The training ground smelled of turned earth and old sweat.
Grass had tried to reclaim the space during the four years it had been left alone. The recruits had mostly ended that effort. Their boots had trampled paths between the wooden posts until the grass gave way to strips of bare dirt, leaving only stubborn clumps standing between them.
The paths looked almost permanent now, like they had always belonged there. On the south side, the equipment rack still held two warped spear shafts left from the old garrison stores. No one had bothered to throw them away, and nothing better had appeared to take their place.
Beorn stood at the edge of the ground with the ledger open, his hand moving steadily across the page.
Aestrith stood beside him with her arms crossed, watching a recruit near the far end of the row struggle to keep his stock steady.
"That's a sad display," she said.
"The weapon doesn't help," Beorn said.
She glanced at him. He kept his eyes on the formation.
The man was compensating. His elbow sat too far back, the stock resting against his shoulder at an angle instead of square. The posture was wrong, but the reason made sense, and every other recruit had found some version of the same adjustment.
Each had solved the problem individually because they had no better option, the draw mechanism on the crossbows was simply misaligned. Beorn had noticed it a while ago, and somewhere in his memory sat the correct configuration, just beyond reach, separated by a fragment he had not yet forced himself to find.
He wrote a rough angle in the margin beside a question mark, then returned his attention to the line.
Godric moved down the row, spoke to the struggling recruit without slowing, and continued past him. The man's stance changed immediately.
"Godric's good for the job," Aestrith said.
"Could be better, but yes."
"Says the sheltered prince."
"Not anymore."
She uncrossed her arms, then crossed them again.
Two recruits past the man with the elbow problem, someone older corrected his own stance a moment after Godric passed him without instruction. He had watched the adjustment made beside him and copied it.
Beorn tracked the man for a few seconds. That was the behavior that mattered. A force improved fastest when its soldiers noticed corrections and applied them without waiting to be told.
Building a militia, and eventually an army from nothing meant there were no inherited ranks, no officers promoted only because they had been around longer than anyone else. He could design the promotion process himself. Whatever he established now would become the foundation.
"So you're promoting based on who's observant," Aestrith said.
"Among other things."
"Those old ex-soldiers will love that for sure."
"Not necessarily. Some will definitely hate it."
She studied him. Beorn turned the page in the ledger.
The drill moved to a movement phase. Godric began calling step patterns. The soldiers advanced, halted, then advanced again on command. Their spacing wavered across the line, as some men moved with the rhythm of people who had marched before, and others did not.
The difference showed clearly even from here, like two different materials laid side by side in the same section of wall. The thought brought him back to the northeastern wall. When the crown soldiers had run away from the wall, Coss's security men had already been in position on the parapet.
Beorn wrote another line in the margin, then looked back to the formation as they repeated the footwork pattern.
The problem had a solution. Three weeks of the same drill, run consistently, would instill the movement on their bones. The crossbow problem would take longer, as no amount of practice could compensate for flawed equipment forever.
He added a few more marks to the page. A rough diagram of stock seen from above. The margins were approximate. The correct form still refused to form on his mind.
"What is that," Aestrith said.
"Crossbow."
She glanced toward the rack. The warped spear shafts. The crossbows resting there with dry wood and metal that had not seen oil in months. "Guess those aren't up to your standards."
"Yes," he said.
She looked back at him.
Beorn turned the page.
During the rest break he crossed the ground to where Godric stood at the far end, watching the recruits stand loose and breathe. Godric turned as Beorn approached and waited.
"How are you judging them," Beorn said.
Godric considered the question before answering. There were three recruits he believed would be of use. Good initial skill, steady effort, no complaints that mattered. There was another he trusted less. Slower to adjust when corrected, though he seemed determined to improve. Then Godric paused.
"There's one I want you to look at," he said. "End of the line. Brown coat."
Beorn found the man without moving his head. Mid-twenties. The build of someone used to real labor.
"What about him."
"Where he goes during breaks. The questions he asks don't match where he says he's from." Godric glanced down the rank for a moment. "And during every break, he discreetly observes her."
Beorn did not follow the glance. He already knew where Aestrith stood.
"How long have you been watching him," he said.
"Since the second day."
"Keep him on the drill, don't act unless he does something first." Beorn met Godric's eyes. "I need whatever he reports more than I need him removed."
Godric nodded once.
"The rest, you can keep filtering them. If you can't account for where someone is from or what he's looking for, he doesn't have any use for us."
Beorn slid the ledger back under his arm. "I'm writing the fundaments for the militia. It will establish ranks, promotions, the whole structure. Until then the rule is simple, if you wouldn't trust a man with a wall position in the dark, he doesn't get one."
"Understood."
Beorn walked back toward the edge of the ground.
The drill resumed. Godric ran it from the far end, his voice stern, using the same tone for corrections as for every other command.
Aestrith watched the end of the line. She said nothing when Beorn returned to stand beside her.
The man in the brown coat moved through the footwork pattern smoothly, the rhythm of someone who had practiced the motion many times. His grip remained steady around a crossbow that should have behaved predictably.
The crossbow in his hands did not.
Beorn opened the ledger to the final page and wrote one sentence. Then he closed it.