30. Farmers with Swords
Chapter thirty
Farmers with Swords
“Iwill hack that Medallion into little pieces and fling his worthless body into the jungle!”
Telling Almatra about his interaction with Edim Morbank might have been a mistake.
She was entirely too hotheaded to be trusted not to storm off to the white tent as a one-woman attack force.
But then, Imalroc appreciated her reaction.
Part of him very much liked the hacking-into-little-pieces plan.
News of the meeting spread quickly through the camp. By the time he stomped onto the training grounds with a practice sword in hand, almost everyone knew to keep well clear of him. Except for an ambitious Easterner who offered to spar and ended up looking like a walking bruise.
Imalroc shifted on a flat rock beside the fire and frowned at his dinner. He probably should have shown a bit more restraint, but at least the young idiot was likely to stop doing those ridiculous, wide-armed leaps to disorient his opponent.
Sparring had leeched too little of the anger from his blood. It sat like a warm coal in his stomach. A whole day poisoned by that sanctimonious blonde puddle of walking diarrhea.
As if she’d heard his thoughts, Almatra continued, “That stupid, lazy, spoiled brat! He deserves a much closer haircut. Or perhaps I’ll take it off elsewhere. I can think of a very good place for a man to lose a few inches!”
Veshion choked on his frybread.
Imalroc started to laugh, but his amusement vanished at the sight of an unfamiliar face. He glared at the solemn, square-jawed soldier standing opposite their fire. “Who’re you?”
The man moved hesitantly into the light. It was a wonder he’d snuck through the Eastern quarters of the battlebox shelters without losing a limb or two.
The man’s pained expression suggested that he had caught Almatra’s every word. “Is Dolasarra about?”
Almatra whirled toward the soldier. “Your Medallion is a fuckhead, Tefka!”
The man winced. “Please, soldiers are subject to reprimand if they openly disrespect a superior officer—”
“We’re not his soldiers,” growled Veshion. “And he’s a fuckhead.”
Imalroc shot the Easterner a grin and waited to see how defensive the soldier would get. This was the man Morbank had sent for to interpret the maps.
“Dolasarra. Is she here? She asked for me earlier, but this was the soonest I could get away.”
“She’s busy. You can talk to us.” Imalroc lobbed the invitation casually enough, but it took effort to keep the barbs out of his voice.
“You’re Imalroc,” the soldier said, meeting his gaze.
A muscle in the corner of Imalroc’s jaw twitched. Morbank must have told Tefka about the morning’s humiliation. “Yes.”
“My name is Tefka Quinn. We’ve not been introduced.”
The soldier waited for him to say something, but Imalroc was hardly going to give him the comfort of fucking small talk. His gaze moved to the elaborate golden brooch nestled against the green cloak on Tefka’s shoulder. A ranking officer. Captain Tefka Quinn would find no friends here.
“Where have you been, anyway?” Veshion asked. “Edim’s been shittier than usual without you around.”
Tefka scrubbed a hand across his face. “Command Medallion Galada has me trying to win support from merchant families in the Midlands.”
“Demonstrating your fighting prowess and bragging?” Almatra snapped.
“It’s mostly a lot of dinner parties where I don’t know which spoon to use.” Tefka dropped to sit on a log, kicking pristine boots out in front of him without regard for the dirt that immediately smudged them.
Cautiously, he shifted toward Imalroc. “Look, I... I know there was an unfortunate moment with Medallion Morbank.” He raised his voice over the hisses and rumbling curse words from everyone around the fire.
“But that letter, which I’m assuming you read, is much more important.
If the Feld Council does not declare war—”
“Then we say ‘farewell fuckheads’ and go to war anyway!” Almatra looked as though she couldn’t believe it had taken her this long to think of it.
Tefka’s eyebrows knitted. “Fine. Say we do that. The other Southern rally camps have no reason to come along with us. We’d be massively outnumbered and strategically hamstrung.
No soldiers for reinforcement, no one to spare for supply lines, and possibly facing attack from the other camps to prevent full-scale collapse of the rebellion.
We’ll force the Advocate to choose between supporting a fraction of the army she should have, or standing by her alliances and shutting us out in the Midlands to die. Is that what you want?”
Morbank’s lackey or not, Tefka was the first person Imalroc had heard speaking of supply lines and reinforcements. His mind seemed to be working on the right sort of problems, at least. Still, he kept his face utterly blank when Tefka glanced back over to him.
“We brought the letter to your side because that’s obviously not the outcome we want,” Imalroc said coldly. No damn ‘sir’ attached.
If Tefka noticed the absent salute, he gave no indication of it. “Then you understand that the best thing we can do is give the Advocate an army strong enough to convince the Feld Council they can win, whether they’ve got a clear crime to pin on Kuraya or not.”
“And your brilliant suggestion is?” Beneath his sarcasm, he was curious. Tefka struck him as at least somewhat competent.
“I don’t have a perfect answer,” Tefka hedged, “and I... really wanted to talk to Dolasarra about it before I brought it to the rest of—”
“Spit it out,” grunted Veshion.
“Fine.” Tefka sat taller, holding a breath beneath his ribs. “We need to reorganize the camp and drill in banner legions.”
When no one immediately leapt to cut his head off, he continued. “I’ve had the soldiers practice group maneuvers that the battleboxers will need to learn. And,” he inclined his head toward them, “I’m sure you all have a lot to teach us about hand-to-hand combat.”
Imalroc bristled. Hand-to-hand combat was as sanitized a description of battleboxing as any he’d heard. The dormant coal in his stomach roared alight.
He tried not to outright snarl. He didn’t manage it.
“What we did was not hand-to-hand combat. It was survival. How do I teach hurling a blade into someone’s throat to end a battle you never wanted in the first place?
Or about how to keep fighting while you are drowning?
Will I teach you to endure having your back flayed to the bone over and over again by handlers who own you and hate you and send you to your death for their own gain, or just for the fucking sport of it? ”
It wasn’t enough. It did not satisfy.
He rose on twitching legs, leaned toward Tefka, his nails cutting the inside of his palms. “There is nothing I can teach your soldiers about how it feels to have someone try to get inside your heart and mind and break you, or what it takes to ensure that no one ever succeeds. No one. Ever.”
They were all staring at him. Veshion stone-faced and staring at the fire, Almatra nodding angrily, and Tefka pale and appalled.
He might as well have screamed, because his throat felt stripped, and if his face was anywhere near as white as his hands, he would pass for a ghost.
They were still staring. Still silent.
Tefka’s swallow was audible. “I... I am very sorry that those things happened to you. I don’t know much about battleboxing, or those who participate in it.”
Imalroc bared his teeth.
Tefka gulped. “But we need you. We need your abilities, and your anger, and your endurance.” He looked around the fire. “There is no army without you.” His gaze returned to Imalroc. “And you will have no vengeance if there is no army.”
Something teetered inside him, and Imalroc sank to his precarious seat. Brought his control back like a curtain falling over places where too much light had been let in. His outburst had been too raw. He breathed through his nose, his lips sealed.
“I know that this will be difficult.” Tefka spoke to the ground. He looked suddenly quite hopeless. “I pray it is not impossible. We need the battleboxers and soldiers to work together. To fight together.”
“I suppose,” Veshion rumbled, “that this will mean taking orders from a bunch of farmers with swords.” Imalroc was surprised to hear the tiniest note of resignation in his voice.
“The captains are all career soldiers,” Tefka countered. His gaze flicked in Imalroc’s direction but did not quite land. “Although I will admit that some are not truly battle-tested yet.”
“What if we run units of only battleboxers? The soldiers can be commanded by their own captains, and the units can coordinate through the captains,” Veshion said.
“I’m hoping to avoid that,” Tefka’s voice was calm, but he gripped the log beneath him as though he meant to crush it to pulp. “Separate units will cement our distrust of each other. We need a unified army, not a temporary alliance of hostile forces.”
Imalroc wanted to disagree with him, but something wormed into the back of his head.
He thought of his arrival at the rally camp, and how hard he had worked to ensure that the different regions trained together.
And it was working. The tensions between the Westerners and Easterners had eased, and the Northerners seemed to have ceased to be a reclusive faction altogether.
The more the lines faded, the more they learned from each other, and the higher their spirits seemed to climb.
They were part of something growing bigger and stronger, and they knew it.
But battleboxers were tied by a shared wound. A shattered chain. There could be nothing like that between them and the free soldiers who fought for pride or glory or onyx.