They dragged everything they could from the rift in the next few lockout cycles. Mushtrees primarily but the lighter egg tender and heavier boss carapace were not ignored.

  At last, they stood drawn up in ranks, if considerably less pretty and polished than when they went in. The dirt, blood and muck were honorably earned. Then the rift distortion faded away. A ragged cheer broke out behind them. The Basic levies started it, but it soon spread till every man was wildly cheering.

  But what a difference existed between them. The band cheered for glory, for victory and for the loot it bought. But that wasn’t what he saw on the earthworks around them. It was relief. Existential relief of the truest sort. Death had passed them by. This time.

  It was a sobering thought. What was an opportunity for the trained and prepared was a disaster for the commons.

  The cheering went on for minutes. Long enough that the Bandsman were starting to look a bit awkward. Except for Guile, of course. He’d stand all day long for cheering.

  At last, Ethan left them to it, forming the band and marching them to the gates, already opened and lined by badly equipped, half-starved but cheering troops. It left him feeling… complicated.

  Even more so when the Baroness Adelheid stood on the road just past them, backed by a truly ancient knight. Gray stubble and old scars fought for space with wrinkles beneath his open-faced helm. His limbs had lost definition and his frame lacked the bulk he might have had in his youth. But even standing, Ethan imagined he could smell blood on him. This was no Riverland politico. This was a warrior. Old perhaps, his body stat debuffed with age. But that didn’t make him any less dangerous. He might not have the stamina to keep it up, but for a few minutes, this man was deadly.

  He stepped to the side of the road, gesturing Conner onward while Guile and Andrew peeled off with him. Back two steps and slightly to either side. Waiting a half step for them to finish moving, the three slapped a hand to chest and lightly dipped their heads.

  “Hurrah, Baronet Ethan! You conquered!” Her honeyed voice was earnest and her very eyes conveyed how impressed she was.

  And yet. Once stung, twice shy. He found himself doubting it. And her in general. Still, there was no reason to be rude about it.

  “Indeed Lady Adelheid. We did indeed. But I must beg my leave.” He gestured to his ichor and mud-splattered armor. “I am covered in the perhaps less than glorious residue of battle. However, I invite you, and your men, of course, to join us in celebration this evening. We will feast! And while my man will likely come around to scrounge appropriate libations, I can at least promise you the repast will not disappoint.” He forced a smile to his face, though the slightly hurt look in her eyes made him doubt its effectiveness.

  And worse, he somehow felt guilty for it. Damn this woman!

  “Of course, Baronet Ethan! Of course, take your time. I will bring an Oenochoe-“ Ethan had to dig for a moment before remembering that this was the way the nobility called the smaller clay pots. Amphora was the term he’d have used, but it was technically a bigger vessel. Or Dolia but that was larger still. “from my personal collection to toast your valor!”

  “Lady, I shall look forward to it. Now with your permission?”

  “Go, by all means, go. I shall see you at, ah, the golden hour?” When the sun just barely touched the horizon and the light was said to turn to liquid gold.

  “Indeed. Until then.” He struck his chest once more while she raised an elegant hand to her forehead to return in, then turned and followed the column of Bandsmen back to camp.

  A camp that had been improved considerably in the short time they’d been inside. The spiked ditch in front was a full man deep, while the embankment in back of it rose the same amount up. The front face was packed down, not merely piled and studded with more spikes.

  Eight large wooden archery towers completely overlooked the walls, while smaller ditches and pit traps dotted the lands outside them. Given another week or two they could do much better, but for what it was, it was damn impressive.

  More than enough to do its job. Which wasn’t to stand off a real siege. Siege engines would smash the wooden towers and without overhead cover, high-angle archers would be a real problem.

  No.

  Its job was to delay. To give the band time to armor up and slow invaders during a nighttime assault or some other form of ambush. And once armored, to keep them slowed to a crawl while the archers and pilum volleys picked them to pieces.

  They marched over a wooden drawbridge, through a set of gates and down a wide, packed dirt road. Everywhere he looked, drying racks and fires graced the camp. Mushtree sheets graced most of them, but here and there strips of umbral meat dangled in the smoke. The smell of meat and mushrooms filled the air. The bandsman kept marching down the road and to the central mustering square. The standard proudly to the fore.

  “Assemble!” Ethan barked, pitching his voice to avoid the watch posts on the outer wall and the cooks, not being particularly fond of burnt food.

  The camp exploded into motion. Many had already been out watching the return, but others scrambled from tents and put aside whatever chores they’d been working at.

  “At ease.” He offered, and with a unified step, the returning and triumphant bandsman took a step and let the butt of shield and spear hammer into the earth. Leaning on those weapons, stances loose but ready. Waiting.

  But not waiting long. The camp was quickly assembled. Ranks of camp followers of many stripes, Labori, Craftsman, Bowman, Lancers and more. Too many to fit in the square itself, they filled the broad streets that extended out from it.

  Ethan gave them a moment longer to settle. “Victory!” Quintus raised the standard high to a massed and earth-shaking cheer. A cheer that continued for most of a minute, before Ethan raised a hand for silence.

  And immediately got it.

  “You’ve seen much of what we’ve won, food and materials pouring from the rift in a stream. But you haven’t seen it all. I give you not just the rift harvest, but its final reward.” He held up the class stone to shocked silence, then before they could get over it, placed the stone into an empty socket on the standard.

  Conner took a step forward and bellowed. “Render – Honor!” Slamming a fist to his chest in time with everyone here. A booming blow that echoed and rang through the camp and beyond.

  And with it, the golden light of the standards buff outlined them once more. Outlined them and caused the blue box to show again in their minds.

  Ethan imagined he saw some disappointment in a few of the older, maxed-out soldiers and Craftsman. But the Labori more than made up for it with their wild, unrestrained cheering.

  Ethan let them have it for a time, before raising his hand once more. “Tonight we celebrate and send off our honored dead!”

  A grave silence came over them and men gave the moment the dignity it deserved.

  Ethan didn’t let it linger. There would be time enough for that later. “A feast you and they deserve and a feast we shall have!” Without a city nearby to purchase from, it might be a bit lacking in women and wine, but he’d do what he could. “Until then, clean up. Service your gear. I expect to see soldiers tonight. Properly shined to honor those who have gone on before. Don’t shame them. Dis-missed!”

  Ethan turned and walked towards the command tent. “Clean up.” He offered to his knights in a much quieter voice. “Be back here in half an hour and Sir James?” He waited a beat to catch the man’s eye. “Bring your wife.”

  He ducked in through the entrance and let the pages begin to strip him out of his armor.

  _______

  Ethan, fresh from a hip bath and dressed only in a belted loose cotton tabard, pushed aside a curtain and walked to the already occupied table. Surrounded by 5 knights, 3 centurions, a Magister and one conspicuously seated young lady. James Miro was a feisty young thing. Dark brown hair above blue eyes and the muted olive skin the majority of them wore. She had a neat figure, not exaggeratedly so but curved in an agreeable way.

  The table was fully filled, and then some, with eleven people sitting at it, but frankly, he wondered if they might have to expand it soon. There were another 12 centurions available from the Labori, even if they’d not yet proved themselves.

  They were talking and laughing joyfully. Wine flowing freely as those that had participated talked Lancer Centurion Sigismund through the battles with many an exaggeration that descended into outright braggartry more often than nought. Not that he bought their bull shit, being one of the more experienced men at the table, but he was a good sport about it.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Alright, settle down.” Ethan chuckled softly as he heard the end of one Guile’s more outrageous stories. He accepted a filled chalice from Gretta and took a sip of the not half-bad vintage before sitting at the head of the table, ready to get down to business.

  “Miro, good to see you, I regret the necessity that took you away from your family and your wedding celebration so quickly.”

  “I knew what I was stepping into, My Lord and I’d not change a thing.” She spoke clearly, her bright blue eyes and button nose combining to make her look younger than she actually was. Younger and a bit mischievous. The marks of her father clear in her seemingly impervious good humor.

  “Good enough. Now I invited you here because the Band does not waste talent. As a Mercator, and at the top of the first tier-”

  Leo coughed, rather deliberately and loudly, giving the young and now blushing girl an amused look.

  “Sir Leofsige?” Ethan asked, somewhat confused. He just gestured to Miro.

  Still blushing she spoke, “I, ah, didn’t mean to hide it My Lord. But its Factorious. My father saw to it before we left.

  Ethan bit back on his first response. That must have cost the man a not inconsiderable chunk of his net worth. Even for Capital natives, uncommon classes weren’t just daisies to be picked. The basics were available to any and everyone. Above that, you had to get an allotment. By hook or by crook. And as a woman in those circles… Then again, perhaps that was how he managed it at all. She wasn’t going to be staying in those circles to compete with their sons.

  Maybe. He didn’t know those politics well enough to say for sure. Either way, it was a gift, if a somewhat backhanded one. It could easily be construed that her father didn’t trust them to manage her advancement. Somewhat insulting, even if it was completely true.

  “Factorious then.” He amended. “All to the better. You remain the only trade-focused class we have. So your input is not just desired, but needed. We have a problem you see. Not a bad problem to have as such things go, but still a problem. Do you know what it is?”

  “Yes My Lord. Too much loot.” She moved on past a muttered protest. “We’re overloaded.” The grumblers subsided at that.

  “Indeed!” He answered, pleased that she’d been paying attention. “Now, I’m sure my estimates are off base so Sir James, please lay it out for us.”

  “Yes My Lord. Least valuable to most. We have roughly 25 tons of Umbral meat. Less two I traded to the Baroness for the siege engines. We do own them now, no renting mentioned. But, well-“

  “Heavy bastards.” Conner grunted.

  “Indeed. The metal fixtures and torsion bundles are the complicated parts. Not something we can make.” Not without specialist classes they didn’t have, and had never managed to bribe or steal. “But assembling them is easier. Not easy. But at least doable by a decent carpenter or craftsman. And I doubt the baroness can, much less will, buy them back.”

  Ethan gestured for him to continue.

  “So 23 tons of Umbral meat. Figure 8-9 tons once dried which will take us another day. The army cooks are a godsend but there are only 8 of them. That brings us to what the men are calling mushtrees. Once smoked or dried they drop four parts out of five of weight. But at somewhere around a ton and a half per mushtree and 70 trees, that’s still over 20 tons. And again, at least another day.”

  “Then we have the carapace. Somewhere around 20-25 lbs per corpse and my last count was over 1600. Not including your boss carapace, which at Tier 3 and the size, maybe a ton there. And not all of it prime. Sixteen to seventeen tons of carapace by itself.”

  “Then we have the valuable incidentals, mushtree seedlings, lightweight but valuable. Class stone, enough said. Two small cores, one from a coffer one from the boss. And the three Elite Umbral carapaces, plus the three minor cores they dropped. High-end materials and pretty light, compared to their value.”

  “Expended at the same time were some 20 tower shields, 70 tier 1 hardwood staves, a dozen sarrisa heads of assorted tier that will have to be reforged, 17 minor cores, most of 8 to empower the siege engines and the rest for the healing rituals.”

  A small core had about the power of 10 minors, but was worth twice that for weight and the quality of energy it contained. So a gain, but only because of the coffer reward. Without the siege empowerment, they’d have done little better than break even. Better than that in value, but hardly anything to crow about. Then again, the food and materials gained more than made up for that shortfall.

  “Totals and our capacity?”

  “Worst case 46 tons of additional weight. Between the wagons and packmules, human or beast, we could manage 30. 35 if we don’t mind slowing by a quarter or better.”

  “So there we have it. Miro, tell me how you read the values.”

  “Ah, the value where, Milord? Location will change those quite drastically.”

  “The closest market town, I imagine. Where the Gischtstrom joins the Reingold, I believe there was something.”

  “Portus Pontus Milord. It's… not a very nice place.”

  Andrew coughed into his wine cup. “It’s in Dutchy Obstegartenfeld, of course it’s not a nice place!”

  Laughter rang out around the table. But it wasn’t nice laughter. They recruited heavily from Labori legions that originated from that area. Mostly because no sane man wanted to return.

  “Yes, of course. Food will be worth less in the breadbasket of the Empire. Cores are valuable everywhere, though with Maester Blake here, I imagine they are less of a commodity and more of a usable resource?” Ethan nodded, as did half the table. “I also understand you expect the carapace to make good armor?”

  “Nearly natural segmentata!” Conner nodded, practically rubbing his hands and drooling at the thought. Lorica segmentata to be precise. Sometimes called banded armor. It was the cheapest form of plate armor. Long thin strips of iron, if you didn’t have carapace or better materials available, overlapped slightly, one on top of each other like board siding. The individual bands could move relative to one another, giving a decent amount of mobility while maintaining the strength of a solid plate of defense.

  As opposed to the fishscale pattern of lorica squamata, or scale armor. A shirt or gambeson sewn with rows of overlapping scales made from metal or more commonly these days, demon scale.

  There was also lorica hamata, or chain mail, but that was rarely used alone.

  With demon hide and demon scales so readily available, most of the band wore the squamata. But despite being the cheapest type, segmentata was still plate armor.

  And plate was flat superior to other armor types in a stand-up battle. Against crushing blows, it wasn’t even close. Chain did little while the scales of squamata spread the blow over a much smaller area. Slashing it was still superior, but far less so. Both squamata and hamata handled slicing blows decently well. Piercing blows it was also the clear winner. Hamata was terrible against them and while squamata was closer, it too had some small issues where repeated blows would break scales free, leaving a weakness.

  Not to mention a blow from the right angle below could slide between scales. Also possible against segmentata, which they’d shown a few times against the Umbrals, it was a damn dangerous trick with either type to get close enough to hit that angle.

  It was also lighter than the other two, which mattered a great deal for long fights or marches.

  But for all its victories, there was one category where it fell behind both of the others. The additional protection came at the expense of coverage. Plates didn’t bend much, and for arm pits, elbows and the groin, that left the kinds of vulnerabilities they exploited so heavily against the Umbrals.

  That was where hamata came into its own. As small sections of reinforcement where mobility constraints made plate impractical. At least without detail work that was far beyond most smiths.

  Hamata or greater demon hide that is. Having better rift materials made considerably more options available.

  “Lorica Segmentata then.” She nodded, back on ground she understood. “I’ve sold sets for my father before this. Something like three times as much as the Hastati gear I was dowered with.

  Conner nodded. Then shook his head. “Simple iron at tier 0 isn’t the same as naturally formed carapace at tier 1. The cost is a bit more than double. Double that again for each additional tier if we use the good stuff.”

  “Which we won’t be for quite some time.” Ethan cautioned. “Not until our Scrimshawers gain enough levels and skill ranks to do right by it.”

  “And that’s my point.” Miro quickly jumped in. “Even at double that is a considerable amount of coin! Something like four to five-hundred silver drachma! Each!”

  “But the materials needed to make that set? I’d guess 25 to 75 silver drachma. We’ll narrow that price range a bit once I can talk to the crafters. I might get lucky enough to double or even triple that top end if we find a crafter with the right focuses and ambition. Someone looking to tier up as much as make a profit. Those kinds of buyers exist, but you can never count on finding them.”

  “Crafters like we already have. Ones who need to level up too. But the weight issue isn’t going away. It all depends on what they can make and how long it will take them.” She hesitated, then continued. “Can we afford to stay here and give them some time to do that crafting? We don’t need a great many sets, only nobles are likely to have the kind of coin on hand to buy them! But even a steady trickle will fill the pay chests rapidly.”

  Ethan opened his mouth for a quick negation, then shut it. He took an extra moment to consider it. Ignoring his wounded ego and its demands to take themselves away from that woman as soon as possible.

  Andrew saved him from that guilt-infested quagmire. “I’m not sure we can. We did slap her vassal around. It’s all well and good to ignore that when she needs something from us, but stick around long enough…” He trailed off meaningfully.

  Guile grunted. “I likes a good fight as much as the next. But her brother’s not known to be forgiving of anything that might stain his reputation.” He didn’t say honor, Ethan noted wryly. “If we’re still here when he is, well, I do like a good fight.”

  “Let’s not. But the idea isn’t a bad one. Find somewhere to hold up, give the men a rest and do some training and crafting. But not for too long. We’re not in the same situation we were in, lacking food and hoping to beat the rush to buy it from the serf lords. But we still need to get to our new fief before winter. No, with enough time before winter to prepare for it. What I’m not so sure about is selling the new armor. Seems a better use to wear it!”

  “That’s a great deal of weight Milord.” Miro cautioned. “Especially when we need to drag so much food with us. It’s also, if one corpse gives one set of armor-” She glanced over at Conner, then James when the first only shrugged.

  “Something like that. Less at first while they do some learning and leveling, but it’s as good an assumption as any.”

  “Then we’ll have more armor sets then people.”

  “Now.” Ethan argued. “But we’ll only grow from here and this kind of windfall doesn’t come along all that often.”

  “But until then, it gains us nothing My Lord. And costs us much in carrying capacity.” She pressed earnestly but still respectfully.

  He tapped his hands on the table but didn’t disagree. It went against the grain to let a military windfall like this fall into someone else’s hands. But if they had to sell it, best sell it farther away from his new home!

  With a soft chuckle, he said as much.

  “Alright James. I don’t like it, but she’s making too much sense to ignore. How long are we talking?”

  James nodded. “I asked some of our new Scrimshawers-”

  He paused as Ethan raised a finger. “How many of those? And Bowyers too while you’re at it.”

  “Twenty-four Scrimshawers and fifteen Bowyers Milord.” About half the Bands complement of maxed out Craftsmen. “They are predicting about a set per week per Scrimshawer. Two-thirds of that if we assign more Craftsmen to help them. As they learn the material and their new class, that number will drop considerably.

  Ethan shook his head. That wouldn’t work. “Forget sets. What about just the chest piece?” That was usually the most expensive and longest to make, but if they had mostly prepared ‘bands’ already, was that still true? They’d need to do a bit of adjusting, then assemble it to a harness. If they could ignore all the extra pieces, they’d dodge a great deal of leather and sewing work. That should save them a considerable amount of time. Especially as he didn’t recall leatherworking being part of the new class’s focus. Probably why they wanted the Craftsman to help.

  James paused. “A good point, Milord. But not one I can answer now.”

  Ethan waved it aside. It would have to be answered before they went on. “Even if the time taken halves, is it worth delaying even two weeks for a hundred segmentata torsos? How much difference in price are we talking here?”

  Miro waved a hand. “The chest is the largest cost piece in a set. Say 350 silver drachma? A bit less perhaps.”

  Damn. He was even more reluctant to let any of it go unfinished.

  “Assume we sell all of the Umbral meat away. It’s nasty stuff anyway.”

  Miro winced. “It’s hard to sell something at a decent price when even you don’t value it milord. Any food is valuable and taste doesn’t matter when you are keeping Basics from starvation.”

  Ethan just waved it away. He wouldn’t say it in front of a merchant, but he wasn’t about to lie here and now.

  “Assume we dump it all on the Baroness and her poor peasants.”

  “Her what Milord?” Miro asked, confused.

  Ethan stopped, reflecting back over the word. Huh.

  “Something I heard somewhere. Another term for basics.” She nodded, though with a bit of doubt not to carefully hidden. Ethan moved on.

  “That gets us close to our top end. Then we eat a great deal of mushrooms. Best place to carry food is in good fat anyway. Does that get us there?”

  “To heavily overloaded but still mobile? Very likely, Milord. But if we try to ‘dump’ it all on her, we will get skinned on the price.”

  He shrugged again. “Do we have a choice? We have to lighten the load somehow and getting skinned on the least valuable is better than the most. Unless you think something from our regular supplies is better to leave or sell? James’s beloved beans, perhaps?”

  Laughter overwhelmed James' objections as even Conner nudged him with an elbow.

  “Anything Miro?” He asked again once the tent came back to a more reasonable volume.

  “Possibly, Milord. You mentioned expended spear shafts? I did notice a rather large number of spares in your wagons. Not to mention a bunch of the splintered or cracked shafts still marked for transport and other large chunks of wood like the camp gates and drawbridge. Even bundles of wooden spikes for the moat. Couldn’t we reacquire those cheaply in forested territory up the Silverstrom? Throw out some spares and all of the cracked spear staves while we’re at it and we could drop a great deal of weight.”

  “That’s our survival, little miss.” Conner objected. “We have those spares because we go through them. And they are never wasted. Even a cracked shaft can be remade into a pilum or practice gear. At worst, wes need a lot of firewood. I’ll no deny the gate and drawbridge are heavy. But dey are as much a time saver as being less loaded would be. They make a simple ditch and berm into a fortress instead of a rat trap. We can sally out or retreat back in at speed. Without dat, wes need a much more extensive set of earthworks and more men to man dem.”

  “Can we skip that altogether? To not entrench every night and march another what, couple miles? At least till we get to a wilder area. We’re in the center of the empire, right?” She asked with a note of genuine curiosity.

  Not a man at the table but didn’t shake his head. Some more zealously than others. But it was James who gently explained. “Even more needed in the heart of the empire, love. Tall walls make good neighbors and that goes double for traveling. Without digging in we’d have to leave four times as many men on watch, and even then, most of us wouldn’t sleep well.”

  “How much is a bit of sleep worth.” She asked rhetorically. “We can’t take it all and Military equipment or food seems to be the choice. I can arrange what we have in terms of how it will likely sell, but I can’t choose for you. Which strategic benefits are worth carrying across the empire? Money, cores and maybe your tier 3 materials hold great value for comparatively little weight. And we can trade them for food or gear at the end of our journey.”

  “I agree to a point, Miro. But what a merchant can buy and what a marching army can, differ wildly. We might get to that other end and find sellers leery of helping a competitor.” Ethan pointed out, but she wasn’t wrong either. It was a far better idea to carry money and buy what they needed along the way. Not being dragged down by so much clutter that they ate more food than they gained in profit.

  Which brought them right back to the beginning. What could he bear to give up?

  ________