Legionnaire

When we got back to the barracks, Joryn was awake.

He sat on the edge of his bunk with the children’s book in his hands, staring at the page like it had personally wronged him.

He looked up when we came in.

“How did it go?”

“Useful,” I said.

“That means good?”

“That means useful.”

Vale stepped inside behind me and looked at Joryn.

“And you need this.”

Joryn’s attention shifted to the small vial in Vale’s hand.

The glass was cloudy, and the liquid inside was a thin amber color. Not red like the draught I had used on Isolde. Not bright. Not dramatic. It looked like watered-down honey.

Joryn went still.

“What is that?”

“A minor healing draught,” Vale said. “From Rifthold stores.”

Joryn’s face tightened.

“I cannot pay for that.”

“You are not paying for it today.”

“That means I am paying for it later.”

“Yes,” Vale said.

At least the man was honest.

Vale crossed the space between the bunks and held the vial out, but Joryn did not take it.

“Your wound is closed,” Vale said. “It is not healed enough for selection. This will not make you whole. It will not remove all pain. It will not turn you into a healthy man overnight. But it should strengthen the tissue, reduce the chance of fever, and keep you from tearing yourself open during the first week.”

Joryn looked at the vial like it weighed more than armor.

“How much?”

“Seventy-five silver.”

He closed his eyes for half a second.

I understood the reaction. A standing soldier made maybe five silver a week. Seventy-five silver was not a little debt. It was months of poor man’s money.

“One hundred silver makes a gold,” Vale said. “So yes, it is expensive. It is also less expensive than missing your chance because you were too wounded to stand in formation.”

Joryn opened his eyes.

“I already owe a sentence.”

“You do,” Vale said. “This is separate.”

“That does not make it better.”

“No. But it makes it clear.”

Vale lowered the vial slightly.

“Rifthold keeps accounts for candidates. Food, barracks, basic training clothing, practice equipment, and instruction are covered during selection. Anything beyond that is recorded. Healing draughts. Lost gear. Damage from carelessness. Specialized equipment. If you pass and become a legionnaire, the debt is taken from your pay over time.”

“And if I fail?”

“If you fail honorably, the account remains, but it does not become a punishment. If you fail through theft, desertion, assault, or deliberate misconduct, then the account will be the least of your problems.”

Joryn looked down at his hands.

Vale’s voice stayed calm.

“This is not charity. Rifthold is investing in a candidate. There is a difference.”

Joryn nodded once, but he still did not take the vial.

“What does a legionnaire make?” I asked.

Vale glanced at me.

“Base pay depends on rank and specialty. A new legionnaire earns more than a standing soldier. Usually fifteen to twenty silver a week to start.”

Joryn’s mouth tightened.

“That would still take a long time.”

“On base pay, yes,” Vale said. “But legionnaires receive assignment pay.”

“What kind of assignment pay?” I asked.

“Field deployment. Active warfront. Monster-zone work. Deep patrol. Ruin recovery. Siege duty. Breach duty. Escort through dangerous territory. Special tasking. Hazard pay assigned by command. The more dangerous or valuable the work, the more it pays.”

That sounded familiar.

Different world. Same idea.

“You want people to volunteer for the bad jobs,” I said.

“The bad jobs must be done,” Vale said. “It is better if the people doing them are compensated.”

“And cores?” I asked.

“Handled separately. Sometimes turned in for compensation. Sometimes awarded as recovery shares. Sometimes distributed by command for unit strength. It depends on the unit, the commander, and the circumstances.”

“So a legionnaire can make real money.”

“If he survives long enough to collect it.”

Joryn let out a slow breath.

That answer did not comfort him, but it seemed to make sense.

Vale held the vial out again.

“Seventy-five silver is a burden. It is not impossible. If you pass selection and serve well, you can repay it.”

“And armor?” Joryn asked.

Vale looked at him.

“If you pass selection, your first true Legion field kit will be issued to you and recorded against your account.”

“How much?”

“For a standard full kit? Roughly ten gold.”

Joryn stared at him.

I did too.

“Ten gold,” I said.

Vale nodded.

“Armor, fitted underlayers, proper boots, weapon harness, maintenance tools, oil, straps, spare buckles, repair kit, field cloak, pack frame, and the other pieces required to keep a legionnaire alive and useful. More for specialized equipment. Less if stores can fit you from recovered or refurbished issue.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Joryn looked like someone had just added a mountain to his back.

“That is a thousand silver.”

“Yes.”

“That is more money than I have seen in my life.”

“Most candidates can say the same,” Vale said. “That is why it is not demanded up front.”

I leaned back against my bunk.

“So the Legion gives you the gear, then takes it out of your pay.”

“Correct. Slowly enough that a legionnaire can still live. Quickly enough that the debt is not forgotten.”

“And if we die?” I asked.

“Then your debt is no longer your concern.”

That was very Vale.

Joryn looked at the vial again.

“Ten gold for armor. Seventy-five silver for this.”

“Yes,” Vale said. “And without armor, men die. Without this draught, you may not even reach the point where armor matters.”

That landed.

Joryn sat very still for a moment.

Then he reached out and took the vial.

“I accept the charge.”

Vale nodded.

“Drink it.”

Joryn pulled the stopper and swallowed the draught in one go.

His face twisted immediately.

“That is foul.”

“Minor draughts often are.”

Joryn coughed once, then pressed a hand to his side.

For a few breaths, nothing happened.

Then he went rigid.

I straightened.

Vale raised one hand without looking at me.

“Wait.”

Joryn bent forward, gripping the edge of the bunk so hard his knuckles went pale.

“Burns,” he hissed.

“It is working,” Vale said.

Joryn made a sound that said he had opinions about that.

A faint amber warmth spread beneath the bandage at his side. Not bright. Not enough to draw attention from across the barracks. Just a thin pulse of light under the cloth, there and gone, then there again.

Joryn breathed through his teeth.

The pulse faded.

His shoulders slowly dropped.

After a few more seconds, he sat back.

“How is it?” I asked.

He touched the bandage carefully.

Then he blinked.

“Better.”

“Not healed,” Vale said.

“No,” Joryn said. “But better.”

“That is what seventy-five silver bought.”

Joryn looked at the empty vial in his hand.

“For a chance.”

“For a chance,” Vale agreed. “Not a guarantee.”

Joryn handed the vial back.

“Thank you, Senior Vale.”

“Repay it by not wasting it.”

“I will.”

Vale tucked the empty vial away and looked at both of us.

“Understand this now. The Legion is expensive because survival is expensive. Armor is expensive. Oil is expensive. Medicine is expensive. Sigils are expensive. Cores are valuable. Training costs time, food, instructors, and broken equipment. Nothing here is free.”

He looked at Joryn.

“But unlike the standing army, the Legion gives a man a way to earn.”

Joryn nodded slowly.

I could see him doing the math in his head and not liking the numbers.

But he was still sitting in a candidate barracks instead of a prison cart.

That mattered.

Vale turned to me.

“Your lessons continue this evening.”

“Language and Binding?”

“Yes. The instructors will own your days soon enough. Until then, I will use what time remains.”

Joryn looked between us.

“You train after all this?”

“Wade must graduate proficient in the language,” Vale said. “And his Binding will not become useful by being admired from a distance.”

That sounded about right.

Vale moved toward the door, then paused.

“Eat if you are hungry. Wash if you have not. Study if you can. In two days, your time will no longer belong to you.”

Then he left.

Joryn sat on his bunk, breathing slowly, one hand resting near his side.

After a while, he looked at me.

“Ten gold.”

“Yeah.”

“Seventy-five silver.”

“Yeah.”

He stared toward the doorway Vale had gone through.

“The Legion is expensive.”

I looked around the barracks. The bunks. The candidate marks. The people pretending not to be scared. The fortress outside grinding everyone into something harder or sending them away broken.

“Yeah,” I said. “But at least here, expensive buys you a chance.”

Joryn was quiet for a moment.

Then he nodded.

“I suppose that is better than the cart.”

“Low bar.”

This time, he actually smiled.

Small.

Tired.

But real.

The rest of the day went by in pieces.

Food. Washing. More studying. Finding out which parts of Rifthold we were allowed to walk through and which parts got us stared at by guards who looked like they were hoping someone would test them.

By evening, Vale returned for language.

He did not take it easy because it was our first day inside the walls.

If anything, he pushed harder.

He made me describe the barracks, then the yard, then the keep. He corrected my words when I mixed up gate and door again. He made me repeat phrases until they stopped feeling like rocks in my mouth.

After that came Binding.

Only the basics.

Find the bond.

Hold attention on it.

Do not force.

Do not rush.

Stop when the pressure started behind my eyes.

By the time Vale finally left, my head hurt, my patience was thin, and the barracks had settled into the low noise of tired people trying to pretend they were not nervous.

Joryn was already stretched out on his bunk, one hand resting near his side. The draught had helped, but it had not made him whole. He looked better, though. Less gray. Less like a hard sneeze might kill him.

“Still alive?” I asked quietly.

“For now,” he said without opening his eyes.

“Good.”

“That is your healer’s assessment?”

“That and you’re still complaining.”

He made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh if he had more energy.

After a while, his breathing slowed.

The barracks did not go silent. Not completely. Someone snored near the door. Someone muttered in their sleep. A bunk creaked. Boots shifted under a bed. Outside, Rifthold still made noise in the dark. Distant voices. A watch call from the wall. The low ring of metal from somewhere near the forge.

But it was quiet enough.

I waited longer anyway.

Then I reached into my things and found the scrap of cloth tucked where no one had any reason to look.

The core rolled into my palm.

For a few seconds, I just stared at it.

It was not like the others.

The Grade I cores had looked strange, sure, but simple. Monster stones. Dull color. Faint glow. Something weird enough to come from this world but small enough to believe.

This one was different.

At first glance, it looked almost black. But when I turned it slightly, color moved under the surface. Deep blue. Thin gold lines. A pale white pulse at the center that came and went like a slow heartbeat.

It looked expensive.

That was the first thought.

Not powerful. Not magical. Expensive.

Then Vale’s words came back.

Cores may help as well, if the proper ones can be acquired.

I almost laughed.

Tovan had acquired one, all right.

Or stolen one.

Or killed something terrible enough to cut it out.

I did not know which answer was worse.

He had not handed it to Vale. He had not told me to get it checked. He had slipped it into my palm under a gauntlet at the gate and told me to use it tonight.

That meant it was not normal.

It meant if anyone found out, there would be questions I could not answer.

Maybe questions Tovan did not want asked.

I looked across at Joryn.

Still asleep.

I looked toward the door.

No one watching.

“This is stupid,” I whispered.

The core sat in my palm, dark and beautiful and quiet.

My Mana was seven.

Seven.

Binding cost mana. Misfortune cost mana. Training them cost mana. Vale had just explained, very carefully, that I had talents I could not afford to use much.

Tovan knew enough to know that mattered.

Maybe he did not know everything.

But he knew enough.

I brought the core to my mouth.

Then stopped.

There was still time to put it away.

There was still time to be smart. Wait. Ask Vale. Tell the truth. Let someone with actual knowledge look at it before I swallowed a secret monster rock given to me by a man who had laughed while telling me not to shit myself from taking too many cores.

That would have been the reasonable thing.

I put it on my tongue.

For one heartbeat, it was just hard and cold.

Then it broke apart.

Not dissolved.

Broke.

The shell gave way all at once, and whatever was inside flooded my mouth like cold metal and lightning.

I swallowed before my body could reject it.

The core hit my stomach like a fist.

I curled around it, teeth clamping down on the edge of my blanket before the sound could get out.

Pain spread fast.

Stomach first. Then chest. Then down through my legs and up into my skull. Heat and cold moved together, wrong in a way my body did not know how to process. My muscles tightened hard enough that my calves cramped. My hands shook. Sweat broke across my face and neck.

I could not breathe right.

I forced it.

In.

Hold.

Out.

Again.

Do not wake anyone.

Do not puke.

Do not scream.

My stomach twisted again.

I buried my face in the blanket and rode it out.

The pressure behind my eyes came next. Hard. Sharp. Like my skull had been packed too full and something inside was looking for more room. For a second, I thought I had fucked up badly enough to kill myself before selection even started.

That would have been about right.

Then the pressure shifted.

Not gone.

Changed.

It spread out of my head and down through my body in slow, heavy pulses. Every pulse left something behind. Not strength. Not exactly. More like space. Like something inside me had been cramped my whole life and was being forced open inch by inch.

It hurt.

Not like a wound.

Like growth.

I hated that thought immediately.

My hands clenched around the blanket. My jaw ached. I could feel my heartbeat in my teeth.

Across the room, someone shifted.

I froze.

A candidate muttered something in his sleep, rolled over, and went still again.

I waited until my lungs burned, then let out a slow breath.

The worst of it lasted long enough that I lost track.

Minutes, probably.

It felt longer.

Eventually, the cramps faded from sharp to miserable. My breathing steadied. The sweat on my skin cooled. My hands still trembled, but they obeyed when I told them to move.

I rolled onto my back and stared up into the dark.

The core was gone.

Whatever it had done was not.

I felt too awake. Too full. Like I had drunk too much coffee and gotten hit by a truck at the same time.

Slowly, carefully, I pulled back my sleeve.

The brand looked normal.

51 | 52 | 36 | 46 | 84 | 7

For a second, nothing changed.

Then the last number blurred.

The black lines shifted under my skin, slow and silent.

The seven pulled apart.

Reformed.

51 | 52 | 36 | 46 | 84 | 30

I stared at it.

Thirty.

Not seven.

Thirty.

I waited for something else to happen.

Fire from my hands. A voice in my head. A sudden understanding of the universe. Some big magical revelation that would explain why a number jumping that much felt like it should have cracked the room open.

Nothing came.

Of course it didn’t.

Mana was fuel.

Pathways were wiring.

Mine were still narrow.

I was not a mage.

I just had a much bigger tank.

I covered the brand and lay still, breathing through the last of the twisting in my gut.

Tovan, you crazy bastard.

I did not know what kind of favor he thought I would owe him one day.

But he had just given me exactly what I needed.

And he had made damn sure no one else knew it.