Chapter 8: He's in the Army Now.

A week had passed since Lyle's father begrudgingly handed him the envelope to the army recruiter. Even now, it still puzzled Derick as to why his son, whose life was set to be one of ease operating the steel mill, desired to join the army knowing that the war the kingdom had planned was set to commence in two years. The Dragons that had been fought all those years ago were ruthless and savage. Soldiers that bravely charged at the scaly beasts were slashed to bits, reduced to bloody pulp. Why out of all things did Lyle decide to enlist, knowing that he might meet the same fate as those soldiers all those years ago?

When Derick handed over the envelope, right away he sought answers, asking rapid-fire questions. But answers would be something that the Buteo would not receive. Lyle kept tight-lipped about his inner motivations. "I wanted the adventure," or "I just wanted to," was all his father got. Time after time Derick pressed further, trying to get more information, only to be met with similar results. Just two days later, Lyle left, heading off to his reporting post.

Fort Ledura was a half-day's worth of travel by flight from Mystic Springs. Being an alright flyer at best, Lyle got there in little over half.

The previous week had been filled with nothing but training and orientation, all wrapped together into one. There were plenty of instructional and classroom parts, but there were also plenty of times where everyone would wake up before the sun was even an object in the sky. Many saw it as unfair to wake up as early as three in the morning, though it was necessary. The point of these drills was to simulate—to the best of the base's ability—the conditions of battle… whatever that meant when you were facing off against the apex predator of the world.

In one-on-one, hand-to-paw or tallon-to-claw combat, a Buteo had little to no chance against one of those scaly beasts. The one advantage that an avian had was that their smaller and bipedal forms allowed for better maneuverability. In every other respect, the dragons were better. Thankfully, the soldiers of Quillum didn't have to fight those close quarter battles, at least not with the tools at their disposal. Eighteen years of heavy investment did a lot to push everything forward, including the instruments of war.

Platoons rotated in and out as to who got to use the shooting range. Fort Ledura had been built long ago. Though it was a large garrison for its time, the Kingdom had grown since then. What was a somewhat impressive archery range was converted into a shooting range. Compared to modern installations, this was hardly anything. Accuracy and marksman training would have to take place outside the compound's walls for the proper distances.

It was around three in the afternoon when the company Lyle found himself in was out on the range. It would be the first time that they had received training with firearms. Today though wouldn't be anything special — basic operations and what not. There would be another time for marksmanship once everyone was familiar with the weapons that they were going to fight with.

"Each of you, in your hands is the Pembroke rifle, model 94. This firearm is much more advanced than what some of you may have seen before — others, this may be the first time that you've seen one. Overall, it is fifty-three inches long, and weighs ten pounds." The drill sergeant paused, showing off the dimensions of the rifle as well as handling it to show the weight. "It is a single shot rifle that fires .44 caliber—2.36 round. It operates through a bolt action, a recent innovation along with brass casings for bullets that will help your chances against the scaly devils immensely."

The drill sergeant showed the operation of the bolt action, turning the bolt handle towards the left, pulling the bolt back, then pushing it forward, before finally turning it to the right to close the bolt, cocking the gun. No bullet was loaded into it. He performed the same action again, but this time, putting one round onto the loading tray, pushing the bolt forward once again, and shouldered the rifle to take aim. Pulling the trigger, the firing pin was sent forward, and what ensued was a loud bang and a large puff of white smoke that dissipated shortly afterwards.

Though everyone had been paying attention to the demonstration, many flinched when he shot the rifle. Some of the soldiers had never seen a firearm before, which was to be somewhat expected, given that so many things had changed just over the course of their lifetimes. To those that had seen firearms before, there was an air of excitement at being able to play with the zenith of Quillian firearms technology. For Lyle, he held that excitement. His father was close friends with Kelly Pembroke, the same man who designed and developed the gun that they were issued. In fact, he had actually been in the workshop where he saw the guns being made.

Having a superior ranged weapon was going to give the Royal Army of Quillum a great advantage that they did not have when the dragons and the dark army had attacked two decades ago; it brought into question just how effective that a gun would be against the scaly beasts. The effect that Quillum's primitive firearms had on the Dark Army's dragons was not known. What was known was how effective arrows and crossbow bolts were against them, as those weapons were more common. Penetration was always inconsistent, and the same could be said for the damage that it caused. Even in the evolved form that these firearms were in, if they had similar results to what had been seen from arrows and bolts, then they were no better off now than where they were before.

The young Buteo wouldn't have the chance to muse on that for much longer before the drill sergeant in his booming voice spoke up again. "Since this is the first time handling a rifle, I do not expect any of you to be marksman right from the start. We will hone your skills over time, and today is the day we start that process. Each of you will be allotted thirty rounds to practice with. You have five minutes to shoot all of the rounds that have been alloted to you. We don't have much room within the fortress walls, so your targets are only fifty yards away. On the range outside the walls, the targets will be spaced much further out — there, we will work on your marksmanship."

Staffers on the range pried open wooden crates filled with ammunition. Soon after, the crates were moved across the grass on a dolly, and each soldier took their allotment of thirty bullets. While waiting for his ration, Lyle opened up to the others within his squad. There were four others: Erin, Aeron, Kenith, and Llewellyn.

Erin was a gentle soul that didn't seem like she belonged here. Though, what he was able to gather was that she was not going into the army for fighting purposes, but to become a military cleric. Even her roots were indicative of that, being that her mother was a priestess to the many gods of the Buteo people. Despite that, she still had to go through the basic training that everyone else had to.

Aeron was the tallest of the group, but was also the size of a twig. Tall and thin, he was a rather gaunt individual. Along with that, he wasn't very social, only speaking when he needed to, preferring to listen and take things in. Despite that, once you got him to open up, he was a fairly nice person to talk to. Much like Lyle, it was a change in scenery that drove him to enlist.

Where things deviated from the rest was with Kenith and Llewellyn. Both of them were older individuals, but both of them had more experience than the three raw recruits.

Kenith had gone through basic training before, but due to unforeseen issues that were hard to dig up details about, had to leave the army for a while to sort things out with whatever the problem was. Because of that, he was more cocky, given that this would be his second round of training. Even though the first round of training that he went through didn't count towards anything, he still liked to boast that he had the most training out of all of the recruits here.

There was one person that could challenge that, and that was Llewellyn. A male in his forties, he was one of the select few that had fought against the apes and dragons of the dark army before, lived to tell the tale, and still served his reasoning for coming back to basic training was rather straightforward: so many things had changed since those battles in the 70s, and thus felt it necessary to go through the process once again to get with the times. Being older than even the drill sergeant, he had enough tenure in the army to move away from the front lines and to a nice, cozy desk job. Yet, he fought on like the warrior that he was.

All together, they formed a squad, the smallest unit formation in the Quillian army. While unproven in training and combat, they all had the chance and aspirations to become something great. Every one of them had potential for growth — perhaps they would all achieve greatness.

All rounds were distributed to the soldiers, and every one of them, having learned gun etiquette in the lecture halls, made the preparations before the shooting exercise began. One by one, bullets were loaded, and guns were locked and loaded. Soldiers shouldered their weapons, aiming at their respective targets. Once the drill sergeant noticed that everyone was ready, he stepped off to the side and yelled out, "Range hot!"

A cacophony of gunfire and thick clouds of smoke poured from the ends of their rifles. Rifles lowered, bolts operated, rounds ejected, new rounds loaded, rifles lifted, sights aligned, triggers pulled, and bullets fired. This happened over and over, until there were no rounds left to shoot, and nothing left to see until the white haze of smoke dispersed.

It was a noisy and smokey afternoon.

Later in the night, everyone was back in their quarters, exhausted and sore from the rest of the training that went on that day. Despite the bemoaning of the exercises and drills that put them through the wringer, everyone kept talking about the defining moment of the day: the firearms training. For some, it was their first-time experience with firearms. It was loud, noisy, and heart racing.

"With those Pembroke rifles, I'd say that we've got ourselves a war winner," remarked Kenith, fiddling around with some empty brass casings. On the range, all the brass was to be picked up and put into a bin for recycling. A casing or two missing wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, he reasoned with himself.

"I wouldn't be too confident, youngin; there's more to war than just weapons." Llewellyn was much more experienced of the bunch, having fought in wars previously. Though how effective he would be in his more waning years was up for debate. The Dark War took a toll on his body then, and this one coming up was sure to do the same. Despite looking fit, it was clear that he was no longer the proud soldier that he once was. "There's tactics, movement, logistics, and all other kinds of factors."

"Yeah, but didn't the magicians help turn the tide of the Dark War? They brought a new weapon—magic—to the fight, as we drove them back. What's the difference between the two?"

What a knucklehead, Lyle thought to himself. Magic and technology were two very different things. It was true that it was magic that helped to level the playing field between Buteos and dragons, but that was overlooking the forest for the trees. Llewellyn would have known this personally. The dragons were deployed against Quillum to even the odds against the bulk of their forces: the apes. Magic was the equalizer that tilted the balance back into Quillum's favor, especially when the loss of a handful of their scaly beasts resulted in them all being withdrawn.

"Yes, it did, and for that I'm eternally grateful for the magicians in fighting the dragons, but my fighting was mostly against the apes. What they won't tell you is that dragons were not seen that often, as they were made out to in the stories they tell you in school. Sure, I've seen my fair share of them, but none of us wanted to get near them. The Magicians were the ones that really went after them."

"Sounds like you were afraid. Throw enough arrows and musketballs at it, and you would have been sure to kill it," Kenith replied somewhat arrogantly, unendingly questioning the actions the veteran among them took nearly twenty years ago.

Before the older man could reply, a feminine voice spoke up. It was Erin. "Unless you would like to get up close and personal with one of those monsters, then you really have no place to talk, Kenith. Even if they did have bowmen and arquebusiers, it's not like you can easily kill them with just one arrow or shot."

"What would you know about it, Erin?" he retorted back at her. "You don't even plan on being a soldier in the first place, so I don't think your opinion really matters here, does it?"

Erin scoffed and rolled her green eyes at him. Just because she planned on being a cleric didn't mean that she had no say in anything as well. They all had to learn to fight all the same.

"But she has a point, you know," Lyle finally spoke up. "With our rifles now, we have the standoff attack capability. Things have changed from the time of bows and crossbows, arquebuses and muskets. Arrows and bolts are gone, gunpowder has improved, the way we load out guns has changed too. With this new generation of weapons, we can hit them from further away with bullets that do just as much damage. And not to mention the magazine rifles that are in the works, or that new kind of smokeless gunpowder that I've been hearing about."

For a brief moment, everyone looked at him and blinked, putting an end to the conversation a little bit. He eyed his four fellow squadmates with a slight chuckle. It was strange that his comment quieted the discussion.

"Well put, Lyle," Llewellyn complimented the recruit with a few soft claps. "Where did you learn all that from?"

"W-well," he replied with a slight stutter, "my father was good friends with the man that actually designed and produced the Pembroke rifles, Kelly Pembroke. He comes over to my father's metal works and chitchats from time to time, and I would catch wind of what they were talking about sometimes."

"I've heard talk about that too. Higher-ups are talking about having a replacement for these Pembrokes before the invasion kicks off two years from now. And the navy already has a form of smokeless powder replacing all of the brown powder they're using right now." Having someone like Llewellyn around to give that insider information was nice. Soon later, the buzz of the room was discussing the supposed new rifle that hadn't even been built yet.

"Don't get your hopes up, though," cautioned Lyle, making sure that any eavesdroppers overheard him. "If anything, only the best of the best will get them first, and then they'll trickle down into the other ranks. It's just the nature of contracts — contractors prolong the terms as long as possible for stable income; I've heard it from the horse's mouth."

"Why the fuck not? We'll need those new weapons, especially if they are better than the ones we already have," Kenith replied shortly afterwards with indignation.

"Business owners have their own needs that they need to meet too," Erin spoke up, shaking her head. She was a natural empath, and understood the reasoning behind why people did the things they did in a given situation. Money was still necessary for survival, even if it meant projecting out weapons contracts.

"In putting it off though, they're setting us up for failure. We should press every advantage that we have," he pressed further.

Llewellyn grunted, shaking his head. "To put things into perspective for you, youngin, there's been a lot of things that have changed that I could only dream of when I first served. We wouldn't have been in such a desperate state if we had the guns that we do now, so clamp that beak of yours and be thankful for what you have, because we could be going into this a lot worse."

The veteran's aggravated outburst finally shut the arrogant hawk up. Everyone in the barracks knew what type of person Kenith was. He thought that he was a hotshot, better than everyone else because he had more weeks of basic training, before he dropped out for reasons unknown. It put him at odds with Llewellyn, who was a seasoned veteran in his own right wanting to get with the times, hence his return to basic training.

Erin shook her head too and laid down on her bunk, not wanting to put up with their arrogant squad mate. Kenith grumbled a little and shut up, keeping to himself, and Llewellyn did the same. There was one person throughout, and that was Aeron, who silently listened to everyone.

Lyle looked over to him, and caught his eyes. Silent as a mouse, he had been keeping up with the conversation without making it known. "It doesn't matter to me. As long as I'm able to do my job, then I'm happy." Having said enough, he laid down and closed his eyes.

As everyone fell asleep, and the lights went out, only Lyle was the last one awake in his squad. With his gauze level with the bunk above, he comprehended everything that had just gone on. Two of his squad mates butted heads with one another, another one was negative towards one, and the other was as silent as ever as he just stood by and listened to it all. Good on Aeron, Lyle thought, letting out a single chuckle for him not sticking his beak where it wasn't needed.

Their whole group had not been there for a week yet, and it seems as if there was a degree of dysfunctionality already in place. If these issues could be ironed out during their 14 weeks of basic training, then everything was going to be alright.

A/N: Sorry about the wait, everyone, but here is Chapter 8. Not much that I can say here other than my lack of motivation made it take this chapter longer get out than I'm happy to admit. I'm getting more of the urge to write more recently, so maybe this is a sign that I'll finally get back to keeping up with all the writing.

Until next time, take care everyone!