the ledger.
“First, they receive rations and equipment suited to their assigned role. For the combat unit and the reserve, priority of treatment is guaranteed if wounded, and should they fall, their dependents receive the same rations for one season. I intend to apply the same standard to anyone who dies or is gravely injured during watch or transport.”
“And after one season?”
“With our current stores it is difficult to guarantee beyond that.”
Kang Mujin looked at the smithy’s chimney, and beyond it the low roof of the grain storehouse. Weapons were increasing, but grain could not be melted down and remade like iron.
“Set it at two seasons.”
Rosen’s eyebrows moved slightly.
“Doing so may put the winter stores at risk.”
“I’ll prioritize repairing the outlying farm tools. I’ll increase production of plows and hoes for clearing land as well.”
“Weapon output will fall.”
“I’ll turn one forge over entirely to household implements. Aisha and the apprentices can take charge of it.”
Rosen did not answer at once, instead writing several lines in the ledger’s blank space as he calculated.
“It is possible. However, the charcoal allotment will have to be adjusted again.”
“I’ll speak with Doria.”
Rakan folded his arms.
“Does fixing what they’ll eat after they die of fighting make a man fearless?”
Kang Mujin looked at the formation; some were looking at Rosen’s ledger, some at Rakan.
“Fear doesn’t go away.”
He said.
“But it can make them look back less.”
Rakan’s hand brushed his wrist without thinking, and beneath the sleeve the scar of a slave’s brand remained, but he soon lowered the hand and turned to face his people.
“You heard? Putting your name down doesn’t make you a soldier. But the man who put his name down doesn’t fight alone either.”
Rakan tapped the line in the earth with his wooden sword.
“From today the combat unit is divided into squads of about ten. The reserve is bound together with the regular unit and learns the same signals. No clustering by race. A vacant place is filled by the same squad. If someone runs, the whole squad goes after him.”
Someone asked quietly.
“Do we catch him and punish him?”
Rakan looked that way.
“We bring him back alive.”
“And if he runs again?”
“Bring him back again.”
“And if he keeps doing it?”
“Keep going.”
Rakan slung the wooden sword over his shoulder.
“Being dragged off by the enemy and running on your own two feet are different things, but both of them are our people, to be taken back. Punishment comes after they’ve returned alive.”
Silence held for a moment, but Kang Mujin added nothing. It was the discipline Rakan had set. The one who had been bound in chains in the mine was now establishing a military code that bound no one else.
Rakan took down a broken iron shackle that had hung from the training ground’s post like a trophy and laid it beside the ledger.
“This has no place in our code.”
At the rear of the formation, those who had been hiding the scars on the napes of their necks raised their heads one by one.
“The one who runs is taken back, and the one who gave the order leaves his name. I won’t build an army where only the soldiers bear responsibility.”
Rosen opened the ledger’s first page and slid it to the end of the table.
“The commander’s signature is required.”
Rakan glared at the quill.
“You know I can’t write.”
“You must learn now.”
“Knowing how to hold a blade is enough.”
“There must be a record of who gave an order. Only then can a wrong order be answered for.”
Rakan’s ears pricked forward.
“Answered for?”
“The soldiers put down their names; the commander alone cannot leave no name behind.”
Rakan looked at Rosen for a while, then snatched up the quill as if grabbing it, and ink smeared his fingers.
“Where do I write it.”
Rosen pointed at the blank.
With the tip of his tongue poking slightly out, Rakan drew his strokes; the first letter was far too large, the second encroached on the neighboring column, and at the final stroke the paper tore a little.
Rakan.
Crooked, but legible.
Rakan set down the pen.
“Done?”
“For a first signature it will do.”
“I’m not doing it twice.”
“You must also sign tomorrow’s issuance order.”
“Damn it.”
Laughter broke from the formation, and this time Rakan did not stop it, baring his teeth as he looked them over.
“If you’ve got strength left to laugh, take up your shields.”
When the members who had fetched the spare weapons returned, Rakan raised the signal for the line with a hand whose ink had not yet dried.
“Advance!”
Thirty-eight shields lifted at the same instant for the first time. Short legs quickened and long legs shortened their stride, and the people who had shoved one another aside every time they fled the mine now filled the gap beside them first. The formation wavered twice, but it did not break.
Beneath Rakan’s crooked signature, the military code became actual movement.
By sundown the placements of the regular combat unit, the reserve, and the watch, transport, and engineering personnel were fixed. Those who could not read left palm marks, and claw prints and the traces of three-fingered hands went into the same ledger. Rosen handed the detailed ration tables and weapon numbers over to the scribes.
“Let’s do that. And there is one more matter to discuss.”
Rosen sent the scribes off first. Only after Rakan had gone to put away the members’ shields and the surroundings had fallen quiet did he take out the thin leather folder he had been holding under his arm.
Inside was drawn the road linking the Steel Bastion to the western border, and at its end was stamped a crown emblem.
“I intend to go to the Kingdom of Ledon.”
Kang Mujin looked down at the map.
“To ask for support?”
“Troops, food, medicine. We must bring back whatever we can. With our present numbers we can stop a vanguard, but not a main force.”
Rosen touched a finger to the royal capital on the map.
“The problem, though, is what they will see us as. A village, a mercenary company, or an armed group that has seized a border region as it pleased.”
“The people here know who we are.”
“In diplomacy, what others call you matters too.”
When the wind turned the ledger’s corner, the one hundred forty-two names of the duty roster and, below it, the residents’ roster — all two hundred and two names and marks — were briefly revealed, then covered again.
On the training ground Rakan was hanging the last shield on the weapon rack, and in the smithy Aisha was banking the evening embers with the apprentices. Atop the rampart, guards of differing races were changing shifts.
Much was already being put in place.
But there was as yet no name to call it by in a single word.
Rosen held out the document at the very front of the folder, and below the request for support a space stood empty for the seal of the Bastion’s representative.
“They will ask first of all.”
He said.
“In the name of just what nation does the Steel Bastion ask for help?”
Kang Mujin gazed a long while at the empty place for the seal.
There was no emblem to carve there, and no crown to put forward.
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