Chapter 312 - Shadows in the Night

Yerrik stared into the distance, the shadows playing tricks on his eyes. The sun had long since set, and he was staring in the direction opposite to the invading force, but orders were orders. He swayed a bit on his feet as he concentrated more on staying awake than on spotting any approaching enemies.

They had been short-staffed for months, and the 24-hour alternating shifts were starting to get to everyone. There was only so much a high Stamina Stat could do to ward of chronic lack of sleep. The soldiers were eagerly anticipating the arrival of the first reinforcements in forever as it would finally allow them to add more off time to their rotation.

Yerrik stifled a yawn as the darkness’ tricks tried to convince him there were bats flying around his head. The first time he had experienced the weird optical illusions, he had swatted at them like a crazy person. The other, more experienced soldiers at the time, had chuckled at his antics. It was apparently something pretty much everyone went through at one point or another.

The lack of sleep did something to his vision and concentration. Weird spots would appear at the edge of his vision, and they would swoop and sway across the borders of his perception. The darkness enhanced this misconception, giving the imagination a form. It appeared as if bats were flying about in the air just above his head.

Yerrik shook his head to clear some of the fog. He did some quick squats while clenching and unclenching his fists in an attempt to get his blood flowing. He had learned over the years that physical stimulation bred mental stimulation and prevented one from succumbing to the exhaustion. The downside was that one could physically exhaust themselves, too, though that could be alleviated over time.

There was a reason the sergeants imposed strict physical exercise upon any soldier caught falling asleep. There was a difference between actually sleeping on post, which would land someone in jail, and falling asleep. Those that were caught before their bodies failed them were given… motivation to stay awake.

Yerrik had been “motivated” a time or two in his youth, and subjecting oneself to their own physical routine was much better than giving that authority over to a superior. They would make sure the sleepiness retreated, but nobody enjoyed the process involved.

Yerrik started off just walking around a bit, but that was only effective for so long. He had once literally fallen asleep between one step and the next, the sensation of falling waking him from his exhausted fugue. Now he had a solid routing he followed that kept him awake and alert.

The squats helped, and clenching his fists ensured the pumped blood continued moving faster through his extremities. Once the sleepiness started fighting against the small exercises, Yerrik added some hops and gear lifts. He simply held his weapons out at arm’s length and lifted them over his head over and over. He felt his awareness sharpen, and the phantom bats retreated from the edge of his vision once more.

The little exercises took only a minute. It wasn’t enough time for anyone below to sneak up to the wall, and it returned his focus to being able to properly spot any anomalies. He focused his attention to the grounds between the treeline and the wall. He scanned the shadows from end to end, stopping at a particular shadow just below his post.

Yerrik frowned as he stared at the spot. He didn’t know if he was still feeling the after effects of waking himself up, but the shadow had moved erratically against the wind for a moment. There were many shrubs, bushes, and rocks down below. The higher-ups insisted their use as obstacles to movement trumped their ability to shield people sneaking around.

In the case of the officers, they’ve never had to stand watch for hours on end in the dead of night while fighting to stay awake, Yerrik snorted, and the NCO’s have forgotten. Sure, those shrubs and rocks will get in the way of advancing formations, but I can’t tell what is in their shadows. Is it just a shadow? Or is there someone hiding in it?

Well, there was procedure for this.

“Halt!” Yerrik shouted to the darkness below. “Come out into the open and state your name!” Yerrik continued to stare at the shifty shadow for several seconds. “I see you down there!”

He saw nothing, though if someone was hiding in that shadow, they didn’t know that. More than once Yerrik had seen people sneaking around for one reason or another surrender themselves to a hunch.

“What ‘dya got, Yerrik?” A voice called from the side. Yerrik didn’t look away from the shadow, but his peripheral vision showed him the patrol sergeant approaching.

“Maybe nothing, sergeant, but there’s a shadow down there that might be suspicious,” Yerrik responded.

“Might be?” The sergeant queried, sidling up to Yerrik to join in the staring contest.

“I don’t know if it was tricks of the light, my tiredness, or what, but I figured I’d issue a challenge just in case.”

“Hmmm…”

The sergeant reached into his pocket and pulled out a small stone. He tossed it up and down in his palm a couple of times before launching it at the shadow down below. It passed into the darkness before bouncing off of whatever was there and rolling away. Nothing shifted in the shadows as the two continued to stare for another few moments.

“Well, even if you were wrong, you did the right thing,” the sergeant finally said with a sigh. “I’d rather look like a fool than fail in my duties, yeah? Good job.”

“Thank you, sergeant!” Yerrik replied.

The good thing about the patrol sergeants was that at least they could still remember the hardships of being a simple soldier. Heck, the sergeants - the good ones, at least - shared in the misery of their subordinates.

As far as Yerrik knew, his patrol sergeant didn’t flake on his own duties and spend his evenings napping in his office. He could have, and nobody would have said anything, but Yerrik and the others wouldn’t respect him. As it was, he managed to turn something potentially embarrassing - issuing a challenge to the darkness - into a positive learning experience.

“Did you say your name was Yerrik?” A voice suddenly intruded.

“Gah!” Yerrik jerked away, hastily attempting to unsheathe his sword as his sergeant caught him as his feet tangled together.

A large man in unfamiliar heavy armor suddenly appeared next to Yerrik, peering down into the darkness. He was unflustered by Yerrik leaping away and finally drawing his sword, assuming a ready stance after being steadied by his sergeant. He just continued to look out at the field below. The man casually held himself up by the crenellations as he leaned slightly over the edge of the wall.

“Who- wha.. What? Who are you?! State your name!” Yerrik stammered out.

He shifted his feet beneath him to readjust his positioning, tightening his grip on the hilt of his sword. He held his shield against his side, ready to deflect or bash as needed. His instincts were screaming at him that this man was incredibly dangerous, never mind him literally appearing out of nowhere right next to him with zero trace of his arrival.

As Yerrik was experiencing an existential crisis, his sergeant stepped around him and addressed the man - no, a youth, Yerrik realized upon closer inspection - in a friendly manner.

“Major Reivyn, I wasn’t expecting to see you on the wall this evening,” he said. He turned his head toward Yerrik and motioned for him that everything was fine. “If I had known, I would have warned my men ahead of time.”

“Apologies,” the man, Reivyn, said, turning to address the two soldiers as Yerrik resheathed his weapon, relaxing his stance. “I had initially intended to remain innocuous, but your man here intrigued me.” The man fished something out of his pocket before flipping it to Yerrik. A glint of medal reflected in what little light there was, and Yerrik snatched out of the air. “Give that to your commanding officer once you’re relieved of duty.”

“Ugh… yes, sir,” Yerrik replied. Major Reivyn? Who’s that? Yerrik didn’t know exactly how to respond. He thought he knew who all of the higher ranking officers were. His sergeant chuckled at his confusion.

“Major Reivyn is with the reinforcements,” the sergeant explained. “He came ahead of the main force and was introduced to the officers and NCO’s earlier.”

“I see,” Yerrik nodded, turning back to watching the fields down below. He felt more than saw Major Reivyn nod in approval.

“Keep up the excellent work, men,” Major Reivyn said. “I’ll try not to scare anymore of the watchmen, but no promises.”

Yerrik glanced to the side, but the man was already gone. Yerrik quickly looked all around, but he couldn’t spot the man anywhere. There were no hiding spots between where he stood and the exits from the top of the wall, but there was no man anywhere to be seen. The only evidence he had been there was a lingering chuckle carrying on the wind. He looked back at his sergeant, eyes wide in astonishment.

“I’m just as surprised as you,” his sergeant replied. “We’re in trouble if people with his Stealth Skills are sneaking about.”

“Let’s hope not,” Yerrik said. “Actually, forget that. Let’s hope they are. Then there wouldn’t be any need for me to be standing here, staring at the darkness, and I could get some sleep.”

“Hah! You wish,” his sergeant clapped him on the shoulder. “Keep up the good work, Yerrik.”

“Aye, sergeant.”

His sergeant continued on his rounds, and Yerrik turned his gaze back to the grounds below. He scanned all of the bushes, shrubs, and rocks from the wall to the treeline before turning his gaze back to the suspicious shadow. He looked around a bit, searching for the shadow that had spooked him, but he couldn’t quite locate it.

Huh, where’d that shadow go?

—

Gah! You son of a dog! Brinaeth grit her teeth at the pain radiating from her thigh where the stone had struck her. It had hit her right on the meat of her leg, just narrowly missing the superior padding of her leather armor. She couldn’t let the pain cause her to jerk or yelp at the sudden pain, though, or her concealment would truly be pierced and her mission failed.

She remained motionless as the two soldiers stared down at her. Seconds ticked by, and she was sure an alarm would be raised any moment. Despair filled her entirely as Major Reivyn appeared out of nowhere, and she knew the game was up. She just waited for her boss to point her out to the two soldiers on the wall, but it never happened.

The soldier had attempted to get her to give herself away, issuing a challenge, but she knew their tricks. If he had actually known she was there, he wouldn't have hesitated to raise an alarm. He was fishing, and she managed to keep her wits about her, shrugging off the mind game.

There was a bit of a scuffle on the wall as Major Reivyn surprised the watchman, and Brinaeth seized the opportunity to scurry forward, closer to the wall. She glanced up at the wall and swore she could see a smile tugging at the corner of Major Reivyn’s lip.

She ignored the trio above her and focused on moving forward. The trick was to cover as much ground as possible while not creating any movement that would pull at someone’s peripheral vision. It was possible to completely change someone’s posture and positioning while someone was almost looking right at them if one just moved slow enough.

Her problem had been that she had attempted to move faster than she should have. She had noticed the guard above doing some sort of ritual - probably to stay awake - and had taken advantage of his momentary lapse.

He had finished up his little exercise much quicker than she had anticipated, though, and had almost been caught out in the open. She was forced to dive forward into the miniscule shadow of a stunted shrub next to her. She had almost immediately kicked herself in the rear for her mistake. Her jerky movement had been what had caught the edge of the soldier’s attention, not her body itself.

If she had kept a clear head and continued to creep forward, chances were the man wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary.

She eventually made it to the very edge of the wall. She was close enough now that the watchers above wouldn’t notice her because their attention would be much further out. They were looking for people approaching the wall. Not people at the wall.

She paced off where she had seen the soldier standing watch and walked to the half-way point between where he and another guard stood. There was no other way to get to her destination that she knew of other than up and over. Their reconnaissance of the fort hadn’t exposed any major weaknesses.

Even if they had had the time to scale the mountain face - which they did not - there were still ample patrols to ward against anyone coming down from that angle. In fact, it would be more exposed than what she and the others were attempting.

There might be some sort of tunnel beneath the fort they could access from the cliff side, but they hadn’t been able to get that far in their scouting. Again, she would have chosen her current approach over that, anyway, because it was likely to be some sort of sewage tunnel.

Much better to fail the test than to be covered in crap, Brinaeth chuckled. At least for a test, anyway. There might come a day when that’s necessary. Let’s pray it doesn’t.

Brinaeth scaled the wall. It was rough enough that there were ample hand-holds for her to utilize her Climbing Skill without fear of slipping and falling. If it had been raining, it might have posed more of a challenge, but as it was, Major Reivyn and Lieutenant Teilon had been training them on their movement and Stealth Skills for a while, and they had all seen explosive growth under his tutelage.

She got to the top, positioned in the embrasure between two merlons. She eased herself up onto the crenellation, keeping her body as close to the wall as possible. Many people hoisted themselves completely over obstacles, but that was a tactical mistake. It would outline their bodies against the emptiness behind them, exposing them to anyone watching and painting a much larger target for ranged attacks. The proper way to scale over a wall was to basically roll over the top.

That’s what she did. She rolled and allowed herself to drop down below the raised barrier to the walkway below. She held completely still in the shadow of the little corner for several moments, her heart beating wildly as she expected to be spotted at any moment.

Slowly, slowly, she adjusted her position to be able to look between the two soldiers standing watch on the wall. The patrol sergeant had long moved on and was nowhere to be seen, and the two soldiers were staring intently out into the darkness below. She allowed herself a little sigh to help relax her nerves.

Continuing her slow movements, she very carefully crawled across the floor, keeping her body pasted to the ground as much as she could. She didn’t even lift her chin to pick her head up. She simply let her face scrape against the hard stone of the wall.

After what felt like an eternity exposed to either of the guards if they simply turned their heads to look at the wall itself, she eventually made it to the opposite crook of the crenellation. She repeated her crawl over the embrasure, and slowly climbed down the interior of the wall into the shadows below.

So far so good, with one little hiccup, Brinaeth allowed herself a bit of reprieve, squatting behind a barracks abutting the wall. Now I just need to make my way to the central building undetected, and mission accomplished.

—

“I wasn’t expecting you to go to the wall yourself,” the Commanding General remarked.

“Wouldn’t it be the ultimate irony if the enemy attempted to infiltrate the fort while we were conducting a training exercise?” Reivyn replied. “I can recognize my own men, even if someone was attempting to steal their identity with some sort of mask, so I made sure everyone approaching was who they were supposed to be.

“If I didn’t spot them, then there’s nothing I can do about that.”

The two men were relaxing in the general’s office. The general would normally be asleep at this hour, but he stayed awake to see through the little exercise Reivyn had his Special Unit going through.

Some might think it unfair that the officers always got a full night’s sleep, but there were certain privileges that came with rank. Sure, the officers were better rested, but they also had much higher responsibilities than the men under them. Their jobs were much more mentally focused than physically. They had to keep their wits about them, and if something went wrong, they were responsible.

A lot of the rank and file soldiers never really considered the issue from the other side of things. That being said, Reivyn didn’t sense any resentment in the tired soldiers standing watch. He could tell they were struggling. The number of soldiers manning the fort fell short of what was required, but they were making it work.

He had watched more than one man suddenly break out into some sort of physical exercise routine to fight off the sleepiness. The one time he had seen a patrolling sergeant come upon a man not taking things into his own hands, the soldier had been put through much more rigorous exercise as the sergeant both directed his punishment and took over standing watch for the man as he was preoccupied.

The man had been panting and sweating by the time his ordeal was over, something that could have been avoided if he had been like the other, more experienced, soldiers who recognized their own tiredness and took things into their own hands accordingly.

“Did you spot them?” The general asked.

“Yeah, I caught them all,” Reivyn nodded. “As far as I know, they all made it over the wall undetected. One was almost caught, and he might have been if I hadn’t distracted the guard. There’s no telling if he would have or not, but I went ahead and erred on the side that he would have. I gave away one token.

“We’ll have to wait a bit to see if any of the internal patrols or soldiers spot any of them as they make their way here, though.

“I didn’t see anyone out of place, either.”

“Well, that’s good, at least. It’s not great that your men were able to so easily bypass my first layer of defense, but we gotta take the positives with the negatives.”

“I’ll have the men write up reports of exactly how they managed to get over the wall, ways they think could have hindered them, and I’ll add my own thoughts to it. I’ll give you and your men a copy of it.”

“Much appreciated,” the general nodded. “I feel weird. I want my men to catch them, to show that they’re competent and capable of catching anyone trying to sneak their way in, but I also don’t want them to catch them. It’s like I’m trying to play a game against myself.”

Reivyn chuckled.

“I know how you feel,” he said. “On one hand, exposing the weaknesses proves there are weaknesses, but on the other hand, it also shows the competency of those trying to sneak in. We want both to succeed.”

“The after action reports should help us tighten up security moving forward, at least,” the general said.

The two men continued to chat into the night and through the early morning, waiting for all of the Special Unit soldiers to either arrive at their target or get caught in the act.