I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1471: Paying For The Ride

The staging office of the Sixth Legion’s vanguard occupied the base of a limestone watchtower inside Reimhold’s second defensive ring. It smelled of sealing wax, damp wool, and the metallic tang of the river wind that blew cold through the narrow arrow-slits.

Captain Ysolde Vaertia sat behind an ironwood desk, sorting through a towering stack of parchment rosters. She wore the formal dark blue coat of the Winterward, the silver lion of her rank pinned straight on her collar.

Clerks rushed past her open door in a steady clatter of boots and loose paper, and she did not once look up at them. She was a veteran of the Eastern war, and she did not care about the politics of the capital or the shifting moods of the imperial court. She cared about the flag, and the logistics required to keep it flying.

Rian sat in the rigid wooden chair opposite her desk.

He kept his hands in the pockets of his frayed black coat and leaned back against the hard slats as though they were cushions. He looked like exactly what he was pretending to be: a bored, arrogant sellsword negotiating the price of his own blood.

Ysolde picked up a brass-nibbed pen and tapped it once against the rim of her inkwell.

”The review at the Red Ring was sufficient,” Ysolde said, her voice clipped and practical. ”The Fifth Prince has personally signed off on your commission. You are assigned to the vanguard cohorts, acting as a forward command element for the Northern Expedition.”

Rian did not shift his weight. He kept his eyes on the silver lion at her collar.

”I have terms, Captain.”

Ysolde set the pen down. She did not sigh, but the faint tightening of her jaw said she had dealt with enough mercenary demands for one morning.

”Speak them.”

Rian leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

”The Eleventh Squad sails intact, as my unit. Baletta, Han, Doron, Jalsket, Iren, and Tema. They stay under my command, they draw standard vanguard pay, and they don’t get broken up to fill gaps in your regular lines.”

Ysolde considered the request for a moment, weighing a cohesive border unit against the headache of overriding a quartermaster’s assignments.

”Acceptable,” she said. ”What else?”

”I have two auxiliaries,” Rian continued evenly. ”Nyssira and Pam. They travel with the squad. They don’t fight, but they go where we go.”

”Non-combatants take up space on the ships,” Ysolde noted, picking up her pen again.

”They earn their space,” Rian replied. ”And the final term. I have a war-beast. He requires a full war-animal ration.”

Ysolde paused and looked up from the parchment. ”A war-beast. What classification?”

”A snow hound,” Rian lied smoothly, picturing Mr. Fluffy’s sprawling, multi-tailed bulk lounging somewhere behind the squad’s barracks. ”He eats a lot.”

Ysolde stared at him for three long seconds. She knew the Northern Expedition was not a real frontier war. She knew it was a targeted eradication mission. She also knew that a talented sellsword who had survived the deep northern valleys and fought the Battle Master to a draw was worth more than a few extra crates of salted pork and two auxiliary berths.

”The Eleventh sails as your unit,” Ysolde confirmed, writing the addendums onto the roster in quick, sharp strokes. ”The women go as auxiliaries. Your beast gets the ration. Be at the Crimson Tide docks by first light. The fleet sails before winter sets in.”

Rian’s lips twitched into a dry line.

’Well. That was easy.’

”Understood, Captain,” Rian said, standing up.

He did not salute. He simply turned and walked out of the staging office, his boots clicking against the limestone floor.

***

The auxiliary barracks near the Third Wall were chaos.

The Eleventh Squad was packing what little they owned, stuffing rolled blankets, spare tunics, and sharpening stones into canvas duffels. Han complained loudly about the weight of his pack, while Baletta worked her way down the bindings of her boots, tugging each lace tight in turn. Jalsket’s hair cycled through three different shades of anxious grey, and Doron sat quietly in the corner, cleaning his short sword with a grease-stained rag.

Nyssira sat on a wooden crate near the door with her face giving away nothing. Pam stood beside her, chattering nervously about the size of the imperial ships.

In the center of the room, standing awkwardly by the cold iron brazier, was Peaker.

The assistant captain was not packing. He wore his faded North Guards uniform, but his kit stayed neatly stowed beneath his bunk. He watched the rest of the squad prepare with his hands clasped tightly behind his back and his spine as straight as a pike.

Rian walked into the barracks and took in the scene with a single sweeping glance.

”Captain,” Peaker said, stepping forward. He gave the word its full weight, and his mouth flattened around it.

”Peaker,” Rian acknowledged.

”I received my orders from the Keep,” Peaker continued, forcing himself to hold Rian’s eyes. ”I am to remain in Reimhold. I’ve been assigned to hold the wall with the remaining garrison forces.”

The room went quiet. Han stopped complaining about his pack. Baletta looked up from her boots.

Rian showed no surprise. Peaker, for all his Master rank combat ability, lacked the flexibility the expedition would demand. He was a soldier of the old order, built for static defense and clear hierarchies. He belonged on a wall.

”The capital needs a wall,” Rian said smoothly. ”Keep it standing.”

Peaker swallowed hard, groping for a goodbye he had not expected to need. He had resented the young mercenary’s sudden rise to command, but he could not deny the results.

”Good luck in the north, Captain,” Peaker finally managed, bringing his hand up in a salute that was stiff and a beat too slow. ”Bring them back.”

”I always do,” Rian murmured dryly.

The squad finished packing in silence. When they shouldered their duffels and filed out, Peaker’s kit was still stowed beneath his bunk.

***

The morning fog still clung to the cobblestones when the Eleventh Squad reached the iron gates of the inner city.

The procession moving toward the Crimson Tide docks was immense, a slow river of soldiers, wagons, and artillery grinding over the stones. Rian walked at the head of his squad, his eyes running over the gatehouse and mapping the stress points in its great stone archway out of sheer habit.

A lone figure stood waiting by the iron portcullis.

Commander Vanessa wore her faded brick-brown coat, its pitted brass buttons catching the dull morning light. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest and an unlit pipe clamped firmly between her teeth. She did not look like an imperial officer seeing off her troops. She looked like a predator guarding a choke point.

Rian raised a hand to halt the squad and stepped forward to meet her.

Vanessa took the pipe out of her mouth and studied his face. She did not offer a formal greeting. She did not thank him for saving the Castle Keep, and she did not wish him luck on the expedition.

”You’re not a Sage,” Vanessa said suddenly. Her voice was crude and deadly serious.

Rian did not blink. He did not offer a clever deflection or a layered lie.

”No,” he answered.

Vanessa held his eyes for a count of two, searching them for any sign of hesitation. She found none.

”Good,” Vanessa replied, her shoulders relaxing a fraction of an inch.

She reached deep into the inside pocket of her coat, pulled out a blocky object wrapped in oiled leather, and tossed it to him.

Rian caught it in his right hand. The weight of it was significant, the dense gravity of forged high-tier metal. He peeled the leather back with one hand and exposed an iron forge-seal. The metal was warm to the touch, and a faint pulse of deep vermilion fire beat beneath its surface.

It was an Isha’r forge-seal.

”Take that with you,” Vanessa ordered, pointing the stem of her pipe at the iron stamp. ”I might not look like it but I come from an illustrious family. And the North owes us a lot of favors, there’s no way our weapons cannot be seen.”

Rian frowned slightly.

”Are you bragging to me right now?”

”Shut up! Anyways! Use it! It can help a few times...”

Rian ran his thumb along the interlocking runes of the Isha’r clan. Beneath the cold iron, the runaway fire lineage hummed faintly, and it was the same resonance he had felt when Annette used her flames.

’Well.’

He slipped the seal into the deep pocket of his coat, beside the Astrinite token and his pocketknife.

”I’ll see what I can do with this, Commander,” Rian said softly.

Vanessa nodded once, put her pipe back between her teeth, and turned away. She disappeared into the fog without looking back.

Rian turned to his squad and gestured toward the docks.

”Keep moving,” he ordered. ”The boats won’t wait.”

***

A thousand miles away, on the high western ramparts of the Tempest Spire in Ryugan, the original Northern stood looking out over the frozen caldera.

The mountain wind howled across the newly restored granite and tore at the edges of his dark cloak. He stood motionless, his eyes fixed on the distant tree line where the imperial escort had vanished earlier that morning.

Then a weight settled into the space just above his right hip.

Through the passive, instantaneous sensory link he shared with his clones, Northern felt the exact dimensions, density, and magical resonance of the object his black-haired counterpart had just slipped into a pocket in the capital. He felt the cold iron, and beneath it, the humming warmth of the Isha’r fire lineage.

He knew that vermilion resonance. It was the same fire that had burned down Lotheliwan. It was Annette’s heritage.

Northern let out a short, silent breath, the cold sunlight of the monster territory glinting in his dark eyes.

’Small world.’