Iron Fist

With the battle over and the skies clear of rain, it became time to pick up the pieces of what we broke during the fight. This started with Aura holding onto bruised-and-battered me and ended with our A-Team looking for survivors among the Eastern hillside's slope.

We found one badly injured pixie named Pike unconscious beside two very dead Magesong soldiers. One of Qwipps soldiers, Pike was a female pixie with short-cropped chestnut hair, fair skin, and a pluckier attitude than Qwipps. She was an excellent archer, too. But now her face was bloodied by the wound above her right eye and her right wing and right arm both looked broken, but her chest heaved in normal intervals. It was a good sign.

In all the fighting and the fog, Qwipps must not have realized she was still alive and left her behind.

Luca picked her up delicately in his arms after Aura gave her a quick inspection.

My eyebrows bunched together in worry. "We need to find the rest..."

The others followed my order despite the horns sounding the arrival of our reinforcements got louder along the western hillside. It was our duty to bring back everyone. Even the dead. No one got left behind.

We found the bodies of seven of the eight original guards I ordered to watch the eastern hillside. Of the eighth, we could only find the severed head of a young elf named Edan. We assumed the rest of him must have rolled down the hillside.

Aura wrapped his head in her silk scarf and I carried it afterward.

Of Qwipps' squad of nine, five had flown away with him, but the other two besides Pike were dead. We found one battered body covered in sword wounds and another one pierced through the chest by a shadowblade spear. I remembered their names. They were Qwigan and Pilo.

Between Edo and Luca—with me instructing them—we hastily constructed a makeshift sled by dismantling several of the wooden fences around us. Edo then piled all the bodies onto the sled so we could bring them back to the rest of our unit.

As I gazed at the pile of our dead, I wondered just how many more deaths I'd be responsible for. It was a gnawing thought in my head as this was a reality of command I hadn't experienced yet. These weight of lives I carried in my hands who followed my orders and died because I didn't come up with a better plan. Frankly, just the thought of what awaited me on the southern slope was nerve-wracking.

Aura, who continued to support me as I limped, half-blind with extreme nearsightedness caused by overusing Fool's Insight, squeezed my arm in a gesture of encouragement.

It was amazing how emphatic she was to my moods, and I assumed it was just the bond between a fairy contractor and her chosen visere. I couldn't dare hope for a deeper connection. That was forbidden territory.

We made our way rather slowly across the hillside to the southern slope. Halfway there, a small unit of soldiers in glossy steel plate armor came to meet us. By the look of the midnight blue tabards they wore over their armor, we recognized these soldiers as fairy knights from Fort Darah. The Fist symbol embroidered in silver thread on their tabards was proof enough.

These knights were obviously higher ranked than anyone on my side except for Aura—although they shouldn't know who she really was—but they saluted us first and relieved us of the burden of our dead comrades.

A knight took Pike from Luca's hands, and it surprised me to see how hesitant he was to give her up. Aura even had to persuade him by assuring Luca that they would take care of Pike.

I filed this thought for later use. Perhaps I could use it against my brother somehow to avoid getting lectured. At the very least, it was something I could tease him with if my suspicions were correct.

The fairy knights led our ragtag team back to the middle slope of the southern hillside where I got a first-hand glimpse of the devastation that had occurred there since I left.

The ground was full of holes like remnants of cannon fire. Many of the wooden fences were still burning. And I believe this resulted from the Magesong clan's magicians attempts to bombard our defenders while their army climbed up the slope.

The dead littered the hillside. Many of them wore grey-tinted leathers. A few wore the midnight blue vests of my unit.

I wanted to look away, but I didn't want those who stood up and noticed my approach think their temporary commander was a coward.

I expected confusion at our arrival. Maybe even some hate-speech at the fact we'd left them there to fend for themselves, but the response we received from the surviving soldiers of Roselle's unit as we passed them was an approving nod of the head or a congratulatory pat on the back. There were even some cheers of "Victory!"

Aura and I glanced at each other. Her smile was divine. It told me she agreed with them.

I looked over to Luca next. He just shrugged. But there was definitely a light in his eyes that was more hopeful than his default wariness.

Neither of them noticed what I noticed. There were few soldiers standing among Roselle's original seventy-two survivors from the night before. Including the ten soldiers who died on the eastern slope, at least half the unit was dead or too injured to stand.

My heart grew heavier as we walked toward Qwipps who was higher up the slope.

We found him standing next to a fairy knight who wore a tabard with a fist symbol embroidered with gold thread instead of silver. His steel plate armor was also a brighter sheen of silver than the rest of the surrounding knights, all of whom were looking at him like they were afraid he would explode while he lectured the dwarf sitting on the ground between him and Qwipps.

Varda was being checked on by the fairy knight kneeling beside her. This one had long, flowing, blue hair made of what I could only assume was water. Her skin was a lighter shade of blue, too. She had a beautiful face that seemed to shift its features slightly after a simple blink of pale grey eyes or the twitch of blue-tinged lips. It was like looking at someone from above the water while they were under it.

She wore the same golden embroidered tabard as the angry fairy knight. However, she wore no armor underneath. In fact, her voluptuous form, covered only by what I assumed was swimwear, was a sight that made me blush just to look at it.

This watery woman offered Varda a potion of healing while she bandaged Varda's injured side with a roll of cloth bandages. Varda's chain mail shirt was nowhere in sight. Probably cast off during the process of her first aid treatment.

Varda herself looked bruised in one eye, and she winced every time the woman touched her injured side. Other than that, she seemed okay except for the pronounced frown showing on her face.

"But... uncle Vardoom," Varda began but was immediately cut off by the fairy knight who, even at just four-feet-seven inches tall, intimidated everyone around him with his booming voice. This included Qwipps who was doing his very best to seem inconsequential.

"I don't want to hear it, Varda Coldstone! A shaman-magician like you who's barely out of her cobble years has no business joining the army in the first place!" he barked. "What will my sister think when she finds out that her daughter nearly got cracked... and drink that potion already!"

"But I didn't get cracked... just bruised," Varda grumbled before she uncapped the vial in her hand and drank the red liquid inside.

The older dwarf turned his glare on Qwipps next. "What are you smiling at, Daggerby? Don't think I won't beat you to pebble dust for getting my niece injured like this!"

"But it wasn't my fault..." Qwipps protested. And it was at that moment when he saw me. Instant relief flooded his face when he pointed to me and said, "He's to blame, sir!"

Leave it to Qwipps to put me in the crosshairs so he could get away.

Vardoom narrowed his already narrow eyes at me. The mouth under his full red beard twitched into a frown.

"You, human! Are you responsible for this mess?" he was pointing at his niece when he said this.

"Aura, a little help here," I whispered into her ear.

"Oh, no," she whispered back. "I have a hard time dealing with Commander Vardoom too. Almost as much as his superior..."

As Aura said this, her eyes flitted to the top of the hill where the banner of the Trickster Pavillion fluttered next to the banner of the Fist of Fort Darah.

Vardoom made his way toward me all in a huff, his steel-toed boots stomping on the wet earth and leaving tiny craters as he walked. But before he could get to within spitting range of me, Edo blocked his path.

Edo poked the butt end of his glaive at the plate mail hiding the commander's rotund stomach. "You look rounder than when I last saw you, Vardoom…"

He gave Vardoom a wide grin, the first one I'd ever seen him give anything, before casting a side-eye glance at me with a silent order to get moving.

"Edo, you giant chunk of muscle!" Vardoom clapped him on the leg which was as high as he could go. He was grinning widely at the half-ogre bodyguard himself. "When was the last time I drank you under the table?"

Edo himself looked fondly at the dwarf before he banged the Dwarf half to the ground with a clap on the back. "Last winter at Holly Hall."

Vardoom laughed loudly. Edo joined in this laughter. They had both clearly forgotten about me.

I glanced over at Qwipps who had both hands raised at me in an apologetic sign. I reminded myself to give Qwipps all the troublesome jobs if ever I was allowed to keep command over the unit.

Looking over at Varda, I found her giving me a toothy grin and thumbs up combination. She was obviously still giddy over her spell casting achievements from the previous battle.

The watery woman beside Varda looked so relaxed as she smiled at me, Aurana, and Luca that I thought of her as the complete opposite of Commander Vardoom. Then, without opening her mouth, she spoke to me.

"The Great General is waiting for you at the hilltop," she whispered into my mind in a soothing voice akin to the steady flow of a river.

"How—"

Aura answered my question before I could ask it. "Undines speak with their thoughts..."

"She knows who you are then?" I asked.

"Yes," Aura answered. She gazed up the hilltop. "Might as well get this over with."

"Um, why do you sound hesitant, Aura?" Luca asked worriedly.

Aura glanced at him. "Have you met Great General Darah, Luca?"

"No... she's not the elder who brought me into the Fayne… but I've heard about the Iron Fist of the Trickster Pavilion," Luca answered.

"Well... I guess you should both meet my aunt then..." Aura said, dejectedly. "Follow me..."

At the top of the southern slope of the hill, right before the ring of white stones, we found a group of fairy knights surrounding a round tent-like structure made of paper-white birch tree branches bent toward the center. Drapes of midnight blue silk covered the entryway. Both banners of the Trickster Pavilion and the Fist of Fort Darah soared above the tent's roof

The fairy knights let us pass when we approached. At the entrance, a knight pulled open the drapes to let us through.

Aura passed my arm to Luca so he could help keep me up, and then she reluctantly walked into the tent. We followed in after her.

The interior was sparse with any furniture except for the white fur carpet and the lone wooden chair in the center of the space. Seated on the chair was a she-elf who appeared as a more mature version of Aura, except her long hair was a tawny brown instead of gold.

Even in the short time that I've been a visere of the Trickster Pavilion, I'd heard the name of Great General Darah mentioned. Known throughout the Fayne as Iron Fist Darah, she was one of the clan's only four Great Generals. She was also an idol worshipped by many soldiers as the fiercest Elven warrior in the Hearthlands, the central region of the Fayne. The elf sitting on her chair as if it was a throne of gold certainly fit the bill.

She wore golden armor with each golden plate designed like a leaf that curved around her lean, muscular form. Draped across her shoulders was an expensive-looking midnight blue cloak that fell in waves on the floor. Propped against her chair were a golden sword scabbard and round shield that were easily within her reach.

Her face was very similar to Aura's. They even had the same blue color irises. However, as the general spared a glance at each of us, I saw a hint of curious amusement replacing the warmth I usually found in Aura's eyes.

The man standing attentively to the side of Great General Darah was exactly that, a man. But he wore the same silver armor and tabard with the golden embroidery as Commander Vardoom.

I took note of his short-cropped, side-parted blonde hair, his brown eyes, and his cleanly shaven rugged face and immediately recognized who he was as there was only one high-ranking human soldier among the clan's military officers. This was Five-Thousand-Man Commander Roger Thors.

"You look like you've just survived a life-and-death struggle, Aurana," Great General Darah's voice was like Aura's. Only deeper and less warm.

Aura bowed stiffly to her. "It has been a long night, Great General… Thank you for arriving on time to rescue us."

"As if I would not come at a moment's notice for my favorite niece." Darah's smile widened.

Aura was blushing. "Great General, surely my brother deserves your words more than me."

Darah stood up abruptly and walked over to Aura with her cloak trailing behind her.

Both Luca and I stiffened as neither of us understood the relationship between these two.

Aura looked up. Their eyes met. And then she did something I never thought she'd do. She jumped into her aunt's embrace like a young girl. They hugged each other for a long time, and it wasn't until Commander Thors coughed that the general broke their embrace.

She held Aura at arms' length so she could inspect her better.

"I like what you've done to your hair, Aurana," she said. "Your mother liked to wear it short too when we were young and wild."

Aura blushed again. "Thank you, aunt Darah..."

The general laughed. The man coughed again.

General Darah rolled her eyes. "What is it, Roger?"

"We're on a tight clock, General," he answered briskly. "We're too close to the Magesong Clan's territory, and they just might consider this a full-blown invasion if we don't hurry and withdraw soon."

"No rest for the wicked, huh?" As Darah said this, her eyes turned on me. They shone with the familiar silver light of fairy glimmer. "So… you're the human who took command after that idiot I put in-charge ran away… I guess that means you're responsible for this mess?"