In the days that followed, Lunette and Rain continued to stay at Arvel’s home, though Rain had made several trips to the settlement with Fidget to trade and keep in close contact with the settlers. Rain’s concerns that they would worry over much for her were unfounded; instead, they seemed to look up to their marchioness with newly found adoration, for pushing forward in spite of all she had endured.

On the walk back to the farm from one such trip, Fidget leaned in front of Rain to look up at her, catching her downward gaze.

“What’s wrong?” Fidget asked.

“Ah?” asked Rain, “What do you mean?”

“You’re quiet,” said Fidget, “Sad looking. You get happy and smiley when you see all the people but you get sad and mopey when we go. Do you want to stay?”

“Oh, no, that’s not it,” Rain said with a sheepish smile, “But I appreciate you worrying for me.”

Not one to let the subject drop, Fidget shoved Rain’s hip, knocking her off her gait momentarily, and shouting, “Then why?!”

Rain stumbled only briefly before correcting herself, and gently cleared her tender throat, before saying, “I’m just worried that I’m not doing enough. I’m not a strong commander like Ser Lunette, or talented in numbers and logistics like Frederik. My people... They look up to me for inspiration, but I’m afraid that’s all that I can truly offer them.”

“Do more,” said Fidget.

“It’s not that simple,” said Rain, “I don’t have the talent and knowledge they have.”

“Learn it!” Fidget replied.

Rain furrowed her brow a bit and said, “You make it sound so much easier than it is.”

“And you make it sound harder than it has to be,” Fidget said, matter-of-factly; “and you haven’t even tried yet!”

For a moment, Rain was at a loss for words.

“You make yourself difficult to argue with,” she said.

Fidget grinned up at her, before beginning to march ahead, saying, “Because Fidget is right!”

As they neared the farm, Fidget and Rain saw a group of a dozen men standing just outside of the fence. Each of them was holding some manner of long-handled farm implement; a few shovels, a couple of hoes, and even a rake or two. They were all holding their tools as if they were spears, following the guidance of Arvel who stood at the head of the group with a shovel in hand.

“Think about tyin’ a red scarf to the outside edge of a wagon wheel,” Arvel explained as he swung his square-tipped shovel downward in front of him, “then tie a blue scarf down near the axel. Well when that wagon gets rolling, the red scarf’s gonna be movin’ a lot faster than the blue one. So you might think you want to hit with the middle of the stick to make sure you land a solid blow, but you really wanna hit with the last couple of inches because that’s where all your power is.”

Frederik was standing on the opposite side of the fence, on which he rested a small board with a piece of paper tacked to it, so that he could write with ink and quill while he observed the other men practicing.

“Pardon my interruption,” said Frederik, “But seeing as we’re going to be crafting real spears for everyone, wouldn’t it behoove them to train with weighted sticks that might have some... uniformity?”

Arvel sighed in exasperation, and dug his shovel head into the dirt to lean on the handle as he said, “Well I ain’t gonna pardon you because I don’t appreciate the interrupting. If ya ain’t noticed, we’re not trainin’ soldiers here, we’re training common folk. So while it’s real nice to know they’re gonna get some real spears eventually, it’s better to know they can defend themselves with whatever they lay hands on when they inevitably drop those spears.”

Frederik’s brow furrowed.

“Inevitably?” he asked, “You seem to think rather poorly of the men who are counting on you to train them. I would’ve hoped you’d show them more respect, considering they’re putting their lives in your hands.”

“Look around you!” Arvel shouted, swinging his arms out wide, “We’re a whole bunch of bumpkins standing in a damned wasteland tryin’ to hold off a demon army with sticks. I ain’t about to start coddlin’ nobody.”

When Arvel turned to look at the men behind him, he could see that their spirits were sinking. Their shoulders sagged, and their tools looked heavy in their arms.

“Oh come on,” Arvel said with a groan, fully turning his attention to them. He pulled up and then planted his shovel firmly in the ground in front of himself and said, “Y’all came out here for a good reason and ain’t none of you done it without knowing how hard it was gonna be. You all staked your lives on making Elediah’s Trail into something good.”

One of the men dared to speak up; “We thought we’d have protection, at least long enough to build houses.”

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Arvel shook his head and said, “I get it. Ain't one of you soldiers, and I know a whole bunch of the guards you were counting on died in the first demon attack. But this ain’t about putting your lives in my hands. Your lives have always been in your own hands, and those hands are calloused and tough and used to putting in hard work. Nothing’s changed! You’re gonna get scared and you’re gonna drop your weapon and you’re gonna get banged up real bad, but what matters is that you grab the next closest thing you can lay your hands on and you keep swinging until you can’t. Even if it’s a shovel.”

“You’d all do well to show some respect for the lowly shovel,” came a soft voice from the back of the crowd.

The men began to part, making way for Rain to walk through the group, and directly toward Arvel. She wore a soft smile on her face, and even though the corners of her eyes were still darkened by bruises, her eyes fairly shined with joy as she reminisced.

“Your teacher saved my life with a shovel,” she said, “He used it like a club at times, and other times like a spear, to fight off the raiders who attacked my carriage. And when he came up into the raiders’ den to rescue me, he still carried that same dented shovel with him. He didn’t need a sword and shield or gleaming armor to be a hero.”

Arvel’s face flushed deeply with embarrassment, and he scratched the back of his neck as he looked away, saying, “You ain’t gotta try to make it sound so grand.”

Rain smiled up at him, before turning to face the gathered men, and said, “A shovel, or a hatchet, or a spear... They all make for fine side-arms. But I know that the greatest weapon the folk of Elediah’s Trail can bring to bear is their determination. Do not let a momentary waver convince you of anything less... For ‘resolve’ is the one thing you all have in spades.”

Their slumped shoulders lifted. Some of the men wiped tears from their eyes with the backs of their forearms. The men spoke up.

“We’re not giving up that easily!”

“So what if the guards are gone? We never had guards back home and got along fine.”

“For Lady Deleraine! For Elediah’s Trail!”

Rain smiled warmly as she saw them recovering their enthusiasm and beginning to move back into their practice positions. She then felt Arvel’s hand squeeze her shoulder, and a blush overtook her face.

“You’re doin’ real fine,” he said with a grin. Arvel then turned and looked back at Frederik, who had his head down, writing rapidly on his page. Arvel pulled his shovel up from the ground and turned, swinging it to smack the fence post beside Frederik, asking, “Just what are you writing about anyway?!”

Frederik yelped at the strike that shook his work space, and he quickly grabbed his inkpot before it could fall off of the top of the post. He whined in distress as he saw the streak of ink across the page from his jarred quill, before he glared at Arvel and said, “I am taking notes to compose a training manual! Any proper militia must have a code of standards and proper training methods.”

“You can’t write a manual about stuff you don’t know!” Arvel said, smacking the fence post again, “You ain’t picked up a weapon in your whole life, I’ll bet, and here you are tryin’ to write about fighting.”

“The quill is mightier than the sword,” replied Frederik, collecting his things from the fence to step away from Arvel’s violence; “Furthermore, these events must be documented! One day, historians will look back on the early days of Elediah’s Trail and be grateful that these moments were recorded.”

“Let’s find out how mighty a shovel can be,” said Arvel.

Several of the men let out yelps of surprise, which turned Arvel’s attention back to his makeshift class. While they had parted for Rain’s passage, Fidget waited for no such concession, and simply shoved her way through them as she ran to the head of the group. She darted past Rain and Arvel and scrambled nimbly up the fence. With one foot on the top rail, and the other on the fence post, she posed dramatically with her hands on her hips.

“Fidget will teach too!” she announced proudly.

“What are you going to teach?” Rain asked.

“Traps!” said Fidget, “Humans are bad at traps. Fall in them all the time. So Fidget will teach goblin traps, so even skinny humans can hold off demon attacks.”

Her announcement was met with less enthusiasm than she expected. If anything, the men seemed to be made terribly uneasy by the announcement. The idea of ‘goblin traps’ conjured up all manner of horrific images that no one wanted to have to think about; camouflaged pits filled with sharpened sticks, tripwires that dropped rocks, and bent tree branches wrapped with thorns and sharpened rocks that would snap forward and embed their debris in whomever was unlucky enough to be struck. Goblin traps weren’t designed to slow or contain someone. They were designed to kill and maim, and many humans who lived near mountains had seen the gruesome aftermath of a triggered goblin trap.

“You know, that’s not a half bad idea,” Arvel said, rubbing his chin, “Maybe you ought to go to the settlement and teach the womenfolk how to lay traps. The demons are gonna think only human men fight, so we gotta make sure the women can lay in some real surprises.”

“Why don’t more human women fight?” Fidget asked, “Is that why Lunette is a sir?”

“Ser,” Rain corrected, “It’s a little different. There’s nothing to say that a woman can’t fight, but... Well, there are different expectations placed on women than on men.”

“Like what?” Fidget asked, climbing down to sit on the fence rail rather than standing on it.

Rain smiled at Arvel and gave him a nod, and Arvel called the men to attention to resume their training. While they returned to their work, Rain walked over to the fence beside Fidget and said, “It has much to do with child-rearing. A man can help make a child and then go off to hunt or fight in war, without endangering the child. A woman, however, has a duty to protect her child when she’s in a delicate state.”

“A delicate state?” Fidget asked, her head tilting in confusion.

“With child,” Rain clarified, holding her hands out as if to illustrate rubbing a pregnant belly, “Even after her child is born, she has a duty to nurture them and raise them. A woman must choose between being a soldier or being a mother.”

“That’s dumb,” said Fidget, kicking her legs off the edge of the fence, “Tie a shield over belly and go fight.”

“It’s not dumb at all,” Rain replied, “It’s careless for a woman to endanger her child like that!”

“Nuh-uh,” Fidget said, looking up at Rain, “Maybe fighting is dangerous for baby... but if all hands don’t fight, then all of the babies are in danger.”

All at once, a memory struck Rain’s mind of a conversation she’d had with Fidget.

“I know that you have a very different perspective,” Rain said quietly, “but for humans, knights are noble protectors of our homes.”

“Knights destroy goblin dens,” Fidget said, “Knights kill goblins that didn’t hurt anyone.”

Rain gave Fidget a small smile and said, “Well, then we’ll make sure that all hands at Elediah’s Trail are able to fight, in one way or another.”