Chapter 2: Legion Training

Chapter 2: Legion Training

The meals they served us were plentiful but tasteless. I struggled to eat as I adjusted to my new reality. I listened carefully to others speaking and recognized a familiarity in their words, but I couldn't quite place it. Some words almost made sense, but the varying heavy accents and quick speech made it hard to follow.

I didn’t see any guards when I walked around the buildings while we waited for our barracks to fill. That surprised me, but I stayed close to my assigned barracks and watched the advanced classes train. They worked on conditioning, fighting with different weapons, coordinated marches, and small formations with blocks of sixteen or twenty-five men. My stomach twisted in anxiety as the muscular, fit men performed athletic stunts far beyond anything I could ever do.

I had lost weight since arriving, but my gut was still prominent and I was worried about what I had gotten myself into. Even more so when I saw a man break another’s arm with a club. I turned and walked away, almost losing my breakfast upon seeing the bone protruding from the flesh.

We had to wait two more days before all the bunks were full. Damian, one of the healers, brought me a translation amulet and said he, or one of the other mages, would charge it each morning at breakfast. After giving the amulet to me he showed me how to wear it. “You need to keep the cord tight so the amulet remains around the throat. This way, it is unlikely to get damaged and uses less aether in translation. This one may be old, but they are expensive, and if you were in the regular army, you would not even get one,” he explained patiently.

I was relieved to be able to talk to others finally. I held it respectfully in my hand. It looked like a closed pocket watch. “How does it work?”

Damian answered patiently. “It is keyed to the Telhian language. There are runic discs stacked in oriented sequence, fueled by aether.” I nodded as if any of that made sense to me.

It would be good to have a healer well disposed toward me and I decided to do my best to befriend him. “If you have time, I would appreciate some language lessons without the amulet.”

Damian looked me over. “Your body and mind are about to go through a daily gauntlet. But if you have the energy, find me after dinner.” I hoped he hadn’t misinterpreted my request.

With the amulet, I was finally able to talk with my comrades. All ninety-nine of them were here because they, like me, chose to be soldiers rather than laborers to pay off their criminal debt. Most of the crimes weren't as petty as mine, many involving murders and violent assaults, which they happily disclosed to establish a hierarchy.

I discovered an additional benefit of the amulet: it always translated my speech into Telhian, even when I wasn't talking to anyone. I could whisper a word and hear the translation out loud. This irritated the others in the barracks, so I usually practiced outside.

I spent most of my free time connecting words and expanding my vocabulary. I found the language was somewhat similar to English, so I quickly added words to my mental dictionary. I wasn't sure if it was because I was a foreigner, my demeanor, my pale skin, or simply because I didn't speak the language, but I struggled to make friends. The only benefit of not being included was also being left out of the minor brawls that erupted as the men tried to form a hierarchy. After two days of relative freedom and recovery from our transportation to the camp, our training began.

There were seven barracks in the camp, each with exactly one hundred bunks. When a barracks was full, the 7-month training began, sometimes delayed to start on the first of the month. Each barracks had seven instructors, and a large estate housed all the command staff nearby. We quickly found out the instructors also served as our wardens.

One of my group tried to escape before the first day of training, and he was promptly put on trial. The speech by Silas, the Legion Centurion in charge, was a direct warning. “You leave the compound without permission from an instructor, and you will be executed. Know that you cannot run. Our mages—” he indicated the seven men behind him “—will track you in minutes. You chose to be here to atone for your crimes and serve the Empire.” He made a gesture, and one of the trainers grimly slid a long, pointed dagger under the chin and up into the brain of the bound violator. The defiant look on his face turned to horror as he died. I promptly vomited, and I was not the only one.

The scene made me question my choice to enlist in the Legion, but also erased all intent to escape. A decade of hard labor was a better alternative, but I had already cast my dice. The dead man’s bed was promptly filled with another recruit since we had not started our training.

I wasn’t sure how many comprised the command staff, but Damian, who lived on the estate, said it was more than a hundred, not including attendants. There were also more than the seven mages who had been on display at the execution. Damian said their number fluctuated between ten and fifteen but they had other duties besides healing.

On the first morning, we were woken before sunrise, and we ran with a weighted pack before breakfast. The straps dug into your shoulders, and if you complained, the instructors just added more stones. My legs, back, and feet protested the abuse, but I had no choice but to follow the man in front of me. After the run we consumed a large meal because our bodies yearned for sustenance to heal it. Breakfast was followed by a lecture about the Empire and the Legion, most of which sounded like loyalty propaganda to me.

Our seven instructors schooled us in hand-to-hand combat after the lecture, but the lesson was more about the instructors showing us how inadequate we were. A number of my fellows got broken noses, dislocated shoulders, or torn ligaments that required healing from the waiting mages. The grim lessons caused several painful screams. On one of my turns, I got an elbow to the face and spat out my two broken front teeth.

My instructor yelled at me in disgust. “Get your teeth, boy. A mage can put them back, but they would not waste their aether to regrow them.” I spat blood as I dropped to my knees and found them in the dirt. Damian washed and carefully lined them up before healing them in place. He patted me on the back, and I returned to training. Or, more accurately, the beating.

After the so-called hand-to-hand training, we had another meal most of us ate without really tasting the food. I listened numbly to the others complain as they ate, bonding over a shared hatred for the instructors but still not accepting me even when I tried to insert myself into the conversation. I felt like I was on the outside looking in. Afterward, we were brought to a courtyard with a massive barrel of old, dull swords. Even exhausted, some of the men wore grins as they coveted the weapons.

We were each given one of the blades, and the instructor spoke, “Any fight is an intricate exchange of interconnected movements, with every move made to both guard and attack. Sometimes you push, sometimes you retreat. It does not matter which way you go; the one who fails to defend loses. A competent swordsman creates the situation in which his opponent fails.”

Our schooling in sword forms began. We had to learn seven sword forms, each with seven segments. We practiced with weighted wooden swords, striving for perfect form and movement. If we were performing well, they would give us a heavier sword. My shoulders, legs and arms soon ached as I struggled to hold the blade.

After a few hours with the sword, we spent time with the instructors in smaller groups. Each one taught a different weapon: dagger, axe, bow, short sword, two-handed sword, spear, and polearm. They told us our goal was not to master the other weapon but to learn enough to fight effectively against someone wielding it.

We rotated daily between instructors in groups of 14 to 16. After the cross-weapon training, we finished the day with additional fitness sessions until sunset. Then we were given a cold shower that was fed by an aqueduct, received healing if needed, and were given more food. The bland food suddenly tasted like ambrosia. We had two hours to ourselves before darkness engulfed the barracks.

After the first day, I had trouble moving. My body just stopped responding due to the intense fatigue. The instructors did not scream and yell at me like drill instructors in the movies. Instead, they calmly threatened I would be sent to the regular army if I could not keep going. That seemed to motivate the other men, and I also forced myself to continue. Convicted men in the army were usually sent to the front lines and used as fodder. At least, that was what the instructors told us. I pushed on to keep myself far away from such a fate.

Most of us slept during the extra two hours before complete darkness. I, however, was outside working on my mastery of the language. I noticed one of the only two women in our barracks practicing with a staff. After a few days, we talked briefly while she spun her staff, and I learned her name was Helena.

After a few days of occasionally striking up a conversation with Helena to practice my speech, she warmed up to me. She invited me to spar. “You can talk while we practice.” She tossed me a staff, and I stood up, feeling the aching muscles in my body protesting.

Helena was a warrior before she was conscripted and her practiced movements proved it. “How can you still move, Helena? And why practice more?” I approached her, testing the simple weapon.

A grin appeared on her usually stern face. “You just need to tell your mind that your body doesn’t hurt. The more you practice that state of mind, the easier it gets. I need to impress the centurion, so I practice as much as possible. What I lack in power, strength, and endurance I must make up for with skill and finesse.” She stopped talking and went into a series of attacks. She slowed after striking me numerous times, realizing how inept I was at defending myself.

After some exchanges, I realized she was a good teacher. A teacher who did not like to talk, just demonstrated. After a few days of practice with her, I asked, “Why are you even here? You seem like a capable warrior and are not malicious like the others.”

Helena huffed derisively. “Criminal debt.” She did not elaborate. And I could tell she was not going to share more. From then on, I spent my evenings practicing with the staff no matter how much my joints, muscles, or bones protested. My new, mostly silent friend was the only ally I had made in the barracks. Getting my battered body to do the extra training wasn’t easy, but I was starting to find it easier to ignore the pain and tell myself it didn’t hurt, like Helena said.

Each night, before falling asleep, I tried my damnedest to charge the medallion myself. If there was magic in this world and I had a wisp of it, then I could make it work for me eventually. After two weeks of this, I thought I might be starting to feel something that might be aether, but I was unsure.

My body was broken repeatedly during training—literally. We had good healers to repair our injuries. Torn ligaments, broken bones, concussions, cuts, internal bleeding—all of it was repairable with magic, if they got to you in time. I got healing just about every day and found myself just accepting the pain, getting numb to it, which one of the instructors told me was the point.

It was a hallmark of a legionnaire, fighting even when their body was broken. I was also told some legionnaires functioned better under the influence of pain. By now, I would fight on with my good arm, while the other arm was broken. It helped immensely knowing healing would come right after the exchange was finished.

After surviving three weeks of hell, we were tested on an assessment tablet. Fourteen of our hundred washed out as a result of the test and were sent to the regular army training camp. These men were more broken of mind than body. Damian told me the resources needed to train a legionnaire were ten times those allocated for a regular army soldier. This meant Centurion Silas liked to cull the groups early, which saved money and allowed our instructors to focus on the more promising men.

Damian was the mage who administered my testing and he let me peruse my results on the paper after they were copied. Making friends with the man had been worth it, not just for the “prioritized” healing and language lessons.

Physical                      Mental             Magical          

Strength          31/79   Intellect           25/54   Aether Pool     7/21

(+10/+0)                      (+0/+0)                        (+0/+0)           

Power 29/82   Reasoning       35/59   Channeling      3/55

(+7/+0)                        (+2/+0)                        (+1/+0)           

Quickness       18/49   Perception       45/60   Aether Shaping           1/8

(+2/+0)                        (+1/+0)                        (+1/+0)           

Dexterity         17/55   Insight             19/48   Aether Tolerance        19/50

(+3/+0)                        (+1/+0)                        (+0/+0)           

Endurance       41/87   Resilience       40/71   Aether Resistance       3/19

(+11/+0)                      (+0/+0)                        (+0/+0)           

Constitution    22/65   Empathy          9/21     Prime Aether Affinity Space

(+3/+0)                        (+0/+0)                                   

Coordination   17/60   Fortitude         30/88   Minor Aether Affinity Time

(+7/+0)                        (+6/+0)                                   

My physical stats had made good progress. I was more curious about possible changes to my magical attributes, which had barely moved. But still, they had moved! The hour I had spent every night trying to find my inner aether and charge my amulet had done something. It gave me the motivation to continue.

After the tablet reading, the testing continued. We had rounds of combat competitions over three days to rank the remaining 86 members of the barracks. I placed 48th in hand combat, 37th in sword combat, 77th with daggers, and 29th with sword and shield. It was the first time we had been given a shield, so I thought I did well. I was surprised to rank so high, as most of the men in the barracks had some experience with weapons before arriving here, and when we started, they were much more athletic than I was. I rubbed my belly, realizing that my gut was gone and I could feel a hint of my abs.

After the weapons ranking there was a kind of awards ceremony where the top three finishers, one for each type of combat, received a small essence of strength or power as a prize. The tiny marble-sized balls were dark purple or orange, and the winners eagerly ate them up.

There were more cuts after the ceremony; the bottom three performers were sent to the army camp, reducing our barracks count to 83. This was not quite enough to distract me from the question, What exactly is an essence? From Damian, I learned there were two effects of essences. One, they could boost your potential in a stat, and the other was they could increase your attributes without you having to push yourself hard in training.

When I had a chance, I asked Damian about essences and he was happy to educate me. “You don’t see essences much where you come from? The same goes in the Empire, where the First Citizens hoard them. Well, there are three categories, each one more potent than the last. The smallest, the minor essences that were awarded are by no means cheap and can be purchased for one to twenty gold, depending on their attribute. Physical essences are the most common and the cheapest. Magical essences are the rarest and the most expensive, while mental essences fall somewhere in between. Then there are magical affinity essences. Mages prize these, as even a small increase in their magical affinity raises the power of their spells.”

“The more of the same essence a person consumes, the less effective the changes are for that particular essence. It has something to do with saturation,” Damian said, finishing.

“How many essences before that happens?” I asked.

Damian waved his hands, uncertain. “I do not know. I have had the privilege of consuming a few essences in my time, and the experience was…” he had a far-off look of fondness on his face before he continued. “…illuminating. But it is likely different for every individual. I know at some point, the First Citizens stop desiring the lesser essences.”

Damian got a little more wistful as he continued. “As a general rule, it takes thirty or so minor essences to raise an attribute by one point without any training, but they make training more effective for a short time after being consumed. It only takes ten major essences to increase an attribute one point, but it can also increase your potential slightly, making training even more effective.”

“The largest essence is about this size,” he said, forming a circle with his hands roughly the size of a golf ball. “They are called apex essences, and for apex essences, it takes just three to raise an attribute by one point. I am told you can feel the increase in your potential as your body processes it. I have only ever had the chance to consume lesser essences, so I cannot say for sure if that is true,” the healing mage said regretfully. The cost for major and apex essences is prohibitive and can only be afforded by First Citizens and wealthy merchants.”

The essences were a prize that my comrades in the barracks strove for. I spent the next three weeks of training extremely focused on improving my combat skills to try to earn one myself. The instructors noticed and gave me more individual attention. I did not want to fall below the imaginary line that would have me sent to the regular army; if I was going to survive in this world, I needed this training. I found my mind acclimating to its new reality and my body changing with it. I looked trim in the water’s reflection with visible muscle definition.

Three weeks later, there was another tablet testing. This time I was unable to get into Damian’s line and the mage recording the results was impatient. The tester recorded only my physical and mental stats, ignoring the magic column. “Move along!” He said irritably as I tried to read the numbers upside down.

I didn’t need to see the results to know I had made substantial gains, but seeing the gains last time had been motivating. I couldn’t catch everything, but could see something was off. I leaned in and pointed at my fortitude attribute. “My potential changed,” I said. My fortitude had changed from 30/88 to 37/89 if I was reading it correctly.

The mage sighed as he checked the records. “A single point in potential increase is not unheard of. The tablet’s calibration could be off, or you could have just been on the cusp between values. You should not worry about it. Do not be surprised if it is back to 88 on your next reading. Now, please move along,” he said, but also added a note on my sheet about the change.  

After this tablet testing, six people were expelled from our barracks, bringing our number to 77. I did not even bother to figure out who was cut as the only person I talked to was Helena, though I probably shouldn’t call it talking as she rarely spoke as she beat on me with her staff.

After the cuts, rumors spread among us that the goal was to finish with 30 legionnaires. The top three in our class would be sent to the capital to join the Imperial Legion, and the remaining 27 would form a company under a new mage commander to be sent on missions across the Telhian Empire.

With the essences on the line, the weapon proficiency testing was intense this time around and the healing mages were called on more frequently. Everyone wanted to avoid being sent to the regular army and risking the lower life expectancy of army conscripts.

I finished 19th in the sword, 24th in sword and shield, 29th in dagger, and 9th in hand-to-hand combat. The last was because my strength finally caught up to most of the others. We were also tested on our marksmanship with the bow to assess our proficiency before training. I finished 70th. Once again, prize essences were awarded to the top three in each competition except marksmanship, and three more soldiers were cut. Now, only 74 of us remained, more than a quarter of our number relegated to the army.

The centurion had stood by while the essences were awarded and when it was done, he made an announcement. “You have made it through the worst of it, men. You came here murderers and ruffians. In six weeks you have been reforged. But know that only half of you remaining today will make it to the end.” He let that sink in. “You have earned one day off. Wander too far from the compound and you will be hunted and executed. For the Empire!” He shouted and saluted, and we returned the shout, just not as enthusiastically as the words he spoke caught up to us.

A day off? I noticed a man shedding quiet tears of joy and felt the same water trickle down my cheeks.

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