'Pick your Battles.' That was the first rule of a mercenary company and one which Acel Nicellon of Fallion's Fists company learned early. He had managed to become one of the company's five Lieutenants and while admittedly a big part of that was that he knew his letters and the company had an abundance of dead men's shoes to fill this fact was obvious to him. When you led a team on a raid and find another enemy team, fight them when you had the advantage. When you were choosing what side in a conflict to get a contract with, go for the one who'd most likely win.Of course you often did not have that option, sometimes the battle was picked for you and you had to fight it anyway. More so in recent years. Not that things had been getting more peaceful on the mainland, but the countries that fought those wars had become less interested in hiring them. The Fists had to settle for lower rates doing either low end garrison work or being thrown into the meat grinder. In the last ten years the formerly 421 strong company had lost more 300 troops in battle. They managed to find some replacements in the usual sources (outcasts, gang members, bandits, refugees, peasant boys looking to see the world, etc) as well as the remnants of old companies that hadn't survived the meat grinder that war was becoming, but despite that they were still down to about 260 troops. The smaller the company the weaker the price it could command both in absolute terms and per head, the less likely it was for them to come out with the spoils of war and the greater the chance that they'd be destroyed outright.A month ago they'd come to Avesia to try to solve that problem. It was a common enough stop for companies to bolster their ranks. The Kingdom's requirement that all free men keep arms meant that there were plenty of potential recruits who could supply their own gear. There were also fathers who wanted their sons to learn how to use them under the tutelage of seasoned veterans, which provided a modest but safe cash-flow. Then there were the slaves. The King would sell a few of his Janissaries to foreign buyers and they were generally good solid fighters. Then there were slave Stevedores and Farmhands. They were generally strong, used to impoverished conditions, cheap and were often pathetically grateful to the men who freed them. Just as importantly those looking for mercenary companies often sent agents to Avesia. Acel had expected that they'd spend a few months here licking their wounds and get some half decent contract. He did not expect a dozen Infrastructural warships to show up in Porta Liberium's harbor.Even so, captain Fallion made the right call. When word got about about who was coming the Fists packed their bags and moved a few miles to the north to a goat field where they made camp. When a royal official came to hire them, offering each member of the company twenty Lyra (more what the average member would make in a year on campaign in the good old days) and lordships for the officers, they were refused. When they threatened that they would be hunted down by the Kingdom's armies if they did not comply The Captain's response was simple and hit the nail on the head."How many Necromancers have you got?"Eventually they gave up trying to dragoon 323 uncooperative mercs to their doomed cause and they watched as the Coldlanders overran the city. As that happened he'd come in with a truce flag and an request for employment. Things were a bit tricky since only a few of their officers knew some broken Venoan, Torionese or Allergonian. But eventually they'd managed to get a contract for some guard work.Though there was a lot of butchery a fair number of Free Avesians were captured, many of them were inured in the surviving pens of the slave markets for the time being. The Coldlanders hand them cleaned out and had ripped out the chains, but they still served their purpose. The Infrastructurals measured them, used their 'camera' things to make pictures of them and wrote reports about them. Every day more of them came in and after a few weeks some of them were taken away to their ships. Their job was simple, keep the former slavers in, keep them in line and keep the ex-slaves out until this lot was entirely deported.He'd heard talk about the new "Free Avesian Republic" that was being made and thought about it as he ate an orange. It sounded nice but he had his doubts on how effective it would be and how long it would last. Moreover he'd probably never come back to Avesia once this job was done. The pay was not great, especially since four fifths of it was there Paper Money instead of proper coin. But for all that he was satisfied with this contract. Better work for Credits for the winning side then to lay dead alongside the losers with a purse full of gold.