"Awake! Awake! To arms!" Torin bellowed.

Grelda's eyes snapped open. She groped for her sword and scrambled out of her bedroll, drawing the weapon and throwing the scabbard aside. As much as she and the other recruits had resented the order to sleep in full kit, she was glad she had done so now and already had her armor on.

"We're under attack!" Gerrin screamed, waving his sword at the dozen or so hunched, dark shapes swarming over the edge of Zegham's summit. They had completely ignored the entrenchments the contubernium had dug and were somehow scaling Zegham's flanks, perhaps rappelling. They were too small to be Quadav—goblins, then. Lowen's prone form lay off to one side, unmoving.

"Battle Formation A!" Torin shouted, and the nine remaining recruits formed a rough circle around their decurion, their swords and shields pointed outward. The goblins milled around just out of range, the moonlight glinting on the eyepieces of their masks. They were making low, grunting noises that were... laughter? They were laughing at the contubernium? Grelda felt a moment of puzzlement, then saw some of the goblins pull round objects out of their packs. She first assumed they were severed heads, meant to unnerve the recruits and cause them to break formation, but Torin called out—

"Bombs! Pair off and scatter! Quickly, before they—"

The decurion was drowned out as the goblins tossed the explosives into the center of the circle. Grelda was already diving to one side, but she was still knocked off-balance by the explosions that made the ground tremble beneath her feet. She felt a blast of heat and heard a great noise like a clap of thunder directly overhead, and then staggered upright with a ringing noise in her ears.

A goblin rushed at her with a dagger. Grelda parried the first swipe, knocking the weapon out of the beastman's hand, then stabbed forward and took the goblin in the chest. Dark blood oozed down the front of the goblin's tunic, and it writhed on her sword before going limp. Grelda stared down at it, shocked that her training sword could ever draw blood, that she could draw blood, that she could even kill...

"Grelda! Wake up!" Baleful Wind bellowed.

Grelda looked up just in time to see another goblin rushing at her, this one a Tinkerer armed with a sword. She wrenched her own sword free of the carcass and danced aside from the first swing of the weapon, trying to glance around—and almost tripped over Horatio's corpse. She stumbled, and for a moment her comrade's bloody, lifeless face was the only thing she could see in front of her eyes, and then the Tinkerer's sword arced towards her again. Grelda instinctively raised her left arm where her shield was supposed to be, then realized—too late—that her lauan shield was lying next to wherever her bedroll was. The Tinkerer's sword bit through the bronze-covered leather protecting her arm, but scored only a shallow gash in the soft flesh beneath. The goblin snarled in frustration and swung again. Grelda parried desperately.

"Help! Help!" Kimal called.

Grelda screamed his name, but couldn't look away from her opponent. This goblin was strong. And fast. Grelda, always light on her feet, backed and backed away from the strokes of its sword, frequently risking a glance over her shoulder to make sure she didn't fall over something; that would be fatal. She glimpsed Baleful Wind go down, bleeding from a dozen wounds and beset by four goblins at once, and saw Irina crouching behind a headstone. The Hume woman had lost her sword and was clutching a non-regulation dagger in one white-knuckled hand, the whites of her eyes shining in the moonlight. As Grelda went past her Irina rose and twisted in one fluid motion, stabbing towards the gap in the Tinkerer's armor between its neck and shoulder. The goblin jumped away from the stroke.

"Where's Kimal?" Grelda shouted.

"Don't know!" Irina shouted back, then dove to one side as the Tinkerer lunged towards her. Its back was to Grelda now, and she stabbed towards the goblin's pack, pushing it off-balance and causing it to fall over. Irina flitted to Grelda's side, but the Tinkerer was already righting itself. Grelda glanced over her shoulder, and her heart leaped into her throat: they were almost at the edge of the summit! A steep drop yawned just a few feet away.

"Grelda!" Irina said, and the Hume woman looked back just in time to see the Tinkerer pull another round object out of its pack. Irina tackled Grelda to the side, shielding her with her body as the goblin tossed its bomb. They rolled together, and Grelda felt her legs go over the edge of the summit. She clawed at the dirt with the hand not holding her sword, trying to find purchase and pull herself up, already slipping further over the edge.

The bomb landed in front of her face. Grelda let go and fell with Irina.

They tumbled down the slope, rolling over and over, their bodies banging against rocks and rubble. They landed together on the path traversing the slope halfway down Zegham's height. Mercifully, Grelda had managed to keep hold of her sword, and even more mercifully had managed to avoid accidentally impaling herself or Irina during the fall. After several moments of exhausted, terrified panting she slowly dragged herself into a sitting position, twisting her body this way and that to make sure all of her limbs were in working order. There were bruises aplenty but nothing seemed to be broken, and Grelda crawled to Irina's side where the woman lay on the ground.

"Irina? Irina, are you alive?"

Irina groaned. "Barely," she said.

"Can you get up?"

"I think I can..."

Shakily, the two women got to their feet, with Grelda using her sword as a cane. They looked at each other.

"We have to go back and help the others," Grelda said.

"We can't. They're probably all dead by now."

"You don't know that."

"I'm positive."

"But Kimal—"

"Is gone into the arms of the Goddess. It was a massacre up there, Grelda. We can't do anything except get back to the city."

"You want to run away?" Grelda demanded.

"I want to stay alive!" Irina shot back. "Do you really want to go back to the top? Let's see: there are two of us against a dozen goblins—"

"Eleven goblins. I killed one."

"Ooh, good for you. So two recruit Legionnaires against eleven goblins. Only one of those recruits has her sword, and the other is wounded. I can definitely see us—"

"Wait, wait, you're injured?"

"Yeah, one of them got me in the thigh." Irina gestured towards her leg, which was dark and shining with wet blood down to the ankle. Grelda immediately knelt down and undid her belt, using it as a tourniquet above the wound.

"I don't have any bandages..."

"No kidding," Irina said, her voice heavy with bitterness. "Everything except our armor is at the top of this stinking hill. Now, will you help me get back to Bastok, or do you still want to die a hero's death?"

"I'll help you," Grelda said firmly. She tucked Irina's arm over her shoulder and let the other woman lean on her as she limped down the hill. Two Black Wolves stood over the disemboweled carcass of a feral sheep, howling in victory. Irina and Grelda gave them a wide berth and stepped onto the dusty terrain of Gustaberg proper. Grelda's arm hurt, and when she looked down at it she saw a sheet of drying blood that reached almost to her wrist. The shallow gash had almost stopped bleeding on its own.

"Where did you get that knife, Irina?" Grelda asked.

"This?" Irina asked, flipping her dagger up in the air and catching it again. She attempted a watery grin. "Stole it from a pompous adventurer years ago. It's my good luck charm now."

"So you're a thief."

"Got a problem with that?"

Grelda didn't answer.

"I grew up in a slum, Grelda," Irina said. "Daddy was dead and Mommy was a drinker; I stole to survive, and then I got good enough at it that I stole to make money."

"I thought you were a dancer."

"Oh, I danced too—for fun. Living on tips is hard, picking pockets and pinching purses is easier. Tell you what: if we make it back to Bastok alive I'll teach you how to dance. Not just tavern dances, but the pretty dances that San d'Orian royalty do in their ballrooms."

"You're just saying that because I'm all but carrying you back to Bastok."

Irina shrugged against Grelda's shoulder. Her face was as pale as snow, and she was panting hard. "Leave me to die here if you truly can't stand me. It'll increase your own chance of survival."

"Neither of us is going to die tonight," Grelda said. "Tell you what: I know a little blacksmithing from my own daddy. I'll make you a new dagger out of mythril, sharp enough to cut a breath of air, and you can give up stealing."

"'Sharp enough to cut a breath of air'. That was almost poetic. And here I thought you were a musclebound—oh, Goddess..." Irina staggered heavily to one side as she stumbled over a stone, and Grelda caught her before she could completely fall. She checked the tourniquet, which had slowed the bloodflow to a sluggish ooze but hadn't managed to stop it entirely.

"I can't go on, I can't—" Irina said.

"Shut up. You will keep going, and you will make it to Bastok alive. I'll put you on my shoulders and carry you if I have to."

The two women fell into silence after that, staggering across the bridge spanning the Drachenfall's river. They could hear the waterfall roaring nearby, which allowed them to sneak past the sharp-hearing but almost blind Quadav that lingered close by.

"Okay," Irina panted, "rather than having a white mage attached to every centuria, I think that all legionnaires should be taught some basic white magic, just enough for a Cure spell or two in the field. We'd be back in Bastok right now if my leg were just a little better."

"We're halfway there," Grelda said, which was almost the truth. "Tell me why you joined the military."

"Because Baleful Wind did."

"What?"

"He was my fiancé."

"But he's a Galka! He's sterile, he can't..." Grelda trailed off, gesturing at nothing with her sword to try and explain what she was thinking.

"So?" Irina panted. "His heart was normal, and that's what mattered."

And now he's dead, Grelda realized. "I'm sorry," she said.

"We would have gotten married before enlisting, but the marriage registrar refused to accept our union. Bigotry! Elvaan and Humes and even Mithra can intermarry, but not Galkans and Humes? It's unfair. We wrote a letter to President Karst, but he never replied. Blasted politician isn't going to get my vote next elec—"

"Hush!" Grelda hissed, and gestured with her sword at a nearby Quadav. The two Hume women gave the beastman a wide berth, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. Irina was leaning on Grelda harder than ever and unconsciously dragging her feet. She was shaking hard and had developed a strange, rattling noise in her throat when she breathed.

"Your turn," Irina gasped when the Quadav was well behind them. "Tell me about Kimal."

Grelda sighed. "His parents came from Aht Urgan and moved in next to mine about a year after I was born. We've been friends since before we could talk, and my family helped his integrate into Bastokan society."

"So you're childhood sweethearts? That's adorable."

"No—just friends. He likes his women dumb and giggly rather than, um..."

"Muscular and hardheaded?"

"Yeah."

"And you joined the military out of patriotism?"

"Yep. I want to be an Iron Musketeer."

"Oh, how noble," Irina rasped.

They were almost at Obere Creek. A few crabs scuttled out of their way as the two Hume women approached, but there were no goblins in sight. Irina's knees buckled just before they reached the bridge, and Grelda dragged her the last of the way onto the rough wooden planks. She helped Irina drink from the stream, which seemed to revive her somewhat and brighten her dull eyes.

"I can't get up," Irina muttered, and she was right. Her legs gave out from underneath her whenever Grelda dragged her upright.

"Let's take off your armor," Grelda suggested, and spent the next five minutes undoing buckles and loosening straps. Irina was even paler than her breastband and loincloth beneath the bronze, and her eyes had dulled again. She still tightly clutched her dagger, but that seemed to be all she was capable of. Grelda knelt down and picked her up, putting the other woman over her shoulders. She straightened with a grunt of effort, then took one step. Then another. Then another. The world narrowed down to the dusty, moonlit soil in front of her feet and the aching weight on her back.

"Irina? Talk to me," Grelda gritted out.

There was no reply. After a few more steps there was a tink noise as something metal hit a rock, and Grelda looked down to see Irina's dagger lying in the dust. She forced herself to kneel and pick it up, then straightened again. She put the knife between her teeth and resumed walking. The gate to Port Bastok was in small in the distance, the lamps blazing like stars come to earth. Her arm ached. Her shoulders ached.

Just one more step. Then one more. Then one more...

The gate was close. Grelda noticed the uneven terrain change to paving beneath her feet, and heard her steps echoing in a tunnel. She panted.

Just one more step. Then one more. Then one more...

"Soldier!" an Iron Musketeer on gate-guarding duty said.

Grelda drew herself to attention, swayed, then fell to her knees. She looked up at the Galka and croaked, "Recruit from training contubernium A12. Mission was to clear Zegham Hill of beastmen. We were... attacked by..."

She fainted.