Chani checked her pack once more before the train pulled to a stop outside the station in Far Madding. She had one pair of extra clothes, a water resistant greatcoat, a blanket, food, and a whole lot of musket ammunition, grenades and extra firepowder. Exactly what the military rules ordered. She checked her smaller personal pack as well. The book of omens, and more firepowder. She smiled at the sight of the small white bags, filled with explosive fun. She was a grenadier, which was everything she had ever wanted.
The train stopped, the officer shouted a command, and the company begun to disembark. Chani closed her packs, put them one, grabbed her brand new rifled musket, and begun to walk out as well. The weather was overcast as the regiment that had been fitted into the train begun to form ranks. Chani noticed that a few soldiers tried to take the banner on the side of the wagon with them. "The Ever Victorious Army stands for peace," it had proudly declared while they passed trough Altara and Murandy. She understood the soldiers, having the banner with them would bring them luck.
Chani felt excited at being in Far Madding. She'd joined the army because she wanted to travel, see new places, and blow stuff up. And now, after almost half a year of training, she was finally going get to do all three. This city had fallen into Seanchan hands almost two decades ago, after the damn Aiel continuously kept using it as a base to attack the Seanchan from. But the city might be Seanchan, but the Aiel still roamed the plains, attacking Seanchan caravans and destroying Seanchan goods. Chani remembered when she was a small girl, she had waited for months for a special batch of Sharan silk that her aunt had promised to sew her a very special dress of. She had waited the whole spring and autumn until the merchant finally arrived how his goods had been destroyed or stolen, and he himself almost killed by Aiel raiders. They had killed most of the caravan when a squad of raken had spotted them and managed to save the remaining Seanchan. That was the day Chani had begun to hate the Aiel and dream of the army. And now she was here.
It didn't take long for the entire regiment to be ready, and soon they begun marching towards their new quarters. Chani quessed they were on the east side of the city. That was the side facing the Aiel waste. It was good. She wanted to show those barbarians what happened when you fought with the Ever Victorious Army.
The next few days were a bit disappointing for her. She wasn't allowed to enter the city. She wasn't allowed to move outside the camp at all. She wasn't even allowed to train using real ammunition; the damn sergeant said "it is too hard to ferry over 'ere, combat use only". They didn't even practice with real ammunition, they just pretended to fire and reload, then marched about in ranks before pretending to fire some more. And she hardly saw any omens, no matter how much she studied her book.
"This sucks," she said to the others in her tent.
"Did you see another gull shitting on another gull?" Ahne, one of the soldiers, said, turning over to face her.
"Huh?"
"You know, when you always look in that book of yours. I meant, did you see another bad omen in that book of yours?" Ahne grinned.
"No. I mean it sucks being here. Nothing to do. I mean, if we are here to fight, let's fight."
"Why would you want to fight Chani?"
"Huh? I am in the army, right? Armies fight. And we are in hostile territory. Of course I want to fight. If I didn't, I could just have stayed at home making wine. I mean, why are you here then?" Chani noticed that no-one else seemed to care about their discussion. Chani frowned at them, didn't they see Ahne was inciting to rebellion. In her mind not wanting to fight in the army was like speaking ill of the Empress, may she live forever.
"Don't you remember? I joined for the uniform. I tried to hit on you in it," Ahne said, looking puzzled.
Chani paled. She hadn't noticed. Had he done it often? Tried often, she corrected herself. Chani looked closer at Ahne. He did have quite pleasant features, especially after working hard in the army for six months now. Chani quickly snapped back in order though; the man had just spoken ill of the army. She wasn't going to marry someone with doubtful loyalties. "Yeah, I have the same uniform too." What the hell does that mean. She showed him three fingers stuck together, the sign for sticking something up where the sun don't shine, then turned over and went back to laying. She'd be more careful the next time she wanted to complain about life in the army.
The next days were uneventful. Chani avoided talking or looking at Ahne, and concentrated on thinking about her explosives. They were all the babies she needed. One afternoon she saw a bug eating another, smaller, bug of the same kind. It was a clear sign of bad romantic relations. She felt glad, it was clear she wasn't meant to be with Ahne of all people.
It was two weeks before something interesting happened. The regiment was called together for inspection, and the officers said that they were going to move out of Far Madding. She felt it wasn't fair she didn't get a chance to see the city, but hoped things would be better next time. Those who had been in the army more than a year had been given chances to go enjoy themselves. In time, so would she.
The colonel said that other nations were threatening the Dragons Peace. The Griffin pact had mobilized. They needed to show the other nations that there was a reason behind the name of the Ever Victorious Army, so they should polish all their weapons, clean their clothes and look every bit the perfect soldier when they marched out tomorrow. The were going to hold Fort Hautein, a fort guarding the railroad to Andor, on the foot of the hills of Kintara. "A show of force will make them back down."
It took them three days to make it that far. The train broke down twice during the journey. Chani bet the Aiel were to blame. They tricked people into stopping where they shouldn't, then cowardly overwhelmed them. She carried a grenade with her all the time, ready to lit and throw at the first enemy she saw. But none came. She heard one of the veterans say that they'd been lucky, he'd been sure the Aiel would attack. He'd been in the same situation twice before, and both times the Seanchan had lost almost half of their men. Chani almost wondered if the Aiel were gone just to spite her, even though she knew that it was arrogance. Even all the omens she saw pointed towards a battle.
Fort Hautein was designed to fit one regiment inside, and it was already occupied by one, so when Chani's regiment arrived it got very tight. Luckily she was a grenadier, and other soldiers always gave grenadiers lots of space. Supposedly they were worried about all the explosives the grenadiers packed with them. She wondered why, she had very rarely seen stuff blow up by accident.
She was hanging around with some other soldiers from her platoon, sitting on a crate filled with cannonballs, when Aydie, Domani woman from another platoon in their company, came running to them. "Now it's happening! It's going to be a war! Pratchett said he heard the captain say the raken scouts saw the Andorans crossing the border and marching against us. In force."
For a few seconds everyone just sat there silently, until Ahne opened his mouth. "So I hear that you heard that someone else heard someone else say they read something?" Ahne laughed.
"Yes! The captain," Aydie nodded.
"If they are marching, then we have nothing to worry about. Don't you know that?"
"What do you mean?" Chani asked. Why else would the Andoran army march towards them if they didn't mean to go to war. It was well known the Aiel begged the Andorans and their Marath'Damane to fight the Seanchan. What did Ahne think the Andorans were marching for then, to hunt deer?
"Every Andoran queen for one thousand years has trained in the White Tower. They have the Kin concentrated in Caemlyn, the Black Tower within their borders and the queen personally knows the Aes Sedai. Hell, from what I hear some of her grandmothers closest friends hold top ranks there. So, if Andor meant to attack us, they'd use their... Marath'Damane to open gateways right inside this fort, and then start destroying us before we understood anything of what is happening. But since this isn't happening, they are not attacking, but just showing us how big cocks they got. Right?"
"Gateways? Are they like lines in the air," Chani said while looking at something curious happening on the square nearby them. "That then open into squares that you see through," she continued, describing what she saw happening in the square. "That then enemy soldiers start walking trough."
"Yeees," Ahne said, looking the same way as Chani. "Shit."
Chani quickly picked up her bag, swung it to her back, then began picking the grenades she had on the side. They were black balls with a small fuse. She picked one in each hand, lighted the fuse using a nearby candle while charging the enemy pouring from the gateways. "Dieee!" she said, throwing the grenades at the enemy massing outside the gateways. She took her next set of grenades while the first pair exploded. Light the fuse, throw, try and pick up more grenades. Those were the only things on her mind right now. And how fun it was, she'd never felt more alive. "Yeah, come get some."