If there is any topic that wins eternal favor with historians, it is war. The high stakes that every soldier wagers end it an air of majestic intensity, while the importance that it has to the state's public image ensures that such research receives excessive funding. The tendency of militaries to keep excellent records is also a blessing.

Mercenaries are often an exception to this rule. Many see them as the lowest of the low, brutish men who have chosen killing as their profession. Nothing could be less true. Governments are occasionally cursed by politicians who rise more due to their skill in rhetoric than in governing. On rare occasions, these people become generals, but that is blessedly rare. It is more common for them to meddle in the affairs of the military, inflict their incompetence upon it, and bring disaster on the force. This is usually followed by a desperate attempt to save face, which allows military mistakes to be tolerated and forgotten.

Mercenaries lack that luxury. They are ruled by the iron laws of economics, and thus they have no time or tolerance for excuses. They propser through success or die through failure. The Skylark Company prospered, perhaps to a greater extent than any other mercenary group in history.

As such, there are few sources that can match their history as a tool for learning about military science. There are none that can match it as a source on military economics. Politics, espionage, and financial warfare all had a place in their book of war, but it is altogether more important to study how they used their soldiers. After all, there always comes a point where battles must be fought, and then nothing short of precise application of excessive violence will carry the day.

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ON INFANTRY

The popular image of the Skylark soldier, both modern and archaic, is that of the heavy infantryman. This archetypal soldier wears a strong, bright breastplate of steel, a comb morion upon his head, and he holds a stout halberd in his hands. To a great extent, this image is accurate. Such soldiers have formed the bulk of the Skylark Company for all of its history, and they long served as the foundation of its battle plans.

Like most popular images, this one is also a simplification. The archaic Skylark soldiers were not a homogeneous group. The Skylark Company certainly valued discipline and obedience above all other virtues when it came to their infantry soldiers, but that did not blind them to the value of diversity. They made a point of recruiting soldiers with a wide variety of talents, and then deploying them in order to take advantage of their unique skills.

As such, no military or political historian can afford to skip over the study of the Skylark Company's infantry doctrines. In many ways, they were unique. When the Skylark Company was a purely mercenary organization, they were compelled to organize themselves with an eye towards maximizing their profits and minimizing their expenses. After they signed on with Hallifax, they lacked the system of levies and landed gentry that provided soldiers to so many other nations. In both eras, they profited by a strict chain of command and regular training regime that was only possible because they were composed entirely of professional soldiers, which allowed them to employ tactics that were impossible for other groups.

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LINE INFANTRY

Many ill-informed individuals who believe that they are terribly well-educated believe that the term "line infantry" refers to those soldiers that fought in a line formation. This belief is a perfidious falsehood that has long plagued students of military history. The name instead refers to the fact that these soldiers formed the main line of battle around which all other units operated.

Though their role may seem humble and more difficult to romanticize than that of other troops, these soldiers became the archetypal soldiers of the Skylark Company. Their panoply of war became the dress uniform for all members of the Company. They took to the field in suits of light plate armour, which usually lacked protection for the lower legs due to the unlikeliness of wounds to that area. Most of them bore a pole weapon for their primary armament. Prior to the contract with Hallifax, they carried a mixture of pikes and halberds as circumstances demanded. After, the halberd became almost universal due to its greater convenience in the small spaces of a city. A sword or mace served as a secondary weapon, to be used when their primary tools of war became unwieldy in close combat. Daggers were carried as weapons of last resort and as tools for penetrating cracks in heavy armour. A single javelin was commonly issued as a supplemental weapon, although these often fell out of use when the supply lines became strained.

Some soldiers were instead equipped for ranged combat. They bore either conventional bows, crossbows, or slings, and were usually recruited from tribal cultures to avoid the expense of training them in those weapons. They wore the same armour as their peers whenever possible, and carried the same secondary weapons.

These soldiers existed to blunt enemy charges and enable their comrades to launch charges of their own. To that end, archers would begin the battle on the front lines. Pike and halberd troops would be deployed behind them. The archers would fire until the enemy approached, at which point they would cease direct fire and fall back behind their comrades before beginning a phase of volley fire. When the enemy drew closer, they would cease fire entirely to avoid hitting friendly troops. At that stage, the other soldiers would throw their javelins and make contact with the enemy. If the archers were reasonably well-trained, they would switch to their secondary weapons and attempt to join other troops in a flank charge on the enemy. If not, they would withdraw and serve as a reserve.

This strategy called for rapid redeployment, which required the iron discipline for which the Skylark Company was justly famed. This discipline was attained through regular drills, which took up the majority of the line infantryman's time. Many of them filled the remainder of their time with a secondary trade to supplement their income. In some cases, they cultivated artistic skills that could lead to their promotion within Hallifaxian society. In other cases, their time was simply made profitable. Like all mercenaries, they were always on the lookout for ways to advance themselves.

These soldiers also provided the bulk of the labour required to make and break camp. They pitched tents, dug earthworks, and otherwise served as necessary. Other troops contributed to this labour when they could, but they were often required for more specialized tasks. The line infantry served as the steel backbone of the Company off the battlefield as well as on it, and the Skylarks could never have hoped to function in any way without them.

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SHOCK INFANTRY

Anvils are not terribly useful until they are paired with a hammer. In the case of the Skylark Company, the shock troops served as that hammer for the line infantry's anvil. They were often recruited from the companies of line infantry, usually when a soldier proved that he was more inclined towards ferocity than discipline. Others were defectors taken from other forces, or the disgraced heirs of the Hallifaxian elite.

Regardless of their origins, these soldiers lived just a few breaths away from their doom. Though they wore heavy armour, their casualty rates were always among the highest in the Skylark Company. Their short life expectancy is a direct result of the manner in which they were deployed.

These soldiers existed for the sole purpose of breaking the enemy line and forcing them into a shattered retreat. They were not entirely dissimilar to heavy cavalry, although they were significantly cheaper to train and deploy. Ideally, they struck the enemy from the flank or rear after the line infantry had forced an engagement. In that case, their role was not terribly dangerous, but the ideal situation rarely happened.

In pitched battles, the shock infantry were an ideal target for cavalry forces. They were armed with heavy swords and hammers, and thus they were not terribly well-prepared to receive a cavalry charge. The danger increased if the charge came after they had engaged enemy infantry, and many commanders would hold cavalry in reserve for precisely that purpose.

Of course, pitched battles were a rarity in war. Sieges were significantly more common, and the shock infantry had a special role to play in these affairs. They would be the first past the walls after the fortifications had been breached, tasked with giving space for the other troops to deploy. Thus they bore the brunt of the enemy garrison's wrath, which usually resulted in heavy casualties. It was not unusual for every soldier in the first wave to die a terrible death, and the rare survivors often received promotions in return for their heroism.

One may reasonably ask why any soldier would accept such risks. In the case of the Skylark Company, most did it for the money. These soldiers received double the pay of soldiers in the line companies, and they spent their money freely. They danced, caroused, and clad themselves in garish colours. Local innkeepers both dreaded the damage that a visit could bring to their establishments and salivated over the fortune that they could make. Few of these soldiers could manage the discipline and patience of the other troops in the Company, with the result that they formed their own culture and rarely associated with other soldiers. That pleased their officers greatly, who feared that their lack of discipline might prove contagious.

It is for that reason that these troops became rarer after the Skylark Company aligned itself with Hallifax. The shock power of the Aeromancers rendered shock infantry less important at that juncture, so the units shrank both to save money and to maintain discipline. Even so, the officers continued to recognize the value of a shock force, and so a small number of these soldiers remained in the Company's employment in all eras.

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SAPPERS

When people picture war, they usually envision long lines of soldiers in gleaming armour, bearing glorious arms against the enemy in a pitched battle. Historians know better. War is primarily a matter of logistics, maneuver, and the control of entire regions of space. Both the construction and destruction of fortifications is a vital part of the affair, and that is why the sappers of the Skylark Company held a place of particular honour in the Company's ranks.

The sappers were the military engineers of the Skylark Company. They made up a small portion of its ranks prior to the contract with Hallifax, primarily due to the difficulty of training them. The contract greatly reduced that problem due to the Company's newfound access to Hallifaxian educational facilities and the city's citizens, and the Skylark officers did not hesitate to take advantage of that. The contract also brought the study of aeonics into vogue among the Skylark Company, and mastery of the field became the mark of a skilled sapper.

Sappers readily changed their equipment in order to meet the requirements of individual missions. Their role often called for heavy manual labour, so they wore as little armour as possible. If they did not expect to encounter resistance, they would wear none at all. Suits of plate would be worn only in emergencies, and only for short periods. Bodyguards were the preferred defensive tool for most sappers, and their officers did everything that they could to ensure that they would not be disturbed during their deployments.

Their weapons were generally whatever tools were close at hand. Hammers became a symbol of their profession, but axes were also in common use. Swords and daggers were carried as sidearms, but the sappers usually lacked the skills to use them comfortably.

While these men did have a role on the battlefield, they were primarily a strategic asset. Their primary role was the construction work. While the line infantry provided most of the brute labour that was required for making and breaking camp, they lacked the skill to design temporary fortifications. They were also incapable producing improvized traps to cause attrition among enemy scouts that had the nerve to spy on the Skylarks. The sappers provided all of the skilled labour that was required for these tasks, and often directed the line infantry in their work.

They also served as a propaganda device. The sappers were competent builders, which made them very useful for the civilian population. The Skylark Company did not hesitate to send them out to offer support with local construction projects in order to win the hearts and minds of the people. Those people would then be much more willing to provide useful information to the Skylark Company. They could also turn their skills to demolitions and encourage compliance through brutal reprisals when necessary. This caused a great deal of suffering for the target, but it left the entire population intact to provide information.

Despite their utility in those roles, these soldiers truly came into their own in sieges. They would begin their work by fortifying the siege camp, usually to a much greater degree than the minor encampments mentioned above. They would then observe and analyze the enemy's fortifications in order to find their weakest point. Having done so, they would attempt to reduce the fortifications. Undermining was their preferred tool for this task, since it exposed them to minimal risk. Siege weapons were only constructed if that proved to be impossible. As a last resort, they could approach the walls under the cover of a mantlet and attempt to destroy them manually. This was a dangerous task, and as such it was avoided if at all possible.

Their presence could greatly reduce the length of a siege, which was a blessing for everyone involved. The defenders were spared the agony of slowly starving to death, while the Skylark Company was spared the nuisance of paying soldiers for a lengthy siege. This reveals the true value of the sapper to the Skylark Company. They were a tool that allowed the Company to conserve its resources, whether those resources were lives, gold, or time. They could even cultivate new resources in the form of goodwill through their work in the villages. As such, they were among the Company's most valuable assets, even though they rarely received much glory from poets and painters after the wars concluded.

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TRILL INFANTRY

The Skylark Company was one of the most famous accumulations of trill in the history of the known world. It certainly welcomed the unique skills of other races, but trill formed the bulk of the Company's officer cadre and provided a large number of troops. However, very few of those soldiers deployed alongside other infantry units. Instead, they tended to form segregated units of their own.

That point of doctrine did not come from any sort of prejudicial inclination on the part of the Skylarks, but rather from the unique traits of the trill. Flight was a rare and valuable skill. Members of any race could soar through the clouds with the help of a mount, but aerial cavalry was expensive and vulnerable to several defensive measures. Some mages could likewise fly under their own power, but those with the aptitude for such training were rare. Trill infantrymen were simply the cheapest and most reliable way for the Skylark Company to attain air superiority over their enemies.

The trill were equipped with that goal in mind. Their armour was light, so that they could fly without undue exertion. It was likewise focused almost entirely on their legs, since most attacks against them would come from archers on the ground. Bows served as their primary weapon, because they were effective against other aerial troops and allowed for attacks against ground targets. Light spears were carried for close engagements against other fliers, but they rarely saw use. Light shields were also carried in some periods, but this was relatively rare.

The trill followed a relatively simple plan in battle. Their first goal was to terminate any enemies that could engage them from the air. Given that few forces could field as many flying troops as the Skylarks, this was rarely a difficult task. After that, they would assess the enemies that could attack from the ground. If such foes were rare, they would be exterminated. If they were present in force, the trill would avoid them, either by assuming a loose formation that made accurate ranged attacks difficult, or by the simple expedient of flying higher.

They would then rain arrows down on the most valuable targets that they could find. Officers, mages, and heavy weapons were prioritized. They would attack from as high as possible, in order to avoid retaliatory fire. If the enemies were in heavy cover, they would land, fire, and ascend once more before the enemy could react.

In an emergency, they could serve on the ground. They were poorly equipped for this task, but it did allow for emergency reinforcements. This was rarely a planned part of any engagement, but it did save the Company from defeat on several occasions.

These troops became even more powerful after the Skylark Company aligned with Hallifax. The presence of allied aeromancers on the battlefield made it even easier to attain air superiority, and often provided protection against archers. The trill became an even more vital part of the Company's plans, and in some periods they even formed a majority of the Company's infantry contingent.

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ON CAVALRY

One does not generally associate the Skylark Company with cavalry warfare. The modern organization does support a small number of mounted troops, but they are a small minority compared to its ranks of halberdiers, swordsman, and other infantry forces.

The ancient Skylark Company was much the same, both before and after it signed its famous contract with the city of Hallifax. Skylark cavalrymen were dashing and romantic figures who were the very picture of courage and valor, but they were also a small force. That was not because the Skylark officers failed to see the value of cavalry, but because cavalry forces were expensive and rarely well-suited to the sorts of engagements that the Skylark Company favored.

The cost of cavalry has been a problem for almost every military force in history. Most solved it through a system of land grants that created a self-funding supply of noblemen who ruled in piece and fought on horseback in war. The Sentinels lacked land, both when they were wandering mercenaries and after they took employment with a flying city, and so they had to look elsewhere to solve their problem.

Their solution was to maintain a small cavalry reserve that could be deployed for specific purposes, while taking pains to minimize their reliance on large forces. This shaped their cavalry troops into a unique group that stood apart from the rest of the Skylark forces because their role was so different from that of other soldiers. The cavalry doctrine of the Skylark Company is worthy of study not just because it is so unique, but also because it still has value in the current world of war.

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AERIAL CAVALRY

One could be forgiven for expecting the Skylark Company to field a large force of aerial cavalry. After all, the Company did include a large force of trill, who are naturally inclined to seek aerial dominance during war. This was not the case. While the Company did field a number of aerial cavalry units over the course of its history, they were relatively rare and restricted to a small number of practical roles. The scarcity of aerial cavalry can be attributed to several distinct problems with such units.

The chief difficulty with fielding aerial cavalry was the cost of doing so. Flying mounts were rarely available in great numbers, and never at an affordable price. One must recall that the eagles of Faethorn and the pegasi of Celestia both fell under the power of foreign governments. When the Skylark Company was independent, it lacked the political power to acquire such scarce and valuable resources. When it signed the eternal contract with Hallifax, politics became the limiting factor. Regardless of the time period, they remained too expensive for mass deployment, especially when the risk of dead mounts was high.

The Company's union with Hallifax presented the possibility of thunderbirds, but these also failed to meet the Company's needs. Producing a thunderbird requires the services of a skilled aeromancer, something which was generally in short supply among the ancient Sentinels. They may have prevailed upon their new colleagues for a gift of mounts, but the Aeromancers were reluctant to provide them, and the birds were not terribly potent outside of their hands. Furthermore, the prevalence of thunderbirds among the city's aeromantic forces meant that an aerial cavalry force of Sentinels would have been redundant.

Thus, the Skylarks could not equip an aerial cavalry force cheaply at any point in their history. This did not bother them, for there are few roles in which aerial cavalry excels.

Large flying mounts can be seen at a great distance when they are in the air. Not only does this render them useless as scouts, it also alerts the enemy to their position. When deployed in small numbers, as is necessary for scounting parties, they are highly vulnerable to extermination through archery and magical attacks. Flying infantry, such as trill troops, avoid these problems through their smaller size. Far from being an asset, the deployment of aerial cavalry for scouting duties would have been a liability in all but the most catastrophic of emergencies.

Few beasts can fly when they are terribly overburdened, and riders are heavy. That restricts the amount of cargo that aerial troops can carry, and thus they are of limited use in raiding actions. They are likewise a poor choice for maintaining supply lines in most cases, since they can carry only a small quantity of supplies and run the risk of detection. The exception to this is during a siege, when flying troops are the only way to bypass the besieging army to deliver supplies. They could similarly deploy troops inside enemy fortifications by bypassing walls, but those engagements were so risky that the Skylark officers avoided them whenever they could.

Finally, they are of no great value in pitched battles. A massed charge from the air is a dangerous ploy, since few riders can avoid crashing into the ground upon making contact. This restricts their role to that of a highly mobile archery platform, where aerial cavalry admittedly excels. They can readily bypass obstacles which provide cover to the enemy to rain death on the foe from above. As long as they can retain the advantage of range over enemy archers and mages, they are almost impervious to harm. The greatest threat under those circumstances are other flying troops, which would result in a fight under relatively even circumstances.

On the other hand, trill infantry also excels in all of those roles. Such troops lack the speed of aerial cavalry, but they can wield larger bows to improve their archery. Given that they have the advantage of cheapness, they were a much more common tool for enforcing air superiority on the battlefield.

The sum of those factors forced Skylark officers to think of aerial battles as a type of infantry engagement. They valued trill troops highly, but treated their aerial cavalry as an afterthought at best. A small number of such troops were retained for use in sieges and for bypassing enemy fortifications when the Company could afford them, but they were never more than a specialized and expensive force.

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HEAVY CAVALRY

Heavy cavalry exists for one purpose: the charge. A relatively small force of horsemen in a close formation can use lances to devastating effect to shatter a much larger army of infantry. A frontal assault can often be resisted, and thus these attacks are best directed to the flanks of the enemy force, ideally while it is pinned in place by heavy infantry. This is sufficient to end a battle with a minimal number of friendly casualties, and thus the cost of maintaining a force of heavy cavalry is often balanced by the money saved on medical expenses and recruitment.

However, there are also many situations in which heavy cavalry troops are nearly worthless. They cannot charge in thick mud or heavy trees, nor can they charge on the broken slopes of a mountain. This restricted their value to the Skylark Company, which preferred to fight under those conditions, both to defend against enemy cavalry and because it was most often hired to fight dwarves and tribal cultures in heavy terrain.

The balance of those two factors meant that the Skylark Company both needed to maintain a heavy cavalry force for those situations where it was useful and to avoid the expense of sustaining one on campaigns where they were useless. There were three techniques that they used to resolve this dilemma.

Their preferred method, and their only method for fielding heavy cavalry in large numbers, was alliance. The Company fought as part of a larger force whenever possible to make sure that it had allies to absorb casualties. They prioritized this when considering employment in cavalry-friendly terrain, and always sought employers who could provide an adequate supply of heavy cavalry to the force. When that was not possible, they often outsourced the work to other mercenary forces. Since dead mercenaries require no pay, they bought the loyalty of those forces and sent them into the thick of the fighting, ideally without prior warning. When history books speak of heroic cavalry charges by the Sentinels, they usually refer to this situation.

That was not always possible, so they also maintained a small force of heavy cavalry within the Company. Since they wanted to minimize costs, they preferred to recruit troops that were already trained and could provide their own mounts. Disgraced knights of the Celestian Empire proved to be an ideal source of recruits, but mercenaries who had lost their comrades in battle were also common. Independent forces who had been outlawed after their masters were absorbed into the Empire were also useful in some periods, but provided a minority of recruits throughout the Company's history.

In emergencies, light cavalry troops could also be pressed into service as an impromptu source of heavy cavalry. They were not ideal in this role, since they lacked the heavy destriers that armour that are perfect for the purpose, but they served well enough. Since these troops lacked the raw power to shatter an enemy formation, they supplemented their strength with tools of intimidation. That rendered them effective against irregular forces of the sort that the Skylark Company preferred to fight, but it was insufficient against elite forces. As such, these troops were not used against such enemies.

It was rare for light cavalry to serve as though it was heavy cavalry, but the practice did produce one of the Skylark Company's most famous units. They were the Winged Troop, originally composed purely of trill. They had cut holes in their pillaged armour to provide space for their wings, and noticed that their new equipment produced a loud whistling sound as they charged. They worked to enhance the noise, to the point of attaching a second set of false wings to their backs. They combined this with animal furs attached to their saddles and bright decorations on their horses' armour to create an effect that was inspiring to their friends and terrifying to their foes. They were an effective force on the battlefield, but they could still function as light cavalry outside of pitched engagements. The unit grew to dominate the Skylark Company's cavalry forces, and became one of its most iconic units during the pre-modern period.

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LIGHT CAVALRY

When Skylark officers thought of cavalry, they thought of light cavalry. Other specialties were tools that they maintained because the Company could not do without them, but light cavalry held a special place in their hearts. Romantics, especially those that had never seen the Company's cavalry in action, would attribute that affection to the dashing and heroic nature of the light cavalryman. Others made the case that it was because such troops were emminently suited for the Company's preferred sort of war. The reality of the situation is simpler. They loved light cavalry because it was profitable.

In part, this is because of the manner of their recruitment. Tribal horsemen could easily be recruited and prepared for this sort of duty with minimal training and at a minimal price. This was especially popular after the Company joined with Hallifax, since it provided a way to indoctrinate these tribal people into Hallifaxian culture. Criminals, exiles, and other cads were also a valuable pool of recruits. They usually lacked the skills to serve in this role until they received training, but they certainly had the right mindset for the job.

To a greater degree, this is because light cavalry was not intended for use on the battlefield, although it certainly did have a role to play in large engagements. Instead, light cavalry was meant to support the rest of the Company before those engagements took place through skirmish actions, and most importantly, raiding.

One must remember that the Skylark Company began as a particularly successful band of mercenaries. Any officer of the Company would have been proud to testify that the purpose of war was profit, and they were generally happy to extract money from a campaign in any way that they could. That is not to say that Skylark soldiers were glorified brigands, but rather that they were happy to dispense with pride if it helped their bottom line without being an undue burden on their reputation.

That belief meant that raiding was the crux of their war efforts. It served a vital military purpose in depriving the enemy of supplies. Since starving and disarmed troops are worthless on the battlefield, most employers accepted it as a vital tactic. Indeed, the Company's expertise in the area was one of the reasons that many employers sought them out, and the methods for finding supplies and suppliers that they developed formed the basis of their early law enforcement and interrogation techniques. After all, forcing a peasant to explain where he hid his contribution to the war effort is not terribly different from forcing him to explain what he saw when a crime took place.

Raiding also served a vital financial purpose for the Skylark Company. Living off of the enemy's resources rather than their own saved a great deal of money. In some cases, it also allowed them to equip their own troops with valuable armour and weapons at the enemy's expense. The Company also took horses from the enemy whenever they could in order to equip their own cavalry cheaply. On the whole, this made the light cavalry one of the most profitable parts of the Company even though it was one of the least useful on the battlefield.

The light cavalry detachments also served as scouts and messengers. They were not as stealthy as infantry scouts, but they were much faster, and speed was often more valuable than discretion. This enhanced their powers of interrogation even further through practice, since the local population is a vital source of information. Some riders threatened, others seduced, and some even paid bribes, but all of them learned how to make people talk.

In battle, they used their speed to attack targets of opportunity, such as exposed officers, mages, and artillery emplacements. Since they had to act opportunistically, they relied on their own initiative instead of playing a part in the grand plan for the battle. It was a dangerous role, and one that contributed to the high casualty rate among these troops, but it also showered them in glory.

These duties took light cavalry troopers away from the main force of the Company and caused them to take on a unique character. Other branches of the Company prized discipline and obedience above all other traits, while the light cavalrymen learned to cherish their independence. They interacted with the populace frequently, and so they valued the arts of seeming and persuading as much as the arts of war. They loved life, but they lived just a few inches from death. They came from a dozen cultures, but they were all Skylarks. They were braggarts, scoundrels, and rogues, but they were useful, and so they had a home with the Skylark Company.