Fallen Eagle-Chapter 36: A Stony, Lifeless Earth

Fallen Eagle-Chapter 36: A Stony, Lifeless Earth

The mud-splattered tracks crisscrossing the dingy hovels of Suyren were a far cry from the stout walls that had impressed Christos from the road. What, from a distance, had seemed bustling and orderly was all muddied potholes, crooked fences patched with rope, and doorways sagging like tired mouths up close inside its walls.
Christos had imagined city folk lived better than the farmers they liked to sneer at. Then again, maybe Suyren didn’t count as a proper city. He’d never been to Mangup, so he didn’t know. Christos was struck by a sudden urge to visit the capital someday. Even if just to mock how sorry it probably was.
He dragged his focus back to the present, to the squelch underfoot and the sour reek in the rain-filled air. Christos felt as if he were wandering through a bigger Kerasia. A bigger, smellier Kerasia. His companion seemed to agree.
“Smells like a pile o’ shit.” Agape pinched her nose in disgust as the smell of sheep guts and excrement wafted from the side of the road, or from the ruined muddy track that passed for it. “My chamber pot’s sweeter than this, and I’ve got half a dozen brothers. You wouldn’t believe what they do to that poor thing.” She mimed a gag.
“Already talking about home?” Christos teased her, trying to dredge up some humour. “We’ve barely been gone a day.” They’d set out after helping Stratos with the few wheat fields that fed his mill and his bread. It had been backbreaking - chaff itching down the collar, shoulders on fire, and palms rasped raw by the sickle - but Christos owed the old man for letting him take his daughter’s hand.
And wasn’t that a wild thought? As he looked at the beauty next to him, he couldn’t help but smirk. He would never have believed he’d be lucky enough to grab hold of the girl of his dreams. Much less having her say she’d brave the unknown at Suyren with him.
He’d been of half a mind to trounce up to Mangup and demand he be stationed with the Captain, or back at the Probatofrourio with the boys. But his word wasn’t worth spit here or there, and the odds of ending up where he wanted were slim. Better to keep close to home, if they’d even accept him. Enlisting as a soldier was half of every peasant boy’s dream. Comfy pay, learning self-defense, and earning no small amount of bragging rights. So it wasn’t exactly easy to get hired as one.
Stratos had convinced him to take the place of one of the seasonal militia once again, to skip on the unsteady chance he’d be hired on the spot. The canny bastard had even “offered” one of his sons’ places for Christos. Hah! As if Christos didn’t spot the trick. He had, of course, taken the offer immediately. He owed the miller that much, and this gave him the chance to put himself before some prissy little noble at the fortress he could impress.
They turned onto the main avenue, a generous name for a vein of potholed gravel that sloped vaguely toward the castle’s bulge of stone. A poor sod detached from a wall and drifted toward them.
“A little to spare, kind master?” The voice squeaked through a mask of grime. It was a little kid, though how young it was hard to tell under the grime and rags. Christos doubted that he’d make it through much of the cold with those sorry things on. The flicker of pity he felt didn’t stop Christos from doing the right thing, though.
“Back the fuck up, lowlife. Does it look like we got any coin on us?” His lip curled into a dagger of a sneer as he gave the urchin a narrow, cutting side-eye. He didn’t see Agape’s fist until it cracked the side of his arm.
“Are you daft? He’s just asking for a little help.”
“I’ve heard of these big city schemes before,” Christos grumbled, rubbing the smarting spot. For such a small thing, his girl packed a hell of a punch. “Every shadow hides a thief, and every child here is not as innocent as they seem.”
“He’s a little kid.” Agape planted herself protectively between Christos and the beggar as squarely as a door barred at night. “He couldn’t knock over a leaf.”
“I’m a she,” the kid murmured, his eyes falling with shy embarrassment.
Christos said ‘his’ because he didn’t believe a single thing coming out of the brat’s mouth. He’d reserve judgment when he saw the child scrubbed enough to have an actual face. Agape, however, was quick to humor him, squatting to meet him at eye level.
“What’s your name, little one?” Her voice was a sickly sweet shade she hadn’t ever used with him.
“Valeria.” The kid spoke in quick bursts, weaponizing the pauses, weaving a spell of cuteness Agape was all too eager to fall for. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you as well, Valeria,” Agape said, fishing in her travelling pouch. She brought out a fistful of hard-biscuits, chalk-pale and mean. “We don’t have much coin, but take these.”
She pressed the biscuits into the dirty hand, and the brat stared down as if she’d palmed over a purse of stavrata. “Soften them in water so they’re easier to bite through, all right?” The child bobbed a quick nod.
“Or if you manage to swag an ale off some unfortunate,” Christos added, voice thick with irony and double meaning, “you can dip it in that. Slides down easier that way.” Christos barked a laugh, ignoring Agape’s glacial look.
“Now scram,” he said, shooing with a flick of his fingers. “You got what you came for.” The little urchin gathered the prize and sprinted off with surprising speed, like a sparrow that suddenly remembered it had wings.
“Why are you being so rude?” Agape turned on him, anger and embarrassment coloring her face in a pretty shade of red.
Christos put on a thoughtful pose, thumb to chin, as if consulting a council of wise men. “I have a bad feeling about that one.”
Agape gave a small, disbelieving laugh. “Based on what?”
Christos glanced back. The kid darted through the traffic of wheelbarrows and goats as if the ruts were dry cobbles. Halfway down the lane, he turned back to glare at Christos and stick out his tongue at him, all the while smirking mischievously at the prize he’d managed to snag.
“Couldn’t tell you.” Was all Christos said.
“Christos from Kerasia?” The bored gate guard droned on.
“I don’t have any name like that on here.” A small ginger-haired scribe said while scanning a wax tablet with the strange scratching they called letters. Christos called it witchcraft.
“That’s because I’m filling in for Lambdos of Kerasia. His family needs hands for the fields this year, and I volunteered, sir.” Christos stood ramrod straight, the Probatofrourio still drilled into his spine. It was a vague attempt at projecting an impressive image. After several admonishments from his friends, he’d even attempted to do some of that ‘intelligence gathering’ everyone swore he needed. Something about him being usually too rash and stupid.
What he’d gathered wasn’t much: he apparently had to impress one of the higher-ups get taken on as a professional soldier. He didn’t know how he was supposed to do that, though. Or what exactly he’d be doing as a soldier, exactly. He was starting to think that maybe he hadn’t thought things through after all.
“How dutiful, Stratiotes. That is what we like to see in our Grand Principality.” The guard laid the praise on thick, as if mocking him. Damn the wretch.
“I live to serve.” He said deadpan, not letting anything bubble to the surface.
“Perfect. Everything seems in order then, you’re a day early as well for the official ing day. Yet another thing we appreciate here in Suyren.” The gruff guard said as the scrawny scribe crisscrossed a name off his list.
“You’ll be billeted in an empty home on the outskirts. Last season’s militia are already clearing out. I can even find you one of the better ones before too many arrive.” If what Christos had seen so far was anything to go by, “better” likely meant a thatch-and-mud hovel that remembered being a house. “One you won’t have to share with too many dirty bastards.”
“Ah-actually, sir, I came here with my wife. “ The statement even now seemed an utter absurdity to Christos. He had a
wife
. “Is there any chance we could take a vacant home for ourselves?”
“Ah, you’re one of those,” The guard said with sudden understanding and a patronizing smile that irked Christos something fierce. “Did you bring a tent?”
“What?”
A tent?
Was he supposed to live like a fucking beggar? Half of the town looked downright abandoned. Couldn’t they find someplace for them? “Uh- no, Sir.” He said, and heard the strain in his own politeness.
“Can we find someplace for this one?” The guard looked to the scribe. The ginger looked startled at being addressed and stalled between a yes and a no, blinking like he’d been caught stealing, looking utterly confused. Was this the level of higher-ups he’d have to deal with? Christos was starting to realize he might have taken for granted the quiet competence of Probatofrourio’s officers.
“One of the outer sheds should be free,” the scribe ventured.
A shed?
“Perfect, then,” the guard said briskly. “You can have one of those to yourselves. Pick any you fancy. They’re right beside the pig pens.” He looked about ready to wave Christos off and be done with him. It took all Christos’s control to keep his tongue behind his teeth. He glanced back at Agape’s slight form to draw the strength to control himself.
“What direction is that in, Sir?” Christos said, a vein threatening to pop out of his head. “And how will I know which houses you refer to?”
The guard gestured vaguely to the south, barking a short laugh. “Trust me, kid. When you get there, you’ll know.”
The air stank of nausea and shit, punctuated by an aftertaste of despair, thought Christos as he channeled his inner poet. The sight that befell him certainly lent wings to his imagination. The decrepit little hole of thatch and mud looked one hard shove away from folding in on itself.
“Maybe we can still find a tent buy.” Christos said, his eyes glazing over the oinking animals that were to be their neighbours.
“C’mon, dooface, don’t be such a downer yet.” Agape said with a lighter step as she led him over to the least miserable of the dozens shacks. “We haven’t even seen the inside yet.” She treated this whole journey like a grand adventure. Leaving Kerasia for the wider world had always been her dream - more so after the bad memories that clung there now.
The inside was even worse than he’d thought possible. Anything worth taking had long since walked off. What remained were broken pottery shards, a damp bruise of ash, and a wobbling wooden wreck that might once have been a table. The place smelled of old smoke and pig breath.
Christos’s arms folded of their own accord, his brow settling into a heavy scowl - until he caught the pose and forced it open, unbuckling his arms brusquely from around his chest. That stance belonged to Vassilis. And that made it something he wouldn’t allow himself to use ever again.
“It’s roomy,” Agape said, breezy as ever, gesturing to the ghost of a hearth.
“It’s empty,” Christos said in response.
Agape ticked her tongue as her finger danced over Christos’s chest. “It’s perfect. We can move freely.” Her words rose and fell as she spun on the packed earth, humming a tune so soft it seemed to coax the dust to dance. Sunlight threaded a gap in the thatch to land squarely on her - as if the world was honing in on her performance.
“Join me, sir knight.” She called happily, the sound absurd amidst the ruin. “It’s rude to leave a maiden hanging.”
Despite himself, Christos trudged forward with a half smile. “Where is this maiden? Does she have a fine bum?”
Agape laughed, the sound quick and bright like her steps. Christos lumbered after her, all elbows and boots, an ox in borrowed greaves. For a few heartbeats, he found her rhythm and felt truly alive. Then the moment ended, and they fell together into a clumsy bow.
“So, whaddya think? It’s amazing, isn’t it?” She swept an arm at the gloom she’d somehow made less cruel. Her heavy breath misted in the chill.
“It’ll do.” Christos leaned in and grabbed hold of her. “As long as you’re in it.”
Agape met him, soft turning fierce, heat pooling where their mouths found each other. The wind worried the thatch; a pig snorted like a drunk uncle outside. Christos didn’t know if the posting would stick, if some prissy noble would notice him, if the shed would stand through the first hard rain. He only knew that as long as he had this, everything would work itself out.
“Have you had any rashes?” A big-bellied surgeon asked, the words coming out more like an accusation than a question as he raked over Christos’s body below the thin threadbare cloth of his tunic.
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“No, sir,” Christos answered, putting on the armoury-issued helmet and shrugging into the gambeson they’d procured for him. At least the equipment here wasn’t the shambles Probatoufrorio had been before the Captain’s arrival.
“Coughs, sneezing, bloody stool?” The questions came rapid fire, almost rote and uninterested.
“None,” Christos held still as the rough fellow grunted and moved on to the next victim. He’d already watched a few men marked unfit - diseased, too thin, too something - turned away and fined for their impertinence, told to limp back to their villages and fetch a replacement. They left looking even smaller, as if the shame had shaved inches off their height.
He joined a line of the newly outfitted: the same gray hunger in different faces. Sergeants with faces like chisels put them through runs and lifts, the sort of work that both burned lungs clean and ripped muscles jagged. He placed adequately in the run, not embarrassing himself, but not impressing anyone.
His strength, however, shone through. They were told to hoist heavy leather-bound sandbags up over their shoulder. Christos was able to clear two weights over the next best of the unfortunates. Wrestling was even more one-sided. Christos’s reach and height towered over the others, and the shield-pushes, hauling and digging back at Probatofrourio had carved his shoulders into heavy, mean things. He took men off their feet and planted them like fence posts, his stout frame ensuring that once they were below him, there was no escape. He had no technique to speak of, but neither did any of the other chaff.
After all was said and done, Christos figured he’d done well enough, something he saw in the eyes of the soldiers if the surprised sidelong looks from the professional stratiotai around the yard meant anything.
His next appointment was with the cobbler, a well-dressed commoner who spoke like he were a landed noble, and Christos a shackled serf. He looked at Christos’s feet as if they’d personally insulted him and began to complain to the air in a tone that expected apologies. Christos endured it with a grimace. He had figured he would have to suck up plenty of abuse from little lordlings here at Suyren, so he chose to treat it as training.
Although he wouldn’t exactly call it a resounding success. He ‘accidentally’ brought his ‘disgusting foot’ too close to the man’s face while being measured. The cobbler recoiled with a noise like a stepped-on rat. Christos kept his expression neutral, but he could not deny the cozy warmth he felt inside at the man’s suffering.
Hurried off with a curt “Collect them in a week, and clean those fetid feet.” he made his way to the main courtyard to assemble with the rest of the militia. The cold bit, a clean hard thing, but the new gambeson blunted it. The wool smelled barely used, undented by weather or blood; not a scratch on the blasted thing. He flexed, felt the padding settle, and heard the faint creak of fresh stitching. If the big cities armed their peasants like this, then Christos had finally found one good thing about them.
The militia were herded into neat little ranks before a grand stage of flimsy wood. A man so swaddled in comfortable pelts that Christos suddenly felt naked in his poor man’s gambeson mounted the planks with an easy swagger. He wore the biggest shit-eating grin Christos had ever seen, as if he were some saint returned to bless the mud. Christos disliked him on sight.
To complete the show, a small flock trailed after him - little ducklings keeping to his heels, hands full of ledgers and self-importance. He halted dead center on the platform and let the silence fatten around him.
“Hello, my fellow soldiers, brothers, friends,” He oozed a kind confidence you grew when life has never knocked you down a peg. His casual tone made Christos wish the boards would rot and dump him on his arse.
“I would like to, first and foremost, welcome you all to Suyren Castle. You’ve no doubt heard much of it. And of myself.” Christos had no clue who this douchebag was. “I am Lord Adanis Nomikos, Commander of the Fortress and Lord of many of the northern estates you call home.” In other words, he was the reason for the empty bellies and decrepit homes he saw everywhere. Christos had now found a concrete reason to dislike the man, and he clung to it like a dying man to driftwood.
“Over the course of your time here, I want you to call this fortress home and defend it as such. At Suyren, we prize principles such as punctuality and obedience. But above all: Unity.” He said the word like a holy Amen. “Serve with honour and with these principles in mind-”
Christos felt the words turn to buzzing. Yes, yes, he would pretend to have all of that obedience, unity, and whatnot. But that was a future problem, and he was good at stacking those in the corner until they toppled.
It was while his gaze was wandering the yard that he spotted him, standing innocuously off in the shadows. Dark hair, the cut of the jaw, that piercing stare that made men stand straighter without knowing why. The recognition took his breath. What in God’s name was the Captain doing in Suyren? Would he be Christos’s commander?
The Captain’s gaze pierced through the crowd to land on Christos, and he mouthed only three words before he moved on.
We’ll talk later.
He left in a hurry, Demetrios trailing behind him as usual, but there was also… Stefanos? What was the runt doing here?
The speech kept droning until another man took the stage - a slimmer, sharper blade of a person, a more dangerous echo of the first prick. He rattled on about proper conduct, penalties for drunkenness, fines for brawling, lashes for desertion, the usual stew. Christos didn’t catch a whit of it, the words sliding off him like rain on his new gambeson.
Hope, unexpected and hot, surged in his chest, reminding him of a famous catchphrase a wise man had once said. Never fear, for the Captain is here.
“Get some rest, stratiotes. We’ll sort your lodging soon enough - rest assured.” Theodorus clasped Christos by the forearm and sent the big man lumbering down Suyren’s dark corridors, where torches gnawed at the dusk and the last of evening bled through arrow slits. His step sounded lighter already.
Theodorus closed the door behind him as he stepped into his inner sanctum: the small, windowless records room he’d conducted his interviews in. It was even more cramped now by the presence of Demetrios, Stefanos, and, customary by this point, a growing mountain of paperwork. He didn’t ease into his chair; he forced himself upon it, and upon the paper he’d been revising on the desk.
Stefanos rubbed at eyes cramped by letters. What had begun as a task Theodorus imposed - copy a page, recite a line - had turned into the boy’s own crusade the day he read a missive aloud properly and felt its weight land. Now he attacked his primer with gusto, lips moving, finger tracking the scratches that had once been secret.
Demetrios, meanwhile, cross-checked Theodorus’s notes against bundles they’d hauled from the archives with Steward Theophylact’s blessing. The steward, newly eager to assist, had discovered a zeal for cooperation once Theodorus’s company became the sharp end of the new tax-collection scheme, and Theodorus its munificent savior.
The documents pertained to the rotational ration table Theodorus was to implement as part of the company’s meal plan. The plan was for a standard fare of buckwheat supplemented by healthy doses of peas, along with scraps of bone and fat from the abundant leftovers from Lord Adanis’s feasts. Those leftovers were usually earmarked as alms for the poor, a tragically necessary salve for wounds the lord himself had opened. In practice, the largesse swelled the rows of vagrants who lingered for crumbs and cheers. It was a bitter irony that the loudest voices in favour of Adanis often belonged to the stomachs he’d most hollowed.
By dipping his hand into that pot, Theodorus knew he made some lives tighter for the cold of winter, but he could not see a ready solution to the lack of protein present in the meals usually given to the militia. Proper nutrition wasn’t just a nice benefit; it was a strategic necessity to achieve his goals. It affected everything from recovery, muscle growth, health, to the men’s mood.
Demetrios was once again awestruck by the level of detail from his liege, who designed entire meal plans for his troops with the same care he’d sketched out an intricate battle strategy where life hung in the balance, claiming it would significantly boost the troops’ performance. He did not see why beans should breed courage or how porridge turned into steadier spear arms; yet he had learned to trust Theodorus’s strange arithmetic.
Theodorus, emboldened by a task that fit his hands, had thrown himself into the work of maximizing every input possible for his soldiers. Modest gains would be mistaken for luck. He needed a result that argued with a shout. And the only possible way to do that was to eke out any improvement.
So he’d designed custom meal plans, detailed training programs, brainstormed ways to improve camaraderie, and even planned to map every one of his men psychologically, to know them better than they knew themselves. Because they were the roughest, most useless of the accepted recruits. And, by God or whatever force that brought him here, he would make them serviceable.
That was the linchpin of his strategy: a radical program shaped for the men he actually had, not the soldiers he wished for, and executed under authority that was persuasive rather than absolute. This was no Probatofrourio. He could not command here by consuming the horizon.
“Are you sure this will work, my lord?” Demetrios ventured, squinting at the revised patrol routes Theodorus had negotiated. The other aides had permitted the edits only if he recalculated their own circuits to compensate. Theodorus had obliged and delegated the drawings to Demetrios, who hunched over them in the dying light. He really ought to obtain spectacles for the old servant; the question of with which coin remained a concern, however.
“Yes, I am Demetrios.” He said with a quiet confidence that the old servant naturally could not comprehend. Concepts like proper nutritional balance, ramping up loads, and psychological profiling were not present yet. He only had to execute on them within the narrow alleys Suyren allowed.
“I certainly hope so, my lord.” Demetrios set the pages aside, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Fancy ideas have a way of losing themselves in their own complexity.”
The battery of tests for the seasonal recruits ground on for two more days, and when it finally ended, Theodorus went to learn his fate.
Theodorus was present once again in the quiet corner of the common hall. His eyes wore their usual shade of sleepless, after another late night with rosters and ration tables. Yet, for all the trouble and turbulence, they hadn’t lost their luster.
Sergeant Othon arrived like clockwork with the rising sun, with a kind smile and a polite disposition that never faltered.
“Good morning, Captain.” His simple fare of gathered cheese, bread, and olives clinked onto the table. Theodorus’s mind, warped by nutritional brainstorming from the castle’s limited stocks, categorized it as a decently balanced, carbohydrate-rich meal to start off the day. He shook off the thought away.
“Good morning, Sergeant.” Theodorus unfolded his own plate: a small bowl of barley porridge slicked with a finger of honey, two boiled eggs, a palm of dried figs, and watered wine. He ate with tidy economy and a refined etiquette, manners he suspected Othon appreciated. “You can guess as to the why of the meeting.” He said without any preamble. Their pact had been sealed; there was no longer any need to beat around the bush.
“The rosters are finalized.” Othon’s eyes brightened; a chuckle warmed his voice. “Your fellow officers fought like fishwives over scraps to get their hands on every scrap of advantage possible. Each one is certain that he has gotten the better hand of the others, I will cherish the look on their faces when they learn how wrong they are.”
“And so the price extracted was high?”
“Oh yes.” Othon tucked his laugh into a small, modest smile. “Although it was hard going not to surrender your man, Christos. Every aide wanted him, and said so quite emphatically.”
“Music to my ears,” Theodorus said, mirroring Othon’s expression. “And I hope to yours as well.” Christos’s presence was a welcome boon to the company. In many ways.
“It is, Captain.” A beat in the conversation. Theodorus let silence do its measuring while he held Othon’s gaze.
“I’ve kept my end,” he said at last. “Were you as successful in yours?”
“Yes, the Stratiotai we marked have agreed to join the company.” Usually, the veterans considered ‘babysitting’ new recruits a drudgery that yielded few side benefits compared to gate duty or policing the town. As such, good veterans demanded good coin, and the aides paid it. Theodorus had no purse to match theirs, but he had Othon’s ear and a lever: word, carefully placed, that his company would handle tax collection. It was a more prestigious post that the veterans could expect to be rewarded for by the steward, if done cleanly.
With Othon’s quiet advocacy, Theodorus found exactly the men he wanted. His requirements were specific. He needed patient, knowledgeable instructors who could teach without bluster; men who set the standard not by shouting but by doing. By executing on orders, keeping their kits immaculate and living with a certain standard at all times. Strange criteria for a fifteenth-century military where strength of arm and obedience were often prized more than independent thinking. During the muster rota, he had already profiled the veterans - habits, tempers, tells - and cross-checked his notes against Othon’s intimate knowledge. From that, they picked five who wouldn’t bleed him for coin and wouldn’t poison the well with swagger.
While others fought over the cream of the crop, Theodorus quietly skimmed the best of the supposed chaff. His unorthodox requirements were a filter that found good men in what was unremarkable to rival eyes, meaning he could prize them away at no additional cost to himself.
Meanwhile, the steward’s favor began to pay dividends. The Hypostrategos now held the keys to the armory, it was true, but it was the steward who controlled the general stores. From them, Theodorus could source non-military equipment that was just as, if not more useful. Spools of thread, spare needles, coils of rope, spare shovels, even bundles of charcoal.
“I’m excited to see what you will make of these disparate pieces, Captain.” Othon brought Theodorus back from his musings, an amused gleam in his eyes.
“I invite you to take notes, Sergeant,” Theodorus answered, his smile a row of sharp teeth. “I will show Suyren something it won’t easily forget.”
Theodorus’s forty-odd militia formed up with the other aides’ companies for the formal handover of the companies to their presiding aides. The quick ceremony that had been held by Lord Adanis himself for the last few years was now once again handed over to the Hypostrategos.
The ceremony was brief yet steeped in Suyren’s expected pomp: banners, a roll of drums, a priest’s thin blessing. He halted before Theodorus, who knelt at the head of his line, the picture of deference in his impeccable black and grey Sideris livery, which perfectly contrasted with the mob behind him. As promised, they were the weakest, meanest, dirtiest peasants of the lot.
Hypatius’s gaze combed the ranks with fast arithmetic, interest flickering beneath the ice. Then he addressed Theodorus, voice carrying just enough. “Theodorus Sideris, by writ and witness, I place men in your hand. Hold them with humility, lead them with honor, and prove their valor under your command. Let the fortress be your measure and the law your line.” A pause, a fractional incline of the head.
Then, in a tone low enough not to be heard by the surrounding men, Hypatius spoke words meant for Theodorus alone.
“I’m looking forward to what you accomplish, Captain.” His eyes narrowed, predatory, hungry. “Rest assured, I’ll be watching.”
Theodorus fought not to react as he remained kneeling, staring at the floor as if he hadn’t heard anything. Hypatius moved on to the other aides, and the exchange repeated down the line. Theodorus paid it barely any mind. The most dangerous predator in this jungle had just issued a stark warning: its sights were fixed squarely on him.
Theodorus had gathered his company in the southern quarter of Suyren, where the lanes ran with swill and the air soured the tongue. His handpicked veterans flanked him, and Demetrios and Stefanos held the edge of his vision.
They faced a sorry sight. Stunted by hunger, sharp with suspicion, these men wore the lean, mean look of people who’d learned to expect the worst from anyone with a higher perch. This was a rabble, nothing more. But they were his rabble.
“You think you know what it means to be a soldier.” Theodorus began, his posture severe, voice flat enough to cut. “You are wrong.” Demetrios, Stefanos, and Christos traded the small smiles of those who had heard the line before. “I will disabuse you of that notion. You are rubble. And I am your mason.”
The sharp fangs of winter that bit into the assembly paled in comparison with the sharpness of the words. “Do you know why you were given to me? Because you are the weakest. The least disciplined. Because no one else wanted you.” He let the truth of the statement sink in as the men exchanged sour glances. This confirmed their fears and suspicions.
“But also because I wanted you.” Theodorus stepped closer, into their breath and doubt. “I see not what you are, but what you could be. You will learn. Because I will force you to.” He paced the ranks, boots squelching in the near-frozen mud. “Under my command, we do not aim for the minimum. We aim for excellence. Your duty is to be early, to train hard, and to conduct yourselves with a discipline that shames all others. There are no breaks. There is only duty.”
He landed square center, closer to the men than was comfortable. “And at the end of your tenure, I promise you this. You will not know your own reflections. And every voice who doubted you, every look that deemed you less, will regret having shunned you.” In the faces before him, he caught the glares and sparks of determination of the trampled. The anger at being singled out as weak.
Theodorus stooped, lifting a shovel. “Your first order of business is fitting.” He planted the blade into soft, stinking earth. “You will build a latrine.”
The probatofrourio veterans couldn’t help their nostalgic grins even as a low murmur spread, half surprise, half resentment.
“Our work starts now,” he said, the words feeling heavy. The start of something new.
Around them, pigs grunted, hovels swayed with the wind, and the poorest stones of Suyren watched without interest. Theodorus set his heel on the shovel’s shoulder, drove it down, and gave them the first clean line to follow. He would dredge up an army from this stony, lifeless earth, one heave at a time.

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Chapter 36: A Stony, Lifeless Earth