“Habit!” Conner barked, walking down the line of men and snapping his training rod out into an offending elbow. “Good habits will keep yous elbows tucked, yous shield up, yous eyes on a swivel and yous Gods be damned lazy asses practicing!”

  He kicked an out-of-place heel out from under a man, already three steps past before he hit the ground. “Habit will keep yous feet under you and yous weapons moving, even after yous stamina is depleted.”

  A light tap, applied right as the Hastati thrust, had him slamming into the vertical wooden pole instead of just stabbing it. His stance too narrow and his balance too forward to resist. “But habit can also keep yous elbows up, yous shield blocking yous eyes and yous ass in bed late into the morning.”

  He stopped moving, his head snapping to the side, then with an oath he took three quick steps, finishing the movement with a two-handed smash across a man’s back. “It’s a spear no’ a club yous swine son! Yous stab with it, yous can chop with it. But it’s no’ covered in grain, don’t thresh it!” He smacked the poor bastard a second time, full across his leather-clad shoulders, for good measure. “Edge control! It will save yous life!”

  “If yous only hear one thing today, yous hear this. Better no’ to practice at all den to practice wrong! At least that way, yous can die rested and without getting yous squadmates killed with you!”

  “Now again!” He moved to the left of doubled line of tower shield and short spear wielding men, fully 50 feet long and facing an equal number of Peles. He picked up a waiting identical shield and shifted his grip on the training rod to match their spears.

  He dropped his center down, spreading his feet a bit more than shoulder width apart, left foot forward and toes pointed slightly to the right. Rear foot turned fully sideways, his weight shifted slightly forward, above his leading foot and the extended shield protecting his vulnerable toes.

  “Decurion Otis!” He prompted, and that worthy stepped forward, landing a two-handed blow against the center of the waiting shield. Conner rocked back beneath the blow, his weight moving to his back foot, but little more than that. “Balanced!”

  The decurion struck again, to the top edge of the shield this time. Conner shifted forward, propping his shoulder tight against the shield and again absorbing the blow. A third blow to the lower edge was propped against his bent forward knee. With small twists of his upper body and shifts to his lowered center of balance he handled each off-center blow, exaggerating the recoil to demonstrate how to do it properly. “Balance comes first! Before shield work, and before spear work, yous got to be able to stay standing!”

  “The rest is in the drill. And it’s simple. So simple that even yous shouldn’t forget it. By the numbers now.”

  “One!” Centered again, his spear shot out in a viperishly quick waist-high thrust, smashing into the waiting post with an audible thunk. Quickly recovering the spear before an imaginary opponent could get a chop into its wooden shaft.

  “Two!” Thunk. A low thrust towards a foot or calf.

  “Three!” Thunk. One continuous motion from the last thrust lifting his arm back then up and over, driving a thrust from above downward.

  “Four!” Thap. The thrust wasn’t recovered, turning into a chopping blow to the Pele one man to his right.

  It was a blow to train awareness as much as a practical attack. It made men think about more than just the man across from them, but the next one over as well. A line of battle was not a duel, and if you got that idea through thick young heads early, they might just survive long enough to become older, wiser heads.

  Maybe.

  “Five!” He slammed his shield forward into the post with an explosive ‘crack’ of sound. “Six!” He thrust again into the presumably now off-balance opponent. “Seven!” A side thrust at the next Pele over. “Eight!” A chop back to his own pole's footings.

  “One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight!” He moved much faster this time. Rapidly moving through the 8 mixed movements with an economy of motion and perfect control of his center.

  “Now with me! One! Two! Three! Four!-“

  Ethan shook his head; they were awfully green still. Then again, that was the point of all, well, this:

  The practice ground expanded outward from just south of the Stone on the shores of the mostly unfrozen lake. Swimming among the rare, but still occasionally there, ice flows was more than just bracing. But it taught a particular kind of tough-mindedness that made the run to the warmed interiors of the Stone worth it.

  And, Ethan tapped at the blue screen absently, quality for Military Buildings applied as a buff multiplier, not to the speed and product quality that industry buildings gained. But that did add up. For general training that was… 1.42 multiplier!

  An absurd number, though one that was more limited than it appeared and almost entirely because of the mastercraft training weapons they’d received from the Emperor’s largess. Adding them alone had jumped the quality by .15. But it still only applied to the training done on the field.

  And they had far too many obligations for any one century to put in more than a half day in every two. Damn but they needed to make that usable in the winter! That was the season they had little but time, and a need to break up the boredom.

  He made a mental note to send Leo down into the caves when he got back. The gymnasium idea had… issues.

  And that was the cheap version with wooden joists! The fully stone building with arches and vaults was prohibitively expensive. No, while it was something they could build, and might long term, it wasn’t cheaper than carving a large space, complete with arches and support pillars, from the Stone. They needed a better option.

  The creation of the Practice Field had opened up some options:

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  And perhaps, if not the better options he had envisioned, then at least a different one.

  Tier 1 resources… the cost wasn’t cheap. And the capacity was much less. But it would work in all weather, not to mention the modifiers, while sharply focused, were quite high! If they could raise the materials, then definitely before the next winter. And maybe more than one!

  He took a final spin, pushing thoughts of buildings and utilization rates aside for a moment, around a decade of green troops with the tier 2 decurion Marcus at their head. One of the first Principes to emerge, and not because he’d failed The Bir’Ding Gate’s trial either.

  Preferences mattered, and after a life as a Hastati, he didn’t have any interest in changing.

  He stepped in to jerk a shoulder strap tighter by what might be an imaginary amount. That didn’t stop his hands. There was a look and feel that properly worn pauldrons should have, and this wasn’t it. He stepped back, giving it a second look, then with a shrug slammed a fist down on the offending curved plate of quarter-inch boiled hide.

  It settled, and if the barely more than a boy’s knees did to, Ethan chose not to comment.

  “It will have to do.” He sighed. It wasn’t gear that he was proud of, but for all his complaining, it wasn’t bad gear either. Just light on scales or plate. And for all that Leo’s return column could fix that, they couldn’t afford to wait. “Good Luck, and may Brunti’s Blessing go with you. Bring them home Decurion Marcus.” He grinned, giving the men a last glance, then added as tradition demanded. “With their shields or on them.”

  “Milord!” Eleven Fists slammed to chests, then the men pivoted and began a long, slow jog down the valley towards a newly opened low tier 1 minute rift. He’d already seen off four such squads just this morning and planned for another six by nightfall.

  Between the minutes, minors and the constant flood of rift escapees most of the recruits had already seen more combat, just in the last 2 weeks, than a Riverlander might in half a year and while he expected that to taper off a bit towards fall, it was only by a bit.

  Virgin land meant it was ripe with minerals, resources and treasures just waiting to be found. But it was also overrun with who knew how many centuries of rifts and the fruit thereof. Even the native beasts claimed at least partial ancestry to the same. And as they were still here, comparable strength!

  And that was a problem. He kicked his feet through a bit of dead grass, the first shoots of green and a small patch of snow. All in one short motion. It was time to move, and with Conner occupied, he’d offered Promise to Sigismund.

  His 320-man column had left this morning, merely waiting for a runner to confirm that Andrew had closed his rift, before departing with 10 fully loaded wagons, half of them with fodder they’d pulled from the tree top rift, and their entire herd of sheep and goats. Pushing south, where the scouts said the fodder was already growing in.

  They’d have to keep them moving, goats in particular, if they didn’t want to leave the land barren behind them, but if they started at Promise, or below it if they managed to get the bridge in fast enough and grazed them back up the valley, the high pastures should be built and ready by the time they got here.

  And with an extra hundred Alpine Hunters and five Pahadi to work with and guard the 11 Herders, they should be able to keep the animals alive.

  He hoped.

  He turned away, taking a last look out over the lake, only a few chunks of ice dotted its surface and its banks were struggling to contain the overabundance of snow melt, before moving towards the ramp leading up to the west gate.

  An almost fully rebuilt ramp. And while it had been a fast process, it would not have been without the core to carve footings into solid stone, and a rain gutter, with channels through that same solid stone to let the upstream water drain off. Add in a thick layer of rubble for extra drainage and finally a slightly domed, unmortared paving stones and you had a real, lasting road.

  Or at least they would have. It was still a work in progress as moving the massive basalt pavers, 2 ft x 2 ft x 1 foot, into place was an undertaking by itself. He stepped off the road and into the rain gutter while a team of men, with ropes and pullies attached at the top of the hill and wooden rollers being placed, and replaced beneath the stone as they rolled it slowly down and into place.

  He nodded, then continued up, glancing in at the three-quarters built Gatehouse-

  Lacking only the two new wooden leaves of the door for completion. The soft pine they’d propped it closed with over the winter was good enough to keep out the cold, but a far cry from hardwood for keeping undesirables out.

  “Good Morning Sir James.” He offered in a semi-formal tone, mindful of the many workers around them. James nodded back, placing the bronze stylus he was using to mark up a wax tablet into a loop of cloth carefully, and closing the hinged wooden object before looking up with a smile.

  “Good Morning, My Lord.”

  “Did you get a final report from Sir Andrew?”

  “Runners brought it in about a half hour ago.” He reopened the booklet with a reproachful glance at Ethan, and scanned its contents for a moment before nodding.

  “180 units of meat-“ Ethan hid a sigh, even James was using that damn unit, not pounds now. That was… something like 10,000 pounds? “-500 units of T1 hide and snake scales, 1000 units of green foodstuffs. 2,500 units of forage, almost a hundred pounds of various spices-“ Ha, even James wouldn’t make that a unit. “-and about 480 units of T1 Hardwood. Exotic stuff, that. Strong, but frankly, I almost want to keep it for display pieces. It's gorgeous.”

  Ethan snorted. “Then it can make gorgeous gates and gorgeous spear shafts.” It wasn’t that he disliked decorations, but needs came first. And unless they could sell it, unlikely with something as heavy as wood, he saw no reason not to use it. “The rift reward?”

  “A pound and a quarter of mithril.”

  Ethan nodded happily. Alloyed, a single pound with a hundred odd pounds of T0 metal would elevate the entire batch into T1. Enough for a desperately needed tools, saws, axes and chisels, or if used alone, more commonly as a tip or edge of a lower-tiered piece, a single T2 saw edge.

  Maybe.

  He scratched his head. Mostly the former than, with a few bits saved to edge a chisel. They did need to shape some T2 stones for Blake’s tower.

  “An excellent haul. How much more do you suppose they ate inside?”

  “How much did you eat?”

  Ethan gestured first blood.

  Still it's-

  RUUUUMMMMMBLLLLLEEEEEE.

  The ground shook heavily underfoot for what felt like a minute but was likely only seconds. Seconds Ethan rode out easily. Noticeable but not really dangerous…

  For him.

  “GET OUT OF THE WAY!”

  By a broken line or a distracted hauler, a paving stone was loose, careening down the thankfully mostly empty path on the way to the bottom of the hill, smashing divots in the rubble fill and gouging chunks out of the hillside on its way.

  Ethan swore softly before dashing forward and beginning to bark orders. Turning, at least locally, the expanding chaos into order.

  ___

  “Three broken limbs, some shattered pottery and that paving stone run amok. Not too bad really.” James offered an hour later.

  “Broken doesn’t really cover that Leg.” Smashed maybe. Pulverized. But not broken. Ethan sighed. What did he expect would happen when he tried to stop an 800-pound stone? Poor bastard was lucky to be alive. “We should have expected it. The Gap didn’t break itself.”

  James shrugged. “Could have been legendary tiers fighting. Or a divine. No reason we should have expected an earthquake. The ramp still needs to be built and aside from keeping up with lots of arches, I don’t know what else we can do.”

  “Just what we are doing, I suppose. Check up on the various detached forces and send out scouts to unblock stream beds.” There were many ways for a slow build-up to create an eventual hazard. Especially when nearly everything around them was uphill.

  “Any responses yet?” James asked softly.

  “A few, Andrew’s column was already into the valley before the shake started, and while they are taking a bit of extra time to reinforce the bridge, they at least avoided the minor avalanche that blocked the draw behind them. They should be home in a couple hours.”

  “The clearance groups for the farms are safe and secure… but we’ll need to schedule a reconnaissance in force in their direction. Take a look at what changed, and clear out the monsters and beast the shake seems to have driven half mad.”

  “And the Stone itself barely noticed it. Blake apparently demanded his guards to stop shaking his room; it ruined a scroll he was working on.”

  James coughed. Hard. Glancing up in no little doubt. “You pranking me?”

  “No.”

  He looked away, his shoulders shaking slightly, before he turned back with a straight face. “Ha. Well then.” He cast about, obviously at that, “What about Conner and the Trainees?” He thrust his chin towards the boiling anthill of men on the field below. Rushing to and for.

  “What about them? It’s just good training from his perspective. If they are panicking, why he has the cure!“

  “Five more laps!” They chorused together. It was his training cure for nearly every ailment. And when each ‘lap’ included a 200-foot swim, it was more than merely ‘bracing.

  “Ah, I’d almost forgotten what it was like, when our first class opened and we stood on a similar field. Ten years old… It’s been a while.” James mused.

  It was that. Conner had been but a Training Decurion at that point. But he’d driven the lot of them hard! Then again, it had paid off. As it would for his current lot as well. And that being so…

  “I’ll take the patrol up past the farm lands. Think you can handle this mess?” His expansive gesture took in the ramp, the lumber camps and even a quick point upwards where stones from the roof were being carefully lowered on rope hoists and capstans to waiting carts.

  “Not a problem My Lord. Enjoy your break, I’ll make sure to let the Lady know.”

  Ethan hid a wince. A direct hit! Even if he hadn’t been (and he was!) the keep in general was rather protective of her and their unborn child. Her activities had been, well, curtailed a great deal. And if she could order them otherwise, there was only so many such orders, reluctantly carried out, that she could manage without looking like she was throwing a fit.

  A state she was too well-bred to fall into.

  “You are all heart, Sir James. Give Sir Andrew’s men a day's break when they get back, aside from cleaning up their gear. But send him after me.”

  “My Lord.” He repeated more seriously this time, saluting fist to chest.

  “Runners –“ Ethan turned and walked into the keep.

  ___