Chương 24: Chapter 23 - For Peace and Retirement

I sat on a black horse a few hundred meters outside of Cintra's walls in my new armour. My shoulder still twinged, but the crossbow bolt had been removed and the armour patched up. Dijkstra's own assassin had been a stroke of luck. I couldn't use Grealghane on my own assailants, considering the commotion I had caused, so the other assassin presented a perfect opportunity. Unfortunately, while the spell had not yielded much, it seemed that the man really was sent by the Duke of Attre.

I let the matter go, instead focusing on my thirteen hundred 'bodyguards' arrayed before me. A thousand foot soldiers alongside three hundred longbowmen, just like the Queen promised. A squad of ten royal guards, led by Roderic, was also present as my actual bodyguards. They stood closer to me, along with a stoic-looking Coen.

The witcher had not been terribly enthused when he found out the expedition would be of the military kind, but I had somewhat mollified him by reminding him that he was only paid to deal with monsters. They were… disappointing. Most were young and untested, their eyes unsure. The footmen were uniformly armed with spears, but their armour was eclectic. Some had cuirasses, most only wore gambesons. The longbowmen were better.

All had gambesons, most with chainmail or brigandines over it, and it was clear from their postures that these were not some random conscripts. Thanks to the last assassination attempt, I had managed to wrangle full control of these soldiers from the Queen and the marshal, so I had that going on for me. I had also managed to obtain enough shovels for most of the force, mostly buying them up from the locals using the Crown's funds. That had been a much harder sell, but Calanthé caved eventually.

Unfortunately, most of the shovels were wooden or otherwise of low quality, but I would make do. Despite the severity of our task, the men in front of me looked bored. I would have to rectify that quickly. I smiled. Though war did not agree with me, a part of me very much liked helping maximise the potential of human resources entrusted into my care. In my past life, that had been the 203rd. I doubted such a drastic transformation was possible here, considering the numbers present, but I could still try.

Cyril ducked his head, evading a shard of ice as he dug like a man possessed.

'What kind of field exercise was this?!' He had known that they were in for a bad time when it became clear who exactly they'd be following, but he had not expected this.

"NOCK!" A female voice shouted. Cyril dared not raise his eyes, just digging harder.

"DRAW!" Sweat started pouring down his brow.

"LOOSE!" He jumped into the shallow ditch, making himself as small as possible as arrows rained around him and his fellows. Grunts echoed as the slower men were hit. Fortunately, the Sorceress had not wanted to waste proper ammunition, so the arrows were without arrowheads, their tips blunted. That didn't mean that getting hit wasn't very painful.

"Retrieve your arrows!" Cyril cringed. He knew what was coming now. As he spotted the longbowmen desperately running towards his position, he couldn't help but glance at the sorceress. She sat on her black horse, waving her staff and surely shouting her nonsense words. He could already see more ice shards coming into existence above her. Getting up alongside his comrades, he brandished the shovel, getting ready. They had learned the hard way that the witch could control the trajectory of her projectiles.

As the shards flew, Cyril did his best to dodge or deflect them. Occasionally pulling one of the longbowmen out of the way. The archers had it worse, as they also had to focus on retrieving their ammunition and thus could not devote their full attention to the sorceress. It was the job of the rest of the infantry to protect them. As suddenly as it began, the barrage ended, and the voice of their commander resounded around, "Good, no crying this time. First Battalion rest. Second and Third prepare the wagon fort.

If you do it fast enough, you'll have a neat place to hide when I start throwing more ice."

"First Battalion, that's us, right?" A man to his left, Radomir, asked.

"Yes," Cyril responded, somewhat exasperated. Why so many of his fellows struggled with the simple way the Sorceress had split them up was beyond him. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Thank Melitelé," Radomir responded, immediately slumping. Cyril was about to respond when he noticed the rhythmic clatter of hooves.

"Is it me, or is she coming this way?" He asked. Radomir raised his head, squinting, before his eyes widened, "Shit."

"Maybe it's not us?" Cyril added without any confidence. They stayed silent as the witch approached. Eventually, her black horse stopped in front of them, and the armoured sorceress hopped down.

"You are Sergeant Cyril, correct?" She spoke.

"Yes, My Lady!" He responded quickly, internally lamenting. Why couldn't it have been Radomir?

"You've worked for the guard for fifteen years."

"Yes." She looked him up and down, "You did well in the latest exercise. The Archers were appreciative."

"Uh, thank you?" The witch nodded, "From today, you will be the Commander of the First Battalion. Pick two men as your Lieutenants, then bring them to me for review. Each of them will help you oversee half of your men, so do not be hasty in your choice. Naturally, your increase in rank comes with better pay."

"Lieutenants?" He spoke the strange word uncertainly. It had been clear for a while that the way the witch was organising her troops was strange, but the inclusion of new ranks went beyond that. Only nobles could command more than fifty men. Cyril was not even a knight, as common born as they could get.

"Officers. Think of them as your left and right hands. They'll be in charge of the sergeants, to make things easier for you." A plethora of thoughts went through Cyril's head then, many perhaps unwise. Ultimately, he nodded. It was a week after we began our march and already the soldiers were shaping up. To be fair, we were marching slow, spending most of the daylight doing drills and exercises. I had decided that a delay of a few weeks was well worth the additional training.

The men clearly needed it, though there were already some exceptions. A good thing too, as the command structure I had started with was frankly atrocious. In the entire thirteen hundred, there was only a single rank above the common grunt, that of a Sergeant. Normally, there'd be captains above those who'd answer to the commander of the force, but those were usually minor nobility and thus absent.

Vissegerd had not been happy about that, but their absence gave me much more freedom in how I moulded the group, and I had already picked new commanders. Cyril was one of them. A former city guard, he was one of the most experienced among my infantry. More importantly, the exercises proved that he had a good head on his shoulders and at least some talent for leadership. I'd keep an eye on him, but I felt confident in my decision.

The injuries were kept to a minimum as I could control my spells well enough not to cause too much damage. The archers were trickier, but even a simple gambeson offered good enough protection against the training arrows. Still, there was some danger, but the archers got the hang of it after the first few broken bones. While I could not completely fix those with magic, I could speed up their healing from months to weeks. They should be all healed up by the time we'd reach our destination.

For now, they could help with the more administrative tasks around the camp. Watching as the soldiers circled the wagons for the night and began digging ditches and adding extra defences onto the wagons, I nodded in satisfaction. My experience from my last life was not terribly helpful when it came to the logistics and management of a medieval army, but the history of both my former worlds came to the rescue there.

Ideally, I'd want full-on roman style camps, but I simply did not have the required specialists for that. A standard legion had up to a thousand engineers of various specialisations, from architects to carpenters, surveyors, builders and others, something that was far outside of my grasp at the moment. Luckily or unluckily, the vast majority of the foot soldiers had little experience with soldiery and a lot with regular civilian life. Quite a few had relevant experience, of course, none were terribly good.

Still, it was better than nothing. The wagon wall I had stolen from the Hussites, whose struggles seemed the most appropriate to take inspiration from. They started as untrained peasants armed with farm tools and ended up laughing off cavalry charges and defeating trained knights, mostly through clever tactics and strategy than anything else. The benefits were fairly obvious. A decently fortified camp for the night could be constructed in record time.

Even if an enemy surprised us during a march, the men could form a wall quickly enough. While hardly as good as proper fortifications, fighting from behind a wagon fort was still vastly superior to even ground. The downsides were the wagons themselves. I had intentionally brought more than was strictly needed, but that did not mean I could afford to lug around wagons for the sole purpose of using them as barricades.

In other words, if an enemy managed to damage enough of the wagons, our movement speed would be crippled as the wagons were still critical for our logistics. It was a risk I was willing to take. My soldiers were no elites. I had hopes they'd shape up eventually, but determination could not conjure heavy armour out of thin air anyway. I needed any advantage I could get. I also lacked any other non-magical answer to cavalry.

Magic could serve in the worst case, but planning general strategy around my own capabilities was unwise as it'd leave my men helpless were I busy with something or otherwise indisposed. I sighed. It was one of the major things my little army lacked. That and a lack of proper scouts. Luckily, both would be more or less solved once we made it to Tigg and rendezvoused with the horseman promised by the Queen.

I would likely still keep scouting through magic, as the Saov Llygad spell had proven quite convenient for that purpose, yet the redundancy provided by proper outriders would help me sleep at night.

'If only I had succeeded in creating the war hounds sooner,' I thought. An idea struck me then. I had already succeeded in creating monsters. Yes, I could not control them, and the rats were not especially impressive anyway, but with some adjustments, I could likely create a monster big enough to give pause to most soldiers. I doubted I could make them long-lived, but that was practically a bonus. The challenge would be similar to most biological weapons. Making sure it only hit the enemy.