Chapter 9

"I am Captain Aviel. The commanding officer of the newly formed fifth training battalion. That is the unit your pieces of useless meat will belong to from now on. When you leave us, you will be well-made and sculpted meat fit for the king's table. This will be hell. If you don't think it will be, you are an idiot! Now split into four even groups."

Everyone did extremely quickly mainly out of fear of this man who was yelling at everyone. Once we had formed into the groups he wanted. There was a person left without a group. The captain saw him trying to find a group. His face changed into a very ugly smile. He slowly walked to the person, as he got closer the whole room went silent.

The captain held out his hand in it a cudgel appeared. It had no distinctive features just that it was hard and looked heavy. Once he was right behind the man. His feet slammed the floor with a loud, Bang! The man jumped up with a frightened look on his face. "I said get into four groups! What the hell are you doing legionary!" The man didn't say anything but just shrunk back. Seeing how he responded the captain got angrier. "You think you can fight demons being scared like this. You are useless!" He then swung the cudgel into the man's gut sending him crashing into the floor. The man let out a howl of pain and grabbed his gut where he was hit. "This is military discipline. Orders will be followed. Or there will be consequences." With that, he kicked the man moaning on the floor and looked at us with a gaze of hate. I realized at that moment my life was going to be hell.

A few days later we had been marched out to a training camp somewhere in the wilderness near the city I think. The four groups we had been split into were companies from that into five smaller groups called squads. I was part of the second company, the sixth squad. In my squad was me, a person called Leo, then there was Jack, Ethan, Joseph, Zane, Jax, Adam, Skylar and the man who was beaten, Jason. They were all nice people.

Today we were marching in full kit like the last few days. That included our armor, a sword, a spear, and all of our kit which included tents, cooking tools, and much more. It was terrible, we would trek through anything with all of this on such as mud. The bastard Captain even made us cross a lake. By the time we had gotten back to the camp we were all shivering from the water that had socked everything that we had worn.

After another month the training period was coming to an end. We stopped the constant marching training after around two weeks of doing it. We then moved on to weapon practice. All it consisted of was stabbing with the spear. The sword training was being able to stab and slash. The shield training was just bringing it up to be able to block. We then practiced combinations with shield and sword, then spear and shield. All that was, was being able to combine what we learned together and use a shield and sword at the time. Then once everyone in the battalion, which I had learned to be two hundred people, was or at least seemed to be proficient in using their weapons we were told to break camp and move out somewhere else.

"Leo you got the pots in your bag," I yelled out as I couldn't find them.

"Of course I do Adoh, you got the fire starting kit." Conversations like this could be heard all over the camp as everyone made sure that they had all of their supplies and kit. Then a horn sounded out over the camp. This signaled the mustering call.

"We got everything?" I said this as me and the others in our squad grabbed our bags and put them on our packs. Making sure that my sword was in its sheath correctly. I then grabbed the shield up, attaching it to my arm and finally picking up the spear.

I moved quickly to the steadily growing column of legionaries. I and the rest of my squad quickly fell in with the rest of our company fearing what the captain would do if we were late. Luckily for us and everyone else, no one was late. With the sound of a trumpet, we began to march.

Dum, dum, dum. There was a steady drumbeat sounding out, to make sure that everyone kept in step and to ensure that nobody walked into anyone's back. After a few hours of marching, I could hear another drum beat and then another. Then before my eyes, I saw a few more battalions appear to the sides of us. Then the order for the halt was sounded. I was so busy looking around that I walked straight into the back of the person in front of me. It was Leo, "God is damned Adoh, watch where you are going or we will all be flogged." Once saying this he looked around to make sure that none of the officers heard him say anything.

"Battalion attention, Salute." Following the orders, we gave a military salute which basically was dipping our spears down slightly and looking up at the same time.

"Now that the three newest battalions are united together. The regiment will conduct a full training exercise near the black border. This for those who do not know is the border we have with the demons. We will not be in any danger though as we will be held near the back of the frontline."

BOOOOOOOM!

With a massive noise of a drum, all three battalions set off. I was surprised at where we were going through as although we will be held at the back, the black border is one of the most dangerous places in the world. It has frequent incursions made by the demons most of which end up in massive battles. As I was thinking about where we're going I had forgotten about one fact that we had only been training for a month. We barely could fight a bandit outpost let alone demons.

What followed was another ten days of marching. When we had stopped for the night the various companies just kept to themselves. There was not a sense of camaraderie amongst anyone. Most people thought that they would be gone before long so they didn't make that many friends. Our company was different. We all depend on each other a lot. This meant as we had learned early on that orders were easier to achieve. It also meant that no one would be beaten to within an inch of their lives like a young man of another unit.

A rumor had spread around that night though that we were actually going really near the border itself as we were asked to recover some supplies for the front line units. I just dismissed it as everyone else did. After all who would say fresh troops right next to an insanely dangerous place.