"Soren! Scouts spotted a group of soldiers sneaking up through the forest to the west!"

"Send Ranulf after them."

"Soren! They've got ladders!"

"Knock them back and guard the gaps."

"Soren! They've set up a ballista!"

"I'll take care of it."

"Soren, how're you doing?"

The young tactician rolled his eyes. Just fucking peachy. "I'm fine, Ike," he said aloud as he fired a Blizzard spell at the one ballista the Ketarans had managed to set up. The first shot hit a translucent shield in the air, but Soren cast the spell again before the enemy mages could fix it. Soren watched the contraption explode with a certain amount of very well-hidden satisfaction. The truth was, Soren did not have a mild disposition, as much as he might pretend. Another truth was, he was so not in the mood for another thrice-damned, idiotic war.

And one more truth, while he was on a roll, was that he didn't have time at the moment to be compiling a list. An arrow whistled toward him, and he ducked hurriedly. Cursing under his breath, he sent a spell back toward the offending archer, and recognized the sandy-haired soldier from the last battle. Soren narrowed his eyes. It was indeed a seething mass of chaos out here, but Soren had a knack for remembering faces that could be trouble. Especially when 'trouble' had previously entailed an arrow in his own shoulder.

The sandy-haired captain aimed and fired again, but not at Soren this time. Just as the sage was about to cast a spell at the man, an indignant voice caught his attention. "Who the hell does that—" Soren smirked to himself at the word Shinon used — "think he's shooting at?" Soren stepped back, raising one eyebrow as Shinon pulled back an arrow at the same time as the enemy captain. The sandy-haired man shot first, but the mercenary marksman's aim was perfect: the two arrows ricocheted off each other and spun down among the swarming enemies below the wall.

"Ha," Shinon muttered, then renews his litany of profanity as he continued firing arrows, hitting every single thing he aimed at. Soren shook his head slightly, and mid-way through the shake realized that Ike was moving steadily farther away. The tactician scowled again and dashed after the Commander.

"Will they breach the first gate?" Ike shouted as soon as he saw Soren.

The Branded peered cautiously down over the wall. "I doubt it," he replied as a Daein soldier next to him tipped a cauldron of something boiling and unpleasant down onto the hopefuls with the battering ram. Soren noticed a squad of mages approaching to knock in the gate with magic, and signaled to Jill's wyvern rider team. With her bright green animal in the lead, the soldiers swooped down and decimated the threat before winging back to safety. They had sustained minimal damage — either the enemy mages had yet to figure out that lightning magic was most effective against dragons, or they simply didn't have it at their disposal.

The enemy's magic was intriguing, Soren had to admit, in an infuriating kind of way. It was so different from the anima and light-based tomes that the Tellian mages used, yet apparently it was still read from spellbooks. Soren wondered if it would ever be possible to examine one of those books, and made a mental note to have someone comb the debris for an intact model after the Ketarans retreated.

That, of course, was contingent on the damned foreigners retreating in the first place. Soren flung a spell to bat away an arrow, scanning the troops below for the flickers of color he had seen in battles before. The flickers had plagued him until he realized what they were: communication. The enemy used their horns for only the simplest commands, attack and retreat. The real strategies were directed from behind the lines, by using sequences of colored flags. Once Soren had realized their significance, his tactician's mind had been working nonstop in a little corner during every battle, trying to discern what exactly the patterns meant. If he could read the signals and anticipate the enemy's exact movements on the battlefield… well, what would be impressive, even for Soren. So even while he fought for his life, his impeccable memory catalogued every flicker of color below.

Now, though, Soren's patience with the clever system had run out for the day. A breakdown of communication was in order. The tactician plunged through the fray atop the walls of the fort, eyes searching for the archers. He spotted the blond captain manning a mounted ballista alongside his men, and caught his attention.

Leonardo followed Soren's arm when the tactician pointed out the battle station where the flags were being hoisted. His eyes narrowed briefly before he nodded in understanding. Soren darted away, hearing Leonardo begin to shout the new orders behind him.

Last stop was a group of sages on a higher rampart. They were all from the last wars, all equipped with long-range tomes, led by the Queen of Daein. Micaiah's eyes widened when she saw Soren join them.

"There's the target," the strategist said without preamble. "If we take it out completely, we should cripple the army enough to make them retreat for today. As one. On your call, Micaiah."

The sages readied their tomes again. At the silver-haired Queen's order, Soren cast his Blizzard spell along with Sanaki, Tormod, Micaiah — there were others, too. A dozen destructive spells slammed down upon the signal stand along with rocks and the enormous arrows from the catapults and ballistae. The shimmering shield in the air buckled.

"Again!" Micaiah cried, even as Leonardo should be saying the same to his men on the wall below.

Twice more the combination of magic and steel and stone crashed into that strange and annoying barrier in the air — then it crumpled, and in that unguarded instant the battle station was obliterated.

Soren whisked away from the group of sages and located Ike again. The Commander glanced down as Soren returned to his side.

"I think," he grunted, swinging his sword and sending a beam of destructive energy down toward the enemy, "I can safely say that you had something to do with the massive explosion that just took place."

Soren allowed himself a faint smile. "I merely instigated it."

Ike snorted. "You know, if you weren't on my side, you might really scare me, Soren."

"Well then," the tactician responded, casting one of his trademark wind spells over the wall, "you can be glad that I am on your side."

Ike's reply was cut off by a single loud blast of a horn. The Commander lowered his sword. "They're retreating."

Soren saw no reason to verify the obvious. The Ketarans were streaming away from the fort en masse. But the small strategist stayed where he was, above the gate, watching them leave. Ike remained with him, as did every officer, even while their soldiers fidgeted or slipped away to find food and drink. Soren stayed where he was because, even without the signal flags, he didn't trust that the Ketarans were gone until he saw it with his own eyes.

Author's Note:

Thank you guys for your patience. Sorry to all of you, to the people who have read this story for a while and to those of you who just started following it — sorry it took me so long to get anything new up there. I started writing chapter 13 a couple of times, but it just sat there and stared at me with this "really?" look… so then I decided to jump straight into the middle of fighting a battle and pestering Soren. Honestly, under all that calm and cool logic, I think that there's a raging desire to slam a tome over somebody's head every once in a while. I had some fun after all, writing from his point of view — feel free to let me know if you think I pulled it off okay or not.

Thanks again for your patience, guys, I think we'll have to expect this every-few-days thing for a while, but I'll update whenever I write something worthwhile. Fingers crossed I'll come up with something interesting during class tomorrow :)