Inside the Kingdom Army

Victor was a little surprised by what Viscount Lugan told him about the current state of the Kingdom Army. From what he knew of the Raine Kingdom, it should still have been at the height of its power. Despite internal tensions, it had always been formidable abroad.

In its border clashes with the Fas Kingdom a few years earlier, and in its campaign against the invading Barbarian Alliance from the Northlands Wasteland, it had held every advantage. How had the Kingdom Army become so woeful in Lugan's telling?

As Victor talked with Lugan further, he began to understand.

Most of the Kingdom Army's directly controlled legions recruited from the provinces where they were stationed. Officers at every level also preferred locals. Long ago, to prevent soldiers recruited close to home from deserting or colluding with local powers, the royal government had required those legions to rotate their garrisons to other provinces every few years.

But Malthus III, the king two generations before, had decided that rotating legions wasted too much military funding and abolished the rule. Only forty-odd years had passed since then, yet many garrisons in the interior provinces had already begun to decay.

Officers had skimmed pay for nonexistent soldiers before, but never on this scale. During rotations, the War Department had sent inspectors to check troop numbers. Every legion had maintained over ninety percent of its authorized strength and trained its soldiers properly, so the army had remained capable in battle.

After rotations stopped, however, the fraud grew worse. According to Lugan, his legion was one of the less serious cases and still stood at seventy percent strength. Some of the worst legions in the interior might be down to fifty percent.

Victor found that strange. If the War Department sent inspectors, why had they not uncovered