I’d be the first to admit I didn’t have the first clue when training troops. Hell, I had practically no leadership experience to speak of, even in civilian affairs, unless you count that speech Sinclair had me make in front of Basecrest.

  What I did have, however, was thousands of hours playing Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, and a whole host of other Real Time Strategy games, and while I was under no illusions that that experience was anything even close to reality, the Testudo formation wasn’t born from gaming. It was a real formation used by Roman Legionnaires to incredible effect throughout the Roman Empire’s long and tumultuous history.

  Fortunately, projecting an aura of confidence made even experts believe you knew your shit, at least until you said something stupid and broke the image. My reputation among the Basecresters certainly didn’t hurt, either. I just hoped no one noticed the sweat beading up on my forehead.

  “Alright, show me your shield wall, then,” I said, pacing back and forth in front of the City Guard. Captain Alistair had given me free rein to train the troops, and this would be their very first lesson.

  The sixty soldiers moved into formation, organizing into six rows of ten. They moved with an efficient precision, and it was immediately obvious they’d drilled this technique quite a bit.

  The final arrangement was a formation with the front row deploying their tower shields while the rows behind them flipped their shields up to brace against arrow fire. The second and third rows pointed their spears through the gaps, presenting a double spear wall against charging troops and cavalry.

  “Well?” Alistair asked with crossed arms and a look of pride that told me there was only one right answer here.

  “You’ve trained them well,” I admitted, impressed at the ease with which they adopted the formation. “I’m guessing you don’t have much use for formations like these during your day-to-day peacekeeping activities?”

  “Almost none,” Alistair said. “Yet the Cataclysm approaches. After being forced to contend with the Dungeon’s forces, I’ve had the men drilling battlefield tactics nonstop.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “Really good. That means we’ll have a good chance of improving this formation to suit our needs.”

  “What’s there to improve?” Alistair asked, clearly not expecting my response.

  “For one? Your flanks and rear are exposed,” I said. “These are elves we’re going up against. Even in an open field, we should assume they’ll be highly mobile. Second… March forward!”

  I raised my voice and shouted that last bit to be heard.

  The troops obeyed, starting a slow advance.

  “Good. Now march back!”

  Beside me, I could see Alistair grow visibly uncomfortable.

  The rearward march was mostly fine, with a few soldiers tripping over the feet of those behind them. Those were rare, though, and no one actually fell. A decent job overall.

  It was when I asked them to move to the side that all pandemonium broke loose. Once the first soldier fell, it was like watching a train fly off a cliff in slow motion as more and more piled on.

  “Well, you see the problem,” I said. “There’s no way they’ll be able to pull off turns if they’re struggling with simply shifting to the left and the right.”

  “As I said, it is impossible,” Alistair muttered, but I shook my head.

  “Listen here,” I said, raising my voice. “The reason you failed is not due to a lack of practice, though you could definitely use a bit more. It’s because you’ve all trained to take the place of any other in this formation. If you’re needed at the front, you know how to do that. If you’re a second-row spearman, that’s also fine.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “The problem with this is it means you can never ingrain a single action. The reason you don’t have shields to your sides and back is because it would be confusing to learn that and how to do all the other positions. The reason you can’t shuffle is because the left and rightmost soldiers aren’t trained to lead first. As of today, that changes. We designate specific people for specific roles. You’ll spend the next week drilling only those roles, until you can move your testudo wall in any direction on a moment’s notice.”

  “This training is useless outside of this one exercise,” Alistair complained. “It will be a waste of time.”

  I raised a brow. “Really? Ensuring the survival of your men is a waste of time? And I have to disagree. I’ve seen this formation put to use time and time again to extreme effect. It’s just a matter of organizing your army to take advantage of each soldier’s unique strengths and weaknesses.”

  I admit, there might have been a bit of my personal philosophy in there. Nothing pissed me off quite like being called ‘fungible’. Especially when it came from my manager’s lips. Yet it was also true that, given a shortage of time, specialization was the way to go. These troops didn’t need to do a million things right to survive this upcoming battle. They just had to do one thing really well.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  We assigned roles and drilled for a few more hours before calling it a day.

  After going over the ‘curriculum’ with Alistair, I rejoined Aerion by our horse a couple hundred feet from the main caravan. Aside from privacy, there was another reason I chose the spot. Just a hunch, but my instincts rarely ever failed.

  “You seem to have a knack for this,” she commented when I approached.

  I shrugged. “You’d be amazed how far BS’ing gets you. Actually, scratch that. You’re quite the actor yourself.”

  Aerion rolled her eyes. “Guile and trickery only get one so far. You handled yourself well, and the tactic you came up with feels like it has substance.”

  “Well, it should,” I said. “One of the most powerful empires of my world relied heavily on that tactic to dominate most of the known world at that point in time.”

  “Fascinating,” Aerion said. “Yet you’ve never witnessed it in use?”

  I chuckled. “Formations like that went out of style a few hundred years before my time. Most combat in my world happens at such long distances that you rarely even see your enemy. Not that I’ve ever fought anyone.”

  “Your games, again?”

  I nodded.

  “What a vast treasure trove of information,” Aerion said, her gaze far and misty. “I would have liked to experience them.”

  I tried to picture the elf sitting in front of a monitor playing games all day. Big mistake. I ended up laughing for a solid minute after, which made Aerion pouty.

  “You looked pretty interested in the training yourself,” I said once I’d gotten a hold of my laughter. “I don’t think I saw you look away even once during all of that.”

  “Yes, well, ‘tis quite a nuanced topic, yes? And useful, too, considering what lies ahead.”

  My jubilation quickly abated at those words. More Cataclysm Dungeons had fallen to the north, in Wisdom’s territory and beyond, and they weren’t stopping anytime soon. We might be in a lull right now, but that wasn’t going to last.

  “Sorry,” Aerion mumbled. “I didn’t mean to sour the mood.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, sitting on a log she’d dragged over. “It’s the truth. Just hope we’re strong enough to deal with whatever dungeon lands on our heads next time. But if tactics and such interest you, I’d be happy to tell you what I know.”

  Aerion’s eyes lit up. “Truly?”

  I shrugged. “I mean, all my information comes from games, so take it with a huge pinch of salt, but some of that stuff’s bound to be useful.”

  Having another tactician in the party would be invaluable—both for taking over if I ever became incapacitated and for making leadership decisions on her own.

  We chatted about small unit tactics while Aerion whipped up a stew, though only about half of our conversation was about the topic at hand. Aerion kept using my historical examples to ask about Earth history and the differences between the Greeks and the Romans, and what about the Spartans made them so different from their Athenian neighbors… and so on.

  By the time we snuggled into our bedroll, we were both exhausted and fell asleep in minutes.

  Sadly, my slumber was not destined to be peaceful that night, because something made me jolt awake some time later.

  Aerion snored softly in my arms, snuggled against my chest, and the caravan was entirely quiet. That meant it had to be very late into the night.

  I remained still, listening for anything that might’ve caused me to awaken. Usually, it was some critter or small animal coming a little too close—I wasn’t the heaviest sleeper around.

  For several moments, I heard nothing but the normal sounds of the night, and I was about to shut my eyes again when I heard it.

  A rustling of the grass nearby. Three quick taps, then two. Too organized to be a coincidence.

  I was about to gingerly slip out of bed when I realized Aerion was looking up at me.

  “Sorry,” I whispered. “Tried not to wake you.”

  “Your breathing changed,” she said, as if that explained everything. “You heard something, yes? I’ll join.”

  She was out of the blanket, Aurora in hand before I could even respond, and so, after slipping into my suit—I never slept with it more than a couple of feet away—we headed out.

  I summoned Light of the Fearless from my inventory just in case. I seriously doubted anything truly dangerous was out there. The caravan had guard shifts the whole night, and any elven ambush would’ve been quickly noticed.

  What would not have been noticed, however, was a lone elf doing his best to stay hidden.

  “Greg! Over here!” a voice whispered.

  Even with my night-adjusted vision and the knowledge of where the voice came from, I struggled to place its owner.

  After walking a few steps, I finally found the elf, prone on the ground and camouflaged in what looked like a ghillie suit made of grass.

  “This way,” the elf said, and after a quick glance back to ensure the night guard hadn’t spotted us, Aerion and I went prone as well. If this was one of the Sylvanglade elves who wasn’t in the know, they wouldn’t have bothered reaching out like this. The fact that they’d singled me out meant they had to be in the know.

  We crawled like that for a good ten minutes before the elf felt it safe enough to stand.

  “Mind telling us what this is about?” I asked in a low voice. We weren’t anywhere close to the caravan by this point, but there was no sense in taking a risk.

  I turned to find another elf pop up from the ground. Clad in another grass ghillie suit, I initially didn’t place him, but the voice gave it away.

  “Greetings, Greg,” the Sylrithar said. “We have much to discuss.”

  “Such as?” I asked, more than a little surprised to find the elven leader here.

  “Such as telling me your battle plan so that we might accomplish our mutual goals without a useless loss of life.”

  “Seriously?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Is it such a surprise?”

  “No—I mean it is, but, well, I was kinda hoping you’d say that.”