Iron Powder and Spellcaster

The roster has been sent to Gevaudan. While waiting for the transfer order, the Wolf Town Centurion team began some regular training.

Subjects include formation, use of weapons, and marching.

Winters didn't expect to turn a farmer into a qualified warrior in just a few days. But even auxiliary soldiers must know discipline and obedience to survive in the army.

This is a typical rural army. In terms of organization, Winters tried his best to make every militiaman in the ten-man team come from the same village.

Because when there was a beast disaster a while ago, all the young people in Wolf Town participated in the animal trapping team.

So who in the Centurion is capable, who is honest and reliable, who speaks and the fellow villagers are willing to listen... After the test of a beast disaster, Winters has some understanding of these.

The captains of ten he appointed were all candidates who could convince the public, but there was no militiaman who was unconvinced.

Except for Pierre Michel.

"Brother Winters." At the dining table of the Mitchell family, Pierre was still confused: "Why am I not a captain of ten?"

Without waiting for Winters to answer, Gilad scolded him with a stern face: "You are on duty, so you have to call yourself chief or centurion. When I was on duty, you dared to call your chief like that, so I'll treat you to as many whips as you want."

Ever since Pierre joined the militia, Girard's temper had been high.

Gilad couldn't win over his wife, so he could only hope that his son would grit his teeth and persist and would rather die than obey. But I didn't expect that Pierre was a weakling in front of his mother.

Mr. Mitchell Sr. now gets angry when he sees Mr. Mitchell Jr. now.

"What's the point?" Pierre muttered softly.

"No, it's important to listen to your father." Mrs. Mitchell shook her son's arm and said gently: "You think it's not a big deal, but being heard by others will destroy Mr. Montagne's prestige. .The second lieutenant has already helped you a lot, don’t cause trouble to those who have helped you.”

Pierre was not afraid of his father, but he was very afraid of his mother. Mrs. Mitchell spoke, and Pierre fell silent.

Gilad said angrily: "You guys, just wait. When we get to the military camp, people like you will be kept in submission for a few days and you will be submissive."

During the leisure time after dinner - what the Mitchell maid jokingly called "gentlemen's time" - the men moved to the living room as usual.

There were no other guests today. Girard lay comfortably on the leather chair, filled his pipe, poured wine, and chatted casually with Winters.

In the past, there was no Pierre in this room. Sometimes there were visiting priests, old Dussac and the owner of the manor on other leather chairs.

But since Pierre's name was on the list, Mr. Mitchell senior acquiesced in Mr. Mitchell junior's inclusion.

Pierre held it in for a long time, and finally couldn't hold it back and asked again: "Then why can Vasya become the captain of ten?"

My friend became a captain of ten, but he himself is still the leading soldier. Why? Why? Little Mr. Mitchell's mind was filled with this.

Just when Gilad was about to get angry, Winters calmed the old Dusak and explained seriously: "Because Vashika is older than you."

"Is that why?"

"The Dussacs in the centurion are all relatively young. If you are nineteen years old, you are also a captain of ten."

Pierre was speechless. After a while, he couldn't help but ask again: "When will we be able to practice shooting?"

"What are they practicing now?" Gilad also asked the second lieutenant with some curiosity.

"Queue, I plan to focus on practicing marching in the next few days."

"Just walking around the playground, it's very boring." Pierre rushed to say: "Round and round, just like a donkey pulling a millstone."

Gilad stretched out his hand and hit his son on the back of the head: "Don't underestimate marching. Marching is a science. The old Duke relied on marching to lead us to win one battle after another."

[Note: The old Duke refers to the “butcher” Duke of Arléans]

"What knowledge do you have? Isn't it just walking?" Pierre said aggrievedly, covering his head.

"You are asked to lead a team of 100 people to walk sixty miles every day, from Langtun to Gévaudan, and no one is allowed to fall behind. Can you do it?"

"Yes, why can't you? Why don't you just go along?"

"You are so stupid! You don't have the ability to talk back." Gilad slapped his son again angrily: "If you lead the team, they can't go more than thirty miles, and the person at the head and the person immediately behind can be separated by two kilometers. .You don’t even know someone deserted in the middle of the road!”

Old Dussac looked at Winters: "Second Lieutenant, train him hard and make this kid suffer a little, otherwise you will not know how good the world is."

"They have been training in the town square these days." Winters replied with a smile: "Tomorrow I plan to take them for a walk in the fields."

…

…

The Wolftown centurions, all dressed in different costumes, were marching in single column in the wilderness.

Pierre was limping forward with a musket on his shoulder. Every step he took was extremely painful.

But the queue kept urging him to move forward, leaving him unable to rest.

In the morning, the second lieutenant distributed weapons from the town arsenal to the militiamen. Pierre thought he would practice shooting today.

He rushed to the front and grabbed a matchlock gun, happily thinking he had got a big toy.

While Pierre was waiting to fire the pellets and powder, the ensign ordered everyone to get their weapons and follow him.

This walk lasted a whole day.

I don't know when they left the road, and the team walked in the wilderness until they reached the Bighorn River, and then marched along the river bank.

There was laughter in the queue at first, but in the end there was only painful silence.

It was very difficult for Pierre to even breathe now. He only felt that the muscles in his legs were stiff and sore, and his feet, shoulders, and crotch hurt as if they were being rubbed by iron sand.

He had completely lost the concept of southeast, northwest, and just followed numbly.

The luckiest militiamen were only given one bow. The unstrung single bow felt like a stick in the hand.

The militiamen who were assigned armed swords and halberds were slightly less lucky, as these two weapons were heavier.

The worst of the hapless ones were carrying muskets. The matchlock gun I bought from Gévaudin weighed sixteen pounds each and had no gun belt.

Pierre was carrying a thousand weights on his shoulders, and the flesh on his shoulders was knocked unconscious.

He finally understood the faint smile on the second lieutenant's face when he saw him rushing for the musket.

"That guy," Pierre thought bitterly, "must be sitting comfortably on his silver-gray horse, smiling at us suffering."

To his right was the surging Bighorn River. Pierre, who was on the verge of reaching his limit, had an idea: He could just jump into the river and avoid such torture.

He was startled by his thoughts and shook his head violently.

There was a voice in his heart that kept tempting him: "Why do you want to make trouble for yourself? Why don't you take a break? Take a break, you will feel very comfortable. Don't care about what others think, why should they?" Evaluate you?"

Finally, Pierre abandoned all self-respect. He sat down on the ground and shouted as if he was making a declaration to someone: "I won't leave!"

The people behind him just glanced at him, walked around him wordlessly and continued to follow the queue, everyone did the same.

Sitting on the ground, Pierre first felt indescribable pleasure, followed by endless shame.

He lay on the ground and buried his head in the wormwood.

"Eh? What's wrong with you?" It was Vashika's voice.

"I can't walk any more," said Pierre, sniffing. He wiped it on his face randomly, not wanting others to see that he was crying: "I don't want to leave."

Vashika picked up Pierre's musket: "Keep on holding on."

Pierre stood up with his hands on the ground and nodded silently.

Vashka carried Pierre's gun and his halberd on his shoulders, Pierre limped behind him, and the two rejoined the ranks.

"Vasya," Pierre whispered.

"Um?"

"I know why you can become the captain of ten."

A loud trumpet sound came from the front, and someone shouted: "Rest where you are! Rest where you are!"

Upon hearing the order to rest, the exhausted militiamen threw away their weapons and collapsed to the ground.

Pierre took off his boots impatiently. His feet were as swollen as carrots and had a series of blisters on them.

"I feel like my crotch is worn out." Vashika said with a wry smile.

Pierre didn't answer. The place between his legs was also burning.

A man walked from the front of the queue, and the militiamen along the road bowed their heads in salute - they couldn't stand up.

Walking next to Vashika and Pierre, they recognized the person as Lieutenant Montagne.

The ensign carried a musket and passed by the two Dussacs, nodding lightly at them.

"Gentlemen."

"Sir."

Just passing by each other, the second lieutenant walked towards the back of the queue.

"Did you see that?" Vashika nudged Pierre with his elbow and whispered: "He brought a saber and a gun, and he walked all the way like nothing happened."

Only then did Pierre recall: Lieutenant Winters Montagne was not riding a horse when he set out.

…

In the following days, Winters led the centurions to march through the fields every day.

Most of the militiamen who came from farmers had no complaints, because participating in the training not only provided for food, but also received a salary.

Strictly speaking, Winters's training intensity is not very high, with about fifteen kilometers of cross-country marching every day, carrying only weapons.

If it is a standing army, field marches must travel at least twenty kilometers every day, and this is still under the premise of carrying a full set of weapons and camp equipment.

All the little Dussacs were still tortured to the point of crying for their fathers and mothers. According to Girard, Pierre even urinated blood. But this kid didn't say anything discouraging, and went home and fell asleep.

Pierre suffered, and the Mitchells saw it in their eyes and felt pain in their hearts.

But Gilad still patted his chest and said to the second lieutenant: "Practice this boy hard until he is exhausted."

Ellen Mitchell was becoming more and more intolerable, suffering from every bruise, redness, and blister on Pierre's body.

Winters was surprised to see a subtle shift in the direction of the wind at Mitchell's house.

Mrs. Mitchell, who had advocated sending her son into the militia, now hoped to hire someone to serve on Pierre's behalf, or simply let Pierre leave the militia until he was a grown man.

Girard, who had originally been firmly opposed to Pierre's enlistment, now refused to agree to substitute service or allow Pierre to leave the militia.

The Mitchells had another big argument.

In the end, Pierre made his own decision: "Mom, Dad, stop arguing, I want to stay in the militia."

…

Time passes quickly.

On a foggy day on the fourth Tuesday in October, Winters received his transfer order.

Militiamen gathered in the town square and family members came to see him off.

A son leaves his parents, a husband leaves his wife, a father leaves his children, an elder brother leaves his younger brother...a miserable scene.

No matter how many times he experienced it, Winters could not become numb to it.

He couldn't bear to watch and silently went to help Gilad load the car.

The newly cultivated land is sparsely populated and vast, and most of the time you have to camp in the wild along the way. Cooking utensils and grain were loaded onto four double carts, and the camp tents were carried by militiamen.

Both the draft horse and the cart were purchased by Girard with the town's money. Girard Mitchell was not only a good mayor, but also a good man. Winters had nothing but indescribable gratitude for him. .

Winters bought an extra double cart, which was only said to be used to carry the second lieutenant's luggage, but in fact the young lion was hidden inside.

Bell was no longer able to take care of the cub, so Winters took the cub from the Orion cabin to the police station and fed it cooked minced meat mixed with goat's milk.

Seeing that the little guy is getting bigger day by day, he has grown to seventeen pounds in the blink of an eye, and he looks like a big dog when held in his arms.

Winters couldn't help but seriously consider Bell's proposal: give the "white lion" to a certain Hed tribe on the grassland, and then don't have to worry about it anymore, because the other party will definitely be happy to dedicate the white lion to their king.

It sounds ridiculous at first, but it is feasible if you think about it carefully.

Seeing life but not seeing death, he really couldn't bear to let Winters kill the little lion who would lick him affectionately.

Even if that doesn't work, taking the lion to a wilderness far away from Wolf Town and releasing it is another option.

So Bell and the Cubs both appeared in the team, with Bell serving in place of Ashley Wilkes.

But the little hunter didn't know that Winters secretly returned the money paid by the Wilkes family.

In writing, Bell is not serving as a substitute, but voluntarily serving, and can also be deducted from Dusac's first period of active service.

Ralph should also hope that his son can be re-accepted by the Dussa people.

No one came to see Belle off, and no one came to see off the ponyboy Angelo. The two orphaned boys sat in the cart, silently looking at the gentle militiamen with their families in the town square.

Among the people who came to see him off was someone who shouldn't be here: Franz "Master" Schmidt.

Winters walked to the southeast corner of the town square. In an inconspicuous corner, the gray-haired old executioner was talking to his grandson.

The executioners and grandsons wore simple gray coats, completely different from the colorful costumes they wore on the execution ground.

The old executioner came to see off his grandson Heinrich Schmidt.

Seeing the ensign coming, Franz took off his hat and bowed deeply: "Thank you for giving Heinrich a chance, my lord."

"Easy to do."

No matter how you explain it, the executioner is killing people. This is a cursed profession, and "executioner's bitch" is the most vicious curse word.

People need executioners, but they also despise, spurn, and stay away from executioners.

Because no other industry or group of people will accept them anymore, executioners often become a family craft in the end.

Many executioner families were appointed executioners due to their reputation being damaged, as was the case with the Schmidt family.

The famous teacher Franz also dreamed of restoring his family's reputation. If not, he would at least save future generations from the fate of executioners.

The draw at Wolftown was an opportunity, and after serving as a soldier, Heinrich would have first dibs on purchasing new lands in the Republic.

There, he might be able to remain anonymous, bury his family's past, and live the life of an ordinary farmer.

"Don't be afraid of hardship, don't be homesick..." Franz urged.

Heinrich nodded, but what his grandfather did next surprised him.

The old executioner took out the beheading sword from the carriage and handed it to his grandson solemnly.

"Bring this with you." Franz said word by word: "Remember the pain this sword has brought to the Schmidt family. Remember it forever."

"What are you going to do?" Heinrich held the big sword in panic.

Franz sighed: "It's time for me to retire too."

…

"Brother Winters! The car is all loaded!" Charles ran to Winters and said out of breath, "When are you leaving?"

"Ciel." Winters patted Charles on the shoulder: "You have to call me Centurion now."

The Wolf Town Centurion, consisting of eighty soldiers, two military policemen, and one officer, has all arrived.

For two gendarmes, Winters assigned Charles and Heinrich Schmidt.

The team formed two neat columns, and Father Carman presided over the blessing ceremony for departure.

After the ceremony, Carman led two horses from behind the church yard, one with a saddle and the other with a bag.

"How can we do this without a priest accompanying the army?" the young priest asked with a smile.

Brother Reid walked over from the crowd seeing him off: "Brother Carman, do you want to follow?"

"I won't worry if I don't go with you." Kaman sounded like he was begging for forgiveness.

"Oh, you left, there's no point in me staying here." Red sighed and said to the second lieutenant: "Boy, do you still need a scribe?"

Winters didn't waste any words: "I'll ask Ciel to pack your luggage."

"What luggage do I have?" The old mendicant monk laughed loudly: "I only had two sleeves of breeze when I came, and naturally I will only take two sleeves of breeze with me when I leave."

"Angelou!"

The ponyboy responded and ran over.

"Saddle Redmane for Brother Rhett to ride."

"You kid, I think you want me to die." The old monk glared at the second lieutenant: "You want me to ride a horse with this old bone? You can't think of it. Don't you have a big car? I'll take the car."

After saying that, the old monk walked towards the carriage gracefully.

Winters stepped onto the strong luck, and his eyes swept over the faces of the soldiers, the Wolf Town in the morning fog, and the forests, mountains and thousands of years of snow hidden behind the fog in the distance.

"Let's go." He nudged his horse and was the first to walk out of the town square.

The Montagne Hundred of Wolftun Town was ordered to go to the Maple Stone City Camp.

Old Man Reid who almost had a heart attack: You want me to die!

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