Gathering in one of the supply wagons, the teens found out that the news was not good. It was enough to make Martin mutter loudly about the universe always giving them bad luck. The normally grim Ginger looked poleaxed. Ayax’s features were unreadable, but her tail swished side-to-side with nervousness.

As for Elizabeth, she’d buried her head in her hands.

Oddly enough, Frances did feel worried and afraid, but she didn’t feel the need to react to it. She only felt the need to gently clutch Elizabeth’s shoulder, rubbing circles with her thumb.

“Well, at least we know where their cavalry went,” muttered Ginger.

“Is there any chance we can break through them? We do have two mages?” Martin asked, desperately.

“You’d have trouble enough against the thousand centaurs they have, but they have another three thousand of their orc boar riders and what we think is another thousand goblin wolf riders. Forget breaking through their lines, you won’t even make three hours before they swarm you,” hissed the female centaur.

Sighing, Elizabeth raised her head and nodded. “You’re right, miss…?”

“Elowise,” said the centaur.

“She’s my second-in-command and she knows General Antipades’s tactics quite well,” Alexander explained.

“I better. I fought with him for a year before I defected to Erlenberg,” said Elowise.

Frances blinked. “You defected? But why?”

“A long and tragic tale for another time,” she said airily. “Point is, there’s no way you are marching across that field.”

“And I don’t think you can stay in the Pinewoods. How many days supplies have you left?” Alexander asked.

“Martin?” Elizabeth asked.

The knight rubbed his temples. “To keep our battalion at combat strength… with foraging we can last another four days, but no longer.”

“That’s better than I expected,” said Elowise.

“Can Erlenberg’s navy supply us?” Ayax asked.

“Technically yes, but it’s far too risky. You don’t have enough troops with you and you aren’t going to find any more survivors from Aijin Fields.” Alexander turned to Eustace and beckoned him forward. “That’s why we have a plan to get you all out of there. Commodore Eustace is going to lead a squadron of ships to Greensands Bay along the coast. You’ll rendezvous with him there.”

Eustace had Edana’s green eyes and black hair, but instead of pale skin, his was weathered and tanned by years at sea. He waved as Alexander gestured to him and Frances couldn’t help but smile slightly at that.

“Why at the bay? Why can’t you just go to the coast alongside the Pinewoods?” Ginger demanded.

“Because the waters along the Pinewoods coastline are treacherous and the shore is either rocky or sheer cliff. I know it’s risky, but when you get to Greensands Bay you’ll have my squadron's guns supporting you,” said Eustace coolly, completely unruffled by Ginger’s acerbic tone.

Frances swallowed. “Uncle, I trust you, but what if you are intercepted by the Alavari navy?”

“Niece, I will be personally leading the squadron. We will get there, even if we are intercepted.” Eustace thumped his chest. “Trust me.”

“You’ll still need to be very careful, though. Greensands is about a five hour march from the Pinewoods. You’ll have to make the march unde the cover of night and get there as Eustace’s ships arrive,” warned Alexander.

Elizabeth grimaced. “So if we get discovered we’re in for a fight.”

Ayax sighed. “Elizabeth, with our luck, I think it might be more when rather than if.”

“You’re not wrong, Ayax. I have a hunch part of the reason they’re out there is that they’re looking for you,” said Alexander.

That took all the teens aback.

“Us? We’re but a battalion,” Martin stammered.

“No commander would allow any significant force to operate behind his lines in a siege and you have two mages. No, he wants you dead and it’s even possible he knows of your relationship to Edana, Frances.”

Frances grimaced as she recalled that Antipades sent cavalry to Vertingen years ago and how those orcs and centaurs had very nearly killed her and her mother on that plain.

“Understood. Thank you all for coming up with this plan,” said Frances.

Alexander managed a small smile. “See you soon.” With that the mirror turned back into its normal reflective surface.

Elizabeth, wincng, turned to Ginger. “Ginger, I—”

“I fucking told you we should have left,” Ginger hissed, not facing Elizabeth.

“I know. I’m sorry. I made a terrible call—”

Ginger groaned and waved Elizabeth off. “The fucking problem is you couldn’t have known either. We just got played by a better general. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pissed at you, but how the fuck were any of us supposed to know.”

Elizabeth blinked. “Oh, thanks.”

Ginger grunted as Martin coughed. “So how are we going to break it to the soldiers?”

Elizabeth stood up. “I’ll do it. It was my mistake.”

“Elizabeth, the fault isn’t yours alone. You did make the decision, but we should have provided better advice.” Frances smiled. “We’ll break the news together.”

The news did cast a pall over the Lightning Battalion’s soldiers, but the news that there was an escape plan lent a desperate speed to the march. The cadence noticeably increased as the soldiers double-timed it down the road out of the Pinewoods. They weren’t using the main road anymore, though, as it didn’t lead to Greensands Bay, so their progress was slowed slightly by the need to file down a narrower gravel and dirt road.

“Hey cuz, are you alright, really?” Ayax asked.

Frances glanced at the troll. “Yes.” She winced. “Sorry, thanks for asking, Ayax. I’m just… trying to figure this out.”

“You mean your feelings for Timur?” Ayax asked.

Frances almost grimaced at her cousin, but she threw that annoyance down her throat and shook her head. “No. The escape. I am thinking of some kind of backup plan in case we do get discovered.”

“Oh.” Ayax pursed her lips. “How long have you been thinking of a plan?”

“I’ve been thinking about a plan since the meeting ended,” Frances said.

Ayax shot Frances a surprised look. “Cuz, please don’t take this badly, but do you ever relax while on campaign?”

“No. I find it rather hard to do so. I feel like for me… thinking about solutions to potential problems is my way of relaxing.” Frances grimaced. “It’s kinda weird right?”

Ayax pursed her lips and shook her head. “Not really. It’s not hurting you right? I mean I do martial arts to relax.”

“Martial arts?” Frances asked.

“Yup. It’s why I’m so handy with my staff,” said Ayax.

“That… explains a lot,” Frances muttered, remembering all of the times her cousin had basically flipped her on her back with her staff. “Do you know any hand to hand forms? I’d really like to learn some in case I ever lose my wand.”

“Of course!” Ayax swallowed. “Um, there is also something I’d like to ask if you can teach me. If you can't, that's fine, I’ll still teach you self-defense, but um, well…”

Frances frowned at the hesitation in Ayax’s voice and nodded. “Why don’t you tell me first?”

Ayax pursed her lips. “It’s your lightning spell. Can you teach it to me?”

“Oh? Of course. I would love to teach it to you. I don’t get why you were so nervous, though,” Frances said.

“Well, you didn’t teach us that when you were training us the last month, so I assumed there was a reason you wanted to keep it private,” Ayax said.

Frances blinked and sighed. “Oh. Oh no that’s not why I didn’t teach you it. I didn’t teach you the lightning spell because it’s really hard.”

“Really? But you cast it so fluidly,” said Ayax.

Frances patted Ivy’s Sting fondly. “Part of it is my Named Wand. I may have invented the spell, but Ivy’s Sting helps me to cast it faster. Also, in my world, we understand the science behind how lightning forms. I can teach you, but it’s… kinda hard to explain. I tried telling Edana once, but she was never able to duplicate the spell to the same effect.”

That caught Ayax off guard and she stopped in mid-step. “Can’t you just write the aria’s notes down?”

“That’s part of the problem, Ayax. I never created the spell with a set aria. I just… I just sing and visualize,” Frances explained.

Ayax blinked. “So it relies on understanding and visualization to invoke it. Huh. I always wondered how you were able to vary the power of the spell. It figures that it was instinctive because there is no set aria.”

“Mm hm. Are you still interested?” Frances asked.

Ayax grinned. “Are you kidding? Yes!”

Due to the artificial nature of the Pinewoods, it ended as suddenly as it began. The interspaced pine and oak trees ended abruptly as if cut off by an unploughed field. Nothing like the green turf that surrounded her old school, the field was rough, broken and filled with yellow and green grasses. This visage was lit a dirty brown by the setting orange sun.

All three companies and their group of cavalry were formed up into columns. They’d stripped everything of value from the wagons and had left them. At their head were Elizabeth, Frances, Martin and Ayax on their horses.

Elizabeth turned her horse around and addressed the group. “Rendezvous is in precisely seven hours. You have an hour to rest, and then we’re reassembling just like this. With any luck, we’ll be escaping to Erlenberg.”

The soldiers nodded at that, but Elizabeth then fell silent, her eyes dropping to the ground.

“I thank you for putting your trust in us for so far, despite everything that’s happened, and I promise you, I won’t leave for the ships until every single one of you are on a boat.”

Frances froze as she felt her heart clench, but the pain of her heart was drowned out by the clapping hands of their soldiers. They weren’t cheering, the mood was far too dire for that, but they were behind them.

At that moment, Frances resolved herself that even if she was going to be hated by her entire command, she would get her friend on a boat first.

---

They were just about to march when Elizabeth asked to speak to Frances in private.

“Frances, I know what you’re thinking,” said Elizabeth.

“What am I thinking?” Frances lied. She’d never been the greatest liar to her friends, though, and the Korean girl grimaced.

“You are not going to put me on a boat until I get everybody evacuated. I don’t die. They will.”

“This wasn’t only your mistake,” Frances stammered.

Elizabeth shook her head. “No, but I did make the biggest one.”

“Elizabeth… please, even if it was your mistake, you can’t pay for it with your life here!”

“But I can’t die! You and everybody else can!”

Frances didn’t know what to say to that, because it was true. Of their entire battalion, everybody would suffer if they died in Durannon.

Elizabeth, would not.

“Elizabeth, I can’t do that.”

“Frances—”

“I’ll try to do what you want okay! Just… don’t order me. I don’t know if I can!” Frances sobbed. She tried to wipe her eyes, but they’d filled with tears.

A hand touched her shoulder. “Frances? I’m sorry I—”

Frances nearly hit her friend’s hand away, but she only managed to grab onto Elizabeth’s wrist with a shaky grip. “I don’t want to hear anymore. Just… please don’t let it come to that.”

She blinked, opening her eyes to find Elizabeth nodding, shoulders slumped.

“I’ll do my best.”

Holding each other’s hands, the two girls embraced each other, and didn’t let go for the longest time.

With the sun set, the Lightning Battalion set off at a rapid pace. The problem was that they couldn’t use any drums or music to keep the tempo of the march as that would draw attention. Everything was done as quietly as they could and they all had different roles.

Elizabeth was at the head of the battalion, leading them forward. She set the pace of the march and coordinated the scouting party on horseback.

Martin, being the best rider of them, led this party. Their horsemen, in pairs at points a hundred yards out into the fields, were posted to give them advance warning. The knight would go between different parties to make sure the spacing was good.

Frances and Ayax rode up and down the column, making sure the soldiers could keep their pace and also so that the squads weren’t getting strung out. Meanwhile, Ginger brought up the rear of the column, ushering stragglers along.

It wasn’t a perfect system. They needed to carry torches. They tried to keep it to a minimum, with every squad having one torch, but in the dimming evening light, the torches marked them as a clear sight in the distance. Furthermore, Elizabeth had to slow the pace of their march a few times as some soldiers simply weren’t as physically fit as the others. This was particularly for the newest enlisted men and women from Erlenberg, and some of the most ill conscripts.

At one point, one of these convicts, an older man, collapsed and Frances had to race over to him and pour magic into his muscles to heal them. Even then, he still needed to be supported by two of his fellows.

Still, they were making good time across the unploughed fields. Until about an hour from their destination, they heard shouts in the direction of their scouts.

A short time later, Martin, holding a torch and accompanied by two cavalrymen, rode back. “We’ve been made! We got to double time it!”

“Is anybody pursuing?” Elizabeth demanded.

“Not yet, but their cavalry shouldn’t be far behind.”

“Frances, get Ayax and prepare to run interference with the cavalry. Everybody else, go! GO!” Elizabeth yelled.

Frances soon found Ayax and the pair steered their mounts to join the thirty-odd Erisdalian cavalry cantering beside the now jogging battalion. Every single man, woman and Alavari peering into the night, trying to find their enemy.

“There, miss!” yelled a female rider. Frances followed the rider’s finger to find torchlights flickering in the distance. Pointing her wand at them, she began to sing.

She wasn’t going to shoot the figures, though. Instead, she recalled back to the star shells that she’d read in the books she poured over in the library. Bright streaking starlights that hung in the sky.

Her soldiers blinked as a white-bright, sparkling stars flew into the night sky. They crackled as if afire, and hung in the sky, above the torchlights in the distance, illuminating them for all to see.

They were orc war pig cavalry alright. About an entire company.

“Right, you got to teach me how to do that,” Ayax muttered.

Frances smiled. “I will teach you whatever you’d like. Let’s go.” She kicked her horse into a gallop, her soldiers following her.

Only, the orcs in the distance immediately turned their mounts around and galloped away.

“Hold!” Frances called out, pulling her horse to a stop. “They’re going back for reinforcements.”

“It’d be a bad idea to follow them. We should go back,” said Ayax.

Frances nodded and whirled her mount around. They were going to see more orcs sooner or later.

The coast they’d been following had begun to dip down, curving into Greensands Bay. It was not actually green, but the broken ground and wild grasses followed the gentle slope into a curved part of shoreline. Water lapped the sands, reflecting the moon high in the sky.

Only, there were no ships. They were early, but Frances couldn’t even see any ships in the distance. Her stomach began to sink.

Especially since the Kingdom of the Alavari’s forces returned in force.

“That’s… a lot of cavalry,” stammered Elizabeth.

Frances nodded grimly at the sheer number of torches that were approaching at speed. The illumination spells she’d fired earlier showed a large force including orcs mounted on warpigs, centaurs and quite a few goblin wolf riders.

“How long?” Ayax asked.

“They’re not rushing. They’re going to arrive in about thirty-no twenty minutes?” Ginger guessed.

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Get everybody to dig in. Frances, call Eleanor. We need to know where they are—”

Frances felt her mirror vibrate and pulled it out, opening it to find Alexander’s grim face.

“Dad? Where are the ships?” Ayax asked.

“They’ve been intercepted. Eustace says he’ll be there in an hour. How are things over there?”

“Sir, we don’t have an hour. We got seen. Martin, how many do you think are going for us?” Elizabeth asked.

“I think a full cavalry wing. About a thousand soldiers,” said Martin.

Alexander paled. “Hold on as long as you can. Eustace is breaking through, we just need some time.”

“Tell him to hurry, or he’ll just be recovering our bodies,” Frances said grimly. She shut her mirror and turned to her friends. “I have an idea. Get everybody behind me, back against the water!”

Ginger frowned, “Frances, what are you—”

“Just listen to her!” Martin hissed, ushering her away. “Come on, hurry!”

Frances leapt off her horse, rushing past the racing soldiers. She’d been thinking about the possibility of them being surrounded and what they could do to improve their chances. Nothing changed that their only possibility of escape was by ship, which could and did come late.

She could, however, make the likelihood they would survive any delay better.

Raising her wand, Frances began to sing.

It was a long, long song, for a simple, but magic intensive task. Before her feet, gravelly sand and dirt dug started to pile up. First, a divot, then a mound, the wall rose, taking material in front of it and piling it up higher and higher.

As this wall rose, a trench formed in front of it. The whole entrenchment formed a great semi-circle, with the back to the water. So, as the trench got deeper, seawater began to flood into it.

By the time Frances had stopped singing, the wall was five feet tall with a ditch about the same depth in front of it, filled with water. The girl who created all of this staggered and was caught by her cousin.

“I am so glad you’re on our side, Frances,” said Martin.

“Amen to that!” Elizabeth laughed. “Ayax, we need you to suppress their charge. Ginger, can you get Frances some food?”

Frances tried to get to her feet, but she was too weak after that exertion of effort and felt her cousin lift her into Ginger’s arms. “Sugary foods and water first,” said the troll.

Frances groaned. “Sorry. I—”

“Frances, eat,” said Ginger, setting her down on the sand and pulling out a small jar of honey and a spoon. There wasn’t any time, so Frances did her best to spoon the honey and swallow, washing it down with gulps from her hip flask.

With the wall being five foot tall, the musketeers in their battalion had lined up against the wall and mounted their weapons on top. Squads of men at arms all stood behind, weapons at the ready.

When Frances finally felt well enough to stand up, she could see that the one thousand Alavari riders were arriving. Lines and lines of riders with torches stood just outside of effective musket range, observing them.

“Think they’re going to attack?” Frances asked Ginger. They were making their way back to the wall, trying to find Elizabeth.

Ginger frowned. “Hard to tell. I don’t know how they’re going to overcome a five-foot wall with a trench in front of it.”

Elizabeth ran up to them. “They’ll make their move at some point. They won’t just let us leave so easily. Ginger, thanks, can you go and check your company?”

“Will do.” The convict ran over to her company of convicts, while Frances quickly ran over to the wall. To her consternation, she had made it so tall she could only just look over it.

“How long did you have this planned?” Elizabeth asked.

“I was thinking about it while we were marching to Greensands. Don’t worry, I can still throw a few spells. It was just tiring at that moment,” said Frances.

“Okay, tell me if you’re getting close to exhaustion,” said Elizabeth. She stepped back and shouted, “Make sure you got your ammunition close by! But don’t fire until I say so!”

Frances whistled a tune to pile more sand and dirt to form a step by the wall. Once it was tall enough, she leapt onto it.

And yet the Alavari riders continued to hold their position, unwilling to attack, and clearly waiting for reinforcements.