The morning after the Reik's decree, Seigmer stood on the eastern rampart of Seigmer's Hold and looked down at the new arrivals.
Two hundred volunteers had stepped forward at dawn — young men mostly, some barely sixteen, others in their early twenties. They stood in ragged lines on the parade ground that had once been the Roman principia courtyard, eyes bright with hunger and nerves. Behind them, the original fifty — his Tier-1 core — waited in perfect formation, faces blackened from night drills, crossbows slung low, expressions calm and unreadable.
Seigmer descended the steps and walked the line.
He did not speak loudly. He did not need to.
"Form up," he said. "Five ranks of fifty. Shoulder to shoulder. No talking unless spoken to."
The volunteers shuffled into place — awkward at first, then steadier as the fifty moved in behind them like silent instructors.
Seigmer stopped at the front.
"You are no longer boys playing at war. You are soldiers now. You will train like soldiers. You will live like soldiers. You will die like soldiers if you forget the difference between courage and stupidity."
He turned to Ingvar.
"Begin."
What followed was a mirror of U.S. Army Basic Combat Training — stripped to its bones, adapted to iron-age tools, but merciless in rhythm.
First hour: physical conditioning.
Push-ups until arms failed — then ten more. Sit-ups on cold stone until stomachs cramped. Squats with captured Roman shields held overhead. Five-mile run around the inner perimeter in full gear — packs loaded with rocks to simulate ammunition and rations. Men vomited in the ditches. Men collapsed. Men rose again because the fifty did not allow them to stay down.
Second hour: discipline and drill.
Marching in step — left, right, left, right — until the sound became one continuous beat. Facing movements: about-face, right-face, left-face. Falling into shield wall on command. Breaking and reforming under mock charge. No glory yells. No war-cries. Only silence and precision.
Third hour: weapons familiarization.
Crossbow loading and dry-firing drills. How to span with both hands. How to aim without jerking. How to breathe out halfway and squeeze — not pull. The volunteers who had never held a crossbow before were paired with one of the original fifty. Mistakes were corrected instantly — quietly, firmly, no mockery.
By noon the new two hundred looked different.
Sweat-soaked. Shaking. Eyes wide with exhaustion and something new — focus.
Seigmer walked among them.
"You are not yet ready," he said. "But you are beginning."
He did not praise them. Praise came later — if they earned it.
While the men rested under the shade of the walls — drinking boiled water and eating bread — Seigmer moved to the smithy.
The old Roman forge had been expanded overnight. Slaves (the surviving Roman prisoners who had surrendered without fight) and freed Suebi blacksmiths worked side by side under guard. Iron ingots from Roman scrap lay stacked beside charcoal pits. Anvils rang.
Seigmer had already hand-picked them.
Ten blacksmiths total — four freed Suebi who had forged spearheads before, six Roman auxiliaries who knew pattern-welding and mail repair. He had spoken to each privately the night before.
"You work for the tribe now," he told them. "Not for Rome. Not for me. For your children who will never wear chains. Fail me and you die. Succeed and you live richer than any smith in Germania."
They believed him.
Now he stood before them and unrolled a fresh deerskin on the anvil.
On it he had sketched — in charcoal, precise and clean — his own personal sword.
A hand-and-a-half blade.
Longer than the Roman spatha, shorter than a two-handed greatsword. Blade thirty-eight inches, straight, double-edged, with a fuller running most of the length for lightness and strength. Crossguard simple but wide. Grip long enough for two hands or one with room to shift. Pommel disc-shaped, heavy enough to balance the point.
"Make this," he said. "One for me. Use the best Roman steel we have. Temper it hard. No decoration. No runes. Function only."
The chief smith — a grizzled Roman who had once served in Britannia — studied the sketch.
"This is not our pattern," he said.
"It is now," Seigmer replied.
He left them to their work and returned to the parade ground.
The two hundred and fifty stood at attention again — sore, bruised, but straighter than they had been at dawn.
Seigmer looked at them.
"Tonight we begin night drills," he said. "Tomorrow we begin live-fire exercises with the scorpio. In one week we will be ready to meet the new legion on ground of our choosing."
He paused.
"And when they come, they will not find a tribe."
He raised one fist.
"They will find an army."
Two hundred and fifty fists rose in answer.
The sound echoed off the stone walls like thunder.
In the smithy behind him, hammers began to fall in rhythm.
A new sword was being born.
And with it — a new age.