“They’ve promised replacements,” Helios replied. “Though, apparently, the replacements are unruly types—violent, battle-hardened, but undisciplined and rebellious. They might suit you.”
“Ha! If they can stomach my crazy charges, I’ll knock some discipline into them. No problem.”
“The first group should be arriving soon. We’ll evaluate them then.”
The soldiers sent from Orway were a ragtag bunch, poorly armed and filthy.
“Most of them are deserters or bandits who’ve been burned out of their hideouts and left with nothing to eat,” Lucas observed.
The leader of the group was none other than a general from the enemy army—a man who had given Helios considerable trouble in the last war.
“To think I’d end up fighting under your command,” the man remarked.
Captured and awaiting execution in Orway after being betrayed by his allies, he had spent months languishing in a dungeon, expecting to die of neglect. Instead, one day, he was unexpectedly released.
“They asked me: ‘Would you rather die forgotten in a cell, amuse the masses on the execution stage, or die on the battlefield?’ So, here I am.”
The rest were mostly captured bandits, some with criminal records, but many were desperate individuals who saw war as a chance to rise above their circumstances.
“A young woman with black hair came to us,” one soldier explained. “She said, ‘Killing people is a crime punishable by death here, but on the battlefield, killers are hailed as heroes. If you’re going to struggle to survive, cling to the coattails of a winner and change your life.’”
Lucas bristled at the audacity, but Helios waved him off, taking the letter handed to him by the former enemy general.
“It’s a list of names and an inventory of what they’ve sent. Weapons and provisions are scarce.”
“How ungracious,” Lucas muttered.
The man from Orway glared at Lucas and replied coldly, “For a ragtag band of outlaws, the fact that we were entrusted with even this much is remarkable.”
“We’ll manage the rest ourselves,” Helios said. “For now, organize the group under Lord Shajabal. Treat them as an independent unit. Any preference for the unit name?”
“Call it the ‘Unicorn Brigade.’ Someone called us that as we departed. And I go by Godran.”
§§§
This encounter came five years earlier than in the original story, but Lord Shajabal Godran was sure to get along well with the protagonist.
Godran was a rare “older man” character in the original work, which was dominated by youthful, handsome figures. He was a reliable supporting character, introduced in the first part of the story but often separated from the protagonist, much to the frustration of readers who wished he’d joined sooner.
Back in Orway, I nibbled on a slice of hard bread while reviewing the list of injured soldiers sent back by ship.
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