“Note: claims that people are stronger together have yet to be successfully proven. Attempts to stitch multiple soldiers into a single unit have failed to produce anything except a corpse.”

– Extract from the journal of Dread Emperor Malignant II

----------------------------------------

Finishing my evening prayers, my heart sank as I prepared to leave my tent. We had just finished making camp, but I could already hear the familiar footsteps of somebody approaching from outside. The swamp was unbearably humid. Insects were everywhere, the food kept rotting, and it was impossible to keep anything clean.

It would have been nice if I could solve everything. Unfortunately, there was only so much of me to go around. Between roadworks, dealing with swamp monsters, weather, and decay, I had to prioritize. I spent most of my time each day reshaping terrain, so that cavalry could be safely marched across the deepest and most direct parts of the bog.

In addition to that, I needed to obscure both light and smoke from fires to help hide our position from any potential enemy scouts. It took a ghost a day to keep an entire army’s movements hidden, and although I sorely wanted to use them for almost anything else, I understood the need.

I also wanted to try to do something about the weather. When I proposed the idea, I was gently informed that nobody wanted a repeat of Dread Empress Sinistra I.

They didn’t appreciate me suggesting that it would only be a small wasteland at worst. I swear my humour went unappreciated sometimes.

The other problems were left to everybody else.

Doing nothing but that was dull and exhausting. It left me with little energy for anything else. Klaus had asked me if I was able to expand the watchtower network along the new road. I had given it a genuine try. It had only taken me a couple of failures before realizing that without much more time to work on it, creating wholesale buildings on demand was beyond me. Not if I didn’t want them to collapse from all the other related architectural problems that I didn’t immediately know how to solve.

It was a pity that we were working on such a tight schedule, else I probably could have figured it out.

Watchtowers weren’t as good for communication as widespread use of scrying would be, but it would have been a good temporary measure. The system was already in use by the Lycaonese, so it didn’t surprise me when I was asked if I could add to it.

Only one more day in the deeper part of this damn bog.

Once we were on drier land again, I’d be able to focus more on my own personal convenience.

We were fast approaching Brus. It had been a while since I had agreed to work with Cordelia Hasenbach. Ever since then, I had needed to grow accustomed to my sudden change in circumstances. In my opinion, heroes and villains that were publicly known in Calernia were revered far too much. They had been a part of Bet’s culture, but without the religious connotations they had here. My interactions with people who weren’t in a position of authority were off-putting. They treated me as if I was a holy relic rather than a person.

The only exception to that were the soldiers. It was difficult to figure out where I stood with them. Some seemed to view me with a low level of contempt. I wasn’t sure what they had against me, but clearly there was something. Others viewed me with reverence, and a few with pity. Despite that, all were appreciative of my contributions to the campaign. Their feelings about me were a knot that would take me longer than I cared to untangle, so I just left it alone.

Which was how I ended up wet and mostly miserable with not much in the way of friends, just waiting for this journey to end.

Before we had set off, reports on the investigation of Roland’s whereabouts had started to come in. Or rather, reports on where he wasn’t. No news on his location had been found so far, although that didn’t surprise me. There had only been time to start gathering information from the northernmost Principalities. Not knowing where he was had turned into a constant worry on the edge of my mind.

A shadow crossed my tent. I turned around as the covers were opened and came face to face with someone who was growing on me more than I cared to admit.

“Taylor, you’re needed at command!” Yvette squeaked out, her puffed out rosy cheeks making her look like a chipmunk as she did.

Great.

Yvette had been assigned to me as an assistant by Cordelia. She was a kid. I guessed that she was maybe thirteen years old, with shoulder-length blonde hair and tanned skin. She came up just underneath my chest and wore a leather jerkin and trousers that were dyed an emerald green.

Doing my best to hide my foul mood, I climbed to my feet and made my way outside.

The air outside was thick enough that I could drink it. We were camped on one of the few bits of land that stuck out of the murky waters. Despite this, I still had to spend over half an hour making the place inhabitable.

The croaking of frogs and bird call drowned out all other noise. It made hearing Yvette difficult.

“Can I just say again that it’s such an honour to be able to work with you and I won’t let you down. I promise, I promise, I promise!” Her voice rose in pitch as she spoke. By the end of it, she was vibrating in place. She gave the same speech at least three times a day. I hadn’t managed to curtail it.

She had a serious case of hero worship. I was concerned it might be terminal.

“So, what have you learned today?” I asked.

Anything to change the topic.

“You want to know how my reading is going? Oh, no! Oh, no. I’m so, so, sorry! I haven’t continued from where I left off last time but I’ll do my best to catch up the moment I can. Did I tell you about how I came to be in Rhenia? You see, we moved to Rhenia from Brabant two years ago, but then my family were killed in a Ratling raid. When they tried to kill me I panicked and set everything on fire and that’s how I learned I had the gift and I am sorry am I talking too much?” She rattled out, bouncing around on the soles of her feet.

Yvette was a bit of an airhead, and her mind seemed to jump from topic to topic like a kitten playing with yarn. Despite that, she was a good kid. Although, the sheer joy she derived from being able to assist me was both flattering and uncomfortable.

The girl had the gift for sorcery. I suspected that she had been put in my care as an apprentice of sorts, which made everything more complicated. The people in charge knew that I wasn’t actually a wizard, but that hadn’t stopped them from assigning her to me.

All the actual wizards were allegedly too busy to care for her.

I was going to have to be careful that teaching her my second hand knowledge of magic didn’t end up killing her.

It was made worse by the fact that I had no excuse to ignore the pull of the story. Creation was once again offering me someone to watch over. Only this time, if I didn’t take her on, she would almost certainly be worse off. She was going to be following around someone, and it would be someone in the army. That didn’t make for a good childhood at all.

She would be better off under my wing.

I had grudgingly accepted the Role, although I was looking for an out that didn’t involve passing responsibility on to someone else. Did I count as alien enough to qualify as something like a fairy godmother or benevolent patron, rather than a mentor? Those were similar enough roles that I should be safe, but I would definitely be looking for other options.

“No, it’s fine.” I replied.

She reminded me of a younger, happier version of myself. A version of me before my mother died. I used to chatter like that as well, and I would do my best to ensure she kept that.

I continued to engage her in conversation as we made our way through the camp. The smell of horse manure was only barely discernible over the foetid stench of the swamp. It was like an extra special seasoning to add to the awful.

The camp was well organized, but it still sprawled over far more space than I would have expected before we departed. Despite knowing that moving an army would be a logistical nightmare, seeing it was another matter entirely.

Perhaps the worst part of being in the bog was how many people accrued incidental injuries. The need to heal them was a persistent scratch at the back of my mind. One that had been present ever since I had earned my Name. I wasn’t compelled to stop and ask them if they wanted healing, but I ended up doing it anyway, simply to soothe the irritation before it started to mount.

Finally, we arrived at the command tent. Yvette hid herself behind me as we went inside, making an active effort to disappear into my shadow.

In the centre of the tent was a desk with maps strewn across it. I made my way in and stood at the base of the table. Mathilda Siegenburg noted my presence, then dismissed it just as quickly.

Officers were making their way inside. I guessed that most of them were in their late thirties or early forties. They all looked as morose as I felt. Princess Mathilda Siegenburg stood to the right, her attendants surrounding her. The varied list of officers spread themselves out on the other side, closest to the entrance. Lastly, there was a small island of empty space around me. I was the odd one out.

There was a low level of banter spread throughout the tent. People talked and passed jokes to each other. They were often dark. Despite that, the smiles that the jokes elicited told me that they were appreciated.

Waiting, I looked over the map. We were currently in a roughly peanut shaped basin, with small hills rising to either side of the waistline in the North and South. We had entered from the North. A pin had been placed somewhere below the midway point, marking our position.

As the last few officers wandered in, the noise died down and people began to play closer attention.

“Prince Amaury Goethal was spotted by scouts. He’s leading a force towards the edge of the swamp over here,” Mathilda pointed to a spot near the Southern hills. “We can expect to have to give battle sometime in the next two days. We have picket lines established, but it’s unlikely they will launch an attack. It’s in their best interest for us to just rot here.”

None of them looked happy at that.

“How did they learn of our approach? This part of Brus is deserted.”

Our force had been deliberately avoiding all enemy holdings and fortifications. Despite being deep in hostile territory, we hadn’t yet fought even once. It was a planned strike directly at the capital through the unnavigable parts of the swamp. They had bargained for me to vanish the city walls on arrival, although that was all they had managed to get in terms of direct combat support. Klaus Papenheim was leading the charge against the Principality’s actual defences, so the enemy soldiers should have been drawn away.

“It hasn’t been determined yet. Either way, we have been caught with our pants down.”

“What do we know? Numbers, Equipment, Experience?” One of the officers asked.

He was a short, surly man who had a bald pate and looked a bit like an ostrich. Unfortunately, I didn’t know his name. I hadn’t been around the soldiers for long and hadn’t had time to learn their names. I wasn’t sure I would be around them for long enough, considering I was technically here on a quest and not out of necessity. Everyone else referred to him as Baldy, though. He didn’t seem to mind, so I just went with it.

“Around three thousand light infantry and another thousand crossbowmen. No cavalry. None of them look hardened. I’ll bet they’re all levies that have had weapons shoved in their hands and told to fight,” Mathilda replied, then frowned, tapping the map thoughtfully. “He’s tasked some of his camp followers with building fortifications.”

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

“What kinds of fortifications?” Someone spoke up. I looked over their way.

It was Whiskers. He was a tall man that towered over me, with a long, thin moustache that stuck out like whiskers. Out of all the people in the tent, he was the one I had spoken to most. I wasn’t sure what he did, exactly. I suspected he was some kind of engineer. Whenever I was needed for something, I was usually sent his way.

“Only shallow ditches and walls. There’s no time for him to do more, but key positions have been cut off.” She pointed to a number of spots on the map, indicating where she meant. “We will need to break our forces up into smaller units in order to give battle.”

“Given the engagements Brus has been involved in this year, Prince Amaury must have scraped together every last soldier and peasant levy around. Prince Amaury may be in an alliance with Dagobert, but past conflicts with Cantal have mauled his forces,” Reed mused.

Reed was a tall, spindly man. He was so skinny, he looked like he would be blown away in the wind. He stood hunched over the table. I could see him annotating a page with notes. Absently, he pushed a strand of long, black hair out of his eyes again. It had a tendency to do that.

“Why not circle around the encampment and march on Brus?” Another officer asked.

This one, I didn’t know.

Mathilda objected, “The water is too deep there for us to cross without the Chosen’s help. Help that has not been bargained for. Were we to try unassisted, they could just pin us down with bolts and laugh as we died.”

Reed took a breath and asked, “Given the disposition of forces, would it not be wiser to pull out and engage elsewhere? Whilst the engagement will certainly resolve favourably, even untrained men with crossbows will inflict unnecessarily heavy casualties with the supporting structures.”

Grimacing, Mathilda replied, “We can’t. The path we cut through the swamp isn’t easy to miss. If we do, Prince Amaury can use this as an opportunity to strike at Klaus from behind. We need to tie him down here.”

“And hunkering down to prevent him from departing is not an option?”

“Our supplies will run out first,” Baldy replied.

There were supposedly plenty of edible fish on the marsh, although none of us were skilled fishing.

“We will need to give battle then,” another officer determined. “It’s going to be ugly, though. No way about that.”

I tried to follow the discussion that then unfolded, but I had never actually studied military strategy for entire armies. My knowledge was limited to Ward’s tactics, and that didn’t really apply here. Neither of my Graces were helping me. It wasn’t like I was trying to innovate new approaches, only follow existing ones. I also didn’t know enough about the Principate itself. So I stood there listening, and steadily became more and more lost.

“Should we expect intervention from Dagobert in his defence?” Reed asked.

“Not likely,” Mathilda stated. “If anything, he will be busy trying to harry Klaus’s supply line. His presence should not be expected on this field.”

“At least there is that,” someone muttered.

I cleared my throat.

Silence fell and everyone turned my way.

“I’ll try talking with them, remember?”

“We know. Messengers will soon be dispatched to arrange for a meeting. They will know to expect you when you arrive. We’re planning for when that eventually fails.” Mathilda replied bitingly.

“Is the Chosen not able to do something, then?” one of the officers sneered my way.

It was Scarface. The Neustrians were very direct with their nicknames.

Out of everyone I had met, he was the most unpleasant. He had a long, jagged scar running down the left side of his face and an embroidered red patch over one eye. I had been told the injury had been caused by a Praesi sorcerer. He didn’t have the highest opinion of wizards, and even though I wasn’t one, I was close enough to count.

Everyone turned to me.

I thought it over. How much did I want to involve myself here outside existing agreements?

“If you decide you want to retreat, I’m willing to facilitate that.” I stated.

Not that I expected they would. The Lycaonese did not usually retreat.

“You aren’t going to do anything at all?” Mathilda pressed.

“This isn’t my fight, it’s yours.”

“That’s true.” She looked sour as she said it, but at least she admitted as much. Turning her gaze back to the table, she started to put more pins in the map. Without additional context, I didn’t know what they were supposed to represent. “How about deflecting crossbow bolts?”

“You mean some kind of barrier?”

“Indeed.”

Was I willing to just stay out of this?

It really was the question, wasn’t it. The more I offered, the more they would expect me to do.

Fuck it.

The enemies were allegedly mostly peasant levies. They weren’t mercenaries. They certainly weren’t professional soldiers like the Lycaonese. I didn’t know how much they wanted to be here, but they definitely weren’t the same as hired soldiers. It would probably be a slaughter if I didn’t step in. I knew I shouldn’t have followed an army. There was no way I was going to be able to sit aside and just let people kill each other.

“Do they have any sorcerers with them?”

“We don’t know. The evidence points to them being stationed elsewhere. This looks to be a reactionary force put together at the last moment to contest our arrival, but there is no certainty.”

It was exceedingly unlikely that there would be a sorcerer as capable as the Warlock on the other side. That didn’t mean that I shouldn’t be cautious. It only took making a mistake once for me to end up at the end of a leash.

“If it comes to a fight, I might be willing to help on one condition.”

“Ask, and I’ll judge.”

“You need to promise not to execute anyone who surrenders.”

“We had no intention of doing otherwise.”

“Then depending on how the negotiations proceed, I’m willing to do something. I haven’t decided what yet, but there will probably be plenty of prisoners.”

I had suspected I was capable of forcing an army to surrender through sheer weight of emotions alone. Depending on the circumstances, it seemed like I would have the opportunity to test the theory. I hoped it didn’t come to that. I’d spend some time thinking on the subject and see what other solutions I could come up with.

“If it comes to that, we will respect your wishes,” Mathilda stated.

She sounded doubtful that I would be willing to do something that would sway the outcome of the fight. That was fair, I hadn’t exactly given the impression that I would help in the fight either.

The others turned away from my interruption and continued on as if I had said nothing.

The meeting ended not long after. I wasn’t certain on the finer details of our plan. My part in it, though, was understood. Making my way out, I followed behind Reed. Yvette bounced along me excitedly.

At that point, I was exhausted. Not physically or mentally, but emotionally. I understood that they didn’t really relate to my perspective. This war was personal to them. Having an outsider dropped on them, who was given so much additional leeway, was obviously something they weren’t happy about. They were appreciative of my help navigating through the swamp, but likely felt that I was an unwelcome burden otherwise.

“Do you have any commitments tonight, Taylor?” Reed asked.

“No,” I answered. The nights I had all to myself.

“Mathilda’s commanding staff have a traditional commune on the eve before engagements. Would you care to join?” he continued.

“I… uh, sure,” I replied, taken by surprise.

The invitation was unexpected. While I was technically a part of the command staff, I didn’t truly feel like a member. They all knew each other and had fought together before. I was the one who didn’t fit in. Not only that, but my presence was making their lives more difficult.

I could have chosen to avoid the meeting, but I didn’t know how much time I would be spending with these people. I had promised Max I’d try to better myself. A part of that meant making friends. I didn’t know whether I could be friends with these people, but there was no harm in trying.

He pointed out a spot near the command tent and told me when to show up. Thanking him, I left.

Yvette and I retreated to my tent.

“Can you please please please teach me magic,” she asked, staring up at me like a sad cat.

Gradually, the little goblin was wearing me down.

“I’ve told you before that it won’t be safe,” I admonished.

Pouting, she kicked at my desk. “I’ll just have to figure out magic by myself then if you won’t teach me since nobody is willing to teach me anyhow.”

This is such a bad idea.

“I can only teach you the theory behind Jaquinite magic,” I informed her.

“Is there something wrong with that?” her eyes narrowed like a vulture who knew that it had caught its prize.

“I spent some time in Callow. After seeing what Praesi wizards can do, I believe Trismegistan sorcery is better,” I answered.

“Isn’t that evil, though? I don’t wanna be evil.” She shook her head vigorously from side to side in denial.

“It isn’t evil. Magic is just a tool. It isn’t good or evil. It’s what you do with it that counts. Diabolists use Tresmegistan sorcery to summon up demons and devils, but I have also seen it used for other things. When I fought the Warlock-”

“Can you tell me about the fight with the Warlock again? What does he look like? How did you get away? Why didn’t you win? Is he coming after you? Will he attack here?” she rattled off.

I continued to entertain her questions for another half hour, before reaching my limit. Inventing a task for her to carry out, I finally had a moment to myself.

I had started keeping a journal again, after the loss of my last one. I hadn’t bothered recording my life before Creation this time. Instead, I focused only on the time I had spent here. One of the details I had noticed, in retrospect, was how much I had changed. Having a window into the mind of my past self was precious, and I didn’t want to give it away.

Eventually, I decided to follow up on the invitation.

Leaving my tent, I made my way to a pit fire with a loose gathering of people around it. The others took note of my arrival.

“Seems the Princess isn’t too good to join us after all,” Scarface growled.

The tangled knot of a story brushed against me.

I stiffened for a moment.

An officer I didn’t recognize noticed. I looked down at her, and watched as her brown eyes slowly narrowed.

The threads were coming from her.

“That Princess comment got a reaction. Who’re you related to?” She asked curiously, placing her dainty arms on her plate covered hips. There was a teasing undertone to it.

Great.

“You call yourself a Princess once, and suddenly it never leaves you,” I muttered under my breath.

The corner of her lips tugged up into a smile, “That sounds like a story, care to share it?”

“No surprises there. Wasn’t it obvious that the girl thinks she’s too good for us?” Scarface interjected.

The woman swirled around aggressively, facing Scarface. Her ponytail of red hair bounced from side to side as she did so.

“Give it a rest, Scarface, S’not like she did anything to you,” she snapped. Looking closer at her, I guessed she was in her mid-twenties.

He spat, “What’s it to you, Songbird?”

Did I want to talk here?

The broader details of the fight with the Artist were already known. There was little about the other encounters that I wanted to keep silent. My personal nature and a few other considerations. I wasn’t sure how much I could manipulate my story by talking about it, but there were good reasons to make the attempt.

I stopped and thought about it for a few more heartbeats. If I wanted to truly change the face of Creation’s stories, I’d need to have experience shaping them. Opportunities like this, as small as they were, were still a chance to practice. The stakes right now were small. If I wanted to one day sell my dream to the Gods, then I would need to be convincing.

Treat this as a rehearsal, Taylor.

“It’s not much of a story,” I interjected. “There was this villain, the Arcadian Artist. The final confrontation you might have already heard of. It took place in Liesse. The first time I ran into him, I didn’t even realize he was a villain. Before I knew it, I was trapped in one of his paintings. I escaped into Arcadia, where I ran into one of the Fae. I talked my way out of being killed by pretending to be a princess.”

The tension drained out of them as I spoke.

“S’not much of a story when you tell it like that,” She encouraged. “Be more specific, narrate for us. Go on, you’re s’posed to be the hero here.”

I looked around briefly. The others were observing with interest as well. Talking about my life after arriving was mostly harmless, and it seemed like a good way to break the ice. I doubted I’d be with this group long enough to make friends, but I could still be on good terms with them.

So I started to narrate.

Telling stories in Calernia was just another form of prayer. But if I wanted Creation to listen to me, then I’d need to be persuasive.