12 Princess Pavitra, The Fire Sword

The next few days went by extremely quickly for Pavitra. She didn't even get much time to do what she wanted to do and instead was meeting with various officials and merchants. Arranging for the transport of goods that she will need as well as meeting other important members of what will be her advance party. Then just as they were meant the Princess was sent a message that the soldiers she would be commanding had arrived and were positioned into the northern bastion.

The northern bastion was a fortress out of the city placed on a hill to the north which if not occupied would give attackers of the capital a, perfect place to position siege weapons and fire onto the capital. Due to this, the bastion was a major military position and always had a minimum of two regiments garrisoned there. Though it the capacity and supplies to feed ten regiments for nine months. This made it ideal for her soldiers to be sent there initially, at least until she left in the coming few days.

It was also not long after that meeting that her new armour, as well as an official uniform, arrived. Each with her new rank clearly shown. The uniform for her was a modified dress. It was a tighter fit than what would normally be worn and the bottom have and slits on both sides to allow for increased mobility. Like all uniforms of the military, it was as red as fire and would look vibrant to whoever saw it.

His armour in many ways was similar. It was made of a combination of chain mail, though a special and lighter metal was used. This would be worn other than a red battle dress, which was red much like the uniform though it was designed and made with practicality in mind. The chain mail armour itself only would cover the upper half of her body and the top part of her arms. Then on top of that, there was leather cuirass which protected her chest, it was made with space for her bosom as well. Then two leather pauldrons and two vambraces, which protected her arms and shoulders. Finally, she had been given leather tassets which would be worn like a skirt and some leather greaves which had been reinforced with metal, each of the greaves had been fed into a special leather boot which had been lined with fur to help increase the comfort of the user. No helmet was given as she had determined early on that she did not like to use them, as it had nearly caused her to be killed when her vision was blocked slightly by the armour. All of the leather had been dyed black though, so when the red cloth underneath could be seen, it looked a little imposing. On both of her shoulders were two pips, which marked her rank as a Captain-General.

Pavitra stood there for a while, slowly looking through her new armour. She picked each piece up like it was a delicate flower and slowly inspected each handcrafted piece. She could see where there were minor scratches in each piece where they had been creased or rubbed against by something sharp.

Then after thinking for a minute, she called in a maid. Who as always, they appeared out of nowhere and two walked into her room. They didn't need to be told what to do, and both first helped Pavitra undress, then they began to help her get into her battle armour. First went on the battle dress, where the cords on the back were pulled, tightened then knotted so that it wouldn't come off. Then the chain armour was placed onto her, after ensuring that it was comfy for Pavitra and that she could still move around, they began to place the armour pieces on. The cuirass was placed on first and was attached to the chain mail underneath. Then the pauldrons were put on, covering her shoulders. Not a second later the tassets were put on, then the vambraces and greaves. Then they made sure all of the straps had been put on correctly and that after Pavitra gave the nod that she could still move around comfortably. The maids both took a step back. The whole process took nearly thirty minutes, anyone who said putting armour on was easy, was misinformed. Then another maid came walking in with Pavitra's sword. It was called 'Sun Strike'. The blade itself was red, this wasn't to do with it being soaked in blood as the rumours said, but instead, it was made from a special metal, called sun steel. This was due to Pavitra melting her other swords as they couldn't within stand the heat of her fire magic.

Then she gently took the long sword out of the maid's hands. She slowly ran her figure over the blade which was warm to touch. Then while caressing it, she put it into a sheath which had been made of leather and looked much like her amour. Once it was in the sheath, it looked like any other sword with a handle, pommel and grey steel handguard.

Now being ready, she left her room. Outside was her honour guard. Twenty royal guards were standing in two neat rows and she walked towards the exit. They began to march behind her. In truth, if you had never been into the palace and not seen something like this before, you would think that enemy soldiers had broken into the palace and were walking down the hallway.

Then as she walked out of the palace there were twenty-one horses, waiting for her and the guards which were behind her. No one said a word as she mounted onto the horse in one swift motion. She looked back quickly to make sure that everyone was mounted. Then she moved off, making the horse go at a slow trot. They kept at this speed as she moved through the inner city and when they reached the outer city, they had to slow down a little so that they didn't run anyone down. A lot of people had gathered on the sides of the roads through and she passed by people would cheer and yell.

Then as she passed through the northern gate, someone yelled out. "Hail to Princess Pavitra. The fire sword!"

What followed was a yell, that would have caused the ground to shake if it was any louder. It seemed like everyone in the city had joined in with it.

"HAIL!"

Though, it could still be heard a few seconds later as it almost echoed, as it got around the city. Pavitra herself had gone a little rosy and was smiling shyly and all of the praise. This had never happened to her before. Not once. Normally she was ignored or put down. Never had she gotten such loud praise from the people.

She didn't stop though and rode out of the city, onto the cobbled road that led straight up into the northern bastion. As the group was finally out of the city and they had no more obstacles in the way she was finally able to pick up speed.

She could already see the fort though as the entire space around the capital was just one large massive plain, covered in short grass. Well, that was minus the occasional tree, so now that she was finally out of the city and free again at least for a while. Pavitra finally relaxed and let out a massive smile, which was coming straight out of her heart. She made her horse go into a run and began to race off towards the hill, which had the fort placed onto it. The name of the hill had long since been forgotten though and now was just know as the northern hill.

In just five minutes she was already close enough so that she could hear a bell ringing. Then she slowly began to slow down as she started up the windy slope which led into the fortress itself. The fortress was made of the same grey stone as the city, but unlike the city, the bastion was focused on one thing. Defence. The whole thing had been turned into a masterpiece of engineering, it was so well made. The walls had siege equipment permanently placed onto them, which allowed the defenders to shell their potential opponents and even gave the fortress the option to shell anyone who was in the plains itself, though their maxim range had been done so that it fell just short of the capital, this was so that, in case the fort was lost or its soldiers went rouge.

The whole thing was just a masterpiece and as she rode through the double-gated, entryway. She was met with her soldiers.

They were standing on three sides of the central courtyard, in full armour and their lines couldn't be faltered. Their equipment had all been made with a matt finish though, at least the metal aspects were. No one wanted the shine of a blade or piece of armour to give them away.