"Charge!" Yelled Adelhard, the vengeful son of the deceased Count Wenceslaus. He rode on his horse with his sights laid at the formation of the Northmen. A hundred Fire Knights surrounded him to charge the enemy lines, yet his foes were so many that their armours walled the horizon. "For my father!" Insisted the boy with his sword drawn. "Attack!"

The Northmen formed a barrier around the hill where the soldiers from the Empire of the Holy Flame stood. Fire Knights from Il Pugno Lombardo, the warriors from the Duchy of Sforza, were trapped with their backs against the hill. They had charged the Northman so that Marzia freed Verano, yet they failed to escape.

"Knights to the northwest! Form a defensive line, you lazy scoundrel!" Shouted one of Hagen's captains as he faced the Northmen that once followed Thyra. Yet his men were exhausted. They lagged and groaned in pain. Wounds covered their bodies more than armour. Adelhard's charge would be lethal to both sides.

"This is bad!" Said Giovanni as he stood on a ridge and observed the incoming massacre. "Marzia is not here, so nobody knows what to do anymore. Adelhard will probably get trapped in their lines too; and we'll lose all our horses!"

"Don't be so pessimistic, pretty boy." Said Candorra while she toyed with her harp.

"Stop calling me that!" He protested. "I have a name!"

"Pretty boy?" She asked.

"Argh--" Snorted Giovanni as he shook her thin shoulders. "Can't you see what's going to happen, Candorra? Our Firebenders are on those horses! Without them, the Northmen will just climb our hill and kill us all! Just like that!"

"Quiet! I'm trying to hear what's going on with Verano..." She pulled her body away from his grasp.

"Argh!" Wailed Giovanni with both hands on his face. He fell on his knees and breathed loud from his mouth. "I can't die here, I'm everything my mom has!"

 "Hey," she grabbed his shoulder, "maybe a song will upheave the spirits--"

"No musica (music)!" His head sprung off his arms to yell. "Please, Candorra," he lowered his tone, "I don't want to sound mean. But we are doomed! You should have never snuck in here. Staying in King William of Alba's castle would have been way safer..."

She rose her voice:

"Look behind you--"

"Please let me finish," he insisted.

"Okay! Fine!" She rolled her eyes. "Do as you please..."

"What I wanted to explain to you is that there is a time for everything. There's time to to sing, to dance, to fight, to cry, to speak, to listen... You name it. And I am 100% sure that now is not the time to play music--"

A fiery sphere mauled Giovanni's head like a hammer. The flame knocked his helmet off his head and shined as if a star sat on the ridge.

"It sure was the time to listen..." Remarked Candorra. "Can't say I did not warn you, pretty boy!"

The sphere blinded those who saw it. Yet Adelhard did not recoil away from the light. His eyes widened:

"That is an order to stop from..." The boy turned his neck towards the northeast. "Duke Arnaud de Sforza!"

[https://i.imgur.com/gLIEer8.png]

Duke Arnaud and Queen Thyra of the Western Tribe of the North Sea rode on Scheherazade, the Lion-Lizard, towards the battlefield. The Northmen that once served Thyra recoiled at the sight of their former leader. She appeared as if a miraculous savior coming with a ship to save stranded sailors. Yet Hagen's men felt shivers creeping down their spine. She was like a haunting in the mist for them.

"What are you all looking at?" Yelled one of Hagen's captains towards his men. "Wipe them all out!" He pointed at the trapped knights from Il Pugno Lombardo. Yet no one listened. Seeing Thyra dazed her former followers. 

Duke Arnaud stared confident at the paralyzed battlefield.

"Hagen was the one keeping his slobs and yours in line," he told Thyra, "he has been using yours as the frontline of their formation. The disadvantage of this is that if they refuse to attack, the entire column becomes stale."

Duke Arnaud fired a second shining flame at Hagen's Warband. The flames were supposed to indicate a target. The man rose his fist and pummeled a flame into the clouds, signalizing for the archers on the hill to attack. 

Arrows fell like a hammer upon the lines of Northmen. Yet none were injured. They rose shields and water barriers to block the incoming projectiles from the hill. Yet their effort to defend kept them in place.

"Adelhard!" Yelled the Duke as he pummeled a wide flame at the immobilized Northmen. "Charge now!”

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Yet Adelhard did not attack. He struggled to understand the order.

"Was machen wir, Befelshaber Adelhard?" (What do we do, commander Adelhard?) Asked a Fire Knight.

"I..." The boy faltered. He clenched his fist in frustration. The Northmen whom he were about to charge were weakened and their deaths would quickly satisfy his lust for revenge. Attacking Hagen's men, which were almost intact, felt suicidal. "You wanna know what?" He swung his head. "The Duke knows what he does. Follow me!”

The Fire Knights from Adelhard lowered their spears as their horses charged at the designated targets. The movement of their horses ignited flames around their weapons. They advanced like a fiery hammer and landed onto Hagen's Warband. Bodies, blood, fire and water flew as both forces connected.

Yet the Duke directed his sights towards the troops stationed on the hill. He pummeled a flame to order them to attack. Yet the warriors from the Empire of the Holy Flame resisted. They looked at each other in silence as if they pretended that there was no order.

"They won’t get out of their defenses..." Faltered Duke Arnaud de Sforza. "It has to be your men," he faced Thyra, "they are the only ones who can help Adelhard's knights." He pointed at the weakened and exhausted soldiers on the frontline that once were her warriors. 

"The Northmen won't fight alongside fire scum like this..." She argued.

"It doesn't matter. You must make them. You think that if you attack Hagen's thugs from behind, your men will attack to save you?"

She bit her lips and frowned upon the inscriptions carved on her axe. Thyra feared that she could not honor the names of the High Kings who marked the weapon. Yet the Duke insisted:

"Are you their Queen, or are you just wasting my time?"

Thyra closed her eyes as if she looked for an answer in her own mind. She could listen to her own confession to Verano when they were lost in the forests of the North:

“I'm just one girl." She confessed. "Deep inside I'm still waiting for my father's ship to return so that he tells me that this whole Queen thing was just a bad dream. And then he can have his Axe of Edïm back," she frowned upon her weapon, "and everything can be the way that it was before."

Yet Verano's words echoed in her ears:

"I want you to give me a chance to prove that you saving my life was not a mistake. And that you were not a mistake."

She yanked her chest from the waist and jumped off Scheherazade, the Duke's Lizard-Lion.

"I am not a mistake!” Asserted Thyra as she yanked her chest from the waist and jumped off Scheherazade, the Duke's Lizard-Lion. She charged the Northmen lines by herself.

"It's the Queen!" Announced a Northman. His voice echoed across the Black Hills. "She's coming to save us!"

"I must..." She began. An entire water table tore open the ground and moved into a tiny sphere rotating over her right hand. 

A dozen warriors from Hagen's Warband turned around to defend against her. They saw her threat as insignificant.

"It seems Black Teeth failed..." Remarked one of Hagen’s warriors as she prepared her bow. She aimed an ice arrow at the Queen's neck. "This is better for us..."

Thyra continued, resilient:

"I must prove that..." She spoke as the sphere of concentrated waters grew. She stood only 10 steps away from Hagen's band.

"Fire!" Shouted the archer as she prepared to fire an arrow at the Queen's chest. Other Northmen rose axes and blades over their shoulders to attack the women.

Thyra did not dare to turn a feet away.

"I must prove that I'm not a mistake!" She asserted as she heaved the sphere against Hagen's band. 

Water exploded from inside the sphere and tore apart the Northmen's lines as if an ocean escaped a tiny exit. The waters knocked the warriors against the ground, slammed the unaware and scattered their formation.

"Ge sig på!" (Attack! For victory!) Shouted Thyra as she glared at her former nation. Her technique had surfaced so much water that it reached her knees and turned the plains into a shallow swamp. The sight filled her warriors with enthusiasm.

"Attack!" Her warriors echoed her command. They charged Hagen's warband to assist Adelhard's knights in their struggle. The Western Tribe of the North Sea and the Fire Knights joined forces for the first time in history.

Duke Arnaud de Sforza smirked. He stared at his troops waiting on the hill and pummeled a flame into the sky, ordering them to attack once more.

The infantry and bow men climbed down the hill and charged at Hagen's Warband. The alliance between Thyra's Northmen and the forces from the Duke evenly matched their numbers.

[https://i.imgur.com/GRj1g8B.png]

"This is extraordinary..." Remarked Thyra with her knees on the watery grass as she witnessed the miracle. The battle had devolved into two forces tackling each other like the horns from raging moose. Her men fought alongside Firebenders. 

"Will it last? The alliance?" Asked Duke Arnaud. Scheherazade, his mount, approached the woman.

"No, I fear not..." She frowned. "If Hagen returns with his Ring of Niebel, there's no way my men will stay by my side..."

"And what if you can get that ring?" Suggested the Duke. Yet she chuckled at that possibility.

"The ring makes him stronger...” She explained.

"No, that ring fights for him. Even when he's down to the point of being unable to Waterbend, the ring will do the work and heal him. I've fought Northmen berserkers who bended water to heal themselves with minimum movement during combat. They survived the most gruesome situations..."

"Like my brother." She pondered.

"Yet I've never seen a Waterbender who could do the same without moving an inch." 

"Are you really saying an object is Waterbending by itself, fire scum?"

"If it is neither him, Hagen, nor an inanimate object that is Waterbending..." the Duke frowned, "I can only wonder who is behind it." He faced her. "Find Hagen. Take that ring. Kill him. Get that object under our control, and we can end this battle with minimum casualties. Hagen is defeatable," he asserted, "give a man a weapon who wins him a hundred fights and he won't practice anymore. Take the tool away and it will be as if he never won a single fight."

“What about the host that I brought from Edïm?” She faced her troops that awaited from the other side of the River Tummel.

“I’ll keep them there. There’s no telling if Hagen or his followers will try escaping.”

“I’ll go now!” Said Thyra as she yanked the axe from her waist and ran towards the shore.

“Queen…” The Duke’s voice halted her once again. "If Verano is still alive when you find him, tell him that..." His voice froze.

"Tell him what?" She asked. Her feet itched to run.

The Duke moved Scheherazade's collar and escaped her question. He charged against Hagen's Warband as if joining the hell of elements and blades were more comfortable than facing the reality that his adopted son could be special.

"Let this be a warning," the man recalled his own words from when he burned his son's left hand as a lesson, "for you to never risk your life for someone who would not to do the same for you."

He faced Thyra as she ran towards the shore to find and destroy Hagen.

"In time, Verano will count on her…” He asserted. “And she will prove me right."