Dew clung to the underbrush like tiny glass beads, catching the morning light in cold flashes. From my vantage point on the ridge, I surveyed the forest below with a commander's eye, noting terrain features, lines of sight, potential ambush points. Adrian stood beside me, leather-bound notebook in hand, quietly recording my observations as I murmured them. Below us, partially concealed by early morning mist, two dozen children prepared for war.
"Red force is establishing a perimeter," I noted, watching as Harrold Hardyng directed his team to set up defensive positions around a crude wooden structure meant to represent a command post. "Proper placement of sentries, overlapping fields of vision. Good."
Adrian's quill scratched across parchment. "Their discipline has improved since last month's exercise."
I nodded, shifting my attention to the opposing force. Myranda Royce crouched with her team behind a fallen log, her hand signals directing scouts to flanking positions. No unnecessary chatter, no wasted movement – just the clean efficiency I had drilled into them over months of training.
"Blue force is demonstrating appropriate reconnaissance before engagement," I observed. "Note how they're identifying terrain features for potential cover during their advance."
This was no childish game of knights and maidens. The wooden swords and shields they carried were used with deadly intent, their movements echoing the precision of Death Korps shock troops – scaled down, adapted to their smaller bodies and limited experience, but recognizable to my veteran's eye.
Blue force began their approach, utilizing the uneven ground and scattered trees for concealment. They moved in buddy pairs, one advancing while the other provided cover. Basic infantry tactics, executed with growing competence. I felt a flicker of pride, quickly suppressed. Pride was an indulgence, a distraction from objective assessment.
"Red force has spotted the advance," Adrian murmured, pointing to where sentries were signaling back to Harrold's position. "They're repositioning to counter."
Indeed, the defensive line was shifting, reinforcing the western approach where Myranda's force had been detected. But I noted with approval that they maintained their discipline, keeping reserves in position rather than committing all forces to the obvious threat.
"They're learning," I said, as much to myself as to Adrian. "Harrold suspects a feint."
The clash, when it came, was both familiar and strange – the movements of seasoned soldiers performed by bodies that had not yet reached their full growth. Blue force split, the main body engaging red's reinforced western flank while a smaller element circled through dense underbrush to strike from behind.
"Classic pincer movement," Adrian noted, his voice carrying a hint of satisfaction.
I watched dispassionately as the battle unfolded below. Children who, in another life, would be playing at courtly games were instead executing flanking maneuvers and creating kill zones with chilling efficiency. They maintained formations, communicated with hand signals, adjusted to changing battlefield conditions – all lessons I had hammered into them through endless drills.
A commotion in the red force's ranks drew my attention. One of their number had taken a hard hit, a wooden sword catching him in the ribs with enough force to knock the wind from him. He went down, clutching his side.
But instead of the exercise halting, I watched with clinical approval as his comrades responded exactly as trained. Two defenders immediately moved to cover the gap in their line, while a third dragged the injured boy to a designated treatment area. There, a girl of no more than eleven – too small yet for combat roles – began applying field medicine techniques I had taught them.
"Pressure to control bleeding, elevation to reduce swelling, assessment for broken bones," I recited, watching her methodical movements. "Good. She remembers the sequence."
Adrian nodded, making another note. "Randa said her father was angry about her learning field medicine instead of embroidery. Said it wasn't proper for a lady."
I snorted softly. "Proper won't save her life when the steel starts flying."
Movement at the edge of the clearing caught my eye – adults, several of them, watching the mock battle with expressions ranging from concern to grudging admiration. Ser Gareth Stone stood among them, his scarred face impassive as he assessed the children's tactics. Beside him, Lord Redfort frowned deeply, his hand resting on his sword hilt as if uncertain whether to intervene.
I recognized others – parents and guardians of my young recruits, drawn by rumors of the "children's army" forming under my guidance. Their reactions told their own story – the way Lady Waynwood's hand pressed against her mouth in shock, how Ser Marwyn's eyes narrowed in calculation, the troubled exchange of glances between lesser lords whose names I had not bothered to learn.
They saw the surface – children playing at war with disturbing proficiency. They could not see the purpose beneath, the necessity that drove every drill, every lesson, every bruise and strain. Could not understand that I was arming them against a darkness they had never faced.
Below, the battle reached its conclusion. Blue force's pincer movement had caught red in a textbook envelopment, forcing Harrold to signal surrender rather than risk his entire command being "killed." Myranda's face showed no triumph, only calm satisfaction at a plan well executed.
I descended from the ridge, Adrian at my heel, to address the assembled children. They formed up in ordered ranks as I approached, faces flushed with exertion but eyes alert, awaiting assessment. No whoops of victory, no childish gloating – I had trained such indulgences out of them early.
"Red force," I began, pacing before them, "your initial defensive setup was sound, but you failed to adequately conceal your reaction to the first contact. The enemy read your reinforcement and exploited it."
Harrold nodded, accepting the critique without complaint. The boy who had been injured stood in formation, still clutching his side but refusing to show weakness.
"Blue force, your flanking maneuver was well-executed, but your pace was too aggressive. In a real engagement, you would have exhausted your troops before the main assault."
Myranda inclined her head in acknowledgment, already making mental adjustments to her approach. Around us, the adult observers had drawn closer, listening to my assessment with expressions of growing unease.
"Overall, your discipline held. Your formations maintained cohesion under pressure. Your communication remained clear." I paused, surveying their young faces – flushed, serious, utterly focused on my words. "You're improving. But improvement is not excellence. Excellence is not perfection. And perfection is the only standard that matters when lives are at stake."
They nodded as one, accepting both the praise and the implicit criticism. In their eyes, I saw not the carefree innocence of childhood but something harder, colder – the beginnings of the warrior's mindset I had cultivated in them.
And in that moment, standing before my cadre of child-soldiers in a peaceful Vale forest, I experienced a disorienting overlap of realities. The children before me blurred, transforming briefly into the gaunt, gas-masked figures of Death Korps troopers awaiting orders. The forest melted away, replaced by the blasted hellscape of a battlefield I had known in another life. The clean mountain air turned acrid with cordite and promethium.
I blinked, and the vision passed. The children were children again, the forest just a forest. But the moment had shaken me more than I cared to admit. These were not Kriegers, not the grim soldiers of a dying Imperium fighting horrors beyond comprehension. They were the sons and daughters of nobility, born to privilege in a world that, for all its flaws, had never known the touch of Chaos or the grinding attrition of the endless war that had defined my previous existence.
Yet I was molding them in that image, reshaping them according to doctrines forged in a reality they could never comprehend. Was I their salvation or their doom? Was I preparing them for necessary truths or corrupting them with a darkness this world had no need of?
As the children dispersed to review their performance in smaller groups, I caught sight of my reflection in a small pool of water gathered on a flat stone. A boy's face stared back at me, unnaturally solemn, with eyes that belonged to a veteran of a hundred campaigns. For a heartbeat, I wasn't sure which was real – the Death Korps soldier trapped in a child's body, or the disturbed child imagining himself a soldier from another world entirely.
The moment passed. I straightened, pushing the doubt aside with the practiced discipline of one who cannot afford uncertainty. Reality was what it was, regardless of how I had come to be here. And the threats that would come – whether from beyond the Wall, across the Narrow Sea, or from the darkness between the stars – would care nothing for my doubts or these children's lost innocence.
They would be ready. I would make certain of it.
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