Breaking Ranks

Grant: The Rune Reader

Deck B2

Port Agricultural Section of the Tranquility

We were hours outside Sandstone, standing in a ragged line right where the Superintendent's Rune Reader had put us. She was staring at her data tome now, the holy relic wrapped in white cloth and chained to her chest, and squinted as she sounded out runes to herself.

"Twelve-damned connection," she spat out. "We are in a cursed spot. The magic is weak here."

I grunted and kept my distance, never one to mess with Ancient magic, as I watched the Rune Reader. Superintendent Salazar had a few of the magic tomes and it was said those who were granted the training could peer into their depths for guidance. I left her to it, though, patrolling through the unit of spearmen. My unit, I supposed they were, though they were strangers to me.

A scrawny kid I had tasked with digging a latrine had his shovel planted in the dirt and was grinning like he was a champion standing astride a fallen foe. A few others who had joined him were mopping their sweaty brows.

"That hole's not big enough, boy!" I yelled. He shot me an insolent look and I began stomping over to give the kid hell, but he quickly redoubled his efforts, and I stopped as I heard a voice calling me. The Rune Reader had mounted her pristine white charger, weaving through the ranks of spearmen, who gave her more than enough space even as they muttered of witchcraft and sorcery.

"A message came through from the Superintendent. The enemy has been spotted three kilometers to starboard. Superintendent Salazar orders your unit to move to that hill there," the Rune Reader said, and pointed toward the ridge. I gazed into the distance, at the green trees carpeting the slope, seeming almost to ascend as high as the gray ceiling above. The lights were still at the full brightness of the day cycle.

"Alright."

I turned, scanning the levy, standing in what might generously be described as a loose formation.

"Move out!" I shouted. "Superintendent wants us on that hill. No lollygagging."

"But... the latrine," one of the men on the work party said as he stared at me in confusion.

"We'll have to make another when we get there."

"But..." he gestured at the hole he had spent the last hour digging along with the others, and shot me a forlorn look.

"But nothing. We're moving out. Take that shovel with you, I'll need a latrine dug when we get there."

I grumbled as we walked along in the mid-afternoon heat. It didn't bother me much that we were repositioning as the foe advanced. What grated at me was the sorry excuse for a militia that I had been given. Levies of children and open-mouthed farmers. Not a soldier among them, as all the Superintendent's warriors were in their own units. All except a handful exiled to the levies like me.

I had fought in the ranks of Superintendent Salazar's personal guard for two and twenty years, and for all that valiant service my reward had been to command my own militia force. That was not the honor I had been waiting all that time for. I hawked up a great gob of phlegm and sent it through the air. Something to mark my passage, to make the ground remember that the great Grant Lothar had once strode across it on weary sandaled feet.

Though I had something else to leave my mark, and I found even my grim countenance, the big ugly mug that frightened many a recruit, widening a bit as I thought of my son. I was no longer in the Superintendent's personal guard, but my son was, and I took more than a little pride in that. We were no nobles, to benefit from rank or privilege, and I knew that he had earned his place at the Superintendent's side on his own merits. I had served long enough with the Superintendent, and the former Superintendent Salazar before him as well, so I couldn't begrudge this new assignment.

It had been a hard life, these forty-three or maybe four. With the chemical rains and the constant presence of war it wasn't too often that a man made it past fifty. I prayed to the Twelve that I would be the exception, if only to see my son find a good woman and raise children of his own. I had two daughters before my son, but they had died before the age of six. It was said one should never name a child until their sixth name day, and I had made every public indication of agreeing with that. But privately, of course, my wife and I had agreed on Luna and Leticia.

Gone too soon, they were. Dead before they had lived. I shook my head savagely as if to shake myself out of the stupor the march had put me in. The years must be catching up to me. I resolved to find someone to yell at, and jerked my head around to fix my baleful gaze upon the mediocrity surrounding me.

Their gear was wrong, their expressions were wrong, even the way they walked was wrong. They were farmers and artisans, tradesmen and city dwellers. Oh, they were well enough, the bedrock on which Sandstone was built, I could give them that. But just look at them! No one with the eyes for it could mistake them for soldiers.

"Get a move on!" I bellowed at one young man, who seemed lost in thought. He jumped, in an exaggerated fashion that would have been comical if it weren't so tragic, and almost dropped his spear.

"Yes sir," he replied, and zoomed ahead, leaving a plume of dust to blossom behind him.

I grunted at this, wondering what evil I must have done to be cursed with this lot. This can't have been the first time he'd been yelled at, with that vacant expression of his. I wondered for a moment about what occupation he had been previously apprenticed to, but soon stopped when I realized I cared not a bit. It wasn't good for the nobles to show indifference to their peasant levies, and the best of them took the time to chat with the sergeants at least, and at least tone their insufferable arrogance down somewhat. The Superintendent was good about that, though like any noble he could never really hide his distaste for us commoners.

I found for perhaps the first time that I could understand this attitude. The ground rose now as we approached the hill and my grumbling increased. I couldn't even begin to imagine how many kilometers I had covered in my years of soldiering and I found now that aches had become my most loyal companions. By the Twelve, I followed the Regulations, didn't I? As well as any, better than most. I stayed true to my liege lord. What evil had I done to be cursed with this lot...