Revision – 2026.6.29
Onwards we marched, resting under tents by day, striving under the stars by night. Slowly but surely, the feet, the hoofs, and the wheels of the 5th drew to the far-flung banks of the Erbelde.
Danger and difficulty did not spare us along the way, of course. Ever did the air broil. Sleep was elusive. And the star-dim dark made for uncanny travel. Still, things were unquestionably more tolerable to the absolute ordeal that’d been the first day’s march. In fact, the going had even quickened a little: after reconsidering the situation as regards our stores and their consumption, the leadership had decided that treading light would better serve. Luxuries thus had been stripped and left behind; many camp followers had been sent home; and we bore on our beasts and backs only the barest of necessities.
And so, withstanding heat, tedium, and mounting fatigue, our Order drave and drave onwards. And on the seventh dawn since departure, Belithas was finally put behind us.
At present were we tossing and turning in our tents, resting however we could. The sun stared redly as we awaited its waning. Once it sank, which was soon, we were to set off at once—set off, and later in the dead of night, it was guessed, reach the great river at last.
Coming thus far had been no small miracle. But all the same, the 5th were made worse for wear for it. Yet, as though bodies sapped and sore were not enough, a dark anxiety had been growing on each and every officer’s face, for none had forgotten that this was only the beginning—that there lay yet a battlefield at the Erbelde.
“Commence the march,” our mareschal ordered at length. “We’re to arrive tonight. Stay sharp, little lions!”
Tallien himself could’ve used a bit of said sharpening, I thought: his voice lacked its former vim, in a way. I supposed the poorness of our plight had come home to him at last. Nevertheless, we picked ourselves up, took down our tents, and struck on the last stretch to the Erbelde, where awaited us our friends from the 1st, as well as our Nafílim foes.
♰
For long and without a word, I led Emilie’s beast along. These lands beyond Belithas sat sere and windswept. Inky night had spilt over the sky. But the Owlcranes, fittingly, were limber and alert, having stores of stamina in them yet for battle, were any to break. Though that hardly surprised; they weren’t the mareschal’s right-hand retinue for nothing.
“Emilie-love,” called Raakel in the moonlit mirk. “The 1st, they’ll be callin’ council right when we arrives, ey? Us Owlcranes’ll be expected, as well, ye reckon?”
“Everyone’s expected,” Emilie answered. I could sense her smiling behind me. “You’ll behave yourself, I hope?”
“Bloomin’…” grumbled Raakel. “Aye, aye, Lieutenant.”
“Speaking of which,” said Sheila, “how do the 1st mean to turn the tide, I wonder, now that they have soon our strength to wield?”
Emilie did not respond at once, but audibly began thinking rather hard. “I’ve… not heard much about that myself, to be honest,” she said at length. “At the very least, we’ll be acting on their orders, if I must guess.”
“‘We’?” squawked Gerd. “That won’t include us Owlcranes, too, will it?”
“No,” confirmed Emilie. “The 1st will take over the reins of our other brigades, likely. But as for the Owlcranes’, I imagine they’ll remain mine and our mareschal’s to hold.”
Gerd huffed in relief. “That’s one less worry,” he said. It seemed something about our seniors in the 1st sat none too tastily on his tongue. Though I, for one, couldn’t savour the fighting sight of our kingdom’s finest soon enough.
“What about you, Rolf?” asked Emilie over my shoulder. “What sort of battle awaits us, do you think?”
“Nary a dry one, my Lady,” I answered readily. “The 1st might well have us ford the river itself.”
“By gum! ‘Ford’?” snorted Raakel. “What’re we, fish? Iss the bloomin’ Erbelde what we’re makin’ fer, with iss bridge an’ all! The long Des Ailes! Why wade the waters when we can bloomin’ walk o’er ’em, eh?”
“That’s just the rub,” I returned. “The Des Ailes’ span is still contested ground, and hotly so. In fact, that’s the selfsame reason the battle lines have not budged one bit for entirely a month.”
Claim the Des Ailes Greatbridge, and one claims both the banks. But that neither side had accomplished this thus far—that the very battle itself was yet unwon—could mean only that the bridge was yet wholly barred. One can even imagine it a battlefield in its own right: singed and asmoke, with knights and Nafílim bristling at both bridgeheads.
“Silly Swain, is that not precisely why we now march?” Sheila noted. “To be the engine that unjams that month-long lock?”
I shook my head. “Not so, my Lady,” I said to her. “The Greatbridge’s name is no lie, but neither is its berth built to bear so massive an assault. Try and charge through, and we would but overbrim the bridge at best.” This story is hosted at novelping(.)com.
“Thass still a reekin’ reason to risk the river, that is,” Raakel debated. “Iss call’d the Erbelde Broadrun, if ye’ve forgotten!”
I haven’t done, to be sure. The Erbelde did indeed run broad and bold… were this any other season of the year, however.
“Be that as it may,” I said, “the 1st do claim some windfall has come. Else, they would not sue for succour as they’ve done.”
“Right, there’s that, too, isn’t there…” Emilie remembered. “But er, how do they mean, exactly?”
“A drought, like as not,” I answered. “For all its breadth and need for a greatbridge, the Erbelde flows relatively shallow, and shallower still were the weather dry enough—as might allow even a large host to ford it.”
“Hold your blither, ungraced,” growled Gerd. “How could you know of the river’s depth, of all things?”
“I do not, Lord,” I said, “but the royal geographers do. Copies of their surveys from the time of the bridge’s building are kindly for all to read back at our archives.”
Surveys from two-score summers past, albeit. But that the greatbridge had been built upon them without issue—much less stood and spanned even to this day—ought vouch for them enough.
Hearing this, the four Owlcranes seemed to fall silent on their saddles. At length, Gerd scoffed and spoke. “Three days, Ungraced,” he said doubtfully. “That’s scant time to have steeped so deeply in the books, I measure. Isn’t it?” he then asked the others.
“Three days sufficed enough,” I answered for them. “Nay; I’d merely wished to come prepared, Lord.”
“…Passing diligent,” I heard Gerd mumble, “—for someone who’ll serve no use.”
Quitting the conversation, I peered up to the speckled blackness over the barrens. Amidst a march of its own was the moon, hanging at midheaven. Any time now, I thought. And sure enough, just at that moment, there echoed from the head of our train a cheerful chorus: a sign that we’d finally arrived.
Marching further along, I soon saw little lights emerging from the mirk ahead: the braziers of the 1st’s garrison, I had to guess. And it was thence that hither ran a rumour of hoofbeats. Before long, three horsed knights appeared, their argent armour aglimmer under the moon. Down the train they trotted with purpose, perhaps having spotted the 5th’s banners borne by our ensigns, and so discovered where our mareschal rode. Emilie signed to me; I released her steed. And in a moment, the knights were nigh.
“Hail, friends!” one of them called, as they matched our pace and joined our march. “I am Erik Lindell, Lieutenant to the Owlcranes of the 1st. You have journeyed long; for your trouble and your aid, we give many thanks.”
This knight then saluted from atop his horse. The foremost of the three he was, and the youngest besides: on the cusp of thirty years, by the look of him. And though it was dim, I could make out the manfulness of his mien, one tufted with hair deep-brown and bedight with a sharp-featured face.
“I shall show you to my mareschal, the Dame Estelle,” this Lindell next said, “but I should first ask for audience with your own. May I meet him?”
“Hail, Lieutenant,” Emilie answered instead, bringing her beast nearer these knights. “I am Emilie Mernesse, also the Lieutenant to these Owlcranes. There is no haste to see our mareschal now. We are weary, and want for water; might we continue into the garrison instead?”
“No, it’s quite all right, Emilie,” echoed Tallien’s voice. “Erik and I are well-acquainted; we shan’t be long.”
Emilie bowed to and fro. “Your pardon, Mareschal, Lieutenant.”
“Oh no, pay it no mind,” said Lindell, sounding softer all of a sudden.
Men and horses then made way, and there emerged our mounted mareschal. “There you are, Erik my old boy,” he chuckled. “How long’s it been? You seem sprightly as ever.”
“Yoná has pitied me,” smiled Lindell. “But your dear lieutenant is right: I am very sorry, but we shall hold council presently, now that you are come, and so beg your immediate attendance.”
“I supposed as much,” Tallien smiled back. “Lead the way, then.”
“At once,” saluted Lindell, in whose conduct did we the 5th then fare into the tented and teeming garrison of the 1st. And as we did, and the breath of the Erbelde met our ears, it came home that now near at hand was the long-expected and long-dreaded battlefield. You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
♰
As the two Orders joined, all the garrison stirred despite the oldened hour. Leaders from both the 1st and 5th gathered; but as even the vastest pavilion in all the camp could scarce accommodate their totality, it was decided that the war council should be held outside. And so did some swains of the 1st get to placing chairs, torches, and screens in the starry open, as well as combining tables into a long board. And helping them along—at Tallien’s behest—was myself. They insisted on bearing the labour, seeing as all the 5th were spent, but I did not mind. After all, if we had been marching for seven days straight, the 1st had been fighting here for a bloody month.
Soon the place was set and the two leaderships summoned. Ours comprised the mareschal, under-mareschal, Owlcranes, brigadiers, and lieutenants. The 1st, meanwhile, comprised the same, save for some lieutenants away at the frontlines. And also absent was their own mareschal.
“My sincerest apologies,” said Lindell once all were seated. “The madame will appear presently.”
“Very good,” said Tallien.
For a while, we waited. Emilie and I talked quietly of the probable tactics to be touched upon, and of the constraints the 1st were fighting under. But before long, entering in soft haste, was the woman herself. All at the board rose promptly to their feet and saluted her arrival.
Following suit, I regarded her closely. Two tens and a half in years she seemed; and a blaze of a presence she was, crowned with locks long, flowing, and faint fuchsia-blonde in hue; and she stood to a shod stature of a passus and three palmi thereabouts. Clad she was as well in shining silver; and a cape of woolen crimson billowed in her wake. And as she came, whether from her beauty that was beyond words or her heroic regard that was beyond songs, some fascinated soul from the 5th sighed hotly at the sight of her.
She was the Dame Mareschal to the 1st Order: the Lady Estelle of Tiselius, whose name was known the Realm over—and whose might knew no knightly equal.
“Pray pardon the delay!” her voice chimed. And stopping at the head of the board, she addressed the 5th’s leadership. “I am Tiselius, mareschal to these men. I must thank you all for making the long march.”
“And I your warm welcome,” Tallien returned politely. “It has been too many moons, Mareschal.”
“Too many, indeed!” said Tiselius. “Your Order’s arrival and aid come none too soon. We are deeply obliged.”
At her gesture, everyone then sat again. The swains amongst us—three from the 1st, and solely myself from the 5th—remained standing aback. As all were settling, I looked to a certain chair on our side of the scene, one reserved for the lieutenant of our 1st Sorcery Brigade. And upon it, there sat my sister.
Indeed, in just a year following her enlisting, Felicia, bolstered by a bounty of odyl and a future fair and bright, had answered the expectations of her peers and let bloom her native ability. And in so doing, she had earnt the rank of lieutenant, and of course, her damehood.
Sorcerers seldom take to the saddle, if at all; but being now a name amongst the leadership, Felicia had been furnished a mount of her own for the miserable march. Maybe that was why weariness sat not so severely on her visage, as far as I could tell.
For a blink, she looked my way, only to turn back again. It was then that Tiselius’ clarion voice echoed.
“Now shall we commence the council,” she declared.
And thus, for Emilie, Felicia, and myself, were the curtains drawn open, unfurling our first battlefield, and withal our maiden battle.
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Notes
Palmus
(Language: Latin; plural: palmī) A unit of measure used by the ancient Romans, taken from the length of the palm. 1 centimetre is equal to 0.1351 of a palmus. A palmus, therefore, can be roughly equated to 7 and a half centimetres.
Passus
(Language: Latin; plural: passūs) A unit of measure used by the ancient Romans, taken from the length of a pace (2 steps). 1 metre is equal to 0.6757 of a passus. A passus, therefore, can be roughly equated to 1 and a half metres.