by John Ringo
“CLEAR, GUNNY!”
“You are born in blood, in blood you shall live and in blood you shall die. From this day forward, you are not soldiers, you are not legionnaires, you are the Blood Lords. Bound by the blood, bound by the steel. Repeat after me: Blood to our blood…”
“Blood to our blood,” Herzer repeated, cold chills running through his veins.
“… Steel to our steel…”
“Steel to our steel.”
“In blood we live…”
“In blood we live…”
“In blood we shall die…”
“In blood we shall die…”
“Blood Lords…”
“Blood Lords…”
“LOUDER!”
“BLOOD LORDS!”
“LOUDER!”
“BLOOD LORDS!”
“Move back down the Hill and get chow. After that fall in and we’ll see if any of you young idiots can figure out how to make armor.”
* * *
The armor was waiting for them after lunch, a pile of boxes in the back of an ox cart.
Deann climbed into the cart and looked at the topmost box.
“Armor set, loricated, one each,” she said, reading the label gummed to the top of the wooden box. “Size, small. That’s me.”
“Get them all off the cart,” Gunny said. “Move them into the decuri bay and we’ll show you how to assemble them.”
The boxes, when opened, contained plates of steel, fittings, rivets, strips of leather and baffling instructions. Along with the boxes were some tools that Gunny added to their triari equipment.
Loricated armor was made by taking the plates of steel, bending them to the body and then overlapping them using the fittings and the leather strips. The plates had to be measured to the individual, however, so that they would fit snuggly, but not too snuggly, around the torso. The armor was then made in four sets. Two “torso” halves, one for the left side and one for the right, and two shoulder halves.
The triari worked for the next two days at the armor, cutting the plates to appropriate length, bending them around forms, punching holes for rivets, setting in the fittings and attaching the leather straps. In addition to the armor there was a thick “scarf” of cosilk that was wrapped in a tube then bent around the back of the neck and folded across the chest. This prevented chafing from the edges of the armor at the neck.
Herzer, as usual, had problems with “standard” sized anything and several of the pieces had to be form fitted for him. But after two days that encompassed much swearing as fumble-fingered recruits tried to get the pieces to go together, everyone in the triari was in armor.
After the armor finally passed Gunny’s inspection, they were issued their new helmets, pilums, swords and large wooden shields. The helmet style was a “barbute,” a solid helmet with a “T” opening at the front, instead of the Roman helmet. The barbute style had several things favoring it over the Roman. From a chance snippet of conversation Herzer overheard, he learned that the helmet was the hardest part of the armor to produce. And Roman helmets, with their several parts, rivets, fittings and hinges, were far more difficult to produce than barbute. But, despite this, the barbute was arguably a superior design. The open-faced Roman helmet, while light and permitting easy breathing, meant that a slash across the face or a point driven in was virtually guaranteed to drive home. The barbute covered much more of the surface area of the face and thus made injury less likely.
The downside to the barbute was that it permitted a lesser field of vision and was a pain to march with. On the whole, however, Herzer was glad they had chosen this design. He’d rather have a hard time seeing around than never see again.
The pilums were the spears of the Roman legions and it was another design that had been copied virtually intact. It consisted of a relatively short wooden shaft, no more than a meter and a bit, and an unusually long, thin spearhead with a wickedly sharp, barbed head. The weapon could be used as a spear and the triari trained extensively with it in that manner, marching in formation and then advancing with them lowered. But the primary use of the pilum was as a throwing weapon. The long, light-steel head was designed to penetrate a shield and then bend. With it stuck in a shield and bent over onto the ground, the enemy would be forced to stop and work it out, with their shield well out of line when they did so. Since the weapons were thrown at “point blank” range, the technique was to throw and then immediately charge. The front rank of the enemy would then be stuck, essentially shieldless and without a defense, open to a sword charge.
The swords they were issued were short and almost leaf-bladed, a Celtic design rather than the original Roman. They rode in a high scabbard tucked just forward of the armpit on the right side. Their primary method of employment was short, fast, chops and jabs, designed to wound the enemy as much as kill them. The ones that they were issued now were wooden with a heavy weight of lead down the center. Herzer hoped that the “real” ones would be a tad lighter.
The last of the new equipment was the shield, and Herzer found himself dissatisfied in the extreme with it. Instead of the shield being held at two points with the forearm going across the back, it was held at one point with the arm extended straight down. For formation fighting it was superb; the idea was to form a “shield wall” and the shield was difficult to hold any way but directly in front of the body. But for someone who had trained in a much more “open” style of combat, it was a pain to use and gave a feeling of being “trapped.”
They began training immediately, primarily formation marching with the new weapons. Carrying the swords was simply an additional weight but the shield and pilum were another matter. When marching they did not “sling” their shields and simply holding onto the shields, which, like the swords, had been weighted with lead, was agony until the appropriate muscles strengthened.
The pilum wasn’t as painful to carry, being lighter, but maneuvering with the things, until they got used to them, was difficult. More than once the armor was put to good use as a pilum head was jabbed into a back.
Each afternoon they were given one hour to prepare and then held a full dress inspection. The slightest hint of dirt on any of their equipment led to a harsh rebuke and rust was punished by the entire decuri being loaded with weights and forced to run the Hill. They quickly learned to take good care of the equipment they had been issued.
Finally, the Gunny pronounced himself marginally satisfied that they could march with the things. At which point, naturally, they went out on a long forced march.
If they thought the previous marches had been brutal, Gunny quickly disabused them of the notion. Instead of staying mostly to the Via and some of the better graded roads around it, the Gunny took them on long marches by tracks that only he seemed to know. At one point Herzer realized that they had never gotten more than twenty miles from the town, but it was impossible to recognize that from the terrain and the distances they had marched. They marched on traces along the ridgelines where hawks flew beneath their feet and narrow trails through marshes. They marched along the edges of cliffs where one slip would mean instant death and across rushing streams cold from spring water. And all of it at a clip that made the previous marches seem like nothing. Gunny wasn’t as much into setting up camp; he seemed to think that movement was the key. They would awake in the morning and eat as they marched; for five days they ate nothing but parched corn and monkey washed down with water. For the last two days, before they met up with a packtrain in the middle of no-where, they were at half rations.
Every morning there was an inspection of their gear. Woe betide the person who had so much as a spot of rust on armor, pilum, shield, helmet or sword. If he did, the gunny loaded up the whole decuri’s rucksacks with rocks until they could barely stagger. And then took off at full speed, fully expecting them to catch up.
After the second time that happened, people could be seen by the fires late at night, scrubbing at their gear.
When they did make a full
camp, Herzer noticed that it was always in a tactically viable spot. The other sergeants seemed to just care about finding somewhere reasonably flat. Gunny always set up on a hill, generally one that commanded a view of the trail that they were using and generally at a chokepoint in the terrain. The Gunny never pointed that fact out and sometimes Herzer wondered if it was a subtle lesson or simply that the Gunny had been doing this for so long that he always chose a defensible spot.
Finally, after two weeks of marching, with a few limited tests of their pilum throwing ability but no training with sword or shield, they found themselves back in camp.
There was a new building among the tents and Corporal Wilson was set up outside it. Herzer noticed this as the gunny brought them into the parade ground and called them to a halt.
“TRIARI, LEFT, FACE!” he called, then “STAND-AT, EASE.”
Herzer lowered his shield to rest against his left thigh, spread his feet shoulder width apart and placed both hands, overlapped, on top of the shield.
“By squads, on my command, fall out and turn your weapons in to the armory,” the Gunny said, pointing at the new building. “Then fall back in on your positions.”
They filed off and turned over their swords, still in the sheathes, and pilums, then fell back in on the Gunny.
“Tomorrow we’re going to start training you to use that sword you just gave up as well as more training with the pilum. We’re also going to show you that a shield is a weapon as well as something to keep weapons off of you. But that is tomorrow. Tonight, get a good solid meal and some rest. Because if you think the last couple of weeks have been tough, you’ve got another think coming. FALL OUT.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Sheida looked at the document in front of her with a frown. She had used far too much power to assure a full “virtual” gathering of the various delegates of the proto-Free States because this was the last chance they would have to amend the document. Tomorrow copies would be made and circulated to the various states over long and in many cases dangerous paths. She was frowning because the final document, in her opinion, contained far too many compromises.
“I would like to make a comment before we go on,” she said, raising the document. “I agree with Edmund that the long-term consequences of keeping the changes permitting local laws on bound service and the universal creation of an aristocratic class are severe. The only question I have is whether we will have an immediate civil war or one sometime in the future. I would like one more discussion on these points. The Honorable Representative from Chitao.”
“The people I represent are unwilling to join if we do not have the provisions for bound service,” he said, standing up. There had apparently been a bit of a power struggle in Chitao, because they had changed representatives twice, each time getting more and more determined to have the changes enacted. Chitao held a central trading location and it had already begun to expand its power base so that two other representatives from the area had joined it in its position as well as a smattering from throughout Norau. The split was not geographical but seemed to center around areas that had been major cities in the former North American Union. None of the representatives from “new” city-states, such as Raven’s Mill and Warnan, were in favor. But the total population, still concentrated in the northeastern tier and the far west, favored permissive laws on bound service.
“When the Fall occurred, many people were unable or unwilling to recognize that work was a necessity. Those who did are quickly becoming prominent citizens. But they are attaining that prominence through their own hard work. Those who choose not to work as hard have been seeking to return to the days when the Net gave them all they needed to survive. But the Net is no more. They must learn to work under qualified overseers. Too often in our area they have worked only hard enough to fill their bellies, to the detriment of the whole society. They think nothing of the future, of the coming winter, when there will not be food in plenty but only what has been stored by the thrifty.
“Giving full vote to such people means that they can vote themselves bread and circuses, surely the greatest danger that any democratic society can face. Furthermore they will vote to take from the ‘rich’ during the lean times, the rich who have by their own hard work prepared for the lean times.
“By… filtering those votes through those who recognize the necessity for hard work and devotion to duty, the danger of social service voting is reduced. We of Chitao, and the societies of Mican, Io, Nawick and Boswash steadfastly refuse to join this union if we are to be placed at the mercy of those who think that charity is their right. If or when they learn the value of work, or if their children recognize it, provisions are in place for them to rise to the level of full citizen. But, until then, the ant, who prepares for the winter, is not going to be ordered about by the grasshopper who spends his time in frivolity.” He nodded at the group and sat down in his virtual “seat.”
Sheida nodded unhappily and then gestured to the representative from Westphal.
As always, the representative was dressed in armor and he rose to his feet with a creak of rivets.
“I have heard the debates on the subject of an aristocratic addition to the upper house. There are those who would argue against any such house, saying that all power should devolve to the people and the states. But I direct you to the history of democracies. Always, they have fallen in time to the passions of the mob. It is this moment-to-moment passion that such a body seeks to mitigate. Further, simply having representatives from broad geographical regions who have a longer term of service has been proven to be insufficient. Still, they are playing to the cry of the mob. They must keep one eye over their shoulder to its passions lest they be thrown from office. But, often, such moment-to-moment passions are not in the best interests of the society. Democracies seem to work the best when they are well filtered. This is simply a very strong filter, not a rejection of democracy.
“And this body that we propose is not just a body of aristocrats. It will have, as full voting members, elected representatives from the states as well as members who have been chosen for their history of civic works. Last but not least, the aristocratic portion will be flexible. Familes… die. Members will fall by the wayside and new members will be brought in. Further, as the size of the body inevitably rises from territorial increases, a like number will be brought in from the civic and aristocratic side. It is a flexible body that can change with the times but still act as a check upon those moment-to-moment passions that so often have been the downfall of democratic societies.” He nodded at the group and sat down.
“Edmund Talbot, Honorable Representative from Raven’s Mill, will now present the rebuttal,” Sheida said, nodding at him.
Edmund rose to his feet with a sigh, knowing the futility of what he was about to say.
“There is something within the human breast which seems to love the slave chain,” Edmund said, looking around at the assemblage. “For this is what we debate, make no mistake about it. Both the Honorable Representative from Chitao and the Honorable Representative from Westphal speak truths. There is a danger in any democratic society from the mindless passions of the moment, whether they be for bread and circuses or for or against wars. And filtering those passions is what a representative democracy is all about. But the filters that they so passionately support are not filters, they are chains upon us and upon our children. The Representative from Chitao speaks of a permanent underclass and make no mistake. Once debt bondage can be passed from generation to generation there is no escape short of rebellion or death. And yet, which of those permanent serfs, born in bondage and dying in bondage, is the next Washington, Tsukya or Assam? How will they reach their potential if the only choice that they have, by binding law upon which we now place our signature and our honor, is to slave away day after day in their master’s fields or factories?
“As to an hereditary aristocracy, there has never been an argument for it that stood the test of time. The Honorable Representa
tive from Westphal speaks of ‘standing against the mob,’ but who was it but the Senate that opposed the actions of Scipio Africanus in the Punic Wars? And who but the mob supported him? Again and again you see such bodies acting not in the interests of the long-term good of the nation but because of the memes and beliefs of a tiny, self-selecting body that wishes to retain power to itself. The failings of the latter North American Union stemmed not from the ‘mob’ but from the fact that some of their political parties became fat and bloated by a de facto aristocracy of the rich. Rich that were so divorced from the reality of life that they could not see disaster looming on any number of fronts. The same can be said for Ropasan Union that created a bureaucracy that became effectively hereditary and was always self-selecting. It started out divorced from reality and reached critical mass in short order.
“For myself, for my fellow representatives of Overjay and Kalinas, we will join this union. But know that within our borders, every one of the ‘mob’ is free, free to act, free to vote and grab whatever treasure and happiness they can under the law. If any ‘serf’ reaches our lands, they are free and you’ll have to send an army to ‘recover’ them. Furthermore, while we will bear the mantle of ‘aristocracy’ if thrust upon us, we repudiate the concept utterly!”
Sheida nodded at him as he sat down, glaring at the representative from Chitao, and lifted her hand.
“The issues of aristocracy and debt peonage are the last that remain. We will now take a vote on the specific changes and determine which will remain and which will not. On the subject of allowing debt peonage in territories that support it, while disallowing it in those that do not, we will now take a vote.”
As she had feared, the amendment stood. There were simply more representatives that supported it than those who rejected it. She wondered if she had made too many compromises in the towns she invited to this meeting. But she needed all the allies she could get. And, right now, that meant permitting a return to serfdom. If that was the cost, so be it.
