Chapter 69 — The Unromantic Art of Surviving

The morning star still hung over FireStorm when the Black Armor Army completed its first circuit.

Fifty men ran under load in a steady column, and Cade rode beside them, calling cadence and correcting pace, and his whip cracked in the air twice and touched no one. "If I have to hit you to make you run," he shouted, "you are too stupid to trust with a spear!"

After roughly an hour under load, the run ended and formation work began.

There was no rest long enough for muscles to cool. Men drank, checked straps, and went directly into shield drill while fatigue still made simple movements harder; Cade wanted errors to appear in training, where bruises and shouted corrections were cheaper than funerals. The new leather created errors of its own. One collar rubbed skin raw, rain tightened two untreated straps, and black armor held the morning's heat once the sun cleared the wall. Each fault went onto the fitting board before anyone called discomfort weakness.

Three-man groups linked shields, opened, closed, replaced front men, and moved backward without turning their backs, and Cade taught shield angles before attacks because a formation that absorbed impact badly would exhaust itself even when it survived. He demonstrated where the rear foot belonged under impact, how far a spear could project without opening the shield line, and how the man behind the front rank replaced him when fatigue made the shield sag.

"Your left man is not decoration," he told one recruit. "If you move without him, you create the hole that kills both of you; again."

They did it again. And again. By noon shoulders trembled from holding shields. Arlan took the afternoon.

He wore a plain black training coat without a lordly cloak and carried a dulled practice sword. At first, he used no special platform. The lesson was meant for men who had never been taught by household knights and could not spend years learning tournament forms, and they needed a small number of habits that still worked when frightened, tired, or bleeding.

"Cade teaches you how not to become fifty separate corpses," he said. "I teach you what remains useful when the line breaks anyway."

He divided them into pairs and narrowed the yard with wagons, doors, and hanging sacks until no one possessed the empty space of a tourney ground. One man had to cover while the other recovered a dropped spear. At the next station, both withdrew through a doorway with a weighted casualty between them. At the last, a mailed attacker crowded close enough that striking the chest wasted time; the defender had to control the weapon hand, knee, or open joint and then leave rather than admire his work.

"There is no prize for a beautiful cut," Arlan told them. "There is a widow if you choose it over the useful one."

Brienne worked the doorway station. Her greatsword dominated open ground and became harder to turn when two shields and a wounded man filled the passage. She shortened her grip, used the crossguard to bind a practice blade, and showed how a strong weapon changed with the space around it. The recruits saw her adjust without needing a public duel to decide who was superior.

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Rain began before the second rotation ended. The yard turned slick along the wagon ruts, wet leather gained weight, and one recruit's new boot sole peeled at the heel. Cade did not stop the exercise. He moved the doorway station beneath the granary arch, shortened the running lane, and made every file name which pieces of equipment had changed with the weather. Men who had blamed themselves for slipping began cutting shallow grip marks into soles under the cobbler's eye. Training revealed a bad batch before a march did.

The rain also exposed command. A section leader ordered shields stacked beneath an eave to keep them dry, leaving his men unprotected during the move. Another accepted wet boards and rotated the front rank more often as arms tired. Arlan marked the second choice. Equipment existed to meet weather and blows; preserving it by surrendering its use defeated the purchase.

The exercises exposed habits individual bouts hid. One man recovered his own spear while leaving his partner's flank open. Another tried to carry the casualty alone and blocked the door with three bodies. A third released his weapon at the correct moment, dragged his partner through the gap, and returned for the spear only after the lane was safe.

Arlan repeated each failure slowly enough for the men to see the decision that created it. Skill was not a secret collection of perfect moves. It was observation, correction, and the ability to remain useful after the first plan failed.

For the next days, Cade and Arlan divided training.

Morning conditioning began before sunrise with the same thirty-pound loads, followed by shield work while shoulders were already tired, and spear drill came after breakfast, and unit movement occupied the late morning. Afternoon individual combat covered wound discipline, fighting in confined spaces, using doors and slopes, recovering dropped weapons, and staying useful after taking a hit. Men practiced kneeling behind shields while another soldier dragged a simulated casualty through the line, then repeated the movement until nobody tripped over the man they were supposedly saving.

Rodrick added another irritation: written records of injuries and failures.

"Why record that a man tripped?" Bor asked.

"Because if six men trip in the same place, the problem may be the place."

Cade stared at him for a moment. "I dislike how often that makes sense."

No soldier quit.

The schedule gave them reasons to. Blisters split, forearms bruised under shield rims, and Rodrick treated pulled muscles while refusing to let Cade classify every limp as cowardice. Men whose injuries were genuine were assigned recovery work, then returned to drill instead of being discarded.

Some wanted to.

Arlan could see it when men reached the evening meal too tired to lift bowls comfortably. But higher pay reached their households, better food accompanied the harder work, and injuries were treated instead of mocked. Men who failed a drill repeated it; they were not whipped for entertainment.

The difference between harsh training and pointless cruelty was whether the pain bought capability.

At sunset on the seventh day, the fifty formed without shouted correction, and their movements were not graceful, but they had become predictable to one another, which mattered more. A shield rose when the neighboring spear withdrew; a tired front man stepped back and found another body already filling the space.

Shields aligned. Spears settled. Cade walked the front and found three faults instead of thirty, and no man had to be reminded which side of his shield belonged toward the enemy. "Better," he said. "Do it again tomorrow morning."

From Cade Walker, it sounded almost indecently generous.

Nobody mistook it for rest.

The evening ration included more beans, meat broth, and salt than the ordinary watch received. Morton entered the difference as military expense and made Cade approve it. Bodies worked beyond the common drill required food beyond the common ration; calling hunger discipline would only purchase weaker soldiers and larger infirmary costs.

The extra ladle reached every bowl before the pots were scraped clean.