Count Perez's remark about making Derek a commander of a thousand had been meant as praise.

"Commander of a thousand" might sound like an ordinary rank, but it already counted as mid-to-upper officer level.

The Northern Province's provisional Second Legion had only ten such posts.

Beyond a handful of officers under the count's own command, any baron who rode out in person naturally had to be given a post of his own, and officers already serving nearby cities filled out most of the rest of those ten spots.

Only after that came sons of military nobility like Marco, men with real strength of their own, who generally landed somewhere between commander of a hundred and commander of five hundred.

Carried away in the moment, the count had all but promised Derek one of those posts—an extraordinary concession.

It might well cause some trouble down the line, but for Derek, the upside outweighed the risk by a wide margin.

Even Count Perez himself, once the excitement had passed, realized he'd spoken out of turn.

The showing Derek's knights had put on had simply caught him too far off guard.

The count hurried off, and the review drew to a close for the moment.

The legion's final reorganization still remained.

Count Perez sat down with a few trusted men for one last discussion, and truth be told, he was wavering himself.

"An honorary knight—commander of a thousand is far too much. He barely qualifies for commander of five hundred as it is. Anything more will draw complaints."

By the army's own rules, nobles received preferential treatment.

But an honorary knight could expect, at most, command of ten men.

Even accounting for a temporary legion, and for the men Derek had brought with him, a commander-of-a-hundred title would already have run generous, granting him no more than the right to keep his own private force intact.

A stricter commander might have granted him no more than a banner captain's rank, and Derek would have had no grounds to object.

Of course, with enough skill and battlefield merit behind you, even a commoner could climb all the way to commander of a hundred, or a thousand.

The crown, in turn, would rarely deny an honorary knighthood to a commoner who rose to command a hundred men.

So naturally, some voices rose in objection.

Count Perez himself wavered, leaning toward commander of five hundred as the fairer mark.

"I'd say give the man some more troops to round out his command and let him carry the commander-of-a-thousand title—there's no real harm in it, and it'd lift morale besides. We're marching against the barbarians soon enough; give the men nothing to hope for, and I worry spirits will run low when it counts."

Others saw no harm in it. A little generosity would show the army that talent was rewarded and give the men something to strive for.

After all, perform well enough, and the count would surely see you rewarded in the crown's own name.

With opinions split, someone naturally tried to split the difference. "Give him commander of five hundred, then, and fill his ranks out to that."

That reading seemed closer to what the count himself actually wanted.

But just before the count could settle it, Cesar spoke up. "My lord, Knight Derek came up through our own order—and the Second Legion is, after all, only a temporary formation for now."

Count Perez caught the meaning behind that at once. The governor had raised the Second Legion as a stopgap; what became of it afterward remained anyone's guess.

More likely than not, it would be reorganized once the barbarians were driven off, then folded straight into the larger war against them.

When that happened, every appointment would be reconsidered.

So a commander-of-a-thousand title here might not carry quite the weight people assumed.

Still, should a temporary legion ever go permanent, its officers wouldn't simply be tossed aside—a demotion in rank on the transfer was standard enough.

That alone was a considerable advantage.

And Derek, having trained in the Perez Order, already bore the count's factional mark.

However independent he now stood, that bond of shared origin wasn't something he could shrug off.

Whether the count meant to angle for command of the real legion down the line, or simply to invest in the relationship for its own sake, the move made sense either way.

Besides, this was only a provisional legion. The authority Perez was dispensing belonged to the King, not to him.

It was a rare chance to purchase personal loyalty with the crown's resources.

Even a man like Count Perez only had so much political capital to spend; recommending a man for commander of a thousand in ordinary times would have been a hard sell. Only a moment like this made it possible.

The appointment was temporary and conditional. Why not spend that political capital on Derek?

Count Perez worked it through in his own head, set aside whatever private motive Cesar might have had, and signed the commission outright.

"Tell the boy to do well and not embarrass me. I'll give him the commander-of-a-thousand title, fill his ranks with soldiers and farmhands up to a thousand men, and the rest he can sort out himself."

"As you say. I'll see that he knows the full measure of your generosity, my lord," Cesar answered.

Having spent real political capital, the count wanted Derek to understand the value of the favor.

Of course, it was Derek's background together with his good standing with Cesar that had won him this chance at all.

Otherwise, that temporary favor could just as easily have gone to someone else. Why Derek, specifically?

From there, Count Perez moved quickly to settle the army's final structure and finish his last preparations.

Cesar himself came calling with the commission in hand.

"Knight Derek. Special word from the count—you're being promoted out of turn to Tenth Commander of a Thousand in the temporary Second Legion of the Northern Province. Five hundred soldiers and three hundred farmhands to round out your ranks. The rest... is up to you."

Cesar handed the commission over with a smile, offering his congratulations while filling Derek in, in passing, on the argument that had played out over it.

"Lucky for you, coming up through our own order—otherwise the pushback would've been worse, and this chance would never have landed on you. Do well, and once the barbarians are driven back, the fighting's bound to keep going, and the Second Legion's bound to go permanent. A commander-of-five-hundred post is yours for the taking at minimum—perform well enough, and you might even keep your current rank outright."

This part, Derek hadn't fully grasped on his own.

Cesar, after all, had seen more of the world and understood the army's unwritten rules.

And truth be told, had the barbarians not invaded when they did, Derek would likely have ended up no more than a commander of a hundred once the real army formed—and even that only out of deference to the two hundred-odd men already under him.

Holding real authority above one's formal rank was common enough in the army.

So, in a strange way, he had the barbarians themselves to thank for this.

Derek understood Cesar's meaning well enough—the man really had spoken up for him.

It might have been only a few words from Cesar, but to Derek they had changed the course of his future.

Such a favor deserved repayment.

Derek appreciated such straightforward dealings. If someone spoke for him and brought him real benefit, he would repay the favor in kind.

If anything, he outdid Cesar's own generosity, walking straight to the stables and leading out one of only three Excellent-grade warhorses he owned.

Northern Warhorse

Quality: Excellent (5/100)

Experience Pool: 0/100

An Excellent-grade Northern warhorse. Superior endurance and load-bearing, good burst speed and pace.

It could carry a rider in full heavy plate and was so scarce that none could be found on the open market.

"Brother Cesar, I won't waste words on it. Thank you for the help. I've got nothing better to show my gratitude with, so—this horse is yours."

Derek called him "brother" without a second's hesitation, and his hand proved every bit as open.

Just how much did a gift like this actually amount to?

Even in Count Perez's service, Cesar would have needed to save every coin of several years' wages to afford one—and money alone still could not buy what never reached the market.

He stood there stunned on the spot.

Derek knew perfectly well: set against the sons of the great noble houses, he had nothing to his name.

What he could build was a reputation.

He would repay every debt in full and give with an open hand.

Whatever his origins, who would not value a friend willing to be this generous? Such friends would help him in turn, and every favor would bring its own return.

Cesar was beside himself with delight.

He'd expected some return on his goodwill, sure—just never one this fast, or this overwhelming.

He tried, awkwardly, to refuse. But Derek only seemed more worked up about it than he was.

Derek's expression made his meaning plain: refusing the gift would be an insult.

Cesar could no longer refuse. He walked out of Derek's camp in a daze, leading the warhorse by its reins.

Only once he'd made it back to the middle of the camp did he finally come back to himself.

"Derek. Derek. What an open-handed fellow. Looks like I picked the right friend here."

One good turn deserved another. After accepting such a gift, Cesar had to do his part.

So that very afternoon, Derek watched a batch of first-rate recruits arrive to report in.

As the registering officer, who knew the Second Legion's makeup better than Cesar did?

Men out of knightly or merchant households, none of them carrying any real standing of their own, each bringing a handful of carefully chosen soldiers as they joined the Second Legion.

They came from respectable backgrounds, carried themselves well, and had enough education to understand and obey orders.

This was, without question, the finest stock of soldiers and junior officers going.

Marco had also been deliberately assigned elsewhere. As House Ferreira's heir, it was safer to keep him apart from Derek and avoid any friction between the brothers.

As Derek's friend, though, Cesar naturally meant to lend a hand.

The whole Second Legion completed its reorganization quickly as a result, with a herald sent by Count Perez himself confirming it all by the book.

Derek's pennant rose high, and from that moment on, he stood as master of this thousand-man command.

Straightaway, he set about restructuring the force without a shred of hesitation—keeping one company of a hundred intact, and scattering the rest of his own men among the new arrivals.

The knights and merchant-born men who'd arrived with soldiers of their own he granted squad-leader or even banner-captain posts, following custom.

But every squad leader's unit got a corporal of Derek's own planted in it, and every banner captain answered to at least one squad leader loyal to him personally.

Through moves like these, he could bring the whole thousand-man command under his own grip as fast as possible.

And with the Panel behind him, he was confident he'd tighten his hold on the army further still before long.

As commander of a thousand, holding absolute authority, quietly disposing of a few troublesome men would be simple enough, should it come to that.

That evening, Derek arranged a modest gathering—beyond his own original men, a whole new crop of junior officers joined the table.

Adrian, for one, now led a full company of a hundred and stood as Derek's own standard-bearer.

Derek's rise had lifted everyone around him.

Left to fight for it alone, Adrian might never have earned an opening like this in a lifetime.

It only confirmed for Adrian, all the more, that he'd chosen right.

One meal would not win every man's loyalty, but it helped them understand one another.

Derek met every new man individually and spoke to each of them plainly. "An army isn't a children's game. Some of you may have studied a little military theory, but that isn't enough to shoulder real responsibility. Marching, deployment, command, even keeping the supply lines moving—every part of it takes skill. I was born to military nobility and served as a knight in the Perez Order. That gives me more experience than most of you. If there's something you don't understand, ask me now. Fail at the crucial moment on the battlefield, and don't expect mercy from me."

He held the moral standing for it, had already put his strength on display before every eye in the camp, and carried real background and battle experience besides.

Some out there, perhaps, resented Derek's rise to commander of a thousand—but not one man at this table had any grounds to.

Cesar had spared him no end of trouble. These were, without exaggeration, genuinely excellent men.

Derek decided the warhorse had been well worth giving away.

The next day, the Second Legion set out at last, marching in a long, winding column.

Ten thousand men might not sound like much on paper, but for this age, it already counted as an enormous host.

Not every man alive had the standing, or the skill, to command a force this large.

Even the march itself was not a matter of everyone simply pushing forward in a mob.

Formations, waves, front and rear—every part of it in its own order.

As the newcomer, Derek carried no special duty; marching along quietly was all that was asked of him.

Count Perez's own direct forces, meanwhile, shouldered the vanguard's work of clearing the road ahead.

Regular officers holding real crown commissions found themselves handed no shortage of tasks besides.

The freshly conscripted forces, for their part, still had plenty left to learn.

No wonder veterans looked down on such makeshift formations. The difference was stark.

Still, every commander of a thousand had real experience, so nothing spiraled out of control. Lesser problems within the ranks would have to wait.

After five slow days on the march, Ironwall City had been under siege for fifteen days.

That day, a steady drum of hoofbeats rolled through, and the whole Second Legion stirred with unease.

Derek rode up to a rise to get a look. Count Perez showed no reaction at all, and as the riders passed the Tenth Thousand's position, Derek caught sight of a banner he knew.

"The Perez knightly order!"

A familiar eagle-head banner, one he'd once seen every single day.

He had wondered why he had not seen the Perez Order anywhere in the column. Now he had his answer.

By the look of it, the order had doubled in size, its ranks marching tight and orderly—no ragtag men thrown together in a hurry.

"Squires. And knights who've already served their time."

Derek worked it out at once: every year, no small number of retired knights and squires like himself came off the rolls, more than Count Perez could ever afford to keep on retainer.

But year after year, the count had kept spending his own coin to help train up knights for the nobles and merchants around him—hardly out of pure charity.

Now, when soldiers were needed most, a single call to arms brought a flood of former knights and squires back into the Perez Order's ranks.

They brought their own horses and weapons. Every man had completed a knight's training and made his own way in the world; none lacked fighting ability.

Together, they formed a formidable knightly order.

The moment the Perez Order arrived, the loosely organized Second Legion quickened its pace.

These past days hadn't gone to waste, either; every commander of a thousand had by now brought his own men under some basic control.

The soldiers and farmhands who'd just joined had settled into the army's rhythm too.

The sudden change of pace caused no chaos at all—if anything, everything held together in perfect order.

A few real battles more, and the Second Legion would have shaped itself into a genuine fighting force.

"No wonder they call him a veteran of a hundred campaigns."

Derek took the lesson to heart—every bit of this bore Count Perez's own hand.

There had been no grand gesture, yet one small adjustment after another had drawn the entire force together.

Of course, that also spoke to the quality of the officer corps behind Count Perez. Swap in some court noble instead, and the man probably wouldn't even have learned everyone's faces yet by now.