The processing center for the 4th Mortal Legion wasn't a military base. It was a holding pen.
Veles stepped off the truck into a dust bowl surrounded by twenty-foot-high concrete walls topped with razor wire and automated turret emplacements. The air was thick with the smell of diesel fumes, unwashed bodies, and an underlying, metallic tang that Veles recognized from the border regions of Ukraine — the smell of old blood soaked into dirt.
"Get off my truck, maggots! Form two lines! Move faster or I'll invalid your contract right here and send you to the sulfur mines!"
The welcoming committee consisted of four Drill Sergeants wearing the grey fatigues of the Coalition infantry. They didn't look like the propaganda posters. They looked tired, mean, and casually brutal.
Veles fell into line. He scanned his surroundings. Rows of identical, prefab metal barracks stretched out in grid patterns. In the far distance, looming over the horizon like a storm cloud fixed in place, was the shimmering, distorted air of a Gate. Even miles away, looking at it made Veles's eyes water.
The processing was efficient and dehumanizing.
They were herded into a large corrugated metal shed. "Drop your bags. Strip," a Sergeant commanded.
They stripped. Naked in the cool air, they were hosed down with ice-cold water and something that smelled like industrial pesticide. Then, they were thrown bundles of clothing — ill-fitting grey fatigues, stiff canvas boots, and a thin wool blanket.
Veles pulled on the scratchy uniform. It was too loose in the shoulders and too short in the legs. It wasn't armor. It was barely clothing. It was a burial shroud stamped with a serial number.
Once dressed, they were marched out to a central assembly area — a patch of cracked asphalt baking in the afternoon sun. A man was waiting for them on a raised wooden platform.
He was older, perhaps fifty, with hair cropped so short it showed the scars on his scalp. His left arm was mechanical from the elbow down — a bulky, functional prosthetic of tarnished steel and exposed hydraulics. He didn't wear the rank of a Sergeant. He wore the oak leaf of a Major.
Major Kaelen eyed the thirty new recruits the way a butcher eyes a shipment of low-grade beef.
"At ease," Kaelen said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried across the asphalt without effort. "I am Major Kaelen. I command training block C-4. You are the new meat."
He paced back and forth on the platform, his mechanical arm whirring faintly.
"You are here because you have nowhere else to go. You are orphans, delinquents, debtors, and fools who believed the recruitment ads. You are the Mortal Legion."
He stopped and leaned over the railing, staring down at them.
"Listen closely, because I will not repeat myself. The Coalition has two types of soldiers. The Awakeners — those blessed by the System with magical abilities, superhuman strength, and divine protection. They are the sword and shield of humanity."
Kaelen gestured with his steel hand toward the shivering recruits.
"And then, there is you. The Mortals. You have no System. You have no magic. If a demon hits you, you will break. If a demon bites you, you will die. You are not the sword. You are the ablative armor. You exist to stand between the monsters and the people who actually matter, and absorb damage until you expire."
A ripple of unease went through the ranks. Veles saw Dax, standing a few rows ahead, pale visibly. This wasn't the supply line guard duty he had bragged about.
"Look to your left," Major Kaelen commanded. "Now look to your right."
The recruits nervously obeyed.
"Statistically speaking," Kaelen said, his voice devoid of any emotion, "six months from now, all three of you will be dead. The survival rate for a Mortal Legionnaire's first deployment is twelve percent."
The silence on the asphalt was suffocating. Twelve percent.
Veles felt the familiar burn in his chest. The Flaw was analyzing the Major's speech, testing it against reality. Veles braced himself for the inevitable outburst, the uncontrollable urge to call out a lie or a harsh truth.
But the urge never came. The burn faded.
Veles looked up at the scarred Major and his mechanical arm.
He's not lying, Veles realized. For once, someone is telling the absolute truth.
"My job is not to make you heroes," Kaelen concluded. "My job is to teach you how to stay alive long enough to be useful. Training starts at 0500 tomorrow. Until then, try not to kill each other in the barracks. Dismissed."