If I didn’t hate mages enough already, I definitely hated them now.

As soon as the masked mage screamed the order, her cronies surged out of the tall grass. Most of them engaged what remained of our escort at close range; a few began flinging magic from a distance. McFarlane, to her credit, recovered quickly. “Get to your feet! Rear guard, move into the grass and counterattack! Front guard, form a line around the prison transport!”. The six men and women who had rode on the rear carriage broke formation and began attacking our ambushers at will. The mages up front scrambled over to where we were.

It was a bloody melee outside our cage. I could barely make sense of the chaos at first. As the battle intensified, however, I began to get my first real look at how mages did combat.

Those mages who engaged at close range used their long staves to attack, but every now and then, they tried to blast their opponents with bolts of energy launched from the tips. With spins and lunges, these mages demonstrated all the prowess of a properly trained frontline soldier. I was almost mesmerized by them, a carefully choreographed ballet of death taking place mere feet away. It’s so different from the way we Ishmarians fight, I thought. These mages are all so graceful in the way they fight.

The more I watched, the more the fight made sense to me. The mages twisted their bodies to try and line up their shots even as they spun to avoid being shot in return, all while batting at each other with their staves to throw their enemy off balance. Any error, no matter how small, could give the opponent the chance to end the battle. Other than the magic, they fight just like us. Deep down in my heart, something stirred. We’re more alike than I thought.

An explosion nearby rocked the cage. A fireball had gone off only a few feet away, rattling our prison and sending two mages spiraling through the air. They looked to be the attackers, as their robes were red and they had strange, animalistic masks that didn’t have equal proportions on both sides. I felt an eerie chill slide up my spine as one of them landed in front of the cage. There was a short, choking gurgle from behind the mask before the body lay still.

With the speed of a leaping gazelle, one of the ambushers landed in front of the cage. He pointed his staff at us and the tip began to flare with an intense heat as fire was pulled towards it. He means to roast us alive! I looked at Kuro, but he was just as frightened as me. Without his staff, he couldn’t do anything to save us.

The spell would’ve gone off had one of our guards not intervened. Rolling along the ground, he spun his staff upwards in a rising crescent swing. The attack threw the ambusher’s aim skyward, and his fireball flew up to explode harmlessly above. The two engaged in a quick, vicious exchange of high-speed blows with the ambusher slamming the guard against our cage. As he tried to aim his staff for the killing blow, however McFarlane’s man bashed his opponent in the head with a vicious horizontal swipe; the sound of the man’s neck snapping was audible even over the sound of battle. The ambusher crumpled to the ground as the guard ran off to assist his fellows.

I only thought of stopping him when he was too far away to grab. “Hey! Wait! Let us out and we’ll help you! Give us our weapons back!” But no one came. As the seconds became minutes, mages fell all around us and nobody came to let us out. Alverd grabbed hold of my wrist and draped his arm over me. “Princess, it isn’t safe. Stay back here and try not to draw attention to us.” I could feel my cheeks burning a bit as he pushed me against one of the cage’s corners to cover me with his body.

Sweet Mother Evros, is now really the time for me to be having these thoughts?

Thankfully any further inappropriate thoughts were stopped when two of McFarlane’s men stepped in front of our cage. Standing side by side, I was able to see very little of their faces as they were looking away from us, out into the grass. Four ambushers stalked out of the grass, their staves aimed at the two guards. Before my eyes, the two guards lifted their staves in two-handed grips and charged forward.

As they did, I saw a blade of translucent but seething light emerge from the tip of the guards’ staves, taking the form of thin, ornate blades. Suddenly the guards were wielding spears made of magical energy, not crude wooden sticks. The ambushers didn’t even have time to fall on their behinds before the first two were cut down. These must be the combat mages my berserker instructor told me about, I guessed.

These “combat mages” were some of the most unusual and dangerous of the foes our soldiers had engaged. As a general rule, mages were not suited to fighting a traditional soldier, much less our berserkers. But the Algrustrians had trained some of their number to excel at close range combat with their reinforced staves, fighting like warrior monks while retaining their magical powers. Now that I could see them in person, in action, I was awestruck. They were disciplined, skilled, and extremely deadly.

Now I know why we’ve never truly invaded Algustos. Our enemy is far stronger than I was ever led to believe. I gained a newfound, albeit reluctant, respect for the mages. The ones still crouched behind the carriage were taking out the ambushers with well-aimed lightning bolts and thrown icicles. I could see McFarlane, standing out in the open with not an ounce of worry, aiming her staff at an ambusher and firing a giant blue beam of light from the jewel embedded in its tip; the beam streaked off and slammed into the torso of her target, and he gave a very short shriek before the beam seared its way through one of his lungs, turning that shriek into a death rattle. He fell, still making that horrid noise.

Mage combat was so different from what I had expected. In Ishmar, combat was simple; we engaged our foes at point blank, with our weapons. Here, it was about thinking ahead of the enemy, taking aim, and using cover. Imagine what we could accomplish if we worked together, I thought bitterly. Instead we use what makes us different to justify war rather than advocate for coexistence.

My chain of thought was interrupted when Alverd lurched forward, slamming me against the cage corner and making me hit my head. “Hey! What are you doing? This isn’t the time or place for-” Then I saw the coating of ice along his shoulder pauldron, as well as the many tiny needles of ice still embedded in his cape. Had he not been shielding me, that spell might have hit me full force.

Alverd grunted, his face contorted in pain. Then he tried to smile at me. “Apologies. It isn’t my intention to be so brusque.” Another stray chuck of ice rebounded off one of the cage bars and fell to the floor of the cage. The damn thing was bigger than my fist. Alverd winced a bit, but he seemed okay; he had protected me once again.

“You don’t have to go to such lengths! I didn’t say you had to kill yourself to-” My admonishment was cut short when Kuro gave a yelp and flattened himself to the floor, covering his head with both hands.

A moment later, a bolt of magic energy struck the ground near our cage, rattling it. One of the ambushers sailed through the air, screaming, his robe engulfed in flame. Several of the defenders who had been dazed by the ambush were now falling back to the burning carriage to regroup, and they were throwing fireballs into the tall grass, igniting it to flush their attackers into the open. Several of the ambushers stumbled out of the grass, trying to flee the fire. They were immediately struck down by our escorts.

But they could only do so much. Our foes seemed legion; one by one, the mages taking cover were taken down by blasts of magic. I looked at Kuro, who was cowering next to me, and Alverd, who was now struggling with the lock on our cage. Outside, stepping back as she shot blasts of lightning from her staff, Captain McFarlane attempted to rally what remained of our escort. “Form up around the carriage! Flush and eliminate!” She leaned down to grab the collar of a guard who had fallen and started dragging him towards the downed vehicle.

After pulling the man to safety behind the carriage, she leaned out just enough to try and locate any targets. An ambusher appeared from the tall grass, springing up with his staff leveled at the carriage. A howling red blast of fire shot from the staff and slammed into the carriage, rocking it. The mages behind it had to brace it to prevent it from flipping. They can’t hide behind it forever. Sooner or later they’ll get flanked and then they’re done.

The captain peered out from behind the carriage, took a second, and breathed out a cold mist. With a wave of her hand, the mist swirled into solid form, conjuring a lance of ice in her grip. Waiting for a moment, she impaled the ambusher who had struck the carriage when he stood up to attack again. The icicle went into his torso with no resistance, and his spell, a bolt of lightning, shot up into the sky harmlessly. She leaned back behind cover just in time to avoid a fireball, swearing under her breath.

“Hey!” I called out to her. When she looked back at me, I pointed at the ground, where our weapons were lying. “Throw us our weapons! We can help you. Get us out of here!” McFarlane grimaced, but when a stray lightning bolt shot past her face, she reached down, grabbed our weapons, and ran to the cage. While she fiddled with the lock, Alverd pulled the Sword of Evros from its scabbard, its flawless blade pulling free with a metallic ring.

She threw her hands down angrily. “Ach! It’s jammed!”

“Allow me to assist with that.” Alverd said calmly as he swung the Sword at the lock. With the ease of a hot knife through butter, the sword cleaved through the lock and part of the bars. McFarlane’s mouth fell open.

“Is that…” Then she shook her head. “Forget it. Make yourselves useful. Don’t make me regret this.” She picked up her staff, and a burning scythe-like blade burst into being at its tip before she ran off.

With a single swipe, Alverd severed the cuffs on Kuro’s wrists, then removed mine in the same fashion. He handed Kuro his staff, and I grabbed my maul, the familiar weight of the dragon tooth metal feeling most reassuring in my hand. Together, the three of us jumped out of the cage. I winced as I hit the ground, as the impact jarred my leg and sent a fresh jolt of pain searing through my side. Can’t worry about that now, I thought.

As soon as he hit the ground, Alverd streaked off toward the burning carriage. The mages there had been surrounded and were being overrun by our assailants. The bastards had grown overconfident. A group of them, four in number, were pushing towards the carriage, smashing its remains with a barrage of magic. They didn’t see Alverd coming at all. He charged into their flank and started carving them up with the Sword of Evros. Even if they had been wearing armor it wouldn’t have saved them from the might of Evros; the keen, unnaturally sharp edge of the true dragon tooth metal would have ripped through it like cloth.

Kuro, on the other hand, took cover by the other carriage and conjured a fireball by…pulling fire from his own chest. Mother Evros, no matter how many times I see that, it never ceases to frighten and amaze me. The ball of fire in his left hand swelled as Kuro began to mutter something under his breath. I realized that he was uttering an incantation. I saw his intended target, an ambusher who had isolated himself and was about to use his own incantation to destroy the fortification that the other mages were still using. I only caught the last of Kuro’s words…

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“…let ash be all that remains!”

Kuro flung the fireball at the ambusher. The ball smashed into the man’s side, and an instant later, exploded with ridiculous force, incinerating him in the space of a millisecond. A shockwave of force threatened to knock me from my feet, flattening the tall grass and exposing a number of other ambushers who were quickly floored by the explosion. However, Kuro’s celebration was cut short, as he leaned on the carriage for support as he caught his breath.

I thought as much. As destructive as Kuro was, he had no staying power whatsoever. Sure, I’d seen Kuro do things that boggled the mind. He’d frozen a greater dragon, conjured a tornado, and batted aside dragonfire like it was nothing. But the man had absolutely no ability to pace himself. You couldn’t count on someone who got winded after his first contribution in battle.

I tightened my grip on my maul, breathing out heavily. My maul was made of pure dragon tooth metal, designed to destroy armor through blunt force, with a long grip that allowed me to wield it with two hands for extra power. I took a second breath, let it out, feeling the familiar haze in my mind grow thicker. I took one last breath, slow, letting it fill up my lungs, preparing for what was to come.

As my lungs began to fill, I reached deep within and called forth a memory. The memory was crisp, clear, untarnished by age, and played out perfectly in my mind. In it, my late brother Marcus was taunting me, back in the throne room of the Castle of Brimstone. His words seared into me like flaming arrows, and as I recalled them, something began to boil. My blood became like fire, and I could sense my own heart beating faster and faster.

“You can’t change being the runt of the litter.” I could see the sneer as clear as if it had been yesterday and hear the mockery in his voice with perfect clarity. “You’ll never amount to anything. I wouldn’t even consider you useful enough to lick my boots. You’re a whelp and you will always fight for my table scraps like the rest of the dogs you call your siblings.” His words became laughter, and his features began to contort as the haze in my head sharpened into focus.

The sound of Marcus’s cackling laughter was the last straw I needed. Something inside me snapped. Remember what your teacher said. It’s not about letting the rage control you. YOU control IT. I almost envisioned myself wrestling a wild animal, not trying to kill it but to confine it, to make it submit. Your rage is a tool, a weapon, and it is meant to be wielded. I felt my knuckles crack as my fingers tightened around the handle of my maul. With one last grunt, I seized the anger like I was grabbing a person by the neck.

Your rage is akin to a bursting dam. You don’t fight the river. You don’t turn the river. You don’t swim against the river. Direct the river where it needs to go and watch it sweep your enemy away. The creeds of the berserker echoed in my mind, words I had repeated to my instructors so many times that I could never hope to forget them. I felt my body tense as every muscle prepared to direct my rage where I wanted it to go.

When I opened my eyes, time appeared to crawl around me. Bolts of lightning and fireballs were suspended in the air, transfixed in flight. This moment, however, was temporary. The moment would only last a heartbeat, and then time would resume; the only difference would be that I would move at a speed that these foolish mages could only pray they could follow, and that their pathetic attempts to wound me would only serve to enrage me further. The pain in my leg faded away, leaving me with a somewhat contradictory sense of peace. It’s always so odd to know that this is what comes before the rage takes over, I mused to myself. It’s like the calm right before the storm.

Then I became the storm, and struck with the fury of one.

The first man to feel my wrath lay off to my right. I surged up to him and swung my maul one-handed at his skull. He didn’t even see me until I was right on top of him. The man didn’t have time to scream before my maul smashed his skull like a clay urn. He crumpled to the ground, his staff tumbling from his hands. Even as his body was in mid-fall I was already angling to move towards my next enemy. Another mage, less than ten feet away, a ball of energy forming around the tip of her staff, became the focus of my attention.

My second victim saw my kill and aimed her staff at me. She screamed in fury and a blast of light emerged from the tip of her staff. I ran toward her, and the blast of light turned into a miniature fireball. The fireball glanced off my thigh, but I didn’t even register the pain. Instead, I opened my mouth and let out a feral roar. The woman fell back, tripped, and tried to aim her staff at me again, but I simply leaped into the air and brought my maul down on her head, same as I did the first man. She didn’t scream either, not that I’d register it in the throes of my trance.

Something struck me, hard, in the back at that point. There was a muffled sound like a gust of wind rushing through a tunnel. An explosion? I turned in the direction of the attack to see the leader, Bloodface, her staff pointed at me. She twirled the staff, and started speaking the words of an incantation. I tried to move, but found that I couldn’t move my leg; I looked down to see that blood was streaming from an open wound. The injury I had sustained prior had turned my fractured leg into a full-blown broken bone.

You idiot, you pushed too hard. You know better than this. You can’t squeeze blood from a stone. Only a fool tries to ignore their own limit. One of the only disadvantages of berserking was that while one could ignore pain, it also meant you ignored what was wrong with your body. Pain was a natural indicator that your body was sustaining damage. I cursed myself for forgetting such a basic lesson. It was one of the first things my instructor had drilled into me during my days in berserker training.

Bloodface aimed the staff at me. Her incantation complete, a golden ball of light blazed to life at the tip of her staff. Over the noise, she screamed.

“It is unfortunate that this must play out this way, but we will make our intention clear! Death to Ishmar! Glory to Algrustos! Down with the Witch-Que-“

And then a golden bolt of lightning slammed into Bloodface’s torso. It knocked the crazy spellslinger off her feet and her staff out of her hands. I looked behind me, and saw Kuro, still holding onto the carriage, his staff held out before him, still struggling to catch his breath. He gave me a sarcastic salute and fell to the ground, wheezing. I couldn’t stop myself from smirking, satisfied that he couldn’t see me doing it. Like I said. Kind of a bastard, but not all that bad.

Alverd ran over to where Bloodface lay on the ground, gasping for breath. He hauled her up, and her mask fell away, revealing a haggard looking woman with heavy bags under her eyes. Her brown hair was a mess, and had mud and twigs floating around in it. I guessed that she must have been waiting for days to prepare this ambush. When McFarlane came over to see her, Bloodface laughed eerily.

“You think this changes anything?” Bloodface wheezed. “So I failed. There will be others. No one in this country will sit idly by while the lizard people lie vulnerable. They have wronged us, and now is the time to settle the score. We will not be silent. If the Witch-Queen will not move, then she must be made to see!” Bloodface cackled again, though it soon devolved into a hacking cough.

McFarlane hit Bloodface, hard. “You know not what you speak, rabble-rouser! The Witch-Queen will do what she decides is best for us. If she decides that the Ishmarians can kill themselves without our involvement, then that is her will. I’m perfectly willing to wait until Ishmar destroys itself. But then, a traitor like you wouldn’t know the first thing about patience, now would you?”

Bloodface laughed. “You’re just a bitch, an attack dog on the Prime Minister’s leash. Who’s the real traitor? And there will be more of me, bitch. Just wait and see.” Suddenly, Bloodface’s hands lit up, and fire appeared in them.

McFarlane leapt back. Alverd pushed Bloodface away, but it proved to be unnecessary. Instead of turning the flame on us, she simply stood there, and the flame spread from her hands to the rest of her body. Within moments, her entire body was ablaze. The only thing left was her laughter, and that soon faded as well, leaving only the crackling of the fire.

McFarlane spat on the ground, cursing to herself. She called out for her troops to fall in. Of the fourteen men and women who had been assigned to protect us, only six remained, herself included. She ordered the five remaining mages to take the bodies of their fallen comrades and load them into the cage and remaining carriage, so that they could be given a proper burial in the capital.

I have to give her credit. Even after a battle like that, she still knows what needs to be done. And she has enough compassion to show her own men, at least. Despite the circumstances, despite being a career soldier, she still cared about her troops, even the deceased ones, enough to go to such lengths. I half-expected her to throw me, Alverd and Kuro back in the cage and push on, but instead, she asked us to help look out for further ambushes on the way to the capital. That surprised me, but it was a welcome change.

One of her men saw to my leg. “It’s broken. Bleeding is probably from the bone slicing it open from the inside.” I winced at his description of the injury. He looked at me incredulously. “You’re grossed out by that? I thought you berserkers were all made of iron or something.” I glared at him.

“I’m human like anyone else, jerk. You cut me, I bleed. Just takes me longer to feel it than you would.”

He smirked at me. “True enough.”

The mage whispered arcane words and passed his hand over my leg, and a tingly sensation overrode the pain; within moments, the pain subsided and I could walk perfectly. The wound had sealed and the blood was easily wiped away.

“Um,” I stammered. He looked at me quizzically. I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Thanks. For the healing.”

He shrugged. “I mean, I’d probably be dead if you and your buddies hadn’t gone in and helped us out. So call it even, princess. Not saying I’m ready to bury the hatchet, but you saved our lives and that’s good enough for me, right now.”

I tilted my head. “I’m surprised you’re okay with it.” He shrugged again, letting out a heavy sigh.

“Not everybody is a hardliner like the Captain. I’m out here doing my job. Killing may be part of it, but it’s not something I enjoy. And believe it or not, not everyone in Algrustos thinks we should march straight to Ishmar and turn it into a smoking crater.” He patted me on the leg where the wound had been. “I’d keep the weight off it for a while. Give it a day or two and you’ll be walking just fine.”

As he stood up, he surveyed the area. Our battle had gouged deep wounds in the ground, the bodies of fallen mages were strewn everywhere, and the tall grass was still on fire. “If the Captain says you’re talking about peace, then I say let you speak to the Witch-Queen. People can demand war all they want, at the end of the day it’s the soldiers who have to fight it, and see stuff like this.” He looked me straight in the eye, and I could see weariness in them. “If you can help stop that, what’s the harm in trying?”

Somehow, despite all of our differences, I couldn’t help but agree. “I’ll do my best.” He nodded at me before walking away to tend to his comrades. “That’s all one can do sometimes.”

It took less than ten minutes to load up all of the corpses of McFarlane’s fallen escorts. It felt disrespectful to pack five of them in the cage, because we had to stack them like firewood to fit. McFarlane’s eyes were still filled with sorrow. After Kuro and I closed the door on the cage, she came over to the two of us and lowered her head.

“Peace to you, brothers and sisters. I will see you home at the very least.” She walked back to the head of the convoy, her expression grim. We decided not to say anything. Sometimes there really just isn’t anything that can be said. Better to just say nothing at that point.

Another half day’s march, and the front gate of Ethenia finally appeared before us. The gate guards were initially quite suspicious, but as soon as Captain McFarlane stepped forward to vouch for us, they stepped back and opened the gate. McFarlane spoke to us one last time as the guards called over reinforcements to handle the carriage and cage full of bodies.

“You’ve done a great deal more for me than I expected, Princess. I don’t know if what you wish to say to our Witch-Queen will be received well, but I hope it goes well, at the very least.”

I nodded. “Thank you, Captain. I want to prove to your ruler that there doesn’t have to be war between us.”

Alverd smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. “The Princess is very sincere. Hopefully the Witch-Queen will see that.” McFarlane scoffed just as the guards emerged from the palace to escort us. “Well, here’s hoping then, eh?” With a nod, the two new guards turned around and marched up the street at a brisk pace. We were taken through busy streets and crowded squares straight to the Ivory Palace, so called for the absolute white gleam of its parapets and walls.

McFarlane brought us all the way to the door of the throne room. She told us that this was as far as she would go; she had reports to file and troops to bury. My heart went out to her, but I had an important task of my own to perform. This was it. Beyond the door was the Witch-Queen. The woman I had to convince to ally with me. I had no idea who she was, what her beliefs were or how she would react. If there was ever a time to take a leap of faith, it was now.

The guards opened the door, and after a moment’s hesitation, I stepped through, into the Ivory Court.