V3: Grim Lanni's Bann

Lit by fired braziers on a cool spring night, the open field around the Hall of Banners had been cleared of the usual training yard clutter. In place of the dummies, butts, and racks of practice weapons, crowds of Lakelanders queued up to compete for a place in the Outfit’s premier fighting force. Grim Lanni Ironwolf himself sat atop a pyramid of crates, with his captains and bolverks seated on each level below, an excellent vantage point from which to view the trials.

Paired off by the snap decision of the officers, indicated by a pointing finger and accompanying bark of “You and you!”, aspirants fell to fighting in a flurry of fists, feet, and flashing teeth. Hand-to-hand combat in the Lakelands was not a sport for the idle and interested, but a means of survival in their winner-takes-all society. Bouts in this case were no-shirt-no-boots affairs, no padding or armor whatsoever. Rules were otherwise nonexistent, though killing and crippling were not the aim, and it was understood that one’s competition today might be their comrades on the next. Spectators whooped and cheered and offered advice to combatants while established bannermen circulated, distinct in their steel plates and by the sabers hanging at their waists.

Practices ran counterintuitive to purposes; these were not so much trials of skill as of endurance. To serve in the bann, one had to be a dogrider, swift in the windy country and a fresh hell to the enemy. Sword and boy and spear were the weapons of the cavalry, none of them in evidence tonight. Partaking in the trials was by invitation only, and Lanni trusted his officers not to bring in anyone who would slow the bann down when it came down to cases; even so, the idea of a great boxer slipping into his ranks without knowing which end of the sword was the sharp end sent his gut churning.

Turning his eyes from one match to another with the calculating impassivity of a surgeon, Lanni made a slight dissatisfied noise in the back of his throat. Hearing it, the captain at his right knee twisted his head around and back with a concerned frown.

“Problem, boss?” Dennao was an old hand at reading the Grim’s almost nonexistent forms of expression, and a growl was more warning than the old man usually gave.

Bending down with a creak of leather straps straining across steel plates, Lanni tilted his head towards the crowd at large, monotone voice rasping across the short distance to Den’s ear. “Some born tacticians hanging in the back, waiting for everyone else to get tired. Maybe you send a pack out, get them stirred in.”

“You got it.” Straightening his massive bulk, Den scanned around for a moment before pursing his lips in a short, sharp whistle to gain the attention of a junior pack loafing near a brazier. Fifteen pairs of eyes, most of them glinting yellow in the flickering light, tracked the sound back to their senior; their postures lost all relaxation, each Alistair suddenly tense as they waited to receive orders. True to the Grim’s command, Den swept the blade of his hand around the milling crowd, then stirred the air as if he held a pot.

Hopping to his feet, the pack’s leader chivvied his gang to the edge of the makeshift arena, gathering more bannermen with him as he went. Minutes later, apparently independent knots of whooping Alistairs started shoving, carrying, or even throwing the lurkers towards the center. Anger at being displaced or eagerness to prove their worth caused those nearer the fighting to start their own bouts with whoever was closest to hand, especially those who saw the advantage in starting up with someone who had just been tossed like a sack of potatoes.

“Better,” Lanni muttered, leaning his elbow on one knee, chin on cupped palm. As he watched, a new equilibrium shook itself out, with the new fights becoming as organized as those that had come before. When one fighter went limp, they were dragged off to cool down and receive any care required, and another stepped into their place. Trial by elimination, fast and dirty, but by no means the most efficient way to swell the ranks. Some ‘losers’ would be signed on when they were back on their feet, though it was far less likely that anyone who won every fight would be turned down.

“Not a great way to pick officers,” Dennao commented, leaning back against the crate which was Lanni’s seat. “No way to reckon leadership or the like.”

“Got plenty officers,” Lanni said. “Need fighters, the ones who can take a beating and dish it out, hey. Leave the thinkers for the Bears.”

Bears were thinkers, by and large, at least until they lost their tempers. Sarj Beorn was a born thinker. Which was why Sarj Beorn had the metal and forges lined up to support this mass recruitment, enough to arm and armor every new face the Bann could take in. “Don’t lower your standards just to get the warm bodies,” he had said. “What I need is more of what you already have.”

What Lanni already had was the Ironwolf Bann, the largest fighting force in all the Lakelands. Thousands of blooded warriors, each one loyal to the next step in a hierarchy that culminated with him. Everyone else who tried to raise so many Lakelanders did it by breaking the rules; make everyone equal, make one leader unchallengeable, stupid ways to fix what wasn’t broken. Lanni made the Bann work because it followed the old rules; stay in the pack, fight for what’s yours, obey your betters. Anyone in the Bann could challenge him for the top spot, and one day there would be a young buck like Dennao who could knock him out the saddle and take the reins.

But first, they had to prove they were worthy of the half minute it would take him now to rip them apart. That meant first becoming pack alpha of their own ten or twenty Wolf pack, then fighting for position as a bolverk, lone wolf with authority over many packs, and then again for the right to run an alae with their own pack of bolverks. Only a captain could challenge him, and today none of them seemed to feel like giving it a go. It made sense, since so far his leadership had seen them go from victory to victory, raising the Wolf tribe to co-dominance with the Bears and Cats.

They had come a long way in Lanni’s own lifetime. Ten years ago he had been a middling warboss with a middling warband, middling along in the windy country, stealing chickens and carrying off sodbuster daughters. Maybe a thousand souls under the banner on a good year, with more names crossed out of the book each season than signed on the next. Today, he had five thousand men and women, some of them full-mark Alistairs, beating the tar out of each other just for the chance to sign that same book, at the center of a sprawling city, at the foot of the greatest hall ever raised by Lakelander hands.

“Guess this means we’re heading out soon,” Dennao said, probing. “Can’t stir this much shit up and expect them to cool off.”

“Maybe so,” Lanni said, reaching around behind himself for a skin of wine. Taking a pull, he capped it and dropped it into the bigger Alistair’s lap. “Maybe everyone should be ready to ride out, high sun seems a good time.”

Very rarely did Lanni actually give commands to the bann at large. He led, they followed, and it was up to the captains, a very select group, to understand what he was about, and that their bolverks knew, and so on down the chain. Those who fell behind got left behind, in attack or retreat, and anyone who quit the bann lost the rights and respect that went with it. They would still be a Wolf, of course, but the tribe looked after the tribe, and there were old feuds and rivalries that might make ignoring a call for help seem… reasonable. Fuck with a bannerman, you were fucking with Grim Lanni Ironwolf, so sworn by Earth and Sky. That was a fight no one wanted to pick.

As the night went on and more contests ended, more names signed to the book, more steel coins given out as marks of membership, Lanni grew more and more irritated. These were good fighters, hardass types who knew their way around dog and sword. But no matter what Sarj Beorn said about ‘more of the same’, the old Wolf could not shake the feeling that this season’s campaign simply was not going to be the same old song and dance. Change was on the wind, strong enough to smell it, and luck spirits were known for being fickle fuckers.