A lover’s arms are the sweetest place.

1st day 8th-month 579th year of the 8th era

Mayu awoke Akuchi before dawn; she nudged him awake, the predawn light coming through the window. Mayu was leaning over Akuchi. She smiled at him and raised one finger to her lips. Mayu took a step back as Akuchi threw aside the bed covers, sitting up. Silently, Mayu reached into her trunk and took out her weapon and belt; she indicated he should do the same as she stepped into her loincloth.

Akuchi reached into his trunk and extracted his trousers and weapon and dressed. When he was done, they both crept quietly out of the barracks into the predawn light. Closing the door behind them, she indicated Akuchi should follow her as she led him to the command building. They entered the mess hall. Inside several staff members were ladling out the soup into bowls for the morning meal.

“Grab some food,” Mayu instructed. “Oghenekaro has requested us on the muster field at dawn. Smoke was detected on the horizon last night.”

“Why?” Akuchi asked, picking up a bowl and following Mayu to a spot on one of the long tables.

“He didn’t tell me. Normally we wait for the trolls to launch an attack on the walls, then we make a sally.”

Several more soldiers came into the mess hall and silently took their meal before sitting down at another table together. They were dressed in plate armor with chain mail between the joints. They all carried heavy great swords on their backs, much like Akuchi’s falchion but long and without the gentle curve. Mayu looked at them. Recognition dawned on her face as she watched them take their seats. Akuchi saw her look over his shoulder and he turned to look at them.

“Who are they?” he asked, turning to face Mayu.

“They are the Commander's Guard,” Mayu answered returning her attention to Akuchi. “Finish up. We don’t want to be late.”

Akuchi and Mayu lifted their bowls and drank the rest of the weak, watery soup. It tasted very much like the soup they had drunk for dinner yesterday, faintly of some meat he couldn’t recognize and a combination of many roots and tubers.

“This food is very bad,” Akuchi commented as they got up from their seats returning their bowls to the table.

“It always has been. It only gets worse during a siege.”

Akuchi and Mayu left the mess hall and proceeded to the muster area, where they joined several other pairs of soldiers and other members of Oghenekaro’s personal guard. About fifty soldiers stood on the muster field, milling around, waiting.

“What’s going on?” Akuchi asked Mayu as they stood on the field.

“I am not sure,” Mayu replied, folding her arms as she looked around the field. “I see several very skilled soldiers and some of the best pairs in the garrison.”

Oghenekaro moved out of the command building with three members of his personal guard behind him. He wore his full plate armor with chain mail between the plates, much like his personal guard. He raised his hands and the murmur of quiet conversation stopped. People started to move closer together.

“Soldiers, I asked you all to come today, because as you have noticed the trolls have once again laid siege to us …” Oghenekaro started.

“Yeah, the food got bad again,” a heckler called out from the crowd.

“That is to preserve the food we do have,” Oghenekaro replied, laughing. “We know from previous sieges that the trolls normally wait a day or two before using ladders.”

“What is with them?” called out someone else from the crowd. “They breed some brains?”

That question elicited a rumble of laughter from the assembled soldiers, even Oghenekaro smiled.

“Because they have brought up their attack strategy, we must do the same,” Oghenekaro continued.

This statement was filled with a moment of silence.

“The soldiers on the wall have told me that they can’t see a command tent or anything that would indicate a troll leader,” Oghenekaro stated.

A murmur ran through the crowd.

“I called you guys here to tell you to prepare for a counter-attack at dusk,”

“Clever,” whispered Mayu to Akuchi, “the trolls are afraid of the dark, an attack then would have the advantage of surprise and fear. We will be hitting them when they are tired.”

“You have been all relieved of your normal duties today to prepare,” informed Oghenekaro. “Be back here and ready to go at dusk.”

At that, the group started to split up and go their own separate ways. Mayu stood where she was, watching the commander. Akuchi watched her. Mayu’s face was a blank expression except for her furrowed brows of concentration.

“What do we need to do?” Akuchi finally asked. A ball of nerves started to form in the pit of his stomach.

“We train,” Mayu said, turning and leaving the muster field. Akuchi followed her back to the command building and into the basement training room.

Oghenekaro paced in his tent.

A messenger came into the tent. “They have brought the scaling ladders again.”

“Thank you,” Oghenekaro said. “Take me to them.”

The messenger turned and Oghenekaro followed him. They went up the gate tower and arrived at the top of the wall. Several bowmen were firing into the teeming mass of trolls. Several men at arms stood amongst the bowmen with siege forks and their melee weapons, waiting for the trolls to scale the walls.

A scaling ladder with trolls hanging off clattered against the fort’s wall. Two men at arms moved forward, one with a siege fork to push back the ladder and the other to cover him from attacks from the ladder. Several arrows flew out and killed the fur-covered trolls on the ladder, causing them to fall. Other trolls replaced them and one stepped onto the wall. A man at arms swung his sword and was blocked by the troll’s sword. Another troll stepped off the ladder and an arrow felled him. The soldier with the siege fork locked his fork against the ladder and pushed it. The ladder tipped and fell away from the wall. He brought his sword down and killed the troll facing him.

Further down the wall another scaling ladder rose and thudded against the wall.

Oghenekaro drew his sword and ran towards the new scaling ladder. He arrived at the scaling ladder and saw several trolls fighting with men at arms. Several bodies of trolls and men lay at their feet. Oghenekaro raised his sword and charged into the melee. He brought his sword down on the first troll and slew it. He stepped over a dead soldier and retrieved the siege fork.

“Soldier!” he called out to a bowman nearby. “Take this and I will cover you.”

The bowman shouldered his bow, and took the siege fork, and followed Oghenekaro.

Oghenekaro yelled a battle cry and charged towards the nearest troll. His downward stroke was met with a clash of steel as his sword met that of a large troll. Oghenekaro stepped, forward pressing into the troll. He then sidestepped the troll. In a smooth water attack, he sliced a green troll along its back and it fell forward onto the stone wall. A red troll swung at him and he blocked the attack with the same motion and completed the water movement. He squared his posture and blocked the red troll’s second strike with a solid mountain stance block and then again pressed forward with the mountain attack. His movement caught the troll in the shoulder. The troll dropped its sword, its hand limp. Oghenekaro stepped forward again and decapitated the troll in his signature wind attack strike. His forward momentum had brought him and the bowman with the siege fork to the wall’s edge. The bowman locked the fork into the ladder and pushed it away from the wall. A blue troll leaped off the ladder and sailed towards the wall. Oghenekaro stabbed out with his sword and skewered the troll’s stomach. The forward momentum of the troll carried it onto Oghenekaro’s blade. Gravity took hold and the troll slid off the blade and went plummeting to the ground.

A man at arms placed an armored hand on his shoulder. “We have this section, sir. You will need your strength for the sally tonight.”

“Thank you, soldier,” Oghenekaro replied.