“–For God. Is. Greater!”

Edith heard the roar from the infidels in the town’s direction. She might not understand the southern tongue, but she certainly recognized that battle cry.

Biting down on her lips, she deflected two more arrows with her shield.

The smoke that engulfed the Lotharin left and center had largely thinned out by the time it reached her. This left her men with a stunning view of the alien, mushroom-shaped cloud that rose a kilopace off the ground — white fumes that formed the background to her cyan, airborne cross.

Events beyond her comprehension had clearly taken place on the opposing flank. Meanwhile even the center was being pressed by massed assault. Edith wanted to help them, to aid the princess and defend the town. Yet unlike past battles where she roamed the battle line and joined combat at her will, she had been given a clear responsibility to guard the exposed Lotharin right flank this time.

The Saint and Oriflamme gritted her teeth as a loose line of Cataliyan light cavalry rode up to unleash successive javelin volleys. Her Sword of Charity glowed silver as it released more ribbons of white light. They curved through the air to intercept shots that would otherwise kill nearby comrades.

Lotharin rangers and archers replied with arrows in kind. They killed a third of the light cavalrymen before the rest withdrew. Ranks of Asawira armored cavalry advanced through the woods next as a replacement. Their composite bows began an archery duel with her own bowmen.

Are they screening an infantry advance? Or are they just trying to pin me here?

Edith could hardly see through the ranks of horse-archers and the forest. All she could do now was hold the line as waves of arrows swept back and forth between the two formations.

It was then, when one of her ranger captains from the west shouted:

“Cavalry in the western woods! Hundreds!”

“They ride north!”

Saint Estelle immediately turned to her sword sisters. “Follow me!” She commanded as she led them down the battle line.

Landgrave Pascal had stationed her here with the prediction that the Caliphate would try to flank around the Lotharin defenses. Edith wasn’t sure if those armored horsemen were archers or lancers. But their goal was obvious — to plunge a dagger into the back of the Trinitian line.

It was up to her to reposition forces and build a third line to protect the Lotharin rear.

 

—– * * * —–

 

“Their ‘Saint’ is moving west…”

General Salim smiled as he heard Hakim’s report. He sat atop a smooth rock as a series of bloody, hacking coughs followed. Salim had to force himself to stay upright as another wave of nausea swept through his body.

Whatever happened in the north had ignited his command tent and badly burnt many of his staff officers. Salim himself had emerged with only mild burns that were easy to treat. Except now he felt feverish and dizzy, as though some unknown disease suddenly wracked him.

Unable to contact Brigadier Ardashir’s right wing, Hakim had opened communications with the center instead. From there, he learned that Colonel Farah led a massive assault against the town. With the battle already in motion, the general could only play along and offer what assistance he could.

His first order had been to send a cavalry detachment around the Lotharin right wing. He knew this was Edith-Estellise’s position given reports of her signature illumination spell. The horsemen were told to tie branches to their saddles which swept the forest ground as they rode. Combined with illusory spells and a screen of real Asawira cavalry, the dust and leaves they kicked up would make a convincing display of massive flanking force.

It lured Edith’s reserves west exactly as he had hoped, just as other supporting units forded the creek and pinned down Duke Lionel’s troops. The town’s defenders would receive no support from the Lotharin right wing. Meanwhile, light cavalry from his center would harass the junction to the Lotharin left.

“Now, smash their center,” Hakim declared to nobody but himself.

He had hardly finished before a surge of nausea overcame him and he vomited onto the ground.

 

—– * * * —–

 

After turning around the corner of a house, Sylviane smashed her meteor hammer straight into the flank of several dozen Ghulams. They had been trying to press through a street blocked by militiamen holding a wall of spears. Now, Lotharin maces met Cataliyan chests as her armigers crashed into infidels, shattering their unit’s cohesion on contact and giving her defending infantry a chance to hold their ground.

However, before the Princess could extricate her squad from the melee, another platoon of dismounted lancers charged up the street. The smoky haze had cleared enough for visibility to climb to a hundred paces. Sporadic arrow fire peppered the attackers from upper floors and roofs. Nevertheless, only a few Ghulams fell before the rest plowed into the exposed side of the Oriflamme Armiger squad, where three spears immediately skewered one of her own.

Sylviane leapt into the air and swept her meteor hammer around in a wide arc to buy her armigers a moment of reprieve. A scimitar slashed into her calf from behind as she turned her back. The hardened leather of her calf-high boots stopped the blade from cutting too deep. But Sylviane nevertheless cried out in pain at the third wound she had received.

The vicious fighting in the streets had decimated her forces. She was now down to just four armigers, and everywhere the Lotharins were yielding ground. Gaps opened by the street combat had allowed the defenders to mount several flanking counterattacks. However, as the second wave of Cataliyans poured in to reinforce their first, Sylviane was rapidly running out of steady troops.

She had already executed two nobles and three captains for retreating without orders. But even brutal punishments could only achieve so much. The defenders were wavering everywhere, with high casualties and battle fatigue taking its toll. Entire banners were now fleeing towards the rear, despite threats of a traitor’s death towards those in charge.

Distracted by the chaotic melee, Sylviane never noticed as a squad of Cataliyans bearing the red armor of the Mubarizun emerged onto a side street…

 

—– * * * —–

 

“There’s their leader!” Colonel Farah eyed the glowing Oriflamme with her burning-blue wings. “Take her down and the town is ours.”

“That’s not their ‘Saint’ though,” remarked one of her girls, who sounded rather disappointed.

Farah almost snorted. She had seen the ‘Saint’ in action from across the river at Gwilen — an inhuman woman whose every strike pierced a man’s vitals. Since then, she had come to the unpleasant realization that even her personal squad would have trouble against the Polar Cross, especially now when they were bloodied and exhausted after several frontal attacks against Lotharin strongpoints.

“An Oriflamme all the same. Levitation Flight!” Farah hovered into the air as her spell took hold. Combat aerobatics weren’t their specialty, but the Dervish Order’s traditional whirling dance and the special training of the Mubarizun had left them better prepared than most.

“Form up into column. We take her in a stream attack!”

 

—– * * * —–

 

Blood splashed into the air as Sylviane watched another one of her armigers cut down.

“Your Highness!” Sir Robert shouted from just four paces away. “We have to fall back!”

“This is the main street! We must hold it at all costs!” Sylviane cried back as her meteor hammer smashed through a clumsy block held by a broken arm and knocked her opponent down. His landing was softened by one of the dead and dying that blanketed the ground. Nevertheless, it gave a window of opportunity for a nearby militiaman to kill him with a billhook.

Though the man lasted only seconds longer, as a Ghulam’s scimitar took advantage of the opening and hacked into his chest. Such was the exchange of steel that pressed the Lotharins back from two corpse-strewn barricades. Streams of blood ran between the paving stones as the defenders of the two largest battlegroups were worn down. Both the mayor’s house to the left and the main tavern to the right of the main street were under heavy attack, as assault teams bombarded the buildings with magic before storming inside.

Only forty-three remained of the original three hundred men who held the central approach. Sylviane took one look at their exhausted, desperate faces and knew that Robert was right. Could they hold on for three more minutes? Five? There was no way it would be longer than that.

The Princess’ knuckles clenched white as they squeezed her meteor hammer’s chains. She knew that if she retreated, it would spell total defeat. The army’s fate would be sealed, and with it, both the defense of the western front and her bid for her father’s throne.

Tears of anguish collected in the Princess’ eyes as she bit down until she tasted blood from her own lips:

“We cannot retreat from here!”

“We have no choice!” Robert yelled again as a thrown spear aimed for the Princess clanged off Mari’s heavy shield.

Sylviane’s fiery-blue gaze shot back daggers as his hand grabbed onto her.

“My orders were specific! NO RETRE–”

“LOOK OUT!”

In a blur of motion, Sir Robert jerked the Princess back as he pushed his own body in front of her.

A Cataliyan champion charged straight through the air at them, and as always Mari intercepted the attack with her shield. She deflected the spear that came first. However, the warrior didn’t slow and darted straight past, clearing the way for the single column who followed like a stream of murderous steel.

The second foe was met by Mari’s mace. Its spiky head crushed into the woman’s lamellar chest. Nevertheless the momentum of the charge carried through, as a scimitar smashed into Mari’s side just below the spaulder. The heavy half-plate held. But the impact knocked her body back. Seizing the moment, a third charging foe leveled a heavy falchion in both hands and cleaved straight into the exposed gap between her breastplate and skirt armor.

The sound of clashing steel continued to ring from all around. Yet Sylviane heard none of it as she watched in horror while her maid and bodyguard fell to the ground. A drop of three paces seemed to last a minute as Mari spat blood into the air. Her entrails flowed out from the ghastly cut that almost severed her body in half.

“MARI!”

The Princess’ eyes were shaking as she reached out. Her brain recognized that the wound was fatal without immediate healing. Her logic screamed that it was suicidal to even try. But none of this mattered to her as emotions surged to save her longtime companion — to cling onto a thread of hope that her friend might yet live.

Sylviane hardly even noticed the fourth and fifth attacker, who followed in the wake of her maid’s butcherer. One of them smashed into Robert’s shielded side. The glowing-hot scimitar blade was deflected enough to only graze his shoulder armor. However, the other immediately swooped in on his right. A heavy falchion wreathed in black mana struck a damaged segment of his armor before cutting through and into his ribcage.

On the ground, Mari barely lifted her fingers towards Sylviane before they fell back down, motionless. Her body joined countless others that littered the street in its bloodbath.

Sir Robert was just beginning to drift down when the Princess caught his hand and pulled him up to a building’s second story window sill. Her hands were shaking as she saw his open wound, where crimson blood flowed without end.

“N-no, nono, Robert–!” Sylviane’s eyes trembled as her head waved in denial.

Sir Robert clenched his shattered chest as blood gurgled from his lips. He gulped as he clearly could no longer manage to breath. Nevertheless, with pleading eyes bulging from their sockets, he mouthed a bare whisper to the Princess:

‘R-retreat…’

“PRINCESS!”

Elspeth’s cry, combined with Hauteclaire’s screeching warning from within, finally jolted Sylviane’s attention back to the fight. Three of the Caliphate champions arced through the air before lining up for a simultaneous charge, while the fourth was locked in an aerial duel with the petite armiger.

Miraculous aid came with two arrows that flew in from the church tower in the town’s center. One of them penetrated the wards and neck of one foe. But the two remaining Cataliyans dashed forward through the air, scimitar and falchion poised to meet from separate directions.

Sylviane had already used Hauteclaire’s Flamebreak this battle. She had no aces up her sleeve remaining.

She feinted an attack towards one, then swiveled around at the last second and threw her meteor at the other. The falchion-bearer couldn’t dodge before the flying weight wreathed in blue flames crushed her right shoulder. The sudden impact disarmed the woman and sent her careening into a nearby building.

But while the meteor held the advantage in reach, it took time to retrieve it after any attack. Sylviane braced her small shield as the other soared in, their weapon raised for a blow to her chest or face.

Then, at the last second, it changed course and crashed in from the side, just above her elbow. The Princess screamed in pain as she felt her left arm break. Her shield was now useless, and her meteor struck a wall when she lost concentration.

The female warrior stopped before her and raised her scimitar for a killing blow.

Time seemed to slow as Sylviane’s life flashed before her eyes. Her memories replayed that moment when she met a teenage Robert and Mari in vivid detail, when her eight-year-old self pulled the two kneeling squires up before grinning at them. Finally, she would have friends who weren’t her brothers. They would be her companions and not merely servants.

At that moment, a steel weight with four bladed hooks flew from behind Sylviane’s would-be-killer and snagged onto a spaulder. The trailing cord pulled taut, which forcibly turned the woman around — just in time for the Cataliyan to watch as Elspeth plunged a dagger into her face.

The petite girl breathed hard with blood splattered across her body. The Summerborn were known for strength that exceeded their size. But even then, it was amazing that despite a deep, bloody cut, her right arm could still deal the killing blow.

“Robert!” Sylviane wasted no time as she swung back to the window sill.

However, Sir Robert was no longer in any state to respond. The Princess watched as he fell off the ledge and through the air. Before Sylviane could dash towards him, his body struck the ground, just a few paces away from Mari, and rolled over. His eyes were still and unmoving as the soldiers who still clashed in the streets strode over him.

“COME ON!” Elspeth pulled the Princess’ good arm. “You’re in no state to fight now!”

Sylviane was almost catatonic as her last remaining armiger dragged her off the battlefield. Tears streamed down both of her cheeks as her eyes stayed glued to the street where her two oldest friends had fallen. They died fulfilling the oath that they had pledged on the day they met:

With every breath, through every action, I swear to serve you loyally, to protect you even at the cost of my life.