FREE USE in Primitive World

Even though he knew that there wasn’t even enough time, he still wanted to train them a bit to avoid casualties as much as possible.

“Now,” Sol growled, his smirk returning. “We are gonna train a bit before the actual battle. Drop your spears. Grab the heavy logs from the construction piles.”

The recruits looked confused, but the absolute weight of his command forced them into motion. Within minutes, the two hundred and sixty men were lugging thick, petrified ironwood logs across the clearing, their muscles straining under the raw mass.

Sol split the formation into two groups. One hundred and thirty men formed the defensive center line, locking their bone-shields edge-to-edge in a tight, semi-circular crescent… the inverted wedge.

The other hundred and thirty men stood twenty paces away, gripping the heavy ironwood logs by the thick rope handles.

“The secret to a feigned retreat isn’t speed,” Sol shouted, standing right in the gap between the two forces. “It’s distribution. If a Zerith stalker hits your shield, and your weight is on your back heel, your center of gravity fractures, and you get trampled.

You need to absorb the hit through your Layer 1 core pathways, drop your hips, and use the mud to brace your spine.”

He looked at the group holding the logs. “When I count to three, you run forward and slam those ironwood trunks straight into the center of the shield wall with everything your foundations have. Don’t hold back. If you break their arms now, the healers can fix them. If the enemy breaks them tonight, they’re dead.”

“One!” Sol called out.

The shield row braced themselves, their feet digging deep into the wet dirt, their shoulders pressing hard against the raw bone rims of their gear.

“Two!”

The log-bearing recruits picked up their pace, their heavy boots thudding against the packed earth as they gathered momentum.

“Three! Slam them!”

BANG! CRUNCH! groans!

The clearing filled with the violent, splintering sound of petrified wood colliding with thick bone-shields. The impact was massive.

The entire center row of the shield wall violently buckled, thirty boys getting lifted clean out of their tracks and thrown flat onto their backs in the mud, their spears scattering across the dirt.

The line fractured instantly, a wide, messy gap opening up right in the middle.

“Stop!” Sol’s voice thundered over the groans of the fallen.

He blurted into the center of the broken line, his hand reaching down to grab the collar of a recruit who was struggling to get up from the mud.

He lifted the boy straight into the air with one hand, his silver-crimson eyes drilling into the kid’s terrified face.

“What did I just say about the back heel?” Sol muttered, his voice cold. “You didn’t drop your hips. You trusted the bone of your shield instead of the density of your own Layer 1 foundation.

When the mass hits you, you don’t push back with your arms… you drive your energy straight down through your thighs into the earth. You become a root.”

He dropped the boy back into the mud and turned to the rest of the standing line. “Fix the line! Every man who got thrown back, get your shield up and change your stance. If the center breaks like this in the ravine, the Coalition will pour through the gap and cut your throats from behind before the flankers can even leap from the cliffs. Again!”

For the next few hours, the western clearing turned into a brutal, unyielding loop of physical conditioning and tactical drilling. Sol didn’t allow them a single minute of rest.

He ran them through the impact drills over and over until the clean bone-shields were covered in deep, grey cracks and the recruits’ shoulders were bruised a dark, swollen purple.

But with every fifty slams, the line grew visibly denser. The boys stopped relying on their raw upper-body strength; they learned to cycle their narrow Layer 1 pathways, dropping their centers of gravity, locking their ankles into the packed ground, and absorbing the kinetic shock through their entire skeletal frames.

The uneven, frantic rattling of the shields slowly organized into a single, heavy, and completely solid thud that resisted the weight of the logs effortlessly.

“Good,” Sol called out as the sun began to tilt toward the western treeline, casting long, bloody shadows across the mud.

“Now we will drill the transition. The retreat.”

He stood at the front of the solid wedge. “When I give the word, the center row will intentionally step back by two paces, creating a false weakness.

The sides will hold firm for three breaths to guide the enemy mass inward, and then… the whole line pivots. You don’t turn your backs blindly and sprint like wild rabbits.

You drop your shields, transition your weight to your front toes, and execute a fast, backwards run while keeping your spears pointed out to prevent them from closing the distance too fast.”

Sol drew a line thirty yards back. “When your heels hit this marker, that’s the pivot point. The squad leaders will blow their bone-whistles, the rear row will plant their shields solid, and the front rows will slide into the gaps to lock the vault shut. Let’s run it at full speed.”

The recruits shifted their stances, their breathing heavy, their bodies covered in a thick mixture of sweat and grey dirt.

They were exhausted, their muscles aching from the continuous impact, but the sloppy, unrefined movements from noon had entirely vanished.

They moved with a tight, synchronized focus, their eyes locked onto Sol’s every gesture.

“Formation lock!” Sol shouted.

The two hundred and sixty men snapped together, their shields creating a seamless, curved wall of bone right across the dirt road.

“Impact brace! Hold for five breaths!”

The log-bearers ran forward one last time, slamming the heavy ironwood trunks into the wall with full Layer 1 force. BANG! This time, the line didn’t fracture.

The recruits let out a collective, guttural grunt, their knees bending smoothly as they absorbed the force, their boots sliding back by mere inches before locking solid into the dirt.

“Engage retreat! Move!”

The center row smoothly drifted backward, their spears extended in a tight, defensive grid as the entire unit began a fast, coordinated backwards sprint toward the rear marker.

They didn’t trip, they didn’t trample each other, and they didn’t break the formation.

They moved like a single, massive snake pulling back into its hole, keeping the distance perfectly measured.