provided additional housing for the recruits as well as weapons’ storage. The training ground, located at the back of the barracks, remained untouched, however.
As he strode across the grounds, Eskkar missed the horse smell. He and a few others who grew up in horse country claimed they could still catch the scent of the endless streams of horse piss that had soaked deep into the earth. While others complained about the foul odors, even the faint scent of horse sweat always reminded Eskkar of his youth and life with the clan.
“Have you heard anything about the training?” Eskkar’s long legs covered a lot of ground, forcing Grond and the guards to hurry to keep up.
Gatus had started training a group of recruits as spearmen less than a month after the meeting at Rebba’s farm.
“Nothing much.” Grond kept his tone non-committal. “I know Gatus added new recruits now and then, and lost a few, too, but he hasn’t told me anything. And none of his men will say a word.”
Eskkar glanced at his friend and bodyguard. Only Gatus could convince Grond to keep a secret. “It’s been almost three months since he started training them. He better have something to show for it. How hard can it be to teach a man to use a spear?”
Grond knew better than to answer that kind of question.
They turned the corner at the barracks, and Eskkar found Gatus waiting across the open space for them, sitting on his stool and holding a wood rod the thickness of his thumb in his hand. The Rod of Gatus, as long as his arm, had become part of the soldiers’ tradition, and few recruits managed to escape its touch. A good whack on the arm or back, Gatus explained, helped each man concentrate on the orders of his superior, usually shouted in the recruit’s face at the top of his lungs.
The instructors, too, used their rods almost as freely as Gatus, until even the slowest witted of the recruits learned instant obedience to their superiors’ orders, no matter how seemingly senseless or humiliating. During the early months of training, while the men’s bodies grew hardened by exercise and constant practice with their weapons, that lesson remained the most important. All orders must be obeyed at once, with no exceptions and no excuses. The reason was simple enough. In battle, the enemy cared nothing for how weary or ill or hung over a soldier was. The sooner every recruit learned that bitter lesson, the longer they would stay alive in combat.
Over time, as the men increased their skill level, the physical abuse tapered off, and the trainers’ efforts shifted to more and longer periods spent practicing with bow, sword, and knife. Another skill every recruit had to master was wrestling. It not only strengthened the men’s bodies, but also taught them how to fight unarmed. And as the long and arduous days of physical effort passed, the men grew more confident not only in themselves and their skills, but in those of their companions at arms, the men who trained at their side, and who would someday fight beside them.
Gatus had long ago mastered the art of turning farm boys into soldiers. Eskkar had acknowledged that fact early on, and given Gatus responsibility for training Akkad’s archers. Still, while many knew how to train fighting men, the old soldier had learned the best ways to turn individual fighters into a fighting unit. Under his hard tutelage, the men gradually formed a bond with each other. As Gatus had explained many times, first you beat the recruits down, showed them how weak and pitiful their strength and skills were compared to their trainers. That humiliating demonstration usually sufficed to drive the recruits to train harder and harder to master the skills demanded of them. By then, every recruit hated his trainers as much as any enemy they would face in battle.
When done properly, the grueling ordeal helped the men learn to work and fight together, each one determined to prove to their hard taskmasters that they could not only withstand the brutal discipline, but take strength from it. As that happened, each man’s sense of pride increased. With each improvement in his fighting skills, that sense of worth grew stronger and stronger. Gradually a fighting unit took shape. What started out as a rag-tag group of individuals developed into a band of brothers that learned to take care of its own, the stronger helping the weaker, and the more skillful assisting those who needed extra work.
Months later, when the recruits had turned into true soldiers, they looked back in awe at what they had accomplished. By then many had changed beyond recognition, muscles bulging where none had existed before. Skills with their weapons progressed as well, from barely knowing which end of a sword to pick up, to supremely confident. Only then did the men grudgingly admit that perhaps their vigilant taskmasters had known all along what they were doing.
Now Gatus had turned his attention to this new force of spearmen, letting others train the archers and sword fighters. What would result from all this remained to be seen.
“Well, Gatus, your men look fit enough,” Eskkar said as he approached, raising his voice so that everyone could hear. He got the words out before Gatus could complain about Eskkar’s late arrival. “What are you going to show me?”
“My spearmen are ready to show you what they’ve learned.” Gatus tapped his rod against his other hand. He, too, spoke loud enough to make sure everyone heard. “Why don’t you and Grond stand over against the wall, where you’ll be out of the way?”
Eskkar and Grond moved to the side of the barracks, the Hawk Clan guards trailing behind them. Gatus waited until Eskkar and his guards complied, then slid off his stool, tossed it aside, and turned to face his spearmen. Behind him, thirty men stood in two ranks, each of them carrying a shield and a spear, and with a short sword at his waist. Leather helmets made the men look both taller and fiercer. Every spear rested on its butt, the bronze tip pointing at the sky, as the men awaited their orders. Half the spears, Eskkar noticed, extended a forearm length longer than the others. He realized something else. These men had awaited his arrival for some time, standing patiently in the warm sunshine without shifting about or shuffling their feet. No men Gatus ever trained would be found sitting about in the shade when the king arrived. Each man looked confident, and the eyes that followed Eskkar’s movements showed no hint of fear or awe.
Eskkar knew the importance of hard discipline in building morale. Unlike steppe warriors, whose honor guided their training from the youngest age, villagers first needed to be taught to obey before they learned how to fight. Warriors had learned these lessons as far back as anyone could recall. Eskkar accepted these ideas without question, since that was the way of the steppe warrior. The villagers, without any real clan or code of honor of their own, needed a teacher like Gatus and his methods as a way to gain respect. By the time the recruits took pride in themselves and their fighting skills, they had also learned the most important lesson of all, that of trusting and caring for the soldier who fought beside you. The months of shared suffering they’d endured bonded them to their fellow soldiers. They learned to trust not only their own skills, but those of the man next to them.
Because, as Eskkar well knew, that’s what made a man fight, not some cause or even hope for a few pieces of gold or loot now and then. You fought because your sense of honor demanded it; you fought because your friend stood at your side and you could not think of letting him stand alone. And you fought on when all appeared lost, because your friends had died beside you, and how could you do anything less to honor their memory than give your utmost? Most of all, you fought because you had mastered the skills that would carry you to victory, and that belief in yourself and your weapons made each man determined to stand strong against his enemy.
Over the years, while Eskkar wandered the land, he came to understand better the code of the warrior, and the way it helped keep him alive. His father Hogarthak had taught his son well in that regard, so well that even as an outcast boy struggling against an unfamiliar and harsh world those lessons remained ingrained in Eskkar’s mind. Still, he had never quite mastered the teaching of the same lessons to others. Eskkar could lead men in battle, could even train them well enough, but Gatus could turn raw recruits into a fighting unit better and faster than anyone Eskkar had ever seen.
With this group of spearmen, Gatus had worked hard with each leader of ten to make sure his subordinates knew just how far to go with the men. Recruits needed to be cured of their former habits, but not broken in spirit. When they finished their training, they would be accepted into Akkad’s warrior ranks, and have the status that came with their oaths to defend their king, their city, and their fellow soldiers.
For many, it was the first time in their lives that they had ever accomplished something so difficult but so rewarding. Whether it was hitting a target at a hundred paces with a single swiftly launched shaft, or taking a man down with three powerful sword strokes, men soon learned more about themselves, about what they could do and accomplish, than any weapon they took to hand.
Now Eskkar glanced at a small assemblage on the training ground. For more than a month, he had chaffed at Gatus and his slow and patient methods. Every few days Eskkar had asked Gatus when the first group of spearmen would be ready.
