“The strength of the phalanx is the spearman,” Ahiliyah shouted across the plain.

“The strength of the spearman is the phalanx,” her troops shouted back.

“Again,” she said, “on my command.”

In her right hand, General Ahiliyah Cooper held a spear, the heavy butt-spike on the ground, the business end pointed toward the blue sky above.

In her left arm, she held her baby.

She stared out at a scene she once could have only dreamt about. In the distance, men and women toiled away on large squares of farmland. Different colors for different crops—wheat, barley, and the glorious feathered tufts that were ears of corn, ready to harvest.

Closer in front of her, in the first group, stood men—and more than a few women—with shields and six-foot-long spears. Sixteen people across, three ranks deep. The warriors gleamed with sweat generated from the day’s heat and from their constant drilling. Sunlight played off chestplates, mostly bronze, but a few new ones of the hard-iron variety as well.

The shields, however, were all new, all made from hard-iron, hammered out in the forges of Vinden, Jantal, Keflan, and Lemeth. Made in four different places, but they no longer bore the crests of individual holds—now each shield was painted with a sun rising above a stylized mountain range—the symbol for the unified nation of Ataegina.

Ahiliyah drew in a breath, barked out a command. “Front rank,lower!”

The front rank lowered their spears level with the ground.

“Second rank,lower!”

The second rank obeyed.

“Third rank,angle!”

The third rank lowered, their spears angling up at fifteen degrees.

Forty-eight people had just transformed into an armored wall of death. She had another three groups of forty-eight, and could have made her front line longer, but along with shortening the spears and utilizing the new hard-iron shields, she’d changed tactics. She gave orders to those groups, moving one to the left flank, one to the right, and keeping one in the center.

Some of these warriors had survived the battle against the demons. Some were Vindenians. Some were Takantans and Lemethians who had run—but no one cared about that. They were alive, and their experience was proving invaluable. For anyone who had survived that hellish day, their cowardice was understandable, and forgiven.

Most of the fighters, however, consisted of younger Bisethians, Takantans and Vindenians who were new to arms and combat. They all wanted to learn from the General, the one who had rid their world of the great evil.

“Slowmarch,” Ahiliyah shouted.

The groups moved forward, counting off every second step, a marching hedge with two-hundred and fifty-six feet stepping in perfect unison. Were they ready? Ahiliyah hoped so. She would continue to drill them until they were.

She wondered if Sinesh would have been proud of what she was building. She felt that he would. She missed him, missed Panda, Brandun’s mother… so many others.

Ahiliyah saw people approaching down the long trail that led up to Lemeth Hold—Susannah, running fast, her hidey-suit leaves rippling. Farther back, Tolio and two young baker’s assistants, each laboring to carrying a large wooden crate.

“Formation,halt,” Ahiliyah called out.

As one, the groups stopped.

“Atrest!” Spears rose up. Shields lowered to the ground.

Despite nearly sprinting at least a mile, Susannah was barely breathing hard. Her face net was flipped back, exposing her blonde hair and deeply tanned skin.

“General Cooper,” she said, “there’s been a sighting of Northerner ships off the coast.”

The words chilled Ahiliyah’s blood. “How many ships?”

“Three,” Susannah said, “but the scouts said they were a ways off. There could be more.”

Susannah wore a hidey suit, but she wasn’t a runner. Those positions had been done away with. She was a scout—one of the new warrior types Ahiliyah had implemented in her updated military structure. Susannah would never be big enough to fight in a phalanx, but she could run like the mountain wind, she never seemed to tire, and in her suit, she could hide so well you might miss her even if she were only a few yards away.

“Any sign of where the ships might land?”

“No, but Biseth garrison is alerted. Little Spider is on his way there now with a new device. He said he’ll be able to see all the way to the coast and miles beyond.”

Ahiliyah said nothing, let her glare communicate for her.

Susannah’s smile vanished. “I’m sorry, General… I shouldn’t have used that name.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Ahiliyah said. “When you speak of the man who saved the world, you use his fuckingname. Understand?”

Susannah nodded furiously.

“Good,” Ahiliyah said. “What does he call this invention?”

“Afarglass, General.”

Yet another Creen invention. In the two years that had passed since the death of the Demon Queen, the boy—no, theman—had created a new kind of mortar that allowed for fast fixes to the ravaged mountain holds, had found a way to make iron harder and more durable than bronze, and able to hold a sharp edge for far longer, had designed the new city of Hellan with a grid structure of roads that ma