Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 8

“We’ve marked out a good, safe spot for your tent, m’lady.”

“Would you like some water, m’lady? That was a long ride we had today.”

Joachim cringed internally as a dozen men encircled Baroness Zahradnik’s warhorse, fawning over the young noblewoman. Relief had flooded through him when they finally left the Undead behind with the Fifth Legion, but, now, other potential issues that had slipped his mind entirely rose to the forefront.

In addition to the barrage of offers that she was getting for every conceivable thing, four of the men appeared to be stepping over one another as they held out their hands to help her dismount. For her part, the Baroness simply bestowed her friendly smile. It was one that he quickly learned to recognise as he accompanied her around the Wyvernmark and, in this case, it could only mean one thing. Frontier Nobles were generally men and women of few words, nearly always preferring to let their actions speak for them.

The women were often mistaken for their civilian counterparts – especially since their outward appearances were similar when not wearing armour. There was, however, a whole world of difference between them and the signals that they gave off could have drastically different meanings. Chosen for what they were, the men of Ray’s battalion were woefully unprepared for Lady Zahradnik.

“Might I carry your bags, m’lady?”

Do you think that warhorse is just for show?

Lady Zahradnik’s gaze settled on the smiling man. Joachim watched with morbid curiosity as she detached the two satchels resting on her hips from her belt. Her mount shifted sideways as she sent one down into the man’s held-out arms with a casual flick of her wrist.

The undignified sound was followed by the clatter of metal plates as the man was knocked flat on his back. The warhorse shifted sideways again as the second fifty-kilogram satchel followed after the first.

The Baroness was riding the largest warhorse available in the entire battalion – which was then augmented with magic – because the combined weight between herself, her outfit and her belongings was somewhere in the vicinity of 180 kilograms. An average Imperial Knight in full plate armour was over half that. It was no small wonder that she usually rode a Soul Eater around.

She smoothly dismounted on her own, kneeling to free the soldier trapped under her bags. After reattaching them to her belt, she helped the man up. He still seemed uncertain about what had happened and the faces of the men around her similarly teetered between confusion over the strange event and their ongoing admiration for the attractive young woman.

Like the members of Joachim’s family or most of the Empire’s martial houses, Lady Zahradnik did not ‘market’ herself as civilian aristocrats did. She, like Joachim’s grandfather, had the additional tendency of not saying or doing anything while others ran off with their own preconceptions. If she was feeling particularly mean, she would subtly use the various things that people did based on those preconceptions to bite them in the ass.

When Joachim asked his grandfather why he did that, the Baron said something along the lines of never interrupting an enemy in the middle of making a mistake, which Joachim supposed made sense. At the same time, Baron Ward did it to everyone, friend and foe alike, so Joachim was sure that his grandfather just did it out of a sense of sadistic satisfaction. This in turn made him wonder if Lady Zahradnik also had a sadistic streak in her, but the men of the battalion would probably benefit overall from her influence.

While they were not inherently bad, the men of the Sixth Legion would be considered unproven and uncultured by the rest of the Imperial Army. The army group was primarily populated by young recruits that would have otherwise gone to the Eighth Legion, as well as ambitious individuals who were drawn by the idea that the ‘expeditionary army’ would be out to enact conquests and expand the Empire.

They were the spares of tenant households, men who drifted to the towns and cities. Such spares found that the safe and comfortable life in urban settings was but a mere product of their hopeful imaginations. An invisible wall lay before outsiders to the hierarchy of urban communities, keeping them from partaking in their prosperity.

Destitute and forlorn, these spares were easy marks for army recruiters, who enjoyed the proverbial pick of the litter. Few were literate upon enlisting and their knowledge did not go far beyond the bounds of their home villages or what they had suffered in the cities.

This would be the low point in their lives, however, assuming that they weren’t mustered out. The Imperial Army took good care of its people, and with training came competence, confidence, pride and a place to belong.

Unfortunately, the Sixth Legion’s new mandate led to complications in the Imperial Army’s educational processes for such recruits. By and large, the Sixth Legion rushed through training and raised the men to be conquerors rather than protectors. With this came attitudes distinct from the rest of the Imperial Army. Those attitudes might have been tempered over time, but time was a scarce commodity with the Sixth Legion’s rapid and radical reorganisation.

They were strength without substance; pride without experience and General Ray’s battalion had been purposely selected to be free of the shackles of tradition and the influence of other Nobles. As a result, the companies of the battalion had the basic training of the Imperial Army, but they were closer in spirit to Mercenaries. Ray’s Mercenaries.

In Lady Zahradnik, Joachim saw a chance for many of these issues to be addressed. Noblewomen had ways of doing things that allowed them to achieve goals that noblemen could not without antagonising others and martial Nobles, while stern and brusque, were genuine people who had a seemingly irresistible urge to ‘fix’ problems for the greater good. The women were also far tougher than the men when it came to dealing with difficult social scenarios. As long as certain lines were not crossed, anything and everything would just bounce off of the Baroness’ defences like pebbles off of plate armour.

Joachim followed Lady Zahradnik as she was led by her ‘bodyguard’ to the place that they had reserved for her. His eyes idly scanned the path at his feet as he wondered how her stay would play out. Hopefully, things in the Sixth Legion would take a turn for the better.

“Priest Ward.”

His vision focused and he looked up at the sound of the Baroness’ voice.

“My lady?”

“How are guard details usually organised in the Sixth Legion?” She asked.

“I’m not aware of any procedures unique to us,” Joachim answered. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just that they all seem to be intent on watching me at all times.”

He looked past her to where a half dozen were setting up her tent. The others lurked in the vicinity, looking more like street thugs than sentries. Joachim assumed that they were at least trying to do their jobs, but he saw what Lady Zahradnik was trying to say: they were all trying to do the same jobs at the same time.

“I’ll inform the Sergeant and he’ll sort out their shifts…”

Joachim’s voice trailed off. Upon seeing realisation dawn upon him, Lady Zahradnik offered Joachim her charming, lopsided smile. He looked over the men in the Baroness’ bodyguard.

There were seven Cavaliers. Two Rangers. Two heavy infantry and – with himself included – two Clerics. Adding an officer would make it close to a standard imperial patrol…

A moment’s thought had him realise the root of the problem. The members in a Legion’s standard patrols reflected the army group’s ratios as a whole. In the Sixth Legion, mages were lacking since they were essential for the stations where they were already posted, performing regulatory and communication duties. Clerics, however, had fallen in demand as their borders with the Sorcerous Kingdom made frontier patrols along the entire western border unnecessary. As a result, the Sixth Legion had nearly twice as many Clerics as usual.

The men who had volunteered – or rather, competed – to serve as Lady Zahradnik’s escort similarly reflected the army group’s distribution of troops. An officer, however, could not simply leave their squad as rank-and-file soldiers could. Thus, they had no Sergeant. General Ray did not seem to believe that Lady Zahradnik had any significant martial ability and thought that she would be observing their operations from a distance. All she needed was a group of men to watch over her. It was an ad hoc solution to an irregular demand, but Ray’s battalion was, by nature, ad hoc.

Instead of providing her with a fully-functional squad, Ray had probably picked out what he thought would probably impress or please her. Politically speaking, this was prudent – one wouldn’t expect a liaison officer to risk themselves on the front lines – but Joachim doubted that Lady Zahradnik was very fragile. She would go where she thought she could see what she wanted to see as she often did while working with the Fifth Legion.

“I’ll let General Ray–”

“Wait.”

Joachim froze mid-step and turned a questioning look at the Baroness.

“My lady?”

“I’ll do it,” she said. “I can act as their officer. If it is allowed, of course.”

“They are your bodyguard, my lady,” Joachim replied. “General Ray has done everything he can to accommodate you and I don’t think anyone would oppose your wishes.”

“It’s a novel opportunity,” Lady Zahradnik said. “I keep getting Nobles and Noble scions attached to me, so my interactions with the regular soldiery have been decidedly limited and usually brief. Commoners make up the vast majority of the Imperial Army, yet I haven’t had the chance to get to know many of them.”

He hoped they would survive. In the Imperial Magic Academy, even the scions of High Nobles didn’t cross girls from martial houses because they were just that terrifying. These men, however, hadn’t the slightest clue what she was. It occurred to Joachim that he should probably warn them, but it might have been that he had a sadistic streak too.

When the tent was pitched and the men started to loiter about, Lady Zahradnik went over to address them.

“Thank you very much,” she said with a smile, “I appreciate the help.”

“Not a problem, m’lady,” one of the men was quicker in his reply than the others, “we’ll help set up your things inside as well.”

“That will be alright,” Lady Zahradnik replied, “I can see to that part myself. Who is the commanding officer amongst you, by the way?”

The men exchanged glances, replying to her question with unknowing looks. At least they weren’t crazy enough to try and slip false claims past her.

“In that case,” the Baroness told them, “I’ll be serving as your Captain. Before I send you off to pitch your tents, I’d like to know your names…”

After collecting their names, she organised the tents into a blind alley that opened into the central yard of the encampment. Lady Zahradnik’s tent occupied the cul-de-sac at the end, while the Priest’s tents – which were larger than the other soldiers’ tents by necessity – were on either side of it, facing the place where the squad’s campfire would be. While the men moved to arrange everything as she had instructed, the newly self-proclaimed Captain went over to the quartermaster to requisition supplies.

“You seem well-used to this, my lady,” Joachim said as he helped her carry everything back.

“I must have watched it happen several hundred times,” Lady Zahradnik replied. “Much of my experience in the Second Legion’s camps was in the officers’ tents or near to them, so I was able to observe many of the mundane administrative duties being carried out. I wasn’t assigned a bodyguard, however – I’m at a loss as to what to do with them.”

“That’s a good question, but I don’t think there’s any expectation of you doing anything with them at all. As far as it looks, they’ve been selected for their strength and appearance. Beyond being instructed to facilitate a pleasant stay and keep you safe, I doubt General Ray has anything in mind for them.”

“Do Imperial Knights receive any recognition for escorting people around?”

“Not unless they have to save the person they’re escorting from a deadly situation,” Joachim snorted. “To be honest, the men here have things backwards, my lady. I am not disparaging of them when I say this, but they’re wrapped up in the ‘idea’ of what being an Imperial Knight is and acting according to that. They have no sense of how things work in reality.”

Comfortably established Imperial Knights valued escort duties because it would earn them prestige and those duties also involved interacting with important people – in other words, it was a chance to be seen and make connections. However, prestige and connections only mattered if one could leverage them. The vast majority of the Sixth Legion’s soldiers had nothing to leverage but themselves and the men of the Baroness’ bodyguard were no exception.

What they needed to do was render notable service and earn their spurs. Once they entered the ranks of the gentry, further achievements would earn them honours – monetary rewards, rank and titles – and it was at that point an Imperial Knight switched their focus to leveraging what they had earned by competing for prestigious and advantageously-placed assignments.

While genuinely strong relative to their peers, the men in the Baroness’ bodyguard were doing themselves a disservice. The idea that they were serving as escorts to a young and attractive noblewoman like some Knight from a Bard’s tale was blinding them to the fact that it would not help them achieve the goals that motivated them to enlist in the Imperial Army. General Ray did not dissuade them of their romanticised notions as they allowed him to cobble together an escort with a minimum of fuss and plenty of candidates to choose from.

In short, they were not yet Imperial Knights and would have no opportunities to distinguish themselves and receive their Knighthoods. Hopefully, they didn’t think that they could ingratiate themselves with the Baroness and have her put in a good word for them. Joachim knew enough about her to know that any such attempts would result in the abrupt and possibly violent end to their careers.

“I thought something like that would be the case,” Lady Zahradnik said. “Discharging them from my service so they can apply themselves towards their goals would cause problems, but I believe that I can at least help them earn some achievements.”

Joachim hid his confusion as he added his crates to the squad’s stockpile. Was it really so simple as that? She made it sound as if she could produce achievements on demand.

“If I may ask, my lady,” he said, “how does it work in the Sorcerous Kingdom? Advancement in the military, I mean.”

“The structure of the Sorcerous Kingdom’s Royal Army is such that ‘advancement’ is a relatively new concept. Martial matters are the responsibility of His Majesty’s vassals and their subordinates. All of my work has been undertaken not as an officer of the Royal Army, but as a Noble with the obligations of a martial vassal. Rather than commanding a regiment levied from my vassals, however, I command forces that mostly consist of the Undead.”

“…I hope you won’t be treating your bodyguard as Undead, my lady.”

The Baroness seemed amused by his concern. Her lips turned up in a slight smile as they joined the men around the campfire.

“While I cannot be absolutely sure,” she said, “I believe that this battalion already has what is needed to achieve its overarching objectives in this wilderness. You will not require any additional Undead, nor will I be treating my men as such. Now, let’s see what we can do about getting everyone what they need.”

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