Slow does the basic drop-the-focus-overlay-into-your-own-senses thing. Step-step-throw. Six seconds later, Flinch’s feed shows the flash from the stick. Target will-o-the-wisps itself together offset from where it was, keeps moving.
Meek does the full-schematic senses swap. No overlay, nothing human; elevation change markers, targets, terrain discontinuity. Don’t feel like illusion, ain’t meant to seem real. Lots don’t like the lack. Target will-o-the-wisps back the other side of the range band this time and toddles around out there. It’ll come back.
Improper example to just hit it. Troopers don’t observe enough they’ve got the feed integrated in their knowledge. Worse example to sense it myself. No reaching out of the bubble. Straight-down synthetic, throwing at the map, suits artillery more than sticks. I can do it, the First drills it; sometimes you’re tossing over a wall. Second’s not there.
Need not integrate the feed. There’s an angle of focus participation where you pull the motion of throwing straight through your spine. Same mechanism as ‘go there’ in drill, you’re going where the focus wants you. You know it’s the focus, you know where you’re going. Not control; you do it like the follow side of dancing.
Target reforms north-east, in range.
Slow, me, and Meek step aside; Squish gets file one in line for throwing. Throwing drill’s with blank tips. Stab a file-mate in the foot’s about the worst failure. Pointy-stick drill uses active tips. Throw single, from a bubble against error.
Nothing’s immune to mischief, so Ninny’s twitching. These are flash; flash’s got a thirty-metre radius of effect. Flash ain’t meant to go active before fifty metres. Drop one in the throw, should just clatter. Live, the individual bubble’ll stop it misting anybody but you.
Cold enough most are having trouble throwing at all. Slow’s demonstrated, as a reminder. Don’t have to grip the thrower; the thumb loop holds it flat. Takes a smooth throw. Takes letting the thumb loop out for your mitts, or for chilled hands in stiff gauntlets. Takes a quick catch on the thrower, either way.
The repair team’s got a windbreak up, and four kettles started. Slow wants into the wind and across the wind practiced; the mudflat’s big enough we change facing, not position.
Drill with throwers and blank tips, the focus backstops; catches the javelins gentle. ‘Kinetic dump’ in the manual. Some practice for whoever’s got the backstop and you don’t expend javelins; they hang in the air back of the illusion-target, then fall soft. There’s a few file-closers getting so the fall’s sorted neat.
Ain’t so skilled as ought we be for sticks. No individual bubbles in a fight. Meek’s muttering continuous. Looks impassive; ain’t muttering aloud. With the wind you could shout and ten metres’d still be too far to hear. Can’t listen to Slow. Everybody else. Spluttered at Slow about it. Slow’d gone kind of aspect and said “A necessity of your appointment,” which, well. Ain’t wrong. Ain’t trying to unravel Meek’s fine-grained haze of tick-marks, ten or twelve per trooper per throw.
The throwers drive the sticks once, not continuous. “Impart material velocity.” This wind, toss too steep, get the stick back. Nobody’d do it purposeful. Footing’s bad enough someone might do it falling. Cold enough it’s certain dexterity loss, mitts or chilled hands. You can drop a stick off the thrower hot.
Ninny knows anybody manages to mist themself, the drill’ll keep going. Gives you to think what you did last time there was a drill with blank tips. Slow do mean the ruthless.
Takes about a minute per file. Change facing, everybody throws again. Tea’s ready; wouldn’t be, if the repair team hadn’t pushed the heater blocks extra. Slow thanks the repair team, and goes last for tea. I go second last. Ought to speak to myself and figure out why Meek not fussing about that surprises me. Not much, but a bit.
“That,” Meek says, too quiet for the wind, “was too rotted stressful.”
“No habitual conqueror,” Slow says, “should permit an enemy any long study of captives.”
Which we didn’t take. We’re not going to contest dominion. No way to have dominion without the rule of sorcerers.
“Ain’t got but once for dying,” Meek says. Meaning anybody dead in training is no use when the Sea People return.
“Recount for me our casualties material,” Slow says, smiling.
We did do it, and they will remember.
D-Day Minus 499
Year of Peace 545, Ventôse, Fourth Day (Late Winter)
Duckling
Parliament made a formal request to the Line; explain the response-to-the-Sea People threat assessment. The Captain got it; Four/Twelve ain’t Wapentake for politics, the First’s operational, and the Captain ain’t been dead.
Crinoline they can talk to; three-quarters of the time, Four/Twelve’s right there. Chert they don’t talk to, out of custom; Generals are temporary. No acting like they’re lasting, especially ten years along.
I got told to write the answer.
Ain’t what Parliament will get. “Practice prior to necessity,” Slow said the once. Usual’s “Practice prior”. The Captain’s view’s relatively loquacious; expected breadth of skill, benefits of instruction, and founder effects.
Don’t like ‘founder effects’. The Captain don’t dwell. Has made the point; the Old Line fusses over change, but it ain’t pointless. Consensus has to hold. Change too much, too fast, and it won’t. Form’s important, how you say things, keeping the Old Line convinced that the Wapentake wants to be Line formations.
Ain’t entirely factual. The Captain had me read a history of the Failed Muster, something that happened in 383. Line brigade didn’t so much lose consensus as recognize they hadn’t got one, then.
Not much for threats on the borders in 383. Wapentake wants Peace behind us. How don’t signify.
The Captain don’t expect me to replicate their analysis; Creeks need sleep. Eight hours most days in the Standard of the First spent taking dimensions from the records of Sea People ships and calculating probable ranges don’t need doing over.
Age range of the ships, builder’s marks, stores. The standard got a lot. Shadow got more, but we ain’t got Shadow; Fire’s team’s stuck down the south end of the Second Valley. Didn’t expect a long standoff. Messes with Slow’s communication plan. Not fatal; not the best.
Parliament’s concern’s waste. Not spending enough’s same as taking a bet the Sea People won’t come back. Could as well put the cost into immediate benefits. If we think the Sea People are a long way away, that’d be more effective; there’d be more of us, let the greater numbers prepare. Works if you know the day.
We don’t. Provisions and people and measured storage spaces make guesses about voyage times. Don’t know the least thing about the other end.
The Line can’t gain effectiveness quick. Best reason for artillery’s speed, a year instead of however long we take. The First’s still gaining; rate’s slowed, not done. Full capability around twenty years; lot of work for the last tenth part of skill. Second’s curve’s steeper than the First’s was, but I doubt we’ll be quicker overall. No point in more battalions, we’re arguable going too fast for available authority. Old Line gets the flinch thinking about it. Battalions can fail; not ‘be defeated’, fail as organizations, lose the focus. That’s back in semi-history, early second century, but there’s enough references to believe it.
Ain’t no kind of use to pointing out ‘available authority’ is euphemistic for ‘metaphysical part’. Collectives mean some minimum of metaphysical parts among those with lead on their focuses. Ain’t exercised like a sorcerer; call it practiced.
The standard, any focus, does what gets done, but you’re providing the will. Can’t do nuance with the Power without you’ve got the ability; everybody knows that with regular focuses. Can’t use most independents, can’t pull senior members from focus teams for cost and the skill don’t transfer for futility.
Nothing for it but practice.
Effective practice; do it wrong enough, you n
ever do it right.
My letter to Parliament asserted that our rate limit for Line effectiveness is the experience of those in authority. The First does work; the Second might. It’ll be some time before there’s reasonable prospect of the experience and skill to consider having a third battalion. Heard myself thinking “twenty years” and didn’t write it down. It ain’t likely wrong. It ain’t useful.
Artillery batteries are useful quicker; same twenty years of practice for full capability and stable traditions. Effective shooting’s maybe as little as a year. Don’t know what it’d be away from Captain Blossom’s luck and influence.
What we’re doing is everything we can. Skill limits utility before production.
The Captain told me it was laudably succinct.
Just that. Weren’t a complaint.
D-Day Minus 370
Year of Peace 546, Messidor, Seventh Day (Early Summer)
Duckling
Last night, some portion of the darkness rose from the dim earth that it might speak sudden words to Slow.
Colour Party’s been moving since. East along Edge Road, north up the west bank of the Blue. Hard rate; Slow’d dropped four destination markers in the focus when we started. One left; a barge landing on the Blue.
Attention to orders.
No armour. Hard bubble. Food and water by the count. My front.
Acknowledgements in the focus.
Observer, we expect simiform graul.
Flinch taps Acknowledged.
Not everybody sounds like themself in the focus. Most don’t. Slow does.
Waft of green wood chips to it, like felling with an axe. Meek knows Slow’s mad. Ninny don’t; never seen Slow angry. I can feel Ninny getting it, the focus shift.
Hold the focus. Meek’s usual cheerful. Comes through neutral-flat.
Spines straighten. Focus density rises.
Flinch found four simiform graul. Didn’t see’em shrug; the sneaking stopped a kilometre out. Walked up to the barge landing.
“Sergeants.”
Sounded just like Slow if Slow were standing in the otherworld. The focus density would’ve peaked. Meek caught it, patted it down again to the steady thing it had been. Made sure no one drew a weapon.
One of the graul looks over. There’re as far from us as they can get and stay on the barge landing. “Standard-Captain.”
There’s a sort of twitching among them. You can almost catch it in the edge of vision, the standard’s sure it’s communication. “We are assigned to the operational area of the Western Hills. We are travelling on lawful leave. We need not recognize your authority.”
Slow nods, exactly once. Just the way you do when someone in your authority acknowledges an order.
Hour later, we haven’t moved; the four graul get on a barge, and head north.
Barge gets fifteen hundred metres away.
Second, Signaller. Check contact with the Armoury.
No response. Not likely; Chert’d have to be there with a signal watch active. The Fifth ain’t got an active standard.
Signaller, Second. No contact with the Armoury.
Attention to orders. Colour Party will camp today. Movement to the Armoury starting at twenty hours. Maintain a close watch.
D-Day Minus 345
Year of Peace 546, Thermidor, Second Day (Summer)
Duckling
It’s me and Meek with Ninny and Tact along to talk to the Food-gesith’s fylstan.
Radish was a sergeant in the Seventieth. Ninny don’t know; Tact don’t know. Pretty sure Heartless don’t know. Brisket sent Heart round in stead; Brisket knows, but doubt they’d mention. Could be none in the Second as would who weren’t there. Radish’s plenty clear they prefer it so.
“You’re not eating too much,” Radish says; “You’re eating more than planned.” Meek was set for facts and figures, subsides a bit.
Ninny and Tact ain’t like to talk. This’s training for them.
Slow concluded to treat the two colour parties as two platoons of one banner. Décade of slippy latches last month, smooth now. Tact’s technical-junior; First’s senior but the standard of the First ain’t here. Meek brings them both. Both worry they’ll fail the test. Sure it shows to Radish.
Real failure’ll be me.
Well, Meek, too; Meek expects to keep me from failing. Ain’t what the manual says about authority and commission.
“We talking squid jerky?” Meek don’t sound resigned.
“There’s no surplus.” Radish’s somewhere near cheerful. “It ain’t generally wanted above its production. The Regulars up on Edge Creek like swamp squid, but it’s still unrewarding to dry.”
Outside racks. Squid must be outside. Must be sure nothing wafted in, after. Way more work.
“Is there surplus?” Of anything.
“Three problems,” Radish says. “Unplanned amounts means provision draws down stocks. The gesith wants to know why the planning failed. Least consequential stocks ain’t compact or uniform.”
Meek snorts. “Carrot preserves means breaking jars.”
Radish nods. “Jars aren’t short. Not a reason to make jars short.” Radish does the rhetorical ‘rotted awkward’ surprising formal. Food-gesith ain’t a Creek. Wonder if Radish’s careful not to swear aloud ‘round them.
“Simplest thing,” Radish says, “would be meal. Pea-meal, coarse flour, grits, anything like that. Compact, plenty of food value, you could boil it up into mush. Figure out some kind of flavour packets.”
“Tea-cans and a spoon,” Meek says. Files won’t agree on spicing. Inside, yeah, but across? Meek’s problem, mostly. Meek thinks it’s easy. “We’d need cookware we ain’t carrying now.”
“Slow’s dead against.” Meek squints at me. Radish nods. “We’re eating double to move further, faster. Soaking time, boiling time, it’d slow us down.”
“Hot cans per-wheelbarrow’s clever,” Meek says. “Warm food’d be welcome. Lots of cans, lots of washing, more water, less speed, and more risk.”
“Survey teams’d like it.” Heartless don’t sound it. “Anybody moving by the few. Drovers, small boats, lock-clerks.” There’s the brief idea of a grin. “Figure the armoury got asked if they could make hot cans and now you’ve got a few thousand ‘cause they took the question as ‘production’ and ‘prove it’.”
“Two sizes,” Radish says. “You ain’t wrong.”
All the social falls off Radish in some calm direction.
“In this question of supply,” Radish says, “the Food-gesith proposes that the rations were not intended for their present use. This has lead to the daily ration proving insufficient and a doubled ration exceeding the planned consumption of items unavailable in the necessary additional quantity.”
There’s enough; Radish’s saying the Food-gesith won’t tax it back out of gean stores. Which I don’t want. Mobility for the Wapentake ain’t optional, it don’t get near want.
“It is proposed to re-scale the march ration.” Radish’s stayed calm. Meek’d like to look calm, looks fussy. Radish knows what that means. “Presently available stocks would support a daily march ration of two kilogrammes of crackers, one kilogramme of cheese, five hundred grammes of dried meat, and a varied half-kilogramme of dried fruit or berries, hard candy, or flavoured gelatine.”
“We’d be losing weight.” We could move on that ration, but it’d cost. Loss of readiness with the focus, not obvious, but anything prolonged. More than enough for Old Line march rates. Never ate this much in youth.
“You would,” Radish says. “Yet that is what there is to supply of customary foodstuffs.”
“Special or horrible?” Customary’s customary for cause.
“Two thorpes of the Food-gesith tested a new variety of pumpkins last year.”
“Pumpkin?” Meek’s trying to imagine pumpkin as march rations and getting soft orange fruit leather. Doubt nudges into their voice.
“This variety produces seeds which need not be hulled.” Radish’s tone’
s all facts. “The test’s intent was to provide seed stocks for planting. The area devoted was somewhat larger than it might have been for a more robustly-seeded varietal.”
“How much did you get?”
“Two thousand tonnes of seeds surplus to next-phase planting requirements,” Radish says.
The sergeant-majors provide a range of expressions. Radish’s face shows the not-dead, not-calm-exactly expression clerks ought to have. Strange on a Creek.
“We propose to issue them roasted at a kilogramme per day.” Serene, that’s the word. Radish sounds serene. “There has been discussion concerning the most appropriate way to add salt.”
“I’d want to know if it tastes better than boots,” Meek says. “Salt brings out the flavour.”
“Fylstan?” It’s a worry.
Radish extracts a steel jar from their satchel, opens it, produces a paper bag from it, hands me the bag.
Half-a-kilogramme, still warm. Greasy. Rattles. Take a couple. Pass the bag to Meek. Definite soft shell. Crunches right up. Taste’s somewhere between hazelnuts and beets.
“I am aware,” Radish says, “that while food tastes among our ilk do not vary extensively, the Wapentake’s present march rates will alter your food preferences.”
“Never used to have a hankering for lard,” Meek says, serious. Meek indicates at the bag where Heartless is holding it. “These’re food.” Tact nods. Heartless nods.
Ninny says “Are they enough food?”
“A kilogramme of these pumpkin seeds approximates two kilogrammes of ration crackers.” Radish’s hands do ‘there are details’. “More fat, more fibre, fewer starches, slower to digest.”
“Not for bedtime,” Meek says.
Kilogramme a day is all they can give us, all they’ve got. “Eventual cracker substitute?”
“Once outstanding questions of storage duration, consequences of long-term consumption, and delivery have been resolved,” Radish says, “this can be considered. The Food-gesith is sharply aware this is a stopgap measure proposed absent less risky options.”
“Sir? Long-term consumption?” Tact’s concerned.
A Mist of Grit and Splinters Page 23