Side Story: The Murcia Chivalric Order

HOUSE FERTIO’S CHIVALRIC ORDER WAS RENOWNED for its strength.

It had the numbers. It had the equipment. But most importantly, each of its members was an experienced warrior. And Marquis Fertio himself was not merely a skilled commander—he also had a great mind for combat tactics. The House Fertio Chivalric Order, which served under him, was one of the most powerful in all of Scuderia.

The troops under Murcia’s direct command were part of that order, so they were comparatively experienced and skilled. Ultimately, though, it was Jalpa who acted as their supreme leader, so Murcia commanded a small group of about five hundred. The more veteran officers and experienced soldiers also served key roles in the main force, so those led by Murcia leaned relatively young; while their ranks did include some older soldiers nearing retirement age, their average age was under thirty. Murcia had been loaned members of Van’s Chivalric Order, and he had further supplemented his order’s numbers with potential recruits, but mixing them all together with his own troops was chaos in the making.

First, the chain of command was a mess: a simple solution would have been for Murcia to make his personal troops superior officers and have everyone else serve under them, but that was not how things played out. Murcia sat at the top of the food chain, and under him served Dee as the acting commander of the Murcia Chivalric Order with Arb as his adjutant. Then Murcia’s and Dee’s respective subordinates were all thrown together, plus an additional hundred or so apprentice knights with no experience to speak of. If Murcia’s order in its current incarnation was ever sent to battle, any formation would fall to pieces and they would be handily defeated.

Dee was contorting himself to try to fix the problem. His solution was to give all of Murcia’s subordinates the title of “assistant commander,” thereby differentiating them from Dee’s adjutant and evading any scenario in which Dee’s absence would force Arb to act as his stand-in. Next he promoted many of Murcia’s original troops to high-ranking officer roles. He had his own people serve as their assistants and tasked them with training Murcia’s officers so that, when Dee and the others returned home, those officers could shoulder their responsibilities on their own. Finally, he ordered Murcia’s subordinates to train the greenhorns.

This was all to prepare for the eventual return of Dee and his people to Seatoh Village. He had to ensure that this new organization could function and fight on its own, and train future new recruits. And after days of training, they finally began to look like a cohesive unit.

One day, during a short break following a half day’s rigorous training, Dee folded his arms and looked around. “Mm! You’re all looking fantastic!” he said with delight.

The men and women to whom he spoke were scattered on the ground around him, exhausted. The worst of the bunch were sprawled on their backs, struggling to catch their breaths, while those accustomed to Dee’s harsh training regimens mostly sat upright. To Dee, though, this was perfect. After all, everyone, newcomers included, had been keeping pace in full armor! When he began, he had been prepared for more than a few people to drop out.

How did these newcomers get through this fierce training? In Dee’s opinion, it all came down to the hard work of Murcia’s subordinates. The knights who had been ordered to train the new recruits were young, certainly, but they were committed to their duties and to ensuring the newcomers received proper training.

Part of the regimen involved Dee splitting the order into six different squads so he could task them with group work. While Dee’s subordinates assisted, it was the hard work and leadership of Murcia’s people that saw the tasks successfully completed. Group work pushed people to their limits, and pulling through required the presence of good leaders. Dee thought highly of their accomplishments on that front.

“All right! Keep it up, folks! We still have half a day to go!” Dee announced cheerfully. He laughed loudly when everyone turned to him, jaws agape, and proceeded to take point and run ahead of them in his heavy armor. “First up: a good old-fashioned marathon! Late finishers will have to equip heavier armor! Show some guts!”

He laughed and sprinted ahead, running halfway up one of the small castles. When he reached the top, he moved to the terrace. It was a bizarre image, Dee clad in western-style armor on the terrace of a Japanese-style castle, but he had no way of knowing this.

“Mm, Arb seems to be having no trouble,” he said, gazing out at the sight before him.

From up top he could see the Chivalric Order in its entirety, and he kept an eye on Arb, the first of the group to follow him in sprinting for the castle. As Dee’s adjutant, he wasn’t in charge of leading any squads during the exercise, so this was just personal training for him. The other adjutant trailed Arb by a fair bit, and back at the starting point the six squads were taking formation.

Dee watched carefully and rubbed his jaw. “Hmm, that squad there is efficient, but there’s another squad that has yet to take formation. I suppose I’ll require my adjutants to keep at it for a while longer.” In his mind’s eye he saw the perfected form of the Murcia Chivalric Order. “At this point, I would appoint him commander of the Chivalric Order, with the captains of the first and third squads as adjutants and the other four as centurions. Their leadership skills will only get better, so I could always train them a bit more intensely…but if the goal is to strengthen this fortress city’s defenses, then I need to have them learn proper operation of the ballistae.”

He folded his arms, thinking over the multitude of things that needed to be done. The current Murcia Chivalric Order was fairly small, composed of only twelve squads. Under normal circumstances, Dee would have them train in four squad rotations: intense full-day training, ballista training, and guard duty over the course of three days, then repeat. This time around, he was conducting joint training in which six squads did the day training while the other six were on guard duty. Tomorrow, he would have them train in the same way.

“I would like another thousand troops, but we don’t have the COs for that yet. The question is, how ready can I make them in a month?” Dee smiled confidently. “Oh, what fun! Let’s see how powerful I can make this Chivalric Order before it’s all said and done!”

Arb, who was running with all his might toward the small castle, overheard Dee cackling and looked up to find him on the top floor of the building, smiling fiercely. A wave of despair washed over him.

“I wonder if I can get him to send me back to Seatoh Village?” Arb said to himself. His face turned pale as he imagined the torturous training in store for him.