Beneath the Iron

II. Fieri Facias

The sound of a metal file screeching across the bottom of a pan about an inch from her ear jarred Helva awake. Dawn was just barely visible on the horizon, the sky slowly lightening long before the sun rose. She rolled over in her bedroll to see Sallustius straightening up. "Good morning, Decanus," she said groggily. She looked over to the pile of spare clothes and blanket where she'd tucked their rescue, only to find wide blue eyes staring at her in terror. Apparently that noise had surprised the girl as much as Helva.

Sallustius's expression was as serious as ever, but she recognized the wicked glint in his brown eyes. "Like my new song?"

"Sounds like singing doves," Helva groaned as she sat up. Her entire body felt like a giant bruise. Sallustius had found a suitably springy sapling to create a wooden switch. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but it didn't cut the way a scourge would have. For all his grimness, he could be very considerate.

"Well, I'll see if the others love music too," Sallustius said. He paused for a moment, thoughtfully. "You look cold, Helva. Best thing for the cold is a healthy run. I want ten circuits of the encampment."

Helva cursed inside her head. That meant ten circuits around the entire legion's quarters. Instead of immediately occupying their taken fortress, engineers were inspecting every inch of the Fosii stronghold. Meanwhile, the rest of the legion had built their own fortification outside, with a large stone-and-earth wall constructed with shovels and pickaxes, surrounded by a deep ditch. That had been particularly miserable with the frozen ground, though there had been plenty of stone to work with now that the wall had collapsed into rubble, which meant less digging overall. The legion laid everything out in a perfect grid, everything accounted for, everyone ready just in case of an attack. "Yes, Decanus," she said dutifully, pulling on her gloves. "What about Eirlys?"

"I'll watch her," he said gruffly. "And she's sharing your rations, Helva. I'm not requisitioning extra food."

Another complication to her life that she didn't really want. The legion didn't waste food. She had barely more than she needed for optimal function. That meant she would walk around hungry, if only a little, which would make everything else more difficult. "Understood, Decanus," she said instead of whining, getting her boots on and then standing. It was time to run. "I'll hurry."

"That's what I like to hear," Sallustius said. He looked down at Eirlys and then grabbed the blanket off Helva's abandoned bedroll. He threw it at the girl who grabbed it and immediately wrapped it around her shoulders. "You're going to be trouble."

Helva took off at a jog, pulling in deep, even breaths of the frigid air. She'd just worn her subarmalis to bed, prepared to don armor at any moment. It was a thick, reinforced black silk shirt and similar pants, with fine chain added at the joints. It wasn't as warm as the wool and furs that their enemy wore, but thin layers of thermal wear over the top seemed to do the job perfectly well, not to mention the heat generated in battle.

The rest of her century was waking up slowly. She heard general clatter and clangs, designed to rouse soldiers. Each contubernium had their own tent, usually packed in like sardines given that they had an entire legion to house. 11,000 soldiers in one area meant space was at something of a premium. By the time she hit the last lap, she was not alone. Helva had always been one of the best runners, only slower than Sallustius, out of their century. She was used to blowing by people and this was no different. She saw an entire contubernium running with their decanus at the rear, "motivating" them at the top of his lungs. They looked terrified and as young as she was. They lacked discipline still, but their decanus would fix that. Sallustius had taught her all about being a soldier.

Sallustius wasn't the kind of man to shout, which arguably made him worse than the antagonist to those poor sods. He was creative. The last time he felt the need to discipline her, which was a rare event, she'd spent five hours making sand-angels on the shores of the glacial lakes that they'd passed...without her subarmalis or armor to keep her warm. It had imparted a valuable lesson about interrupting another soldier's punishment with food or drink for them. His officer would determine how much he could take and that judgment was to be trusted.