Ethan looked out over the snow-swept valley, eyes half squinted against the biting wind; tugging the wolf-skinned cloak tighter around him as he shivered despite the thick fur, ice crystals cracking and dropping free from his eyelashes and scraggly beard at even that subtle movement.

  Fuck but it was cold.

  The lake below him was more than three-quarters iced over, with only narrow sections at the inlet and exit where the moving water kept the ice from forming. Slopes of snow seemed to extend the mountain's reach down to its very shore, with only the staggered bits of evergreen pines interspaced with leaf-bare branches to speak of the verdant forest of only 2 months prior.

  Everything his eyes touched was his.

  And he loved it.

  And if he stayed out much longer looking at it, he might just freeze to death!

  He snorted softly, stomping his feet to keep his blood moving, then regretfully turned away from the cliff edge and walked through the shallow snow drifts, piled chest high against a series of wooden wind breaks. Breaks that were instead already partially broken, splintered by the cold.

  Ethan snorted, stepping around the drifts where possible, then ducked down into an entrance to the forest, hidden in the lee of a boulder, and nearly impossible to spot if you didn’t know where to look.

  A pace forward and he pushed a wooden door inward with his rag-wrapped hands, nodding at the four Hastati guards sitting about a brazier before stepping into the guard room that wasn’t exactly warm, but at least there was no ice in the mugs of water sitting beside the guards. He shoved the door shut and slid a wooden bar into place to keep it that way, waving the standing men back down before they could fully rise in the process.

  “No need, masters. No need.”

  He watched with a small smile as they set their weapons back down and returned to holding their own rag-wrapped hands over an empty of everything but core light brazier. They hadn’t enough wood to waste on fires, but something about a source of light still brought comfort.

  And there was little enough of that around that he’d begrudge them a bit of silliness.

  He passed through an open archway and down a roughhewn, sloping tunnel. Trailing his fingers along the unfinished stone walls and trying not to think of how many Build Points he’d had to spend on it.

  Everything cost more than he wanted to pay. Why should this be different? At only a hundred BP per month, there was always something that ended up getting put off.

  He ducked around a corner and paused to put his head into a different room. One stacked with loosely tied rolls of cut grass and few leafy herbs. And hadn’t that been a joy? They’d treasured every moment of the short fall season, scythes working with a will in long lines across the meadow and valley in an attempt to store up enough to last the winter.

  They’d kept at it till the snow flew… and a bit beyond.

  And yet… Each chalk mark on the wall was a day of feed. And they were marching back into the room at far to rapid a pace. Ethan grimaced. Why did he do this to himself? Not like it was going to get any better since yesterday.

  They’d have to make a decision. And soon.

  He shook his head and kept walking. Merely nodding to the guards standing in front of the next few store rooms. He had no need to check inside to picture the rows of frozen hanging slabs of meat. They had enough to last. Not plentifully, but with a tightening of belts it would do.

  It would be nearly all meat towards the end if they wanted to save any seeds for replanting, and barely seasoned meat at that.

  It was an odd problem to have. Too much meat. He wondered at himself for it. Too much good food was like too much beauty. Was it really a bad thing? Something deep inside of him said yes. That and an odd craving for citrus.

  He shook his head and kept walking. It didn’t matter what he wanted. It mattered what they had.

  Large galleries began to extend outward from the tunnel. Each a large, low-ceilinged area supported by frequent regular pillars. Half-carved pillars as well. With the immigrants they’d picked up in The Forest, it shouldn’t surprise him. But it wasn’t quite forest art either.

  A mix of that and the god figures preferred by the Empire’s heartlands and some inspiration from some odd mineral accumulations in the mushroom caves below had given birth to a style all of its own.

  A three-eyed, four-armed dancer surrounded by beasts that danced with him. An elephant-headed man breaking chains with a background that looked suspiciously like Obstagartenfeld. A blue-skinned cowherder playing a flute while surrounded by massive aurochs.

  All carved by the Village seeds Ermina had organized. Small settlements that would move out in the spring to live where they would work. Farming, Herding, Forestry, Fishing and a hundred other jobs he hadn’t thought of yet.

  Each was around three dozen people, mostly family starts though they had very few children. Yet. He could see the signs of that change. A mix of mostly Basics but with a few common professions to provide training in the needed skills and a few hunters for protection.

  Each in the process of learning to live, play and work together before they had to do it for real. And the carvings were part of all three. Stories told over core light fires to pass the time, growing with every telling and in turn they worked together later to make the stories come to life on the walls and pillars.

  Competing between the two dozen galleries to see who had the best carvings. A contest Ermina greatly enjoyed presiding over. Ethan shook his head and kept walking, ignoring the bleating of goats, eweing of sheep and even a few neighs from the horses that were kept in the same galleries.

  Not optimal that. But someone had to take care of them, and even if the footing was a bit hard, it was better than the cold outside.

  He continued onward. Past the villages and trying not to count all the Build Points used to carve out these tunnels. Nor the point a day he spent to keep them warm enough to be livable, if not comfortable.

  A massive hall opened up to his right. Its ceilings a full 20 feet up and supported by a number of arches and columns that still left much of the floor unobstructed from his sight.

  A floor that was covered in a thin layer of soil and sported most of three hundred men training away with training weapons. Many paired off for sparing, but as many again slammed into each other in full decade spars. Sarrisa and Tower Shields blocks in mirror battles with the same while Lancers on the outside screamed instructions or in one case, physically struck a man with a thin leather crop. He’d nearly brained a companion with the overlong spear and definitely needed the correction.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Along one wall a group of a dozen men had even set up a shooting range. 6 in hide armor and sporting 8-foot spears tied to their backs were attempting to put arrows into the waiting targets at the direction of the Bowmen beside them. And not succeeding terribly often.

  Ethan let out a breath. It should have been 7. May Kieron’s grace linger with you, Aclius. And even that was a far cry from the number of Pahadi they really needed.

  He kept walking. Waving guards down as they stopped to salute his passing and at last turning into a doorway covered by only a curtain. Damn but he wished they’d had more time to get timber in.

  He shrugged the worry aside as he stepped in and through a bubble, flinching as overexcited voices overlapping each other struck his ears like a blow.

  “-mobility is king! Wes need dem in da valleys and for caravans beyond-“ Fought with “We Can’t FEED them all. Not don’t want to. Can Not!”

  “Then yous find a way. Da sheep an goats, wes can buy more.”

  “When?” An outraged shout sputtered out. “And do you want to each just mean? No milk, no cheese? Think a bit, the men would riot!”

  “Dey won’t riot! Yous exaggerating.”

  Ethan sat down with a sigh. He didn’t really need to hear this. He’d heard it a dozen times already and more, he had a similar conversation running in the back of his head at all times. They were getting nowhere, arguing pointlessly in circles because everyone involved was right. They couldn’t afford to give up the Lancers mobility, and they needed the herd animals for food, clothing and just variety.

  It was gridlocked on good intentions. A better state than it could have been. It wasn’t a fight for personal power or over zones of authority. But either way, he’d have to make a decision soon. And it would please no one.

  That to was his job.

  “Enough.” He offered at last with a sigh. “No more, you aren’t coming to a decision this way and we can’t wait. I’ll work out a compromise between your positions tonight and we’ll implement it in the morning.”

  “My Lord.” Conner rumbled, sitting back down. Not looking particularly happy about it, but he didn’t complain either. At least something was going to be done. Ermina on the other hand, looked a bit mutinous. He’d have to deal with that later too. And it would be much less fun.

  He mouthed ‘Later.’ At her. She huffed but leaned back in her carved stone chair. Much to his relief.

  A moment of silence fell on the room. Broken only by the light scritch scritch of Miro and James going working over a pile of scrolls and scrap papyrus with sticks of charcoal.

  “Pahadi.” He offered at last, already sighing as the room stiffened to attention. “I’m going to approve a group to go on this Bir quest.” Prerequisites. It wasn’t enough to have the class, you had to qualify for it.

  And unfortunately, few in the Band did. They’d fought thousands of beasts and monsters through the years, and his top end veterans had dozens, perhaps the best even hundreds of kills under their belts.

  But never alone. The very training of the Hastati line was one of cooperation and training as a decade at the very least. You did not fight alone. Ever.

  And now they needed to try. And it was a risk!

  It wasn’t just utility of the class that made Ethan approve the chance either. Though practical requirements might have forced his hand even so. No, it was an opportunity he also couldn’t deny them.

  The Hastati line was supposed to upgrade into Principus at uncommon, then Triarii if you were lucky enough to be one of the few to reach tier 3. And yet the Band, for a full generation had Lancer as their only tier 2 class.

  And Riding was not a skill that Hastati or Philangites had. A tier 2 with the skill could teach them tier 0 riding, and frequently did. But it wasn’t a class skill, horses were expensive beasts and riding was an art.

  Only those who maxed out that difficult training were offered one of the 5 tier 1 Riding Skill slots offered by their skill stone per year.

  That left a large number of maxed out infantry bottlenecked at that step. Ready and even desperate for an Uncommon class. A chance to grow in strength, but also in lifespan and status. And willing to risk their lives to do it.

  That pool of veteran talent was ready for the transition if he could bear to risk them. But they weren’t the only ones. It was possible to side step into a new class. It wasn’t done often, because, frankly it was agonizing at best, and possibly fatally so if you had to many levels in your current tier.

  A level 10 Hastati, newly promoted from Basic, could transfer over with only a sharp spike of debilitating pain. Turning into a level 10 Pahadi and keeping any of skills that overlapped, though with a penalty for anything but a perfect match. Spear (1 hand) and Spear (sarrisa) to Spear (2H) would likely keep ? ranks.

  It was always a bit variable, but somewhere in there.

  “How many yous thinking My Lord?”

  “It’s a lot to risk!” James hurried to add. An observation not a protest.

  Ermina and Miro shared a glance and kept quiet. Ethan caught both their eyes and sent a grateful smile their way.

  This was going to be a hard a hard enough conversation to have as it was.

  “Twenty at a time, I think. Veterans get first shot, and any Basics or newly promoted Basics that put their name on the list have to spend some real time training first.” It was no easy feat they were attempting. Not in the killing cold of winter and not for men who had little practice fighting, or even making decisions, alone.

  It was going to be a nail-biting wait, each time the men went out.

  Alone.

  Bir.

  Ethan leaned back considering while James and Conner discussed the impact of success and failure both on the band at large and their fighting strength in various situations.

  Bravery and Honor.

  It was not a bad concept to build a people under.

  ___