Chapter 39 - The sprig and blade (18 Jan 25)

Before the horizon could blush with dawn, the cold clung to the stones like a second skin. Leather creaked in the chill air, and the soft thud of shield against shield echoed as the soldiers moved into the yard, fully equipped, their gear heavy on aching shoulders. The weight of the training poles, thick and splinter-scarred, pressed across them as an unspoken challenge.Harold stood to the side, arms folded, a silent observer as Hale moved through the ranks like a predator searching for the slightest sign of weakness. He watched, saying nothing, as Hale barked orders, the tension building with every step Hale took between the soldiers.Each soldier carried their full marching load — gear, shields, a day's rations — and still had to keep up with the formations. The training poles weren't for fighting today. They were for draggingthrough the dirt. Weighted and ungainly. They were made to punish.Two almost complete centuries were in place now — over a hundred and forty legionaries, split into squads of eight. Hale had assigned one optio to each team that morning, most pulled straight from the last few combat missions. And above them, two centurions, each commanding their own century with a barked cadence and a short baton of polished wood. Garrick had the pleasure of being one of the Centurions; the other one was Carter.Hale only cared about pressure. Polished equipment on new recruits, fresh from the portal, was quickly dirtied.The drills weren't just lines and shield walls. They were long marches followed by disrupted formations, then broken again by mock ambushes staged with recruits using padded poles and empty scabbards. Everything was a test. How fast the squads recovered. How well they reformed. Whether the optios shouted the right orders. As the soldiers trudged through the drills, the weight of exhaustion pressed on them. Garrick's right boot rubbed against his heel, where a blister had already burst, sending a sharp twinge up his leg with every step. He gritted his teeth, reminded of a promise he'd made to himself—to never show weakness in front of Hale.And all of it under Hale's eye.He circled like a judge. A quiet comment here. A sharp rebuke there. Barely any praise. Each moment of reflection stoking the fire, tempting the weary soldiers to rise again, and make the next jolt hit harder.By noon, they were soaked through. Dirt crusted to sweat. Blisters are starting to bloom under the greaves and bootlaces. Garrick handled the water runs, calling short breaks every hour. But there was no reprieve. Not really.This wasn't just readiness. This was preparation for a real fight.Harold didn't miss the looks from the optics. Or the glances thrown his way between drills.He didn't say anything, even as the quiet muttering started among the ranks:"What did he do to piss off Hale like this?""Swear he said the wrong name in front of him.""Nope, he told him the shields were too heavy. Hale took it personally."The jokes came light and fast — a pressure valve against the bruises and the fear. And no one, not even Garrick, was safe from Hale's tempo.But for all the ache and grumbling, the line held.They ran together. Moved together. Fought together.And when Hale finally gave the day's halt command, not one soldier broke formation before the word was given.Meanwhile, the Landing itself pulled hard to match pace.The smith was still locked to his priority: tools, not weapons.The mine had finally struck an iron vein, and Lira's crew was digging in with everything they had. But without proper tools, progress was glacial. So the smith and his apprentices worked round the clock forging mining picks, spikes, wedges, and sledge heads — nothing fancy, just substantial.That meant the soldiers had to make do.Instead of pila heads, each legionary received two sharpened fire-hardened stakes — crude, carved, and balanced just enough to throw. They weren't elegant. But they could punch through thin leather at range and, more importantly, be mass-produced.Even the smith's apprentices were pitching in, many of them only learning how to forge for less than a month.At the alchemy hut, as it had been termed, the pace was just as brutal.Two more workers — a former EMT and a farmer — had finally mastered the mana control needed to brew proper potions. That brought the potion team to four, including Harold.They worked nonstop, pouring every ounce of stable mana into vials of healing solution. Leaves were dried, roots ground, and paste packed into stone mortars until their hands blistered. Among the team, a young recruit named Irwin felt the pressure most acutely. His brother was among the injured Adventurers, waiting for the new batch of potions to bring relief to his wounds. Every vial meant a chance for him to fight another day. But even with four brewers, the bottleneck wasn't labor. The Landing's need for increased production heightened the urgency of the situation, but it couldn't overcome the shortage it faced. It was glass. The demand far exceeded what they could supply, slowing their progress and threatening the well-being of those relying on their efforts.The glassmaker — the one summoned by the system — worked deep into the night, the glow of his furnace painting the walls in amber light. Two new apprentices had been assigned to him to help manage materials, firewood, and the shaping process. Even when a second glass artisan was summoned, it wasn't enough to fill the gap.Early that morning, Harold brought him the potion he had promised. His hands and scars receded at a visible pace, and the pain from living was gone from his eyes. By evening, the story had gotten around the village, and people were begging for the same treatment.Still, every morning, fresh healing potions were delivered to the barracks — each one packed carefully in straw-lined crates, with glass still warm from the night's work.But the most significant shift came from Caldwell.His payment system was starting to take shape.It wasn't actual coinage — not yet — but it was close. Workers and artisans were now paid in labor chits, tokens tied to a standard value of silver and guaranteed by the Landing. They could trade them into the Landing's growing market square for goods or favors, or hold them for later complex silver distribution once a whole economy was ready. Coinage was being made, but Caldwell was waiting until they had a reserve before fully running it out. The settlement perks Harold got from making their own coinage were pretty good, but he didn't get the world first for it. The perk they did get, though, reduced the amount of silver and gold needed for each coin, making them harder to counterfeit."Adventurers got paid for fieldwork. Runners were compensated by distance and weight. Carpenters were paid by beam, stone haulers by ton.The results were immediate.Morale lifted. People talked. There were still bruises and cuts and long days, but there was pride now, too—visible progress. The wilderness was being pushed back, and the Landing was preparing to send out its first army.Even the worst doubters — the ones who thought this was just another dead-end crash or doomed attempt at "playing lord" — were starting to watch the sunrise with something like hope. It helped that butter and milk were now available. And everyone knew they were still better off than the rest of humanity. The stories on the forums hadn't gotten any better. If anything, they had gotten worse as people settled into their new lives here, with no one to stop the worst parts of humanity.By the end of the week, the Landing had changed.The drills still started before sunrise. Hale still barked orders until his voice went hoarse. But the formations snapped into place faster now. The optics stopped second-guessing. The centurions led with clarity.Harold had even found Hale in the bath one night, groaning to Margret. Guess he wasn't the unfeeling machine he presented himself as.Shield lines held longer under pressure. Responses came tighter. Even the jokes got sharper.And for the first time since arriving in Gravesend, the Landing had something that looked — and moved — like an army.The crude stakes became second nature. Soldiers carried them like real javelins now — practiced, casual, mostly lethal. Their boots struck in unison, their breath timed to orders.Behind them, the village itself caught the rhythm.Lira's crew had dug deep enough to expose stable ore. The smith's newest batch of tools held up to the rock this time — fewer broken picks, fewer wasted hours. If nothing else, the mine was no longer just a dream on the map. It was a lifeline, and it was working.Potions stacked higher by the day. Dozens of vials filled the storehouse shelves, each sealed and labeled by potency. Even the glassmaker, gaunt and soot-stained, started moving with something like pride — nodding to passing soldiers like he was part of the effort because he was.The chits started to flow. Markets grew. Goods traded hands. Services got logged. Someone even carved a wooden sign to hang above the growing square: outside the storehouse."THE EXCHANGE"Harold hadn't authorized it. He didn't stop it either.Beth's teams had reinforced the pens and shifted to daily routines with the herd — feeding, watering, and calming the aggressive ones. A small crew of beast-handlers now rotated full-time, trained to move the massive creatures without panic or injury.Two harnesses had been cobbled together from salvaged leather and scrap wood. Crude, but workable. They'd tested plow formations three times that week. The tatanka didn't love it, but they responded — slower than oxen, but stronger, and more willing to charge if provoked. Luckily, it was hard to provoke them.And that quiet optimism — that this might actually work — it was everywhere now.The mess halls are filled every night. New shelters were going up faster than the maps could be updated. People started asking to join the following scouting missions. The forge had a waiting list. Even the cooks were joking more.Sarah's team didn't train with the rest of the team.Sarah focused on movement. Her drills were tight, flowing, and fast — sword in hand, she moved through mock engagements like water through gaps in stone. She wasn't armored like the legionaries, but she didn't need to be. Her style was speed, control, and precision. Every strike she made was meant to end a fight in a single breath. She could sometimes be seen practicing with a couple of the legionaries in the evening.Mira took a different approach. She spent her mornings drilling with the optios — studying how the legions moved, how threats emerged and spread, how formations shifted under pressure. In the afternoons, she built her own responses: how a smaller team like theirs could respond with speed where formation couldn't. When to pull back, when to push. She was building a second battlefield in her mind — one made for skirmishers, not shield lines.Jace split his time between training and crafting. He worked in the shade behind the armory, building throwing spears and practicing with each one until they landed with solid, repeatable weight. When he wasn't throwing, he was tinkering — trap triggers, rope snares, tension-loaded spikes. He didn't just want to set traps. He tried to make them, quickly, quietly, and on the move.Theo had somehow — no one asked how — acquired a rough chunk of iron ore from the mine. Sarah suspected it had something to do with the smudged miner woman he was always chatting up in the evenings. Either way, he'd convinced the smith's apprentices to help him craft a reinforced round shield — wood backed with iron strips and banded with boiled leather. It wasn't a regulation. It wasn't even subtle. But it was solid.Probably the best shield in the Landing.But by the end of the week, everyone in the Landing knew whose banner they were under — even if no one had ever seen it fly.The night before the march, the Lord's Hall was quiet.Not empty — just hushed in that rare way only the night before something big could bring. Armor was oiled. Packs were checked. Maps laid out. No one said farewell, but everyone felt it just the same.Harold was sitting at the end of the long table, boots up, cup in hand — not drinking, just holding the warmth.Beth and Margaret walked in together, thick as thieves, each holding a long cloth-wrapped bundle. Margaret had a grin. Beth looked proud, but she tried to hide it behind a raised brow."Harold," Beth said, stopping at the table. "We made you something."Harold looked up slowly. "Please tell me it's more coffee."Margaret said. "Just banners," she said, smiling.They laid the bundles down one at a time and began to unwrap them.The first was simple — a field of dark green, with a black vertical slash stitched down the center. The banner of the First Century.IThe second was the same green, but this time with a black angled chevron — the Second Century. Meant to be carried into battle, meant to be followed.⌃The third was larger — longer, heavier. Beth unrolled it with care.A pale linen field. A short sword, stitched in gray thread. Not raised, not dripping blood — just ready. Beside it, crossed at a clean diagonal, was a sprig of herb in green thread. It was clean lines and measured work.Harold didn't say anything for a long moment.Then: "The Sprig and the Blade?"Beth nodded once. "Figured it fit.""Guide and guard," Margaret added. "Heal and fight. You know. The whole thing."Harold stood. Reached out. Ran his hand over the banner's surface — slow, careful. The stitching was tight. The fabric is clean, if rough. It wasn't made for glory. It was made to last.He looked at them both, and his voice came low."Thank you both, you didn't have to do this." He looked up at them and got up to hug them. "I'd be a little lost without you both."Beth just smirked. "Sure, we did. Someone had to make it real."Margaret reached out and nudged the top of the banner toward him. "We figured you'd want to carry it tomorrow. Even if no one else knows what it means yet."Harold stared at it.Then he nodded once. "The banners will fly."