The Tigers of The North - Part 16

By now, the crowd had hardened itself. They had already begun preparations for battle, and there was no reversing that decision now. The children had been sent away. The families watched them go, their expressions mixed. Some with fiery looks, like men truly ready for battle, while others looked even lonelier and more unsure than they had just minutes before.

"There's no time," Greeves barked at them. "I can see ya all trying to sort your minds out for this, but damn it, there's no time. We aren't soldiers. There's never going to be a right time for us. The sooner we get moving the better."

They could hear cries from the battlefield even as Greeves spoke. It was a terribly uninviting prospect to run into that. In towards that sea of ever-expanding flames, and that hell pit of desperate cries.

Nila shared Greeves' urgency. If they arrived and the soldiers had already fallen, if Beam had already fallen… Then it would all have been for nought.