The regiment her father had called to him was a full twenty-five Elite knights. Nyssa was joined by the knights, thanks to her training. Jara, who had taken the course the year before, was mounted on a horse that already had his equipment but had lost his rider in a skirmish a few months before. The plan was to unite with an infantry regiment of one hundred more closer to the Highland plains, two hundred miles north-east from the capital. Nyssa was in awe of the numbers. Whatever they were facing, it was bigger than she thought.

“Atris informed me of your aptitude, Princess,” her commanding officer, a large and fierce-looking man named Marvo, said to her, slowing his horse so he could fall in beside her as they rode.

They had left the capital before first light, a thunderous departure that shook the ground and windows of the houses as they passed. Now they were following the interior highway at a fast trot, not exactly conversation speed, but you could hear over the hooves and clattering metal.

Nyssa hadn’t said a word to anyone since she’d mounted Roan and now she only nodded to her commanding officer.

“When we form up, I will expect you beside me until you assimilate with our routines, your guardsman on your other side. He’s practised with us already,” he added and moved his horse back up to the lead of the troop. Nyssa had just watched him and when he hadn’t waited for an answer, she just watched him leave too. Jara, she knew, was directly behind her to her right. She hadn’t looked at him all day.

The first night they stopped, the officers convened in a large tent in the middle of the encampment after supper. Nyssa, currently housed in a smaller but adjacent tent to her father’s, was of course expected to be there, though what rank Titus had assigned her upon graduation, her father had yet to inform her.

She had retired gratefully to the seclusion of her little one-room sleeping tent directly at supper, choosing to rest and eat alone. Jara, unsure of how to handle either a brooding Nyssa or a fully operating royal, awkwardly settled outside the tent entrance and also ate alone. He silently followed her into the conference when she was summoned and took his place behind her against the wall.

“We made good time today,” Madras began. They were standing around a large surface, several tables shoved together, where a detailed map of the area was laid out. Nyssa was paying careful attention to it now.

“Raiders are still being reported from the Highlands. We are certain they’re arriving from Divik Port Town,” he went on. Nyssa’s eyes moved up the long road on the map to the red circle and little design of blue waves that signalled the end of the road, the continent and the beginning of the sea. Across the sea, Nyssa saw the big black lettering for “Kitska,” their neighbouring continent across the Black Sea to the east.

“Are they Kitskan?” she blurted out. She had bent over slightly to see the map up close and now looked up to see all heads facing her. Her father was too, but he was not annoyed. She focused only on her father.

“Our reports indicate no,” he replied factually and nodded to her. “All descriptions say Rogun.”

The table buzzed for a minute, all the officers perturbed by the detail, most just outright appalled or annoyed by the audacity of this farther away neighbour, not currently in favour with the Orak’Thune for landing on its shores and causing disruption.

“Why are they here?” Nyssa said out loud but not particularly loudly. The buzzing ceased immediately, so she felt self-conscious. Madras looked to her again, still calmly.

“That is unclear. But they are drawing us to this fight. That much we do know,” he replied. Nyssa stood up straight again and nodded in agreement. “We pick up our infantry here,” he went on and pointed to a red dot farther up the highway from their current position that had “East Cross” written beside it. Here, she’d noticed the highway forked at the town's centre, to the east going to the sea. To the west, it followed another long pass at the base of the North Mountains before reaching a large icon with two peaks and the words written “Northern Pass.” She noticed it coincided with the green broken line and the trailing words “Bough Great Wood Boundary” and a seemingly endless green section that covered easily half of the rest of the continent.

“How far have they been spotted?” she asked again. Someone cleared their throat. She ignored them. If they knew this detail, good for them, but her father or anyone else hadn’t briefed her, so how else was she to learn the details as to why they were here now?

But again, her father was not annoyed. He reached across to drop his finger on the port towns. She noticed a few more with less prominent lettering, so they were likely fishing villages.

“Here and here,” he added and touched a few more places, then three more inland. Nyssa’s eyes rose in surprise. He nodded to her. “Yes, much more serious than a simple raid and the intelligence we’ve been receiving from those areas indicates they’re looking for something or someone. They keep one woman alive to deliver the message and destroy everything else. We’ve lost these villages and this town already,” he said and Nyssa watched him touch three fishing villages and one farm settlement gently with his hand.

“We will ride away from the coast highway to East Cross so we can collect the infantry that’s waiting for us there and resupply, but then we will spread out and move back toward the coast, hopefully trapping all raiders in our lines and push them back into the sea.” Heads around the table were nodding now.

“Do we have any contact with the Divik garrison?” Nyssa asked.

“Not for some time,” Brack replied then. “Colonel Suni showed up in East Cross with ten men about a month ago. He said they had been overrun and he was joining his remaining forces with that of Colonel Rabb there until we arrived.”

Nyssa listened to all this but was still incredibly surprised at the use of force by Rogun. Whatever they were looking for had to be valuable, but their methods still didn’t make any sense. Her father’s earlier comment, though, made more sense the more information she gleaned. They were making more noise than accomplishing anything.

“Do we know their true numbers?” she asked her father directly. He watched her for a minute. Then his eyes went back to the map.

“Nothing we can rely on. More than fifty, less than one hundred,” he said. Nyssa frowned.

“What are their ships?” she pushed, crossing her arms. Brack smirked and moved to lean around the king to use the map.

“Three double hull schooners,” he replied, tapping the map offshore from Divik. “Two single hulls,” he added and tapped two more times offshore from the known lost fishing villages. Nyssa remembered loosely that Brack had a fascination with naval operations.

“Passenger capacity?” she asked. He shrugged.

“A raiding force with horses and equipment reduces their capacity significantly. I really don’t know, Princess. If I had to speculate, I’d say the high end of the king’s estimate, but we don’t know how many Suni’s regiment took care of before being overrun, so we’re sitting on about midway for both estimates.”

Nyssa was thinking it over. Seventy-five mounted men, likely highly reliable. Marvo was about to say something, but she cut him off. It was unintentional, but he scowled at her.

“Who is their leader? What do we know about him?”

“That much we do know, Princess,” Brack said. Nyssa saw Madras’s face grow darker, but he said nothing and continued to stare at the map. “A general by the name of Izik,” he said. Nyssa nodded, having recognized the name from her studies under Uli.

“He is the senior general of the Rogun Imperial Force. He was selected by Coltair himself before he died and serves still whether Dascus agrees with him or not,” she added and Brack nodded, pleased.

“He is a particularly nasty individual, Princess,” Marvo added impatiently. Nyssa had moved her eyes to Marvo’s face, but he hadn’t spared a second to keep watching her.

There was a pregnant pause at the table, all those present mulling over what the king had presented to them.

“What do you want, Majesty?” she asked and the room was silent. Her father had been standing with his chin in one hand and the elbow of that arm resting on his other one. He looked up at her. Nyssa already knew what she wanted and was betting her father wanted the same, but they’d been soft on Rogun, she felt, since her mother. She didn’t speak out now with her plan for the very reason she didn’t yet understand that. She was hoping by laying the question out in the open, she’d understand better his choices so far.

“Izik alive, the rest of his forces dead or on their ships away from here,” he said firmly. Nyssa had to stop her mouth from dropping. “We’ll meet them head-on, try to capture him and push them back.”

“Why?”

“Princess,” Brack snapped at her. The table was silent, the tension of her borderline insubordinate question thick in the air. Her father glared at her.

“Izik knows Dascus. He will tell us what we need to know of that sorcerer’s plans and then he will be locked away to die,” he said to her, his voice barely above a growl.

Nyssa hated the idea. She was unable to entirely contain her anger with him so she did the only thing she knew would end it before it got bad.

“As you wish, Majesty,” she said, bowing low. Her father would recognize the level to be an exaggerated amount. “General Marvo, I am at your command,” she added, turning to him and saluting. She then simply turned on her heel and left. Jara jumped after her but felt the awkward wake of her departure.

“Was that wise, Nyssa?” he hissed at her when she’d ducked back into her tent.

Nyssa was fuming mad at her father. He had a fearsome reputation and this was not it. She cared that Dascus nor Izik had anything to do with her mother and felt without a doubt they deserved special deaths, but she also knew they needed to be dealt with and brutally for the continued damage caused to her country and its safety. The message to Rogun needed to be clear. She wanted to send a ship back to them fully ablaze and stacked with the bodies of its raiding parties, Izik tied to the burning mast. That sounded like her father.

She whirled on him and she saw him draw himself up in protection of what her face and body warned.

“He’s wasting time,” she hissed back at him. “He should send men to burn the ships and the rest to crush their forces against the rocks in the surf. Izik can talk or die right there!”

“He’s in charge, Princess,” Jara reminded her sternly. Nyssa checked herself. He was with Madras, not her. She continued to stare at him.

“Whose plan is better?” Jara just glared back. Nyssa glared at him; his reaction was fuel on her fire.

“Get out,” she shouted and pointed to the flap. Jara blinked at her, but he was getting just as mad.

“Nyssa, this isn’t helping anything. We have a lot to learn...” He was trying to rise above her issues with the plan, to point out their positions were not exactly welcomed or confirmed by her father’s officers. He felt she needed to heed her father’s authority, of course, but especially learn her place around the table if she ever hoped to earn the trust and respect of his advisors.

“Get out!” she reiterated, coming over and shoving him in the breastplate. He stood his ground, which infuriated her more, but she stood firm too and glared at him.

“I know how to handle my father,” she said angrily but speaking low so they could not be overheard outside the canvas walls. “He’s waffling on something, and that group is ignoring it completely. His soft hand here is going to cost lives and invite Rogun to try again. Izik needs to die. If Madras stopped holding back, he’d have assassinated Dascus already! But here we sit, on the edge of another opportunity, and he wants to take prisoners and spare the enemy as much as possible? I don’t think so. But you’re right, Jara! Let’s follow our good king into hell for no reason or sorry, for protocol and egos at the head table. By all means, throw yourself on the sword aimed at my heart, just like you promised him!!!” The last words she didn’t whisper but shouted at his face.

Jara glared at her, then turned, fuming as he left the tent. If Nyssa had anything appropriate in her hands, she’d have thrown it after him.

Brack summoned her back to the table several hours later. Nyssa had already gone to bed and Jara had woken her with a firm hand on her shoulder and nothing more than the summons. She entered the now very dimly lit room, empty save for Brack seated and leaning in the middle of the table. He looked up when she entered but only to see it was her.

“Come here, Princess,” he said after going back to the map. Nyssa thought his tone sounded displeased, but there was nothing for it. She moved to stand across from him at the table with as much dignity as she could muster. She resisted folding her arms in

defiance, forcing herself to hold them straight to her sides.

“Marvo and Cord will never ever speak against your father; they’ve fought with him and witnessed his talent for subterfuge and strategy too many times to doubt him. You, on the other hand, Princess Nyssa, bring a new perspective to the table. Though your methods will unquestionably earn you demotions, your instincts will certainly keep you — and likely a great many of your countrymen — from dying,” he said, all in a fine conversational tone.

Nyssa blinked at him. He still hadn’t looked at her again since she’d entered the room. She couldn’t see what he was focused on and shifted awkwardly in front him, which he did notice and looked up.

“You think we should be heavier-handed here,” he asked her. She nodded. “I don’t disagree.”

“Your father still wants answers for your mother, but I fear his loss with her weakens his resolve. I can’t explain it. Every other scenario, he’d be burning a trail across the seas himself, but he’s not. He simply is not.”

Brack stood up and went to a side table. He poured a small cup of a gold liquid from a skin and drank it in one gulp. Nyssa watched him, having not moved a muscle.

“If you disobeyed him, you’d live, unlike the rest of us,” he said and looked into the bottom of his glass, swirling it once. Nyssa narrowed her eyes.

“You want me to disobey his orders...on purpose?” she said skeptically. Brack turned the cup upside down and put it on the stand. He hesitated before coming back to the table. When he did, he leaned his head on his hands.

Nyssa had never seen Brack other than tall, stern, stoic. She looked around the room for anyone else witnessing it. Jara was totally still and his face carefully blank where he stood blocking the door. She was uncomfortable, unsure.

“Sir Brack; General,” she began, adding the last to help appease his mood by acknowledging his position and experience with regards to their situation, “I will not defy my father’s orders.”

Brack looked up at her, disappointment clear on his face.

“I don’t believe I have to,” she continued, one hand out between them. He lifted one eyebrow.

“I’ll do what he doesn’t order me to do,” she said.

Jara moved behind her. She heard him make a disapproving sound, but he held it. Brack watched her carefully. She moved cautiously over the map, tracing with her finger a train of thought she had been working on earlier. The fishing villages had small country routes to connect them and she thought she might be able to sneak some way down to the port town. With just a few men, she wanted to work her way to lighting the ships, burning the enemy's escape. One of the two smaller ones she wanted to commandeer and her father could decide how to send their warning back to Dascus. Izik hanging from a masthead still appealed to her.

“The details you should know if anything goes wrong. I’ll send Jara to you when I sort it out,” she said finally. Brack eyed her carefully and for an extended time. When he nodded and leaned back on his stool, Nyssa relaxed more.

“These are the animals who took your mother, Nyssa,” he said quietly. “And they’ve never been made to properly pay for it. I know your father burns with his rage and guilt; I’ve seen it. It has also made him impotent in his ability to ask for help in how to handle it. In the meantime, our citizens suffer their indecencies!” He stood up quickly and came around the table to her.

“I’ll keep Marvo and Cord in line to give you as much freedom as I can. If you see your opportunity, Nyssa, take it!!” he said desperately and gripped her upper arms in his hands.

Nyssa watched him for a long moment. Her father’s oldest ally, his oldest friend. He would never go against him, except if it meant to find him some peace.

Nyssa went quietly back to her tent, closely followed by Jara. She’d nearly forgotten he was there until she bumped into him when she backed up to remove her cloak. He was beyond angry.

“I committed to nothing, but I have an idea. When you need to know, you’ll know.” She turned back to her bed and left him standing and staring after her.

The remainder of the march to East Cross went as expected and Nyssa spent most of it in the short company of various scout teams. Staying in line behind her father was impossible. They came across various signs indicating the raiding parties were around and each one her father answered with sending out troops to investigate, but they always came back empty-handed. This didn’t sit well with Nyssa. On the next sighting, her father ordered a six-man team to investigate. She insisted on going with them and he dismissed her, but she stared hard at Brack, who narrowed his eyes at her but turned his horse to go talk to the king.

Nyssa urged Roan into a thunderous gallop as she led the team under cover of darkness back to the area where they’d seen the disturbances. Her father hadn’t given her his blessing directly; Brack had come around and ‘ordered’ her to report to the mission.

She had her coordinates and remembered more or less where she’d been that morning. Signs of livestock slaughtered, personal belongings left strewn on the road, no live or dead locals were found, but the scene had been ominous. When she returned them to the sight of their suspicions, she reined them in and formed them up on the path.

“Stay sharp, stay armed,” she ordered.

They followed the path a few miles, coming up to the smell of home fires and horses. When they rounded a corner, Nyssa was stunned by what she saw. She stopped the group and backed them up to before the bend. She ordered them to wait and she and Jara ran up a hill to hide and observe so they could decide what to do next.

It looked like the raiders had just arrived. The small homestead inhabitants, consisting of about three families, were rounded up and being kept prisoner in the middle. The men and older sons were on their knees, with their hands bound behind their backs. One barn burned enthusiastically behind them, backlighting the whole scene. Nyssa counted six raiders, but she guessed there had to be at least two or three more. She was right; two more came out of a thatched house near the end. Between them, they carried a young man, barely conscious. Nyssa tensed and Jara put a hand on her shoulder to hold her back.

“When I say I want all of you dirt eaters out where I can see you, I mean it. Why do you always think I’m not serious when I say it?” a man on a large horse said when he watched the limp man being dragged by, out in front of him.

“Please, my Lord,” an old man started to say, “please, we haven’t much, but you are welcome to take what you need!” One of the other raiders came over and kicked the man directly in the jaw.

“Yes, if I needed your garbage, I’d take it anyway,” he said, sounding bored. “And let me guess. ‘Your king will provide.’” He sneered then. “Dagwin, get on with it. I need blood to splatter on the walls, already.”

A third man came out from the same house; a woman, no longer dressed, he dragged by the hair. The children in the centre wailed and some of the older ones covered the younger with their arms. It was difficult to see by the dusk light and the silhouette of the burning barn. Nyssa saw the woman was badly beaten already; her thighs were covered in dark blood.

“What in the winds?!” Nyssa swore but didn’t make a move just yet. She looked to Jara, who was watching the scene in grim horror. She looked back at the people. Innocent people. Her people.

“Have at her, boys!” she heard the rapist say and Nyssa moved instantly backwards down the hill to her waiting group.

“I want the leader and the rapist,” she said harshly, no longer hiding her voice. The soldiers with her looked at her alarmed.

“Nine raiders, innocents in the middle under guard. One woman they’ve got in the middle and have raped and are going to again. I want the one responsible and the leader on the horse.”

She turned to Jara.

“You get the leader and hold him,” she said and he nodded and mounted. She turned to the rest of them, who were in various stages of mounting and drawing weapons themselves. She pulled herself up onto Roan. “The rest of you, kill every other one and secure the villagers.”

“Princess?” one of her soldiers said, a surprised look on her face. Nyssa realized that she was contradicting her father’s orders to spare the raiders and capture them, but her father hadn’t seen this. Though he knew about the carnage in the wake of these raiders, he wasn’t being proactive. His orders were based on them not finding raiders in the act.

“Fast, hard, strategic. If we give them the chance, they’ll turn and try to kill us and the villagers,” she said. The soldiers had no more questions.

“No one calls the Princess by name from this point on,” Jara added. The group turned and Nyssa did too. He was watching her directly. “It is imperative she not be known in the area. Colonel will suffice.”

Nyssa nodded and wheeled Roan into a fast run and pulled her sword out so she could tuck it near to where it could be used quickly.

The eight mounted soldiers burst into the clearing at full speed, catching all of the Raiders off guard though they recovered quickly enough. Her advantage was being mounted already and she caught glimpses of her soldiers breaking off and catching them while they tried to run or draw weapons. Nyssa made straight for her rapist in the middle. She saw Jara break away from her and chase the leader who bolted for the back road. She called two more of her own to help him, but then she had eyes for only one man.

Two men had been holding back the woman. One had remounted her and Nyssa didn’t hear anything else anymore. She rode Roan directly at them. The man who’d been holding the girl down stood up and started backing away, so Nyssa crashed Roan into him. His hooves stepping on the fallen man and the cries and screams as Nyssa reined her horse in directly over top of him were deeply satisfying. She hoped he was broken enough to stay put. But she didn’t waste time and wheeled Roan for another run at the remaining one.

He was there, stumbling and trying to stand after what he’d just witnessed, but he had also been in the middle of the act. Nyssa was coming up on him fast. He let go trying to do up his laces and tried grabbing his sword. Too late, Roan arrived and Nyssa stood up and jumped off his back, landing squarely into the middle of the man. He took all of her weight in the chest so he landed heavily, sliding several feet back. Nyssa was up and holding one dagger and one sword blade already, her training prepped for an equal or at least honourable opponent. Nyssa caught a glance of the woman on the ground and saw she was just a girl, younger than herself. There was little else recognizable.

The man was struggling to rise but was nearly there. His mad eyes were raking over her and his sneering grin spoke volumes about what he was thinking. He pulled a dagger from his waistband and hefted it between his hands. Nyssa had long ago completed her assessment of his abilities and now bounced once when she saw he was gearing up to meet her. She saw two of her own men in her periphery run other raiders through.

“Aren’t you a pretty one?” the man, who had a lisp, spit at her. “You look like you could be a princ...”

Nyssa vaulted toward him. In two leaps, her feet barely touching the ground, she’d come up on him. He’d lifted his blade in a standard parry, but Nyssa didn’t play with swords; she fought with very sharp blades. She whacked his away like an annoying fly and recovered her own in time to drive both hers under his rib cage, lifting him nearly off the ground. The man gurgled in shock and instant pain and Nyssa lifted both her feet to push him over and onto his back. He landed hard, crying out. Nyssa jumped on top of him, still holding her weapons firmly in place.

“Demon woman!!” he cursed at her and tried to grab her ankles and legs. Nyssa’s hands felt wet and slippery. She saw blood from his wounds covering her up to her wrists.

Two of her soldiers were moving closer to her.

“Colonel, the villagers are secure,” one of them said. “They’re scared and battered but mostly unharmed. One man is dead,” she said grimly.

Nyssa stared at the man underneath her. “Check the girl,” she said calmly. She heard footprints move behind her.

“She is unconscious, sir,” the soldier called back to her. “She hasn’t much longer, I’m afraid.”

Nyssa, who hadn’t taken her eyes off her target, narrowed them now. “String this one up,” she yelled then. The man tried to yell, but his lungs were likely punctured and he was wheezing. Two of her men came over and hauled the rapist to his feet. When he was secure, she turned to the girl and saw she was still being gently held by the soldier with whom Nyssa had been talking. She walked over and knelt in front of her.

The girl, maybe thirteen, had been beaten in the face and there were large bruises on her neck. Her nose had bled profusely and she had been cut on her breasts and torso for some reason. Her waist, hips and thighs were covered in blood. Nyssa couldn’t even process what happened to her to cause so much blood. She swallowed the vomit in her throat and the tears in her eyes. Whatever, the animal behind her was still using her up to a minute ago.

She stirred then. Nyssa dropped her weapons and tried to cradle the girl's face gently in her hands.

“You’re safe now,” she whispered to her, close enough that she would hear only her. The girl seemed to sigh, but her lips were swollen. Nyssa couldn’t tell, but she had awoken. She tried to smile so the girl could see her encouragement. “No one will ever hurt you again, I promise.”

“What is your name?” Nyssa had to know it, even though she feared it at the same time. This girl deserved to be known by her name. The garbage behind her would die forgotten.

“Kila,” came a very small, tiny whisper from her mouth. Nyssa smiled wide but was unable to stop the tears.

“Kila,” she said and brushed the girl's hair from her face. “My name is Nyssa.”

The girl had shut her eyes again and Nyssa had thought she had passed out, but then she spoke.

“Like the princess,” she said. Nyssa laughed awkwardly that she would know her, but she nodded. The girl cried out then. Nyssa looked at the soldier that was cradling her, but they both didn’t know what to do. She settled again, whimpering this time. “I wish I were brave like the princess!” Kila said in a slow wail. Nyssa grabbed her hand, but she felt little strength in the girl's return grasp.

“Kila, can I tell you a secret?” she said quickly when the girl screamed again in obvious pain and Nyssa felt she’d give anything to distract her and take it away. She bit her lip and nodded. Nyssa watched her eyes roll back, but she fought it.

Nyssa leaned back to be close to her ear. “I am the princess, Kila. Princess Nyssa. I am here to save you and your family,” she said and gripped Kila’s hand harder. “You are braver than I have ever seen anyone be!” She had to stop because a sob had overtaken her. She hadn’t arrived soon enough. Her father hadn’t been fast enough and Kila had suffered a torture worse than death for it.

“If you are the princess,” she whispered, and Nyssa moved closer to hear her, “will the king kill that man?”

Nyssa backed up onto her heels but still held fast to her hand. No longer caring who heard, she looked at Kila for a moment, “I am at your command, Kila. I am your princess, here to vanquish your enemy.”

Kila stared at her and the words were very clear. “He killed my Da and did this…this to me. Kill him,” she said.

Nyssa nodded, picked up her weapons, stood and turned in the same movement to stride back to the man who was wheezing loudly now, blood oozing from his chest wounds and from his mouth. Nyssa saw his fly was still undone. She stopped, nodded to her two soldiers who still held him, to be sure they were prepared to hold firm and moved up to the man. She stood inches away; his face moved to look up at her and he was about to smile. Nyssa stabbed the man hard in the groin. Instantly her hand was covered in hot liquid, but she kept her eyes on the screaming man.

“By the order of Kila, that child, her family and my king, you are hereby extinguished from this earth. You don’t deserve her mercy...” she said, no longer staring into his face, feeling consumed by the white rage that would make it possible to do what she was going to do.

Nyssa backed enough to pull her second long blade from her back, cross the two of them now and, with one extra strong effort, severed the man’s head at the neck. She was splattered in the face with the jugular exploding under her blade, but she barely noticed. The soldiers let the body fall. Nyssa watched the blood soak the ground for a minute, then turned back to Kila.

The soldier was still holding her, but Nyssa already knew she was gone. She ran to her and dropped to her knees, throwing her weapons down. She carefully pulled the girl from the soldier's lap and cradled her to her chest, crying freely. Nyssa let out a miserable and helpless scream to the sky, mad and horrified that an innocent could be so discarded. But Nyssa mostly felt her guilt. These were her father’s people and his lofty opinions had cost this girl her life. Nyssa could have stopped it had she been here sooner. Madras had the resources to face this enemy and protect his people. Orak’Thune was a warrior people, it was unconscionable that their king – her father - would allow this to happen. How could she live with that?

She wailed out loud, venting so many frustrations. Innocent Kila, beautiful once and free to dream of her future life, now gone. Nyssa’s failure in saving her. She screamed at her father and at Brack too, big brave, exquisitely trained men doing nothing! Nyssa had proof of that in her bloody arms.

Nyssa slowed her sobs and pulled her cloak off. She wrapped Kila in it and called for the girl's family. A man, the young one that was beaten, came forward and an older woman followed, the woman throwing herself down in front of them. Nyssa tried to keep an even face to talk to them.

“I am Princess Nyssa,” she said. The two villagers sat back in shock, but grief was confusing them. “I swear to you, the people responsible will pay with their lives.”

The young man nodded to her and held out his arms. Nyssa deposited Kila gently into them. She stood to leave, picking up her weapons again.

“Princess Nyssa,” the young man said and she turned back instantly. “They targeted my sister. They wanted a teenage girl and they did the same in the two other villages last month. I don’t know why and at first, I didn’t think it important, but I know now it’s all they want. You have to stop it!”

Nyssa acknowledged him and turned away.

She saw Jara standing with a much-beaten man. He’d been dragged behind his horse and was still bound. The two soldiers who had gone to help Jara were holding the man up. Nyssa began to run toward them. Jara saw her coming, his face momentarily surprised, and he ordered the other two to jump out of the way. The prisoner had no time to react. He simply watched in horror as Nyssa ran at him, leaped into the air with her sword held high in two hands and swung it right down against his collar bone. He blinked twice, she remembered, and then she pulled her incredibly sharp blade out of his pelvic bone on the opposite side.

Nyssa stood over the body, now crumpled and nearly in two halves at her feet. She’d had nothing to say to this one. The blood dripped off the tip of her blade in fast droplets where it hung down in her hand. She saw them slapping on the puddle they were making. She also heard the roar of the burning barn and started to feel the heat again, her senses beginning to come back to her.

“Nyssa,” she heard Jara call to her gently. She was unfocused, still staring straight ahead, breathing hard.

“Mount them on whatever you can find. We’ll carry them ourselves if we have to,” she said, suddenly coming back to herself and turning to face him. He was looking at her with a great deal of concern, but it made her only more frustrated.

“Jara! Move!” she ordered him and turned abruptly to get the others started. He ran after her.

“And take them where?” he yelled after her. She stopped walking abruptly and he nearly ran into her.

“Ideally, on a ship bound for Port Town, but that depends on how successful we are on taking the two we can reach soonest. But I can’t do that with them alongside me, so we must move them somewhere we can guard them. The less the raiders know about us too, the better, which is why we can’t linger here. Now, MOVE!!” she yelled at him and he did move, though he seemed intensely concerned.

There were a few wandering horses just outside the farm that her men were able to collect. They mounted the villagers as best they could but still needed to double up themselves. Nyssa refused to leave Kila behind and insisted on carrying her herself on Roan. The group returned the way they had come, leaving eight brutally executed raiders and a burning, silent homestead behind.

Nyssa walked into the centre of their encampment just as the dawn was changing shadow into light. The colourless hue of the hour, mixed with the damp and mist on the ground, added to the dramatic scene of King Madras’s daughter, covered in blood, carrying a dead child wrapped in her blood-soaked burgundy cloak. She walked Roan up to her father’s tent and he and Brack, who had been warned of their arrival, were able to see it all for full effect.

Nyssa, face splattered with blood, hatred and fury burning in her eyes, stopped in front of her father.

“What have you done, Nyssa!!” her father barked at her. She squeezed Roan’s shoulder with a knee to steady him against the volume of her father’s voice.

“I saw a girl get raped and murdered today, Father,” she said calmly. Madras looked shocked and then uncertain. He was eyeing the bundle in her arms. “These people are your responsibility, so I saved them,” she said and threw her head to the side slightly to indicate the people Jara was leading behind her. “Kila wasn’t so lucky,” she said and put her cheek down on top of the bundle for a brief second; Brack’s face blanched.

“It’s up to you, Da, but I’d suggest you let me do what I have to do to evacuate the citizens most at risk by this threat. They’re looking for a teenage girl if that helps any. In all of Orak’Thune, I can think of no other more valuable to you and our people than me. Until they find me, they’re going to keep raping to death all the girls who fit my description. Order me not to, but I won’t stand by and let this happen any longer. It is my duty to help those at risk.”

Madras was speechless with either rage or fear for her but probably both. She clicked her tongue and moved Roan slowly away. The other officers and men who’d come out at the sound of the commotion made way for her in silence. She led her group toward the back of the encampment where the horses were kept. She nodded to her group to unpack the refugees and settle them to rest and be fed.

Jara came over to help her with Kila. He was joined by her brother, who nodded and bowed in his kindness toward her. When they’d taken Kila away, Nyssa was alone and still on Roan. Jara turned back to her, but she hadn’t moved. He was still trying to see her for the blood, now dried and caked in some places, wet with her sweat in others. She was a nightmare in armour. Fierce and terrifying. He wanted it washed away immediately.

“Nyssa, come down. We need to clean up,” he said, trying to sound unemotional.

She turned to look at him and he concentrated hard to keep his face even, though the bloody scene before him was not the girl he knew. She nodded and began to dismount, but all of a sudden, she was uncoordinated. Jara reached out and grabbed her before she fell off. It was still awkward, though; he was tired, they were both heavy in armour and they clattered to the ground, still half-standing but leaning heavily on each other. Nyssa bolted from his arms and threw up in the bush. When she was finished, she turned back to him, leaning on her knees. Brack strode into view, his face a storm of emotion. She ignored that.

“We’ll take a new patrol to the fishing villages tonight,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “A dozen or so volunteers. I want to see about procuring the ships to evacuate the coastal communities to Port Town. It’s the fastest way to move a lot of people. If I can’t have the ships, I’ll burn them, but if we come across villagers there, I’ll take them back here again where the rest of us can protect them. If I’m successful, I’ll send runners to come move this lot.”

“And you can brief that group tonight, but you’re not going anywhere,” Brack said. Jara visibly sagged — he was fighting fatigue and facing the new storm that Brack had just unleashed. Nyssa just kept calmly looking at him. She regained her composure, though the blood wasn’t helping Brack relax.

“Yes, because it’s me, they want, blah, blah,” she said then. “What the hell did you train me for, Brack?” she said to him and moved closer to stand in front of him. “If you or Da wanted a courtier sitting in the palace on silk pillows with ribbons in her hair, you and he could have raised one, but you didn’t, did you?” Her voice was rising, but she checked it.

“I saw that girl today, Brack. She died watching me behead her attacker.”

Nyssa walked around him to start back to her tent. Brack watched her pass.

“I did not forget that Da’s orders were to ‘investigate and not engage,’” she went on, “but I was met with that scene and no, I was not going to walk away. And you know? It was fairly nothing to contain. I honoured our earlier plan, we were right. How do you feel about that now?” Nyssa turned around to finish talking to him.

“I can and I will take care of myself, Brack,” she said. “When the population is out of harm’s way, you and Da can storm from the mountains to the wharves and burn the remaining ships with all of them on board, just as you planned and I’ll sit it out if that is your wish. But I will risk whatever I have right now to give help to our people, Brack. If it means arriving in time to save just one girl, I will risk it.”

She turned on her heel and left him standing alone under the tree. Jara gave Brack a pleading glance but followed Nyssa. It was her idea and he knew her better than she did herself in some ways. In this, she was committed. She would not hide at the back. She could not.