44
The days seemed to blur together as the training began in earnest. Fletcher, Rory and Genevieve would take the soldiers out on to the plains early each morning to train them in manoeuvres – marching, turning, forming and reforming into varying ranks in quick succession.
Then there were the more complex formations – making a schiltron to protect from mounted attack, where the men would fall into a circle, the front ranks bristling with poleaxes to skewer the charging beasts, while the back ranks fired indiscriminately into approaching cavalry.
Another tactic was an ordered retreat, when firing teams would provide cover for each other as they fell back in groups of five. In skirmishing, the men would scatter into a loose formation to make themselves harder targets for falling javelins. They also practised disciplined charging, designed so that a wall of men would crash into their opponents in a single wave.
Under Fletcher, Rory and Genevieve were given a team of fifteen soldiers each to train, with an equal split of dwarves, elves and humans. The remaining eight were selected by Rotherham to become riflemen, and he trained them separately every other morning, until they could shoot a jackalberry out of a tree at a hundred yards, and could hit a trunk three times out of five at four hundred. Their marksmanship was practised on moving targets, and every night the colony would dine on the fruits of their endeavours – sizzling steaks of agile gazelles, long-horned oryx, and on one night even a single, heavyset buffalo that fed the entire population of Raleightown on its own.
In the afternoons, Sir Caulder trained the recruits in combat until they were coated in sweat, honing their skills until Fletcher barely recognised the sun-bronzed soldiers as they battled each other in the heat of the afternoon. The men soon learned to fear Sir Caulder; those who faced him walked away limping with red welts across their arms and faces. Even so, the soldiers were becoming a formidable force, their practice weapons blurring with the speed and ferocity that they attacked one another. There were more than a few bruises by the end of each training session, and Fletcher amazed the soldiers by healing each wound as if he were wiping away a stain.
As for the evenings, the colonists began to know the hours of the day by the intensity of gunfire, and knew the sun was setting when silence fell across the plains once more. Fletcher made sure that he, Rory and Genevieve were as practised as their own soldiers in the art of musketry, and though they slept each night with aching shoulders and skinned knuckles, all of them could fire four shots every minute, like clockwork, by the end of the first month.
It was a relief when Rotherham declared the men ready, but then came the firing strategies.
They were to fire by rank: the first rank firing and kneeling as they reloaded, the second standing and firing next to provide a blast of musket balls into the enemy every seven seconds. Platoon fire, where five men would fire at a time down the line of infantry, provided a constant buzz of bullets whipping into the enemy.
By the end of that first month, the soldiers were well-accustomed to military manoeuvres, so Fletcher and his two lieutenants took them on expeditions across the savannah, hunting for game or scouting for ebony. Soon they had more meat than they knew what to do with, even after Ignatius had gorged himself on the surplus.
So Fletcher sent trade convoys to sell the game in Corcillum’s markets, packing the meat in barrels of salt. As for the timber, Fletcher had the men cut, trim and part the trees far out in the savannah, and drag the wood back on makeshift sleds. He joined in every task, making sure that he worked harder than any of them, earning their grudging respect. Before the second month was out, the soldiers had shed all of their puppy fat, and their bodies were as lean and hard as hunting dogs. Even Kobe and his skinny compatriots became layered in cords of muscle, and Fletcher had never felt stronger in his life.
Now that the soldiers were weighing in, Raleightown soon had enough timber to complete all its own repairs and building projects, and fresh logs of ebony eventually found their way on to the trade convoys. Under Berdon and Thaissa’s guidance, houses were completed swiftly, and the colonists moved in. Soon the church became their dining hall and meeting place, with new glass in the windows and great long tables of black wood filling it from wall to wall.
Fletcher began to look forward to each night, where the happy buzz of conversation flooded the room and he could lose himself in their contentment. He and Berdon had converted the old blacksmith’s into their own home and they would spend every night reminiscing over old times and making plans for the future.
With every trade convoy’s return, gold and supplies came with them, and Fletcher divided the proceeds fairly between the workers and himself. Noticing the profits, soon new products began to emerge from enterprising colonists. Exotic fruit were plucked by the bushel from the wild trees and sold beside their meats. The first bales of wool from their small herd of sheep soon joined them, though attacks from lions and jackals had reduced their fledgling flock by three already.
But it was not all good news. Fletcher was unable to visit his mother. He had received word from the King’s doctors, who said she was making progress, but feared she would regress to her former, animalistic state at the sight of him at such a fragile juncture in her recovery. It killed him to be unable to see her, for she had been whisked away without even a proper goodbye on the night they had returned to their dimension.
Still, being able to fly again kept his spirits up, even at his most despondent. At daybreak each morning, he would mount Ignatius and soar into the cloudless skies. Athena’s wing had finally mended, and her joy compounded his own as they glided above the wild landscape, learning every fold and turn in the land that they had come to call home. It was glorious to fly, and Fletcher could not believe that some people could go their entire lives without experiencing it. But no matter how much he cajoled Berdon, the bluff blacksmith refused to even mount Ignatius, let alone allow the Drake to take him a few feet off the ground.
Although he and the colonists were contented, there were divisions within Fletcher’s army. This was nowhere more apparent than at dinner. The dwarves preferred to sit at their own tables, led by a dour-faced dwarf named Gallo, whose beard was so long that he had to tuck it into his belt. Fletcher knew from Thaissa that he and the other dwarven recruits spoke dwarfish between themselves even when the humans were present, earning them the ire of many of their fellow soldiers.
Kobe and his ex-slaves had bonded with the convicts, who were loud and brash but good-natured enough. Unfortunately, the most popular among them was the pockmarked boy who went by the name of Logan, a born troublemaker. He and his allies could often be seen sniggering away, usually at a joke made at dwarven or elven expense.
Then there were the stand-offish elves, with Dalia as their ringleader. She had warmed to Fletcher in the past months, and her manner was civil, if a little terse. However, Fletcher could not be sure if he had truly earned her respect, or whether it was the arrival of an unlikely mascot for his army that had prompted her improved mood: a fennec fox, as small as a puppy, with gold-white fur and the overly large, bat-like ears that were synonymous with their species.
It had taken to following them on their forays into the savannah, begging for scraps of meat and revelling in the belly rubs that the soldiers would give him. Dalia had immediately adopted the little creature, and the fox had become her constant companion, trotting at her heels during the day and sleeping beside her at night. Though the fox was ostensibly hers, the entire company of soldiers considered the fox a good omen, and had named him Rabbit on account of his ears. He was spoiled rotten by each and every one of them, and did a good job of bringing the occasional smile to Dalia’s usually stern face.
They were two months into their training when the trouble began, on an evening much like any other. Almost all of the colonists had left for bed already, as training had run late and most had already eaten by the time the soldiers arrived in the church. Hunting had been sparse that day – their meal consisted of a stew made from the leftovers of the day before, and the mood was more sombre because of it.
Fletcher was sitting at the head table with Rory, Genevieve, Sir Caulder and Rotherham when he noticed it. Logan had taken a half-loaf of bread and held it up to his chin as if it were a beard, waggling his tongue at the dwarves. Perhaps it had been meant as a joke, but the dwarves were not smiling; much the opposite in fact, and the way they glowered at Logan made Fletcher think it was not the first time that he had teased them in that way.
‘If I got to my knees, ye couldn’t tell the difference,’ Logan announced, earning himself an appreciative chuckle from the boys sitting around him. ‘Then again, the dwarves have been doin’ a lot of kneelin’ lately too, ain’t that right, boys?’
The jibe prompted one dwarf to get to his feet, but he was pulled down by Gallo, who whispered furtively in his ear.
Disappointed by the lack of reaction, Logan turned his attention to the elves. He tore the bread in two and held a piece to each side of his face, imitating their ears.
‘What do you reckon, ladies?’ he called to the female elves. ‘Close enough for ye? They all look the same in the dark anyway, eh lads?’
Dalia closed the distance between them in one agile leap, and gripped Logan by the scruff of his neck. A stiletto blade flashed up as if from nowhere, and she hissed.
‘You want to look like an elf? Let me sharpen your ears for you.’
Suddenly knives that had been used for eating were grasped and stowed under tables. Convicts jumped to their feet, and Logan bellowed, in a combination of fear and outrage.
‘Stop, right now!’ Fletcher yelled. His heart hammered in his chest, shocked at the speed at which his soldiers had gone from companions to enemies. But before he could say another word, the stiletto disappeared, and Dalia was backing away with a predatory smile.
‘What’s the problem, Logan?’ she asked, cocking her head to one side. ‘Can’t take a joke?’
He spluttered in response. The room held its breath – then Logan overturned his bowl with a snarl and stalked off, ducking through the door to disappear into the night air. The tension eased by a few notches. Knives were replaced on tables, and a low buzz of conversation returned to the room.
Fletcher sunk into his seat, breathing out in a slow sigh. It was over for now, but even as the first hint of relief slowed his heart, his mind turned to the rest of the night.
‘I want all four of you sleeping in the barracks tonight,’ Fletcher said to Rory, Genevieve, Sir Caulder and Rotherham, thinking of the confined space that the soldiers were lodged in. ‘Make sure this doesn’t turn into something ugly.’
‘You’ve got a point, lad,’ Sir Caulder sighed, ‘but this won’t go away overnight. It’s been brewing for some time now.’
‘I know,’ Fletcher said, watching as the dwarves exited the room, their eyes fixed on the convicts with open aggression. Then Gallo turned and drew a finger across his neck, the meaning as subtle as a brick through a window.
Fletcher hissed a tight breath through his teeth, frustration seething inside him. He had allowed it to grow and fester, choosing to turn a blind eye with every day that the divide deepened. Now the damage had been done.
And it was up to him to fix it.