Wolf's Head
The castle lies like a jagged shard against the horizon. Decrepit and crumbling, it has been abandoned for centuries, its towers fallen, its moat dry, its walls gaping, until Bartlow raised its ruins as a base for his war. Hasty battlements strew the castle like flies on a corpse. Alisha is no experienced commander, but even she can see that the ruin is a poor stronghold. Landon has only ever been interested in one thing – his own safety – and the castle lies far from the main battle line.
Their horses' hooves kick up dry clouds of dirt. It is midsummer afternoon. The sky is as dark as a winter night. Behind them ring the clang of steel on steel, her soldiers fighting their own countrymen, but Alisha is confident in the abilities of her soldiers, and most of all she is confident in Maltran. Alisha presses herself low against her horse's back, shielding herself from the wind. She needs to focus on what she can do, these upcoming minutes, what she will do, to stem the flow of war before it swallows the world.
The castle's gate is a black maw.
"Halt! State your business!"
Alisha feels Rose tense beside her, her fingers curling around the bone handles of her daggers.
"Have you forgotten the face of your princess?" Alisha calls. "I am Alisha Diphda. Let me pass!"
The soldiers hesitate. They look among themselves, and before they can find their courage Alisha is already riding through them without breaking stride. Rose trails behind her. It is not until they are well past the gate that Rose takes her hands off her daggers.
"That could've been ugly," Rose says.
"We're not here to murder our countrymen."
The inner castle is as decrepit as its walls. Weeds overgrow the courtyard and vines snake across the battlements, and one tower has caved in completely, collapsed across the grounds like a scar. Soldiers mill about – Landon's excessive guard detail – glancing at them curiously as they ride past. If this were an actual war, Alisha thinks, it would be a waste to keep able soldiers from the battlefield. But Landon's cowardice will work to her favor today. Alisha and Rose dismount at the keep's entrance and proceed up a winding set of stairs soaked in mildew, before arriving at a double set of doors. The guard begins to protest. Alisha pushes him aside.
"General Landon!"
He stands at the far end of the room, pouring over a map with his advisors. Although nearing sixty, Landon is thickset and robust, his hair a full, rich mahogany without a single white hair. (They say you can tell how many battles a soldier has fought by counting the white hairs on his head.) Countless badges adorn Landon's platemail, and it is either a very confident or a very stupid general who wears so many decorations to battle. At Alisha's entrance, he whirls around, shock and anger flitting across his face.
"Princess Alisha," he says coolly. "What brings you to the front lines of battle?"
"Cease fighting immediately and recall your troops. This is an order."
"An order…?" Landon's smile starts out as a paring knife until it slices his face in half. "I can't do that."
"Excuse me?"
"You have no authority here, princess. Lord Bartlow has given me full authority on all matters related to this war."
"A war created without the vote of the people or the permission of the royal family. Thousands will die."
"Meaningless," Landon scoffs. "We fight for the glory of Hyland."
"I am ordering you to retreat, general."
Landon taps a badge on his chest: a wolf's head, holding a blood-tipped sword. "It's commander now. Forgive me if I question the authority of a princess who's so far removed from the line of succession she might as well as be in another country. Excuse yourself. The grownups have a war to conduct."
He raises his hand, and there is the clink of dozens of swords being drawn.
Of all the things Alisha has seen, seraphim, Elysia, hellions, the Shepherd drawing forth a sword of flame, she still finds it within herself to feel disgust at the depths of human stupidity. Worst of all, she has expected it. Landon casually crosses his arms as if they are discussing weather on a spring day. Alisha wants to grab his head in her hands and shake him and shout, Do you realize what you are doing? Do you see the blood, the sickness, the death?
Instead she says, "This is treason."
"Now you've made her mad," Rose says with a shake of her head. Her right hand thumbs the hilt of her dagger; her left hand swirls a cup of wine. "If I were you, I'd start running."
Landon smirks.
"Capture them."
The only movement is the dance of motes caught in the grey-filtered sunlight. The soldiers stand with their swords drawn, looking from Alisha to Landon, Landon to Alisha, while in the background sound the screams of dying men. She looks from face to frightened face, some old, many young, and she prays don't make me hurt you, there has already been too much bloodshed, my soldiers, my people, my countrymen, lay down your arms.
"What are you doing?" Landon bellows. "Capture her!"
The spell breaks. The soldiers rush at them, and with a dull heart Alisha draws her sword. She parries the first blow, parries the second, knocks aside the first soldier's sword. She presses her blade over his heart, and he backs away, hands held placatingly before him. The second soldier is not so lucky. Alisha dodges his clumsy overhead swing and smashes the flat end of her blade against his side. He crumples to the ground. Three more take his place, two against two dozen, and reality devolves into a continuous snapshot of parries, dodges, counters. I am the protégé of the Blue Valkyrie, Alisha thinks, but there is no pride in the thought. Peace has blunted the soldier's blades and dulled their senses.
The two of them are caught in a maelstrom, and then they are out of it.
The last soldier falls, clutching his nose spurting blood where Alisha's mailed fist struck it.
They stand amidst a scattering of bodies, a few unconscious, some moaning, most clutching a part of themselves. But all of them are alive, Alisha is relieved to see. It seems Rose has heeded her words. The remaining soldiers circle them as warily as if they are twin dragons.
"You call yourselves men?" Landon roars. "It's just two young girls! Capture them! Kill them!"
"I can do this all day," Rose says, tossing her dagger in the air.
"No," Alisha says. She turns to Landon. "Too many have already suffered."
She springs forward. The soldiers form quickly, creating a wall in front their commander (in this, at least, Landon has trained them well), but Rose is quicker, dancing between them with the grace of a courtesan. She fights like a blossom in the wind. She evades their attacks as if they are petrified, countering with strikes almost too quick to follow, a kick that sends a soldier sprawling, a jab to the temples that knocks out another, and Alisha has never considered fighting to be beautiful but Rose is beautiful now. Landon draws his sword, his fingers clumsy on the hilt, and before an inch of steel has left the scabbard Alisha's sword is poised at his neck.
"Stop."
The soldiers freeze.
"What are you doing?" Landon shouts. "Don't listen to her! Protect me – "
Alisha presses her blade against his throat, not even deep enough to draw blood, but Landon flinches as if she has cut open his jugular.
"Let's talk this through," he stammers. "No need to make a decision you'll regret."
"Cease fighting immediately and recall your troops. This is an order."
"It's not my decision," Landon whines. "Bartlow's the one who started this war, he's the one you should be talking to."
"A soldier is responsible not just for those below him but those above him. The hand that swings the sword bears as much responsibility as the tongue that commands it."
"Bartlow'll have me court-martialed!"
"A better alternative than what faces you."
Landon's eyes grow hard. "If you kill me, you won't walk out of here alive."
"Neither will you."
Alisha's voice is clear, her head held high, and she stares into Landon's eyes and prays he won't call her bluff. Her sword is heavy in her hands. So many lives, Alisha thinks not with a small amount of wonder, to rest upon so few words. Landon backs and backs away from her blade until he is almost bent over backwards against the map, and Alisha feels nothing for him but a hollow pity, it is not entirely his fault, not even Bartlow's fault, and she can feel the twitches of the web that they – all of them, Landon, Bartlow, Alisha, Rose – are trapped in.
"You heard her," Landon says at last, his voice trembling. "Order the ceasefire! Tell all troops to retreat and regroup. Didn't you hear me? Order the ceasefire!"
Three gunshots out the window. The flurry of steps as couriers flee the room. A scribe ties a note to a raven's leg and sends it off, a black mass of feathers against a slightly lighter sky. Alisha sheathes her sword. Landon stands back upright, glowering.
"You'll answer for this. The Council will have your head."
"We will all answer for our actions. And you, Commander Landon, most of all." She bows. "Farewell. We will meet again soon."
As they ride away from the castle, Alisha thinks: The story is like a river. "That could've gone a lot worse," Rose says, and Alisha nods, but her mind is already racing forward. The story is like a river. You can only stem the flow. The river will run its course. Alisha is under no illusion that what she did will be permanent; perhaps even now Landon is already recanting his orders, ordering a second attack, but she does not think so. Even Landon has his pride. And he is right: she will answer for her actions. But Bartlow can be dealt with later, the Council can be dealt with later, another war can be started and stopped. And come what may she will rise again with flood-breakers to divert the flow. Because what is saved is more real than Landon and Bartlow and the Council will ever know. She can see it from her horse.
A trump blast sounds behind them, long and low. Alisha turns her head just in time to catch the flutter of white flags on the horizon. And she turns back, and they ride on.