“Champion!” the bald captain saluted. “We have set up the portal key. The king should be arriving any moment.”

“Very well,” Ash sniffed coldly. “Anything else?”

“Yes, my lady,” another young man answered. Not a warrior like the rest, this boy wore scouting garb. It wasn’t so far from the huntress gear she used to wear, focusing more on agility and sneakery than protection. A set of green leather pads had been stitched to a set of rough cotton underclothes.

“Then report,” Ash coldly ordered.

“Yes,” he panted, “I found a weak point in the walls, my lady. An old aqueduct that hasn’t been properly sealed. If we can crumble that wall, a small unit could sneak in and cause havoc.”

“Good work, how did you find this duct?” Ash asked.

“I’m an aviline, my lady,” the boy answered.

“A what?”

“My... soul magic allows me to transform into a bird, my lady,” he explained.

“Oh, you have soul magic too?” Ash realised. “Interesting... Good work, scout.”

She turned her back on him and he took it as a dismissal. “Captain... sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Sir Bower of Farreach, Champion,” he bowed.

“Glad to meet you, Sir Bower. I’m Ashtik. Now, I need some of your best men and a way to breach that wall.”

“You intend to breach it yourself?” Bower choked.

“Is that not why I’m here? To lead?”

“You’re a general, my Lady. You lead from the rear. If we lose you, we lose all leadership. The battle will be lost in an instant,” he insisted.

“The king will be here soon. The command is his to take, until then, you take charge in my place,” Ash offered.

“That won’t work, my lady. I’m not a nobleman; the other captains and sergeants won’t follow me.”

“They follow me well enough,” Ash pointed out.

“Because you are divinely ordained. I’m just a cattle farmer with a knighthood. It doesn’t matter how much I demand it; they won’t follow my orders.”

“They will do as they are ordered,” Ash coldly snapped.

“It is a noble idea, my lady, but now is not the time for cultural reforms and ideations of egalitarianism. A lord must lead this army, and I am no lord. So, it must be you.”

“Fine,” Ash groused. “Is there no nobleman amongst the other captains?”

Sir Bower seemed to ponder but, when an answer struggled to part his lips, he seemed far from satisfied. “There is a bannerman... Tiene, the second son of some lesser Viscount. It may suffice,” he breathily suggested, doubt thick in his words.

“Bring him to me,” Ash barked.

The man was of an age with Ashtik, that is to say much too young for a military command. His light auburn stubble was barely beyond that of a fifteen-year-old’s. His shaggy brown hair seemed ill-fit for a battlefield, but his soldier’s form suggested that this wasn’t his first fight.

“It’s Tiene, right?” Ash said with a nod.

“It is, Champion,” the boy answered.

“Well then, Tiene, I’m granting you half the command while I lead the assault on the castle.”

“Half... the command, my lady?” Bower hesitantly repeated.

“Aye. The two of you will share the responsibility. All failings will be shared, all successes will be shared. Tiene, you are to defer to Bower’s expertise and help relay his orders to the men, understand?” Ash boldly said, making her voice deeper as she spoke.

“My lady,” the boy sighed, “that seems... highly inappropriate. You cannot grant equal reign to a farmer as you would, I. I am sure Sir Bowel is very experienced, and he has certainly earned his rank, but the command of an entire vanguard force? Some things are best left in the hands of the betters.” He didn’t speak haughtily or with an abundance of arrogance. He spoke as though explaining why it was ill-advised to grant a military command to nothing more than a lifelong carpenter. He looked at this man, the son of a cattle farmer, and saw nothing beyond it. Ash realised that to him, this Bower was a farmer pretending to be a soldier, not a soldier born of a farmer.

“You’re a soldier, Tiene, nothing else. Not a farmer or the son of a lord. You are as powerful as your right arm can swing, and that's it. Now, I have given you an order. You can obey it to the letter, or you can be tried as a deserter and a coward. The choice is yours,” she calmly said, her quiet voice barbed and coiled.

“I- I understand, Champion,” the boy said as he bowed his head. “As you wish... I shall heed his advice as though it came from the king himself.”

“Good. Maintain the camp and prepare for the King. Sir Bower, I still need those men.”

“I- Right away, my Lady,” Bower stammered before skirting away.

In a brief moment, four new soldiers appeared before her. Three men and possibly the only other woman on the field. All wore brutal steel armour, slashed and scuffed with countless would-be death blows.

“Champion,” the captain barked as the soldiers formed a line before her. “This will be your strike team. Sir Colu of Ravenfield; Sir Lucianuk of Summerblight; Sir Tuyen of Herov; and Ahn.”

“Just Ahn?” Ash said in a tone that was meant to be humorous but came out as a squeak.

“Yes, Champion. She is unknighted,” the captain said.

“Right,” Ash said. “Well then, what makes you all so special?”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She turned first to the woman who stood to the far right. Tall and broad with as many scars as freckles. A native forgelander, but she wore strange southern tattoos. Spirals and flowers of myriad colours. Depictions of living ocean waves and the crimson midday sun cresting over them. Her deep black hair was kept long but tightly bound behind her. She wasn’t particularly tall, maybe a fist taller than Ash at most, but she was as muscled as a dragon.

“Sparrow,” she greeted softly, her voice thick with some strange Western accent. “I a’ shield maiden. Be keepin’ ya back safe.”

“And I,” the man beside her said in a sing-song voice, bowing theatrically, “Am Tuyen. A magician of a most majestic make!”

A cloak of flowing silk spilt out from beneath his scarred plate cuirass. Lines of green and orange cotton wove along its deep blue style. His pale flesh seemed so utterly unmarred by battle that Ash assumed he had looted the armour from some fallen comrade.

“A magician?” Ash repeated. “Any speciality?”

“All things big and loud love the call of my hands. I hear you have an old wall that needs crumbling. Please, allow me,” he said as though performing for some invisible audience.

“Ya be dead soon enough, boyo if ya no keep the noise low. This a stealth job,” Ahn sighed.

“There is room enough beneath the skuldugger’s cloak for a touch of marvel, brute,” Tuyen said, venomously.

“Holy Champion, it is an honour to be before you,” the next man interrupted before a fight could break out between the two.

“Sir Lucianuk, right?” Ash greeted.

“Most just call me Nuk, Champion. I have fought alongside one of your brethren before. I trust above all things, this will be a fight to remember.”

“One of my brethren?” Ash repeated curiously.

“The Champion of Green,” he said proudly. The blank look on Ash’s face invited his elaboration, “The... Chosen of Taeva the huntress. His name was Kasun Jai-Torr.”

“Jai-Torr?” Ash doubted.

“I believe so. Is that strange?”

“It's... someone who receives money for... pleasant company. It just... seems a strange calling for the Champion of the hunt.”

“You strike me as no somnomancer, yet you are Champion of Dreams. The gods work in strange ways. Surely, we ought to simply trust in their vision.”

“I’ve seen the visions offered by the gods,” Ash quietly scoffed. “They must be half mad to make sense of them. I’ll trust in little beyond what my hands grasp, and you might be wise to do the same.”

“My faith is as great a shield as Ahn’s steel. I won’t doubt the gods, Champion. I know they have a purpose for you, and I pray that I shall play some long role in it,” Nuk smiled warmly as he returned to his formal stance, his eyes shooting out to the evening sky.

The final man was no man in any sense she had known. His flesh – being the tone of some deep shade of winter haze - looked to be closer to frozen tree bark than skin. He had not two eyes, but two dozen. His knees bent the wrong way, and he lacked a nose entirely. He was the tallest of the bunch by a notable amount, though no style of giant. Not overly broad or muscular, but by the hardness of his flesh, she wasn’t entirely sure he required muscle as she did.

“Child,” he whispered, his voice a raspy breeze. In the black beads of his many eyes, two sprouted vibrant orange pupils which locked to her. “Stand behind us during the fighting. We will complete this mission well enough for you.”

“I do not intend to hide, sir Colu. I will fight alongside you.”

“Too right,” Ahn said with a hint of something close to offence.

“This is not a mission for teenagers playing at war. I am sure you are skilled, but skill won’t save you if we are caught behind enemy lines. Keep your head low, your mouth closed and walk close to my back,” Colu calmly but firmly said.

“You don’t trust me in a fight?” Ash asked.

“Have you ever fought in a war, child?” He asked.

“I have fought battles,” Ash confidently responded. “Led siege defences and ambushes.”

“Then you wish to take command of my men? To accept the burden of their lives?”

“I-” Ash stuttered. “No, I don’t,” she might have said. “I don’t want any of this. I just want to go home. I wanna be back in her arms.”

“I will do what is required of me, always,” she finally said, her voice straining between determination and shame.

“Then our lives are yours, child. I pray your Goden is as wise in his choice of Champion as he was in his decision to abandon this hateful world.” The orange pupils faded into the black pools of his eyes as his oaken face remained utterly unreadable.

“What ya mean, she in charge?” Ahn exploded, a sense of injustice written plainly across her scarred face. “Got me some boots so old as ‘er. Be well enough backin ‘er, but want me bowing? No... I won't will do it. Birdie-knight can get some uther fool dead.”

“In line, Ahn,” Colu sharply ordered. She grunted for a moment but fell back into form and stood at attention again.

“I- I won’t ask you to die for me,” Ash said as strongly as she could manage. “Stay here if you’re scared. You’re right to doubt me... But I need to learn how to lead. I ask you not to trust me, but to teach me.”

“Dis’ no school trip, birdie. We killers, not teachers... But I no coward. If I ta die today, then I die at ya word.”

“If we work together, if you help me learn, nobody will die,” Ash insisted.

“Oooh, yar a real virgin here, birdie. We going behind them there walls, someone goin’ die. I make good sure it’s no you,” Ahn scoffed. “Even when it mean some better man goin die.”

“You resent me?” Ash said meekly. “Why?”

“Cos’ ya no soldier. Ya a little girl in big armour. I be fightin’ since fore’ ya was born, yet in a day, ya outrank me. I be fightin since fore’ ya was born, yet I still no knight like you, Sparrow-Knight. Ya move past what a girlie be allowed, what I be allowed. Not cos’ some great feat of ya own, but cos’ ya ‘chosen’. Ya born lucky; ya born ‘better’ than me. Now I goin die by ya orders,” she ranted, her voice low and bubbling.

“I’m not a knight,” Ash quietly defended, her eyes falling to the ground. “People just call me that. I’m- a huntress. I don’t want to be anything more, but I don’t have much choice. I’m doing what I have to do. If I don’t... Thats it. No more days, no more nights. No more soldiers and no more knights. The end. I’m not asking you to follow me into your death; I'm asking you to help me prevent it, or at least help me get a little closer to figuring this all out.”

“I no like ya, birdie,” Ahn grunted. “But I know what it mean ta do what ya must. Listen ta Colu, he a wise oak. He help ya live a little longer. Maybe have ya a few wrinkles fore’ ya die.”