Chapter 8: Gathering

When he woke the next morning, the little mouse was already gone.

Leo searched the camp but didn’t see her anywhere. He asked everyone he met, “Where’s my little mouse?”

A small child pointed timidly toward the wide river outside the camp. “I think she went down to the riverbank.”

Leo searched along the water’s edge for a while before he finally found her on a stretch of rocky shallows.

There, the little mouse crouched, a shivering bundle on the riverbank, her small hands rummaging in the cold, shallow water. To keep her clothes dry, she had hitched up the too-long hem of her dress and tied it around her waist, exposing her bare lower body. Her pallid skin, from thigh to foot, was covered in angry, raw frostbite.

Olivia had more than one child to look after and no spare trousers to lend the little mouse.

At last, she brought her hands together and scooped up a tiny fish, no larger than a finger. Her delight was so great that her large eyes curved into crescent moons.

Afraid the fish would wriggle free, the little mouse didn’t bother to wash the mud off. She hurried to shove it into her mouth, desperate not to lose it.

The youngest children in the pioneer group were only allowed one serving of food a day. In the morning, they might snatch a few bites from their parents’ bowls, or be given a handful of boiled peas. But no one ever called the little mouse to share.

So she had to squirrel away scraps of bread in secret, or forage for herself in the wild like this.

The only advantage was that, unlike other children her age, she didn’t have to join the adults in their labor. She had the whole day to search for food.

But the North’s winter yielded little for hungry hands.

Leo stepped forward and caught her by the cheeks, prying open her mouth with two fingers to fish out the prize. The little mouse jerked in panic and, struggling, swallowed the unchewed fish whole. She huddled, arms over her head, bracing for blows—then realized it was Leo.

She stood there, anxious and guilty as a child caught red-handed.

I’m sorry, she seemed to say, I should have given the fish to you first.

Leo didn’t have the heart to scold her. He only said, “You’re too slow at catching fish. Watch me.”

He began shifting stones, quickly clearing a small pool and building a dam. Leaving a gap for the water to run in, Leo dusted off his hands and called, “Come on, don’t play at the river alone. If Olivia finds out, she’ll keep you from supper.”

“What about the fish?” she asked.

“Come back tonight, and there’ll be plenty.”

“What about bread?”

“What bread?”

“The one you promised yesterday…”

After much cajoling and shameless pleading, Olivia finally relented and slipped him a soft piece of bread.

Basking in the little mouse’s adoring gaze and her delighted cries of “Papa,” Leo handed the bread to her.

Breakfast was still the same hard, unyielding bread—half the size of supper’s portion—served with a big pot of boiling water. There was also a chunk of root, something like a sweet potato but closer to yam.

This was the North’s native stag-horn cassava, able to survive in frozen soil and more filling than bread, but with one flaw—it was poisonous. Eat too much, and it could kill.

After choking down their meager breakfast, Leo waved a hand and said to the young man beside him, “Ivan, pass the word. Militia assembly and training.”

Within moments, the militia gathered.

Only twenty men appeared, a few with bandages wrapped around their arms or heads.

The pioneer group was desperately short on strong laborers to begin with, and the militia formed the backbone—they all had work to do by day. Back in the village, when Ulyan first mustered them, only breakfast and supper left time for training.

As for a true full-time soldier, Leo was the only one exempt from farming.

Most of the others had joined for a simple reason: each day, Ulyan provided an extra pound of bread to militia members. In a hard winter, many poor farmers didn’t even get that as daily rations.

But after enduring the hardships of the migration, the surviving militiamen understood the true value of an armed force—especially in this untamed wilderness.

So when the call went out, all but the seven or eight old soldiers whom Ulyan had posted as sentries around the camp assembled quickly, injuries notwithstanding.

After a year of extra rations and training, these men were visibly stouter than the average villager, their clothes a little heavier. Half wore crude armor made from stitched animal pelts, looking for all the world like a band of Tsarist-era hunters.

There wasn’t enough food to allow for strenuous physical training, so the militia focused on the basics: old soldiers like Ulyan taught weapon handling, attack and defense techniques, and battle formations.

Many of these skills were deceptively simple, yet they made a dramatic difference in battle.

Fighting and killing weren’t as straightforward as one might imagine. Give two villagers weapons and set them against each other, and they might hack away for ages, blood everywhere, yet neither would be mortally wounded.

But trained and battle-tested fighters were different. On the battlefield, only one or two chances to strike might present themselves—and those moments were decisive.

That was why even crippled veterans could easily dispatch three or five village bullies: not just because they were stronger, but because their attacks were swift and deadly.

Ever since the former militia captain left halfway through the migration—driven by his wife and child’s illness—Leo, whose combat skills had improved the most, was promoted to captain.

But the journey had been so arduous that Leo had never yet assembled the men for a proper drill, as Ulyan or the previous captain had done.

With the mind of a traveler from another world, Leo had some unconventional ideas about fighting.

Hand-to-hand combat was too crude, too inelegant; ranged attacks were the true art of war!

Having been killed by a kobold once, Leo had no desire to repeat the experience.

Though the original owner of his body was hot-tempered and combative, Leo’s transplanted, more refined soul recoiled from the brutality of cold steel at close quarters.

Unfortunately, Leo’s home village wasn’t known for archery; the people were simple farmers.

Had he been born in a fishing or hunting village, just gathering the men would have formed a competent team of archers.

No matter. They were tough and strong—he could teach them something else.

Leo had the militia form up and loudly announced, “From today, we’ll practice javelin throwing. My requirements are simple: within fifty yards, no throws should fall short; within twenty yards, five out of ten must hit. Anyone who fails will have their supper rations halved.”

The militiamen exchanged uncertain glances. Vitch, a brown-haired youth only two years older than Leo, hesitated, “But don’t we have to clear land too? Uncle Ulyan said we need to reclaim at least three hundred mu in three months, or we’ll miss the spring planting in April.”

Leo paused, then asked, “How big is a mu?”

The militiamen all stared at him in disbelief, followed by open scorn.

Even the illiterate were shocked at their captain’s ignorance.

You call yourself a countryman, and you don’t know the size of a mu?

Leo met their looks with exasperation.

How am I supposed to know your units? Who knows if it’s an acre, a hectare, a Chinese mu, or something else entirely? The original owner never farmed a day in his life and had no idea about these measurements either.