1 -6

Kemsa half-listened to the Centurion's speech. It was much what he had expected to hear – lots of encouragement about their bravery, and their upcoming victories, very little of import. Hurry up! thought Kemsa, I want to go! The boats are right there! Can't we leave yet?

At this moment Kemsa found his internal monologue interrupted by a bout of laughter – the Centurion had just reminded everyone that the sailors existed outside the normal legionary chain of command, and warned them all to be on the lookout. Kemsa didn't really understand what he was implying, but laughed along with he rest of the men.

And then they were off onto the boats, all the men cheering. Kemsa followed his two older friends onto the smaller of the two ships. Kemsa's eyes whipped from side to side, he was trying to take everything in at once: the mess of ropes and canvas which soared above his head; the piles of crates which the sailors had loaded onto the ship ahead of time; the sailors themselves, all working together in perfect harmony to make the ship itself work. If Kemsa had ever seen battle himself, he would have been struck by the similarity of how the ship's crew functions as an entity larger than just the sum of it's parts, and how a legion in battle does much the same thing.

Kemsa felt himself get swept up in a fit of naive optimism. This journey is going to be fantastic. Nothing could possibly go wrong.