The exercise had been happening for some time before Batu moved from the outskirts of the section.

Both halves of the guard were working through the horn-call coordination sequence, the steppe riders and the norsemen responding to the same signals from the same starting positions, and what he was watching was the problem the morning’s discussion had just named as unsolved at army scale, working correctly inside the guard.

The two-note spread signal went out from the horn rider at the formation’s center, and both halves adjusted. The steppe riders moved into wider spacing with the arm-signal confirmation, and the norsemen took the same wider position from the same call without a separate instruction arriving.

When the exercise concluded and the formation stood down, he said Suuqai’s name. Suuqai was already moving before the word was fully out. Batu added Gunnar’s name, and one of the steppe riders near the norse passed the call.

The three of them moved further away, clear of the formation’s center. The winter cold was specific and present. The camp sounds were behind them at a distance.

Batu named the number first. A thousand men. Then the ratio, seven hundred norsemen, three hundred steppe riders.

He gave the reason briefly. The Rus campaign moved the campaign theater into urban and enclosed territory, where the guard purpose mattered differently than on the open steppe, and the guard needed the mass to fill that purpose.

He didn’t make an argument out of it. He said what he needed and waited.

Suuqai looked at the steppe riders standing down on the exercise ground before he answered. "The two-per-mingan rule at three tumens gives sixty steppe riders at maximum. Do we disregard it or adapt to a new pool of riders."

Batu said. "Recruit from tributary clan riders with no standing of their own. Men who submitted and hold no position in their clan hierarchy worth protecting. The selection rule was built to exclude men with prior obligations. These men don’t have any."

"They’re riders," Suuqai said. "They’re not trained to what the guard does."

"How long."

Suuqai considered this honestly, arriving at the number before he gave it. "Three months to where they’re running the signals correctly and holding position under pressure. Another month before I’d trust them at a personal protection function."

"That’s acceptable."

Batu looked at Gunnar.

"The norsemen."

Gunnar looked at the exercise ground for a moment before answering.

"If we do as before, you will struggle to find seven hundred men in multiple seasons."

Batu said. "The Rus territories campaign will produce contact with their fighters who have no standing after the campaign moves through them. Men of norse lineage who’ve been serving the Rus princes for a generation and who’ll have no patron when the army is done there. That sourcing happens during the campaign, not only before it."

Gunnar looked at him directly.

"Their years in Rus service builds specific habits that will be different than the guard."

"Can you work with them."

A beat passed while he turned that over.

"I can work with anything if I have time for it," he said. "The time is the question."

"It needs to be complete by the first year of the campaign."

"It takes longer to trust for personal protection."

"Then they go into the formation first. The protection builds from within that."

Gunnar accepted it.

"The language," Suuqai said.

He said it without turning it into a question, naming the thread the moment the sourcing discussion reached its natural close. Gunnar looked at him.

"One translator at a hundred works," Gunnar said. "I can’t deal with seven hundred."

"How many of the original norsemen have functional Mongolian."

"Three who can carry a full instruction correctly. Four more with enough for basic commands."

He paused.

"Leif has the most of anyone. He’s been learning it since the early days. He understands most of what moves through the formation before I’ve translated it." 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Suuqai was still looking at him while he spoke.

"Then Leif runs a section," Batu said. "One of the sub-command sections."

"The sub-command hierarchy is what I was going to raise," Suuqai said.

He turned his attention to the formation positions on the exercise ground as he worked through it.

"At a thousand I can’t personally know every rider, the guard’s founding principle doesn’t survive that scale. I will need five sub-commanders, each holding two hundred. The steppe sub-commanders I have from within the original batch, the riders who’ve been with us for the longest and showed they are capable. The norsemen sub-commander are Leif and Gunnar."

"Two norsemen sub-commander at seven hundred norsemen," Batu said.

"Three," Gunnar said. Even, a correction and not an objection. "At seven hundred I need two more. Leif takes the established norsemen, the original batch and whoever comes through Yusuf’s network. A second sub-commander takes the Rus intake. That integration is different enough that it needs its own authority."

"Who’s the second."

"I don’t have a name yet," Gunnar said. "He’ll be in the new batch and I haven’t met him."

"Then you’ll know him when you find him."

"Yes."

Batu looked at Suuqai.

"The steppe sub-commander for the new intake. Same principle."

"I have two candidates," Suuqai said. "I’ll have a recommendation before the month is out."

Batu looked at the guard’s positions on the exercise ground, both halves at rest now in the cold. He’d built the guard to be something no formation could reach through family debts and clan ties.

What he was asking Suuqai and Gunnar to do was scale a principle, not only a headcount, and the principle was firm as long as the selection was and the hierarchy and the command structure stayed clean.

The sub-commander layer was where the founding logic could break or hold. Five more people with authority inside the guard meant five more points where the wrong person could compromise what the isolation was built to protect.

Suuqai’s two-candidate answer had already shown he was applying the same filter to the expansion’s leadership that he’d applied to the original selection. He understood the problem without being handed it.

The training timeline and the sourcing constraints were solvable, with predictable costs on each. This was the part that required getting right first.

"The two candidates," Batu said. "Don’t rush the choice."

"Yes," Suuqai said.

He turned back toward his formation without ceremony. Gunnar moved toward the norse section of the camp.

Batu stood in the outskirts. The cold was the most present thing. The camp had its winter routine behind him from every direction, the formation areas, the depot and the settlement’s workshop fires, the ordinary atmosphere of a force resting for the season and not moving yet.

He looked at one of the perimeter riders near the outer boundary.

"Find Siban," he said. "Tell him I’m here."

The rider went. Batu found a position in the open ground between the Khar Kheshig section and the main camp and waited.