Mythica, book 2, Chapter 5.

Chapter 5.

“It’s early afternoon and I haven’t even started to work with my troops yet. If the attack is kicking off tomorrow night, I need to get over to them and see what they can do,” Sabine said.

“Of course, please take your leave. Oh, before you go, Collins has a contract worked up for you to officially take command of your forces,” Emmet said as he left to go do wherever it was the council leader did during the day.

“It’s all fairly standard, as someone of your claimed experience likely knows, please sign, Collins said, smoothing out the bottom of the rolled-up contract for her to sign.

“Hold up, I never sign without reading. Do you think I’m an idiot?” Sabine snapped at the clerk who took it all in stride. As she read through the contract, much of it was standard verbiage, but a few things stood out.

Her first problem was that the contract provided no payment other than the fare required to ship her party to Golgotia. The second problem was that she would be personally responsible for all the members of her group, including the newly recruited problem children. Her final problem was that Collins hadn’t bothered to add a casualty clause, intending to lock Sabine into the same bad deal that had gotten the mercenaries thrown into the stockade to begin with.

“This won’t work, Collins. Add a casualty clause at 25% losses and scratch out the part about me being responsible for the mercs you have me commanding. You foisted that bunch on me, and I’ll only have a day to work with them. There’s no way I’m going to be responsible if one of them tries to run off. If this were a force I brought to the table, sure, but not with you giving me what you so aptly called the ‘dregs’ to lead,” Sabine demanded.

“Some minor modifications can be arranged, but we typically do not recognize a casualty clause. If you get more than a quarter of your forces killed, that’s on you, not the council,” Collins argued. He looked like he and Councilor Emmet expected she would refuse, but wanted to pull one over on Sabine if they could get the chance.

“Eliminate the casualty clause, or the deal is off. Do you really want to tell Councilor Emmet that you botched the deal over something that’s standard in virtually every mercenary contract?” Sabine demanded.

“Very well, but it will have to be at 30%, no lower. Tha casualty clause will also not take effect until you commence your current assignment. I wouldn’t put it past this crew to cut a few throats among their own and run off free and clear. I can also waive you of personal responsibility for the mercenaries on anything other than your actions on the battlefield,” Collins negotiated.

“Good, one other thing. I’m not doing this for free,” Sabine said.

“You’re not, you’re being given passage for your party on the first vessel to Golgotia once we secure the city. That is more than sufficient,” Collins assured her.

“No, it’s not. I’m helping you with a dangerous mission to help retake the city. That’s worth more than a boat trip,” Sabine demanded.

“Very well, I have authority to offer you up to five gold for your services,” Collins conceded.

“That, and you give the pay my men are owed, at least those that survive. On top of that, a bonus of one gold per man if we open the gates,” Sabine said.

“I can give them their pay, but the bonus cannot be more than 25 silver each,” Collins countered.

“Done, write it up,” Sabine said, waiting as Collins made and signed the appropriate changes. Once signed, the clerk gave her a copy and Sabine left to find her troops.

The camp was large, and despite the sloppy layout, it wasn’t hard for Sabine to locate where the tents were that Hamilcar had scrounged up for them. When she arrived, her new troops were huddled around a pair of fires cooking their ration of dried meats and vegetables into a stew. It was a pretty common practice, in the field you had to just eat the dried stuff, but when in camp, it always tasted better to have even the simple field rations cooked up.

A trio of larger tents surrounded the six for her mercenary troop. Two of the tents were for Hamilcar’s men, who would remain to keep an eye on Sabine’s troops. The third larger tent had been set aside for her use. Sabine first stopped at the fires to check on her men.

“Everyone getting enough to eat?” Sabine asked.

“Yes, ma’am. It’s not fine dining, but the quartermaster didn’t skimp on us because of our status,” the young man with the patch over his eye answered.

“It’s getting late, and we have a lot to go over. You have thirty minutes to finish up your meals and form up outside my tent. This is a mercenary band, not the regular army. While you don’t have a choice about who is in command, you can have a say over who your squad leaders are. When you form up, I expect you to have picked two squad leaders. If they work out well, fine, if not, I will replace them and give someone else the chance. Squad leaders do get a bonus share, so keep that in mind,” Sabine told the group before moving to check on her tent.

“Sabine-boss, no one kill-slay Orren-mage while you gone. Skrix do good, yes?” Skrix said as soon as she entered the tent. Skrix, Orren, and Hamilcar were waiting inside for her. Sabine gave them a rundown of what the plan was. Hamilcar had already been advised that his squad would be joining them on their mission. He also said that a section of six archers had joined his forces. Sabine would be in overall command, but Hamilcar would have to take charge of his troops.

“We have a big problem. There are fifteen rowdy mercenaries under our command, and I have no idea if they even know how to fight. Hamilcar, do you have any records on what bands they were from, or if there are any specialists in the group?” Sabine asked.

“No, their officers would have known, but they’re all dead. With the attack commencing tomorrow night, we only have time to work with them for one day. Hopefully, that will be enough to know how much we can trust them,” Hamilcar responded.

“It’s not exactly ideal, and one or more of them will most likely try to stick a blade in my back the first chance they get, but they’re all we have for now. It’s only a couple hours until dark. Let’s run them through their paces and see what we have to work with. After that, we’ll give them a good night’s sleep and work hard all morning. With the attack happening tomorrow night, I don’t want to work them for too long tomorrow, maybe just until early afternoon so they can get some rest,” Sabine said.

“Weapons haven’t been issued yet, but I can have some of my squad’s spare blades handed out so we can get a feel for their skill,” Hamilcar offered. That would have to work, Sabine had some weapons in her storage space, mainly a couple of spears and a blade or two they had stored from earlier and scrounged up on the battlefield with the orcs.

After giving the mercenaries some time to eat and form up, Hamilcar showed them an area just outside of camp that they could use for training. The young man with the eye patch, who was named Raff, had been selected as one squad leader and the man who she had knocked out in the fight, Zeb, had been chosen as the other. She didn’t make any changes for the time being, and despite the thrashing she had given him, Zeb didn’t seem overtly hostile.

The rest of the mercs were divided between the two squads with Raff’s having seven in total, and Zeb getting the extra man, bringing his squad up to eight. Hamilcar was in command of twenty guardsmen and there were six archers that had joined them. The archers had short, recurve bows that packed a punch up close, which would be perfect for the fight they were expecting to find.

Hamilcar had scrounged up six extra short swords, six, and even a pair of crossbows. Most of the mercenaries had been trained to fight with a sword, axe, or mace along with a shield. A pair of the mercenaries had been crossbowmen, which was perfect for the number of crossbows they had. Two of her new mercenaries were more used to the long spear, and Sabine could get them equipped from her inventory when she had a chance to access it without being seen.

Sabine ran them though simple drills in their groups, and they didn’t give her any trouble. As far as their skills went, they were lacking in what Sabine was used to, but they weren’t entirely green. Having already been in combat and surviving gave them a bit of an edge over the normal raw recruits she was used to dealing with. The main problem was that the men were from four different mercenary bands, each of which had different combat styles.

They wouldn’t be a cohesive team anytime soon, but Sabine was confident they could put up a fight. Hamilcar’s men weren’t much better than the mercenaries, other than knowing how to fight in a group. If she had a few weeks to train everyone, Sabine was sure she could whip them into a powerful force, but with only a day to work with, she couldn’t do more than get a gauge for their skills and see if any of them wanted to try and make a break for it.

Other than a promise of back pay that they were owed, the small troop had no reason to be loyal to Sabine. The council they had fought for had treated them poorly and it was time to give them a bit of hope to improve their spirits before the fight. She had negotiated hard with Collins for their contract, and it was time to let the men know the rules they were fighting under.

“Gather round,” Sabine said, waiving all the mercenaries over. “I wanted to let you know that I was able to make a few changes to your contract with the council. Like I promised, you’ll be paid a normal wage for your services, and you will be paid for what you’ve done up to this point,” Sabine told them. There was some nodding of heads, and more than a few smiles among the group.

“Hold on boys, there’s more. We have a critical mission ahead of us, but when we complete it, you’ll each earn a bonus of twenty-five silver,” Sabine’s comment about the bonus caused a few cheers among the crowd, and more than a few grumbles form the guardsmen who were going to face the same danger, but not get any additional pay.

“Woah, I’m not done yet. The best part is, you’re no longer bound here for the duration of the campaign. We have a casualty clause that kicks in at 30%. I should mention that the casualty clause doesn’t kick in until our mission begins, so try and avoid dying before we leave,” Sabine said. Now, the men began to laugh and slap each other on the back.

“Let’s hear it for Captain Sabine!” Raff said. The men began to cheer before Zeb interrupted them. Ready for trouble, Sabine let her hand drop to the handle of Reckoning.

“Before you get to cheering lads, we have one more piece of business to take care of,” Zeb said as he stared at Sabine. She had no trouble matching his gaze, being undead allowed you to stare down just about anyone without blinking.

“We can’t go into battle without a name, Captain, so it’s high time you gave our little company a name,” Zeb said, his face finally breaking into a smile.

Sabine had been prepared for the worst, and Reckoning had tried to stoke the anger and fear inside her. With Zeb’s smile and the cheers of her new company, Sabine felt a weight lift off her as she moved her hand away from her weapon. She didn’t know if Zeb’s smile and newfound support for her leadership were genuine, but she would accept that it was for now.

“I suppose that with the contract we have, we’re essentially a new mercenary company, any suggestions as to our name?” Sabine asked. It felt good to be in command of a small force again, it felt like home. She realized their company would likely break up after the city was secured and she sailed to Golgotia, but she would enjoy it for the time she had.

It also gave her a bit of hope that she might carve out a life for herself after her task for Gnessos was complete. The god had mentioned nothing about what would happen to her after the threat was eliminated, or even how long she could live as a Revenant. Maybe it was time to ask those questions if she got a chance, but contacting Gnessos directly wasn’t going to happen anytime soon given how much the god had been drained just by his brief conversation with her earlier.

Maybe Hamish would have some insights, but it was too risky to summon him anywhere near the camp, and it wasn’t like she could just get up and leave to head into the wilderness without anyone noticing. The council had to have people keeping an eye on her. Until the battle was over, she would have to hold off on contacting her advisor.

“Perhaps I can make a suggestion?” Orren said, raising his voice to be heard above the others suggesting various names for their company, most of which were terrible.

“Let’s hear it, Orren,” Sabine said.

“Well, we’re kind of castoffs from other bands, brought together for a new purpose. Like broken blades melted down to create a new weapon. We’re Reforged,” Orren suggested.

“I like it, from here on out, our little band of deviants will be called the Reforged!” Sabine shouted. The men took up the cheer, approving of Orren’s choice. Normally, a new mercenary band had to go through a charter process with the city they were founded in, but she figured that getting it done would be a good task for Orren to handle.