Hans struck the hand bell once while forty recruits waited beside the masonry gap.
Gravel scattered beneath turning feet as the front shields swiftly overlapped six paces before the opening beside the platform stairs. Hajin watched the second rank shuffle in behind them while Lana held her chalk above the slate, marking every place.
Loccy sat on the revetment, swinging her heels, with her practice mallet balanced across her knees.
"Perimeter contact!" Hans bellowed, jabbing his baton at a recruit drifting off his mark, "secondary wedge, and close that flank before some bastard rides straight through it!"
"Three inches too wide, Sergeant."
She hopped up onto the wall and squinted down the gap along her mallet's shaft, "A horse gets its shoulders into that crease, and your front rank learns real fast that shields aren't roads."
"The masons offered to close it yesterday, Lady Loccy, but our skirmishers need a way back, and mortar can't tell our lads from cavalry," Hans grumbled.
