At dawn, as the first rift opened in the iron-gray clouds, Joachim was whittling a wooden stick with his dagger. A pattering sound caught his attention, making him set down the wooden object that had just begun to take shape and look outside the tent.
Raindrops struck the large iron pot outside, sounding like arrows hitting a sheet of iron. He tilted his head and watched those crystal arrows from heaven pierce the cooking smoke above the camp, splashing tiny brown flowers across the muddy ground.
Joachim hated rain, especially autumn rain.
It seldom rained in Bagnia in autumn, but when it did, the rain was bitterly cold. It could soak through the woolen shirt beneath his chain mail, sending a chill slithering along his spine like a snake and making him shiver even while standing still.
Joachim feared rain because, to him, it meant death.
He was a soldier of Bagnia. When the king was still there, Joachim had been a soldier. When the king was gone and the Republic's assemblymen became their masters, he remained a soldier.
And soldiers had to obey their officers' orders.
Joachim's fear of rain dated back to the previous autumn. While the masters of the Republic and the Restoration Army were fighting, he and his comrades had obeyed their superior's orders and attacked the Restoration Army's formation opposite them.
It was only war, something the people of Bagnia were used to. In Bagnia, where land was scarce and the soil poor, dying in battle was not a bad thing. Starving to death was what people feared.
So Joachim and the others felt no qualms about attacking the Bagnians across from them. Even knowing that his younger brother was among them did not slow his steps in the slightest.
Life and death were a