“Hey, Froggie!” Galerius called. “You know it’s a waste of time to fort up in the middle of a nowhere like this. Ain’t the blisters on our feet enough for today that we got to blister our hands, too?”
“Yeah, Froggie,” Laena said. “Give it a rest for tonight, why don’t you? We all know you’re boss—you don’t got to prove it.”
There was a chorus of agreement, though Froggie was glad to notice the grumblers continued to pick up their tools. “You’re damned right I don’t have to prove it!” Froggie said. “And if you don’t start working your shovel instead of your tongue, Laena, you’re going to have four shifts of night watch on top of the post-holing!”
“By Hercules!” Laena said as he strode toward the line the surveyors were laying out. “One of these days I’ll get some rank myself so I can stand and watch other guys sweat!”
It was the same thing every halt, whether they were operating as the whole legion or in detachments like now: the centurions ordered the troopers to fortify the camp and the troopers complained. Every damned time!
And the troopers went ahead and fortified the camp anyway, with palisades, turf walls, drystone, or even fascines of spiky brush. Whatever there was that’d make a wall, that’s what the legion used.
The troopers didn’t obey because they were afraid of Froggie. Oh, he was tough enough—but Froggie’d seen Laena strangle a barb half again his own size in a place where the grass grew to the height of a small tree.
They obeyed, Laena and the rest, because they knew Froggie was right: that one of these nights they’d bed down in a spot just as empty as this one, and the walls Froggie had forced them to build would be the difference between seeing the dawn and having barbs cut all their throats. But they’d still complain and fight the orders, just like Froggie had before he got promoted.
The girls were starting cookfires and getting ration packs out of the third cart. The barbs here used wooden pistons to light wads of dry moss, quicker and at least as easy as striking sparks off steel with a flint. Queenie’d called something to Slats’ porters, who obediently put him down.
The barb aide, Sawtooth, trotted over to Froggie. “You, warrior!” he said, his words coming out of the translator on his chest. “Why are we stopping?”
Glabrio put a hand on his swordhilt. Froggie waved him to calm down and walked over where Slats was cautiously stepping out of his vehicle. Sawtooth continued to jabber, but Froggie ignored him.
“Slats, this is a good place to set up,” Froggie said. “When we get out of this bottom the trees’ll be too big for us to build a stockade with the manpower we got. Besides, I don’t want to work the girls too hard. This is a damned poor road for carts.”
“Do not be concerned for the females,” Sawtooth said. His barb chattering was an overtone to the accentless Latin coming out of the lavaliere. “We must push on till dark. Then we will reach Kascanschi by tomorrow!”
“Another thing, Slats,” Froggie said without turning to look at the aide. “I wish you’d tell that barb who got wished on us that all he has to do to live a long, happy life is to keep his mouth shut and let me forget he’s around. If he can’t do that, then there’s going to be a problem and he ain’t going to like the way it gets solved.”
“What?” said Sawtooth. “What do you mean? Three-Spire gave me complete authority over the females!”
“But Centurion Froggie . . . ?” Slats said. The translated words were without inflection, but the way the bug flicked his middle arms to the side indicated puzzlement. “Sawtooth has a translator. He has heard your words directly.”
“No fooling?” said Froggie. He turned and tapped the barb’s nose with his left index finger. Sawtooth yipped and jumped backward. “Well, I hope he was listening. I hate trouble.”
* * *
“All right,” Froggie ordered. “One man from each squad stands wall guard, and the rest of you are dismissed for dinner. Squad leaders, set up a roster for the night watches.”