15:Forged in the Mud
The biting wind deep within the swamp could do little to disperse the thick stench of blood clinging to the earth.
Twenty-eight green-skinned orc corpses, alongside dozens of goblins, had been stripped bare of their gear. They were dragged to the edge of the sulfur rift at the village entrance and kicked unceremoniously into the boiling, superheated mud.
There was no need to waste energy digging graves, the scalding sludge would melt away flesh and bone alike, eliminating any risk of plague.
As the initial panic subsided, this hidden refugee village—concealed for over a century—erupted into sheer jubilation.
Throngs of villagers clad in coarse linen crept out of their root cellars. Dozens of men gathered around Soren’s recruits, their eyes filled with uncontainable awe.
That awe turned to breathless apprehension whenever their gazes drifted toward the fence, where the Blackstone Direwolves—beasts the size of calves—were currently tethered.
To honor their saviors, the village elder—Ein’s grandfather—ordered the village's largest stilt-house cleared for them.
Normally reserved for drying fish and offering sacrifices to the Water God, the structure's thick, blackened wooden planks did an excellent job of keeping the swamp's damp chill at bay.
The fire pit was soon roaring back to life.
Dry wood crackled, casting a warm, orange glow across everyone's faces.
The villagers generously hauled in over a dozen mud-sealed clay jugs. The moment the seals were cracked open, the heady aroma of alcohol filled the wooden cabin. It was a local specialty of the Misty Swamps: a harsh but potent moonshine brewed from blue-skinned berries.
Next came the feast: over a dozen thick-tailed swamp lizards, roasted until they were glistening with grease.
These creatures were notoriously vicious, often costing the villagers dearly in blood and lives just to hunt them. Now, the lizard meat was carved into thick, palm-sized chunks, seasoned with coarse salt, and skewered on thick grass stems. As they roasted along the edge of the fire pit, savory fat dripped into the flames, sending up plumes of fragrant white smoke.
Soren's twenty-five recruits were ravenous. Having survived the bloody crucible of their first real battle that day, they were riding a massive adrenaline high. Gulping down the fiery brew and tearing into the piping-hot meat, many flushed red with excitement as they boasted to the villagers about their harrowing skirmish against the orcs.
Soren, however, did not join the revelry.
He sat alone by a horizontal window near the back of the loft, his gaze piercing through the opening to scrutinize the village’s layout.
Fire, a steady water source, food, and a natural chokepoint that could be easily defended.
It was impeccable terrain. A perfect foundation to establish a territory of his own.
Once Leona established a foothold elsewhere with the main force of the Crimson Moon Knights, the two factions would be perfectly positioned to support each other.
The door hinges let out a faint creak.
A tall, swarthy figure pushed past the woven grass curtain and stepped into the inner room.
It was Ein. He had stripped off his blood-stained sheepskin tunic and left his signature large wooden longbow behind. He stopped exactly three paces from Soren and dropped crisply to one knee.
"What is it?" Soren didn't even turn his head, his gaze still fixed on the ink-blue night sky outside.
Ein looked up, his youthful face bearing a solemnity far beyond his years.
"My Lord, I wish to join your ranks. From this day forth, my life is yours."
Soren finally turned his head.
"Give me a reason. You have food and drink here. Your family is here. Why abandon a peaceful life to join a band of soldiers who might not live to see tomorrow?"
"Peaceful?" Ein let out a bitter laugh."That's just self-deception. My Lord, I grew up fighting for survival in this swamp. I see things clearly."
He pointed toward the outskirts of the village.
"If those two dozen half-breed orcs managed to slip in, the Blackstone Warband's grand purge can't be far behind. You saved us today, but what about tomorrow? The day after?"
Ein met Soren's eyes without flinching.
"Today, my grandfather was almost eaten alive. My little brother cowered behind a water vat, trembling in terror. I never want to taste that kind of helplessness again in my life."
"In the swamp, if you lack strength, even drawing breath is a sin."
"You are the most ruthless, powerful man I have ever met. Only by following a badass like you—someone who actually takes the fight to the orcs—will the village survive!"
His blunt honesty made the corners of Soren's mouth twitch upward.
Smart. Incredibly lucid. He understood the true laws of survival.
His [Inspect] skill hadn't lied. This archer, possessing the [Natural Hunter] and [Calm] talents, was born to be a grim reaper on the battlefield.
Soren pulled a quiver from his waist, drew a standard-issue military arrow, and tossed it to Ein.
Ein caught it with both hands.
"Hold onto the Crimson Moon's arrow, and consider yourself enlisted."
Soren stood up."Remember your words today. From now on, your life belongs to me!"
"Understood!" Ein nodded heavily, tucking the arrow into the pouch on his chest.
Dawn was just breaking.
The cold, damp mist of the swamp still rolled heavily around the wooden cabins, but the footsteps outside were far more chaotic than the early morning birds.
Soren pushed open the loft's heavy wooden door, met immediately by a gust of frigid wind.
He saw a line of men.
Over thirty young men in coarse linen tunics stood stiffly in three rows in the clearing below. Ein was at the forefront.
A fierce argument had broken out in the village the night before. The elders favored hiding, hoping to evade the impending sweep by the Blackstone Warband. But after witnessing how orcs ate humans alive, Ein and the young men of the village had reached their breaking point.
Groveling in the mud would not buy them peace.
The clearing littered with green-skinned corpses, coupled with the recruits' bragging about their rich spoils of war, had ignited the primal wildness buried deep in the bones of these swamp fishermen.
Seeing Soren emerge, a ripple of movement went through the disorganized crowd.
A burly man with pockmarked cheeks bellowed at the top of his lungs, "Commander, count us in! Hiding like turtles will just get us killed anyway! We want to enlist and kill orcs!"
"Yeah! Take us with you!"
The crowd echoed his sentiment, their voices carrying far through the dense fog.
These men had solid builds, some were even broader across the shoulders than the Crimson Moon Knights' official recruits. Having spent their lives wrestling swamp monsters and crocodiles for their daily meals, their physical strength was nothing to scoff at.
Soren's gaze swept slowly over them.
"You chose this path yourselves. Don't come crying to me when it hurts."
Soren descended the stairs, skipping the pleasantries. He simply raised a hand.
"I only want soldiers who follow my orders. Right now, every single one of you will go to the river, pick up a square stone weighing at least sixty pounds, and march five laps around the village swamp."
The men froze for a second, baffled by the strange command. But when Ein stripped off his outer tunic and charged toward the riverbed, the rest gritted their teeth and immediately followed suit.
An hour later.
Of the thirty-plus men, only half were barely left standing.
Soren’s eyes were razor-sharp as he paced slowly down the line.
"Calf muscles too relaxed, breathing out of sync earlier. Step out. Go sort the supplies."
"Eyes shifting, weak willpower, afraid of fighting orcs. Piss off and go back to babysitting."
A few of the men opened their mouths to argue, but upon meeting Soren’s freezing glare, they swallowed hard and meekly stepped back.
Fifteen minutes later.
Only twelve men remained.
They were all big-boned, possessed a ruthless glint in their eyes, and had lung capacities far exceeding normal men. These were the true elites of the swamp.
Added to the original twenty-five recruits, plus Ein acting as instructor and lead archer. . .
A thirty-eight-man combat unit had officially taken shape.
Soren looked at the twelve local brawny men standing with their chests puffed out. But a second later, his brow furrowed slightly.
They had good bones, but their equipment was downright beggar-tier.
Among the twelve, there were three single-pronged steel pitchforks tipped with red rust, four chipped cleavers normally used for chopping fish bones, and a few guys literally holding flails made of heavy stones wrapped in thick, thorny vines.
Armor was nonexistent. The best-equipped man among them was merely wearing a tunic stitched from a few layers of river-hippo skin.
Recalling the brutal, close-quarters street fighting from yesterday, Soren remembered exactly how tough the orcs' black steel chainmail really was. Stabbing it with these rusty fish forks wouldn't even leave a scratch.
Soren looked up at the rejected men who had not yet slunk off to their homes.
"From this moment on, these twelve are soldiers of the Crimson Moon. We will protect this village. In return, your job is to forge the tools we need to butcher the orcs."
"The geothermal sulfur rift burns incredibly hot. Build a stone kiln over it. Take the shattered armor and iron rings we stripped from the dead orcs yesterday and smelt them down. I want that liquid iron cast into arrowheads."
"Furthermore, grind all the captured orc weapons down until they're razor-sharp and distribute them to these twelve men!"
"As for the shaded slopes on the west side of the village where the rot-poison flora grows. . . Have three girls with nimble fingers gather the herbs. Grind them up and mix them with clean spring water to create fever-reducing and pain-relieving poultices."
With logistics delegated to the rejected villagers, Soren focused his full attention on the military discipline of his thirty-eight men.
Time was of the essence. He had to drill these thirty-eight men into elite soldiers as quickly as possible!
Back on Earth, he had been a Special Forces drill instructor. In this mud pit of a medieval, cold-weapon world, when it came to assassination tactics, squad-based teamwork, and infantry drill manuals, no commanding officer could surpass his expertise.
Standing in a freshly cleared patch of mud, Soren pulled out the water clepsydra he had staked into the ground to keep time.
"Starting today, forget all those pretty, posturing charges the Knights use to look good for the nobles. And forget the sloppy, undisciplined habits you use when spearing fish."
"I demand only three things from you: Obedience! Formation! And shutting your damn mouths!"
Over the next seven days. . .
These thirty-eight men endured a hellish, demonic boot camp.
Day One was about establishing absolute obedience.
The twelve slightly rebellious locals and the Crimson Moon recruits were ordered to strip off their shirts. Each man had to hold a heavy wooden log aloft while standing knee-deep in the edge of the swamp.
Leeches swarmed through the freezing water, crawling up their trouser legs.
If a single man dared to reach down to swat a bug, cry out in pain, or even turn his head. . . he was met with the thick rattan cane in Soren’s hand. A single lash would tear the skin on their backs, leaving a bleeding, purple welt.
Day Four. All weapons were confiscated. Each man was issued nothing but a rock and a sturdy hardwood stick.
"Listen well." Soren raised two fingers."When I make a fist with my left hand, I don't care what happens—everyone drops into cover. When I point my index and middle fingers forward, both flanks break off for a pincer assault."
It was dull.
Repetitive.
A single wrong move meant half a day of starvation.
The thirty-eight men were tormented in the mud until they barely looked human anymore. But as their nervous systems adapted, reflexively catching and responding to Soren’s hand signals, a terrifyingly silent phantom squad was being forged.
The evening of the Seventh Day.
Freezing rain fell from the bleak, overcast sky, lashing against the men's exposed skin.
In the muddy clearing, Soren stood at the forefront.
Thirty-eight mud-caked soldiers had formed a flawless inverted-triangle wedge formation—perfect for both defense and a charge.
Ein stood at the core of the formation. The twelve village fishermen tightly gripped ash-black short spears looted from the goblins. Forming the outer perimeter were the Crimson Moon recruits, shields raised.
The entire clearing was devoid of a single scrape of metal or clatter of wood. Every man's gaze was dead-set, locked entirely onto Soren's hand.
Soren slowly raised his left arm, palm facing down, and pressed it downward.
Whoosh!
Instantly, all thirty-eight men dropped into a silent crouch, drawing their blades and blending into cover on one knee.
Aside from the patter of freezing rain hitting the mud, the gloomy dusk was utterly silent.
This was a unit that had been polished to the point of absolute, unquestioning discipline. A squad designed to do nothing but silently snap their enemies' necks.
Now, it was time to march them out for live combat. It was time for them to see some blood.