A Soldier's Life
chapter-22

Delmar advanced at a steady pace while the ogre finished his scream. My thought was the ogre was either challenging us or trying to scare us away from his kill. The ogre grabbed a massive rusty sword from the ground. “Fuck, he has a weapon, and it is not a club,” someone noted the obvious.

Linus, the medic, asked for a healing potion in preparation, and I grabbed one and handed it to him. Delmar called out, “Scrap the shield wall. I will distract it and gets its back to you. Cut the Achilles or hamstring tendon!” Delmar went into a jog and easily deflected the ogre’s overhead swing into the dirt. As he did so, he tried to move behind the beast as arrows peppered its chest from the front. Now that we were only 50 feet away, the smell had gotten insanely irritating, so much so that my eyes watered. I was in the center of our formation and the second line of attack if the men in front were injured or killed.

Delmar had cut the ogre’s thigh and gotten behind it. The ogre spun on Delmar, putting its back to us. The forward line rushed forward, and a series of arrows impacted the ogre’s back, but I could see they barely penetrated. The ogre roared and swung wildly at Delmar. A spear pierced the hamstring of the ogre, and both calf muscles had multiple cuts, but it had a thick hide and steel-like hamstring.

The ogre was bleeding freely. The ogre suddenly charged Delmar, who nimbly sidestepped the ogre but was caught off guard when the ogre flung the massive sword into his chest as he passed. The weight of the blade crashed into Delmar, throwing him off the road and into swampy waters. The men abandoned the cautious attack and threw themselves at the ogre before the ogre could get to the downed Delmar. A dozen men swarmed the ogre. I saw one man, Mateo, jump on the back and stab the ogre in the shoulder blades with a long dagger.

Surprisingly, the ogre agilely reached back, grabbed Mateo’s arm, scrapped him off, and threw him thirty feet into the bog. That was the last surge of the ogre’s strength as it dropped to its knees. Spears and blades rang down, focusing on the ogre’s head, and it whimpered like a child and tried futilely to block the heavy rain of strikes on its head. It collapsed, but I was already running into the bog to check on Mateo. Linus was seeing to Delmar already giving him the healing potion.

Mateo was groaning when I reached him. “Anything broken?” I asked, kneeling in the dark soupy water.

Mateo sat up, and I smelled a wall of stench. It was like the ogre had skunked him. “No…well, maybe a rib. The shoulder is a bit messed up but not a broken bone.” He stood, and I backed away, holding my nose after I made sure he could walk. He smiled victoriously, “The landing was pretty soft…” he started sniffing the air and then looked at his armor. The mud that had coated the ogre’s back was now pasted across his leather armor, pants and face. “Ah, shit.”

I said, “Exactly! Stay downwind of everyone.” I moved away to see how Linus was doing with Delmar. Linus had Delmar on his feet. The potion bottle was empty, and Delmar had blood on his face. “Do you need a second potion?”

Delmar smiled, blood-outlined teeth, “Would be a waste of a potion. I am good to get back and see a healer. Sword just clipped me. I can walk.” Linus was with him, and I was a little upset as my boots were now waterlogged from checking on Mateo. The conversation turned to the dead ogre and frogs. It would have given a nice strength essence if we had a collector.

The ogre had a few harvestable parts. The teeth only sold for a few dozen silver, not worth the effort as we would not have an alchemist to sell them to in Macha. Ogre fat could be made into good insect-repellent candles, and we joked that we already had Mateo for that. The stomach could be made into an excellent and durable sack with a good tanner. No one was in the mood to cut it out, so we left the ogre unmolested in its death pose. The frogs were useless besides the meat, and no one was going to trust the meat after the ogre had torn into them.

The walk back took longer as Mateo and Delmar were moving slightly slower. We encountered three giant frogs through the stretch. We killed one with arrows, and the other two fled after receiving some injuries. We were not equipped to chase them into the bog.

I was missing Ginger, my horse. The walking had not been too bad until my boots got filled with muddy swamp water. I had dumped the water out, but Delmar had us moving again, and I did not have time to sneak away and change to dry socks. After seven miles, I could feel the calluses on my feet peeling off.

When we got back to the city, there was no fanfare for our return. Delmar dismissed us and went to report to Castille. We returned to our makeshift sleeping arrangements at the abandoned bakery. I peeled off my boots and socks, taking a fair amount of skin with them. The flesh was raw and bleeding. I was sitting on my bed, and Konstantin walked by. “Eryk, next time that happens, wring your socks out. Better yet, bring extra socks and switch your socks with a dry pair.” He inspected my feet, “I will have Felix bring you a meal. We are only on the walls tomorrow from sunrise to sunset, no patrol.”

“Is the regular army doing the patrol?” I asked, rubbing my feet with the horse salve from my pack.

“No, another legion unit is handling it. We go out the day after, swamp patrol again,” he sounded happy about it. “Tell you what, Eryk, no training tonight.” He laughed as he left at the annoyed look on my face. I thought about drinking one of the healing potions I carried for the company but just sighed and lay on my bed after stripping down to my underwear. The humidity was still making me sweat, so I drank cold water from my canteen.

I wished I could take a shower, but after a twenty-mile patrol, half in muddy soaked boots, I was just exhausted. I pulled the history book out of my space and started reading again. Felix arrived with my food and asked about the book, but I had already prepared an answer. I told him I found it in the children’s room.

The food he handed me was simple, small boiled potatoes and ham steak. The portion was very generous. Felix sat and ate with me, “Mateo is on the roof. He took a shower and still stinks a fair bit, so he is not sleeping in the room with me. Linus is getting him something to clean his armor. Most likely, he going to get out of wall watch tomorrow because no one wants to smell him,” Felix was chuckling.

After he finished his meal, I turned on the oil lamp and continued reading. After the First Legion arrived and carved out its Empire, the First Legion continued to expand its borders. The expansion slowed as the legionaries did not pass down the powerful mastery of their magic affinities to their children. Still, many legionaries were long-lived and set up their families to control the Empire and protect its people. The children’s book started to go into the propaganda of all the good the Legion did with their knowledge and magic. Roads, aqueducts, improved non-magic construction methods, and structured law. I passed out reading late into the night, unable to spend two consecutive nights without sleep.

Konstantin woke us again by banging on the doors. He took a lot of pleasure in the loud morning call. We got large cheese loaves filled with thick beef gravy. It was like a massive Hot Pocket. I learned that as legionaries, we received better and larger portions of food than the regular army. Felix told me not to gloat about it, or it would likely result in a brawl. Besides, he joked that we were outnumbered seven thousand to one hundred in the city. It wouldn’t be a fair fight for the regulars.

The wall duty watch had a purpose. Adrain explained that this was the one-hundred-yard stretch we would be expected to defend if the city was attacked. The stretch of wall was from the gate tower to an archer tower. The soldiers got to do their watch up in the towers, shielded from the sun, while we sat on the wall in the heat. There were just twenty-one of us for the wall duty. A lot of our legion members were being tasked to help elsewhere in the city. Since we did not have any skills of note, we got to sit on the wall. We split it into three shifts of seven, with Delmar, Adrian, or Konstantin serving as commanding officer for each shift.

I took the first shift to get the rest of the day off. I planned to try and finish the book this afternoon and get some sleep, but Konstantin found me as I left the wall, “Eryk, you are with me. We are going on a patrol. Do not worry, it is short.”

I followed him outside the gates, and he said, “We are going to walk the perimeter of the wall. It will give you some familiarity with the city.” As we walked the wall, Konstantin talked about likely attack routes against the walls. The strongest defensive points and the weakest. If I had not been so exhausted, I would have asked questions, but as it was, my energy level only permitted me to listen.

It took two hours to walk the outer city wall, and I was slightly fearful we were going to follow it with dual-sword practice. Instead, we went to the same cart where we got our breakfast, and Konstantin left with his late lunch in hand. It was a large loaf again but stuffed with diced sausage and vegetables this time. I wondered if Konstantin took everyone on a personal walk of the city.

I had the afternoon to read to finish the book. The end of the History of the First Legion was slightly chilling and gave me pause ever to reveal myself as a traveler from Earth. A few members of the First Legion had lived for almost a thousand years. Whenever a stranger arrived from another world, they were brought to the Emperor for a reward. The storybook I read was maybe a hundred years old, and most of the story read akin to a myth rather than actual history. In my time here, I had not heard anyone mention the practice of finding and hauling travelers before the Emperor for judgment.

It made sense, though. Travelers, if they had the same massive affinities that I had, then they would be a danger to the rule of the Emperor. Had I managed to slip through the cracks? I went to get dinner at the cart before the sunset. I found Linus and handed him his bottle of brandy from Nolan. “Nolan is still alive?” I nodded, and he popped the bottle, and sniffed. “Want to have a drink with me?”

“Definitely!” I followed him into a tailor’s shop where he was staying. We started drinking in the common room. His bed was in the back. We quickly whittled the bottle down, and I kept enough of my faculties about me to ask Linus about travelers.

He scoffed, “Don’t think there has been a recorded person from the First Legion’s world in two hundred years. Then again, it is a massive planet! Where did you say you were from?”

“Duchy of Tsingia. Came up with a lumber trade caravan. Did some stupid shit, and bam! I am a legionnaire!” I barked out, laughing. My research had told me the Duchy was a small human kingdom 1500 miles to the south. All I really knew was where it was on a map and that its primary export was lumber.

“True that!” He toasted. “I was working as an animal physician. Killed the Baron’s prized bull—complete accident. And bam, ten years in the Legion to pay him back!”

I stumbled back to my room. I was half afraid Mateo would have taken my bed, but thankfully it was empty, and I collapsed hard. I had learned a little. Linus was a commoner and did not know if you had to report other worlders to Magistrates. He assumed yes but had not heard of a reward for doing so.

I was woken too soon by a pounding on my door that echoed in my head. Great, my first hangover since arriving was not a small one. “Move it, Eryk,” Konstantin yelled through the door, “Entire company is on patrol today.” I pulled the feathered pillow over my head for a moment to drown him out, and then I sent it to my dimensional space and started moving.