Chapter 72: A Senior Officier’s Son

Spring brought twenty new guards to Blackwood.

Joe noticed them because the western training yard became crowded before sunrise, fresh uniforms standing in two uneven rows while Halven walked between them correcting posture, questioning names and occasionally sending someone running around the compound for answering too slowly.

Twenty have been selected.

Far more had tried.

They came from Blackwood, nearby towns and villages scattered across the surrounding region. The uniform reduced some differences between them, but it did not erase much. One young man wore fitted boots that probably cost more than a poor laborer earned in several months, while another had repaired the same pair so many times that the original leather survived only around the ankle.

Both had earned a place.

Their chances afterward were not equal.

Joe had understood the importance of money since Green Hollow. Better food, medicine and instruction did not guarantee martial progress, but they made progress easier to sustain. Blackwood showed him another advantage wealth could purchase.

Distance from danger.

The guard did not throw poor recruits directly into the forest. That would be wasteful. New guards received months of formation drills, town patrols, road procedure, signaling, first aid and supervised assignments before anyone expected them to handle serious trouble.

After that buffer, the paths gradually separated.

Connected recruits tended to join experienced teams. Gates, markets, warehouses, wealthy streets and well-supported caravans appeared more often on their schedules. A merchant family did not need to bribe anyone openly. If three officers knew a recruit's father, somebody usually cared whether the boy returned home with both legs.

Those without such connections filled more of what remained.

Outer roads.

Timber patrols.

Remote caravan routes.

Missing-worker searches.

Forest boundaries.

Vacancies on teams that had already lost someone.

Nobody needed to issue an order saying poor men should receive more danger. Dangerous work existed, influential people resisted unnecessary risk, and the rest accumulated where resistance was weakest.

Joe stood beneath the covered walkway beside Simon, Daren and Cole.

Cole nodded toward the recruit with the expensive boots. "Northern gate before summer."

Daren glanced at him. "You know that how?"

"I have eyes."

"You have opinions."

"Mostly accurate ones."

Simon smiled.

Joe looked at his brother. "You were lucky."

Simon frowned immediately. "I passed selection."

"I didn't say otherwise."

Daren's mouth twitched.

Joe continued, "Theodere's recommendation helped. After Mira, it helped much more."

Simon stared at him.

Cole became silent with unnatural speed.

"Mira has nothing to do with my assignments."

Joe waited.

Simon lasted perhaps three seconds.

"Not much."

That was generous.

No clerk had ever written Mira Black's boyfriend beside Simon's name. Nobody needed to.

Edwin trusted him. Mira clearly favored him. Black-family medicine shipments started appearing along Simon's routes. Warehouse managers recognized him, and officers learned that placing Simon's team near those businesses created fewer problems than assigning strangers.

Simon was competent, which made the preference easy to defend.

But competence had not been the original shield.

Mira had.

Joe had benefited from that shield in turn. Once he entered the guard's medical auxiliary, Simon had requested that Joe accompany his team whenever field support was needed. The arrangement was sensible enough that nobody objected.

So, another village boy quietly avoided much of the assignment lottery.

Connections spread.

Joe understood that better now.

He looked toward twenty recruits.

"How many replacements does the guard actually need every year?"

Daren took longer to answer.

"Depends on the year."

"Approximately."

Daren sighed. "People retire. Transfer. Quit. Injuries remove others from field duty."

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"And deaths?"

Cole stopped smiling.

"Town duty doesn't kill many," Daren said. "Warehouse gangs occasionally get brave, but killing a guard inside Blackwood brings too much attention. Caravan work depends on the road."

His eyes moved toward the western wall.

"The forest is different. A good year might only kill a few. More come back unable to keep doing the same work."

"And a bad year?"

Daren looked at the recruits again.

"Bad years are why Halven likes having twenty new uniforms."

Joe had wondered years ago why a guard force of roughly two hundred recruited so consistently.

Now the answer was clear.

The guard was not merely growing.

It was replenishing itself.

---------------

Simon had spent much of the previous year unusually far from the part that needed replenishing.

That began changing after Bret complained.

Their assignments moved west a little at a time.

Western gate.

Livestock roads.

Timber routes.

Boundary inspections.

Nothing improper.

Nothing dangerous enough to protest.

That morning they were assigned to a managed forest circuit.

Rain had fallen overnight, leaving the road dark beneath new leaves and filling cart ruts with shallow brown water. Insects had returned as well, which Cole regarded as a personal betrayal.

One landed on Joe's wrist, struggled briefly against the tempered skin and flew away.

Cole stared.

"They never bite you."

"They try."

"That is worse."

Daren laughed.

The patrol remained uneventful until the second timber shelter.

Bret Vane waited there with another guard, already fastening his coat.

Simon slowed.

"You're heading back?"

"My father needs me."

"Garrick?"

Bret gave him a flat look. "No, my other father in the guard."

Simon ignored that. "Who covers your remaining markers?"

"You're already here."

"Our route ends at the third."

"Then keep walking."

The guard beside Bret looked away.

Joe noticed.

Simon asked, "Did Garrick reassign us?"

Bret smiled slightly.

"My father called me back. If you want to keep a senior officer waiting while you argue about walking another mile, that's your decision."

Not an order.

Close enough to create pressure.

Simon looked toward the road, then nodded.

"We'll cover it."

Bret's smile lasted just long enough for Joe to remember it.

--------------

The additional section remained inside the managed forest, though older warning markers appeared beside trails leading deeper west.

At one junction, three names had been carved beneath a guard symbol.

Joe stopped.

Daren followed his gaze.

"Last year."

"Deaths?"

"Two. Third lost an arm."

Cole looked into the narrow trail disappearing between the trees. "What happened?"

"Injured boar crossed the boundary. They followed it."

"And found?"

Daren resumed walking.

"What injured the boar."

Nobody asked again.

Joe looked once more at the names.

The difference between a normal patrol and a funeral could begin with walking past a wooden marker.

--------------

Simon checked the records immediately after returning.

Garrick had never recalled Bret.

No reassignment had been issued.

Simon wrote exactly that.

Bret intercepted him outside the equipment shed before evening filing.

"You put my name in the report."

"You left your route."

"The route was covered."

"By us."

Bret stepped closer.

"Interesting hearing you complain about favors."

Simon stiffened.

Joe was crossing the courtyard and changed direction.

Bret continued, "You spent half the winter walking warm warehouse lanes because everyone knows which Black-family girl you follow around."

Simon took one step forward.

Bret smiled.

"Leave Mira out of it."

"Why? She's the reason you barely saw the forest."

That hurt because it was insulting.

It also hurt because it was partly true.

Simon said, "If you think my assignments were improper, report them."

"I did better."

Bret glanced toward the administrative buildings.

"My father reviews western readiness."

Joe reached them.

Bret looked at him, then at Simon.

"Enjoy the roads."

He walked away.

Joe waited until he was gone.

Then said, "You became stupid for several seconds."

Simon turned.

"He mentioned Mira."

"Deliberately."

"I know."

"Then becoming stupid helped him."

Simon looked offended.

Daren, arriving behind them, laughed.

----------

Garrick summoned Simon the following morning.

Officially, it was a readiness evaluation for younger team leaders entering Muscle.

Joe arrived halfway through with bread in one hand.

Four guards were participating.

Simon was on his sixth repetition.

Garrick Vane moved like what he was: a Late Bone practitioner.

Not one of Blackwood's true Martial Artists, but far beyond ordinary Muscle. His frame carried force cleanly through joints and spine, and when he stepped inside Simon's defense, there was very little wasted motion.

The exchange lasted seconds.

Strike.

Block.

Turn.

Simon avoided one padded blow.

Garrick drove through the next opening and sent him into the sand.

"Again."

Simon rose.

The following exchange was even shorter.

Three contacts.

The last struck his right shoulder.

Joe watched the arm recover slightly slower.

Garrick knew exactly how much punishment could remain training.

That bothered Joe more than uncontrolled anger would have.

"Again."

Joe entered the yard.

"Enough."

Garrick turned. "This is an evaluation."

"I know."

"He can continue."

Joe examined Simon's shoulder.

Minor strain.

Nothing serious.

"He can," Joe said. "He'll also compensate through the joint, so the remaining movements won't tell you much about readiness."

Garrick's eyes narrowed.

Joe remained polite.

"If punishment is the purpose, continue. If assessment is the purpose, you already have the result."

The yard became quiet.

Bret stood on the raised platform.

Joe did not look at him.

After several seconds Garrick said, "Take him."

Joe nodded.

No argument.

No smile.

He took Simon.

-----------

That evening Joe found Edwin in the rear office of the medicine hall.

An untouched meal sat beside him.

So did a Black-family letter.

"Family trouble?"

Edwin looked up. "You are becoming irritatingly observant."

Joe sat.

Edwin folded the letter slowly.

"Renford succeeded."

Joe knew the name. Another Black-family branch, one that had competed with Edwin over suppliers, medicine contracts and influence for years.

"Internal Organs?"

Edwin gave a humorless laugh.

"True Martial Artist."

That explained the meal.

Renford had been Bone for years. Within the Black family, Bone was respectable, useful and common enough among important branches that it did not overturn internal politics by itself.

Internal Organs was different.

A true Martial Artist strengthened the family directly.

Edwin leaned back.

"Before this, Renford and I could argue before the elders and both be heard. He had martial backing. I had profitable medicine operations, suppliers and enough relationships that dismissing me cost people something."

"And now?"

"Now he is a true Martial Artist."

Edwin rubbed his forehead.

"My business did not become worse overnight. My judgment did not become worse. Yet his words somehow became more valuable."

Joe understood.

The Black family was not the guard.

Rank was not assigned by one commander.

Bloodline, branch alliances, marriage, medicine, money, inheritance rights and martial strength all competed together.

Renford had just placed something heavy on his side of the scale.

Edwin sighed.

"Sometimes I curse the fact that I was born without a Spiritual Root. Or at least without enough martial talent to make strength another argument instead of relying on ledgers."

The bitterness disappeared almost as quickly as it surfaced.

"My branch is not collapsing, so don't start planning my funeral."

"But your position weakened."

"Yes."

Joe thought about the timing.

Renford became a true Martial Artist.

Edwin's influence weakened.

Bret complained.

Garrick began moving Simon's team outward.

The protection around Simon had never truly been Simon's.

It had been the Black-family weight behind Mira, particularly Edwin's ability to make mistreating Simon inconvenient.

That weight had not disappeared.

It had become lighter.

Maybe Garrick had not suddenly become more hostile.

Maybe the price of acting on that hostility had simply fallen.

That made far more sense.

Joe preferred explanations that made sense.

Even when he disliked what they implied.

For now, he would observe.

Train.

Remain polite.

But patience was not the same thing as submission.

Sometimes patience simply meant waiting until acting became cheaper than enduring.