Chapter 15

Sucking on her index finger, Laura watched Sid working with the men. They were practicing a new tactic for dealing with men marching four abreast. She thought he cut such a dashing figure riding his horse with a lance leveled at the targets. Watching him made her wet between the legs. When he would pause and wave to her, she thought her heart would explode.

Although Sid had been busy leading the army, he had given Laura more of his time than she had expected under the circumstances. When he was in camp; they shared three meals a day, and an hour after dark, without exception. He even allowed her to attend his meetings with the other leaders. Each minute together was an exquisite mixture of ecstasy and agony. She wanted him so much that it almost hurt. She didn’t know it, but he felt the same way towards her.

Taking a breath, she returned to the building which she shared as sleeping quarters with some of the camp women. When Sid was away from camp, she spent her time helping in the kitchens, or in the infirmary when there were wounded men who needed treatment. The work helped pass the time until he returned.

Satisfied that the men understood the basic sortie maneuver, Sid returned to his quarters. It would soon be time for lunch and he wanted to have a chance to clean up a little before sitting down to eat with Laura. He enjoyed the meals, but they were driving him a little crazy. She’d eat food in such a sexy manner that he had difficulty standing up after finishing his meal.

Olaf, Barson, and Albert were seated at one of the few tables outside the kitchen area. While waiting for Sid, Olaf was flirting with one of the women who worked in the kitchen. The kitchen wasn’t in a building, but was under several canvases stretched among the trees. It helped keep the area cool, even with the heat from the cook fires. It also made it easy to flirt with the women while they were cooking. Olaf made frequent use of that aspect of the kitchen and his attentions did not go unappreciated.

Laura and Sid arrived at the table and took a seat across from the trio of young men. Olaf was too involved to notice their arrival, but Barson nudged his friend to get his attention.

Turning, Olaf asked, “What? Oh, you’re here, finally.”

“Yes, we’re here,” Sid said shaking his head. Gesturing to the tent with an amused expression on his face, he asked, “Who will it be today, Alice or Mary?”

“June,” Olaf answered with a grin and a wink.

Laura nodded her head in approval and said, “June is a lusty woman. I think you’ll have fun with her this evening.”

Noticing Olaf’s frown, Sid said, “She means it as a compliment.”

To say that Laura confused Olaf would be an understatement. He knew many women who enjoyed relations with men, but none of them were so open in approving other women who were enthusiastic. He couldn’t count the number of times she had steered him away from one woman to a woman of greater appetite for sex. It was obvious to every man in camp that she wanted Sid, but the pair of them never seemed to act on that desire.

Nodding his head, Olaf said, “I know.”

Albert, another of the young men who had been recruited at the Jones Citadel, asked, “Would you like some boiled eggs with lunch?”

Surprised by the offer, Sid answered. “We had eggs for breakfast and now you say we can have eggs for lunch. What’s up with the eggs?”

“Ah, we’ve had some rather productive chickens of late. The flock has grown and they are laying eggs at a fantastic rate,” Barson said.

“How many eggs a day?” Sid asked.

“Well, each hen is laying the normal number of eggs. The problem is that we have a lot of hens. We’re getting about two hundred eggs a day,” Olaf said with a grin at Barson.

“Oh, we’ve only got fifty people in camp at the moment,” Sid said.

“That’s right. Four eggs per person, every day,” Albert said.

“I suggest that you kill some chickens,” Sid said looking at Olaf and noticing the mischievous smile on his face. Wondering what was up, he asked, “What’s so funny about that suggestion?”

“We already did that, General. We’ll have a roasted chicken per man tonight for dinner,” Olaf said.

The chance to eat chicken while on a campaign was a real treat. Sitting forward, Sid said, “That sounds great.”

“We’ve also sent about five hundred chickens to some of the other camps,” Barson said looking over at Sid.

“What?”

“Well, for the past six months we’ve been letting the chickens sit on their eggs. It kind of got away from us, and we ended up with about a thousand chickens,” Albert said.

“What have you been feeding them?” Sid asked afraid to hear the answer.

“Oh, a little of our excess grain,” Barson answered looking down at the table.

“We had excess grain?” Sid asked.

“Well, we’ve been pretty successful in gathering supplies,” Barson answered.

“Just how successful have you been?” Sid asked looking from the one man to the other.

“Very,” Barson answered. He set a substantial leather bag on the table and said, “We’ve been trading for supplies across a pretty wide area. We get more of one thing than we need and swap the excess for another thing that we need. How can I say this? We’ve gotten some pretty good deals here and there.”

Nodding his head, Olaf asked, “You remember all of those freed men and women you sent to provide support services?”

“Yes,” Sid answered.

“Well, we put them to work making weapons, wagons, furniture, pottery, and other items using that approach you suggested,” Barson said. Looking at Albert, he said, “They’ve been very productive. In just four months, we’ve got all of the weapons, wagons, and pottery that we’ll need for the next year! Since we were paying them, we started to export the items to other parts of Chaos.”

Resting his head in his hands, Sid said, “Let me guess. We’re making money.”

“That’s right. We’re covering the payroll, expanding operations, and making a profit,” Barson said.

“You did that in six months?” Sid asked shaking his head in wonder.

“Yes, General. We’re making a profit and it has just begun,” Barson said. Looking at Sid, he added, “Peterson didn’t tell me what to do with the profits, so Olaf and I figured that it was about time to come ask you what we’re supposed to do with them.”

“Just how large of an operation have you built?” Sid asked looking at the trio.

“Pretty large. We’ve got a couple of places that are manufacturing wagons, siege weapons, spears, bows, arrows, shields, saddles, lances, and just about every other weapon that’s made of wood. We’ve got one that is turning out furniture. Then one of the men found a good supply of clay so we started making pottery. We’re producing jars and pots from there. Olaf found a source of bog iron. We’ve got eight smiths working full time making swords, arrow heads, spear tips, and parts for the siege weapons,” Olaf answered.

“Wait a minute. You’ve mentioned siege weapons a couple of times. Normally siege weapons are built on-site,” Sid said.

“Well, we scaled some of them down and mounted them on wagons so that they can be moved. We made a trebuchet that was about a quarter of the normal size. It launches a ten pound load about a hundred paces. They just devastate a wooden structure. You line up fifty of them and a fort will be gone in a couple of hours,” Albert said. He was one of the specialists that had joined the army. He was a siege engineer. Shrugging his shoulders, he added, “Fill it with small rocks and you can devastate an army. Fill it with jars of oil and you can burn down a forest around the army.”

“Fifty of them, huh?”

“We’ve got about two hundred of them built already,” Olaf said.

“Don’t forget the ballistae. We’ve got fifty of them,” Barson said.

A ballista was a torsion bow that fired wooden bolts. A bolt was a pace and a half long with a diameter of a man’s wrist. One bolt could travel through a half dozen men.

Laura asked, “How did you ever manage to put such a large operation together in such a short time?”

“It’s his fault, really,” Albert said pointing at Sid. Seeing the shocked expression on Sid’s face, he explained, “There for a while, the General was sending back a hundred to two hundred men a day to provide supporting services. That was over a thousand men a week who needed to be doing something. All of them were freed slaves who had nothing better to do than volunteer to help fight the slavers. Somehow they ended up being my responsibility. That was okay with me, since I didn’t have much to do until we were actually attacking a fort or a city, anyway.”

Olaf nodded his head and said, “None of us is all that smart. Poor Barson, here, is a little slow upstairs; but he claims to have had an idea or two in his lifetime. He says that he’s still waiting for me to have an idea, but I seem to recall having one when I was a little kid. So you can imagine our confusion when Albert came to us for advice about what to do with so many folks. Our poor little heads just about over heated trying to figure out why he came to the two of us.”

Sid chuckled at the direction Olaf was taking the story. Laura was trying hard not to laugh, but was not entirely successful. Sid said, “I’m well aware of how the two of you seem to have a penchant for slightly twisted thoughts that are almost ideas. I can’t imagine what happens when the three of you get together.”

“So you can understand that when the three of us put our heads together we kept getting these slightly twisted thoughts on how to use all of those men. Well, we talked the matter over with Peterson, and he told us to try out some of our almost ideas. We did, and things got a little out of control,” Albert said.

“How out of control?” Sid asked.

“I and the folks under my command have been starting two shops a day. When we ran out of things to make for the army, we started making other things in the hope of trading them to get other items for the army.”

“In terms of area covered by these shops, just how big are we talking about?” Sid asked.

“Every place that you’ve liberated going all the way back to your Citadel,” Albert answered with a shrug.

Sid was staggered by the information. Logistics was the key to the success of an army, and these three young men had exceeded every standard that could have been set. Their logistics solution was not only feeding and equipping the entire army, but making money for it as well. Looking over at Albert, Sid said, “We don’t have any men trained to use the siege weapons you’ve been building. We’re going to need them, and soon.”