Chapter 9
(Next)
Back in your quarters, you retrieve your sword from the chest at the foot of your bed. 22 gets his bannerspear from his lower bunk. On your way out, you are stopped by 13. He asks you what you are doing. Didn't you get the captain's message? You are confused. Apparently, the captain came in during the break and told everyone to leave their weapons in their quarters for combat practice today.
You're pretty sure that 13 is just trying to get your goat. How are you supposed to have combat practice without your weapons? 13 doesn't know, the captain didn't mention that part. He and the others are all leaving their weapons behind, so you guess you should, too.
The three of you walk to the practice room together. 13 is surprised to find out that the two of you spent your break outside. The thought had never occurred to him before. He always spent his breaks chatting and gossiping with the others in the quarters. What is there for a pawn to do outside the castle?
When you get to the practice room, the captain is waiting for the rest of your unit to arrive. He's at his terminal on the platform at the other end of the room, seated comfortably. All of the dummies that were here this morning are gone now. They were all fixed to the floor; you wonder how they were all moved so quickly.
When the clock strikes two, all twenty-five of you are gathered in the room, so the captain wastes no time in starting the lesson. He detaches a tablet from his terminal and begins to write. He says welcome to combat training. Over the next three hours, you will be sparring against your fellow comrades. Unlike the training dummies, most of them will strike back.
The captain splits the twenty-five of you up into five groups of five. You are put into group two. 22 and 13 are placed into group three.
Now here's how this is going to work. The time spent in this session will be split up into fifteen-minute blocks. There will be five consecutive blocks of sparring, followed by a twenty-five minute break, followed by five more blocks.
When your group is fighting another group, you must select a member of that group to be your sparring partner. Try not to take all day. You and your partner will fight for three minutes, after which a short buzzer will sound, signalling the need for a partner change. This will continue until each pawn from the first group has fought with each pawn from the second group. That will take five three-minute fights for each of you, or fifteen minutes.
The captain will instruct you on what each group is doing at the start of each block. For the first block, group 1 is to fight group 3, and group 2 is to fight group 4. Group 5 is to spectate during this block. Watch and learn, group 5.
You are probably wondering why he has asked you to leave your weapons in your quarters. Well, as much as he would find it hilarious if you all started cutting each other to pieces in his practice room, the war effort needs each and every solider alive and well so that he may serve his kingdom.
The captain will now show you the kind of weapon that you will be using for this lesson. He fidgets with the dials and buttons on his terminal. On the other end of the platform (the right side from your point of view), a red-line-doohickey spins into life with a whirring noise. Red lines come down from the device and focus onto a jet black pedestal beneath it.
The lines rotate around a fixed point, and start to move back and forth, tracing a line onto the pedestal. Their movement becomes faster and more erratic, until the machine stops, and all is quiet again. On the pedestal, you see the outline of a sword, made entirely of red lines of light. It's exactly the same kind of weapon as those used by the ghostly red pawns in the facility where you first woke up.
The captain points at you directly. He needs you for a little demonstration. He tells you to pick up the sword. You step up the two steps onto the platform, and approach the pedestal. What a strange looking sword! Is it even something you can touch and pick up? You nudge it with one hand. It is pushed half an inch forward on its pedestal. You were half-expecting to pass right through it.
You pick it up and hold it out in front of you. Your audience looks amazed. You're pretty amazed, yourself.
The captain tells you good job. Now he wants you to hit him as hard as you can. Give him your best shot. Come at him. You blink repeatedly, confused. You tilt your head to establish confusion. The captain says hurry up now, he hasn't got all day. Hit him!
You shrug your shoulders. You use both hands to make a powerful swing with the sword into the captain's left side. But instead of cutting right through him, he is only knocked to the ground, otherwise perfectly unharmed!
He claims that that didn't hurt a bit! The way these practice weapons work is that they spread the force of the attack out over a larger area than usual. They knock people down without really hurting them, making them ideal for practice battles.
The captain draws a picture of a sword on the left side of the wall, and a picture of a spear on the right side of the wall. He tells the rest of your group to line up in front of him, and point to which one they would like. He will then make one of that weapon, and move on to the next pawn in line.
It only takes a few minutes for every pawn in the room to get a practice sword or spear. At 2:05, the first buzzer sounds. Group 1 versus group 3; group 2 versus group 4. Let's go, everyone!
You grab the first guy from group 4 that you see to be your sparring partner, and find an empty space. He untelescopes his spear. A three-minute countdown timer has already started. You look him in the eyes. He's ready.
You deliver the first blow with great speed, trying to catch your partner off guard. Your sword meets his spear, and little red sparks fly. The length of his spear looks like two three red lines. You smile. You were afraid you would have to hold back. With these weapons, you can hit as hard as you want.
You disengage from the struggle by jumping back a step, sword raised to parry any quick attacks. You dare your opponent to make a move. You're ready to block anything that comes your OOOOOF! His spear comes right at your stomach, ignoring your sword completely. You are shoved to the ground by the impact. It DOES hurt a little bit. Your sword falls to the ground. It clangs audibly on the floor, just as a real one would.
How could you be so STUPID? Of COURSE it's really hard to block a direct thrust like that! You would have been better off preparing to dodge it completely. You could've easily done that if you weren't so intent on blocking the first thing that came at you.
You get up, grateful that this isn't a real battlefield and that you're not dead right now. You pick up your sword and ready yourself. Your partner tries the same move again, thrusting right at your stomach. You jump to the right, out of the way. You hit him in the back, and he falls on his front. He learns that one shouldn't attempt a full-bodied frontal attack if the opponent is ready to dodge it.
He picks up his spear, and you circle each other briefly, eyes locked. You smile. This isn't a real battle. You and your opponent can lose in the exchanges as much as you want.
Your opponent tries a sideways swing with the "sharp" end of his spear. It would slit your throat in a second if it were a real spear. You block it with an equal but opposite swing of your sword. Your weapons clash and repel each other. You swing low, and he blocks easily with a simple tilt of the spear shaft. He counter-attacks by bringing the top end down on your head. It smarts a bit, but you stand your ground.
You stand up straight, and grip your sword in both hands. Only 30 seconds left on the clock. You have to have the upper hand when it strikes zero to win this fight! Your eyes narrow in focus. You get a little closer to your opponent. As a spear user, he has more range than you. Standing far away doesn't help you one bit.
You bring your sword to your right hip with both hands and lunge forward. However, it's easy for a spear to block a forward lunge. He just has to knock your sword to the side as it's coming at him. Confident from his parry, he doesn't see your next move coming. Your sword was deflected to your right, so you draw back quickly and swing it around your head with both hands so that it comes down diagonally from your left. It hits him dead in his right side. He is knocked to the ground. You put the tip of your sword to his chest just for fun. The buzzer sounds.
You put a hand out and help him to his feet. You shake his hand. Good fight, brother! He almost had you.
You go on to spar with the other four members of group 4 in the rest of that 15-minute block. You lose the second and fourth of the five fights. You win another, and the last could only be considered a draw. You think you're doing pretty well so far!
In the next block, group 4 spectates and group 5 joins the rotation, fighting against group 1. Your group therefore fights group 3. You fight 13 first. He's a pretty able fighter; handy with his spear. You both knock each other down twice, and the buzzer sounds with the two of you in an even struggle, sword to spear.
A few fights later, you spar with 22. You knew it would come to this sooner or later. You didn't really know what to expect from him in a fight. You're pretty sure he had only ever fought the red pawns before, and that was only one time.
He was quite timid for the whole three minutes. You're not sure if it was because he lacked confidence or because he was afraid of hurting you. You kept on trying to get a rise out of him. To let him know it's okay to not hold back. You even knocked him down a few times to get him to fight back.
But don't get you wrong. When you finally got him going after the first minute and a half, it was REALLY hard to land a single blow on the guy! His defense was almost impenetrable! You had had your doubts about his fighting ability after having to save his carapace from the red pawns. But after sparring with different pawns for almost half an hour, he really knew how to block! He still didn't knock you down once for that fight, though. You were still trying to get another hit on him when the buzzer sounded. You guess you'll call that one a draw.
The rest of the battles fly by pretty quickly after that. In the next block, group 3 spectates. The block after that, it's your group's turn to spectate. It's now 2:50, and you take a seat near the wall for 15 minutes of rest. You decide to keep your eyes on your friends for this block. Their group is fighting group 5 while group 1 fights group 4. Poor group 1. They've been going this entire time. You're only now realising how tired you are. It's only when you stop that it hits you, you guess.
You've only been going for 45 minutes, but you feel like you've just gone through a two-hour drill session! Mind you, you didn't have to think much in drill sessions. It was mostly just listen and react. It became automatic after a while, and your mind wandered elsewhere.
Here, however, it takes every bit of brainpower you've got to calculate what move you're going to make based on all the moves your opponent could make. Combat training is much harder work than drills because it's like constantly being in real battles. You feel like you need water, but you can wait until the break.
You watch 13 for a bit. He's a pretty good fighter. He uses his spear's range to its full potential by frequently staying out of his sword-wielding partner's modest slashing radius. How aggravating it must be for him. You can see 13 laughing to himself as he dances out of the way once again.
You shift your focus to 22. Yeah, it doesn't look like he's attacked the other guy yet. His spear-wielding partner is giving him what-for in the form of a barrage of lunges and swipes. 22 seems to have blocked every single one of them so far. Oh, wait, no, the other guy got in a lunge! 22 isn't very fast on his feet, and lunges are hard to block. As far as blocking goes, though, he's pretty fantastic. The fight ends without 22 even attempting a single blow. His partner nearly collapses on the ground in exhaustion. Poor guy.
In the fifth block, it's finally group 1's turn to rest/spectate. They've been at it for an hour without stopping. You admire their endurance. The last block in the set goes by uneventfully.
Break time! You spend the next 25 minutes drinking copious amounts of water and congratulating pawns you sparred with on their good fighting skills. You, 13 and some others have a heated debate over whether the sword or the spear is a better weapon overall. It ends in stalemate.
For this series of sparring blocks, the captain wants everyone who was just using a spear to pick up a sword, and everyone who was just using a sword has to pick up a spear. You had all put your swords and spears against opposite walls of the room. There are plenty of spears to go around, but the captain has to make a few more swords, since there weren't enough sword users last time.
You find that fighting with a spear just doesn't grant you the same speed or mobility that you had with a sword. As you expected, spears are a little heavier and trickier to maneuver because they're so long. While you can really appreciate the advantages of spears, you were much more comfortable using a sword.
You spend the next several blocks losing a little more than normal. At least 22 has learned how to try and hit someone. He's still not very good at it, though. He's not as good at blocking with a sword, but he puts up an admirable effort.
Since group 1 was the last to spectate last time, they spectate first this time. You fight the other groups again in reverse order. At least the other pawns are as far gone out of their elements as you are. Everyone had to change their weapons.
The captain really meant it when he said that the practice weapons weren't supposed to leave the practice room. 22 must have forgotten he was holding his sword when he walked through the door. The red weapon started to vibrate violently, then slowly rise up out of his hand. It started to break apart with a fizzling noise; little red cubes coming off of it and fading away into thin air. Within seven seconds, the weapon had fizzled away completely. 22 looked like he was going to drop dead with fear. Luckily for him, the captain didn't seem to care. Just one more he has to make for tomorrow.
After sparring practice comes "Theory" class. Its name is a little vague. It means that the captain's going to teach you all sorts of stuff now. It's five in the afternoon, and 0848 is leading you to the mess hall. Its benches, tables and large walls make it ideal for a lecture.
You arrive at the mess hall. The captain tells you all to sit on the benches facing the wall at the far end of the room. He pulls out a book from one of the pockets of his uniform. It is entitled "A Pawn's Essential Guide to the Battlefield, Volume 2: The Battlefield Cubic." The captain says to take your seats. Theory class is now in session.
Long, long ago, in a time before any pawn can remember, the two kings were completely alone. The battlefield was only three paces long and three paces wide. The kings looked very different to what they do now. They fought without need for rest or sustenance; their hatred for each other was all they needed to go on.
But the kings were too evenly matched. One could not best the other. And so they waged their long battle. It is not known how long they warred for, because even they do not remember when they began.
One day, one hundred and eight days ago, the towers of Prospit and Derse received their first kernels. And so it was that the battlefield underwent its first change. We know it today as the Battlefield Planar, twelve paces long by twelve paces wide. The kings were separated by the greatest distance possible on the battlefield.
Inside each kernel was the image of a harlequin, and so the kings changed their appearance to suit. Soldiers were sent to the battlefield to do battle in the name of their kings. Their appearances were altered to suit that of their leaders. These first soldiers were known on both sides as the hundreds, and they were numbered from 0500 to 0999. For the first 500 pawns on either side had been living happily on Prospit and Derse, and still do to this day.
The kings and their men battled for ninety days in this fashion, until the towers received their second kernels. The battlefield changed again, into the form that it is today. This is known as the Battlefield Cubic, four hundred and eighty paces long by four hundred and eighty paces wide on each of its six faces.
The second kernels bore the image of a regal feline with two appendages tendrilkind. Only the kings changed their appearances to suit. It was on this ninetieth day that the kings found their royal scepters. They could enter their true forms and walk among their subjects, height and breadth reduced by half.
It is also then that the ground became loose, rendering soil, which became fertile and rendered grass. Streams and pools of cool, clear water sprung up from naught and began to flow. The castles of light and darkness found their foundations on opposite ends of the world, and the bishops erected areas of safety around them, through which no enemy might pass.
It is at this point in the Battlefield's history where soldiers can start living longer lives. The conflict no longer encompasses the whole world, and the nature of war has changed dramatically. There is no longer one big battle, but rather, many smaller skirmishes. The land itself is being fought over in the contested zones, while the lives of the kings hang in the balance in their haunts.
With all of these new elements in play, a set of rules had to be agreed upon by the diplomats and lawmen of each kingdom, and had to be sanctioned by each king.
The first rule is as follows: "Each kingdom may have its bishops erect a zone of safety around its castle, no more than two hundred paces in radius from the castle's center. Kings may not enter such zones, lest the war be without end."
The second rule reads thusly: "No kingdom may call into battle the raw powers possessed by their bishops, under any circumstances." This rule was quickly agreed upon by all, for they knew that otherwise the casualties would be too great.
The third rule was another that could be agreed upon by all, for it was only fair. "No bloodshed must take place after the horns of retreat are sounded to mark the end of a battle. Any pawn guilty of breaking this rule is to be served punishment by their own kingdom in the form of imprisonment or death, depending on the guilty party's intention."
A fourth and more general rule has always been upheld, but has only recently been made into an official rule. "All fighting is to be done on the Battlefield. Safe zones, home planets, the veil of asteroids, and all locations other than Skaia or the Battlefield are to be places of peace between the two kingdoms. Crimes of assault, murder and sabotage are not excusable by the war clause in these areas. Punishment is to be dealt by the kingdom of the aggressor according to mutual law."
After the history/law segment of the lesson, the captain decides it's time for a five-minute break to let all the knowledge sink in. You may stretch your legs and get some water, but you may not leave the mess hall. A concise summary of the information presented is still visible on the wall.
After five minutes, the captain says he is going to take this time to explain the concept of military units, since there may have been some confusion about this topic. It won't take him very long.
In the veil, where pawns are born, processed and trained, units of sixteen are used. Sixteen is a manageable number for processing and training in the veil. However, on the battlefield, larger units are preferred. Therefore, the two units that go on the dropship together become one unit of thirty-two for all intents and purposes on the battlefield.
However, due to the unfortunate fact that many pawns do not survive their first day on the battlefield, the guys upstairs are prone to switching pawns around among the units. This ensures that most of the units have a full thirty-two pawns to work with. Your unit will probably gain some new members from older units after your three-day castle training period.
Your unit is unit G6. There are currently four other units in residence here at the barracks beneath the castle. Every unit is led by a captain, and the captains all get their orders from the guys upstairs. In rare cases, a captain will be called out of active duty to go and work upstairs, but they are sworn to secrecy about everything that goes on up there. They're not seen around much, anyway. Your captain stresses once again that common pawns are NOT allowed upstairs from the ground floor.
The next segment is geography and basic war theory. The captain draws a diagram showing three faces of the Battlefield – the Derse Castle face, the Black King's Haunt, and one other face to the left of the castle.
As was mentioned earlier, each face of the battlefield is 480 paces long by 480 paces wide. The standard marching speed of a pawn is two paces per second. To put matters into perspective, that means it would take a pawn 240 seconds, or four minutes, to walk across a face of the battlefield.
If a pawn were to start at Derse Castle and walk directly toward the Black King's Haunt, it would therefore take him two minutes to do so, since the castle is in the center of the face that it is on.
If the Black King's Haunt was not in a state of almost perpetual conflict, that pawn could walk straight across that face in another four minutes, and cross over into the Prospit Castle face.
If Prospit Castle was not where it is, and the safe zone protecting it was also absent, then the pawn could walk across that face in another four minutes and enter the White King's Haunt. Keep in mind that the notion that such a thing is actually possible is completely absurd, and only exists as a learning aid. Please disregard it once the learning process for this segment is complete.
If this pawn could pass through Prospit Castle and its safe zone and make his way to the White King's Haunt, and if the White king and his forces were not there, then it would take him four minutes to cross it, and come back onto the Derse Castle face. He would reach Derse Castle in another two minutes. The trip would take him a total of sixteen minutes. Now would be an ideal time to disregard the notion that such a feat is actually possible.
Now the captain is going to talk about the two other faces. These faces are known as contested ground. The face visible on the diagram is called Contested Ground Alpha, and the face on the opposite side is called Contested Ground Beta. They're called "CG Alpha" and "CG Beta" for short. And that brings him to the next part of this segment- basic war theory.
Now, sometimes you might be given orders that you won't understand the reasoning behind. But naturally, you must go ahead and follow them anyway. This is because captains and your other superiors are well trained in war theory. The strategies and tactics used may boggle your little two-thousand minds. Hopefully, this lesson will help you all to become a little less stupid in this critical area of expertise.
Some of you may be asking what the purpose for the contested ground is. Why it's contested and whatnot. Well, it's contested because both sides are fighting to control it. You may be wondering why, because having control over the land is not the same thing as killing the white king. Well, at least you understand that much.
The fact is, killing the white king isn't easy. Killing ANY king isn't easy- that's why the battle has been raging on for a hundred and eight days. Controlling land- now, that's a little easier. The captain draws a large square, with a broad heading "CG Alpha." The top side of the square is labelled "BKH." The right side is labelled "DC". The bottom side is "WKH" and the left side is "PC."
This is a map of Contested Ground Alpha. Now, each of the contested ground faces has two forts on it. If a kingdom controls a fort, they control much of the land surrounding it. It might as well be that half of the CG face.
The captain draws a circle in the bottom-right corner of the square. It's closest to the "DC" and "WKH" sides. He draws a similar circle in the top-left corner, closest to the "PC" and "BKH" sides. Each circle touches the sides closest to it, and the two just barely touch in the center of the square. He draws a diagonal line in between them.
The captain directs your attention to the first of his two circles; the one on the bottom-right. This is Fort Cinereus. It is a key offensive point in the war effort. He draws a C in the middle of the circle.
The idea, numbshells, is that our side can send troops through this fort from Derse Castle to stage an attack on the White King's Haunt. If we put pressure on their left flank, then they have to send troops to defend it, and that weakens their overall defense. This is a key element of basic war theory. We call Fort Cinereous our "offensive" fort on CG Alpha.
The captain now speaks about the second circle. This is Fort Dilutus. He marks this with a capital D. See how it's closest to our King's Haunt? That means we had better keep that fort under our control, otherwise the enemy can do the same thing to us: attack our left flank. We do not want this to happen. Fort Dilutus is our defensive fort on CG Alpha.
At this very moment, Fort Cinereus is controlled by Prospit, and Fort Dilutus is controlled by Derse. Both kings' left flanks are safe.
He draws another square beside the first one. This is a map of CG Beta. The BKH is still on the top, and the WKH is still on the bottom, but this time DC is on the left and PC is on the right. The circles are also in the bottom-left and top-right corners this time. The diagonal line is drawn between them.
CG Beta is pretty much the same idea as CG Alpha. The fort on the bottom-left is Fort Scariosus (S). The fort on the top-right is Fort Hyalinus (H). On CG Beta, Scariosus is Derse's offensive fort, and Hyalinus is Derse's defensive fort. On CG Beta, an army can march to attack the enemy king's right flank.
Right now, Fort Scariosus is controlled by Derse, and Fort Hyalinus is controlled by Prospit. Both of the kings' right flanks are prone to attack.
It doesn't matter if you remember the fort names for now. All you should focus on right now are the concepts of offensive and defensive forts. To recap, an offensive fort for Derse is a fort that Derse uses to launch an attack on the White king's flank. An offensive fort for Derse is a defensive fort for Prospit, and vice versa, which should explain pretty well what a defensive fort for Derse is.
That concludes today's lesson on basic war theory. It also concludes today's Theory lesson. It is now 1800 hours, or, in layman's terms, six in the evening. Your work portion for the day is complete. The captain asks you to return here in one hour for the evening meal.
He says that you should find several copies of "A Pawn's Essential Guide to the Battlefield," on the tables in your quarters. They are for you to share and review what you have been taught. Do not remove them from your quarters. After the evening meal, you have a few hours of free time until lights-out at 2200. He can see no reason to keep you all here any longer, so you are all dismissed.
The evening meal is ration bread with orange gourd-mash. The bread on its own tastes a little bland, which is why most pawns break it in two and spread the mash over each chunk. To this effect, you are provided with tiny little dull spreading-swords. The blade is hardly longer than the handle, and there's no cross-piece! It works miracles at mash-spreading, though.
The mash tastes delicious on the warm ration bread. You were wondering what those orange gourds tasted like ever since you saw them on the farm. Last night was a thick bean stew over ration bread. It wasn't as flavorful as the gourd-mash. You think you'll get something new on the ration bread tomorrow.
After the meal, you feel energized and full. You were getting hungrier throughout the day. You think it would be a good idea if there was more than one mealtime in a single day. The current system works well enough, though. That lucky farmer 1836 probably gets to eat at whatever time of the day he wants!
You spend most of your day-end free time in your quarters, talking to the other pawns. Now that you've all fought with each other, there's an added sense of camaraderie that just wasn't there yesterday. You feel you really got to know many of them in the three short minutes you spent fighting, even though you didn't exchange a single word!
Having spent the first full day together, the pawns in your unit have so much more to talk to each other about. There isn't a single writing tablet left on the rack, they're all being used! The common area is crowded with pawns sitting, standing, crouching and reclining. Some of them are even sitting on the floor, crouched around their tablets. They don't even care that the seats are all taken! The couches are naturally filled beyond their intended capacity, with the pawns all squeezed together tightly.
You meet and get to know number 2307. He's the first pawn you sparred with today. His favorite part of the day was the drill training. You found it sort of dull, so you asked him what he liked about it. He said he liked the way the beeps sounded. All of them strung together with the right timing and pitch sounded really nice to him. He really got lost in it all, and felt completely at peace. You tell him you sort of know the feeling he's talking about.
You also met number 2330, the other bannerpawn in your unit. You saw him sitting on his bottom bunk, writing something on his tablet. Since there was no one else there, you approached him to ask him what he was doing. It turns out he was just finishing up a rather amazing picture of the castle, as viewed from afar. He says he likes to draw things on his tablet in his spare time. It's a shame he has to erase it soon; it's really quite pretty.
The hours fly by quickly in the company of your fellow soldiers, and before too long, a buzzer sounds. It's 9:55, five minutes before lights out. A suggestion for everyone to drop what they're doing and get into their beds before they're engulfed in darkness.
You return your tablet to its rack and climb onto your top bunk. The light-tube seems a little bit dimmer than it did earlier today. Maybe to show that it's night-time.
Your bed is so soft and comfortable. You feel drowsy already. It's more comfortable than the hammock on the dropship, but not quite as comfortable as the aqueous surroundings in your first house. In there, you felt truly weightless. This is a close second, though.
At 2200 hours, the lights go out. You realise how tired the day's events have made you. Exhausted, you drift off to sleep almost at once.
