Chapter 1: On the March

Richard Taylor watched his fellow sergeant sink to the ground a few feet from him and warm his hands at the fire. It was bizarre how the desert could scorch bare skin when the sun was up, and freeze it when the sun went down.

Richard wasn't tall but he was well built, in his mid-twenties. He had thick brown hair, brown eyes and wore what the other sergeant wore: a leather vest over a spun cotton tunic, breeches with a belt around his middle, and a bronze sword hanging from his belt.

He waved a chicken leg at his friend. "Sergeant Hoi?"

Hoi looked like he'd swallowed an old pickle, too long in the alum. He was an older man, his face seamed with scars and was physically large, but there wasn't an ounce of fat on him. For all of that, Sergeant Hoi moved with the quick litheness of a man twenty years his junior and a hundred pounds lighter.

Around them the camp was quiet. It was well after dark and there were only a few fires still burning. Most of the troops were sleeping, exhausted after the sixty-third day of the march.

"They've called a Soldier's Council, Dickie," Sergeant Hoi reported. He glanced at Richard. "They wasn't goin' to invite ya."

"I hope they all still have their teeth," Richard said, trying to sound concerned.

Sergeant Hoi chuckled. Richard Taylor was always worried about people's teeth. Obsessed he was, about teeth. As a boy Richard's grandmother, who had raised him, had bad teeth and had given the boy no end of troubles because of her discomfort.

"No problems that I know of with their teeth, Dickie. We explained that it was you who was giving them the warning. There were a few reluctant ones, but they came around when we explained this and that."

Sure, Richard Taylor was concerned about teeth. Bash heads, noses, ears ... split a lip? An eyebrow? A skull? Not a problem where Richard Taylor was concerned. Leave the teeth intact and you were home free. Applying yourself to solve a problem, within Richard Taylor's parameters, was a veritable piece of cake.

"Well," Richard said, trying not to sound as pleased as felt, "perhaps we should go see what they have to say."

Richard and a half dozen of the other Corean sergeants walked from their fire, to a fire well off to one side of the main camp.

Stopping just inside the ring of light, Richard looked at Hoi, who nodded. "I put our own pickets out, Dickie. Half looking in, half looking out. Double pickets. The colonel is dead drunk in his tent."

The senior headquarters sergeant, Sergeant Major Innis, appeared from the direction of the fire, a jack of ale in his hand. He looked Richard up and down. "Big man," Innis said, derisorily.

Richard laughed as he stepped towards the fire. "I'm five eight. The only time I'm big is in bed with a willing girl."

Most of the two dozen men around the fire laughed.

"You think because you was once an officer, that you're better'n us," Innis went on.

This time Richard didn't laugh. "A clever man like you should know how long they let me keep that little bauble on my collar. Not very damn long." Most things about Richard Taylor were average, but not so his eyes. The hazel orbs almost glowed in the firelight.

"And so, why should we listen to a busted officer?" Innis sneered.

Richard was patient. "They took it from me because I sassed a fat colonel who wanted a lot of dead men to show how brave he was ... fetching ice for the palace. Six men died on that trip up the mountains, but not one of them was one of mine.

"Now we have another fat colonel, here with us."

"Drunk," one of the headquarters sergeants volunteered. "He was drunk before the noon halt. He's been drunk ever since. I don't want to go into Harn lands with a drunk in charge. I got a wife and kids, back home. I want to see them again."

Hoi stood up. "I was there. I was there when King Hadrian thought he'd won the biggest battle of his life. I saw Dickie rally us. Hell, I was standing next to him, holding our damn banner. I had to swat a lot of flies to keep it! I did though! And Dickie did what he had to do, and Hadrian had to flog his horse away from the battle to stay alive.

"Damn right they made him an officer! Never was a man who deserved it more! We ain't never been south before, but we Coreans, we know Richard Taylor! You're damn fools if you don't listen to him!"

Sergeant Major Innis looked at Richard, with no expression in his eyes. "So, Sergeant Taylor. What do you say?"

"I say, we either fight as one, or we all die separately. Like him," Richard waved at the sergeant who spoke of his family, "I have reasons I want to go home. Those pale, though, compared to the duty I undertook when I asked these men to come with me. I'm going to take them all home. Every damn man, so help me! And if I can't do that, why, I'm going to make whoever tries to stop me, regret it. You wouldn't want to be part of that, Sergeant Major."

"If you think I'm going to support Colonel Danna, you're wrong," the sergeant major told Richard. "He is a drunk," he waved at his fellow headquarters sergeant. "You're wrong about Danna. The last thing he does before he goes to bed at night is drain his cup. The first thing he does in the morning is fill it again and drain it. I doubt if he's been sober since he was a cornet.

"And you're different?" The sergeant major jerked his thumb at Richard.

Richard grinned. "You bet! We Coreans are a melancholy lot! One reason for that is that earlier today we found a man staked to the ground about two miles west of the march route. A dispatch rider from Fort South, I expect. It wasn't prairie dogs that skinned him alive and left him alive for the bugs to eat."

The sergeants had been listening, all curious. Even so, there were muted comments and conversations. That all stopped.