Rusgren Pass - April 19, 1836
"Get up! Out of bed you lazy lugs!" Sergeant Kasu grunted as a boot prodded him in the stomach. For a moment he had thought himself still on his old master's estate in the Empire. Then he recognized Master Sergeant Kaza's voice and relaxed. While the other sergeant was far stricter than Count Zeiss had ever dreamt of being, he was here voluntarily, and that made all the difference in the world.
"I'm awake, I'm awake," he mumbled as he rolled off his cot and fumbled for his boots. He stumbled over to the small washbasin at the edge of the tent and washed his face. He looked in the fragment of mirror and surveyed himself critically. His dark indigo hair, a damning count against him anywhere in Europa, stuck up from his head. He smoothed it down impatiently. More importantly, the uniform he was wearing said what he was more effectively than his hair ever would. He straightened proudly.
"Kasu! Stop looking at yourself like a cat in a bowl of cream and get out here for roll call!" the Master Sergeant shouted. Cat was not the word he used. The men formed up out on the small parade ground of Outstation 12, coming to attention as the Major strode out of his tent.
Major Weber nodded to the assembled men. "Master Sergeant, call the roll!"
"Sir!" He looked down at a small piece of paper in his hands. "Aiden!"
A salute. "Sir."
Kasu's mind wandered as the sergeant continued the roll. The unit had been formed last winter, in the mad rush for more bodies in uniforms to meet the Imperial tide. Since then, they'd been stuck in this pass at the ass end of nowhere, with almost no contact with the outside world.
"Gatz!"
"Sir." Gatz. The engineer was Kasu's best friend from their days working in a foundry near Fouzen, after Kasu had crossed the border from the Empire. He was as bright as any man Kasu had ever seen, but his Darcsen heritage had prevented him from rising in the ranks. As a regular Gallian, he would have had his own firm by now.
"Kasu!"
"Sir," he said, returning his attention to the count.
"Kay!" Continuing on down the line, the Master Sergeant finally ended the roll with Zeyd. Turning back to Major Weber, he saluted smartly. "All present and accounted for sir," he said crisply.
"Very well Sergeant, carry on."
The Master Sergeant turned back to the assembled unit. "Alright men, we'll be resuming that left reverse wheel that we were working on yesterday! There'll be no breakfast for any of you until we get this down!"
Kasu groaned along with the rest of his messmates. "Have a heart, Sergeant!" Gatz howled.
The man grinned sadistically. "I do, Corporal. So to show my appreciation for the fine work you boys are doing, I'll eat my breakfast here with you while you drill."
Gatz's expression could have been placed under the entry for "horrified" in the dictionary. Kasu quickly put his own platoon together, pushing them toward the open area used for maneuvers. He was not about to go without breakfast after skipping dinner the previous day as the unit had struggled to perfect the formation to Kaza's exacting standard.
Even motivated as they were, it took the men the better part of three hours before the sergeant grunted in satisfaction. "Alright," he said finally. "Dismissed." Almost before the words had left his mouth, the men had already gotten halfway off the parade ground towards the cook's tents.
Gatz came up as they lined up in front of the huge steaming pots the cooks were doling breakfast out of. "Hey. Wanna help with my project tonight?"
"Sure," Kasu replied, taking his eyes off the food for a split moment. "Same time?"
"Yeah," Gatz replied. "I still can't-"
"Here you go!" The bright, almost cheery voice did not fit any preconceived notion Kasu might have had of army cooks before enlisting.
"Thanks Lin," he said with genuine gratitude. "When the Sarge says no food until we get it right, he really means it."
The girl behind the counter grinned. "Well, good luck with that. I'm sure you'll do better than my brother."
Gatz sputtered in mock outrage. "Hoi! What's your problem?"
"You managed to drop eggs on the Major's head; it doesn't get much worse than that," she said tartly.
Gatz was about to reply when the line swept him past his sister.
"Hey, take an even strain," Kasu said. "We're probably the only unit in the whole damn army to have girls with our outfit. That's gotta count for something."
"Yeah well, the only reason it happens is because we're stuck in just one place and Major Weber doesn't give a shit about regulations," Gatz said indifferently. "It's probably the only reason why we're doing all these super-complicated parade ground drills too, so it's not even all that great."
Kasu considered for a moment. It was true. Ever since the men had proven they could do the regular maneuvers inside out in their sleep from having nothing else to do, the Major had been assigning ever more complicated assignments for them to complete. "Well, when you're right, you're right."
As they sat down at a table with their fellow noncommissioned officers, Kasu noticed the man himself deeply in conversation with a Darcsen courier at another table.
"Hey, when did Mosby make it back from Randgriz?"
Gatz looked up from his bowl. "No idea. Looks like death warmed over though."
Kasu soon forgot about the courier as he went back to his food, laughing with the other men at his table.
The Major waved them over as they stood up. "Will all of you please come here for a moment?" Despite his genial tone, his expression was grave.
The noncommissioned officers saluted as one. "Sir." Besides the Master Sergeant, the 57th Auxiliary Regiment currently sported three sergeants including Kasu, and twice that many corporals. Most of the regiment's strength had been diverted away to Randgriz for the Army's buildup in the spring along with the 21st, 33rd, and 108th Auxiliaries The end result was that the so-called "regiment" was now down to battalion strength, with a mere five hundred men.
Gatz grinned at the courier as they came up. "What's going on, Mosby? What's the news?"
The courier exchanged a hooded glance with Major Weber before answering. The Major nodded wearily, waving a hand for the man to answer.
"The Imps licked us at Naggiar," he said bluntly. "Smashed our boys to hell and gone; last I heard the army's running back toward Randgriz, and the Imps are right behind 'em."
Kasu's mind reeled as the other men broke into concerned murmurs, calculating ramifications. "Hold on a minute," he said abruptly. "Did you hear about what happened to our boys from the 57th up there?"
"Sure did," Mosby answered soberly. "General Damon threw 'em forward first to test the lines. Heard tell they even broke through." The messenger's face hardened. "From what I heard though, he wouldn't reinforce no Darcsens, and just left 'em up there by their lonesome. Nary one of our boys made it back out. Imps don't like Darcsens in uniform any more than Damon does."
One of the other sergeants buried his face in his hands. "Goddamn."
"Damn straight," Gatz said with feeling. "I want to-"
"Please," the Major broke in. "I understand how you gentlemen feel, but do restrain yourselves. Break the news to your men as best you can."
The noncoms dispersed, walking back to their men in silence.
After sharing the bad news with his platoon, Kasu walked around the base, looking for Gatz. He finally found the engineer in one of the myriad tunnel shafts left over in the pass from the days when it was a massive center of Ragnite production.
"What's going on, man?" he asked as he approached the muted glow of Gatz's lantern.
His friend's head popped up from behind a nearby stack of pallets. "Oh, it's you. I just wanted to work on something to get my mind off of... everything."
Kasu nodded toward Gatz's pet project. The engineer had been using all his spare time and machinery left in the mines to complete his vision for the last few months. "And you decided to work on this?"
"Yeah, it might help with the war, and-"
"Help with the next war at this rate," Lin said, standing up.
Kasu started violently. He hadn't noticed the slight girl in the gloom of the tunnel shaft. "You helping Gatz?" Kasu asked in an attempt to regain his composure.
"Yep. But he's so pig-headed about the way he wants it to be; a partitioned design would be much more-"
"Hey! I just-"
Kasu turned away from the squabbling siblings to look at the device resting on the floor. Metal gleamed softly in the lantern's glow. "Finish it Gatz," he said softly to himself. "I think we'll need all the help we can get in this war."