Chapter 23
We spent nine days like this, each day spent fighting against another group. Sometimes we won, sometimes we lost, but every time we were beaten and bruised. Some unlucky few or lucky depending on how you see it broke their bones, and ordered to rest until they are healed to the point that they would be able to raise a sword and then rejoin. It didn't matter if they are barely healed and still in pain, they were forced to rejoin.
Through the battles we grew to know to know the others in the camp, even though we were beating each other, we grew to view it as competition and our opponents as rivals. So, the more we fought against each other the more we grew to know each other.
Finally, today was the last day of the training of fighting between each other in the same camp. The next day in the morning we were led to a different field and this time all ten thousand recruits were there, but we didn't dare say anything or inquire about what was happening because there were one hundred drill sergeants and a hundred assistant drill sergeants standing before us.
When everyone settled and stood at perfect attention, the drill sergeant for our group stepped forward, by this time everyone knew that his rank was no mere drill sergeant as every time he appeared everyone treated him respectfully and allowed him to take the lead so we guessed that he was the leader of this camp. Then he started to address us, "now that I look at you, I can stop being disgusted and offended. Now you have barely reached the requirements to be acknowledged as people that would stand up for their country and family. Now you can hold your head high and say you are ready to stand up for your country and fight. But you are not ready to survive the upcoming war."
He waited until the murmurs of pride that turned into curses to settle before he continued, "for to be ready to fight in a war is to be ready to die, and none of you had accepted this fact. The training exercises that you have conducted up to this point are mere child play in comparison to a real war." Taking a deep breath, he continued now shouting, "NOW YOU ARE PLAYING, A THOUSAND PEOPLE FIGTHING IS BARELY ENOUGH TO BE CONSIDERED A FOOTNOTE. IN THE UPCOMING WAR THE OUR ARMY WILL NUMBER HIGER THAN HALF A MILLION PEOPLE. AND THE ENEMY WILL HAVE THE SAME NUMBERS IF NOT MORE. SO, DO NOT BE CONFIDANT JUST BECAUSE YOU WON AGAINST A THOUSAND OTHERS WHO DO NOT HAVE THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE, YOU HAVE NOT FOUGHT AGAINST PEOPLE AKIN TO ANIMALS WITH NOTHING TO LOSE."
He waited for us to understand what he meant and the gravity of the situation. Half a million, a number so large that many will never even understand it, I grew curious to how they had reached this number so I began calculating in my head at such a fast pace that I would be done before someone blinked due to strong my mind had become. So, I calculated that based on our group just about over a tenth volunteered to join, and since a fourth of the residents of the city had already been conscripted and the total number of people living in the city is over five hundred thousand, the people recruited from the city would number no less than a hundred eighty thousand, with at least fifty five thousand having volunteered. Following the same calculation for the underground city which houses half as many people from the upper city they would have ninety thousand recruited with at least twenty seven thousand volunteered. And from the outer city about a hundred thousand, and according to Vos a hundred thousand trained soldiers, so a total of four hundred seventy thousand people from this city alone, and from the nearby cities and farms the number should be between a hundred thousand and three hundred thousand depending on when they started the conscription and how far they were able to reach before the war start.
Just as I was finished calculating the rest had quieted down so the drill sergeant continued shouting, "FOR YOU TO HAVE TO LEAST CHANCE OF HAVING THE LEAST DIFFERNCE ON THE BATTLE FIELD THE ENTIRE CAMP WILL HAVE TO COME TOGTHER AND THAT IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN. NOW MY ASSISTANT DRILL SERGEANT WILL EXPLAIN HOW THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN AND THEY YOU WILL BE DISMMSED FOR THE DAY SO AS NOT TO EMBARRASS US AGAINST THE OTHER CAMPS."
She then stepped forward as he was stepping back, and then she spoke in a light tone filled with barley hidden excitement, "for a week the entire camp will train together, as the training that you will undergo will be almost identical to the one before with the only difference being the number of participants, we expect great improvements and no mistakes." She paused for a moment as she looked in everyone's eyes with a look that made us shudder before continuing, "after the week is over for the next two weeks we will challenge fourteen different camps chosen at random from the other camps. After the challenging period is over you will have a week to rest so any injury or fatigue you still had will be gone, as after that week ends, we march for war."
Everyone gulped as finally we could feel the war coming not in the future but as the next thing that would happen, so although we had the rest of the day to rest everyone was so anxious that they barely had the ability to do so, but we forced ourselves to rest even if it is just to close our eyes while lying in bed as this the next training would be the final one and the herald of war.
The next day everyone woke up well rested and decided to just forget the matter of the war for the time being as until it started, they could do nothing about it. So, with renewed determination everyone headed to the field together and just as the assistant drill sergeant said yesterday the training was basically the same, with the exception that there was ten times the number of the shield wall, and some tactics and formations that could only be put into effective use with larger numbers that we now had.
The week went by quickly and we had grown even more adapt at being in a shield wall. At the end of the week, we returned to out tents not knowing what is going to happen tomorrow in the large scale exercise against another camp, and everyone in our camp decided that we wanted to win the first match to show ourselves how much we had improved.
The next morning, we were told to head to the quarter masters and take out our camping gear, and so we did. After that we were led to a field large enough that it housed the hundreds of thousands of recruits, and we were told that in this period of training we would live as if we are in war. So, we were taught how to set up an orderly temporary camp without it being a complete maze and not allowing us to know where we are and the not allowing us to join the others in case of an emergency. There was also sentry duty that was assigned to us by the commander of each regiment, who was previously a drill sergeant, while the others became his officers to ensure that everything stays up to standards.
Then we started the exercise, we went up and fought another camp until one of us won, and then we rested for a while then continued. We fought countless times against countless camps in what felt like years because of how tired we constantly were.
Everyone grew closer together and that is where the majority of the people learned of the underground city and its inhabitants that had come out to light. They were also proudly proclaiming that the general of this entire army was their leader and a few brave, or stupid ones I don't know which, claimed that they could get the general to help get out of the mandatory conscription if they wanted to but that they did not want to bother him.
We laughed and talked with each other forging bonds that would most likely be broken as either side could die at any moment. But still we hid behind fake smiles and a confidant bravado afraid that the moment we showed our vulnerable side someone would come and take advantage of it, or even for it crumble as the gentle breeze that carried the collective tension of hundreds of thousands of people slammed into them. So, everyone pretended that they were not scared, but I knew better I could both smell it and feel it as if it was tangible and I was one step away from touching it. But I didn't say anything, as I was the one that was the most scared since I alone now the true consciousness of what happens if we fail to repel the invaders.