15th of Firstleaf, third month of 984:

‘Where did my tactics go wrong?’ Questioned High Commander Hilge. The Seeder strike had completely decimated the enemy baronies’ troops; the enemy levies had been rooted in place and would surrender once the resistance pockets were dealt with; he had managed to reposition hundreds of troops from the encirclement to destroy the small groups of soldiers that had, instead of running away, tried to fight against them. All had gone wrong.

The new line of defence had been pierced through and had been unable to persecute the Ashen’s army, as they had been forced to engage the rest of the second frontline’s western troops. That had allowed the surprise attacks in the rearguard of the main army of the Countess of the Snowfall Household, enabling them to penetrate and find refuge in the belly of their liege’s last troops.

‘No matter, four hundred are not going to make a difference.’ Tried to psyche himself, as he saw that cursed white sword reap yet another soldier’s life. ‘In the long run.’ Corrected himself.

A messenger arriving near him, they tried to squeeze between their breaths, “Prepare for a…cavalry charge! Orders from the Queen!...Her Majesty has sended ours too!”

“A what now? From where?!” Following the now pale visage of the messenger, he turned towards the forest on the far west of the beach.

………….

It had always loved horses. To fly in the sky was beyond mere sapients but, to fly on the earth? That was a feeling one could achieve. To feel the energy of a beast as it bestows upon you the honour of marching along its side, to soar upon the green, white or yellow great plains of the known world. It always felt alive when it was on top of a horse.

Its hooves pounding the ground, the green and powerful light of its eyes scanning the way, the hard and smooth texture of both armour and bones giving it a place to fix itself in place. It was sure it had been born for this very moment.

“Onward, siblings!! Let our spears show our skill and determination!!” Screamed Johan, the captain of the undead cavalry brigade. Five hundred horsemen or, rather, skeletons, charged out of their hiding place beneath the green leaves under its command. Behind them, another half a thousand skeletons, trying their best to not lose too much ground. Armed with two-handed weapons, they were the ones who would crush the encirclement. Behind these, at a brisk pace, the rest of the army, leaving at regular points companies to install defensive positions in case of a counterattack.

Johan signalled to its second in command and parted its force in two. Two and a half hundred to the east and the other half to the west, they left the ‘breaker’ force in the middle while they took on the flanks.

Lantraz’s plan had been simple. The cavalry would crush and push back the sides of the encirclement, counter encircling the most western troops. Second, the ‘breaker’ troops would quickly eliminate them and open a tunnel towards the forest for the meat bags to retreat while the rest of the army would protect the retreating troops.

It hinged on the amount of surprise they could generate and use and, so far, it was working, for only a small northern part of the army was reacting and rushing towards the western side, the enemy response slowing down by the contradictory orders commanders and high commanders were making. On the far east, a cavalry unit was starting to mobilise.

Johan, smiling, screamed its order, “Charge!!” Its fellow riders upping up the speed until they appeared to be running for their lives, they lowered their spears.

As they neared their collision point, the enemy soldiers started to panic. For, when they heard the cavalry charge and turned to look behind, it was far too late to relocate their spear wall. They could only watch, some only hear, in horror as the undead knights crashed onto their behind, crushing dozens with their horses and skewering hundreds with their spears.

Johan, having lost its spear in one unlucky meatbag, unsheathed its sword and started slashing. The sound of the ‘breakers’ making contact and the subsequent dozens of pained screams were music to its metaphorical ears.

………….

“Undeads?! Is this the day the North has been forsaken by its Gods?!” Mourned high Commander Kraus, as it watched the undead almost break them free and his men start to fall into chaos.

“They are mine.” Merely said Noct as he undressed himself of his broken armour.

Turning so fast he almost reopened his stab wound, making him double in pain, he carried his hand to his sword.

“My stimate Lady Maliz, I will now be in command of your army. If you could make it official with your own words….” Asked nonchalantly Noct, the dark edge in his words letting them perceive the veiled threat.

“You saved my life to now demand my position?!” Snapped Maliz.

“If I let you continue as our de facto Leader, what would your next orders be? Fight against the undead? My army has brought us an escape route in a silver plate, and I am not going to let your foolish faith doom our last opportunity to save both our lives and the North. You can either lead us towards victory or bestow me the right to rule these troops.”

Maliz bit her lip as she saw Noct’s hand return to the pommel of his sword. Out of knights, alone with an injured Kraus and what he spoke was spot on. They were against the islands. If they lost she would have to either bend the knee to the False Queen and be executed by the empire later, or face capture and its horrors. ‘My faith, or both my ideals and my life…..Well, I was never a pious woman.’

Swallowing her pride, she started, “Regent Noct of….”

Kraus, unsheathing his sword, lunged towards Noct. The latter sidestepped the enraged strike and, as he unsheathed his sword, cut Kraus’ sword in two by the hilt. Grabbing him by the shoulders, Noct raised him and growled.

“Is this the extent of your loyalty, bastard? Your pride before the life of your Lady whom you are sworn to protect?! Your hubris before tens of thousands of fellow country men?!” A darker edge coming to his voice, “If we lose here, the whole North burns!! Half the Empire has wanted to see the North fall for two hundred years now!! Too big and too rich for its own, they say!!” Violently shaking him now, Noct continued. “How many people would have to die before you shit the stick you have inserted so far up your ass that’s making you be so upright?! If you see two evils, you grit your teeth and pick the lesser one!! Not choosing one means we all die!” Throwing him to the ground, he turned towards the even paler Maliz.

“...of the Ashen Household, I bestow upon you, by the powers granted to be by my birthright, the position of Overseer!”

Nodding, Noct turned towards Kraus, “Now, sound up the word to all of your men, we are retreating.” After saying this, Noct rushed towards the east, sword in hand.

After a few seconds, Kraus got up and, gritting his teeth, went to inform his captains of the retreat and of their new uncomfortable ally.

…………….

“Crush them!!” Screamed Lantraz as its great mace crushed another head. Captain of the ‘breakers’, he was the head of the charge. ‘Pardon me, Zun, for I should not hate.’. Parrying another spear with its tower shield, it smashed the shield towards the attacker, making him fall to the ground, soon to be cutted down by its fellow skeletons. ‘Forgive me, Zun, for I should not act as my fury demands of me.’. Another strike of his great mace found its aim true, shattering a shoulder. Its armoured left foot stomping and crushing on his head, Lantraz pressed on. ‘May you have mercy on these men, for they are not the sinners. May you have mercy upon me too, for I will walk with this new weight in my conscience nor will I forgive myself for committing the injustice I desire to eradicate. But I am only a sapient, I also hate, I also get angry, and I know it is not right but, today, I have not the strength to fight against these impulses as, today, they feel too right to deny.’

Piercing the last line of men, it found itself face to face with the holder of that shining sword, High Commander Andras.

“Widen the path!!” Ordered Lantraz as it turned against the last soldiers. Its feet dug into some of the countless bodies that carpeted the west side of the third frontline. Not wanting to see one of the persons that had betrayed its lord, it focused in its unholy job, grim enjoyment as the carpet grew.

………….

Johan sounded the Horn of Retreat, as their ‘Liege’ troops had started to retreat after crushing the western troops. Its sword parrying and stabbing, he started to turn its horse towards the forest. Keeping an eye on the incoming cavalry charge, it calculated the risks of letting them impact.

“To me, siblings, to me!!” Rerouting its horse towards the new menace, it started a charge anew. Knowing its right hand would be able to use its share of cavalry to support the retreating troops, it started to smile. Its hands had stopped their trembling caused by fear, it had faced death and it had killed its way out.

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The enemy cavalry, while their morale was low as they were facing monstrosities, raised their spears.

Johan knew it had not to look behind to reassure itself. It only had to listen to the symphony of the gallop of the horses. ‘Spears against swords….Meat bags always need handicaps.’ Meditated while shaking its head, tried to lighten up its mood. It did not regret today, even if it died. It was fighting for something that truly mattered to it, a home for its siblings and its Lord and creator, and it was starting to understand the crap that Lantraz said about honour, bravery and justice. Johan was fighting for something they knew they deserved, and was surprised at the amount of courage that sole reason was granting to it.

Now, nearby enough to see the fear in their eyes, Johan raised its shield and levelled its sword as if it was a spear and nudged its horse for it to go even faster. Three hundred meat bags against a hundred and ninety skeleton raiders, it was not even a contest. The breathing horses panicked at mere metres of their undead kin and caused chaos in the raiders, who lost their balance and could not receive the enemy charge as they had intended.

Swords stabbed, shields bashed, swords slashed, spears missed, humans fell, alive, dead or halfway there, only to be crushed by the horses. Johan’s brigade tore them apart with almost no losses. Once a mere thirty meatbags managed to retreat, Johan gave the order to rout towards the forest, fearing the enemy mages.

……………………….

Noct slashed another man in half as he ordered the retreat in the far east. Being one of the soldiers who had been charged with the duty of protecting their routing armies, they stood his ground as they slowly backtracked, Noct fought outside of the formation, baiting the enemy and lessening the pressure on the weakened line. Now without armour, he focused on sword fighting and not on just swinging his longsword.

Sliding an attacker’s sword, he twisted his wrist and severed the offender's neck. Sidestepping two spears, he wielded his shadow to stop a warhammer, pulling the soldier forward and cracking his skull from a punch. A mace impacting against his left leg, his will and magic carried him above the pain and his sword onto their neck. Redoubling his concentration, he continued the brawl.

An overhead slash that parted an enemy in two, a shadow hand that grabbed another’s head and smashed it onto the ground, a sidestep quickly followed by a kick that broke the knee of other, a green energy bolt that corroded an elf; the flow of the combat carried him forward, making him disregard his mission if not for the growing hate of the enemy, who started to focus solely onto him.

Surrounded by enemies, his dance accelerated. Now leveraging the several strikes that simultaneously tried to find him, he turned, ducked and dodged, making those strikes find their aim either onto companions or into the air. Also using his enemies’ shadows to create blindspots and black smoke screens, he quickly took the reins of the battle.

After almost an hour, his opponents started to dwindle after seeing their friends fall against that monster, Noct soon found himself in a clearing full of bodies, friends and foes alike.

The situation coming to a standstill between him and the Queen’s soldiers, a volley of bolts soon fell from the sky, shooted by the reinforcing crossbowmen. Raising his sword, he started to swat the bolts who came too close to comfort while he used his shadows to stop the ones his sword couldn’t have reached in time. After fifteen seconds the volley stopped.

Noct’s gaze falling on the soldiers, the ones in direct eyesight stepped backwards, illogical fear overpowering them. Noct looked back, realising his army had almost retreated. That gaze reinforced the morale of the nearby soldiers, who mistook that for fear. Before their charge could reach him, Noct submerged himself in his own shadow, reappearing in the backline of the army yet again and joining the fight.

Him rejoining was a mistake, for his body, mind and mana reserves were too deprived of resources and energy to fight on. His left leg, its knee shattered and so injured that it should have not been able to move, let alone work properly, failed him in front of an enemy soldier. Tripping, his swing went off the intended mark and left him open for a stab. A stab that never arrived, as the soldier’s chest was perforated by a clawed hand.

Eve, pushing the now enemy corpse aside, grabbed Noct’s hand with its left hand, the clean one,and raised him towards it to let him grab onto it.

“Do you always have to be saved, Noct?”

“Can’t….you arrive…earlier?” Retorted Noct

Not daring to joke further, Eve carried him towards the retreating army.

………………………..

“Buahahaha!” Laughed hysterically Ilkom, who wouldn’t have believed what the messenger was telling them if he had not seen it too.

“You are informing me you have allowed almost four thousand troops to retreat after suffering heavy losses from an incapacitated, demoralised and surrounded enemy?” Queen Larra was not as happy as her ally and the idea of stabbing the High Commander in front of her was circling her mind non stop.

“Stop, stop, I am dying!” Interrupted, again, Ilkom. “Let me get this straight, let me! So, a bastard who is a regent of a baron, not even a landed noble, saw right through your carefully planned ambush, carried his almost intact army full of newbies, single handedly piercing a spear wall after stopping a volley of enchanted bolts, the soldiers he had rallied stopping the veteran four hundred soldiers from following them, and, after breaking in the encirclement, he called upon an army of undead and got them all out, after massacring one of our cavalry brigades and personally scaring your soldiers so much they stopped the chase?” After a few seconds of shameful silence from the kneeling High Commander, Ilkos started to bellow in laughter.

“If this is a joke it is too far-fetched!!” After almost falling from his chair, he calmed down a bit, and continued, “Are you sure he is not Karax Himself? The balls on that man! I would court him myself if we weren’t enemies! Are you sure he is not bribable?!”

“It is no laughing matter!! Now we will have to worry about an ambush at every step of the way, together with the possibility of reinforcements!!” Flared up Queen Larra.

“Lass, if you think I am laughing out of enjoyment you are a fool. I find this matter funny because it is so extremely and completely insane I can only laugh. With a difference in troops of one to eight, they took enough time to kill that kid’s army to allow them to be rescued. And they weren’t even that many! The proportion was one to four to our advantage!” The cup in Ilkos hand cracked under pressure, his smirk had turned into an angry one. “You are completely right, they are going to be a pain in our backs, and it is your responsibility.”

“That I cannot excuse myself from.” Agreed Larra.

The High Commander starting to pale, he bowed his head down even more.

“Well, at least we are still forty thousand strong. Their numbers are a drop compared to us.” Tried to placate the Queen.

“That I can agree on. And we got a lot of prisoners. My army will be happy with them, that I can assure you.”

Nodding, understanding the request he was making of her, she accepted. “I will let them in your care; get as much information as you are able to.”

“Aye, aye.” Waved his arm Ilkom, as he got up. “I will get them to talk, do not worry.”

Once he got out of the tent, Larra sighed and relaxed.

“What happened, High Commander Hilge, for you to be overpowered this way?”

Now calmer, he answered, “The countess troops fought fiercely, and their High Commander was skilled. Not once did they fall to panic. They maintained the formation and I let them, I wanted as little casualties as I could get away with. I guess that was what betrayed me in the end. Our spear walls were useless when that Demon’s army struck our behinds. That thing was the one who destroyed my soldiers, he, he isn’t human. The rest is as you saw, the necromancer brought an army and crushed us. My orders couldn’t reach the demoralised army. I failed my duty.”

“I see.” Resting a hand in his shoulder, she pardoned, “Do not fret, you still halved their army. They will not be too much trouble. Still, you have failed me. You will be temporarily relieved of your duties, Hilge. If you are not an outstanding Commander, prove to be a good soldier.”

Hailing, happy of not having lost his head, Hilge nodded and left the tent.

Once alone, Larra sat again on her chair. ‘Twenty five thousand dead men. Did I really order the execution of so many northernmen?....What does Elenia think of me now?....No matter, regret will not turn back time. I must win to assure their sacrifice wasn’t in vain. A golden era will come for us.’. Looking at one of the walls of the tent, she feared to think about how many friends she had lost today.

……………….

Soral tiredly walked towards her chambers after the third discussion with Sorak about the necessity of celebrating her Coming of Age. She did not care nor would she bend. ‘And I had gotten my hopes up for a decent birthday celebration….’ Her best friend had gone to war against both Soral’s and her father's wishes and, while she had been happy with the surprise party organised by Moonhide, Sorak, Mulia and Gemebs, she had not been able to enjoy it.

Looking at a nearby window, the dozens of lights formed a constellation in the city itself. Snow had stopped being the eternal carpet that soothed the land and the farms had started the laborious work of setting up the first cold resistant plantations. ‘Let’s hope the Albestus’ method does work….’.

Entering her room, she dived on top of the bed. Turning to look at the ceiling, memories of her last birthday resurfaced.

“Don’t run in the hallways!” Her father said as he ran behind her to stop her, fearful of Soral falling. Her mother, on the other hand, was just warmly smiling on the chair as she looked fondly upon the two fools.

Shaking her head, she sat instead. Lazily looking around, she detected a strange shine in one of her bookshelves before sleep bested her. Fearing for another plot, she got up and rushed towards the shelf. ‘An illusion spell?’ Quickly casting a dispel spell, she removed the items.

A rapier together with a small dagger, crafted from a grey and seemingly ordinary metal, with colours akin to the ash that remains after a bonfire, were grabbed by her shaking hands. They were a perfect match; the right balance together with a lightness showed their impeccable craftsmanship. A small note was also attached to the hilt of the rapier.

“To Soral, I wish you a happy Coming of Age ceremony, even if you are reading this the day after. May you never stop standing proudly and fighting for what you do deserve.

It’s late and brazen of me but, happy birthday. Allow me to dream that your next birthdays will erase the black spots that were your lasts under my care, even if it's a vain hope.

Gods be with you, Soral of the Ashen Household, Baroness of Alpin. Preserve the embers of your sense of justice for they are the fire of true loyalty. Not that that warning is needed, for the fire of your convictions burns brighter than a brazier. I know I leave our family’s heirloom in good hands, if a bit bruised after my care. The light of the Sun be upon you, sister.”

“Jah, couldn’t you have given it to me in person, you, failure of a brother.” The small note, after getting crumpled and a bit wet, was thrown aside.

……………………