ONE AND A HALF MONTHS LATER

The blade came for her with blistering speed. A beautiful iron arc through the air made for hacking off whatever limb it could hit. It was a perfect swing in its speed. More perfect in its ferocity. Yet, it still failed. Jira danced around it like it was a leper's putrid spit, striking out with a downward chop aimed for her opponent's wrist. Wood struck flesh with the sharp pain any blade would cause. The young boy dropped his sword with a yelp, blood immediately bruising the smarting skin. He rushed to pick it up, stopping dead in his motion as the same wood cracked his gut and doubled him over onto his knees. A third across his back dropped him to his stomach. The others groaned and chortled at the display, which had been going quite well until he put the wrong foot forward for his slash. He had matched her strike for strike, even scoring a few hits to her arms, but that one misstep left him open to his captain's disarming strike, just like it had the previous five times.

"A dozen small wounds are good, but a single lethal one is better," she had told them on their first day of training a month and a half ago. "A dozen small wounds can buy you time, distract an opponent, make them lose focus. But if you don't capitalize on that, then you're just wasting time and energy. And if all you want to do is draw small wounds, then you're just wasting time and energy. If you don't cripple or kill your enemy by the end of the fight, then you're just wasting time and energy."

"What if they surrender before you can kill them?" Ham-fist Torin had asked.

Jira had grinned, something that unnerved her soldiers. A woman so pale, pale like living snow, should not have grinned the way she did. Only Mille the Wolf, so rarely seen, could have smiled a more unnerving smile. "A defeated enemy will only truly surrender if they have no other weapons or no viable options to take you out. An enemy with either will strike out the first chance he gets. No one wants to be a hostage. If you face an enemy that surrenders, stay a distance, force them to lay on their stomachs, and then kick them in the head. Can't attack you if they're unconscious."

"Fuck me!" the young boy cried out to no one in particular as he rose to his feet. He bent to pick up his training sword from the white stone of the inner bailey's courtyard, sun-chapped lips motioning the silent words: "Every fucking time."

"You almost had her, Karl," Ham-fist Torin comforted, smiling under the bronze beard that shone in the sunlight. More and more, the Ham-fist resembled a tall Dwarf than an ogre, though he possessed the stout brawn of both.

Jira spun the wooden stick in her grasp with a flourish, laughing devilishly behind her helmet. "Every time, Karlyle. Every time you misstep with your lunge, you will die. Every time you misstep with your slash, you will die. Every time you misstep in general, you will die. Do you want to die?" Her voice was stern. Leaderlike. It was far more agreeable to her soldiers than the other voices. The only thing to keep them on your side. Your face frightens them. Your eyes paralyze them. Never lose the voice.

"No, Captain!" the attending Contemptors responded.

The knight smacked her wooden stick on the ground and set her cold eyes on the despondent boy. "Karlyle," she said, grabbing the attention of the wincing trainee. She stepped over to him and placed a gauntleted hand on his shoulder. "You have good form, better than you were when you first started. Keep at it; watch your footwork. You are not permitted to die to that mistake. Okay?"

Karlyle smiled small and sad. "Understood, Captain."

Jira took position again, taking up a defensive double-handed ox stance. Karlyle did the same, his eyes narrowing under the rim of his nasal helmet. He pounced, swiping at his captain with a quick strike for her head. She swung to her left, meeting the dull metal with the hardened hickory in a resounding snap-crack. Karlyle moved with the deflect, bounding back and to the side. He advanced just as quickly with an under-cut and then a middle-cut, moving with the momentum of yet another deflect. Jira peppered the stone with her steps. She never stopped her movement, never even tiring from constant effort. To his credit, neither did young Karl.

He struck out, again and again, grunting with each failed hit and grinning with each ping of metal on metal or thunk of metal on leather. Jira voided, ducked, spun, and every other way of managing not to be hit by a lethal blow. But a dozen small wounds she did suffer. She wore boiled leathers reinforced with metal plating - the new standard for the recruits of the army - to make the training fair. Had Karlyle been a legitimate enemy, he very well could have had her on the back foot with such a number of small wounds. He holds the most potential. Foster it. Seed his ascent to knighthood. He could be your third.

"Get her, Karl!" shouted Hilda Ackerg. Despite her Dekunian heritage, the young woman had been taken to quite well by her contemporaries. Karlyle and Torin in particular had found a kinship with the woman, forming a trio more commonly seen at an academy.

"Finish her, Karl!" the rest shouted in unison. "Get her!"

Spurred on by the vocal encouragement of his comrades, Karlyle pressed harder in his assault, granting his captain no recourse to fight back beyond her deflections. A second wind had hit him, pushing him beyond his limits. Roars escaped his throat as he unleashed his barrage, battering the knight's wooden stick aside with quick force. Jubilant laughter rushed from Jira's dagger-thin lips as her own speed increased to match the young warrior's. More and more voices joined the cacophony of noise, some belonging to her guild and others.

Her eyes shifted for a millisecond, for no other reason than to wet them without blinking. The light, bright and sapphire, reappeared in a flash of wonder. It was only a millisecond that she had seen it and registered it. Bright, brilliant, and alive. She could hear it. From the core of that light, somewhere within its blinding rays, she heard it breathe. Air caught solid in her throat, vine-like along the sensitive flesh. A misstep was taken, her balance stumbling in a moment faster than the rest could process.

It was all Karlyle needed to disarm her. A middle-cut resounded with the force of thunder, and Jira's wooden stick was sent flying to the ground. A pin drop before the storm. The crowd hushed, staring with wide eyes as the silver knight was removed from a weapon for the first time they had seen. Karlyle breathed sharp and stepped forward, lunging his blade for Jira's belly. She watched as the dull metal blade neared her, threatening to connect and push her to the ground for the victory.

Every breath in the area froze when Karlyle was thrown over her shoulders and onto his back. Silence infected the courtyard. Hundreds of mouths agape in soundless surprise. A sharp crack of flesh and teeth broke that speechlessness. Jira held her fist snug against the warrior's jaw. Her knee was pressed on his throat. Blood trickled from his split lips, and a single tooth lay on the white stone. Karlyle choked and groaned, tears welling in his eyes as blood ran from his mouth.

A good attempt, born from your distraction. Distractions should not happen. Remember your training. Remember the mission. Jira smiled warmly at the boy as if unaware of the pain he was in. "You did better, Karlyle. Still need to work on closing the fight, but better."

"Captain?" asked Hilda Ackerg. She took an apprehensive step forward. "Captain, he can't breathe."

Jira looked up at the woman, confused at first, then widened her eyes as she realized the predicament the young warrior was in. She rose up, letting his gasp as his lungs inflated with air again. He rolled over, spitting blood and another tooth from his mouth, and scrambled to his feet. Ham-fist Torin caught him as he nearly fell, righting him up to face his captain. Tension surrounded them, no soul able to predict how the shamed boy would respond.

He laughed, wobbling on his feet. "I almost had you, Captain," he rasped. "I almost had you."

Torin guffawed. Hilda giggled. The rest hooted and some clapped in respect for the boy's efforts. Jira snickered and walked up to pat the man's head. "You almost did. Had I not been trained to disarm a foe like that, you would have killed me in a real battle. We'll teach you to do the same."

"I look forward to the lessons," he beamed. Ham-fist Torin chortled as the young man almost fell over again. More laughter erupted from his nearly-crushed throat. The others joined in, nervous at first and then raucous.

"Let's get this boy some ale!" Torin shouted to the agreement of everyone else.

"Alright, everyone, break off and find your instructors. Training doesn't end until the day does." Jira walked away as the others tended to Karlyle or broke off to their own training. Gíla Arsinoe had appeared, towering over the rest save for the distant figure of Gervais Tamas, fully armored in his unpolished austere plate. Jira shared a glare with the bulldog knight before he turned away as sharply as the sword strapped to his side.

"You lost your cool there, Captain." Gíla stated with a smirk gracing her ursine lips. She crossed her arms as the knight stood next to her.

Jira removed her nasal helm and tossed it to a nearby barrack's steward. "Wasn't expecting him to disarm me. Hit harder than I expected."

The Drayheller's face turned serious. "You got distracted, is what you mean. I've seen you spar with every fighter worth their salt in the army. Only one you haven't matched or bested is Gervais, Reynfred, and Zane."

Jira raised a brow, a corner of her mouth quirking up with it. "What do you mean?"

Gíla smacked her lips. "You've never let a single one get you like Karl just got you. What distracted you?"

The knight remained silent for a long moment, long enough for the gathered masses around them to disperse for the most part. Karlyle had been taken away to the church for healing by Hilda Ackerg and Ham-fist. A pang of regret for the missing teeth filled her heart. Poor boy. Better than a missing head, though.

"Captain?" Gíla asked. Jira blinked and shared a momentary look with her second. Concern was pressing against the expression on the Drayheller's face. Jira felt her mask failing to form, only half of it moving to cover her face. One thing she had learned of the Drayhellers, Gíla especially, was that people were their forte as much as history. Lying to a Drayheller was like fighting a fully armored Gervais Tamas. The mission wasn't supposed to involve a Drayheller. Dangerous. You should not have become her friend. The dangerous whim of a child. You are not a child.

"Just…got distracted," she attempted regardless. She cursed under her breath at the foolishness. "...I saw something," she corrected.

Gíla nodded, her face a shroud of emotions. Concern, intrigue, confusion. The marks of someone who sees too much. Sees the truth in you. Like Father. Like…Mother. She only spoke more once enough people had further dispersed. "What did you see?"

Jira crossed her arms. The corner of her lip had crooked down in thought. "A…light. Sapphire and brilliant over the wall."

"Arcaeno?" the bear-maiden asked immediately, a peak of that giddiness in her tone. "Like those…um…sprites Sarda's gone on about during his speeches."

Jira shook her head. The truth. Speak it. You cannot lie. "No, more like…a star. Like a mobile star. It blinked from place to place. I saw it once before. During a nighttime break. Orlantha Quills was talking to me about…whatever, and I tried to chase it down. It vanished outside the gate."

"And what was it doing today?" Gíla had uncrossed one of her arms and slowly stroked her chin.

"Hovering…breathing." Jira's eyes had darkened as the sound of it replayed in her mind. Breathing like a glowing lung. "Anything like that in your lore?"

Gíla thought for a moment. "We'd have to check the books I've checked out from the library."

"You mean stolen?" Jira laughed.

"Anything?" Jira asked hopefully.

Gíla flipped a page. "Not yet."

The pair had been delving into the seemingly infinite texts of the bear-maiden's menagerie, stowed away in the back of her tent in stacks of varying sizes. Books such as Troll, Goblin, and Orc Myths of Northern Astaer; Yuthitin Spirits; The Decaying Souls of New Kegon; Gods and Demons of Old Azan; Life in the Kingdom of Heaven by Archbishop Arctus Crow.

None of them had provided any answers towards the light Jira ne'Jiral had seen twice now. There were descriptions of ghosts, ghouls, the walking dead, and liches. None of which were documented anywhere in central Khirn. This was, expectedly, aggravating for the knight. She had seen a host of wild beasts and apparitions during her journey. Giants, ents, dune crawlers, basilisks, wraiths, revenants, and wyverns - incorrectly known as dragons. She had seen the living arcaeno in forms far beyond the sprites Sarda Kahlim babbled on about during his speeches on environmental preservation and development. Towering golems from cultures only a Drayheller could chronicle. None of them was anything like the sapphire light, such a simple thing.

Jira slammed shut her book, a huff of irritation escaping her pale lips. "You can discover a book with enough history to detail the origins of Aslofidor, the ancestral culture that inhabited these lands, and reveal the possible reason we are even suffering a civil war right now. You have books on the old gods. On the systems of arcaenic manipulation. On forgotten fighting styles with the sword and shield. And yet none of your books details a simple glowing ball of light."

Gíla flipped a page. "Books are curious like that. To detail so much yet so little."

"Thank you for your astute wisdom, my dear second," Jira grumbled, rising to her feet and tossing the book onto the failed pile.

"You can call this off at any time, Captain," Gíla retorted, her eyes fixed on dusty parchment and faded ink. "You have soldiers that need training. You humans love your training. Reynfred trained with us all the time."

Jira rolled her eyes. "Reynfred was trained to lead a guild. I wasn't. I was happy in my secondary role of leading small bands. Four to five, maybe a dozen. Five hundred? No, that's not my skill. I told you that this war was going to get worse. More fields of Vucan bloodied and ruined and gross. I tell them that I'm going to turn them into the best soldiers in this damned place…I nearly broke that boy's face because of a light."

"A light that you said breathed when you saw it. Which is far more interesting to me than just a light."

Jira slumped onto her backside, reaching for one of the last remaining books. "I'm glad that this apparition is so enjoyable for your fancies and awes."

"Anything supernatural seen by humanity is fascinating to me, almost as much as your reasons to fight this war. I must say, these Contemptors of ours are a lot more agreeable to my conversations than the folks back in the shȋ."

"The what?"

Gíla cleared her throat. "The Eye."

"Oh, right." Jira opened the book half-heartedly. The Art of Animancy by Ignati Gralgo. "Gervais is still pissed at me for taking you away."

Gíla shot a look Jira could feel even without looking back. "You got permission from Mille herself, so not much he can do. Besides, he never much cared for me. Not like he cared for the others. The godly ones. He talked to me occasionally, sure, but he never cared for me."

Jira shrugged. "He glares at me like I stole a prized weapon. If he could get away with it, I'm certain he'd try to kill me. He did try to kill me when we sparred."

"Gervais forgets himself when training," Gíla said. "He's an old fighter. It's in his blood."

Jira scoffed, tracing a potentially informative line. "He definitely wanted to spill mine that day." She grunted when the line proved uninformative.

"Well, he'll have to settle for-" Gíla's voice was cut off by the flaps of the tent opening.

Jira looked up to see the face of Mille the Wolf's squire. She rose to her feet and stood at attention. "Lady Ranev," Jira saluted. Take the voice of a leader. "What can we do for you?"

Leondra Ranev cast a sharp glare at the Drayheller, who remained seated and fixed on her book. A kick from Jira got the monstrous creature to shake free of her text and rise to attention. Her head brushed the tent's ceiling. "Commander Mille is ordering a meeting of all captains and their seconds. You and your…second are the only ones not yet present."

Unimportant matters. Make it seem important. Jira swallowed hard. "I apologize, Lady Ranev. I did not mean to waste the commander's time. Gíla and I will follow you at once."

Gíla slumped her shoulders and groaned low once Leondra Ranev had gone from sight. "I think I should have ignored you at Vucan and just gone home."

You would have brought her with you anyway. Jira chuckled softly. "I, unfortunately, agree with you."

Twenty captains filled the room, accompanied by twenty seconds. Each staring at the detailed war map splayed on Sarda Kahlim's ornate office table. Of the twenty, Galeran Reynfred was the first to ask: "How many?"

Sarda Kahlim breathed through his nose and pointed to two spots on his war map. "The raven's report said nearly two thousand strong coming south from Holmgan. Spearmen, swords, knights. Three hundred move as well from Brouver. Archers and more spearmen."

"We've had reports of the King mustering forces similar in size to our own," said Wulfgar Bair, captain of the Oaks of Dyre. "This is a strike force for him. Nothing more."

"A test," added Wallace Brotston, captain of the Crimson Wards. "To see if we'll take the bait. Send our full force to destroy their small one as a show of strength. The Dekunians did a similar tactic when we fought them."

"Did you fall for it?" asked Gíla. The bear-maiden stood furthest from the gathering, cross-armed and cross-legged by the doors. Jira regarded her with a doleful glance. Ever since Vucan, she has stood aloof from those she once called kin. What agonies wrought into her. Such expectations ruined. Only alone with you does she seem glad. You will hurt her more. You should not have become friends.

"No," Wallace dryly answered.

"It would leave the Bastion open to any other forces they have in waiting," Wulfgar continued. "Or leave our forces open to flanking. We cannot send our army after them. Not in jts entirety."

"We can't let them run rampant through our lands either," explained Galeran. "What image would that send to those seeking to join the fight with us? We sit here in the mountains, hiding behind the walls of an impregnable fortress, while they fight with pitchforks and scrap iron and die. No, we need to fight in some capacity."

Wulfgar's second, an unexpectedly short but overall unremarkable man named Eanrel Dagfred, ran a calloused hand over his mouth. "A task force then, like Galeran had spoken of when we reconstituted our organization. One of the smaller guilds, or two."

"It would have to be a brave few," said Gervais Tamas. A voice like a molten ocean, a body like a golem. "Maybe a foolish few. They may be sinners alike…but the King's knights are every bit as skilled as us. Some of them were my friends. If this force is led by Brayden Firhill or Radella Locke…I fear we may not hear from them again. Even Wulfgar would be hard pressed to beat either of those two."

"Is it worth sending them with that risk, then?" rumbled Wulfgar. His lips were crooked into a scarecrow's frown.

"Only if we had the fullest confidence with the ones leading them." Gervais rested his palms on the table to examine the map. "Where did the scouts say they were heading roughly?"

Sarda Kahlim turned to the young woman in dark grey clothing standing by his side. She stammered for a moment and said, "The River Raech, Lord Tamas."

Ralph Logain of the Ashen Shields grunted and traced along the drawing of the river. A good man. Aged with an assertive countenance, respectable among the rest. Isn't that how Gíla would say it. "The Raech has three villages along its coast." Ralph's voice was quiet and prickling like bristling thornbushes, grating even to Jira's ears. "They could attack either."

"Which one is the least defended?" asked Eanrel.

Three villages. Dalry. Murlay. Rofolk. All three are prime for the raiding. "Murlay," revealed Cenric Calwell of the Green Dragons. "I have a cousin who lives there. It's a simple fishing village, and it holds the only tower the kingdom has along the Raech, accessible by an old bridge. Loyal to the Duke, but nothing more than a small garrison."

"It's on our side," said Wallace Brotston, laughing at the foul card God Almighty had thrown onto the table. "So if the kingsmen were to take that tower, they could hold a defensible staging ground in the duchy."

"And while we remain here, clutching our balls, we lose our own fucking grounds," seethed Bawulf Calwell, brother and second to Cenric Calwell. "War was simpler when we were fighting people outside of our kingdom who had no idea of our lands."

Mille the Wolf lowered her head and rapped her fingers on the table. "Simpler, but what did it get us? We're dwindling, forced into civil war because our King sinned against God Almighty." A sin that you know. A sin you will not tell us. A sin you do not think is a sin. "Murlay is the best target for the kingsmen, but can we be certain they won't try to attack Dalry or Rofolk?"

"No, we cannot," said Ralph. "We must go by our instincts here. It's what won you Vucan. It's what can win us this."

"Murlay is the best option," said many, concluding almost unilaterally.

Mille remained silent, rapping her fingers with an unreadable emotion broken only by the dark glare in her near-black eyes. "A force of similar size can meet them at Murlay and fortify in the tower," she eventually decided, though her voice was a somber one. Unwanting to fight. Wishing for peace. Forced to kill. Like you. If only you had been better in Belanore. You could have avoided this. "Smaller if need be to avoid undue attention, if such can be avoided."

Wallace snorted. "It can be no less than seven hundred that take to the fight. No more than the numbers they possess. Too few and we risk accomplishing nothing. Too many and we put ourselves in the open."

"This is the best course," many of the captains and seconds who had not yet spoken agreed. "Too many and we could draw ourselves into a trap."

Jira shared a silent look with her second, who promptly hung her head and groaned loudly, softly kicking her foot into the wall. The paintings Sarda Kahlim had hung up in place of the Ircotts' shuddered from the impact. Jira sighed at the childishness and stepped forward. "Who will be the others to come with us?"

"You are too quick to volunteer, Captain ne'Jiral," cautioned Mathil Lutera, a lanky woman in command of Oudet's Warhounds, the second largest guild after the Eye. A crowned wolf on black with a golden border shined on her iron-scale breastplate. Her voice was shrill and whistling, as if the teeth she had were missing. "You only hold five hundred. Surely-"

Jira held up a palm. "Our guild fits the role Captain Reyfred discussed. We hold the lowest numbers of all the guilds, yes, but I am confident in their ability to fight and mesh with whoever among you wishes to join. They need experience in battle and camaraderie. As do I. You are all veteran leaders, even your seconds. I and the bear-maiden are not. It would do us well to take this risk of our lives at no cost to your own." Such confidence. Masked over the worry only she knows about. You are fooling only the slow-witted but not yourself. You can never fool yourself. I won't let you.

Galeran Renyfred hummed at this fact and looked to another across the table. Jira followed his eyes to see a woman of lean build with fire-red hair in ebony mail with a red cloak clasped to her shoulders by red-streaked black ravens. "Orlantha, you too fit the necessary role. With your Bloody Ravens, you and Jira could manage one thousand and two-hundred," explained Galeran. "A manageable force. Your Ravens are battle tested, one of the oldest we have and can ensure the Contemptors survive the day. What do you say?"

Orlantha nodded, casting Jira a strange look, and then considered the map. "I've been the Raech upon a time. The tower itself is modest, but it has high walls. My men and I could operate the defenses and draw in the infantry while your force flanks them. If we work as a unit, we could demolish them with minimal losses."

No one objected. Why would they? They get to remain here. Behind the walls. Safe from their own consequences.