Legends Never Die: The Life of a Soldier (ch. 127) (Patreon)

“Is this the first time you've stepped foot in another land?” Trym asked Hjalmar as they finished the disembarkment into the land of the Geats. The trip over had been rather short, only taking a few hours, really, and only that long because the veterans had landed first to secure the landing site. 

“Aye,” Hjalmar admitted, his gaze sweeping over the busy landing sight just north of Sjaelland. There were forests. There were mountains. And, within them, he knew there would be enemies that watched them establish their beachhead. Trees were being felled, the entire forest being pushed back as fortifications were swiftly erected and the camp entrenched. It would serve as their launching point, and along the coast, three other armies would be making landfall to establish themselves in a similar manner in the coming days. “I thought it would be more… different." 

“Nah. It's all part of the same realm,” Trym replied, joining him as they watched the toil begin. “I imagine it all looks the same anywhere you go.” 

“That's not the story that I hear,” Ulfar remarked, joining them with an eagerness glint in his eyes. “They say the Mediterranean is unlike anything we've ever seen. A land of constant summer, rich soil, and richer fools.” Hjalmar certainly hoped so. The latter far more so than the others. No money was sweeter than easy money. 

Then Ulfar clapped Trym on the back, “Come along, now. We serve at the King's leisure. I don't want to start the campaign getting punished for slacking,” he said, baying for them to follow. Hjalmar watched him go for a moment before following along, swallowing whatever misgivings he might have had, knowing that Ulfar was right. 

The man was still a mystery to Hjalmar, months after they became squadmates. He had mastered the art of talking without saying anything while dodging questions -- a true politician. It was something that bothered him, simply because… 

Hjalmar's gaze drifted towards the center of the camp where the royal tent was placed. They had been brought under the army of the King himself. Rumors swirled that he only took the best of the recruits to follow him into battle personally, so they were marked as the recruits with the most potential. It was an… unexpected development. One that Hjalmar wasn’t entirely certain was earned. 

But those were concerns for another day. For now, he had a job to do and that was to set up their tent. They would share one with another squad, making it ten men to a tent with five tents erected with their troop. They were set up in neat lines, and in the time since his recruitment, he had learned more about the structure of the army. 

At the very top, there was the general. Or, in this case, the King. Immediately beneath him were seven men -- four of whom were responsible for a thousand men each that comprised the infantry, one who led the scouts and archers, one who led the cavalry, and one more who oversaw the logistics of the army and camp followers. The infantry would further be broken down into leaders that each oversaw two hundred and fifty men, then leaders who oversaw fifty,  and at the very bottom were the squad leaders. 

When the army had to scale upwards for any reason, then each commander of five thousand men would be answerable to a Chief Commander. 

That wasn't any of his concern, however. And it likely wouldn't be for quite some time, if ever. 

His concerns started and ended with where he was instructed to march to and at the tip of his spear axe. How the campaign functioned didn’t matter to him at this level, but he still found himself keeping an ear out for news and rumors. If only out of habit. 

He learned that the camp followers would largely be left behind in the fort that was their camp, guarded by five hundred men. When they reached the end of the supply lines, they would be moved up to a new fort. Ulfar seemed particularly invested in that bit, claiming that the forts left behind would become the first of the towns they'd erect in the Geatlands. Hjalmar wasn't sure if he believed that, but he kept his coin close. Just in case. 

The conquest itself… When Hjalmar had imagined it in his mind, he’d thought it would be a nonstop fight. That from the moment they landed, the Geats would contest them and make them pay in blood for every step they took. He imagined a massive battle, much like the one that had won King Siegfried his kingdom. And yet, in the days that followed their arrival in this land, that battle never materialized. 

Instead, it was slower. Subtler. 

Rangers would emerge from the forests, telling the leaders of the army where villages and towns were located. From there, the King would send forth bands of two hundred and fifty men out to the villages. Some were just a large family spread out to a handful of buildings, while others were villages several times larger. That band of two hundred and fifty men would then compel that village to bend the knee to King Siegfried. 

Most did. Hjalmar and his troop had been sent out a dozen times over the course of two weeks, and not once did they have a village refuse. Some bent the knee with far more enthusiasm than others, but they all complied. Two and a half hundred warriors standing at your threshold was a fairly compelling argument, in the end.

That wasn't to say some didn't argue. There were sparse conflicts that erupted when a village tried to resist, and to those that did, King Siegfried came down like a hammer to flatten a stubborn nail. The villages were seized and those that lived there were dispersed. But, such occasions were rare. He’d only heard of it happening twice. 

Which was how things fell into a steady rhythm. He never imagined that the conquest could be so… boring, or that it would leave them so much free time, but it did. Some of it was spent training so their skills didn't get rusty, or they would help maintain the camp itself. There was always a chore needing to be done after all, but many hands made light work. That left people looking to fill their time with other things, and gambling away their wages became a fast favorite. 

It was in the mess hall turned gambling den that he heard the news as he slammed down a cup full of carved dice. “They're gathering up?” Hjalmar questioned, and he was joined by Lokar, who idly sipped at a tankard of ale while watching his pile of coin grow larger and smaller. “What are their numbers?” 

“They aren't much. I heard it was a thousand of them,” Gunnarr, a member of another troop replied, his face twisting when Hjalmar lifted the cup. A high roll, so he slid the coins on the table back to his pile. “Might be more, might be less. I just know that we're being sent out while the veterans are remaining behind.” 

A thousand men. There was a point in time that Hjalmar would have called that an unstoppable army. 

“It's a chance to earn some steel,” another playing the game of dice remarked as Hjalmar slid him the cup while placing a bet. On that, he didn't disagree. 

The armor that the veterans wore was forged from the iron of defeated foes. To earn a complete set of that plate mail was said to take a dozen battles, and by the time you earned it, you were considered a tried and true veteran. An Ironclad warrior.That would be useful in itself as being a veteran was a mark of wealth and prestige at this point, but more importantly, Hjalmar wanted better armor to keep his insides inside of him. 

“It's not a full mobilization, is it?” Hjalmar asked, earning a round of shrugs as the game continued. He lost the coin he bet, but he was still up from what he started with. The trick didn't change, no matter who he played. Lose a round often enough that no one thought anything of you walking away with just a bit more coin than you started with. Match every big win with a big loss, but never quite enough to wipe away the earnings. 

“No,” Lokar answered from the side. “Five hundred men.” 

Hjalmar stilled for a moment before casting Ulfar's shadow a glance. “How do you figure that?” 

“Ulfar said so,” Lokar shrugged, leaving it at that, but he wished he wouldn't. He wasn't sure what was up with the pair, only that they seemed to treat straight answers like a pox. More than that, it signified the divide between them. Lokar was in Ulfar's confidence, while Hjalmar was not. Which didn't really matter to him beyond the fact it would have been nice to learn that they might be facing an army twice their size. 

“Well, did Ulfar say which five hundred sorry bastards are being put on the block?” He questioned, his tone testy. He swallowed a frown when Lokar just shrugged, his expression betraying nothing. 

“The King doesn't like to battle unless he's outnumbered twice over, I've heard,” Gunnarr said. That sounded about right given what he’d heard of his exploits himself -- gathering his enemies in Norway, taking on an army ten times his number at the Battle of Ravenfeast, and then the battle that won him the crown… Hjalmar tried to take comfort in the fact the King had won all of those battles, and hoped that he wouldn't be among the fallen that it took to win. “It's a glorious opportunity. The first real battle of the conquest. That's a tale that'll earn you drinks in every tavern for the rest of your life.” 

That, Hjalmar also couldn't disagree with. “Aye, but before you know it, half of Denmark fought in that battle if you believe everyone telling those tales.” That earned a round of laughter as the game continued. They traded banter and bits of gossip or rumors before he decided to call it quits for the night, a slightly richer man. 

As he left, Lokar followed. “You're good at that,” he said, suddenly speaking up as they made their way through the fort. A palisade was placed on a defensive position, and after two weeks, the paths between tents were well trodden. “Cheating at dice, I mean.” 

Hjalmar didn't miss a step, "It's all in the wrist.” He replied, pretending that his heart hadn't just tried to escape through his throat. “You noticed?” 

“Only because I was watching for it,” Lokar admitted, making Hjalmar scowl. 

“Care to tell me why you were watching for it?” Hjalmar asked, suspecting he knew the answer. 

“Ulfar told me to.” Of course he did. Hjalmar reached up, massaging his temples and the added weight to his coinpurse suddenly didn't feel worth the trouble. 

“I don’t suppose he also told you why you should look for the signs?” Hjalmar sighed, feeling like he had been played. It wasn't a good feeling. It left him frustrated, coupled with a sensation of helplessness because he… really wasn't sure what to do. Or what Ulfar intended with the information. 

“He wanted to know why,” Lokar answered with refreshing honesty. 

But for the answer… “Have you ever been so hungry that you ate grass just to fill your stomach?” He asked without looking back. 

“... No,” Lokar answered, and for the first time, his voice was more than a flat, almost bored cadence. 

“If you had, then you wouldn't need to ask to understand,” Hjalmar answered flatly, striding forward as he spat the memory of the taste out. Along with the memories of hunger pains so intense he doubled over… before they vanished entirely, along with his strength. So he had to crawl across the floor of the dirty hovel he grew up in towards a patch of grass, where he ate the grass, dirt, and insects within. 

In this world, money was power, and the powerful wanted for nothing. 

Hjalmar swore long ago that he would want for nothing. And it didn't matter how much he had to lie, cheat, steal, and kill to get there. 

…

Hjalmar quickly stopped pitying the poor bastards that would have the dubious honor of fighting in the first true battle of the conquest, largely because he turned out to be one of them. Though, thankfully, the swirling rumors that King Siegfried intended to face every battle with two to one odds, if not more, rang false. However, what was true was that he intended to match them. 

A thousand men emerged from the fort, marching in a formation of ten across. In the days leading up to their departure, Hjalmar paid close attention to the formation of the division. One hundred Ironclad veterans. Seven hundred and fifty infantry. Fifty archers and scouts. A hundred horsemen. The army felt like a smaller version of the whole, which he supposed was the point. 

There was a tension that formed a knot between his shoulder blades as they marched through the forests of Geatland and over the sweeping flatlands. It was just a rookie's fear, he knew, but that didn't make it any easier to bear. There was a part of him that was convinced that behind every tree was a Geat warrior or archer, who had their eyes set upon him in particular as he was on the outermost flank of the marching formation. Meaning if the scouts didn't do their job, he would die first. 

He clutched at his spear axe with white knuckles, and adjusted his helm one more time. The only consolation was that they were marching with purpose. They weren't an army moving blindly through foreign fields anymore, but one moving towards a destination. A target, as if they were an arrow released from a bow. What wasn't a consolation was that no one seemed to agree on how many they would be facing.

Hjalmar heard rumors of as little as two hundred to as many as ten thousand. A thousand was the most consistent guess, but his mind tugged at the possibility that they were going to fight a battle outnumbered ten to one.   

So, it was nothing less than a relief when they finally arrived at the battlefield, where the Geats awaited them. 

“They're a comparable size to us,” Hjalmar noted, seeing their formation in the distance. Meaning that they really were facing a thousand men. His gaze swept over them, seeing a lack of unity -- there were individual groups that stood apart from one another, but others mixed together in a formless mass of colored shields, bare bodies, and padded gambesons. 

“Offense or defense?” Trym asked him, and Hjalmar gave it a moment of thought, looking at the terrain. The Geats had arranged themselves on the edge of a forest, which could be used to obscure their true numbers. But they were on the same flatlands as their army, so it was little advantage. 

“... Defensive,” Hjalmar predicted, as the army began to form ranks. The veterans, supported by recruits, would serve as their center. Meanwhile, his squad was placed on the left wing with a contingent of cavalry beyond them. 

He was right, as it turned out, as the hundred camp laborers began on their task and that was to dig into the dirt before them, creating a trench that the Geats would have to cross to reach their battle line. Meanwhile, others began to cut down trees, giving the impression that their commander, a man of the name Gulbrandr, intended to build a fort in the middle of the flatland. 

It was a provocation, Hjalmar realized when the Geats began to bristle, shouting taunts and challenges. Yet, the labor continued on undisturbed-- the trenches were dug, dirt piled high as an added obstacle, while trees were dragged into place. The Geats delayed their response for so long, Hjalmar feared that they wouldn't take the bait. But, eventually, they did. 

“Shields up!” Came the order and as one, they layered their shields over one another to present a solid wall to the enemy. Meanwhile, those behind them raised their shields overhead, while those behind them did the same. Not long after, arrows and stone began to fall upon their formation. That prompted their own archers to step forward and take aim at the ranged troops that revealed themselves. 

He watched as the arrows sailed forth with his eyebrows climbing high when he saw that nearly every single one struck its mark. Not all died, but Hjalmar imagined that they’d have difficulty pulling back a drawstring with one arm. The effect was immediate for the Geats -- fifty arrows had been let loose, and around forty of their ranged troops were hit. By the time the second volley came, they were already falling back, making most of the arrows miss. 

Yet, their archers continued to shoot, arrows slipping into the gaps of their shield wall with cries piercing the distance between them. A decision had to be made, Hjalmar knew. He wasn’t sure what he was hoping for, but he found himself strangely relieved when the Geat army began to march forward. Not because he had any eagerness to fight, but because he just wanted to get this over with. The tension between his shoulders felt as deadly as an axe. 

“Brace!” He heard their commander shout out, and the shield was lowered and instead placed against his back, half pushing him in preparation of the pushback from the Geat army. His heart thundered in his chest, and he was sweating already as the Geats surged forth with a loud war cry, and he hoped desperately that the archers would manage to fell enough on the way over that there wouldn’t even need to be a fight. 

No such luck. 

The Geats pressed on, their pace steady as they attacked in a large mass, their cohesion melting away with the march. It was almost strange to witness; it was so unlike anything he had seen before. It seemed so… strange. That, he supposed, was a testament to the training of King Seigfried’s army, that he couldn’t imagine charging across a field like a maddened beast. 

His gaze locked onto a warrior who was at the fore of the army -- a large man wielding an axe, his chest bare while woad had been painted onto his face, chest, and arms. He was shouting the entire way, red in the face with a furious war cry spilling from his lips. Arrows seemed to miss him, even when they felled those around him, and despite the sea of people on both sides, it felt like their gazes met as he came straight for him. 

Hjalmar forced himself to take a breath, readying himself for the initial clash. The Geats arrived, first climbing over the piles of dirt or pushing their way through one of the channel lanes, and when that man arrived, racing down the mound and into the trench, he struck. 

The woad seemed spectacularly useless when the tip of his spear axe skewered him in the chest with a short jab. The warrior curled into himself, still swinging with his axe, but Hjalmar caught it with his shield and finished him off with a quick chop at the neck. The man fell into the ditch, soon vanishing from sight under the feet of those pushed over the mound. 

He had no time to settle with the fact that he had killed a man for the first time, simply because the second soon followed. Then a third. His spear axe became slick with blood before he had to hand it off to the man behind him as the Geats made it up the trench with sheer numbers and the greater reach became useless. Instead, his hand went to the short sword at his belt and he began jabbing it forward at those who battered and clawed at his shield. 

The battle just became noise at that point. People shouting, metal clashing -- He had absolutely no clue if they were winning or losing. He couldn’t tell what everyone around him was doing. He didn’t know if he was doing well or if he was making a fool of himself. He just knew that by the time he felt a tap on his shoulder, telling him it was time to cycle out with Trym, he had killed four men. 

He pushed forward before Trym took his place and he made his way to the back of the line. His arms and legs felt strangely weak, and he eagerly accepted a cup of water from a camp follower. “How long have we been fighting?”

“It’s been about five minutes,” the servant said and Hjalmar nearly choked on his water. It had been that short? He felt exhausted, to the point someone could have told him that he’d fought for days and he’d believe it. 

“How many did you get?” Ulfar’s voice came from behind, his face bloodied but there was a grin there. 

“Five. I think?” Hjalmar answered, and it was only then that the knowledge started to sink in. It wasn’t like he came to the battlefield and expected to leave with clean hands, but… it was alarming how easy it was to kill a man. You just had to poke them in the right spot. And with that thought came an overwhelming desire for plate mail.  

“Three,” Ulfar said, also taking a cup and drinking deeply from it. “It’s good that we were in the front. The ones that come after will have a harder time of it. Unless they catch someone with their back turned, of course.”

Hjalmar glanced around, searching for a sign that they were winning, but he couldn’t tell from where he stood. What he could see was that the line was still intact, and there didn’t seem to be any panic. His gaze followed the runners who carried messages between leaders, relaying orders and information. He expected there to be some kind of… issue. He wasn’t sure what, but he was preparing himself for a disaster. What kind, he couldn’t even guess, but it would leave them on their back when the rug was pulled out from underneath them. 

Perhaps that was why Hjalmar chose now of all times to ask a question that he had been wanting to ask for months, “Ulfar? Why are you here?” He asked, turning his gaze to the man, who cocked an eyebrow in response. “Really, because I can’t make any sense of it. As far as I can tell, you’re well connected. You got us put in the King’s army.”

To that, Ulfar offered a thin smile. “Not me,” he corrected. “My father.”

“Still, why serve as a foot soldier? If your father has that kind of influence…” Why not just put him in command of a group? Why make him a fresh-faced recruit of all things?

Ulfar snorted, and with refreshing honesty, he answered, “Because our king respects merit. It’s only natural. He went from a farmer to a warrior to a king. He hides it well, but he has little respect or expectations for those who rise up merely because they have the right parents.” Ulfar knocked back the rest of his water, “My father was one of the Jarls who was defeated by Horrik in the first rebellion, and fled to King Siegfried’s wings to shelter there and hope to be restored to glory upon his return.”

A thin smile tugged at Ulfar’s lips, “So, if I wish a place beside the King and a position of any influence… I must prove myself worthy. Start from the bottom and work my way to the top. It’ll be easier said than done, I imagine. Plenty of other wayward nobility have the same idea -- like Lokar’s father. Same with men like you, who truly started with nothing and have an ambitious hunger.” He acknowledged and Hjalmar frowned, glancing down at his cup for a moment before he drank the rest of it. 

He hadn’t looked at it like that, but it didn’t really change anything for him. In the King’s army, there was a clear path of progression unlike all the armies before King Siegfried. In them, if you were an exceptionally talented warrior, you could be recruited into a hird. You could become a huskarl. Maybe, you could be elevated to become a Thegn. But there were clear limits on how high you could rise. 

That was no longer true with King Siegfried. A foot soldier could become a troop leader. A troop leader could become a division commander. A division commander could become a general. Leading troops was no longer exclusively tied to nobility or station. Meaning that it was a ladder that could be climbed by anyone. 

“Good luck,” Hjalmar said to him, handing the cup to a servant as a weight that he couldn’t quite identify settled on his shoulders. It took a second for him to figure out why it was there in the first place -- those that he fought shoulder to shoulder with… they were also his competition for advancement. While he had no particular dreams of leading armies in the name of the King, he’d hardly refuse a promotion.

“And to you,” Ulfar replied, inclining his head to him as they once more joined the line as the front walked back to be refreshed. 

Hjalmar waited in the line that was five men deep, each front man fighting for five minutes before receiving what amounted to a twenty-minute break before they arrived at the front once more. He found himself almost refreshed by the time he was placed at the front of the line, alongside the rest of his squad as they fought in a line. And, it was because he was at the front, he got a great view of the battle being brought to a swift and brutal end. 

He wasn’t sure what had happened at first -- there were signs of panic coming from the rear of the Geats, and there was a strange noise in the air that almost sounded like thunder. But it was when he saw men on top of horses slamming into the back of the Geats, cutting through them like a knife, that he realized the battle had been won. Not because of any surrender given, but simply because he saw the fight bleed out of the enemy.

It didn’t take but a few minutes more for surrender to come, but by that point, the fighting had already ended with individual fighters tossing down their weapons. Hjalmar watched the entire process with an air of disbelief, not so much feeling victorious as he was disbelief that it really was that easy. 

Marching for a few days, standing for a few hours, and less than ten minutes of fighting. 

“Huh,” he muttered, watching the horsemen chase down the fleeing Geats, those who ran rather than surrendered. “That was a lot easier than I thought it’d be,” he admitted to himself with a small shake of his head. 

Well, no matter. Now, to grab some steel so he could start working on getting a set of armor that would keep his organs where they should be. A few axes wouldn’t be enough to forge a set of plate mail… 

But there would be many more battles to come.