Fiona set her eye on the hazy silhouette of the fortress in the distance. It was garishly outsized and planted atop a prominence, so that it was discernible at night even from eight miles away. She had a lot of walking to do. She didn't have much to do besides walk.
Emptiness nagged at her. Only two hours ago, everything was coming together; everything was so important, so ready. This chess game she'd rehearsed a thousand times: She hadn't quite been checkmated, but her side had only a single piece left.
The queen. She harrumphed mirthlessly. She literally was the queen. She'd long ago abdicated the path to queen, and yet Rumpel had made her queen by erasing her parents. An office she didn't want. And now it was hers alone, without a single soldier to march with her. Not one knight to have her back.
Now she was back to square one. Rumpel had managed to capture the most important advantage she had created: a team. How was she going to save them now, single-handedly? What could she do to win?
She could retrace her steps, go back to where she began once she learned what she was up against. She could go back to surveillance, to reconnoitering the situation, to understanding what gaps there were in Rumpel's defenses, and what advantages she might ply. Argh! It's not even square one anymore! She ground her teeth. She could dream up whatever offense she wanted, but there weren't any ogres to recruit to the cause.
Nature called. Fiona stopped, set the lantern on a soft fallen log, stepped off to the side of the trail, squatted, and relieved herself. It was a pretty secluded spot; the thought of resting here for just a few minutes let itself into her mind. She drove her lower lip into her upper teeth: no way. Fiona stood and stepped back onto the trail.
She straightened out her belt and dagger garter. A long strand had worked itself loose from her skirt, dangling down over one knee. Fiona yanked it away in frustration, serving only to liberate two more windings of the strand and leave the ragged edge of vertical tassels hanging that much longer in its wake. She unsheathed her dagger and sawed away at the errant yarn, restoring one little shred of dignity.
What would she do now to win? I would do anything, her mind answered without hesitation. She'd walk right in there and make a bargain with Rumpel to give her life to free the ogres, even. After all, isn't that what she'd been doing for the last year, whom she had become? Giving her life to free the ogres? She hadn't needed to suffer; she could just as easily hidden her ogress state and lived comfortably as a human.
No, that wasn't true at all. She couldn't have watched them suffer and die without suffering and dying herself. But still, the point remained, she had found her purpose. She'd give anything to solve this.
Ye used t'believe that a single kiss could solve everything. Shrek's voice sounded in her head. Yes, she thought, maybe that's why I'd kiss your obnoxious face. She'd give anything to solve this. Not that she thought there was any chance it would have worked. Just that, at this point, she was willing to sell her pride to make the world right for her family.
Back and forth her mind sawed on the problem, making no progress. There wasn't any bargain she could strike. Nothing was certain; she didn't have anything resembling a plan. But she had tenacity. Her boots kept marching, step by step, up the road towards the castle.
Twenty years I sat and waited. She listened to the rhythm of her footsteps. I'm very dedicated. One dagger, one lantern, and perseverance.
The act of stepping gave her an outlet, a sense of purpose. It was rhythmic and meditative. She was a thousand footsteps into the journey, fourteen times as many to go. Her point of view drifted above and behind her own body; in her minds' eye she saw herself below, trudging down the trail in the starlight, bobbing lantern casting a dancing wagon wheel into the trees around her.
The figure below looked small, a model, like the action figurine she'd pushed around the map at the war room. She saw stout legs that could walk to the castle and another fifteen miles beyond if they had to. She saw fiery hair that reflected the drive in her heart. She saw muscular arms prepared to strike Rumpel down. She saw strong shoulders that could carry a revolution. That creature, so long hidden miserable under covers, waiting for morning, waiting to be rescued? Now she was the one storming the castle.
The floating sensation was unusual; she hadn't felt particularly reflective for a long time. Probably because self-reflection was a luxury for the idle. The idea of being able to rest long enough to introspect was a relief, but just that thought was enough to remind her why she wasn't busy. That in turn brought a wave of guilt crashing down, flushing her back out of the treetops into her trudging body. Guilt and its companion frustration, one accusing her of inaction, the other inhibiting action.
Leaves rustled in the bushes, snapping her ears to attention. Fiona instinctively stopped short. Whatever it was, it was small. She shook her head to clear the little rush of adrenaline, and resumed her walk. A bunny scampered across the trail, terrified, and disappeared up hillside. She looks tasty. Fiona hadn't eaten anything for hours now. She paused and gathered some fungal flowers from a nurse log, enough to quell the hunger, and grabbed a pine cone to chew on. Not very nutritious, but crunchy, anyway. She couldn't stop to hunt any more than she could stop to rest.
·❧·
Three hours after she'd left the ogre behind on the stone bridge, Fiona finally arrived near the elaborately-domed fortress. She circumnavigated the prominence, winding up an adjacent hillside to search for high ground. She came upon the granite foundation of a ruined lookout tower on a cliffside that afforded a panoramic view. Fiona sat herself down upon a toppled stone and took in the view.
Judging by Throwback dipping his toe below the horizon, it was easily two or three in the morning. There certainly wasn't any visible human activity in the town surrounding the keep. She could make out carts traveling along the road inbound to the castle, spaced out by hundreds of yards or a quarter mile. They moved slowly, each dragged by a single beast. She watched the lead cart approach the castle, one of the figures signaling the guards by waggling a lantern. The gates opened, swallowed the cart and its drivers, and slammed shut behind, awaiting the next straggler's arrival.
She was groggy, the thrill of anticipation and the stress of defeat having taken a toll on her. Her heart weighed heavily in her chest as she watched the witches cart the last of her friends into slavery. Or worse.
The process played out so slowly before her; she wanted to run down the hillside and spring just one ogre from a cart, to restore just one ally in the fight for the rest. That was pure foolery. A modest commotion outside the front gate of the enemy would bring the entire witch army down on her.
Periodically an orange firefly would zip over the heads of the widely staggered carts, dart over the castle wall, and vanish inside from above. The second time this happened, Fiona tracked the witch carefully enough to detect two others flying in formation. The wingwitches were unlit and essentially invisible in the night sky, but Fiona caught their silhouettes as they briefly passed before the torchlit facade.
The sky patrols she was used to; squadrons of two, three or four witches often traveled by broomstick, an effective intelligence asset that could surveil miles and miles of territory in an hour. Ugerke's post-escape reports had taught her that the squadrons were also adequately armed to capture ogres they found in the wild. It was difficult to imagine a couple wiry witches taking on an ogre, much less doing so reliably. Nonetheless, they had aerial superiority, they had the element of surprise, and they carried concussive ammunition and range weapons. Most importantly, their quarry was ignorant of the threat.
Having learned their tactics gave Fiona's army the upper hand. They'd managed to escape detection of nearly every surveillance overflight. The one exception was a flight of two that they'd managed to shoot down. That gave them the opportunity to study the pumpkin grenades and skull grapples up close. The weapons didn't work in the ogre's unmagicked hands, but they better understood how to defend against them.
All these thoughts turned and returned slowly through Fiona's mind.
Speaking of commotion, her ears perked forward at a distant noise, words, solo angry shouting. The cart closest to her position – a quarter mile across the valley – convulsed as its occupant ranted and raved. She could barely make out snatches of syllables – threats, mostly – but just enough to identify it as Brogan. She smirked a little. She knew her friends were in those carts, and it hurt that much more to know who was in that particular one. But there was a little joy knowing that Brogan had made the three hour ride infuriating for his chauffeurs.
As the procession of carts marched past her view, a procession of other ogrid faces marched through her mind.
Ugerke, her angled nose bent askew. Ready to face any battle a second time.
Gretched, who had been such a stalwart companion and mentor. Fiona reflected on the training they'd done together; the knives tossed and lessons taught, and couldn't help but smile.
Krekraw. Terrified of exactly this outcome. Now thanks to her great leadership, he was trapped in one of those cages, rolling to an unknown fate.
Shrek.
Wait, what? If that moron steps into my plans again, I'm going to throttle him on the spot.
She fumed, but the ember faded as quickly as it had come. First of all, it's not like she had any plans left to undermine. More to the point, this latecomer might be a foolish romantic and a clumsy ogre, but he certainly didn't break anything on purpose.
But that idiot ruined everything!
She had half a mind to try to stoke the anger back up, but it was damped by a sinking inevitability. After all, if Shrek hadn't been at that lookout, the Piper would have simply scooped her up sooner. Shrek hadn't screwed up the ambush; she had.
Clouds slid by, shifting the mottled moonlight across the landscape. She watched in silence as the prisoner parade rolled along.
"That idiot" was pretty goofy; he could probably slice his hand open on a cudgel. But there was something about him, trying and pushing and training that evening. Striving. Pursuing. He was … committed.
Committed to fantasy.
She scowled at the rutted road.
Well, that was certainly a crime she'd spent some time committing.
Ugh why am I even thinking about him? I should be figuring out Plan C. Fiona closed her eyes and gently shook her head. So much distraction. So much confusion. She opened her eyes, and the gaudy castle drew her gaze back. She squinted and followed the line of the road back down to the cart train.
She came back to the idea of doing something, anything. But: she had nothing. There could be a cart standing unattended in the middle of the road, and she didn't even have the tools to bust it open.
No, there wouldn't even be a modest operation tonight. She was back in this for the long haul. The very long haul, considering how far she had to go alone.
She was disheartened and tired, which is probably why she didn't even register that the wind rustling in the trees was actually the whoosh of broomsticks.