-Warning: sensitive content-
Neera ran through the darkened slope, narrowly avoiding trees and rocks on her way up as she heard the clamor of steel behind her.
Given the sentinel's apprehension, she managed to run ahead of them for a while before they realized she was alone and that no one else would come and attack them. One man was left behind with the soldier she had stabbed, while the rest now chased after her.
Her lungs burned and she could see the light of the torch coming closer, along with the thundering steps of the armored boots.
When the edge of the brightness reached her feet, she nervously looked down, where the heavy silhouette of the fort peeked above the trees.
The captain, leading the march, followed her gaze and frowned.
"The fort! They must be planning an ambush!"
The rest of the sentinels also noticed the child's furtive gazes towards the military compound, not missing her flinching after hearing their Captain's words.
"Riagan, you stay back and catch her! The rest of you follow me!"
Neera didn't look back and kept running, once again gaining an advantage in terrain after the soldiers' hesitation and change of course. Now, only one man was after her, but her situation was still extremely complicated. With no means of defending herself against the sharp sword, and no way of getting past the armor's steel plates, it was only a matter of time for her to be overpowered by the man behind her.
"Stop running you little wench!"
Ignoring the soldier, she made a sharp turn left and began running up the slope, whizzing past the landscape while barely avoiding tripping over the uneven terrain. The man, although much stronger than her, had to carry the weight of his armor, making the shortening of the distance between them slower, although not less inevitable.
Neera's eyes studied her environment before she gave a small look over her shoulder. The soldier was gaining ground.
She sped through the looming trees, trying to discern as best as she could the landmarks she knew by heart, but the night was dark, and the shadows of the forest only made it darker, making her task that much more difficult.
Her heart raced while she tried her best to not blink her eyes, lest she missed where she was supposed to turn next.
She couldn't miss now. Missing meant death.
Up ahead she saw three scratches on a tree. She had to go left. The man was getting closer.
A branch grazed her back and she jumped forward, thinking it was the soldier's hand reaching for her.
In her brief state of panic she stumbled, barely catching herself from falling by holding onto a tree. She heard the air whooshing behind her, and she knew it was the knight's word coming down onto her, making her blood run cold.
Straining her muscles further, she ignored the pain that ignited in her legs as she picked up her speed. Branches grazed her skin, but she disregarded the new gashes on her body and kept running.
The cold wind struck her flesh while she desperately tried to orient herself in this maze of trees. When the steel sword lifted in the air to slash at her, she made a sharp turn, rolled over, duked behind a fallen tree, jumped over a boulder, and threw a rock she picked up behind herself to make the man retreat.
Still, not all her efforts saved her from the sharp blade. The soldier managed to reach her arm and calf, mixing a new crimson trail with the animal blood she had coated herself with. The wound on her leg was particularly damaging to her task, slowing her rhythm and giving the man more chances to leave marks on her frame.
Riagan couldn't help but feel a little disturbed.
'This monster—she must be a Ronna for sure. There is no way a normal child would endure all that pain and keep going at this pace otherwise.'
She ran for what seemed like an eternity, the view of the trees becoming monotonous except for the subtle landmarks she searched for with all her might, guiding her forward in her path. Her breaths were ragged, and her eyesight went blurry; she was running out of energy.
'Don't miss. Don't miss. Don't miss.'
Her hands trembled as she pulled herself forward clawing at the ground, narrowly evading the blade once more.
The soldier behind her, quite winded himself, noticed her exhaustion and smiled, raising his sword above his head.
He was close. Too close. She wouldn't make it. No, she had to make it. She pushed her tired legs forward, but it was too late. She would not be able to get out of his path in time. Her eyes squeezed shut in fright, but she didn't stop running. Her mind chanted over and over.
'Just a little more. Just a little more.'
Seeing her trembling shoulders and desperate movements, Riagan almost hesitated for a second, but he then remembered his fallen comrade. He didn't even know if he still lived, all because of this monster. He gritted his teeth and brought his arms down.
"I've got you now you little bi-"
Before he could speak any longer, something cut through the wind above Neera's head and a thud resounded on the empty forest.
The girl let herself fall to the ground, catching her breath.
She had somehow made it.
Hearing footsteps ahead, she looked up to see Davina perched above a large rock with a bow in her extended arm. It was too dark to see her expression, but Neera almost thought she could see a tremor in the Ronna's hand. The woman silently made her way down, holding her stomach to make the last jump to land in front of the girl.
Neera lifted her head and gave her a tired smile. A nervous set of chuckles escaped her lips.
"See? I told you. I won't die that easily-"
She was encompassed in a warm embrace, hearing a racing heart rivalling her own. Trembling fingers clutched at the woman's back for purchase while her legs went numb. Davina simply held her against her chest, feeling the child's quivering breaths.
"I'm sorry."
Neither of them spoke after that.
The fort was in full alert now, preparing for the imminent attack that was to come. The soldiers darted their eyes at every corner and unlit space, waiting for a raging savage to jump at them at any second. Where would they come from? Were they outside the walls, biding their time until the gates opened? Or were they already inside, hidden somewhere they had not thought of?
Torchlight spurted to life all around, illuminating the troops' grim faces. Neera and Davina watched from a distance as the forest became inundated with search parties, their fires only being small dots in the landscape.
They had already made their way up the mountain with a calm but steady pace that allowed Neera's wounds to cease bleeding after being tightly wrapped. Davina's gaze continuously fell on them, but she didn't find any words to say. Neera herself was too tired to maintain a conversation at the moment, resulting in both of them just silently trekking up.
By the time Riagan's corpse was found, the sky had begun to turn to a soft shade of light blue, and it was not until noon that the state of unrest at the base finally came to an end.
Despite the bright sun making its way to them through the entrance of a cave, both women slept soundly, not even bothering to take turns to rest after hiding themselves between the rocks.
"That is enough. We are making our way back to the base."
"But, Captain... Riagan..."
The Captain sighed in resignation. They had been searching for their missing soldier all night only to find him cold and stiff in the morning, and there was no trace of the treacherous child other than a bloody trail making its way up the mountain.
The arrow going through Riagan's eye socket told them that there had been someone else with the girl, but no matter how much they looked there was no one there. Even after following the blood through the bushes the trail was cut off eventually, stopping their search. There were no signs of a large group of people passing through, meaning there had never been an attack force to begin with. They had been utterly fooled.
"She and her accomplice probably made their way up the mountain already. The area to be searched is way too wide. We won't find them even if we were to waste all day on it. And even if we did, we would only leave the fort less protected."
The sentinels turned their gazes to the ground, knowing their captain's words were true.
"We should've killed her when we had the chance," someone gritted through their teeth.
The Captain nodded somberly.
"We should have. Let this be a lesson to all of us. We lost a man today due to our own stupidity and naivety. Do not blame our comrade either. All of us were the same when we arrived, it was our responsibility to teach him better."
The last search party finally made it way back to the fort.
Neera woke up from her deep slumber, feeling the soreness all over her limbs. They had made their way past the military post's defenses at the cost of her physical integrity, a price she now felt dearly as she made her way towards the campfire where Davina was roasting some meat.
The girl accepted the rabbit leg with a small smile and began gnawing at it with gusto.
"How do you feel?"
"A bit tender, but I'll be okay. The only cut that really bothers me is the one on my leg."
Davina nodded as she watched Neera eat. The girl was still in a state of shock, she could tell by the way her eyes were glazed over, unmoving from the dancing flames. How scared must she have been running alone in the dark? How badly must her wounds have hurt while she tried to escape? The Ronna's mouth tasted bitter and her gaze inevitably fell on her stomach.
She bit her lips and shook her head. There was no use in thinking about what if's now.
"I made some salve to help with the swelling. It should reduce some of the pain as well as prevent any infection."
"You found herbs?"
"Yeah. The plants growing here are the same as the ones on the other face of the mountain. I am pretty familiar with them since we use them a lot."
"Thank you."
"Don't worry. I'll apply it when we finish eating."
"And you? How are you feeling?"
The Ronna rubbed her hips.
"I have the same level of pain as yesterday. I never expected the leg cramps to be so strong."
"Well, we haven't been able to find you a place to rest. You must be tired."
"Yeah, most likely, but we still cannot stop. Not until we cross to the Ronna territory."
"I know."
Neera wiped the grease from he mouth with the back of her hand and stood up, wincing as she put pressure on her leg.
"Here, let me change the dressing on your wound."
They embarked on their journey again once Neera's cut was cleaned and bandaged. The slope became steeper every step, an they air grew colder. The trees were nowhere to be seen by now, wth the only greenery surrounding them being small bushes and tufts of grass. They were making their way around a particularly large boulder when a metallic clang echoed through the mountain. Davina quickly knelt down to the floor, pulling Neera along with her.
"A battle?"
"Most likely. From the sounds of it it is quite a large one."
They followed the sounds to an area a bit further up above them, where two groups of people faced each other off.
From down the hill came the soldiers of the Cambria Kingdom, wearing the shiny armor that Neera was already familiar with, employing organized defense tactics against the raging wave that was the Ronna warriors.
Neera had read about them in depth during her escapades to the dukedom's library, but no amount of military tactics records were able to capture the movements of a Ronna company.
Against the stable Cambrian squadron of knights that maintained their stance like an unmovable boulder, the Ronna crashed over and over, employing hit and retreat tactics, slithering through the cracks in the enemy's defense to cause as much damage as possible before going back, leaving space for others to go forward and push as well.
Unlike the organized commands given by the soldiers' captains, the movements of the warriors seemed to follow no rhyme or reason, always being present to strike at the slightest appearance of weakness in the formation and retreating just as quickly as the window closed. People who were going for the flanks suddenly turned and attacked the center, or made a faint push to gather the enemy forces to one spot only for another group to rush forward and strike somewhere else.
Each individual evaded and parried the blades with the same grace as Davina, seeming to dance around their stiff counterparts who gritted their teeth and endured the onslaught.
The Cambrian knights were not to be underestimated either. If the Ronna were a raging sea, the knights were the rocky cliff it was crashing against, letting the waves pass over the rocks, but never crumbling to its force.
Watching in morbid fascination, Neera felt the pages of the books come to life, the tactical arrows now turning into small squads facing each other, while the thin balance of the battle became visible to her.
The Ronna held the terrain advantage as they attacked from higher up, being nimbler in their simpler clothes, able to maneuver better through the rocky slopes. The knights on the other side had a much sturdier defense and a larger number of combatants, allowing them to survive the precise strikes of the warriors and solidly defend against their fluid motions.
Nonetheless, the casualties slowly piled up between both sides.
A burly Ronna man managed to wedge his sword in the shoulder joint of a soldier, passing through the chainmail by sheer strength from the inertia of his body, puncturing his lungs. Two knights cornered a woman attacking at their flank, cutting off her retreat and quickly slashing her down, but not before she managed to tackle one of them down, leaving an opening to one of her comrades, who followed up behind her, stepping over her corpse in order to keep the forward momentum.
It was gruesome and cruel, not at all as glorious as Neera had believed it to be. The bodies hit the floor without the grace attributed to fallen soldiers depicted by historians, falling the same way a sack of wheat fell when thrown away. The prior comrades now became another obstacle in the way towards the enemy, being stepped on, kicked away and pushed aside. The smell of blood was nauseating, and the screams of terror in the face of death escaped the lips of even the most hardened of fighters.
The wounds marring the bodies on both sides were no different from the ones on Neera's skin before they turned into scars; they bled the same, hurt the same, and would soon heal and turn into a gnarly reminder of the slaughter she witnessed today, just like hers were a brutal memento of her times in the basement.
Neera became unable to blink, her irises absorbing everything. Every scream, every slash, the sight of a severed arm being stomped on as two men fought for their lives, and the endless rivers of crimson dripping down the slopes, making them slippery to the thundering boots.
The historical records were unable to document the brutality of real combat; the girl couldn't help but think about the frontlines of the continental war between the Kingdom and the Empire.
Was everyone out there dying like this? Did they also wail in agony as they fell? Did they call out for help just the same? Here, both sides were trained men and women, accustomed to this gruesome reality, but what about the farmers, merchants, and young children who had not even reached puberty before being conscripted?
Davina, recovering from the shock of seeing her people once more along with her resurfacing memories of being in their midst, sword to sword against the Cambrians, turned to her side to look at the young girl. She was about to cover her eyes with her hands when Neera mumbled under her breath.
"So this is war."