The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 74

Part 13

“We intend to keep Hiliani as a preserve of the traditional Sylvan way of life as much as possible. Once the demons are dealt with, your young can even go back to killing each other if they want, and the only limitation on your behavior will be not offending against us. Your lives and your relations with us can return to what they were the day before yesterday. But after the time-bubble ends, if any of you want to leave Hiliani, you’ll be out in The Just Alliance, and you’ll have to abide by the same rules that the rest of the Sylvan out there face. That means you’ll be sworn to justice on The Truthstone with Osbald’s Oath, and you’ll have to swear to the rules and limitations of The Game of Status if you want to be able to act against others with unjust means. Which you will.”

There was a long moment of silence, then one of the old male Sylvan spoke. “If that stone can do what you say it can, why not just swear all these young to not kill each other and be done with it? Why all this mind-control and capturing and building?”

“Swearing on the stone is permanent, and we didn’t want to do that until we had things more settled, in case this plan proved to be impractical.” Reggie replied.

“And we need you all in the same place to train you for co-operative warfare.” Helemia added. “You’re all effective warriors as individuals, but now we have to make an army of you to maximize your effectiveness against the demons, and we need you in one place for that. Your adults can go back to their homes once their basic training is complete, which shouldn’t take more than a few months, but first we need to train you to live and work and fight together in close quarters for extended periods of time, because that’s what warfare usually calls for.”

“Huh. And if we should refuse you?” the old woman who’d spoken before asked.

Reggie shrugged. “Then we’ll just force you, though we’d prefer not to. If we wanted to kill you, we would. If we wanted to enslave you, we could do that too. We’re being as nice about this as we can, and this is for your good even more than ours. The Sylvan race began when some demons altered some humans to make them slaves to the demons. If you think it’ll be fun to be slaves to the demons again, I’m sure you’re mistaken. The demons may have made you to be helpless to disobey them, and if so, then finding and eliminating the flaw they’ve created in you to make you obedient should be one of our highest priorities.

“And the demons are coming. We have good enough astronomers among us here to be able to see their rock in the sky at night, and the worldlets of The Triax as well. Of course, it’s possible that the gods could have put that in to deceive you when they made the time-bubble, so you’ll just have to trust us on that. But we have no reason to lie about it, and I’ll swear to it’s truth on the Truthstone if you want.”

“Huh. It all comes down to the stone.” she stated. “Give it to me and let me examine it. If it turns out to be what you say it is, we may agree to what you’re proposing.”

“Sure.” Reggie smiled as he casually tossed her the stone.

She reflexively reached out to catch it, and he Translocated it just before it reached her Projection’s hand. She gaped in surprise when it solidly smacked into her palm over thirty kilometers from where he’d thrown it.

“Just remember this;” Reggie cautioned. “My parents legally own these islands, as far as the laws of every nation are concerned, and we’re not going to give them up to you completely. We’re going to stay. And we’re not going to risk having you act against us while we’re at war with the demons. One way or the other, we’ll have your trust or we’ll have your deaths before the demons get here. And if you decide to go to war with us and somehow defeat us, then in another eighteen years the time-bubble will end, and you’ll have to face the entirety of The Just Alliance, which now includes every nation on Kellaran, including the united might of the gods.”

“If we believe you about any of that.” the Sylvan retorted.

Reggie shrugged again. “You’ll have a chance to see all of our preparations to fight the demons, if you want. And if that’s not enough evidence for you, you can take a Reading from any of us. And of course once you’ve verified the properties of the stone, we’ll be glad to swear on it as to the truth of what we’ve told you.”

“Fine.” she said with a nod, and the Projections ended.

After a moment Karzog shrugged and went back to concentrating on supervising the construction.

“Back in a while.” Valentia said as she disappeared.

Reggie and Helemia set up the orientation Revealing for the new recruits that Valentia had brought back, then began scanning all the Sylvan to find the most intelligent and level-headed among them.

They informed Karzog of their choices, and he re-assigned the two-hundred and nineteen they’d chosen, directing them to gather with Reggie and Helemia in a clearing in the woods on the east side of the settlement, near the foot of the mountains. They were an older group on the average than the wild young Sylvan as a whole, but every age group was represented, including a few of the adults that had been captured, and one girl who was only thirteen.

“Congratulations.” Helemia announced to them. “You’ve been selected to be officers. You’ll be the first to receive each of the lessons in warcraft that we’ll be teaching your people. You’ll command up to one hundred subordinates each, and you’ll assist us in teaching and training them. You’ll each be assigned a random number, and you’ll take turns picking your troops in the order of your numbers until everyone’s been picked.

“You will bear some responsibility for the quality of their performance. If you command a group of fighters who perform poorly compared to the average, you’ll be singled out for ridicule before the entire army, and if your group excels, you’ll be singled out for praise. We’re fully aware of how those eventualities would effect your status among your peers.

“All of you will be judged on your rate of improvement, rather than your absolute ability. Therefore, if your platoon starts out with a lot of the poorest fighters, you’ll still have a good chance to excel in the standings if they improve quickly. Some of the best fighters will have the talent to do well in an army and improve quickly, some will already be near their potential and won’t improve as much. Some of the worst fighters are that way because they really don’t have much potential, but some will show the greatest improvement, particularly if their inability is only due to their being among the youngest of you. However, you’ll be prevented from telling your troops that they’ll be judged on improvement until after their first round of training and testing. This is to prevent them from slacking on the first test in order to show more dramatic improvements later. The standings after the first test only will be decided on our judgment of who tried their hardest.

“You’re lucky in that Sylvan are a very uniform race, and the difference between the best and the worst of you is less than it is among the other races. You’re therefore a lot less likely to end up stuck with commanding a bunch of inept clods than officers of other races would be.”

That last comment brought a round of laughs from those listening, and a slight relaxing of the mood.

“Now, as some of you might expect, your first lessons will be on effective military organization, accurate assessment of personnel, promotion of squad leaders, assigning squads to specialized training and missions, and efficient delegation of duties…”

Forty-one minutes later they felt the Sylvan elders casting their Projections again.

“Continue with what you’re doing.” Helemia instructed their students. “I expect most of you to be finished with those organizational charts when we get back.”

“Val, the elders are contacting us.” Reggie reported.

“I know. I’ll be there.” she replied, and was back to the beach beside Karzog before the twins were.

They allowed the Projection, and the fourteen elder Sylvan re-appeared. The same woman spoke for them again.