What Waits in the Trees (Patreon)

“Laugh all you want, boys,” Strategos Corvus growled, pacing before the training line with his staff tucked beneath one arm. “The young ones are the first thing you’ll hear in an Amazon ambush.”

The cadets shifted uneasily.

“Sling stones. Whistling through the trees. Small arrows dropping from the hills. That’s how they start.” He jabbed the staff toward a recruit in the front row. “You won’t even see the girl who loosed it before your mate beside you drops clutching his groin.”

A few boys snickered nervously.

Corvus’ scarred face hardened.

“Aye, laugh now. Men laughed at them a thousand years ago too. Then the laughing stopped.”

He turned toward the painted shield wall at the far end of the yard.

“In the old days, most Amazon warbands were made up of such skirmishers. Young girls carrying hunting bows and slings brought from their own villages. Fast little devils. Hard to pin down. Useful in raids and tribal fighting.”

He spat into the dust.

“Less useful once armour improved and kingdoms learned proper warfare. But never mistake old tactics for dead tactics.”

Silence lingered across the yard for a moment before one of the younger cadets slowly raised his hand.

The boy looked barely old enough to shave. “S-Strategos…” he began nervously, shifting beneath the weight of the older cadets’ eyes. “What are we supposed to do if they ambush us and we can’t even see them?”

Several heads turned toward him. A few cadets snorted quietly. One smartass near the back gave his training shield an exaggerated shake, as if the answer were obvious enough to spare the question.

Corvus noticed all of it.

The old strategist planted the butt of his staff into the dirt.

“Good,” he said bluntly. “At least one of you is thinking.”

The snickering stopped.

Corvus began pacing again.

“You hold formation. You keep your shield up. You do not break ranks chasing shadows into the trees like frightened dogs.” His scarred eyes swept across the boys. “That’s what they want.”

He pointed toward the wooded hills beyond the academy walls.

“The young skirmishers aren’t there to destroy the legion. They’re there to anger you. Distract you. Humiliate you. Make young fools abandon discipline.”

His voice hardened.

“And the moment your line breaks…” He tapped the staff once against a shield. “That’s when the real Amazons arrive.”

The cadets straightened as Corvus continued his lecture, boys trying to look braver than they truly were. Some would survive their first campaign. Many would not.

Corvus knew his answer had only been half true.

Hold formation. Keep discipline. Trust the line.

Fine words for the training yard.

In real battle, most young soldiers existed for one purpose: to absorb the first shock of war. To march into forests and valleys before the veterans. To draw out hidden archers. To reveal where the ambush waited.

Fodder.

The old strategist’s eyes drifted briefly across the rows of boys. Most were common-born sons with patched tunics and cheap practice spears. But scattered among them stood a handful with polished mail, fine leather belts, and family crests painted proudly on their shields.

Noble blood.

Those boys stood a better chance.

The Amazons rarely wasted highborn captives when ransom, intelligence, or political leverage could be gained instead. A captured noble might yet return home with his pride wounded but his life intact.

Common soldiers received no such mercy.

Corvus suppressed the memory rising unbidden into his mind: trees alive with movement, missiles hissing through the brush, men collapsing screaming into the mud before the enemy line had even appeared.

And then the women themselves.

Fast. Disciplined. Far deadlier than most Theronian recruits expected.

He had seen men instinctively raise their shields toward the face and chest, only to crumple moments later from a strike driven low into the groin. The Amazons understood fear better than any commander in the Middle Plain. They knew exactly where men were weakest.

Corvus tightened his grip around the staff.

No lecture in the academy yard could truly prepare these boys for that.