<pfont-weight: 400″>The soft sounds of boots treading over grass and labored breathing filled the air. In the fading light of the setting sun, a group of silhouettes moved across the rolling hills of the Eastern Marches. Nine men, haggard and exhausted, stumbled forward at what could’ve been imaginatively deemed a “march” if one squinted hard enough. All except one.

Quintus led the group with his head held high and his back straight, as though the past two days of marching had been little more than a leisurely stroll. To him, it had. He’d actually had to slow his pace quite significantly for the sake of his current charges.

The Primus Pilus called back over his shoulder. “Halt!”

His men practically fell over themselves with relief—or perhaps that was just the exhaustion talking. Either way, Quintus frowned at their weakness.

“We make camp here,” he said simply. “Fall out and set up your tents.”

The eight men before him saluted tiredly before slinging their packs to the ground and getting to work. They weren’t nearly as efficient as he would have liked, but that was only to be expected. After all, these weren’t Legionnaires—they were auxiliaries in training.

Technically, overseeing new recruits was well outside of his regular duties. It wasn’t even something he took particular interest in. But as Primus Pilus, he made it his responsibility to understand every part of the Legion’s workings down to the last punishment detail. And that included becoming familiar with how they were treating potential additions to their forces.

So when the centurion who was supposed to be leading this patrol had lost his foot, he’d volunteered to step in. Literally.

The centurion would be fine, apparently. The idea that their resident healer may soon be able to regrow limbs, however slowly, had nearly sent Quintus into some sort of existential crisis. But during his recovery, Quintus had no problem helping to shoulder the extra duties.

He watched over the men with a stern gaze as they hurried to set up their tent. Learning about how the local hopefuls handled a long march, while also collecting information about towns and nearby resources, was killing two birds with one stone. The fact that he could also combine it with a trip to check on Stonester and its reconstruction was even better. Soon, they would be far beyond the rough local maps the Legion had managed to put together and actually bring back new information.

Quintus scanned the horizon, ever-vigilant for possible threats. When he returned his attention to the auxiliaries, he couldn’t help but groan. What was meant to be a neat line of tent poles more closely resembled a collection of haphazard drunkards leaning against each other.

He looked at the ragged line and strode toward one of the recruits busy fiddling with a misaligned center pole.

“Recruit!” Quintus bellowed. His voice would carry, but he was well aware that there was nothing within at least a few miles of them to hear his shouts.

All the recruits snapped to attention and stared at him with abject fear in their eyes. That was good. Right now, they needed to fear their centurions. That fear would give way to respect if they ever became true Legionnaires, although how that process might work in this world was still under intense discussion. But right now, they needed to be broken down. These boys needed to be taught what it meant to be a man, and sometimes that meant getting told off for being too inept to put up a fucking tent.

Quintus loomed over the recruit, his expression stormy. “What the fuck am I looking at, recruit?”

He indicated the center pole as the young man paled. He turned to look. “Ah… a-a support pole, sir—”

“Support? You call that support? The only thing that pole is supporting is your fragile ego, which explains why it’s so abysmal.”

He waved again at the pole. It was leaning by about twenty degrees, held up by the tension in the leather above rather than the opposite. The recruit’s knees began to shake as Quintus went off on him.

“Are you trying to build a tent or a goddamn surrender flag, recruit? It looks like you rigged that thing in the middle of an earthquake, blindfolded and with your hands tied behind your back. By the gods, recruit. I’ve seen three-year-olds draw straighter than this. Did your mother dropping you on your head leave the whole world crooked?”

“I-I—” The recruit swallowed. “I thought it was ok—”

He didn’t give a chance for the recruit to utter another syllable.

“Recruit, I understand you’re not used to seeing things straight—you’ve got more than a little bend to you, I must assume,” Quintus continued. “Or maybe your last two coherent thoughts just killed each other in a petty squabble.

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“If a slight breeze blows through here, you’re going to end up swimming in that tent, because it’ll collapse faster than your military career. In fact, I’m surprised it’s still standing—it must be held up by the sheer power of your shame and uselessness alone. The only thing that will be more crooked than this tent is your nose if you don’t fix this right now!”

He paused for breath, watching the recruit try to stammer out a response.

“I said right fucking now! Move, you disgrace!”

The boy scrambled to fix his mistake in a hurry as Quintus looked on. The other members of the patrol were surreptitiously watching the exchange as they saw to their own tasks. A few stepped forward as though to help, but Quintus warded them off with a sharp look. Inwardly, he was pleased though. It meant they were building camaraderie.

After about five minutes of trying and failing to fix his mistake without resetting the entire tent, the recruit looked like he was ready to cry. At that point, Quintus allowed his comrades to help. They managed to get the whole thing properly reset in two minutes—long by Legion standards, but passable for recruits.

Afterwards, he walked down the line and chewed out every other recruit for their own issues. Most were comparably minor infractions or inaccuracies, thankfully. Yet he still impressed the importance of such details into the troops without restraint.

By the time they’d finished making camp, the last rays of sunlight had disappeared below the horizon. He dismissed the men for the evening and allowed them to sleep for a few precious hours, an opportunity that they took gladly.

It wasn’t surprising. Their marching pace had been brutal by most standards, especially for men so inexperienced at it. Their levels and stats only did so much to offset that lack of training and skill levels, especially since the recruits were still working on improving the new ones they’d had to take. At least they kept the men on their feet, though.

Still, the differences in the men’s professions were made all too clear during training. Those whose vocations involved hard physical labor—lumberjacks, farmers, and the like—were quite obviously faring better than the softer craftsmen and merchants. It bore striking similarities to what he’d seen of prospective recruits back home.

Quintus stayed awake with the men on first watch. He wasn’t confident that they would avoid falling asleep on their feet. And besides, he had to set a good example.

***

As soon as the sun rose, they struck camp and were on the move once again. Quintus allowed the recruits to make idle conversation as they marched, even engaging himself at a few points. Their pace remained quick, but was interspersed with more breaks as Quintus jotted down features and key landmarks of the surrounding areas.

He knew better than most that there was a balance to how one treated their men. At this point, they were tired, hungry, frustrated, grumpy, and barely human in many ways, and they could use a bit more

Of course, none of that meant he would show sympathy or go too easy on them. But he had to scale his expectations to the situation, especially if he wanted to establish a good rapport with them.

“Ah,” one of the recruits, who stood nearly a head taller than the rest, remarked to his friend. “I recognize that place.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s a tiny little town, but it’s got nice people. There’s an inn that makes the best peach pies… Oh, and last I heard, a really good horse breeder just moved nearby.”

“A horse breeder? Here?”

“Yup. Dunno why they decided to come here of all places, but…”

Quintus’s ears perked up as he turned to the recruit. “Horses, you say?”

The tall recruit flinched. “Er… yes, sir.”

The centurion stroked his chin. They had been seeking out horses for a long while with no success. He was sure the Legatus wouldn’t mind a detour if it meant requisitioning some. Especially since it would make the other scouts’ jobs that much easier.

“Er…” One of the men pointed. “That breeder wouldn’t happen to be in that direction, would they?”

Quintus followed his gaze. There, just past a tall hill, smoke drifted lazily into the sky. It wasn’t wispy like chimney smoke, however. The thick column spoke of something far more significant set ablaze.

The recruit frowned. “Well… now that you mention it…”

Quintus put up a hand. “Change of plans. We go to investigate this horse breeder. If they are willing to trade, then good. If they are the source of that blaze…”

He let his words trail off as the men changed course. All of his earlier optimism was quickly replaced by sourness as they made their way toward the smoke. By the time their destination came fully into view, he became fully certain that he was cursed.

The burnt remains of a small house and several horse stables greeted them. The fire mercifully hadn’t spread to set the entire grasslands ablaze, but it certainly hadn’t been kind to the structures.

The stables were all empty, of course—and there wasn’t a single horse in sight. Not even the remains of one. They did see a couple of charred corpses, likely of stablehands that had attempted to mitigate the disaster. But not a single one of the animals that had presumably been under their care remained.

It was enough to make Quintus wonder what they’d done to anger the gods. Had their actions in this world somehow angered Neptune? Or had one of the pagan gods of this world decided to play a prank on them? Whatever the case, it seemed they had wasted their time.

As they left behind the scene, Quintus inspected the area for any indication of what might have happened here. Besides the fire, the only clue he could find was a set of unfamiliar marks in the ground. Deep gouges scored into the earth, reminiscent of a lion’s claws but several times more massive. The discovery gave Quintus pause.

He looked to his recruits. “Do any of you recognize what could have made these?”

The men looked between each other and shrugged. Whatever this threat may be, it was unknown to them as well.

Out of pure caution, Quintus took a few measurements and drew the marks as well as he could on a spare piece of vellum. Then, they continued on to Stonester. He’d make sure to warn his comrades of the threat once they returned.

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