It would be two weeks until I had recovered to a point where I was able to sit in on the officer meetings. The group was larger now, as half of the regiment had been stationed at the fort on the Kalipaonin, waiting for the Commander and Lieutenant to return with new mages and new soldiers. Now that our regiment was whole, we could begin to strategize our push into Junumianis.

However, my mind was not on war strategy, and neither was Marinon’s. What we had seen on the thundered plains had left a festering anxiety. There was a foul mage on those desecrated plains, and we were stuck between that wretched warlock to the west, and the wrath of Junumianis to the east. We had felt the bitter cold of the Necromancer’s silencing mist, and the more we learned of Junumianian summoners, the more we worried any push might be fatal.

We were not the only ones in the regiment who had been changed by the slaughter on the thundered plains, for when you walked among the common soldiers, you could tell who among the men had been on that fatal crossing. Those men never turned their backs to the west, for they feared aberrations might show at all times. The sight of distant birds on the gloomy horizon was enough to cause the men to recoil and shorten their breath, for they anticipated, much like on the plains, that they would be carried away in rotten claws and devoured.

But yet, the men had something we did not: comradery, in the strictest sense. The officers were fewer, and to show that our nerve was shaken to the common men would only be to drag morale down. So, letters aside, Marinon and I only had one-another with whom to speak our thoughts, for Quatimonian was still distant then, and kept to the male officers. We could not speak to Nestyne, for he was our superior and the conversations bordered on improper and dishonorable.

One evening, speaking quietly so as not to be heard by the two guards who kept watch of the door to our cramped room in the barracks, Maronin revealed her worry and her regret to me.

“I should never have come to Arimens in the first place, and would not have if I had known I would be sent through those ghastly plains. My family still lives in the capital, and I could be with them instead of here had I not decided to study magicks. Maybe I can still leave, and disguise myself so they cannot track me down for desertion…”

“You know well that to desert is foolish. They took blood from us back in Arimens, and there are mages much stronger than you in the kingdom. It would be foolish.” I said.

Maronin spoke once more

“I suppose it would be foolish to choose death. If I desert now, it would not bode well for me. I would be tracked down. Do you regret coming here too, Nayinian?”

“No,” I said, “How could I regret learning magicks? I had no other choice.”

“You chose to come to Arimens, did you not?” she asked.

I told Maronin that I had, but had felt forced by the circumstance.

“Then you had just as much choice in the matter as I did. So, I ask again, do you regret coming here?”

I thought of all that I had learned under Corindrian, and my betrothal to Ynguinian.

“I could never regret it, even when things are as uncertain as they are now. I don’t yet have what I want, but even then I have many things I would not otherwise have had.” I told her.

She kept quiet for a moment, and asked me a different question.

“So, suppose you had come to Arimens by your own free choice. You still chose to study magicks, did you not?”

I told her that was true.

“Then, do you regret studying magicks, and where it has led you? Weren’t you a successful apothecary? You did not need to change anything.”

I told her I still did not regret studying magicks, for they were important to me. Even in our anxious and precarious position that we were now in, I would still have studied.

“I don’t feel made for this in the same way you are. I could have had many good things, but now all I have is one friend and the protection of paranoid men. I should not have offered to come here to the Commander. I thought that if I showed skill I could attract the king or a noble’s patronage in Gurones.”

I told her that it was still true that she could.

“And what if I die?” she asked.

“Truly good things never come without fear of failing to attain them. If you leave now, you’ll never hold anything good again, for you’ll draw the ire of Mentillian.” I told her. I do not know if I truly understood what I was saying then, but I hold true to it now.

She told me she would sleep on what I had to say, but that she would likely not desert. Mentillian would punish her for going against Order if she did, and goodness is difficult to find when one has drawn the ire of saints. If she served well, and if Luck was on her side, then she could still get what she had come for.

Once most of the men had fully recovered, the regiment began preparations to move out towards Dew’s Flat. The Kalipaonin Regiment had driven off the Junumianian forces at the end of the previous fall, and we would be returning to turn it in to our forward-base, for it was close to the first strategic target: the walled city of Icinerenth, which sat between two great rivers at the top of a hill in a large valley. Junumianis had taken the city from Moringia two years ago, and now it would be our duty to reclaim the city for the kingdom. The soldiers assembled the trebuchets for moving, and most of the soldiers (including the mages) were moved into tents on the eastern edge of the river in preparation for Dew’s Flat.

On the day our march to Dew’s Flat began, the siege-equipment was still on the island fort, for we had hoped to get the trebuchets through the roil of the Kalipaonin without having to expend the effort of one of our mages. However, the black and polluted waters were still in torrent, meaning Quatimonian’s skills would be needed.Yularelian’s former apprentice had been given the title Master of Flows, for he was skilled in all magicks involving water and its movement.

Quatimonian, unlike his teacher, was a stout and squat man. The methods of his castings were also unlike that of his master. Yularelian, the Master of Vines, that cur, was known for his smooth-flowing motions and his almost-whispering tones, and I had expected something similar from the Master of Flows, given the nature of his expertise.

His motions were forceful and swift, approaching the river in ferocity. His language was terse and disjunct, more like what one might expect from a mage who specialized in metals and fires. With several quick motions he threw his arms forward and pushed the flow of the Kalipaonin westward temporarily.

One could see a crosscut of the flowing roil, devoid of life, and on the riverbed the remains of several bodies with rocks tied to themselves, which were run over by the large wheels of trebuchets. The soldiers of the regiment dug into the side of dark soil, forming a ramp to push the large machines of war up onto the shore so we could relocate to Dew’s Flat. It only took a few hours of diverting the flow of that terrible river to move the siege equipment to the eastern bank. Once the job was done, the Master of Flows diverted the river back to its natural path with a tumbling and white cacophony of rushing waters, covering up the shattered bodies.

The journey to Dew’s Flat was filled with dreary and gray days. The carts and the men kicked up the muddy earth, causing the carts transporting the trebuchets to get stuck, which slowed us down a few days. We would be staying at the former-crossroads until it wast he proper time to move on to Icinerenth. We had spies within Junumianis and the walled city, and it would only be a matter of waiting for any possible reinforcements to the city to be displaced northward, for that was where the most of the fighting was occurring.

Dew’s Flat, the once vibrant crossroads full of spices and liar, was now destroyed. The buildings had been razed, and the tall and thick wildgrass of the area had either fallen limp and ill, or had been trampled under the mud by the fighting. Expecting I may be needed for more than casting spells, I searched the grounds for any useful herbs or plants, but could find none.

While searching the bed of a small creek, however, I saw another ill-omen. A six legged lizard lay sprawled on its back on its clutch of three eggs, it had been dead for some time for its head eaten through to its skull. The clutch had yet to hatch, and perhaps never would. It was so covered in filth that I did not realize the rest of its body was orange-scaled, much like Kalitian’s servant who had first given the spell of unnoticing to me.

I grabbed the corpse, and dug a small hole for it, away from the eggs, which I left to hatch on their own, although I did not truly believe they were. The oily pollution of the war had most-likely claimed the eggs of the lizard. Still, I tried my best to give reverence to Kalitian and cast the spell of unnoticing upon the egg with hope that they one day might hatch before giving a prayer to the third saint.

The desolation of the crossroads made me wonder, once more, what had become of my village and Ynguinians. Would they be in such a state as Dew’s Flat? Did my parents still live? What of the inn-keep on the other side of the peaks of perpetual winter? I could not imagine any of those villages had avoided the creeping desolation of the conflict. I wrote Ynguinian for comfort that night, imagining what Starathens might have in-store for my betrothed. I prayed to Paronian that it was nothing like the shattered lands I had seen.

We spent two weeks in Dew’s Flat before marching the five days to Icinerenth. We arrived early on a hot summer morning, the walled city looming over the dawn-lit dying grass as we spread our forces around the settlement. The third battalion faced the large stone gate of the city as the sun crested over the eastern horizon. There were no longer any shadows obscuring the city’s white stone that had been burn-scarred in the war. Small black birds held still in hot summer air above the city like patient flies. The soldiers of the regiment watched the same scene play out for many weeks in anticipation of the stewing conflict. The forces within the besieged city would soon succumb to the pressure, and it was then I learned to fear the fury of a desperate mage.