The raspy bark of the subcenturio rose into the biting air, sharp enough to cut through the whistling wind. The Crown's Hounds were a different breed from the heavy Legions; as a cavalry host, their blood and bones were tuned to the saddle. They didn't bother with the granular ranks of the infantry; their smallest unit was the subcenturio, and the notion of a decurio was as foreign to them as a plowshare. They were built for the charge, for the lightning raid, or for the unified thunder of a nearly a thousand hooves.
They were as shifty as water, there would be no use in enforcing on them such discipline, for one cannot hold water in his hands without it slipping away.
