In the m, all troops were suitably drilled at dawn, at the ready soon after. However, those positions were not yet those of her pn.

  “The bombardiers would take this time to eheir measurements align with the preparations of the powder,” she said, speaking with the general and the knight.

  “What if they ce a breach, My Lady?” Isarau asked.

  She smiled. “As I have stated many a time, then I shall entrust the matter to Lord Isarau. However, they will not be aiming for a breach with these shots, so I ot allow ao be stationed behind the castle—and of course, the troops should be ohat a ricochet may stumble down the hill.”

  With no experien the matter of ons, Ludwig looked to Isarau, fused, only to see the general nodding. “They shall be at the ready regardless, My Lady.”

  “We shall have three volleys at midday, so at ease until then, My Lord,” she said.

  Although that matter had cluded, she brought Ludwig along to where the militia awaited orders. “Have a handful of men lead a wagon down the road until they pass the ridge, then scout for any tracks the meraries may have left in the woods,” she whispered. “We did not notiy movement from them so far, but that does not mean they have not used the forest to ceal their efforts.”

  “Uood, ma’am,” he said.

  “Oh and, do you think the troops would appreciate a speech?”

  It was a question he did not exped, before he could give an answer, she had already made herself to the front of the militia, lined up in rows and ns. Discipline, her father had written, was something that could be rushed, but better cultivated. A city needed not an army, only a deterrehat, if the worst did e to pass, it could maintain order, crushing dissidence if necessary, a efforts of sabotage.

  However, her hand now reached beyond the city and the fields surrounding it.

  Seeing their supposed ahe captains quieted their ns with a call of, “Attention!” Like a tide, the silence spilled from front to back.

  She was not a woman of great height nor mase build, the adjusted uniform she wore still something suited to men and, while she looked natural with her haing on the rapier at her side, it hardly stru imposing sight. At the least, when she spoke, her voice carried far, clear and with a heat that fed into her speech.

  “We are here t justice. Those meraries are more animal than human, despicable beasts who have cut down many an i in these parts—man, woman, even child. They have spent years ext the merts and farmers for more than they eat and now they barricade themselves away to live a life of luxury off the hard work of ho people.

  “It is said that evil grows when good men sit idle. So I asked of you to stand, to march, and now to fight, because I know well that our men of Augstadt are not cowards. We have heard from the merts tales of these meraries’ cruelty, the kinds of people who ck loyalty and passion and all other virtues, that they would eveheir own mother for a few s.

  “Do not spare them, for they will not spare any of us. A quick death is better than they deserve; however, their st moments shall be full of fear, finally tasting that which they so casually inflicted upon others. They shall cry out to God for mercy, and I say let Him give it for what awaits them shall be worse than anything we could imagine. Let their blood and bones fertilise this nd, that they finally give bae of what they took, ahose who have lost loved ones find peace at st.

  “No quarter!”

  She ended with a shout, drawing her rapier and holding it high in the air. A short, but noticeable, moment passed before the captains drew their swords, holding them up, and a rather modest and disjointed chorus of, “No quarter!” sounded out.

  Although an ironic smile tugged at her lips, she held her stern expression firm. Now was not the time for smiles. Sheathing her on, she took o look across the militia, then turned around and walked towards her tent. Ludwig strode to catch up before matg her pace.

  “I had thought I wrote it rather well,” she said, a hint of disappoi in her voice.

  “It was a good speech.”

  However, she could hear what he didn’t say, letting out a chuckle. “Please, one ot say too mu fidence.”

  He still hesitated, going so far as to look around, settled by how, this side of the camp, few were present. “They are simple men of simple words. While I appreciate your… appeals, it is the sort of thing for stories and pys.”

  “Duly noted.”

  Although there was no mali her voice, he felt a shiver down his spine.

  O her tent, she dismissed him to carry out the scouting she had set for him earlier, and she simply sat in the hazy shadows, thinking. It had all felt rather anticlimactic thus far to her. To think she had already blundered, failing to secure the castle before the meraries did, thus leaning on the King. Her attempts at finding a suitable suitor had also met with hardship. Havihis Isarau, she holy found it a shame her father had not agreed. What she cked was this kind of man that other men would follow. Whatever faults her suitor had, she mostly did not mind, this one quality essential to greatness as if the seed from which it could sprout.

  That was not to say she thought she needed a man at all. Her ambitions, she believed, could be reached with her own two hands. Regardless of ath she took, it would necessarily be perilous. A man of suitable quality would simply make her less beholden to luck.

  Dwelling on such thoughts did little to help, though, so she moved on, mind always turning, sidering, pnning.

  idday, she joihe most of the camp in waiting. To the north, the bombardiers set up the two bombards: short and stout things which, while still heavy, could be pulled by just a pair of strong horses and adjusted by a team of six men. To make up for their shortness, their gauge was rather rge, wide enough for a man to fortably fit his arm down. To the south, far from the eventual noise, was the cavalry standing beside their steeds, the retionship between horses and sudden, loud noises well known.

  She stood with the general and the knight, along with those others of some station.

  At her signal, the fgs went up. “Ready,” came the distant shout, followed shortly by another shout of, “Fire!”

  Most of the crew had run back at the first shout, and the st two ran at a sprint after the sed, diving behind the make-shift bunker of piled dirt, all of them c their ears with wads of cloth.

  At the camp, they saw the onballs fly before hearing the double boom of thunder—and many didn’t see, taking that moment to blink. Up and up they flew, barely arg, looking no different than a pair of thrown sto this distance, and those stoually lost their momentum, all of a sudden plummeting, just in time to smash into the donjon proper, sending up a plume of dust as stonework crumbled. What else the onballs aplished couldn’t be seen from the camp, but there was a heavy feeling in the chests of those who knew. Perhaps, for a moment, even pity.

  While the crews prepared the ons for the shots, the general leant towards her. “That is, the powder did not make such smoke as is onpce,” he said, not a whisper, but quiet enough for only her to hear.

  “I am perhaps not yet a person worth believing in. However, my father certainly was,” she replied.

  Nothing more was said, not even by Ludwig who had realised that the matters of warfare a knight learned had perhaps missed a chapter or two.

  After a few minutes of spirited maintenance by the crew, another cry of, “Ready,” and, “Fire!” rang out, followed by another volley. The shots nded lower this time, impossible to tell from the camp whether they smashed into the ground or the rge tower’s base, only that another cloud of dust was thrown up into the air. Another few minutes, another pair of cries, another pair of booms, the onballs nding in that simir space around the donjon’s base. How close exactly, they couldn’t know.

  With the exercise pleted, the rest of the camp stood down while the bombardiers tiheir maintenance. However, the merriness of days prior had dwio embers, a handful making jokes of being deaf or remarking on how gd they were to not be visiting the castle at this time.

  e the day, the forces arrahemselves in a more proper formation. In the early hours, the general took a small, but capable, force to the northern ridge, and the knight led a party south and around to the forest, both with heavy hearts.

  That left her in charge of the remaining militia, sisting of her bombardiers and some that carried crates more than swords, as well as the bulk of Isarau’s troops. Trained as the tter were, the captains took the general’s and to follow her orders seriously.

  So the third m began.

  Not wanting to keep the others unnecessarily idle, she didn’t dally in beginning the bombardment. Approximately when she expected the militia to have taken up position in the woods, she gave the s going up to signal to the bombardiers. With everythi up and measurements taken the day before, the ons were loaded and fired in short order.

  For an hour, the ons fired, rainial upon the castle; however, the breach had yet to be made. Sure enough, the wall had crumbled from a few close hits, but such a narrow entrance was not something that could be charged and so not something that could budge the meraries from their pce.

  So the first day’s attempt came to an indecisive end. The general’s troops returned first, whereas the knight took more care. Regardless, she felt a certain frustration, knowing the defender’s had likely been clued in on the general strategy she sought to entrap them within.

  That said, she had chosen this strategy precisely because it required the least of such luck. So what if the defender’s khere was a force awaiting them in the forest? That only served to force them down the hill to their death.

  What annoyed her far more was the knight’s attempts at reassuring her, which she could only listen to with a polite smile.

  The m, everything duly repeated. While the general had suggested the ons fire until a suitable breach was made, she had insisted on keeping to the pn, that such urgency thought too highly of her bombardiers that had, so far, only known training exercises.

  To the north, the general; around the south and into the woods, the knight; at the camp’s edge, her. She waited until such time that she thought the militia were in position, thehe s rising to signal the bombardiers.

  Not long after the crack of dawn, a crack of twin-thunder echoed through the valley. Cast-iron hung in the air for a moment, then dipped, plunging through the loose rubble with a crash, sending dust into the air. When the air cleared, it showed that the hasty repairs to yesterday’s breach had already been rendered moot.

  However, this didn’t ge that yesterday’s breach hadn’t been enough, so the bombardiers readied another volley and, at her order, fired. Two volleys, three—then the fourth unched with one gng off the wall a flying off to the side, ploughing into the ground, only to unch itself up and carry on, rolling at such speed as it arced down the hill that it eventually buried itself in the road’s gutter.

  Its sister, though, had crashed into the wall a few paces down from the breach, setting off a cascade as the stone bricks leaned over into the castle’s pound, uo support its ow. Crashing and crumbling, the gap widened into something enough for ten-odd men to push through.

  She sent off the order to halt, the bombardiers clearing the ons, but not loading another volley.

  For a while, she simply watched the breach. How the stone had piled up, whether it looked like it would further colpse, what glimpses of people she could pick up from beyond.

  Until finally she sent off the order to ready up.

  In a calm disorder, the lines assembled at the correct point, ready to march up to the breach from the corregle. Oisfied, the order went out and the battle truly began.

  Not her pce among the soldiers, she watched them go, a small guard for pany, along with the signalman. There was no drum of war, no trumpets. However, she found, a well-trained force marg in unisoed a kind of drum of their ow in the slight trembling of the ground.

  For the time being, pieces fell into pce. The first point of divergence would of course be if the meraries did not flee, in which case Isarau would bring his force over and storm the castle as he saw fit. That did not e to pass, though, the meraries piling through the breach long before the marg troops came close to the walls, some taking their ces through the main gate.

  Most of the meraries, predictably, fled over the hill towards the forest. She doubted they would tinue. Swords were very much better for intimidation than bat, especially ihick forest where one could barely swing. The long reach of her militia’s spears, arranged in such lihat it was if running into a wall of spikes, were a suitable deterrence.

  To her relief, it seemed the meraries agreed as they soon reappeared along the hill’s crest. A hundred or so of them, she guessed, presumably a part left at the castle out of indecision and injury.

  Everything had goo pn so far. However, the past was not a certaior of the future.

  A horn cut through the valley and Isarau led out his men, going up from the ridge to block off the hilltop. South, the rest of his troops still marched after the meraries, their pace slowed by the hill’s gradient. Farther south, the cavalry still awaited their orders.

  The leader of the merary, she knew, was not a stupid man. ical, Gr had said. The sort of person who, when esg, ighe open door to crash through a window.

  “Charge!”

  His cry gave his troops a sed-wind, their pacreasing as they aimed, not downhill, but at Isarau’s small force: a hundred men to about forty.

  However, the general did not falter nor show any surprise, despite how all their strategising had not sidered this. It was not that he hadn’t thought of it or that he thought she hadn’t thought of it, but that, since she had not mentio, he khat this was the crux of the matter.

  His grandfather had warned him of those who seemed equally petent as inpetent, that, in their own matters, they were meticulous and, iters of others, careless. He had certainly heeded the warning too. However, in life, luck was what he made of what was in front of him—and right now, this battle was in front of him. It would not be a skirmish the likes of which wars were made of. These were ered animals, predators, and they would fight to the death or die trying.

  Then a scream of, “Ready!” rang out, loud despite the distance.

  His stomach sank, heart still, and his head jerked to face where he had left her at the edge of the camp, seeing those distant figures. He believed he could see her smirk from here. That, in the end, she had o rely on the meraries to fulfil whatever maations she had.

  “Fire!”

  He closed his eyes, muttering an abridged Hail Mary as he made the cross on his chest, then opehem, that at least his st sight would be of the enemy before him.

  Twin booms echoed through the valley, even louder than before, rattling him to the bohat, for a moment, it was if he had died, without thought nor pulse. However, his opened eyes watched the meraries falter, yet no plume of dirt billowed up.

  Instinct a powerful force, he raised his sword high and his voice higher, g out, “Charge!”

  The meraries slowed, what had been a swollen mass now stretg out iations.

  Then, from the forest came, not a cry, but a roar, like a flood the militia spilling out, pounding their chests as they raised their spears high.

  Down below, she smiled and gave the order for the cavalry to charge.

  It was hours ter that the blood finished being spilled. While not without their casualties, a routing force was easily run down and, of those still in the castle, there was little fight left in them. However, she was true to her word and none were spared.

  “The King has made clear the price to be paid for treason.”

  Wounds were teo, bodies were buried, and a priest summoo see to their rites—something, she mentiohat the meraries had not done for their victims. For those of her militia with a troubled sce, such words brought some relief. They were not the kinds of mohat would even deny a fellow man God ih.

  As evening came, there was not much for the leaders to do, so she sought out the general’s tent, the knight at her side. However, for a ge, she asked the general to join her for a walk and the two ended up by the river.

  She asked the knight to give them privacy. In that dim light, the two stood in silence for a moment. “My Lord, I believe the matter between us is clear,” she said, saying nothing, saying everything.

  A breathless ugh slipped through his lips before he caught himself, smile lingering behind. “Is it, My Lady?” he asked, even now keeping a ral tone.

  “It is. So, in the m, hurry back to the Marquess with great haste.”

  His smile froze, a chill running down his spine.

  Dismissed, he left and the knight took that as permission to approach, his relut steps bringing him to her side. Although he had questions over what the two had discussed, especially sidering the look on the general’s face, he dared not ask them, knowing his pce.

  Because he knew his pce, he began the versation by going down on one knee in apology. “Ma’am, your soldier disobeyed his orders.”

  “Bringing up such a matter now?” she asked lightly. “I know.”

  “Pray assign any punishment ma’am sees fit.”

  She let out a long sigh, her breath lingering in the spring night’s air. “Sir Ludwig, instead I should be the one offer something of an apology,” she said, little more than a whisper.

  He had the urge tue, but mao hold his tongue lest he only add to his insubordination.

  “That is, for the pn I envisioned, it was necessary to have you hesitate, so I had to give you an eous order. Thus, rather than disobeying an order, it is the case that you acted as I predicted. In that light, I am gd to have uood my knight’s character well,” she said, turning to look down at him with a gentle smile—not that he was much lower than her despite kneeling.

  Her answer gave him both pead unease, an easy solution that still went against his honour.

  However, she had one more card to py, gesturing for him to rise. “I pray that I rely on you believing in me when the ime es.”

  “Of course, ma’am.”