“We leave tomorrow at dawn. Here are your assignments,” the sergeant said.
Quint was a walking guard, the only one.
“What do I do?” Quint asked Gaglio, showing him his order.
Walk by the side of my wagon. I’ll give you instructions along the way. The sergeant will be in the front wagon, and I’ll bring up the rear. For now, help me hitch the horses to load the travel tents. The horses are in the picket line, and the travel equipment is stored at the back of the camp.
“Corporal Tirolo,” the sergeant said. “You are to help Gaglio and stay out of the way. If we are attacked, run under the wagons or something.”
Quint watched the sergeant return to his tent.
“He doesn’t work too hard,” Gaglio said. “Don’t worry about him. Everyone knows their job. We drilled doing this a few days before you showed up.”
“But I’m the only guard!” Quint said. “And the sergeant wants me to hide. That doesn’t make sense.”
Gaglio laughed. “We all know where the sharp end of a sword is. If we get attacked, we will fight.”
The wagon drivers took off in different directions toward where their supplies were located. Two wagons were dedicated to the field equipment. The supplies were piled high, with a tied-down tarp covering it all. They put their loaded wagons in a line at the camp's perimeter behind the palisade walls and returned to their tent to pack.
Gaglio took Quint to the mess tent for dinner when they were done. After they had eaten, they collected cold breakfast packets to eat when they were underway.
Quint was surprised at the calmness in the fort when bugles called before the sun was up. They took their bags and their breakfast with them to the wagon.
“You can ride until we get closer to the front,” Gaglio said.
“How long will that be?”
Gaglio smirked. “A day and a half or so. They don’t give us that information, but I know where the border is. The sergeant will kick you off the wagon if I don’t.”
When the sun descended into the trees in the woods the army passed through, they turned into a large meadow, and soldiers lined up at the wagon to pick up tents and grab camp chairs. If they were on a campaign, soldiers would carry the tents on their backs, but this time, they were headed to a battle with the intent of pushing the Barellian forces out of Racellian territory with a single battle, and then the army would return to the temporary fort.
“If we are successful, I am sure the fort will be relocated to the border,” Gaglio said. “Border incursions happen all the time, so this is nothing new. Sometimes, it’s Racellia going into Barellia, and vice versa.”
Quint spent most of this time reading the sheet with his extended string applications, practicing the visualizations he wanted for each string.
After lunch on the second day, the sergeant approached Gaglio and Quint.
“Corporal Tirolo, you will walk from here to the battlefield. Gaglio, issue weapons.”
Gaglio saluted as the company lined up at his wagon and were issued short spears with wooden shafts.
“Won’t swords cut through those?” Quint said after the last spear was issued.
“We’ve never been attacked before,” Gaglio said. “The men, including me, feel better having something to protect them. I can still cast strings, but there is something to be said about hefting a physical weapon.”
“It helps the morale in the middle of a battle?” Quint asked.
Gaglio nodded. “We just sit and listen to the sounds of it all,” Gaglio said as he handed Quint a spear.
He couldn’t do all his strings with one hand, Quint thought, and he handed the spear back. “I’ll rely on my hands, both of them.”
Gaglio grinned. “That’s a good attitude. You are free to roam around but stay close to our part of the wagon train. You don’t have to stand by me during the battle. It might be good for you to move forward and see what fighting looks like. I’ve done it enough in my time.”
“Good. I’ll see what strategies are employed for real rather than read about them in a book,” Quint said.
“Practical training. That’s my boy,” Gaglio said.
“The fighting will begin tomorrow,” Gaglio told Quint as they put up the tiny tent they shared.
The wagons were loaded, and the camp left behind as they traveled slowly for a day and a half to the battlefield, a vast meadow surrounded by forests in the hilly boundary between the two countries. Quint counted the wagons surrounding the area. There were forty wagons supplying the army. The wizard corps contributed seven to the forty.
“We will leave the wagons here and guard them from stragglers,” the sergeant told the drivers and loaders. He turned to Quint. “Roam around and let us know if you spot anyone. Generally, we get a squad or a few soldiers of the enemy sniffing around for easy pickings, but we aren’t easy pickings.”
Gaglio gently shoved Quint toward the edge of the wagons. “Make sure there are no monsters in the woods.”
Quint shook his head. There weren’t any monsters in the woods circling the wagons or any other place in the world. He walked through the trees and then stepped through the trees and undergrowth circling the meadow.
He watched soldiers clumping together in groups, talking to their sergeants and officers. The wizard corps was notable, dressed in dark green uniforms in a sea of the red coats of the regular army. Quint thought that black would be more fitting, but there might be reasons for the difference that he didn’t know.
A stream that ran along the edge of the meadow on the other side from where they parked the wagon provided a slight challenge to cross, but he found a tree trunk that had been used as a bridge so many times the bark had worn off the top side.
The forest began to thin until Quint stood on the edge of a plain. He wondered where all the farmers were, but he saw a shepherd and his dog moving a flock of sheep out of tomorrow’s battleground. Quint stepped onto the plain. The grass was almost knee high, but as he walked farther away from the wood’s edge, he noticed patches where herd animals had eaten the grass to short stalks.
He closed his eyes and put his cupped hands together, extending tendrils that became threads that Quint wove into a portent string. That’s what Pozella called it. Quint just thought of it as peeking into the future.
A picture materialized in his mind. The blue coats of the Barellians fought the red coats of the Racellians. He saw the wizard corps fight the wizard corps of the Barellians, who wore their army uniforms with silver-edged black epaulets.
