“For every sort of privilege, comes a responsibility to even it out.” - Saying by an ancient unnamed philosopher.
On a wonderful spring day, just a mere week after he turned seventeen, Alvaro heard the loud sound of bugles resound through the Warbound compound. It was a sound that all of them had been taught to keep an ear on, but also one he had never heard for real in his twelve years of training and life within the compound. It was the call to arms.
The call which was only sounded when the Warforged was roused to war.
Alvaro dropped the book he was reading – one of the perks of being Warforged was that they were taught to read and write amongst other things and he found that he really enjoyed reading – on his bed and leapt out before he ran outside. He was only wearing his shorts and nothing else, as it was their free time of the day and he was happily lounging around in his room when the call sounded.
Many other Warforged in various states of undress – some even clad only with blankets wrapped crudely around their bodies – rushed out from their own respective rooms as well. The rooms they were assigned as official warforged were better than the barracks they used to live in, with only four of them in a room. It also allowed for them to get some privacy from time to time.
As they passed the public bathhouse in the compound he waved down Njeri who had just ran out from there, clad in little more than a towel draped around her torso. Neither of them were bothered by their state of relative undress, having lived together for the past dozen years. In fact, most of them likely only wrapped something around their bodies because they did not wish to show up to muster naked rather than out of any sense of modesty.
It had not taken long before all the Warforged present within the compound, nearly six thousand – which was most of them, other than a couple squads tasked with guarding the Duke – of them gathered by the training field, where one of the most senior Warforged had stood at the dais in front of them. Everyone lined up in neat formations despite their various states of dress and stood ramrod straight as they waited for the announcement that everyone knew would come.
That war was upon them.
None of them truly paid much attention to the announcement itself. They were all just filled with giddy excitement, especially the older Warforged who might be close to forced retirement when they grew too old to fight. War was coming and the Duke had ordered their deployment. The first combat deployment of the Warforged in the last two generations.
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Before the sun had set, all of the Warforged, a little over six thousand men and women from young ones still in their teenage years to grizzled white-haired veterans from several generations back, had lined up outside the city’s eastern gate. They were fully armed and armored, and Duke Orsla Banitu himself rode past their ranks as he inspected the assembled soldiers.
Together with the six thousand Warforged were twice as many men-at-arms and levies from the various minor nobles that had territories near the city itself. As they marched further to the east, towards where the invaders from Algenverr was, more troops from nobles that lived further away from the city joined their ranks and swelled their numbers to around thirty thousand in total.
When the day arrived where they stood across the enemy army across the Nedja Plains, Alvaro and the squad he was part of stood near the very front, and the young Warforged could barely contain his excitement. His squad consisted of forty pikemen, ten shieldbearers, and four blademasters including himself, with a young noble scion – one of the Duke’s nephews if he remembered right – acting as their commander.
Normally command of a Warforged squad would be assumed by a senior Blademaster from previous generations, but due to the long period of inactivity, there was a lack of those who had experience with command. As such, the Duke assigned some young folks from his family as commanders instead, with around twenty-five of them commanding a Warforged squad each.
Alvaro watched as a small thousand-man detachment marched ahead of the enemy army and screamed out challenges, as a member of the nobility to another. From his position, he was close enough to see the mocking smile on Duke Banitu’s face as he passed some commands to couriers who then relayed them off, and before long, twenty squads of Warforged, each led by a family member of the Duke, marched out from the army’s formation.
Alvaro’s squad happened to be one of them.
The young Blademaster was almost beside himself with excitement as his squad moved to the front of the rectangular formation. His squad was positioned just to the right of their center, at the very front, and they would have the honor of being amongst the first to engage with the enemies before them. All of them were aware of the privilege and responsibilities they were granted.
All the shieldbearers gripped the handles of their large tower shields firmly as they readied their bodies and minds for the battle soon to be joined. The pikemen behind them marched forward with their long weapons held high with pride. Alvaro himself along with the squad’s three other Blademasters - Njeri amongst them – skulked between the shieldbearers and the pikemen, keeping themselves mostly out of sight.
Their role in battle was either to charge in and disrupt the enemy formation, or to defend their squad from an enemy attack that managed to get past the pikes. They were given the independence to act as they saw fit, and wore better armor that also covered their limbs so that they could focus on the use of their weapons better.
Behind them, amongst the rear ranks of the pikemen, rode their commander, the young noble perched on the back of his steed. Alvaro would have preferred to have an experienced veteran to guide and command his squad in their first battle, but he kept the complaint to himself. Even in his position, he understood the meanings and implications of a battle between nobles, just like the one he was about to take part in, as troops under one such noble’s command.
As the two small groups approached each other, the pikemen lowered their pikes, while their shieldbearers hefted their shields as they supported it with their whole bodies. In contrast to the enemy army who yelled war cries and obscenities, the Warforged only countered with an eerie silence as they marched to meet their foes.
Then the opposing armies clashed against one another.
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