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Chapter Eight

Cobetsnya Military Garrison 19

Cobetsnya, Kolakolvia

Illarion Glazkov

Dinner that evening should have been a joyous occasion. They were to crew the armored Objects of the Wall. Illarion still wasn’t quite sure what that would entail, but it was a great honor. At least that’s what everyone kept saying.

Instead, the recruits sat quietly around a table, alone in a mess hall, picking at their rations. Wordless. Food flavorless.

When he ran a hand over his scalp, Illarion felt some of the dried blood flake off. He snuck a look to his left where Svetlana sat. Her expression was flat, and he hadn’t heard a single word from her since having her hair all cut off.

A door squeaked open, causing all the recruits to turn nearly as one.

Kapitan Maxim Spartok entered, a crate held in his arms. He scanned the mess and shook his head in disgust.

“I’ve told them a dozen times to let the joy sink in before hacking off your hair. I swear, Brona is a butcher.” He crossed the mess and set the crate on the table. Glass clinked inside. He pointed to his bald head, which had several scars on it. “How many of these do you think are from the front? Come on. How many?”

“Half?” Boris asked. He’d had a beard so he’d gotten his face mangled as well as his scalp.

“None,” Spartok answered. “All of these are from that old hag who cut your hair. She cut mine after I’d been tested for resonance too. Back in those days, they made us go back to her every other week. That was until I learned to do it myself. So, I have gifts.”

He reached into the crate and pulled out a small box. From within he began pulling out small, leather-wrapped bundles.

“In honor of your assignment to the Wall—mind you, I said ‘assignment’ not ‘acceptance’—I give you your freedom from Brona the Butcher.” He held the first bundle to Svetlana, who took it and unwrapped it, revealing a folding straight razor. “You are welcome. And you are all in my debt.”

Svetlana stared at the razor for a long moment, then began laughing. The rest joined in as they took their gifts.

Spartok then began removing bottles of clear liquid from the crate. “And now for you to celebrate, I have procured many bottles of what is possibly the worst vodka in Cobetsnya.”

There had been much grumbling among the recruits about how there was no alcohol allowed during training. How could Kolakolvians be expected to lift rocks all day drinking only water? Only there were strict punishments for anyone who snuck alcohol into the barracks, but now their commanding officer was telling them to partake? Yannic had been so mean to them in comparison . . . 

“This isn’t a trick. The commissar isn’t hiding in the bushes. At least I don’t think he is. Drink. Celebrate your new assignment. That’s an order.”

It didn’t take long for bottles to be opened and emptied into the tin cups each recruit had been assigned. They laughed, they drank, they laughed some more. Someone shouted for a toast to Brona the Butcher, which earned a chorus of hisses and boos.

It wasn’t until Illarion had downed his fourth cup—fifth? sixth?—when his swimming mind finally seemed to notice Kapitan Spartok—smiling like he had played the world’s greatest prank—had taken only a single sip.

* * *

Thunder from the goddesses awoke them. The loudest thunder in the existence of . . . well, thunder. Illarion tried to think of a better analogy, but thought was bludgeoned away by sound. He rolled from his bunk and fell five feet to the ground.

He somehow gained a standing position as the sounds of explosions tore through his mind. He looked around, and realized he wasn’t in his bunk. He was almost positive his bunk was a lower one. Almost. When he looked up at the bunk he’d fallen from, he found himself staring into the pale face of Svetlana. She didn’t seem to be clothed.

He looked down and discovered himself in a similar state.

Oh.

Step one was finding clothes.

He found pants. Boots. Surely there was a shirt somewhere. He spun around in a circle looking for the article, and heard Svetlana fall from the bunk they’d apparently been sharing.

The roaring thunder continued. He wanted to vomit.

He found his shirt tangled with another. Svetlana’s, probably. His head pounding, he turned and tossed it onto her sprawled form. Was she dead? Hard to say. Maybe.

Illarion heard the sound of groans from around him. Other recruits stumbled into view.

“Are we under attack?” one asked. Illarion wasn’t sure who it was. He was either too far away, or Illarion’s eyes weren’t open enough. Or both.

“Attack? Don’t be ridiculous!” The hellish voice of Kapitan Spartok felt like hammers on Illarion’s brain. How had he gotten so loud? “We have a special training for you this fine, early morning. Call it a rite of passage. I hope you are all well rested. You have two minutes to report outside the barracks. I don’t care if you are fully dressed, but you will report in two minutes, or you’ll be written up for insubordination . . . which would be a shame after the dinner we just shared. I don’t hate most of you.”

The Kapitan continued pounding two iron pans together as the recruits tried to dress themselves. Illarion’s vision swam, making his ability to see where he was going even worse than usual. He managed to get pants, boots, and shirt on, and tossed Svetlana her own boots before making it outside.

Dawn had not yet come, and the crispness of the morning air felt good on his face. He drank it in with deep breaths, his roiling stomach calming. Back against the outer barracks wall, he rubbed at his eyes and tried to remember the previous night. It came back in fragments. He remembered drinking, and then drinking some more. And some more. The recruits had all stumbled back to the barracks, an intelligible song sang almost in unison. Illarion remembered Svetlana leaning into him, arm hooked through his own. After that . . . nothing. But falling out of her bunk certainly suggested things continued after his memory failed.

What would Hana think?

Only weeks had passed since her death. He still felt her loss like a coffin pressed to his chest, but that memory was tangled with the Sister’s words. Grief, anger, guilt, and a desire for vengeance all warred for space in his heart. Grief was losing that battle.

A thud next to him made him open his eyes. Svetlana was doubled over, hands on her knees. Others shambled out of the barracks. Some literally fell through the doorway. But all of them made it out within the allotted two minutes. About half the recruits were fully clothed. The rest had on a mix of pants and boots, but few shirts.

Spartok followed the last recruit out, pans still in hand. He held them up in mock celebration. “Congratulations. When you are part of the Wall, you must maintain a constant, high level of readiness. This will exhaust you. It may break some of you, given enough time, should you survive that long. This rite of passage serves a point. You never know when battle will call you. The Wall is ever vigilant. Follow me.”

Without another word, he walked off at a brisk pace, leaving the recruits to trail in his wake. They stumbled after, some in better shape than others. The walk was fine, in the beginning, but soon the constant motion set his stomach churning.

As they passed by a latrine ditch, Illarion stepped away from the procession, and shoved a finger in his mouth to trigger the upheaval of his stomach’s contents. When he was done, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and hurried to catch up. He felt slightly better, and that would have to do. Better than showing weakness where Spartok was watching.

They passed from the main section of the military district into an area of abandoned, burned-out buildings. Glass crunched under foot, making Illarion grateful he’d managed to get his boots on. A couple of the recruits hadn’t been so lucky.

Spartok stopped the group. Foul, dirty smoke drifted around them all. There were the remains of many large buildings here, but they all appeared to be badly damaged. Every window was broken. The walls were pockmarked with holes.

“Welcome to Treluvia. This section of the city was torched in a riot caused by Almacian sympathizers years ago. But the Tsar never lets anything go to waste, so now this rubble serves as our training area. Members of the Wall and infantry engage in exercises here, often with live ammunition. You will be spending a great deal of time here until our Objects are ready to be shipped back to the front. By that time, hopefully you will be prepared to serve on a crew.”

Treluvia must have been home to a hundred times as many people as Ilyushka. Now the burned-out shell was just a place to practice. It was astounding to Illarion, but he didn’t dare ask what happened to all the people who had lived here.

“You have one goal this morning.” Spartok pulled out a pocket watch and nodded. “You will continue down this road. In a quarter mile you will find a wide depression in the ground, in the middle of which has been constructed a dirt hill. The hill has some cover. Not much, but maybe enough. The very top has no cover whatsoever. This is intentional, for the top of this hill is your objective. Your mission is to secure the objective as quickly as possible and hold it from being taken by enemy combatants.”

“Enemy combatants?” Igor Verik asked. He was the smallest of the recruits, having barely met the minimum thresholds for admittance into the Wall.

“Your enemy will be my troops who are stuck here bored until their Objects are ready, as well as some volunteers from other units,” Spartok answered. “There will be relatively few of them there for your initial assault, but reinforcements are inbound.” He held up a hand to cut off the question forming on Verik’s lips. “More members of the Wall. The suits you were checked for resonance with all have partial crews in need of fresh meat. This is their way of testing you. Show them that you have the heart to be soldiers of Kolakolvia.”

“Rules of engagement, sir?” Illarion asked.

Spartok grinned. “Somebody paid attention to Yannic’s lectures. Good question, Glazkov. Today’s engagement will consist of merciless beatings. Try not to kill or permanently cripple anybody, but I don’t think that will be an issue. For them. Some of you may actually die. If you inadvertently murder one of my trained soldiers, I will be very annoyed. They are valuable, hard to replace. You are mere recruits. If you perish, I am merely inconvenienced. If they die, the Tsar has lost a valuable asset. Understand?”

Some of the recruits were rather thuggish, so Spartok waited for everyone to shout “Yes, sir!” before continuing.

“But you must fight! Fight like your lives depend on it, because they do. Officially we speak of rules of engagement, but there are no rules in war. None. There is following orders. Out there, mercy isn’t a luxury we get. Every living thing at the front either depends on us or wants to kill us. You will have an audience today of important men! So do me proud. Demonstrate your fearlessness. Prove you are worthy to wear the Tsar’s uniform. Poor performances will result in your being sent to the trenches. Now go. Run!”

No one needed any encouragement. Illarion set out as fast as he could but he was quickly passed by some of the more agile recruits. He had never been a speedy runner. The sun was just beginning to peek over the tops of bombed-out homes, and the glare forced him to put a hand up to cover his eyes.

Spartok’s game was intended to be one for them to lose, Illarion was certain. From the massive consumption of alcohol the night before, to running into the glare of the sun, to the enemy being hardened vets. All of the odds were stacked against them on purpose. Some of the recruits had raced far ahead by themselves. It seemed foolish to rush a fortified position, unorganized, against more experienced opponents alone.

He called to Svetlana and Igor, barely ahead of him. Igor probably could have outrun them all but seemed to be holding back. The two recruits fell back to match his slower pace.

“What’s on your mind, Glazkov?” Igor asked. The bastard didn’t even seem short of breath.

“We need to stick together.” It was hard to talk and run. Give him something to push, pull, or carry, and he’d put everyone else around him to shame. But running? He was sure there was a special place in the Sister’s hell for those who forced other people to run.

Svetlana nodded. Igor nodded too. Illarion pointed at Igor, then ahead of them.

“You want me to scout ahead?” Igor asked. “Maybe get some of the others to join up?”

“Yeah.”

“On it.” Igor took off like a deer. Svetlana stayed back, easily keeping Illarion’s pace. She looked pale, and she occasionally lifted a closed fist to her mouth. Illarion knew the feeling. Emptying his stomach had helped, but not enough under the circumstances.

Illarion and Svetlana were the last to arrive. There was a depression of bare dirt, and in the middle was a mound of dirt. The hill was large, maybe thirty feet tall, and very steep. The top of the hill was as bald as the recruits. At the highest point flew a Kolakolvian flag on a pole.

Illarion noticed a tall watchtower overlooking the training area. Several figures stood inside, though he couldn’t make out who they were from here. That must be the audience that Spartok had spoken of.

Igor was waiting for them and he’d managed to get two others to stop. Illarion thought Lourens Pavlovich seemed like a decent sort, and Dmitri Orlov was a blowhard but tough. They’d have to do.

If he stopped, Illarion knew he’d never get going again. So he ran by and shouted, “Stick close.”

“Why is the blind one in the lead?” Orlov shouted, but he followed anyway.

There was a lot of noise just ahead as the recruits clashed with the defenders. Spartok’s idea of relatively few meant a mob of approximately equal numbers to their platoon. From their uniforms, they appeared to be from the regular infantry. Apparently, there was no shortage of volunteers eager for the chance to beat on a recruit. Fights had broken out all around the hill as soldiers and recruits collided with each other.

It quickly degenerated into one big, chaotic fist fight.

That was a distraction. A trap.

Orlov started to veer toward the nearest clash, but Illarion shouted, “No! Spartok said to take the top as fast as we could. That’s what we’re gonna do!”

Thankfully, they listened and stuck with him. Illarion glanced up at the red flag, gently moving in the morning breeze. The hill was even steeper than it looked from afar. The ground was loose silt, sure to shift underfoot, littered with ashen beams and boulders to make moving treacherous. He immediately started his grind up the hill, putting his head down and focusing on going as fast as his leaden legs would allow.

“This way,” Igor said, having picked out a path that meant they had to climb over fewer obstacles. Most of the defenders were distracted by the other recruits so they were able to make it a third of the way up the hill before meeting any opposition.

Illarion climbed over a rock to find three soldiers in their way. He may have been a farm boy from the edge of the empire, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to fight. There wasn’t much else for the young men to do where he was from. Every regional celebration turned into a slugfest against the boys from the next village over, usually followed by a night of drinking together afterwards. They looked forward to it. Every man from Ilyushka could wrestle, throw fists, or take a hit. It was a matter of pride, and Illarion had usually been the last one standing. A happy warrior.

But that had been before his world had come crashing down. And as he started toward the three, there was no joy in his heart, just overwhelming anger. These soldiers were obstacles keeping him from fulfilling his orders, no different than the boulders or beams he had to climb over.

He went at them without hesitation. The three seemed a little surprised that the badly outnumbered recruit didn’t seem to care. He slugged the first one square in the mouth. It felt good. The next struck him in the face, but Illarion kicked that one in the stomach, and then grabbed him by the collar and flung him down the hill toward the recruits who were following him.

Another blow, this to the back of his head, sent Illarion stumbling. Except then Igor crashed into that soldier and they both went into the dirt. Dmitri immediately put the boot to the man, stomping on him until he squealed. Svetlana launched herself onto the soldier Illarion had kicked the breakfast out of. She pressed a knee against his neck until he passed out. She did not fight like a girl at all.

The one he’d hit in the mouth had been staggered but was still upright, except then Lourens smoothly grabbed him around the waist, scooped him up, and dropped him on his head.

These three were done for now. Whaling on them further was a waste of time and energy. “Keep going,” Illarion barked.

The five recruits resumed climbing. The dirt was so loose that for every three steps up they’d slide two down. The air quickly filled with choking dust. Despite the treacherous conditions, their group had made it further up the hill than anyone else, which meant that they were drawing the attention of more adversaries. A mob headed their way.

Soldiers rushed them from above and the sides. Illarion was struck by fists and feet. He ducked beneath a wild swing and cracked his meaty fist into the soldier’s ribs, who went down gasping. One man tried to grab hold of his leg to pull him off-balance, but Illarion put his foot on that soldier’s face and shoved him off into space. The soldier’s tumble caught one of his allies and they both rolled clear to the bottom in a cloud of dust.

Dmitri was getting beaten over the head while entangled with another soldier. When Igor tried to help, he tripped and ended up sliding down until Illarion caught him by the arm.

“I thought this was supposed to be light resistance?” Igor shouted.

Illarion couldn’t even muster the air to respond so he shrugged, and shoved Igor back up the hill, then scrambled after him. Either the hill was getting steeper, or exhaustion was catching up.

It turned out Lourens was quite the grappler. Anyone who tried to attack him ended up being twisted into knots. While Lourens was busy shoving one soldier’s face into the dirt, another one jumped onto his back and wrapped his arm around Lourens’ throat. All three of them went down in the powder.

Illarion grabbed the man choking out Lourens, and he was so angry he didn’t notice that he ended up picking up the whole bunch of them. Illarion hit the soldier in the face until the punishment convinced him to let go of Lourens, then Illarion hurled him down the slope. Lourens choked this poor bastard until he gave up, then staggered to his feet with the help of Dmitri, who’d just reached them.

Svetlana shouted in pain. Illarion looked over to see she’d been tackled, and two soldiers were beating her brutally. He stumbled over, ramming one off her. He grabbed the other by the shirt and slammed his fist into him so hard that it flattened the soldier’s nose, spraying blood everywhere. He turned in time to see the soldier he’d just bodychecked throw a punch. Illarion was able to turn his head enough to not take the full force of it, but it still felt like someone had taken a hammer to his jaw. Illarion landed on the ground, then was lifted from it briefly by a kick he received to the side.

He caught the next kick, surged up, and flung the soldier into a burned log, which broke apart under the force of the blow.

Illarion didn’t realize he had fallen back onto his knees until Svetlana was pulling him back up. One of her eyes was swollen shut, and blood covered her face from a dozen small cuts. He looked up, seeing the crest of the hill just ahead. They were almost there. But when he looked back down the hill, it appeared their small team were the only ones who had it beyond the halfway mark of the hill. The other recruits were bogged down in personal battles all along the base.

There was a lot of shouting from the direction of the road.

Reinforcements.

A couple dozen figures appeared, running toward the hill. Even from this distance Illarion could tell these weren’t at all like the regular soldiers they’d been fighting so far. Every one of them was huge and bald. They weren’t in any sort of standard uniform. The infantrymen disengaged from their battles and hurried to get out of the new arrivals’ way. The first recruits who ran down didn’t stand a chance and were swiftly and mercilessly assaulted.

The reinforcements immediately began sprinting up the steep hill like it was a stretch of flat land. Many of them were shirtless or at least sleeveless, with tattoos covering arms, chests, necks and even faces. They gleefully started chasing down the remaining recruits and any straggling infantry to beat them into unconsciousness. This had to be Spartok’s men.

“To the . . . top . . . quick,” Illarion gasped.

They scrambled the rest of the way. It was so steep that Illarion had to claw his way forward, sinking his fingers into the dirt desperately trying to gain one more foot of elevation. He was the last to haul himself over the edge onto the flat, just barely ahead of the first of the charging reinforcements. He saw Svetlana retch before straightening up again. Dmitri had a black eye and a busted lip, and Lourens was covered in bruises. Igor looked to be in the best shape of them.

But they were supposed to hold this ground, so that was what he intended to do.

When the first head from an enemy reinforcement poked over the edge, Illarion didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward and kicked it. An arc of blood and spittle followed the man back down the hill.

But that was just one man. The reinforcements swarmed the flat plateau from all sides. They were fresher, more numerous, and all of them looked really strong. Up close, Illarion had a split second to take in the tattoos. Various animals, weapons, or designs he couldn’t decipher. Every set of markings was wildly different, but then the fight was on and all he could do was try to keep his head connected to his neck.

Illarion went in swinging. He planted his fist hard into a man’s jaw, but shockingly enough, he stayed upright. Illarion wasn’t used to having to hit anyone more than once. Another man grabbed him from behind. The tangle of them rolled across the plateau. He kicked the leg out from under one of his attackers, but two more took that place. Bringing his arms up, Illarion tried to ward off as many of the blows as he could, but to no avail. He was getting pummeled.

Through the press of bodies, he caught glimpses of the other recruits. They fought hard but were completely overmatched. Igor was being strangled by a massive man made of pure muscle, with a tattoo of a snarling dog covering the left side of his face. Dmitri looked to be unconscious. Two more enemies held down Svetlana, beating her into submission. He saw a mountain of a man—he must have barely been able to fit in the suits—land an uppercut onto Lourens’ chin. The wrestler’s body went limp and vanished over the side.

There was a cheer as Igor was hoisted up and heaved over the edge by two of the tattooed soldiers. The other recruits got kicked and rolled down the hill.

They were all laughing.

Illarion’s vision tunneled. He heard himself roar, but the sound came from far away. He caught an incoming fist, yanked it to the side, then brutally headbutted that man. Absorbing multiple blows, Illarion struggled to his feet. He crashed against something. It was the flagpole.

Without even thinking about it, he strained and yanked the pole from the ground.

The pole, with Kolakolvian flag fluttering on its end, was a good fifteen feet long, thick, and made of very hard wood. To others it may have seemed heavy, but Illarion had been hauling fence posts, stones, and bags of grain since he was a boy. He laid into the enemy. The closest man got caught in the face and dropped. Illarion swept the pole in a low, tight arc, taking the feet out from under a few others. The masses around him were just a blur, his eyes unable to focus, but he felt the wood pole connect to flesh time and time again. The crimson flag flashed back and forth as soldiers were knocked over the side and sent tumbling to the bottom.

All sound faded except for one.

The caw of a raven.

Illarion felt a blow to his kidney, stepped back, and threw an elbow into a woman’s face with a flower tattooed on it. Someone dove at his feet, and he went down, dropping the flagpole. He kicked out, connected with someone’s gut. He tried to get back up, but bodies piled on top of him. Fist after fist rained down on him until everything went black.

* * *

Only one eye would open. Which, Illarion supposed, was better than no eyes opening. Small victories. His head ached, and he felt like he was covered in one continuous bruise. He tried sitting up, regretted it instantly and collapsed back on the bed. He blinked his working eye, trying to get some sort of focus into it.

“Easy there, Glazkov. You are going to need to take it slow for a day or two.”

Illarion turned his head to the bedside—the movement causing fresh agony—and saw Kapitan Spartok seated in a chair, looking . . . amused. Next to him stood a tall, severe looking man in the most ornate uniform Glazkov had ever seen. Medals sparkled on his chest, and the insignia on his sleeves showed a cluster of five stars inside a stack of five V’s.

Illarion blinked a few more times to make sure he wasn’t seeing double. One of the first things Yannic had lectured them about had been ranks, and only one person in all of Kolakolvia had an insignia like that.

The Kommandant.

Illarion tried to stand again, terrified of showing disrespect to the Supreme Commander of the Tsar’s army. Except Kommandant Otbara Tyrankov pressed a hand to Illarion’s shoulder, forcing him easily back down. “There is no need for formality under the current circumstances. Seeing you try to follow protocol is enough for me. This time.”

Though Illarion had never heard of him nor his office before enlisting, he’d heard many stories since. This was one of the most famous and powerful men in the empire. The other recruits talked about the Kommandant in hushed, awestruck, yet fearful tones, just like his fellow villagers had talked about the Baba Yaga.

“The Kommandant was present at this morning’s exercise,” Spartok explained. “After seeing what you did, he wished to speak with you personally.”

“What I . . . did?” Illarion asked aloud, while inside he asked himself, What did I do? Had he screwed up somehow?

“Indeed,” Tyrankov said. “Tell me, why did you band together with those four other soldiers? Did you not feel you were up to the task on your own?”

“No, Kommandant . . . I mean, yes . . . but I mean . . . ”

“Glazkov, is it? Just tell me what your thought process was. There are no wrong answers here.”

Though the Kommandant spoke those words, Illarion couldn’t reconcile them with the military leader’s expression. With those cold eyes staring through him, Illarion knew there absolutely was a right answer. And there assuredly was a wrong one.

He decided it was best to be totally truthful, because this man would surely know if he lied even a little bit. “It wasn’t a decision made in weakness. It was made with faith in my comrades. I knew I could take a few opponents on my own, but if I had help with me, we could fight more and win. I suppose that is why we made it to the top of the hill while the rest didn’t. It was as if . . . ”

“As if what?” the Kommandant asked, leaning in, a predatory gleam in his eye.

The words came to Illarion’s mind unbidden. “We were all bricks in the same wall.”

A genuine smile lit the Kommandant’s face, and Illarion tried to ignore the visible relief on Spartok’s.

“I like you, Glazkov. I see you contributing to the Tsar’s army in a meaningful way. There were some observers present who felt your actions with the flag of our beloved nation were . . . let’s just say disrespectful. I didn’t see it that way. Something about the sight of you felling your enemies as it waved back and forth stirred my blood. Made my heart sing.”

“Thank you, Kommandant.”

“I will include a note about this incident in my report to Chancellor Firsch. I’m sure he will be pleased to hear of another true patriot among the Wall.” As the Kommandant said that, Spartok visibly paled. That was odd. Illarion hadn’t thought that anything could put fear in the Kapitan’s heart. “I have something to give you.”

The Supreme Commander snapped his fingers, and another soldier that Illarion hadn’t noticed before rushed forward to attend his superior. Tyrankov took a briefcase from him, opened it, and pulled out a book, which he handed to Illarion.

Illarion stared down at the book. Back home, there had been very few books. Ink and paper were expensive. Better to spend that money on seed, livestock, or tools. He couldn’t read a single letter of what was on the cover, but that didn’t matter. To receive a book was a gift well beyond his wildest expectations.

“I commissioned the printing of my memoirs. Read it. Study it. It may just help you become nearly the leader I am someday.”

“Kommandant, thank you. I am humbled. I’ve never owned a book before.”

“Then I am glad your first book is the distillation of a small portion of my experience. Use it well.” The Kommandant spun on his heel and walked away. The attendant followed. The departure was so abrupt, Illarion didn’t even have time to salute like he was supposed to.

Spartok watched their supreme leader go, looked around to make sure they were alone, then lowered his voice and warned Illarion, “If you know what is good for you, you’ll avoid the Chancellor’s notice.”

“What?”

“You put on a fine show, Glazkov, and for that I am grateful. It makes me look good to the high command. The Kommandant is still a soldier at heart. He’ll do right by us. But the Chancellor? We don’t want him taking any more interest in us than absolutely necessary. The suits are his invention, but we made this regiment what it is today, by flesh and blood and willpower. Not by sorcerers and magic.”

“Yes, sir,” was the only thing he could think to say.

“Good. Now rest up. You and the other new recruits will eat with the rest of the company tonight. It’s time you integrated with them. I’m sure they’ll have some choice words for you after getting beaten with a flagpole.”

* * *

The mess hall was silent as Spartok’s men watched the recruits file in. Illarion tried to stand tall. Everything hurt, but he did his best not to let it show. Even as big as he was, he felt small under the gazes of the Wall. There were a lot of bruised and cut faces looking back at him. The uncomfortable silence stretched on, with the recruits not really knowing where to go. And there was no sign of Spartok, so he wasn’t there to protect them from the veterans’ wrath.

One of the soldiers stood from his place at the nearest table, wiped his hands on his pants, and began crossing the room, directly toward where Illarion stood. He got shoved from behind and took two stumbling steps forward. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that it was Lourens who had pushed him. “You can take him,” Lourens whispered.

Bastard.

Turning back to face the approaching soldier, the man resolved from a blurry lump into a massive man, thick with muscle. He stopped two steps from Illarion, glaring. A tattoo of some ghoulish creature crawled up the right side of his neck. At this close a distance, Illarion realized the tattoo was covering what looked like a burn. No, not covering it, but somehow illustrating the burned flesh. On the man’s forehead was a purple lump.

Illarion had a vague recollection of hitting him over the head with the flagpole. This was going to go poorly.

Not knowing what else to do, he stuck out his hand to shake. “I’m Illarion Glazkov. It is a pleasure to meet you. Sorry about the—”

The soldier rushed forward and had his arms around Illarion before he could do anything to stop it. He was engulfed in a bone crushing hug as the big man laughed.

“This kid, right here!” He hooked an arm around Illarion’s neck, like they were old friends and turned back to his comrades. “This is the bastard who gave me this.” He slapped his forehead, then he began pointing at the other members of the Wall one at a time. “And that broken nose. And that black eye too.” He turned and swept a hand to encompass the other recruits. “And the rest gave as good as they got too. What are they now?”

“The Wall!” the assembled veterans shouted in unison as they rose to greet their new members.

What followed was Illarion being pushed back and forth between them, everyone congratulating him like he was the groom at the wedding he had never gotten to have. A whirlwind of hugs and slaps on the back, praising him for the punches he’d landed and the hits he’d taken. The other recruits, no matter how they had fared on the hill, were all getting roughly the same treatment. Though, he took a little added pride in seeing Svetlana, Igor, Dmitri, and Lourens having extra praise heaped on them for taking the summit.

Illarion took in the scene of laughter, joy, and the feeling of being welcome. He felt a stupid grin form on his face.

This was one of the best days of his life.



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Framed