My blood pounds at my temples, hard enough that I force myself to calm down in an effort to lower my own blood pressure. I may have acquired some slightly suicidal tendencies with recent events, but I am not dying of a headache, Ugh.

I turn my attention to Yvonne, silently standing between us with her back to me. The anger clouding my mind lifts a bit as I watch her, the simple fact that she estimated me worthy enough to interpose herself between us touches my heart.

“Patrick, you are not a Templar, you lack power of judgement over her while her condition, and this situation, makes it unclear whether she can be held responsible for her action or not.” Lady Lance’s voice is uncertain but gains in strength as she progresses through her reasoning.

“I have the authority to punish traitors, to make an example. The order will agree after the fact, you know this.” He explains, face still expressing his disbelief at encountering opposition. “The peasant needs to be taught her place in the order of things.”

A small snort escapes my lips upon hearing that. I’ve had a lot of time alone in the fields, plowing monotonously, enough time to spend some of it reflecting on my place in the order of things as he calls it.

“You pompous little noble. I’ve given society grain, once every trimester except winter, for the last six years. I’ve fed myself and others through my work, what have you achieved with your life apart from killing a few inconsequential Rykz and leeching your wealth off your subjects? You are nothing without us peasants, you are bumbling fools surrounded by empty fields of worthless gold.” The spite into my last sentence surprises even me, I hadn’t planned to make such a direct attack.

“Pah! Preposterous!” Patrick exclaims.

“You make a point, but it only reinforces the importance of maintaining social order.” Lady Lance shakes her head sideways, seeming saddened by the whole series of events, maybe even disappointed somehow.

“What point?! Without the ruling class, you are all but bumbling fools hitting each other with sticks for crumbs of bread. Peasants work because we impose duty upon them. Before nobility emerged from the masses, chaos reigned. We uphold and administer society!” Patrick exclaims with zeal.

“The Emperor brought order when he built the Empire by uniting the infighting nobility, bringing their domains under the fold in exchange for protection and stability through unification. Your role is indeed to administer the Empire, but all you’ve done is continue your infighting, wasting resources for contests of ego, you never lift a hand if there isn’t a direct benefit to yourself. You are an unnecessary burden to the Empire and the Emperor will replace you in time.” My reply lacks no zeal of its own, but it took energy that I don’t have in surplus to utter the tirade. I take a sidestep towards the tunnel wall, leaning my back against it to rest and regain control of myself.

“Nobility has matured over generations, we are better than we were. Families elevate themselves through educating their heirs with discipline and clarity of purpose. Each generation building on the methods and wealth inherited from the previous ones to improve themselves and their domain. The spirit of the Emperor’s will is to create perfection through trial and error. The high-born families who find the proper methods will prosper, as will their domain, while others will adapt or be replaced. Even peasants and burgher families have elevated themselves by accumulating generations of effort.” Lady Lance’s vision of the world fits the idea I have of her so well that I don’t doubt for a single second that she has pursued this ideal with selfless abandon, improving herself to improve the world. She was smiling throughout the entire speech.

My own knowledge and experience make me skeptical that such a goal is even remotely pursued among the nobility, regardless of the Emperor’s actual intent. But she looked so eager to contribute to this grand plan that I keep my silence. The only things I have to say on the subject are negative opinions, getting that off my chest isn’t worth the possibility that it may put a shade over her smile.

“Bullshit!” Patrick snaps. Lady Lance’s smile fades, her lips pressing together into a white line. Hatred for the noble fills my heart. He dares to ridicule my Leomi’s values. He took her smile. I want to hurt him! “Our authority is innate! We are born to rule those inferior, to challenge each other until the strongest one rises above! The lowliest noble is forever above the mightiest peasant. It is truth ordained since the Lake blessed humanity!” Patrick speaks with fervor, almost fanatical as he proclaims his superiority. After he is finished, he sheathes his sword, apparently satisfied, having established the fact that his superiority was never in doubt. He isn’t talking to us, I realize, he is reinforcing his own worldview.

Lady Lance shakes her head at the exclamation, she makes her way towards me. Her eyes observe my hand closely as my fingers tighten over my sledgehammer’s handle, she extends her right hand, reaching towards mine.

I don’t understand her intent immediately, all I see is her hand heading towards my left side, towards the flesh that burns of a scorching pain if it is just slightly brushed.

I jump away, turning around myself to put distance between the wound and her hand, fear apparent on my face … it takes only a second for the expression to melt away, as I realize my mistake.

My reaction surprises lady Lance, but the frown she makes is one of suspicion, not of hurt feelings. She throws a glance at Yvonne who makes a shrug in response, communicating her lack of knowledge.

“You reacted the same way earlier.” Lady Lance observes. “How is the wound?”

“It’s fine.” I lie. “The fever is just putting me on edge.”

“You’re lying to me.” Lady Lance frowns in annoyance. “Is it infected?”

“It just hurts a bit if you touch it, that’s not surprising for an open wound.” I answer, unwilling to lie a second time to her face.

“Enough!” Patrick yells. “It is disgraceful how much you care for this thankless peasant. It is a stain on your title, Countess.” His tone is admonishing, but Yvonne doesn’t seem to care as she unsheathes her sword at the insult, staring at him, eye to eye as I dare him to continue. Patrick backs off, snorting.

“We don’t have time to handle this anyway.” I interject before lady Lance can press me further. “We walk until we hit daylight, you said. Let’s keep going.”

“She’s right.” Yvonne says, sheathing her sword in a single, fluid movement. “Two scouts are keeping their distance even though we’ve stopped, the Rykz are boxing us in as we speak.” She points a hand at them over her shoulder.

Lady Lance tears her eyes off the bandage where my left shoulder should be to look behind us and then back forward, raising an open hand up and closing it to signal us to fall in formation.

I don’t want to walk with that ass-face behind me after all this but I don’t have many other options, none that the rest of the group would allow actually. I take the center position once more, holding the hammer on my left shoulder in place with my hand on the handle, stabilizing my walk.

This whole thing revealed to me that I have a lot more anger buried within me than I thought. I hadn’t realized that I was so spiteful about what happened. I wince, remembering the glance I threw lady Lance and how it actually prevented her from speaking.

After all the progress I’d made with her … How could I let the depressing thoughts I have about my future fuck with my present? I need to make the most of the time left, this was just a setback, once we’re out of these tunnels we’ll all relax.

I’ll be able to work on my Leomi on the way to Meria, maybe we’ll stop in an inn, and then I could sneak into her room. It wouldn’t even be that hard to get Yvonne to let me in, leaving us alone. I mean, she’s been helpful so far, right? She didn’t seem like she was toying with me to have a laugh at my expense, she might even have saved my life when she stepped between me and ass-face.

Lady Lance or my Lady. Not my Leomi. I remind myself because that isn’t a slip I can afford out loud. She’s so … striking, the depth of her light gray eyes when I look into them … how her long fingers casually move to throw the wild strands of her black hair back into their place. Strength in every movement.

I take a deep breath and let a sigh out, dropping my gaze from the deep darkness of the tunnel in front, finding lady Lance’s upper legs, swinging along in her walk, not very far in front of me, a couple of meters at the most. The hard leather of her armor is concealing too many curves and details for the view to be very interesting. Worse of all, her pack is covering the two round parts that would be the most interesting to me from this angle.

I really screwed up, huh. The thoughts I expressed are going to push her away, she’s a … good person, she wants to contribute to society as a whole, conviction guiding her aims. I’ve just basically told her that if I had my way, I would destroy the very structure she works to improve.

My mother, who was the daughter of a merchant that went bankrupt, taught me to look at things in terms of resources. If the resources delivered are lower than the resources produced, then there is a problem somewhere up the chain. It took me years, but I took that simple way to look at things and pushed it to the extremes.

The peasantry produces grain to feed the Empire, nobles administer the lands they use while protecting them, they use taxes to fund those operations. There are multiple problems within that chain, the nobles are taxing the peasantry in both grain and coin, they use the extra income to hire more guards than needed to ensure the extra taxes are paid. I asked and was told that at the founding of the Empire, peasants didn’t pay taxes in coin on top of the grain they owed their liege.

While that alone wouldn’t be too much in wasted resources considering the increase in overall wealth for the peasantry and the fact that more armed men to protect the Empire from outside threats isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the problem is that those guards are used either to put revolts down or infighting with the rest of the nobility for points of pride or greed.

The overall result is that the Empire is much stronger than it was since humans have gained in overall territory since its founding, but we are becoming less and less united over the years, peasant revolts were rare back when my father was young, but we hear rumors of one being put down in the kingdom every odd year now.

“Ahead, five, Rykz scouts.” Lady Lance speaks with pauses between each word, reporting as she gets the information.

I tear my absent-minded gaze off the movement of her legs to look up, finding darkness only. I check my flow reserves, about one-third. I decide it isn’t worth burning energy to boost my sight as lady Lance will keep us updated until I can see them normally.

It is worth burning the energy on melding the hammer and iron bar further thought. I don’t think a single millimeter of melded material is going to hold very long. I channel my flow into the hammer, calling the melding construct to mind and replicating the changes I made before to the segments.

It takes less concentration than the first time, allowing me to walk along at the same time. I’ve already made the adjustments I felt were needed on the fly the first time around. After about forty seconds, the construct cuts off, out of energy. I throw a look at the base of the hammerhead and find that the ring of dull melded material is now about two millimeters wide.

“Five scouts will be … difficult to handle. The tunnel is only wide enough for two of us to fight with swords, but their spikes allow them to fit three in front of us without hindering each other too much.” Yvonne says.

“I could …” Lady Lance starts but Yvonne interrupts her.

“Choose not to charge in alone between them and get yourself killed.”

“I wasn’t … Okay, I was going to suggest that the two of you hold while I charge past them.” She admits as her head turns to look over her shoulder, she makes a small apologetic smile for Yvonne, who is walking behind me.

“It wouldn’t work anyways, you’re forgetting the scouts behind us. If we leave no one on rearguard, they’ll charge us, they might charge us anyway.” Patrick says, rather calmly.

“Me and Patrick in front, Leomi takes the rearguard alone since she is more likely to be able to hold alone.” Yvonne proposes.

“I agree.” Patrick says.

The group changes its formation to accommodate the new plan, I slow down my steps to walk next to lady Lance as we resume our progress along the tunnel, towards the five Rykz scouts waiting for us.

I spot lady Lance’s head move from the corner of my eye, her face inclined towards me, but after a few seconds she makes a small shake and straightens her head on her shoulders, looking forward once again.

This time, if the scouts following us attack, I won’t be useless. I can occupy one of them without getting hit I’m sure, that way she’ll be free to help in front quicker.

“I’ll just distract one.” I whisper to her.

“Okay.” Her whisper in reply is barely more than a breath really. “Be careful.” She adds, turning her face my way for a second to throw a small smile.

I feel my face light up with a smile, but I am more focused on failing to repress the hot feeling mounting in my cheeks. How is she still affecting me like this!? She isn’t even trying, she didn’t even look at me! Just turned her head for a second. Stupid cheeks, stupid butterflies, and stupid feelings.

My swirling thoughts end there, interrupted by the familiar clicking of Rykz legs on rock. I throw a look over my shoulder and find the pair of scouts that were following us at a distance, a full length closer than they should be, they approached within charging distance while we were making our way towards the five Rykz waiting ahead.

Ah, the two scouts behind us waited to see if we kept going or not before putting themselves within our reach. They fully intend to force us to fight on both fronts at the same time.

“Should we charge those two behind us before the battle in front starts?” I ask.

“No, we would catch them but they’ll start retreating as soon as we start rushing, it would split the group too far apart for my comfort.” Lady Lance answers.

“Good point. Are there any more Rykz coming up behind these two scouts?”

“Four more, pretty far behind.” She admits with a complicated face.

“Warriors?” I ask, thinking that she would have said so if they were workers or scouts, but might withhold their type if she thought it would frighten me.

“Yes.” She says with a grimace.

The future seems bleak once again, I suppress a shiver as the memory of the last fight I was in comes to my mind.

“I meant it all you know.” I whisper. “Sorry, for getting carried away too.”

“I know. It’s … okay.” She whispers back.

“Stuff happens, silver spoons are bought with blood and sweat. At the very least I think you worthy of yours.” I pause, taking a deep breath as I steel myself. "But that might be my crush talking.” I throw how I feel about her back into the conversation, I am long past subtle hints since I could abruptly run out of time in the near future.

“Thanks.” She lifts her hand and pats my head. “You’re sweet.” She adds, bending over me and leaving a small kiss on top of my head. “Ready?” She asks before I can think on what she just did and I lost all capacity for thought.

“Y, yea.” I say, lifting the sledgehammer off my shoulder.

“Hold here, let them come to us.” Lady Lance orders. “Lion strike, hold, and strike again. Same tactics as during the ambush, it almost cut their numbers in half the first time, I don’t see a reason it won’t work again.”

“Agreed.” Patrick says as he and Yvonne both nod.

I turn around, spreading my feet and bending my knees slightly. Lady Lance takes her position half a step in front of me, a full meter and a half to my right. My heart is beating like war-drums, the memory of the small tender kiss so fresh it dominates all my thoughts, my breathing is deep and full of my feelings for her.

The pair of Rykz scouts reach us at a jogging pace, each holding out one spike, trying to impale us. I avoid the one aimed at me with a step back, moving back into position when it withdraws. I lift the sledgehammer above my head, ready to throw it arcing forward.

The creature moves back with a quick staccato of clicking sounds made by its legs, it throws a slow attack with its other spike, such a lazy movement that I simply avoid the point by bending my torso away from it.

I do still make sure to maintain much more space between the point and my breasts than is needed to avoid it. There is already going to be a straight horizontal scar on my left breast, I don’t need to add another to the collection because I’m being careless.

A glimpse of movement on my right side attracts my attention for a split second, long enough to see that the other Rykz is keeping a much wider distance between itself and lady Lance than mine is with me.

I dodge another slow blow that my opponent must have thrown when it caught my distraction, I take a step back away from it. The creature isn’t committing to its attacks, its body isn’t leaning into the strikes, it’s throwing them from arm’s length. These two are completely wasting our time, I hope Yvonne will manage in the meantime.