Millie Thatcher sat on the back of a wagon, cradling the nub that was all that remained of her left arm. The rest of her felt as empty and numb as the now-lost limb. The General’s wife had made a cleaner amputation than any but the most skilled healers or priests could have managed -- a far better result than she could have expected given the circumstances. Simply stopping the Bloodsear poison at just her arm was practically a miracle all by itself. Others had not been as lucky, and the caravan following Jacob Ward had left behind a dozen grave markers before breaking camp that day. The bandits that had thought a pack of farmers to be easy pickings had fared much worse when the Battlemaster eventually caught them. Several trees in their wake had sprouted grim fruit; cold comfort for a classless girl barely through twelve winters.

With only one arm she had felt useless, but could not bring herself to speak about her troubles. Not even with Miss Erin, the wife of the Battlemaster and the [Hand of Solace]. Millie had not spoken since the night bandits had killed her parents, and not even the motherly healer who had so skillfully saved her from the poison arrow could bring her to utter a word. The Battlemaster had understood, though, and had given her a small drum and taught her a few simple cadences. As the daughter of a Bard who had retired from adventure to marry a farmer, she had picked those up quickly and been grateful for something to do that was useful to the caravan.

That Millie remained classless at this point was merely by virtue of her not having selected a class, not for lack of level; the nearly daily fighting, continuous marching and the simple nature of being on the road had led to nearly everyone in the caravan gaining new skills they had never expected to learn. Older classless, of fifteen or sixteen winters, had already begun to gain classes aligned with combat and soldiering; new potency added to the Battlemaster’s already-fearsome banner.

And what a banner it was. Someone had hung a bloodstained sheet on a piece of wood attached to the head of a pike, and none would step forward for the credit. A vertical slash of black paint -- or possibly tar, Millie couldn’t be certain -- bisected the worn red cloth. The Black Lance, they called it, the symbol of Jacob’s class. He had finally given up on ordering it taken down, as it would always reappear in the night. After a few encounters with Deskren Hoplites, the troops had taken to attaching slave collars to the bottom of the sheet. The sight of it held a weight well befitting the atmosphere surrounding the refugee caravan.

Millie wasn’t sure it could even be called a caravan any longer. It looked like an army on the march to her own inexperienced eyes. Bandits who might normally find such a wagon train easy pickings had learned to run the other way when they heard the rumble of endless pairs of wheels. The smaller Deskren units no longer attempted to engage them, though they lingered in the distance in a worrying way. A few times, the entire column had been roused in the middle of the night for a quick march to surprise unlucky or lazy and incompetent enemy commanders. The refugees had full bellies at the moment thanks to a Deskren supply train they had encountered and then overrun, the Battlemaster not being one to turn his head from opportunity.

The Deskren seemed to have finally learned that the caravan had teeth, though. The refugee train had grown to over a thousand wagons and more than ten thousand people over the long summer march. Nearly a thousand horsemen rode directly under the Battlemaster; veteran soldiers dusting off old skills alongside new classers learning quickly under the leadership of the General. Several times that many -- at least by her own count, she had not heard anyone give actual numbers -- marched on foot, bearing pikes and spears and what armor they could cobble together. Barely a week past, they had suffered the worst engagement yet, losing dozens of wagons and incurring hundreds of casualties. Millie had reached level ten during the engagement, stabbing a Hoplite slave through the eye with her dagger when the face had appeared over the wagon where she had been riding with other small children.

The more foolish or stupid enemy commanders seemed to have been weeded out, either crushed when they attacked the column, or recalled by higher authority from the empire. Millie did not understand the details, but a youth that remained silent heard many things. There was a nervous taste to the air around the wagons, she knew. They had been marching north and west in their flight from the Deskren, but now a river she had never heard of was supposedly in the way and there were no bridges they could reach before the main Deskren force caught them. Nameless whispers floated through the caravan when the campfires rose, laying down a pall of fear in their wake.

Millie wasn’t afraid, though: not of the Deskren, nor of bandits or brigands. Her parents may have been gone, but the Battlemaster had killed their killers and then led the refugees across half of the western side of the continent. There had been losses and deaths in the undertaking, but every day the wagons rolled on behind his dread banner. She had faith they would reach their destination: the city of Possibility and the Gathering of Kings.

So she sat in the back of the wagon, in the predawn shadows before the nascent army roused itself for breakfast call, listening to the low chatter of cooks over their fires. In exchange for not sharing the caravan’s fear of the Deskren, she had her own fear which she couldn’t share. Her eyes drooped, and she dug her fingernails into the stump of her arm to keep herself awake. She had reached level ten, and she knew gaining her Class was now within reach. But there were obstacles in her way, and she did not know what to do. Sleep brought the nightmare unbidden, and she had fought it for two days but now weakened. Even the pain of scratching the tender flesh where her arm had once been was not enough to hold slumber at bay this time, and her head drooped as she slumped against the side of the wagon.

Then came the dream world, where she had been reliving the worst day of her life every time she closed her eyes since reaching her tenth level.

Her father, opening the trap door under the table of the farmhouse and her mother, dragging her down to the cellar. The scrape of wood and hushed whispers between her brothers as the table was dragged back over the hatch. She lived it all again as if standing beside her own body, seeing another her but with two arms and still innocent eyes. The crash of the door splintering, the screams as her older brothers and her pa slew the first two bandits that rushed into the building. Dozens of savage thunks as arrows impacted the walls above, then a wetter, more sickening sound and a thud as someone fell to the floor. Screams of rage, blood dripping from between the floorboards.

Then the silence, as the blood pooling on the dirt floor of the cellar reached her toes. The murderous bandits were already leaving, not noticing passageway to their hiding place at first. But when that muddy red reached her feet, Millie screamed.

Then it started over. Her father opened the trap door. Her mother dragged her down. The sounds of fighting repeated. The shouts, the groans. Blood on the floor touched her toes. Millie screamed.

The trap door opened. Down into the shadows. Shouts above. Blood at her feet. Millie screamed.

Her fault.

It was always her fault. Millie screamed, and then they were found. There was a small gap under the wall of the house, but while Millie had fit, her mother had not, and had stayed behind to give Millie a chance to escape. She had escaped the bandits, but not the guilt. So she was stuck repeating the memory instead of moving on to gain a class, because in the dream she could not leave the cellar.

Door. Down. Shouts. Blood.

Millie screamed.

Her fault.

She should have been able to move past it. Perhaps if she had not levelled so quickly in the caravan, she could have worked through the memories and moved on. Perhaps not.

The tragedy had not gone unanswered, however. A barefoot girl in a torn dress covered in mud and leaves had stumbled out onto the road and almost ended up trampled, but the Battlemaster had turned his charger aside at the last moment. She had not been able to speak, but the scouts had quickly found the farmhouse, and her family.

The bandits had cut out her mother’s tongue first, to stop the [Whisperwind Songstress] from charming them. The rest, the Battlemaster’s wife had covered her eyes to keep her from seeing. Millie had watched when Jacob had the murdering rapists hung from the tree next to the farmhouse opposite where four shallow graves had been dug, and that should have been enough. It wasn’t.

Door. Down. Shouts. Blood.

Millie screamed again.

Her fault.

As she watched the past Millie work her way out from under the wall, she could hear the heavy steps of the invading bandits coming down the stairs to the cellar. A veil of darkness fell over the scene, but it couldn’t cloak the tension in the air, nor could it mask her mother’s sudden scream--

She was startled awake by the rattling clink of a metal dish hitting the wagon bed beside her. “Biscuits ’n bacon,” grunted old Hett, the wagon’s driver. A skin of water followed, and then the ancient classer withdrew, continuing around to tend to the mules without saying anything else. He had joined the caravan only a few weeks past, but his mules and his wagon had travelled at the head of the column without the man saying a word. It had simply happened, and the Battlemaster had not objected. The man was old and wizened like wrinkled rawhide leather, but no one else could heft the broad woodcutter’s axe that rode next to him on the seat. None had dared pester the old man about his class or levels either, not after seeing him cleave Deskren horses into pieces with one hand on the axe, never letting go of his mules.

Millie liked the old man. He didn’t talk much, and he never pestered her to speak either. Few tried anymore, although Erin had been concerned, in a very comforting and motherly way, for the first several weeks after they had taken in the orphan girl. But only Old Hett and Jacob himself had seemed to be unphased at all by her silence. As if the thought of the man had summoned him, hoofbeats approached at a steady trot just as the first rays of dawn peeked over the eastern horizon. He went past the back of the wagon where she sat, talking quietly with Hett as she finished her breakfast and washed it down with water from the skin. The now-familiar sounds of the caravan stirring to wakefulness washed over her as she ate, preparing for yet another long day of hard marching.

It took her more time than most to finish her repast, but she was improving her abilities to function with one arm with each and every day. Bracing the water skin between her knees, she stoppered the cork back into place just as the Battlemaster walked his horse alongside the back of the wagon. He spoke quietly but clearly, and without the pity most seemed to think the girl needed. She was grateful for that, more than she would ever be able to tell the man.

“Another half-bell, and then drum the wake-up call, if you would, Miss Millie,” he said without dismounting. On the back of his now-oversized charger, he was as tall as if he were standing on the wagon itself. “We’re marching hard today, so it’s a fast beat until we break at noon to rest the horses.”

Hett spat a wad of tobacco juice from the front of the wagon as his mules snorted. “And the mules, of course, Mister Hett,” added the Battlemaster.

Millie nodded, looping the strap of her drum over her right shoulder and securing it to her left leg with another belt. Keeping the musical instrument in place with only one arm had taken some ingenuity, but practice had led to her figuring out her own way. The worst part now was fastening the buckles with only one hand, but she had refused help often enough that people no longer offered, much to her relief.

“Can you keep it up until noon, lass?” asked Jacob. “Or will you need a stamina potion?”

She shook her head, offering a thumbs-up and a slight smile. She could play the drum for an entire day now that she had levelled her skills and her own abilities had improved. The General did not waste extra words or her time, merely thumping the side of the wagon in approval as he took the reins of his horse in the other hand.

“Carry on, then, Soldier.”

The words, somehow amplified, slammed into Millie’s mind, her jaw dropping open in shock as the notification followed a half a heartbeat later.

The [Blacklance Battlemaster] has granted you the Title of [Soldier]! Class Selection options have changed to reflect the opportunities and responsibilities provided by this Title.

A Soldier never marches alone; she walks with the weight of tradition and the history of all who tread before and after.

Jacob Ward rocked back in his saddle; the pulse of power that had left him at the utterance of the words drained him somehow, and left a nearly-palpable feeling in the air. Millie recovered from the shock as he shouted for Erin and Hett, demanding explanations. She paid him no heed, instinctively seizing the opportunity before anyone or anything could stop her. Her head drooped, and she leapt into the darkness.

Gone was the farmhouse. Gone was the bitter memory of failure and loss that she had been reliving for days with no respite. She stood next to a road, under a heavy, cloudless, grey sky. Dried grass and gravel crunched under her feet, and she looked down to see boots of an unfamiliar style adorning her feet, laced up to mid-calf. The leather she understood, but not the strange material of the soles when she raised her foot to look. Despite the oddities, the boots felt right.

Above the boots were pants of a material she had never seen, mottled shades of green and brown and grey seemingly blended together. A heavy shirt in a similar lack of pattern covered her from the waist up, and a strange thin chain around her neck held two rectangular plates that bore her name and what looked to her like numbers, even though she could not understand the actual runes. She had seen the General and his wife Erin both writing similar things when counting the wagons and sacks of food for the march, so the girl assumed they were in a written language from the Worldwalkers’ home.

She was not alone, either. Another version of her stood in front of her, in an even stranger uniform. Her other image stood at crisp attention, her uniform forgoing the chaotic mottling for a more formal appearance, green coat over pale breeches standing out from the background where her uniform tried to hide in it. Different insignia covered the left breast, and although this image was missing its left arm as well, the neat folding and pinning took nothing away from the order the figure emanated. Her mirror image locked eyes with her and raised her hand to her brow in what could only be a symbolic gesture, then faded away, as though she were made of mist.

The silence was broken by the sound of footsteps. Just one pair at first, then it swelled into a rumble of more boots than she could ever have counted. A few heartbeats later, and thousands of figures marched into view from around a bend in the road. Millie stared for a long moment, trying to understand, to remember the things she had heard about classes.

The figures were all her. Some wore uniforms, others were beset with armor; some bore swords, and others held maces in firm grips. To a person, they all tirelessly marched forward, eyes locked straight ahead and jaws set in determined lines. One, near the front, bore a silver flute, the only flash of color amidst the endless sea of grey.

The road led over the horizon, where the sun hung low in the sky, red and bloated. More sounds reached her ears: rumbles, crashes of thunder, and screaming. Onward the soldiers marched, unflinching, towards the terrible clamor. Young though she was, Millie already knew the sounds of battle. She watched herself walk past in numbers beyond counting. She had spoken no words with her other self, as she had heard others recount of their own experiences when gaining a class. She felt none were needed, now that she had broken out of the looping horrors of endlessly repeating memory. She watched, and she considered. The flute had felt closer than the others to being a proper choice, but it didn’t speak to her.

After a timeless moment, a different sound rose, almost imperceptibly at first, from the sky: not from the battlefield ahead, but the endless column behind her. The uniforms worn by her other selves began to grow darker, dipped in shadow. Their eyes began to gleam, gazes growing more sinister as the sound of their boots began synchronizing with the flashes of lightning from the low storm which had begun to follow them.

Finally, a version of herself in full color marched slowly into view. Clad in chainmail and leather, and wearing a helm of blackened iron, this new version of herself seemed somehow realer than the others. A drum, similar to the one the Battlemaster had issued her, sat strapped to her left side, and her right arm -- sheathed in a black gauntlet and wielding a steel baton -- beat a thunderous cadence against it.

As the darkened, shadowy figure approached Millie and began to pass her by, she fell in beside her, her footfalls slowly joining the rhythm of the endless march. She had made her Choice, so long delayed.

As she swam back to consciousness, the sounds of battle and and drumming thunder faded away. She could hear the Battlemaster and his wife arguing, and as she stirred, she saw his eyes were filled with sadness and guilt. His wife averted her gaze, and couldn’t hide her tears.

She wished she could bring herself to speak, to comfort him, but even though fear no longer ruled her, she made nary a sound as the changes to her soul took hold of her body.

She had traded her words for power, and henceforth, the [Thunderstrike Battle-Bard] would speak only through her drum.