“Arlette, what the hell is going on?” hissed Sofie under her breath. “Did I hear her right? There’s an invasion coming? Did you know about this?”

The two of them sat against a wall in a second octagonal room adjacent to the state room where they’d first met the crazy giant beastwoman Akhustal Palebane. Unlike the first room, which was adorned with evidences of conquests and victories, this room was entirely barren save for a strange wooden floor that felt almost like rock to the touch. Basilli and Pari sat alongside them, their eyes on the pair of Jaquet and Akhustal.

“Later,” Arlette Faredin whispered in return, her attention never leaving the pair of warriors in the center of the room. This whole “invasion” thing was a huge deal worth stressing out over, but she didn’t want to miss the action about to unfold before her eyes. There was a chance that she’d be able to see something that she’d never seen before: Jaquet losing a one-on-one fight.

She’d sparred with Jaquet numerous times over the years but never once had she come out on top. Her usual formula for success — using illusions to get the opponent on the back foot and then overwhelming them with a series of simultaneous real and fake attacks that forced the opponent to choose which to guard against over and over until they chose incorrectly — didn’t work against him. When presented with two identical Arlettes and given the choice of which to attack, he would choose both, swinging his massive halberd in an arc through both targets with incredible quickness. Other Feelers didn’t give her this problem, but Jaquet’s combination of strength, speed, and skill presented a challenge unlike any other. His strength let him wield a massive weapon with great reach, while his skill allowed him to attack at any angle and his quickness made it incredibly hard to avoid the strikes. If she could get in past a Feeler’s guard, they were as good as done, but with him it was like there was an invisible wall there that prevented her from getting anywhere close.

Without her illusions, she was just a normal woman with a longsword, faster and more agile than most, but still nothing worth getting excited over. A normal swordswoman could not beat somebody on Jaquet’s level. The man was a monster, even as past his prime as he was now. Arlette estimated that perhaps three or four other Feelers in Nocend could hold their own against him mano-a-mano, and that was it. One of those people stood across from him now.

While Jaquet Delon was a monster, Akhustal Palebane ate monsters for breakfast — sometimes literally. One of the largest reasons that Stragma structured its society around martial prowess was that the forest of Stragma teemed with dangerous giant beasts. Arlette hadn’t seen many on the way south — avoiding such creatures was a priority when traveling through the forest — but the Stragmans had told her plenty of stories about them while they went. Some you ate, some ate you; all were huge and dangerous and, at least if the stories were to be believed, absolutely hideous. The better that you could hunt those beasts, and protect yourself and others from them, the higher your caste. Atop that social pyramid stood Palebane, the strongest warrior in a population of sixteen million people. Legend had it that she’d killed a ronutepo, the same massive acid-spitting animal that the group had been lucky to defeat, all by her lonesome when she was just twelve years old.

Looking at the beastwoman, Arlette believed it. Palebane dwarfed her opponent by a comical degree, her body a mountain of muscle. The massive club, which she somehow carried as if it were made of paper, was itself taller and wider than Arlette as a whole.

“Ready?” the Stragman leader asked, taking a stance, her right arm holding the club out towards Jaquet at an upward angle.

“Aye,” responded her opponent, taking his own stance, knees bent, both hands holding his halberd outward and parallel to the floor.

They stared at each other for a moment, motionless, sizing each other up, before Jaquet suddenly burst into action, his weapon arcing through the air in a series fast and powerful strikes, each move flowing into the next like water. Without batting an eye, Akhustal parried each of them to the side as if they were nothing, before retaliating with a horizontal swing of her own. Jaquet shifted his stance, turning to face the blow with one foot in front of the other while rotating his weapon vertically, and blocked the club with the halberd’s shaft. His eyes shot open with shock as his arms buckled from the blow and the club smashed into his torso, sending him shooting through the air to crash into a wall on the other side of the room.

Arlette gasped at the sight of the strongest warrior she’d ever known crumpled against the wooden side, head down, halberd still clutched in his hands.

“Congratulations, Palebane-chos,” cheered Waterbloom, causing Arlette to roll her eyes. What a brown-noser. “One blow as alwa-”

The chos silenced him with a raised palm. “He’s still holding his weapon. This isn’t over.”

She was right. Jaquet stirred, shaking his head and letting out a loud cough. “Ya go’ me pretty good,” he said, slowly standing back up and assuming a combat stance once more. “Bu’ you’ll need ta do more than tha’.”

“Just what I wanted to hear,” Palebane replied with a wide, toothy grin.

The two combatants launched themselves are each other and exchanged a lengthy series of strikes. This time, Jaquet used his superior speed to avoid his opponent’s wide swings to the best of his ability instead of blocking them. Arlette studied the Stragman leader as she fought. Something about her style seemed off. Her footwork and balance didn’t match what Arlette would expect for somebody swinging something so large and heavy. She moved it almost effortlessly, as if it weighed nothing to her. Was she really so absurdly strong, or was there something else to it? The more she watched, the more she felt that something didn’t add up.

Jaquet ducked past a counterswing, spinning under the giant log with an agility that portly men in their late forties shouldn’t possess, striking upwards with the back of his halberd and clipping the larger woman in the jaw with the butt of his weapon. Palebane fell to her knees, shaken from the blow.

“Wow, he’s winning,” Sofie said.

“No, he’s not,” corrected Arlette as she watched Jaquet huff and puff. “He’s putting everything he has into these blows just to keep up, and he’s tiring out. Did you see how his blade was just bouncing off her club? The weight difference is so great that she can just shove his weapon aside with ease unless he really strains himself, and doing that for so long takes a lot out of somebody. Meanwhile, she’s barely tired.”

The Stragman stood back up, shaking her head from the earlier blow. “That was great!” she said enthusiastically. “I knew the stories were true! I haven’t been hit in a spar in the last ten years! Of course, usually I just hit them once and that’s it...”

A sly grin appeared on her face. “Let’s make things more interesting. You!” She pointed at Arlette. “Come fight too! Both of you against me!”

Uh-oh. Arlette gulped, but she rose to her feet and strode to Jaquet’s side anyway. It was important that they all make as good an impression as they could with the Stragman leader.

“Give us a moment, please,” she requested.

“To what, come up with a plan? Yeah, go for it! More fun for me!”

She pulled Jaquet away and they huddled up, whispering to each other in hushed tones.

“Any advice?”

“Don’ le’ tha club hi’ ya.”

“No shit.”

“She’s ‘ard ta read. The way she swin’s shouldn’ be possible.”

“You noticed that too? I have a idea about that. Here’s the plan...”

“Ready?” Akhustal asked as Jaquet and Arlette took stances several steps apart from each other. “Let’s fight!”

Arlette wasted no time, sprinting forward and creating a doppelganger that went right as she went left, with Jaquet following close behind and aiming straight for the beastwoman. Palebane flashed a wicked grin, swinging her massive pole in a wide arc at tremendous speed, passing through the illusory Arlette and forcing the real one to throw herself on the ground to avoid being pulverized. Suddenly the huge beam stopped in mid-swipe, as if the momentum had just disappeared, and reversed course, swinging back to collide with Jaquet’s incoming spear. Arlette pushed herself off the ground and attacked but the huge woman nimbly spun aside, laughing.

“Yes!” she cried, her eyes shining wildly over a maniacal grin. “I’ve missed this for so long! The rush of a real fight!”

Ah, Arlette realized, the giant beastwoman was a battle addict. Now her excitement made sense. Arlette would wager that doing administrative work every day was driving her mad.

Jaquet pressed the attack, as Arlette summoned another doppelganger but Palebane dodged and spun forward so that the club was behind her, then swung the massive thing up, over her head, and down into the ground in front of her with incredible force. The entire platform holding the building shook wildly, as if it were about to collapse. Unprepared for the sudden quake, Arlette and Jaquet tumbled to the floor. Akhustal stepped forward and brought the club head from the floor around in an upward arc. Arlette rolled for her life and just barely avoided the upswing, a strong gust of air and a loud whooshing sound telling her just how close she’d been from multiple broken bones or worse. She’d also seen what she’d been looking for.

Jaquet was back on his feet by that point, charging forward with an overhead strike of his own. Akhustal batted it away and the two dodged and parried each other for a moment while Arlette picked herself back up. She reentered the fray as quickly as she could, sending out a doppelganger again but this time leading with her true self and letting the copy follow just behind. The Stragman spied her coming and swung at both her and the copy, waiting, as Arlette had hoped, for the fake Arlette to enter the club’s range before striking. With an acrobatic somersault Arlette barely avoided the barreling club. She’d gotten in. Still in a crouch, she lashed out, forcing the large woman to jump away to avoid being cut. In an effort to buy a little space, Palebane brought her club up over her head again, ready to slam into the floor. Arlette grinned. This fight was about to be over, one way or another. It all just depended on if her theory was correct or not.

“Now!” she cried as the gargantuan weapon plunged towards the floor. Jaquet leapt forwards, his feet off the floorboard as they writhed under the impact, and grabbed the far end of the club in a giant hug.

“W-what?” Palebane cried in surprise. She tried to lift the weapon but could not, the added weight of the large, blubbery man on the other end preventing her from doing anything more than barely getting it off the ground. Her struggles ceased as she felt the cold metal of Arlette’s sword against her throat.

“You can’t lift it at all, can you?” Arlette asked rhetorically. “I thought the way you moved was strange. No matter how strong you are, you should still need to counterbalance that crazy thing you call a weapon. It probably weighs more than you, me, and Jaquet combined. But you rarely plant your feet to counter its pull, and you move around with it like it weighs nothing. That’s because it does weigh nothing, doesn’t it? You’re not a Feeler at all. You’re an Observer. You lighten it when you swing it and make it heavier right before it hits something. That's how you get such powerful strikes.”

The Stragman leader stared at Arlette in disbelief for a second. “I lost...” she mumbled, before breaking out into uproarious laughter. “I lost!”

Despite her best effort to stop it, the air rushed out of Arlette’s lungs as a bizarrely joyous Akhustal Palebane grabbed her in a bone-crushing hug. Even if she wasn’t a feeler, the woman was still strong. Then mercifully Arlette could breathe again as the beastwoman released her and helped Jaquet off the ground to hug him as well.

“That was so much fun! You were both great! That’s it, I’m putting you in the Second Army! Caprakan is going to love you both! Tepin! I changed my mind, I’ll work today after all!” With that said, she strode out of the sparring room, humming a pleasant tune. The small, grey-haired woman hustled afterwards, spouting something about itineraries.

“Everythin’ good?” asked Jaquet, eyeing Arlette’s face, still red from the near-suffocation.

“Why is it that every time we do anything these days we just end up with more questions than answers?”

Arlette Faredin sat on the edge of the platform where their new home stood, leaning against the railing while drinking a large cup of fruit wine and staring down towards the ground hundreds of paces below through the waning evening light. She had to admit, there was something magical about treehouses. The way all of the homes in Pholis were high above the forest floor lent the city an alien quality that made her feel like she’d been transported to a different world.

It seemed that being the new favorites of the chos came with many benefits. They’d been given a rather lushly-appointed house on a platform out by the edge of the city, somewhat separated from the dense concentrations of homes and all the noise that came with it. The large house was even well-stocked with a variety of strange but admittedly delicious foods, and even had a large amount of alcoholic beverages.

The others were back inside, making a ruckus. Basilli and Jaquet were especially noisy as they did their best to consume a week’s-worth of hard liquor in a single night. She, on the other hand, just wanted to think for a while, but the sound of light footsteps behind her told her that she wouldn’t get to think for a bit longer. With a soft grunt, Sofie plopped herself down beside Arlette, grabbing the lower railing with a double-handed death grip.

“Alright, I think it’s time you explain what the hell is going on,” she said. “Somebody is invading here?”

“No, it’s the other way around. Stragma is about to invade Drayhadal.”

Sofie blanched at the news. “What?”

“Stragma and Drayhadal have fought over their border for centuries. Every so often there’s some skirmishes, but there hasn’t been an actual invasion on either side since before I was born.”

“But now there is, and you have to take part.”

Arlette spat. “Yep. Me, Jaquet, and Basilli too.”

“That’s bullshit. We just got here.”

Arlette shrugged. “If you run to Stragma, you’re not going for vacation. They only welcome people like us because we make the country stronger by being citizens. So if we want to be here, this is part of our duty.”

There was a moment of quiet as the two stared down into the city.

“You know,” Sofie eventually said, “I’m really angry about this. I thought you would be too.”

Arlette didn’t answer immediately. The sounds of Jaquet and Basilli laughing it up inside mixed with the calls of animals in the trees as she considered her answer.

“Fighting’s really all I’m good for anymore,” she replied after a while.

“It’s depressing to hear you say that,” Sofie said.

“Say what?”

“That fighting is all you’re good for.”

“Why? It’s true. I’ve been a mercenary all my adult life. I don’t really know anything else. Same with Jaquet and Basilli. Since there’s no mercenaries in Stragma, the three of us would have ended up joining the army regardless. So I guess I just see it more as an issue of timing than anything else. It’s very frustrating that we’re going to have to leave so soon after we got here, but if this were to happen next year instead I’d still be stuck fighting it.”

“Well I think you would be just as great doing other things! You would be a great... um... uh...”

Arlette gave Sofie the side eye as she fumbled through the world’s worst pep talk.

“A teacher! Yeah! You would be a great teacher! You know lots of stuff and you’re good at explaining things. Or maybe a combat instructor?”

Arlette nearly choked on her drink trying not to laugh. “A combat instructor? I’ve only ever taught one person to fight, and she’s the worst fighter in the history of the world.”

“That’s... that’s not your fault, okay? Look, just... you mean a lot to a lot of people, and they don’t just think you’re just a person who swings a sword around either. So stop being like that.”

“Okay, okay.” Arlette waved her off, no longer keen on talking about that subject any more.

The two fell silent again as they each retreated into their own thoughts, content to just absorb the evening atmosphere for a while. Finally Sofie broke the silence with a tired sigh. “This whole thing is so stupid in the first place. Why are they even fighting, anyway?”

“Because their attacks upon Ruresni cannot be tolerated,” said a third voice behind them. Arlette spun about as best she could given her position to find a man in his mid thirties. He was a little on the short side, with jovial eyes and curly orange-brown hair that mostly concealed his large fuzzy triangular ears. A bushy tail of the same color poked out from behind. “Caprakan Bloodflower-hono, General of the Second Army. Pardon my intrusion, but I had to come see the people who made Akhustal-chos so happy myself.”

“How did you get here without us hearing you?” Arlette asked, eying the bridge made of rope and wooden slats that constituted the only way on or off the platform. Bridges just like that one connected platforms all over the city, and they were all uniformly noisy, the wooden slats clacking together from anything stronger than a mild breeze.

“A lifetime of practice,” he replied, flashing a cheeky grin. “But to answer your question, the elves hate the forest. Every day, they chop down trees all across the forest’s edge and burn down as much of it as they can. They’ve been doing it for generations, and so for generations we have fought them.”

“But I thought you said they attacked Ruresni, not the edge of the forest,” Sofie questioned.

“Ruresni is the forest. The forest is Ruresni,” the man stated as if quoting scripture. “An attack on the one is an attack on the whole.”

Sofie’s face bunched up in anger. “I think I hear Pari calling me,” she said as she marched off.

“Hmmm, I don’t think she likes me very much,” Bloodflower commented as the young woman strode into the house without looking back.

“Don’t worry about her. She’s... working through some things,” Arlette responded.

The man leaned his back against the railing and stared up at the leaves. “Thanks for beating Akhustal-chos today.”

“Okay, why is everybody so happy she lost? I’m really not getting this. She was hopping around like a child who ate too many sweets.”

“The simple answer is that she’s bored. It’s funny, she became the chos because she’s the best fighter, but being the chos means she doesn’t get to fight much. Combine that with the fact that she hasn’t lost a fight in probably twenty years now, and she’s basically been stuck in a rut. She needed something to show her that she still has room to grow. At least, that’s how I see it.”

“And you would know?”

“Well she’s my wife so I would sure hope so,” he replied with a smirk as he nonchalantly inspected his fingernails.

“...O-oh.”

“But yeah, I wanted to come thank you both in person. I haven’t seen her this happy and engaged in a while. You couldn’t have come at a better time, too. We had this other person show up a few days ago and she got all excited because he had the potential to be an amazing warrior. Maybe even better than her. But then yesterday at the trials he basically spat in her face in front of the entire country and she’d been furious ever since. If you hadn’t shown up, I think our house might not have lasted another day.”

“You’re strangely laid back compared to the other military commanders I’ve met.”

“I’ve found that you need to be able to relax sometimes or you burn yourself out. In Stragma, your life is in danger the second you step out of the city. You have to be on high alert at all times. Being on the edge like that all the time isn’t easy. I’ve learned a lot since I became a hono, the most important being to trust the people under me and treat them like more than just tools.” He snapped his fingers and straightened as a thought came to him. “Speaking of people under me, that reminds me of the other reason I came tonight. You missed the trials by a day so you won’t be sorted into a caste until the next migration, but Akhustal-chos really wants you involved in the upcoming campaign. That means I need to know what you can all do so I don’t put you in a bad spot.”

Arlette thought for a minute. “Well you surely already know what Jaquet and I can do at this point...” she said. “You’ll like Basilli. Decent power, excellent accuracy and creativity for a fire Observer. He’s got a lot of tricks. Sofie and Pari are... more complicated. In all honesty, neither should be anywhere near a battlefield, especially Sofie, but if we get separated I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll never see them again.”

“And you don’t want that.”

“I made a promise to Sofie that I would help her. My father used to say that somebody who can’t keep their promises isn’t worth the ink they use to sign their name. I don’t have much left to my name anymore, but I still have my pride. I keep my promises.”

“My wife asked me to allow y’all some leeway with the upcoming operation, but there’s limits. The role of the Second Army is vital, and I cannot afford to be slowed down because we are bringing along extra people who can’t carry their share of the burden. I can see one, but two is too much.”

Arlette thought for a moment before pointing towards an area on the other side of the platform from where they were. On the far side another platform extended out and away from the one their house rested upon. Less than ten paces wide and ten paces long, the empty second platform seemed unfinished, as if the builders had given up halfway through construction. “How bad would it be if that platform was damaged a bit?”

The general glanced at the object of her interest. “Looks like something that was abandoned because it didn’t get finished before last year’s migration. Doesn’t seem important to me.”

“Alright then, let me show you something you’ll like.” She got up and turned towards the house, leaning he back against the rail like the general. “Pari!”

Two small hands grabbed the side of the door frame and the beastgirl’s dark head poked out sideways with a curious “nya?”. Arlette waved her over.

“Pari, this is General Caprakan Bloodflower. If you want, he can find a family for you here to live with.”

The girl’s head tilted in confusion. “Grandfather told Pari to find Pari’s family and Pari did. Why would Pari need two families?”

“Well, that settles that,” Arlette said to Caprakan. She looked back to Pari. “Pari, you remember those candles I said you couldn’t test while we were traveling?”

The child’s eyes lit up. “Pari can test them now?”

“Only on that far platform over there. Understand?”

“Okay!” Pari nodded. She sprinted back into the house.

A few moments later, Pari sprinted back out of the house with something tucked under her arm, her infamous giggle going at a thousand leagues an hour. She called it a “boomcandle”, a new type of candle she’d come up with using ingredients she carried around in her sack mixed with bug guts and whatnot from the Stragman wildlife she’d encountered during their trip. Nobody had seen the thing in action, not even Pari, because her claims that it would probably “go boom” had been enough to fill Arlette and Sofie with dread and forbid Pari from testing the candle while they were out in the wild. But if it did what the child claimed that it would, then it would surely make an impression on the general.

Pari covered the sixty or so paces from the house to the platform in a snap, then placed a candle about four times larger than her usual bangcandles on the center of the unfinished platform, lit it, and ran off. Unlike a bangcandle, the boomcandle’s wick was nearly as long as its height, providing the girl ample time to race back to the house’s door.

“What exactly am I watchi-”

The general’s question was suddenly cut off as the boomcandle lived up to its name, erupting in bright light and fury as shock waves sent the platform into convulsions. Arlette threw herself to the side as a piece of wood the size of her arm whizzed through the space that her head had occupied just moments before. Her ears rang as the smoke slowly cleared from the platform, only to find that there was no platform anymore. All that remained were the remnants of several support beams sticking out from the tree below where the platform had once stood, their charred ends still smoking.

Arlette had never belittled the strange things that Pari made, but she’d never viewed them as that much more than a curiosity. They had their uses, and a bangcandle in the right situation was definitely a useful and deadly weapon. Still, even that was only about as powerful as the average observer in Gustil’s army. This boomcandle was something different. A ten-by-ten platform, each board a pace thick in order to bear the weight of whatever were to be placed upon it, blown to splinters by a candle slightly larger than Arlette’s fist. Visions of fortress walls falling under hundreds of mighty blasts flashed through her head. This could be a gamechanger... and it all relied on the mind of a strange, feral child who didn’t seem to understand how deadly her creations could be. Would she understand just how dangerous her latest creation was? Did she realize how coveted her recipe would be?

“Hehehehehehe boom! Heehehehehe,” giggled Pari.

That was a no. She’d need to have a long talk with the girl about it later.

“I’ll tell you what,” coughed General Bloodflower as they watched Jaquet, Basilli, and Sofie stream out of the house, ready for battle. “You get me more of those and I’ll let you bring the whole city along.”

Arlette stood atop the small hill and looked down upon the immaculate sulpa fields that stretched out into the distance. The sulpa swayed in the gentle breeze, their stalks heavy with the grain of the upcoming late-summer harvest. This was her first visit to Drayhadal, and she found the difference between it and Stragma staggering. Stragma was a wild place, and the people there had long ago learned to embrace the chaos there, to bend with it and use it to their advantage to form a strange symbiotic productivity. Nothing spoke to that more than the way the entire civilization would move about the forest with the seasons, keeping one step ahead of massive beast migrations and the like. She couldn’t help but respect their flexibility.

The Drayhadans, on the other hand, perhaps due to their endless on-again-off-again war with the Stragmans, seemed to have adopted an attitude in direct opposition to that of their enemies. Or had the two opposing viewpoints been the cause of the turmoil from the start? She didn’t know. What she did know was that Drayhadal, or at least the Esmae clan that ruled the northwest quadrant, did not believe in compromising with nature. They believed in dominating it. Every inch of the landscape before her looked to be sculpted by a multitude of hands over generations. Each of the many sulpa fields was exactly the same size, their borders outlined by rows of carefully-maintained bushes. Any offending rocks and trees had long been removed, leaving nothing but order as far as the eye could see. Order and control. It was kind of pretty, really. A shame it would soon be nothing but ashes.

A long series of complex bird calls interrupted her reverie. The leader of their squad perked up and signaled for the unit to halt. “They’ve found the main defense force a bit south,” she said. “Our new orders are to regroup with the Northern Raid Division and strike them from the north while the main force hits from the west. Let’s move.”

Arlette, Basilli, and Jaquet all joined the others in following their new orders. The three of them had been assigned to this skirmish squad for the last three days, splitting off from the Northern Raid Division, which itself had split from the Second Army to work its way through the farmlands north of the route the main force of the Second Army was set upon, taking out any Drayhadans that they could handle and drawing those too large to fight on their own into ambushes by other squads. It felt liberating to be able to move and fight without having to worry about protecting others, she realized. The three mercenaries could move swiftly and freely in a way they hadn’t since before Zrukhora had been destroyed, as Sofie and Pari had been left with the main force and would stay behind with a smaller support group when the actual battles began. That time would soon be at hand. If they’d spotted the Esmae clan’s army, then the Esmae had surely spotted them as well. A clash was imminent.

The invasion of Drayhadal had turned out to be far more complex than Arlette had initially believed. The First Army, the largest of Stragma's forces, had headed east, straight for Astryae, the city of the Astr clan who ruled the southwest. The land ruled by the Astr clan was said to be highly volcanic and fiery. This of course meant that many people in the area, and the Astr clan themselves especially, tended to grow up being very talented fire Observers. It was said that the Astr constantly burned away at the Stragman forest that bordered their land, creating a firestorm so large that it was not possible to see both edges of the blaze from any one location, not even atop a mountain.

This incensed the Stragmans more than anything. Such constant widespread devastation made the Astr public enemy number one, and as such the main invasion force would strike there. Two hundred thousand strong, a force the size of the First Army was nearly impossible to conceal, even in the forest of Stragma. The Drayhadans would meet them with force, leading to a series of brutal, bloody battles. That was the hope, at least.

The Second Army was much smaller, but had arguably an even more important goal. Only thirty thousand people, they could move more quickly and stealthily through the thick forest than the First Army. The overall plan was a fairly simple one. The First Army would show itself and force the Drayhadan clans to each send a large portion of their troops to assist the Astr. Then the Second Army would appear in the Esmae’s territory and head for the city of Esmaeyae, doing as much damage to the surrounding areas as possible and hopefully decimating what remained of the Esmae’s defenses.

The Esmae’s lands were the most fertile areas of the country, the source of the majority of their food, and the Stragmans were about to burn it to the ground. That was the goal of the entire campaign, actually — to cause as much damage to the Drayhadan state as possible. They weren’t trying to take over the country. No, the Stragmans lived in the forest and had no desire to change that. This was no attempt at conquest; it was a blood feud writ large.

The question at hand was how much damage the Second Army could do, and how quickly. Arlette fully expected the Esmae to play hard to get, running a series of delaying actions and generally trying to slow down the Stragmans as much as possible to give them as much time as they could get to acquire reinforcements, be they from other clans or from conscription. The Stragmans needed to hit them as hard as they could now, before their strategic advantage worsened.

Arlette’s squad moved quickly, the fire Observers setting the land behind them alight as they went, until they joined up with the Northern Raid Division several hours later. From there they marched on, closing in on the main force of the Second Army and the upcoming battle. As they closed in, it became clear that they were late — the battle was already in full swing. She heard the sound of thousands of voices screaming at each other, of violence and death, long before she crested one last ridge and finally saw the battlefield off in the distance.

Arrows, fireballs, and more flew through the air and bloody chaos reigned as wave after wave of Stragmans pounded at the elves’ hastily-prepared but still effective fortifications, seizing them through force of numbers, while various smaller groups of cavalry battled on the fringes, trying to flank the opponent. Thanks to generations of practice, the Drayhadans had perhaps the best terraforming Observers in all of the world. They’d set up a series of walls and battlements to hold off the Stragmans — nothing impressive compared to a real fortress, but at least something able to slow the Stragmans down. As they approached, Arlette saw the Second Army break through a defensive line, pouring over the walls as the Esmae troops fell back to the next set of fortifications. That was their plan, Arlette surmised — they would fight and hold off the Stragmans for as long as they could at one line, then retreat and reset at the next set of fortifications once the last one fell. They wanted to bleed the Second Army as much as they could, forcing the Stragmans to pay as high as price as possible for every inch. Meanwhile, they were also buying time for their terraformers to strengthen the defenses farther back.

Their plan, unfortunately, relied on one thing: time. They needed to hold the line long enough each time for the terraformers to raise a new series of ramparts before falling back again and peppering the Stragmans with long-range attacks, all while being outnumbered five to one. The defenses helped greatly, but if the Stragmans could take a line fast enough, before a new line could be raised from the earth, the battle would be lost. Arlette knew that time was coming, and soon. The previous lines of defensive fortifications seemed entirely intact, meaning that Bloodflower was saving his little surprise for the right moment.

That moment came quickly. As the Drayhadan troops reformed atop the third line of defense, their terraforming units falling back to create the next line, several large explosions blossomed beside the walls, collapsing them like they were made of straw. Pari had been very stubborn, refusing to give up her secret boomcandle recipe to the Stragmans and only giving General Bloodflower three out of the six she’d made already. But three turned out to be more than enough. The Stragmans roared and rushed through the breaches, swarming the outnumbered elves and taking the line just moments after the last had fallen. The rout was on. The Esmae cavalry tried to group up and strike the Stragmans in an attempt to push them back, but it was too late. The Northern Raid Division crashed into their flank like a tidal wave, rolling them back.

Arlette danced through the pandemonium, her sword and doppelganger doing their work on those unlucky to be before her. Together with the rest of her division, she gave chase, hounding the panicked elves as they ran for their lives. A grin grew upon her face as she noticed a palanquin farther back, its bearers beating a hasty retreat. Only the most revered and important Drayhadans rode in a palanquin. That could only be the opposing general and his staff. Along with the others who’d noticed the same thing, Arlette raced after the fleeing commander, gaining quickly on the heavily-armored transport. An arrow sailed through the air and pierced the leg of elf supporting the rear left side of the litter. He fell with a cry and the massive litter, its sides covered in thick metal sheets, tilted mightily. The other bearers looked back, saw the oncoming horde, and dropped the palanquin like a load of bricks, fleeing for their lives.

Arlette had always been a great sprinter for a non-Feeler, and her speed, combined with her starting position and her early recognition of the situation, meant that she was the first to the suddenly abandoned palanquin, though others were just behind her. Eager for the rewards that came with capturing or killing an enemy commander, Arlette reached out for the door, her hand wrapping around the smooth handle of the knife before grabbing the vegetable on the counter before her and starting to slice it lengthwise. The afternoon sun filtered through the paper windows as she carefully chopped the vegetable into fine pieces, the slow up-and-down rhythm bringing her a welcome sense of calm. Birds chirped outside, their melodious cries melding with the bright laughter of children somewhere nearby. Once the chopping was completed, she placed the knife down on the wooden counter and scooped the vegetable chunks into a nearby bowl, the pieces eliciting soft tinks as they bounced off the fine white porcelain.

Suddenly Arlette’s ears picked up a low, mournful wail off in the distance, its volume slowly building and its pitch rising until it became an unearthly cry that sent waves of dread washing over her. Another wail joined the first, then another, and another, each closer than before, until the entire world seemed to be screaming out in agony. Dropping the knife onto the counter, she rushed out of the kitchen and donned her straw sandals, then raced out of her small house to find a street already clogged with people. The wailing continued all around the city as thousands of others poured from their houses, all desperate to get out as quickly as possible.

Then her ears picked up a sound over the wailing, the sound of a million giant insects beating their wings in a massive swarm. The sound drove the people in the crowd to push even harder as they ran for the hills, the droning growing louder and louder until it seemed to come from directly overhead. Arlette looked up to see dozens of giant grey birds high up in the sky, the sun glinting off their long, sleek bodies. The bellies of the birds opened up and thousands of shining eggs dropped from the openings down onto the city below, sending the crowd into an absolute stampede. Everywhere the eggs landed fire bloomed, the tightly packed wooden buildings setting ablaze almost immediately. The city burned.

Arlette ran with the others, trying her best to keep up with the frenzied mob as more and more eggs fell around them. A hot, dry wind began to blow, sending embers drifting through the air to land on other buildings and spread the fire even faster. Together with the rest of the human herd, she worked her way through the streets towards the hills and the safety they provided, her legs groaning at the strain and her lungs gasping for air as she ran past houses and the occasional strange enclosed metal wagon.

She didn’t see the stone in the road until she had already tripped over it, her body clumsily sprawling to the ground. The rest of the fearful people, driven by instinct for self-preservation, trampled over her. She screamed as she felt her left shoulder dislocate as somebody stepped on it. Tears in her eyes, Arlette tried her best to crawl off to the side, to find a small pocket of space where she could get up and flee again, but the people kept coming, battering at her body as they passed.

After what felt like an eternity of punishment, Arlette leaned against a doorway as her chest heaved, trying her best to breathe without taking in the ashes that blew through the city. Her vision swam from several blows to the head, dirty shoe prints covering her body from her face to her trousers providing ample evidence of the beating she’d received. She clenched her teeth as she grabbed her left arm with her right. Using the door frame for extra leverage, she forced her left arm upwards. There was an audible pop as something in her shoulder tore and the pain increased, but she could move her arm again. She could run again. That was all that mattered.

Fire raged all around her now as she sprinted through the streets. Her body shook as she coughed from the smoke, but she pressed on. The scorching wind beat at her face and whipped ashes into her eyes, but she pressed on. Her lungs ached as they took in the hot air, begging for a rest, but still she pressed on. She could still see the hills not too far away, their safety beckoning to her. It wouldn’t be much longer until she was out of the city.

Then disaster struck. With a loud, low groan, a three-story building to her right began to topple, most of its supports weakened by the fire. She cried out, dodging as best she could as pieces of the massive structure fell around her, but she couldn’t dodge everything. A large wooden beam, itself still largely unburned but pushed over by the rest of the falling building, knocked her to the ground, pinning her legs under its heavy weight. The fire was all around her now and the beam itself had begun to burn, the flames slowly moving down the wood towards her. Arlette pushed against the beam, trying with all her might to move it enough to free her legs, but the massive piece of wood was too heavy for a single woman to budge. Instead, she began to feverishly dig into the dirt baked hard by the heat, ever so slowly creating room to pull her legs out. Ignoring the pain in her shoulder, ignoring the crushing pain in her legs, ignoring the blistering heat from the inferno that roared all around her, she dug at the dirt with a desperate strength until her fingertips began to bleed. She was so close to freedom. So close to seeing another day. All she had to do was get out before the fire got closer.

Another building collapsed, this time on the other side, its bulk knocking over a flag pole as it did. Arlette’s eyes grew wide as the pole tipped her way. She twisted as best she could as the pole, its flag still somehow mostly intact, came crashing down right where her head had been just moments ago. The flag, a crimson circle with rays emerging from it on a white background, fell on top of her and she grabbed it, and idea popping into her head. Arlette was too weak to move the beam that trapped her legs, but using the her grip on the flag and the nearby pole to greatly improve her leverage, Arlette might be able to pull herself free instead!

Then suddenly Arlette’s ears picked up the sound of droning once more, growing ever louder in the skies above, and despair filled her soul. She turned her head to see more giant birds moving in from the east, their bellies lit up by the light of a city ablaze. Death had returned to finish the job. There would be no escape. This would be her funeral pyre.

Arlette’s mind gave in, and everything went black.