The Wolf (Under the Northern Sky #1)

by Leo Carew

Leading an army was more complicated than Roper could ever have predicted. The legionaries were trained from the moment they entered the haskoli at the age of six to forage and procure their own food. Nevertheless, keeping the legions fully supplied was a near impossible task. Close to fifty thousand soldiers (including the troopers of the Cavalry Corps, whom Roper had discreetly removed from the fortress before Uvoren realised he was taking them), eight thousand horses and god knew how many beasts in the baggage train required vast granaries of wheat, beans, barley, oats and rye, as well as a small army of sheep for slaughter. They had taken supplies for two weeks with them, each warrior carrying much of his food on his back, but they would struggle to find more out in the field. They were two days’ march out from the Hindrunn when someone realised that while each legionary had, as always, brought his own bow, they had no arrows with them. The legates informed Roper that this was usually the duty of the Skiritai. Tekoa, who commanded them, exploded that they had been working harder than anyone had a right to expect and that it had been somebody else’s responsibility to bring the bloody arrows. Men were sent back to fetch them. Hours after the men had returned with wagons of arrows (still not enough; they would blaze through them in just a few minutes of battle), a trooper of the Cavalry Corps had reported to Roper that they were low on horseshoes. Roper had asked how that...