The first hour taught me something. These people were not weak. They were expendable, which was a different thing entirely, and the difference mattered.
A mercenary with a chipped longsword could hold his ground against a foot soldier of the Night Fall Order for maybe thirty seconds, sometimes less, sometimes more. But the average was about thirty seconds before something went wrong, a misstep, a miscalculated parry, or a moment of hesitation that got punished with steel through the ribs.
And yet they fought.
The ones who survived the first engagement reformed the line without being told. The wounded crawled behind the barricade while others stepped forward to fill the gaps, moving with the grim economy of people who understood exactly what they had been paid to do.
I respected it. I also found it deeply, deeply stupid.
'Eleven hours to go and the casualties are already stacking up.'
The second wave came harder.
