Paks--chapter 22

So Paks starts training her recruits. The trainer she had came with the newbies, mostly because the Duke didn't leave ANY of them behind and the dude had "nothing to do". He tells her which of her newbies need the most work, and where, and she gets right down to it. Three of 'em listen when she tells 'em they need more work. One of them says that Siger, the trainer, told him he was coming along well.

Paks smiles. And then she beats the confidence out of him and explains exactly what he did wrong.

Then Siger comes over, they pair off, and he beats the confidence out of Paks. Who is absolutely delighted because it's brand new sword work for her to learn. He disarms her, she manages a trick she picked up in battle, and gets a touch on him with her dagger. Everybody applauds, and the newbies look absolutely terrified, as newbies should. She promises that they'll get better.

She keeps tripping over the new Saben, though. She tells the newbies a little about her Saben, and they nod and remain absolutely clueless.

After some reshuffling of the cohorts, the Duke moves them out. Time to hunt the Honeycat. They meet up with the G0olden Company on the road, a mercenary troop run by a woman. Paks considers what this would be like, running her own Company. Eventually, they split back up and head to their next rest point. More worldbuilding ensues until we get to an inn, where Paks and her buddies rest, eat, and drink. In about that order. Two of them stay longer than the others and come back drunk. Paks uses this to explain to her newbies why drinking when marching is a very bad idea.

After another couple days, they're ordered to draw swords and be ready to both march quickly and be ready to fight. The Halvarics have already clashed with the Honeycat's forces, so technically Paks's fight is easier than theirs was. The other side is already bloodied and tired, and Paks's side is fresh as a daisy, relatively. It still takes approximately three seconds for one of her newbies to go down with a broken arm, which she promptly steps on because Battle. One of the other two gets hurt too, so they're both off to the surgeon's tent. When the fighting stops, one of the other cohorts is ordered to persue the enemy, and she gets to go check on her newbies and eat. She gives them the down and dirty--that they did well, but they need more training and "be glad that was your shield arm". And then one of the surgeons goes over to her and chews her out for not getting her own wounds cleaned out the first chance she got.

Next day, they get to take the enemy camp apart. Exciting

They march and find the Halvarics holed up in a tower. They settle in for a siege, but don't have to wait too long. The other guys climb over the wall while Paks is on sentry duty; it takes a while for the rest of the camp to wake up so she's on her own for a decent amount of time. They manage to stay alive, but don't take the tower. Paks then wonders how they'll manage this campaign. The Honeycat isn't with this army, and there's an awful lot of 'em for them to be a set of throw-aways. Vik then tells her a story involving a man and a barrel of ale, and the chapter ends with him telling her the point: When you bite off more than you can chew, take a minute to cut it down to size.