Chapter 5

Almost everybody was alert for trouble as we marched the mile or so to the depository. The only problems were with a couple of the youngest boys who could not see that they were subject to the same rules as the rest of the group. I looked those two up as soon as we reached the site of the depository and read them the riot act. I told them that they would not get any weapons today because of the way that they had refused to obey orders. Furthermore, they were not welcome in our army if they did not straighten up their act.

Well, as expected, that produced a gush of tears from both boys and profuse apologies for their actions. Promises were made to straighten up and act like soldiers. I agreed to issue them a pike and a knife based on their promises to behave, but I also said that they were on thin ice and one bit of foolishness from either one would result in the loss of the weapons and expulsion from the army. That seemed to have the desired effect on the two boys, and it didn’t take long for what I had said to them to make its way through the whole company. That was my intention, and I sure hoped it would work.

After swearing everybody to secrecy (a fat lot of good that did), we cleared the trash from in front of the door and Naomi, Bill, and I began issuing a pike, a sword, and a knife to everybody except those two boys. They were forced to wait to be the last ones to receive weapons, and they did not get a sword yet. My rationale was that I was afraid that they would forget themselves and hurt some human with a carelessly used sword. That really made an impression on the boys because several of their friends already had swords.

I admonished everyone to wear his or her sword down the back the way I did so that it would not interfere with the use of the pike or with other things that they would be doing. Naturally, there was some grumbling at that, but I ignored it for now.

All of this took all morning, so I released everybody to go home for lunch with instructions to meet at the park in two hours for the first drill with marching and the use of the pike. That had everybody excited as they hurried off to eat. I knew that some of them would be late in getting back to the park, but I intended to make allowances for the first day. However, I was going to tighten up my demands as we progressed with the training. I was building what amounted to a guerilla army, and they had to have a bit more slack than a fully professional one. I hoped to work my way toward that, but I figured that to take at least a year.

It turned out that Bill was an orphan, so his home was pretty much where he happened to be at the moment. Naomi was much taken with him, and she had no trouble convincing me to give him his three drops of the Water of Life. Now, he was truly a free man and could do whatever he wanted to.

Bill stayed with us during the lunch break, so I spent some time in training both of them on the use of the knife. My thought was that a scout had more need for a knife than for a sword, but we would eventually get to that. After everybody else had left for the evening, we were going to find Bill the necessary steel cable to make him a set of bracers for his wrists. With those, he would never be unarmed against a demon once I taught him how to use them both as offensive and defensive weapons. Dammit, I had a lot of training time ahead of me in the foreseeable future.

The afternoon went pretty much as I had predicted. Each of the squad leaders, a veteran of the first fight with demons, began training the squads in simple drill maneuvers. I circulated around the park making suggestions and correcting mistakes until each squad was doing pretty well on its own. We spent the first two hours with this kind of training, then we spent an hour in learning to use the pike. Oh, my God, that was chaotic! Nobody got hurt, but the situation was close on occasion.

Okay, there it was. I wasn’t sure just when it would show up, but I was not surprised when it did. I started to hear the gripes about “I’m bored with all of this marching around and poking holes in the air. When are we going to kill some demons?”

The only way to quell this kind of disquiet was to have an actual demonstration of the “why” of this apparently useless practice. Therefore, I promised to have a battle with demons as soon as a suitable group could be found. At the end of the day’s session, I asked everybody to look around to find us a suitable target which I described a one with up to 10 Erglets and no more than two or three Grampits. If anybody knew of such a group, they should let me know so that an attack could be planned. That struck a spark in everybody, and they left for home in a happier mood. God help me if there is a screw up!

The next morning, several people showed up with target suggestions. Two looked promising, so I sent Naomi to look at one target and Bill to look at the other. They each took some budding scouts with them to gain some practical experience. They returned within a reasonable time to report that there was not much to choose from between the two possibilities. I winked at Naomi and chose the one that Bill had investigated. I wanted to boost his confidence. His group happened to be the closer of the two, so that was a good reason to choose that one.

I had the squad leaders form up their squads and told them the plan of attack, which was essentially the same as the one we had used previously. That way, the veterans knew exactly what to expect and could guide the new recruits. Hopefully, that would be enough to keep down the number of goofs and accidents.

We marched to the street and got lined up in reasonably good order. Each squad leader emphasized to his squad that they should keep looking for problems as we marched. Anyone caught goofing off would be dismissed immediately with no appeal. The two errant boys from the previous march were specifically admonished to be on their best behavior. They took heed of the warning.

We tried to keep the noise level down, but 100 marchers who were heading for their first battle could never be completely quiet. Oh, well, they were excited at the prospect of killing some demons, so I overlooked the occasional burst of noise. I never hoped for perfection, and, of course, I never got it.

We arrived at another one of those former parking lots to find 12 Erglets with three Grampits. Somebody must have wandered in since the scouts visited the place, but this was not enough of a change to make a difference. Dammed if the demons didn’t act with pure disdain toward us. A force of 100 humans would certainly have upset me, but the demons refused to take us seriously.

We seemed to ignore the demons as we began to form our circle. We were about half-way through our encircling maneuver when an Erglet must have been looking for some amusement, so he sent the three Grampits toward us. The Grampits stayed together as they ran in our direction. Luckily, I happened to be very near the section of our line that the Grampits were charging, so I dashed over to place myself between the humans and the Grampits.

I was carrying my halberd, and I extended it toward the nearest Grampit. It never slowed down its charge, and it ran right up on the spike. That actually gave me some trouble because I had to wrestle the spike from its dead body. Well, I did not have the time for that, so I dropped the halberd and drew my two sabers.

One of the Grampits selected me as its target and jumped at my throat. I had a moment to think about what I wanted to do and decided to use my left bracer as a kind of shield. The creature jumped at me with its jaws open, and I swung my arm toward its head. My wrist entered its mouth and broke all of its teeth in passing. The principle damage was done when the last few coils of cable wrapped around my wrist struck the Grampit just below its left ear. To my surprise, the whole left side of its head was crushed, and the creature was flung about 10 feet back toward the collection of Erglets.