The next few days passed in a bit of a blur, my time was spent during this either playing cards or practicing archery and whatever few skills I’d picked up from my bouts with Alida. We set out after those few days, leaving behind some troops and the other war party that we had helped as the garrison of Brashfields.

Alida, Trevor and I walked together, the army wasn’t expecting trouble, and a few days out marching our discipline had loosened. Alida was quiet, seeming to mull over her thoughts even as Trevor laughed, joked and ribbed us as we marched.

“Miwse.” I asked. She didn’t respond, distracted and still unused to responding to an alias. Took me a month to learn to remain present at all time, consciously reacting to the name Rechav.

“Miwse!” She jerked and turned to me. “Troubled?”

She shook her head, but didn’t look me in the eye.

[A lie?] It seemed curious, and somewhat confused.

I didn’t reply, talking instead to Trevor about the weather, and our journey.

“Where are we going now anyway? I couldn’t really hear the announcement.” I said.

Trevor laughed, he’d managed to squeeze his way to the front, and had an uncanny ability to tell when the speeches would come.

“The lord ain’t said nothing about our destination, it was just that talk about how we were making our country proud and all.” He snorted. “Our squad lead seems to know, hasn’t told anyone yet though.”

I remembered the term “mushrooms”. Though honestly the sentence is really overused.

I shook my head, no point in wondering about what I won’t know.

That night I sparred again with Alida, she was distracted, unfocused, but by instinct alone I was still hard pressed. She was using a long stick, simulating a common sword and shield style.

I ducked as she swung her sword at my head, and stepped in as she reversed the stroke, immobilizing her arm as she bashed the “shield” into my side. She stumbled on my foot as I was pushed back, and I leveraged her shield to bring her down.

“You’re out of form. What’s eating you?” I asked, catching her eye as she moved to stand.

She stopped at that, resting on the ground as before she spoke, her words weighted with concern and confusion. “Why did we harm the villagers?” I was somewhat taken aback, and she continued, breaking eye contact, watching the ground instead.

“They had no part in our battle, none of them were trained, few even put up a fight as they were pushed out and robbed, or forced to perform degrading acts.” She sighed as she said this, leaning on the stick as she moved to stand.

“I trained myself because I was once taught that if I joined, it was one less unprepared person being hurt by the enemy. I was angry when the enemy looted and killed villagers, what use was my joining if everyone can get hurt even if I don’t? And now I find we do the same thing.” She shook her head.

“I wouldn’t care if all the Eioihens died, but these people could’ve been either of our own people. They could just as easily have been on our side if we hadn’t lost the fortification before this.”

My only reaction was a short bark of laughter. It died when she turned to me with an expression of anger and disapproval. “Sorry.” I said. “I just seem to be making a lot of preconceptions these last few weeks. I guess I’m just out of touch with the world.”

She narrowed her eyes in confusion. I continued, “I suppose I just never thought about it, thinking that this is how it had to be.” I laughed again. “How very fatalistic of me.”

[She’s correct, many will be left within the castle, only to suffer when the Eioihens reclaim it.]

Damn war. I thought back in assent.

Neither of us were really up for more practice after that, and retired soon after.

She was more talkative the next day when we sparred.

“None of us joined to fight for some grand movement, some divine calling. We joined because people were invading our country and killing our people.” Alida said. We were both sitting on the ground, the day’s sparring over. “After so long, our borders shift so often that at the edge, those people could have gone either way.”

“They didn’t deserve to die for not moving away. How many people are just wandering the borderlands, perishing to the wildlife, disease or starvation?” She muttered, dejected. “I just wish the war would end.”

That was a sentiment I heard a lot, it wasn’t a majority opinion, though. Too many people still caught up on earning glory, proving themselves or just earning a livelihood. The few times I’d seen Loran in the past few days, he’d been solemn and pensive. I think he wanted to be able to be proud of himself, for Kala. There was pride when he joined, but now it was mixed with something else.

Trevor, Trevor was a different story, the man relished the chance to be in combat, even if not directly. It improved his image to be a part of the war, and being an archer was no shame, not here when it was such an advantage on the field. He partook readily of all the aspects of war, even the death, the hurt, the anger. Sometimes, I wish I could hate him.

“You never tell me what you’re thinking.” Alida’s words snapped me back to reality. She looked at me, her eyes guarded, her tone questioning, and perhaps, hurt?

My pulse quickened for a moment as I sought out something to say. “I… I don’t think that anyone should have been hurt. In... another place, it’s different, maybe not better or more helpful, but different.”

Where the hell am I going with this? Heck, what am I even saying? I could feel Page’s curiosity at my actions. Dammit, was I broadcasting my thoughts?

[For your last sentence, but nothing before that.] Page helpfully chirped in.

For the most part Alida seemed slightly surprised at my sudden response. At least she wasn’t laughing. Seeing her face, I took a short rattling breath, stopping myself from continuing whatever path I was going down.

“Sorry.” I said quietly. I pushed myself up and moved to walk away.

[That was unexpected of you.]

I never had many friends, I didn’t talk to people much, and rarely volunteered my thoughts or anything about myself. Most of the people I knew drifted away, some stayed, and told me the same thing she said, just before they left. I thought, both for my benefit, and Page’s. This is going to be awkward. I thought to myself, falling asleep.

I awoke to chaotic surroundings, people in my squad screamed for me to wake up, many had strung up their bows, and some were haphazardly throwing on their armour and slinging their arrows. I cleared my head quickly, shaking whatever sleep was in my mind away.

“Eioihens, they’re marching straight at us, our scouts barely noticed, we need to get ready!” A man shouted at me, tossing me my bow and arrows as I hastily got up, I slept mostly fully armoured, it was warmer that way. I strung it as quickly as I could, but it still took a while to prevent it from breaking as I bent it, one end on my left foot, using the back of my right leg as a fulcrum.

I ran, quickly taking my place in the archer squad facing the enemy. In the night we were barely able to see them by the light of the new moon, I counted roughly a hundred of them. We had camped atop a hill, our opponents now had to charge up from the west as we fired.

“Nock!” The squad leader tersely yelled. We smoothly slid our arrows into place. “Mark!”

“Loose!” We had passed the point where we needed to be told what angle to aim at, all of us were accomplished enough to know, and their approach meant we would be firing downwards regardless, almost straight. In this dark, we wouldn’t know if our arrows had connected until people started to fall.

Fall they did, the group of infantry struck by our arrows collapsed. Even so, we didn’t have close to the normal amount of impact, a small portion of us were still either rousing themselves or preparing equipment.

The infantry pressed forward, and we fired another volley, thinning the ranks just in time for our infantry to take over. We pulled back, moments before they clashed, and our men easily pushed them back with the momentum they had and the lack of cohesion among our foes.

With our small respite and silence around us, I heard the squad leader remark in confusion, “That’s not large enough a force to be moving by itself.”

[Ambush.] Page and I concluded numbly as a battlecry rose from the east. We spun immediately, and were greeted by the sight of the bulk of our opponents roughly eight hundred paces away from us, charging through our camp. The unprepared and the groggy died swiftly, cut down easily by enemy blades or skewered on spears as they leveraged their momentum now they were on solid ground.

All of us were struck dumb for a moment, the squad leaders quickly took control. “Nock!” I moved trembling hands to my quiver, managing to snag an arrow and nock in on my second try. I licked my lips nervously. “Mark!” I fell into routine, raising my bow on instinct.

“Loose!” We drew and released in one smooth movement, sending a volley of near one hundred and fifty arrows into the ranks of our foes. For a moment they faltered, a row or two of soldiers falling and tripping the advancing horde. Then they began anew, just as we poured another barrage into our opponents.

We weren’t fast enough, at full efficiency we could pour maybe twelve volleys into our opponents before they were directly upon us, but if they were upon us, none of us would survive. Our discipline fell at the eighth volley, when a group of archers cut and ran. The unit scattered, the veterans held for another volley before it became clear they didn’t possess the numbers to combat them.

We were now split. The infantry had finished off our original attackers, but now contended with the forces from the east, who now possessed the high ground. Those attackers in turn split the camp into two groups on the north and south, leaving us disoriented, disorganized, but cupped around their forces.

Penetrated by a prepared and armed force, with bleary allies just stumbling to their senses, we ran. I took a moment to take stock of our position in the chaos. As I looked to the north, I watched a large group of archers, no doubt from the enemy army, prepare their shots. The south was clear, and I quickly dashed that way before the melee reached me.

I stumbled across the ground, almost tripping over myself as I went downhill. I turned as a shout came from behind me, in time for me to hop to the side, just avoiding a spear to my gut. I reflexively nocked an arrow and attempted to draw, and had I not slipped my finger off the bowstring partway through, I probably would’ve died before I released.

It’s said that bows from this period in my world packed roughly 150 pounds of force, or in metric almost 68 kilograms. The arrow pierced his torso and shredded his lung, and he coughed up blood in surprise. I froze up for a moment, staring in part terror and confusion at the man bleeding to death before me. Frothy, vibrant bright red blood flowing down from his side.

A hand closed around my arm and jerked me along into a shambling run, headlong into the dark forests.