‘I understand you have already met the Nadir?’ said Druss.
‘Yes. They will be here in less than a month.’
‘We shall be ready. But it will need hard work. The men are badly trained – if trained at all. That must change. We have only ten surgeons, no medical orderlies, no stretcher-bearers and only one hospital-and that is at Wall One, which is no good to us. Comments?’
‘An accurate appraisal. All I can add is that – apart from my men – there are only a dozen officers of worth.’
‘I have not yet decided the worth of any man here. But let us stay positive for the moment. I need a man of mathematical persuasion to take charge of the food stores and to prepare ration rotas. He will need to shift his equations to match our losses. He must also be responsible for liaison and administration with Gan Orrin.’ Druss watched as the two men exchanged glances, but said nothing of it.
‘Dun Pinar is your man,’ said Hogun. ‘He virtually runs the Dros now.’
Druss’s eyes were cold as he leaned towards the young general. ‘There will be no more comments like that, Hogun. It does not become a professional soldier. We start today with a clean slate. Yesterday is gone. I shall make my own judgements and I do not expect my officers to make sly comments about each other.’
‘I would have thought you would want the truth,’ interposed Elicas, before Hogun could answer.
‘The truth is a strange animal, laddie. It seems to vary from man to man. Now keep silent. Understand me, Hogun, I value you. Your record is a good one. But from now on, no one speaks ill of the First Gan. It is not good for morale, and what is not good for our morale is good for the Nadir. We have enough problems.’ Druss stretched out a length of parchment and pushed it to Elicas with a quill and ink. ‘Make yourself useful, boy, and take notes. Put Pinar at the top, he is our quartermaster. Now, we will need fifty medical orderlies and two hundred stretcher-bearers. The first Calvar Syn can choose from volunteers, but the bearers will need someone to train them. I want them to be able to run all day. Missael knows they will need to when the action gets warm. These men will need stout hearts. It is no easy thing to run about on a battlefield lightly armed. For they will not be able to carry swords and stretchers.
‘So who do you suggest to pick and train them?’
Hogun turned to Elicas, who shrugged.
‘You must be able to suggest someone,’ said Druss.
‘I don’t know the men of Dros Delnoch that well, sir,’ said Hogun, ‘and no one from the Legion would be appropriate.’
‘Why not?’
‘They are warriors. We shall need them on the wall.’
‘Who is your best ranker?’
‘Bar Britan. But he’s a formidable warrior, sir.’
‘That is why he is the man. Listen well: the stretcher-bearers will be armed with daggers only, and they will risk their lives as much as the men battling on the walls. But it is not a glorious task, so the importance of it must be highlighted. When you name your best ranker as the man to train the bearers and work with them during the battle, this will come home to them. Bar Britan must also be given fifty men of his choice as a moving troop to protect the bearers as best he can.’
‘I bow to your logic, Druss,’ said Hogun.
‘Bow to nothing, son. I make mistakes as well as any man. If you think me wrong, be so good as to damn well say so.’
‘Put your mind at rest on that score, Axeman!’ snapped Hogun.
‘Good! Now, as to training. I want the men trained in groups of fifty. Each group is to have a name -choose them from legends, names of heroes, battlefields, whatever, as long as the names stir the blood.
‘There will be one officer to each group and five rankers, each commanding ten men. These under-leaders will be chosen after the first three day’s training. By then we should have taken their mark. Understood?’