AN: Next chapter! Also, something you might notice from here on out, as we broach the final arc of the Dark Wars, is that the chapters will become progressively bigger as we go. This particular chapter clocks at about 1,000 words greater than the last one, and the difference in sizes will increase as the final campaign unfolds. I hope this is all to your liking; if not, then too bad--I tried.
Cheers,
MB
Phoenix Camp – 1st Wing of Imperial Offensive
"MOVE OUT!"
Slowly, the entire camp seemed to, as one, begin moving forward as the thousands of Imperial soldiers began their long trek from their camp to their battle positions. The mere walk of the massive column of soldiers kicked up dust that made the scene look like a train going through a subway tunnel. The soldiers were all dressed in dirty, khaki uniforms over which a similarly-coloured cloak was draped, protecting them from the dust and the elements. Their dirty, bronze helmets, once shiny enough to reflect light, now lay obtuse and darkened, dirtied by the elements as the soldiers had gone from fight to fight.
Not every soldier was already in the column, however. A great many were still preparing themselves, as the column began moving regiment by regiment, squad by squad. Coordinating these straggler regiments was Neville, who was again at his map table with several adjutants. A bigger issue was troubling him, however, and that was the fiery redhead who was on the other side of the table, glaring openly at him. Normally, he wouldn't have accepted insubordination from subordinates, but it was harder to fight this one particular subordinate for the sheer fact that his feelings towards her simply made being harsh impossible to him.
"You know I can do it!" she was saying. She was referring to leadership of the vanguard regiment, of course.
"Peterson is good enough," was Neville's counter, but a weak one he had to admit.
"Peterson is a good soldier," agreed Susan. "But I'm better! And what's worse, you know it!" she had her arms in the air now, in a show of exasperation.
"So you can lead the regiment after the van. I don't see what the problem is, frankly," he argued. "Being leader of the van is a formality at this point, and you know it, Colonel. It's not like he's going to charge forward at the sight of the enemy and gain renown for it. If anything, he'd face a firing squad for disobeying orders and endangering the entire Army."
Neville was referring, of course, to the fact that their flanking move was supposed to be a secret. Susan, however, wasn't buying his excuse, and slammed down her palms onto the desk, upsetting the maps strewn on it and outraging Neville's adjutants.
"Colonel Bones! Really!" protested one of the aides.
"Leave it," ordered Neville with a raised hand, cutting off any further outbursts from his aides before turning serious and reprimanding eyes onto Susan. "This is not up for discussion, Colonel. This is part of the plan. Peterson was judged to be the adequate character for leading the van during this operation, and so he shall remain."
"Peterson's a hothead!" argued Susan. "Even if he's not told to engage, he'll have this column moving too quickly and sloppily to pass undetected by the enemy!" she argued. "Remember what he did in Portugal? Winters said he nearly compromised the battle at Vittoria because he gave away his position too early!"
"And yet we won," shot back Neville.
"Because Cummings is a smart man and Winters an excellent commander, not because Peterson redeemed himself!" countered Susan. "Sure he can lead his men into battle! Sure he can keep order! But that's rubbish if he can't follow a plan!"
One of the aides then caught Neville's attention, and the young Brigadier gave a short nod for the man to speak.
"Sir, why not give the Colonel command of the reconnaissance team?" the man proposed. "That way, she'll be ahead of the column, but Peterson is allowed to retain the role appointed to him by the Air Field Marshall."
"The Duke is behind Peterson's appointment?" asked Susan, outraged.
Neville ignored that in favour of the aide's suggestion. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, thinking it over. Certainly, Harry hadn't made any overtures about who should command the scouts, and while he agreed with Susan's opinion of Peterson, he couldn't sack a man personally chosen by his superior; not until he showed true incompetence. Sadly, Peterson, though impetuous, was anything but incompetent. Overall, the plan had merit, he had to admit.
Nodding, he vocally gave approval to the aide's suggestion. "Very well. Colonel Bones, as per your desire to take command of a forward unit, you are to take command of the scouting unit," he decreed, filling in the official documentation as the aide in question passed it to him. Once he signed it, he rolled it up and offered it up to Susan. "As you well know, scouting protocols are for the unit to be no further than a day's fast march from the vanguard of the column."
Susan glared down at her boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend? That matter hadn't been settled yet), but still snatched the papers from his outstretched hand. "I understand. How will we communicate?"
Neville chose to ignore the distinct lack of respect in her tone in favour of answering her question. He held up his wand instead. "Communication spell. Considering our information of the heightened anti-electrical fields around Hogwarts, we will be unable to use anything else, thus our lack of transportation cars."
Susan's glare remained in place for a moment as she gazed down at her significant other (or was he still? She didn't know what to think of that right now), who was looking up at her with equal determination, minus the hostility.
"Fine," she ground out as she turned to walk away, much to the outrage of Neville's assistants. They were vocally protesting her rude departure, and she herself was feeling kind of bad for doing this to him, but she just couldn't let go of those feelings of betrayal that just looking at him made worse.
"Be careful out there," she heard him say as she left, and Susan had to stop herself mentally from turning around and shouting at him. Why was he saying such a sweet thing now? What about when he'd left her in an emotional hole of misery and despair? Where had his comforting, soothing words been then?
'Stupid Neville,' she thought as she left the area and walked over to where several horses were stabled. She quickly showed the orders upon being prompted, making the stable-keep acknowledge her need of a horse and providing her with a jet-black steed.
'I'll show you,' she thought furiously as she saddled up and thanked the stable-keeper. 'I'll show you I don't need protecting. I don't need you. I'm a soldier in my own right!'
Gently kicking at the sides of the horse, she spurred on the black stallion into a canter, quickly catching up with the rear of the column, where units were still being assembled. Waving at them, her rifle slung onto her back and slightly hitting her back as her steed cantered by them, she grinned as they waved back and shouted encouragements. Whatever Neville's reasons for letting a comparatively new commander like Peterson take a job normally suited for her, Susan was popular with the troops, and the fact that they were all cheerfully waving at her as she passed by the column made that fact clear.
She even made comments as she passed certain people or groups.
"Boyle! Stop being a lazy bastard and pick up the pace!" she cried out at one point, causing the man in question's comrades to laugh and tease the reddening man, who laughed in embarrassment at getting caught.
"Philippo, your group is moving too fast! Slow down!" she cried at another man, who instantly recognized her and quickly gave the order for his men to slow down, much to her satisfaction.
"Thanks, Colonel Bones!" the man then shouted in thanks.
Susan laughed as her stallion took her up the column, with similar situations repeating themselves quite a few times. At one point, she had even scolded a few flag-bearers for letting the regimental colours sag. Wherever she went, however, the reaction was the same.
Recognition and acclaim.
Susan, despite her belief that people thought her a non-entity in the Imperial Army—always overshadowed by her much more famous lover, the infamous Brigadier Neville Longbottom—had achieved much fame due to her heroic stand outside the Imperial Palace in Harrisburg. Word had quickly spread of how Bones had taken command of the troops outside the Palace and kept a stiff resistance until the Third Legion remnants had shown up and ordered them to fall back.
She was a hero.
She just didn't know it.
Back at the camp, Neville was shaking his head in amusement as he heard the faint shouting at the column. He could see the fiery woman he loved riding by the marching Imperial soldiers and could guess the sort of things she was shouting at them to rile them up. It was so typical of her to feel like she had to prove herself, even though she was blind to the respect that her subordinates and superiors had for her.
His aides, however, seemed less than pleased with her attitude.
"Brigadier, why would you allow such an insubordinate officer to take command of the scouts?" had demanded one of his aides. "Such a loud and disrespecting officer should be punished, not caved in to!"
"It's fine, it's fine," he said dismissively, rather wishing they could just get back to business and let the whole affair with Susan go. It was a subject that promised headaches, so he was rather keen on avoiding discussion on it. "Who knows? She might put some enthusiasm into them. Get them to go above and beyond the call and find things they'd normally overlook."
"But Brigadier…!"
"Look, drop it," Neville said in exasperation. "It's not important. She won't compromise the mission—she's better than that," he firmly asserted. "I know Susan. Whatever her feelings towards me, she won't take them out on the Empire by sabotaging this mission."
"I know she used to be your lover, Brigadier, but—"
Whatever the man had to say was instantly silenced as the table in front of Neville cracked and split open, crashing onto the ground in a pile of debris, his curled fist still in the air where the tabletop had been.
"I said, drop it," he growled out, his eyes narrowed into an angry glare at the offending aide. The man had gone too far; to imply that he was being compromised by his feelings towards Susan had been a low blow—one that he felt was unfair and uncalled for. After all, while he did admit that he loved her, he had not let it affect his military decision. Duty was duty; love was love.
"I made my decision," he continued, his growl still in place. "Anyone else have a problem with it?"
The aides around him had all taken a step back at Neville's angry display of force. How could they not? Nevermind the table breaking, the sheer atmospheric magical energy he was exuding had an oppressive, savage feel to it that made them feel like a knife was being pressed against their throats. They were being reminded exactly why it was that Neville was considered one of the strongest fighters in the Imperial Army, and why he had been able to almost singlehandedly hold off the Death Eater forces at Harrisburg's Central Island. Even more terrifying was the fact that his hand had apparently taken an earthen hue, although that quickly passed as he dropped his fist, replacing it with his wand-hand and quickly repairing the table.
"Now then," he said as if nothing had just occurred. "Let's get back to the mobilization plans, shall we?"
Already far away from the camp, Susan was making good time in catching up to the head of the column. She had passed countless Imperial soldiers, all of them high-spirited, in spite of the sharp, cold wind blowing, and cheerfully waving at her as she passed by on her stallion.
It was as she was reaching the front of the column that she allowed her stallion to slow down into a trot as she recognized a face amongst the crowds. It was someone she hadn't seen since her Hogwarts days, in fact.
"Captain Lyles!" she shouted in surprise at the older man, whose youthful face was nonetheless contrasted by the shocking amount of silver hair on his head.
The man in question was as surprised as she felt, apparently, because he twitched with surprise at her call. "Oh? Bones!" he called back in greeting with a grin. "What are you doing in this neck of the woods?" he asked, before elbowing one of his men. "Hey, lads! It's the Bones girl! You remember her from Hogwarts, right?"
Recognition flooded Lyles' men as they cheerfully greeted Susan, whom they remembered for helping them after being ambushed by the Ministry troops while they had been stationed there with Harry Potter.
"What am I doing here?" asked Susan ironically. "I'm one of the commanding officers, Lyles!" she reminded him teasingly.
Lyles barked out a laugh. "So you are! A Colonel is it?" he exclaimed in surprise as he noticed her uniform tags. "My, how the young surpass us old people!"
Susan giggled, but then a thought struck her. "Lyles, why aren't you and the lads with the First Legion?" she asked confusedly. "I had it understood that everyone from the Hogwarts days had been incorporated into the Snake Eaters…"
To her surprise, the group of people she had been welcomed by seemed to shut themselves off at that moment. Their faces became blank as they either avoided her eyes or turned their heads away as they marched. Only Lyles kept a passing glance on her as he replied.
"Circumstances arose that made our position there untenable."
After that, Susan couldn't elicit a single additional word from the normally youthful and energetic man. Completely confused, but deciding to call it off as a bad job, she spurred her stallion forward again into a canter, realizing she had fallen behind on her task. She absently remembered to wave goodbye to Lyles and the rest of his squad as she left, but failed to notice that they had taken off the neutral faces for one of concern.
"Sir," spoke up one of the soldiers after a moment of silence, "was it alright not to tell her?"
"We do owe her our lives, sir," agreed a sergeant.
Lyles remained stony faced, although one could tell the concern shining in his eyes. "We can't tell her. We can't tell anyone," he said with conviction. "We are soldiers first and foremost. Our task has been given, and that's what we'll do. At the cost of our lives if we must."
Lyles passed a hand absently on his upper left arm, his fingertips brushing against the protruding fabric of his Legion badge.
A golden insignia reading "1st," the S of which was in actuality a menacing snake reared up for a strike.
Snake Eaters.
"Our mission is our life," he said solemnly, as if reciting a mantra, which his soldiers then took up as well.
Throughout the column, several men and women suddenly felt the itch to rub their upper left arm, words quietly leaving their lips as they did so. They had no idea why, but it had felt as if some unspoken order had been given, and their conviction hardened like steel as their fingers touched their arm.
Further up the column, Susan was pouting to herself at the unusual behaviour of the men she had helped take care of during their capture at Hogwarts years ago. Something was definitely odd with them, and she couldn't help but feel enormous curiosity about it.
"Really," she pouted somewhat petulantly as she rode by the marching troops. "They didn't have to be so mean about it. It was just a question…"
Something caught her attention then, cutting off her pouting. Further ahead, she could see the end of the column, and she grinned in anticipation. That meant that the reconnaissance troop wouldn't be much further ahead, given that they had just started their mission. She easily slung her rifle off her back, grabbing it by the butt and prompted her stallion into a gallop, rushing ahead at full speed, her red coattails flapping in the wind behind her.
She knew full well how conspicuous her appearance made her. Whereas the other soldiers wore the khaki uniforms as a form of camouflage (while retaining a distinct British aura about them), she preferred her red, colonial-era uniform better. There was just no explaining it, either. She just felt more comfortable in it, safety be damned.
Others seemed to agree with her, too. When she had first tried on the khaki uniforms, she had felt disgusted at her appearance, and some of the more unsure looks of her subordinates cemented that belief firmly in her mind. That same day, she had opted back for her red uniform, and she'd stuck with it, through Harrisburg and all. Oddly, none of her superiors had rebuked her, and although others might have found that suspicious, she had failed to notice this altogether.
She grinned and waved as she passed the head of the column, cheekily smirking at Peterson, who wisely chose to ignore his fiery superior. He was not so restrained with his own men, however, and quickly ordered them to be quiet once they made signs that they would loudly cheer for the pretty redheaded officer.
Satisfied she had made Peterson's life a little harder for having stolen what she saw as her rightful job, Susan once again focused on the road ahead, her stallion galloping at full speed. She had been at it for forty-five minutes before she allowed the black stallion to slow down, which she could feel the beast was thankful for.
They were near a forest now, and Susan guessed that the reconnaissance unit couldn't be that much further ahead. Sighing, she took out a small device from within her coat and clicked it once, letting loose a cricket chirp. She narrowed her eyes when no response came, and tried again.
This time, she heard the responding cricket chirp and smiled. Soon, she could hear some bushes rustling, although she couldn't quite tell from where.
"Identify yourself!" rang out a voice.
Susan held up the official documents Neville had drawn up. "Colonel Susan Bones of the Third Imperial Legion, here to take active command of the Reconnaissance Unit."
No one answered for a moment, but a response did come eventually.
"Hold your position! We are sending someone to check!" explained the voice. "Any wrong moves and you will be fired upon!"
Susan gave a curt nod and waited patiently as the bushes rustled again and a khaki-wearing Imperial soldier carrying light infantry equipment warily approached her, pistol in hand. He only walked as far as arm's distance, at which point he held his hand out for the documents, which Susan gladly offered.
She watched as the man read through the documents before turning to look into the forest before them and nodding once. "All clear!" he shouted once.
Slowly, more men and women began to emerge from the woods, all similarly dressed and carrying similar equipment. Susan's eyes were immediately on the man wearing sergeant's insignia.
"I'm sergeant Willis, Colonel," he introduced himself. "I must admit, we didn't expect the Brigadier to send us an officer."
Susan could tell there was some disapproval at her conspicuous garb, but decided to ignore it. "The Brigadier had little choice. It was either this or getting the leadership of the van," she told them honestly. What point would there be in lying to them? She had been appointed here as a way to get her out of the way, she fully realized.
The unit seemed to appreciate it, too, giving her respectful nods. There was some irritation, of course—after all, who wouldn't feel irritated at having their unit interfered with?—but the general feel was one of acceptance, however reluctant it may be.
The sergeant gave the documents a one-over himself before rolling them up and handing them back to Susan with a sigh and a weary smile. "Well, Colonel, we're in your capable hands, it seems," he said with weary humour. "What shall we do first?"
Susan appreciated that the man was giving her a chance. Many wouldn't have. "Why don't you tell me what you've been up to thus far?" she suggested.
Willis nodded. "Very well, but not here. We've got a small camp set up further into the forest," he said. "We heard the horse's whiny, so we came to investigate."
A glance from one of the other soldiers seemed to remind Willis of something else. "Oh, yeah. If you could silence your horse, that'd also be great. Minimizes the amount of giveaway noise. We silence the paths we walk, too."
Susan raised a surprised pair of eyebrows. A squad of all-magic users was unheard of. "You're all wizards?"
Willis shook his head. "Jameson and Hilliard," he pointed to a blonde man and a brunette woman respectively, "are. The rest of us mere mortals are about as magical as dirt."
Susan chuckled as she dismounted, keeping a hold of her stallion's reins. She winked at Willis as she passed by. "Even dirt helps the youngest seeds blossom into the most beautiful flowers, sergeant," she reminded him.
Willis seemed abashed at his poor choice of words, apologizing profusely to both Susan and his unit's wizard and witch as well. All three magic-users laughed it off, though, as they proceeded into the woods, with Hilliard and Jameson silencing everything on the path they took. Hilliard was in charge of the path in front of them, while Jameson took care of removing the enchantments as they passed them, in order to keep their presence secret from magic-users. It was surprisingly well organized, in Susan's opinion, and made her respect the two magic-users a lot more.
Once at the camp, Willis decided to fill her in. As they had started their advance recently, they hadn't found anything of particular note, though the sergeant did admit that Hilliard had reported suspicious sounds and movements east of the camp.
"What kind of movements?" asked Susan as she sat on a fallen log, her stallion tied next to the rest of the units' horses.
Willis shrugged. "No idea. Hilliard swears that it's not animal, but I can't see the enemy sending troops this far away from Hogwarts. Not when they're so seriously outnumbered."
Glancing to her right, Susan could see that Hilliard was pouting reprovingly. Obviously the young woman thought her observations were worthy of further investigation. Maybe they were, Susan admitted, but Willis had a point.
"Fine," she finally concluded, getting down to business. "Here's what we're going to do."
The unit leaned in to listen better at their new commanding officer's orders.
Susan drew a crude map of the immediate area and their target's relative position on the ground with a branch. "We're currently here. The column, when I passed it last, was here," she scratched an X about five inches below the cloud-like drawing of the forest they were in. "According to protocol, since the army has to stay together, and moving in one column the whole way is just asking for an ambush, they'll make camp before they reach this forest."
She quickly drew a square right beneath the cloud-shaped forest.
"We're going to go ahead of them up to here," she drew an X about an inch north of the forest. "If I'm not wrong, there should be a path there into the valley where Hogwarts and Hogsmeade are," she told them, surprising them. She grinned. "I used to love exploring the grounds and surrounding area. Some of the locals back then told me of that path."
"Isn't it reasonable that the enemy knows of it, too?" asked Hilliard worriedly.
"That shouldn't be a problem," reassured Susan. "Only locals who've really explored the area would know about it. Since all of them are either dead or scattered across the globe, I doubt that'll be a problem," seeing some doubtful looks, however, she continued with her assurances. "Even if they did know, there's little they could do with that information. It's not exactly fit for army manoeuvres. It's supposedly very narrow and since the only way there is to go around a mountain or come from our current direction, it's very inconvenient."
Most of the unit was now nodding, somewhat surprised at their new leader's grasp of the terrain.
Susan pierced the X on the ground with her stick and held it firmly there. "If we can get there, we'll have a complete view of the valley. Considering what the Brigadier has said, we'd be in range of the reinforced wards, too, meaning that we can do some investigation before the army arrives," she reasoned. "We might even get lucky and see how many enemy troops there are."
Almost instinctively, some of the unit members turned to Willis for judgment, the man himself sitting on his log hunched forward, his hands clasped in front of his face as he looked at the crude map ponderingly.
"It's a good plan," he passed judgment eventually, to Susan's relief. There was nothing harder than to lead a unit that didn't want to be led. "I think it'll allow us to check all necessary facts before our wing of the army reaches the valley."
"What about the movements east?" asked Hilliard, really pushing her suspicions now. "I keep telling ya, sir, it's not an animal!"
Willis sighed as he rested his forehead against his clasped hands. "Hilliard, you know we can't send out a search party based on such flimsy evidence," he tried to reason. "It's a waste of manpower."
Hilliard obviously took objection to his objection, as she began to argue with that decision quite stringently. Susan, for her part, couldn't help but get a niggling feeling that there may be something to the woman's suspicions. At the very least, it would be better to err on the side of caution.
"Sergeant Willis," she interrupted the argument. Both the sergeant and Hilliard stopped their arguing and turned to look at her.
"Yes, Colonel?" asked the man respectfully.
"You take the men to the place I pointed out," she said authoritatively. "I'll be taking Private Hilliard and…" she glanced around at the unit members and settled for a dark-haired man. She quickly read his nametag. "…Private O'Hara and check Hilliard's report."
"Colonel, I don't think—" Willis started to protest, but Susan held up a hand to silence him.
"Sergeant, we're on the brink of one of the last, most important offensives of this war. We would do well to err on the side of caution in this case and check things out," she reasoned. Willis was stumped by that argument, having not thought of it previously, and nodded in acceptance.
"As you wish, Colonel," he agreed.
Susan nodded before standing up. "You might as well start your journey north, sergeant. The trek will take about two days' ride on a horse at full gallop, so you should be there in about four. We should be back by then."
Willis nodded gravely before he looked at his men. "You heard the Colonel! Up! Up you get! We're moving out!" he ordered sternly.
The men jumped to action, quickly gathering all their supplies. Back on her log, Susan noticed that Hilliard was approaching her, and that O'Hara was standing sternly behind the female private.
"I…just wanted to thank you for not dismissing my observations, Colonel, sir," Hilliard said thankfully.
Susan grinned. "Well, I know I'm new to this particular unit, but back in the Third Legion, we had a saying," she told Hilliard. "An officer who can't trust his men isn't fit to lead them. I trust ya, and I think Willis does, too. He's just afraid he might miss something important that would jeopardize his mission, I think."
Hilliard seemed to brighten up at Susan's words, and the redhead swore she saw O'Hara smile approvingly for a second before his look assumed a stern expression once again.
"Now then," Susan continued as she stood up, her rifle in hand. "Where did you say you saw the movements?"
Hilliard was beaming as she led Susan and O'Hara east of the camp.
Back at the column head, Peterson was getting irritated with some of the unprofessional chatter among the ranks. He quietly cursed Susan Bones' appearance, as it had riled up the troops in a way he didn't like. He knew that Bones was widely popular with the troops, and the fact that she was a looker made her the topic of many lewd topics. These conversations never reached the ears of the Brigadier, of course, or else they knew that the next conversation they'd ever have would be with St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.
Still, Peterson was leader of the van, damnit all! That meant that the upper brass thought him worthy of spearheading the invasion! So what if he was just a Major? He was leader of the bloody van! Even Bones hadn't been picked! That was how much trust they had in him, he believed.
"Quiet!" he snapped at a pair of nearby soldiers, who wouldn't stop talking about Colonel Bones' more "salient" attributes. "You're Imperial soldiers, damn it all! Act like it!"
Grumbling to himself, Peterson set his jaw disapprovingly as he continued to lead the slow march towards Hogwarts. He knew from the maps and the orders he'd received that he had to set up a camp just before a forest further ahead. Sadly, it wasn't within viewing distance, as they were still making their way through the forest right north of the initial base camp. After that were plains, then the forest before which they had to set up camp.
"Bloody forests," he grumbled. He was accustomed to Harrisburg by now. That meant no dense forests, nice weather, and beaches. Not this Scottish nonsense they called normal weather and environment.
Crack.
Peterson's neck spun so quick that nearby soldiers wondered absently if he'd gotten whiplash from it. Nonetheless, everyone stopped, as they had all heard the cracking noise of a branch being stepped on.
"What was that?" asked a soldier near Peterson, and the man wanted to roll his eyes at the obvious question.
"We're about to find out," grunted Peterson. "Bullard, Walsh, Ericson, you're with me," he denoted quickly. The three men bit back groans as they followed their commanding officer into the forest, certain that they would only find a rabbit or a deer.
The rest of the troops waited patiently for the return of Peterson, having passed the word back that there was a slight delay. After five minutes, some of the soldiers began to get twitchy, but that was all for naught, as Peterson, Bullard, Walsh, and Ericson all returned soon after, the men laughing at Peterson over something.
"Stupid fox," growled Peterson, to the amusement of his men. "Damned thing bit me!"
The troops laughed, even as Peterson ordered the march to resume. For the rest of the day, Peterson remained in a foul mood.