Nine years ago...
"What are you looking at General Ivanov?" Prince Mikhail sighed, annoyed that the old warrior's attention had wandered once again from their conversation.
"Oh, it's the children again. They were up in the tower this morning, and now they're all the way across town on the wall. It's as though no one's minding them at all," the general admitted.
"My reports say that all of the village children have been evacuated to the capital," Prince Mikhail said.
"Yes, well that's true, I suppose, but not the royal children. An odd sort of custom the House of Eosin has, children at the battlefront. Why, I remember, many years ago now, when the little one was still a baby, that during the Battle of Breck, it was said that the Queen left the field to nurse. Can you imagine?"
Growing ever more annoyed, Prince Mikhail snatched the scope from the table and trained his eye upon the wall.
"The little one looks to be no more than a baby now. You must mean the other one," the Prince corrected his elder.
"No, it was the small one. She's likely nine or ten years old by now," the General confirmed.
Mikhail frowned as he watched the little girl chase after her much older brother. She wore a long white dress, but her legs and arms were bare, and rather than the healthy dimples of chubby arms and legs that were seen on children throughout the empire, her arms were thin, bony almost, and her feet... were bare!
"Children look like that when they don't get much to eat. They don't grow well, kind of runty-like," the General continued.
"The boy child seems to be healthy enough," Prince Mikhail observed.
"Born before the war, had a while of good eating before the lean times, I suppose. He's older than you," the General added.
"Why have they dressed that little child like a brothel girl? It's indecent!" Prince Mikhail snapped.
"Like a... like a brothel girl!" General Ivanov laughed and slapped his knee. "What does our Prince know of brothel girls?"
"Enough," Prince Mikhail growled.
"Oh that's... well, that's a misunderstanding. A lot of the brothel girls are slaves taken from the south. It's not a uniform given to them, it's just the way the common women of Vezda dress. It's a warm country with very mild winters. I suspect it's mostly northern men who find their clothes... enticing."
"Not on a child!" the prince spat, his lip curling in disgust. He tossed the scope back on the table and turned his attention to the map. "Now, for the last time, if we position our rear guard at the..."
The General turned his back to the wall and put on his most attentive face.
In the days that followed, as they planned their attack, Prince Mikhail, the Emperor's rabid wolf, the famously heartless demon of Unaria, grew ever more distracted by the appearance of the children at odd times during the day. He came to know their habits and personalities. The little one especially. The older girl spent a good part of her day chasing the little one away from ladders and swords and was mostly rewarded for her troubles with a saucy tongue stuck in her direction. The boy was careful and guarded, watching the Unarians as much as Prince Mikhail watched him, but the boy would always make time for the little girl, sometimes even riding her on his shoulders as he walked the wall.
And then, after a few days, the children were gone. They no longer climbed the ladder to the tower or played chase along the wall. Although he did not ask specifically, he'd learned from bits and pieces of intel that the boy had returned to Vezda's holy island, and it seemed that his sisters had accompanied him on this occasion. It further seemed to Prince Mikhail that it would be a wise time to attack.
Not because the children were safely away, certainly not. Prince Mikhail cared nothing for the safety and well-being of Vezda's royal siblings. If anyone had asked him, he would say that he had ordered the attack at that time because a number of the royal guard had certainly gone along with the children, leaving them short of at least a few soldiers, but all the same, he didn't like to think of the little one stashed in a cellar or a closet, shaking in fear as men screamed and died and fought around her.
By the time night fell, all thoughts of anything but the attack had gone completely from Mikhail's head. Under the cover of darkness, his runners scaled the western wall and silently cut the throats of the guards stationed there. His men worked their way slowly from post to post, disposing of the patrol soldiers they encountered along their path. It was very precise work. If an alarm was raised before they secured the bell tower, the Vezdans would certainly signal the Drail Legion down from the mountains. Their small battalion would then be caught between two forces.
Prince Mikhail held up his arm, made a few gestures with his hand and directed his men to form two groups. The fastest of them would head to the bell tower at the north end of town, while the rest stationed themselves outside the barracks. Once they received the sign that the bell tower was taken, the real attack would begin.
Suddenly, a deep, booming voice split the silence of the night with the call Mikhail dreaded most-
"UNARIANS! UNARIANS INSIDE THE WALLS!"
The barracks came alive-- soldiers pouring out with their swords raised and from all sides the Vezdans came in various states of dress, some with swords, some carrying only torches and farming tools.
"Fight men! While they wipe the sleep from their eyes! For the Empire!" Prince Mikhail snarled as he charged.
There was no way of knowing if his men had reached the bell tower. He would not hear the signal over the clang of metal, of sword striking sword and armor. Each time Mikhail cut another opponent to the ground, he would look to the sky, alert for the glow of signal flares, but each time the sky was only dark. They would surely win this night! They had the upper hand. The tower was likely secured, but as he looked again to the sky, a small white figure upon the wall caught his eye.
The smallest child, the naughty, half-starved one with the bare feet stood alone there, above the fray, her tiny hands clasped together and her eyes wide and fearful in her small face. The sight hit Prince Mikhail like a punch to the stomach.
He growled and spun to strike yet another soldier before the man could bring down his own sword and looked again. The small child was gone.
It was no concern of his. Had the little thing any sense at all she'd find some corner to hunker down in, perhaps no one but him had even noticed--
The little girl appeared again. She'd gotten down from the wall somehow and was now charging into the fray, armed with a broken spear she'd somehow picked up and waved around as though it were a sword.
"Fuck," Mikhail muttered.
Clearly, the child was insane.
And now others had noticed her as well. Several of the Vezdan soldiers were fighting desperately, trying to break through and reach the girl while the Unarians mostly ignored her. The girl ran past a pair of soldiers engaged in hand-to-hand combat and stopped long enough to stab the Unarian man in the leg. It was surely a shallow wound, but the soldier responded on instinct and kicked the child with a metal booted foot. Her small body flew back and rolled, but she scrambled quickly to her feet and retrieved her makeshift sword. A Unarian soldier noticed her at that point and raised his sword as he ran towards her.
Prince Mikhail was not sure what controlled him at that moment. There was no thought in his head that he should save the child, and yet he found his body move without even willing it to do so, and a few seconds later he had tackled his own soldier. He got up quickly and pulled the man to his feet.
"You didn't see the sword behind you?!" Prince Mikhail scoffed, surprised at how easily he lied, and then slapped the man's back, directing him back into the melee.
When he turned to look, the child had disappeared again.
It wasn't his problem. He wasn't a nursemaid to the babies of his enemies, and without another thought for the girl, he rushed back into the fray.
They should have won that night. They were winning. They should have taken the town of Geft that very hour, but at long last, when even the Vezdans no longer expected it, the red signal flares lit up the sky, illuminating for a long moment the looks of joy and relief on the faces of every Vezdan soldier, and the expressions of fear and confusion worn by his men as they looked to him for orders. They would not have time to take the town before the Drail reinforcements arrived.
"FALL BACK!" Prince Mikhail thundered. "FALL BACK TO THE NORTHERN GATE!"
With any luck they'd meet up there with whatever was left of the group sent to the bell tower and better secure their retreat. There were woods along the northern wall, and it would provide better cover from arrows fired down. Signal flares continued to explode across the sky, one after the other.
How did it happen? Was there a larger group stationed at the tower then he'd assumed?
"What are they doing?!" screamed General Ivanov. "They must have let off every flare they have! Fools! Are they calling down the entire reserves?!"
That was when Mikhail realized what had happened. He glanced briefly at the bell tower and shook his head, but his meticulously strategic mind was already hard at work.
"We can still turn this to our advantage. The mountain post will soon be under-defended. Send Lutz to the rear guard with the message that our armies will meet outside of the Dreyva post at dawn, and rally any of the men who survive here. Position them to the west of Dreyva as reserves," Prince Mikhail ordered. "I'll head to the north and wait in the woods to take out any messengers they send to turn back the Drail forces before we meet up. Set fires as we retreat to slow them."
"Already done," General Ivanov agreed.
As though to make his point, a resounding whoosh and the flicker and snap of a dozen blazing fires filled the night.
"My Prince! General!" yelled Lutz.
The soldier's face was covered in blood, and he carried a torch in one raised hand.
"We've barricaded the door and set fire to the bell tower. That man will pay dearly for what he's cost us tonight!" Lutz screamed.
A murderous feeling rose almost high enough in Mikhail to raise his sword arm, but he quicky suppressed it. Children were often victims in war.
"Do as I said now, GO!" Mikhail snapped.
General Ivanov saluted briefly before rushing toward the north gate. Prince Mikhail hung back, covering the retreat of as many of his soldiers as he could, before his own escape into the woods. He did not look to the bell tower. He did not think about the bell tower. He tried not to hear the bell ringing over the roar of fire, but once he had run some distance from the wall, when the sound of dozens of booted feet crashing through the brush had faded into the distance, he did turn back to look. He allowed himself the luxury of a few seconds to feel something.
As the top of the bell tower collapsed with a horrible sort of clang, his throat felt oddly dry.
WHIZZ!
"FUCK!" Prince Mikhail swore, his hand reaching immediately for the arrow sticking out of his side. Apparently, the Vezdan archers had improved their range since the last attack.
It was a stupid sort of man who indulged in the folly of sentiment anyhow, he thought, as he snapped the shaft off the arrow and continued to run.
It wasn't long before he was forced to stop again. The arrow had worked its way deeper into his side and would have to be removed and staunched before he lost more blood.
With a frustrated growl, Mikhail dug through the pockets of his cloak until he found the small piece of hutteroot he had left. He tossed his cloak to the ground, chewed the root quickly-- ignoring the bitter taste--and sat down against a tree. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. It would take at least a half an hour to slow his bleeding and numb the burning pain in his side. It would be far easier to dig the arrowhead out afterwards.
Among warriors, there is a type of sleep that is well-known but rarely mentioned. Anyone who has spent years upon a battlefield, where they are often required to be in a state of constant vigilance for days at a time, knows it. A sleeper will close their eyes, their bodies relax and slow, their breathing becomes deep and even, and it appears that they are sleeping. They may even snore just a little! However, their minds and ears do not slumber. Every noise is registered, every small sound assessed for threat. Prince Mikhail had long since acquired this skill and was so proficient in this, it was often whispered, that it was the only sort of rest he took.
That is why, from the moment he heard the first small rustle of leaves-- which many may have dismissed as little more than a stirring of a slight breeze-- he was aware that he was being watched. There were other small sounds which followed- a little more rustling, a few tiny gasps-- as though some very small and clumsy animal was attempting to hold its breath as it sneaked up on its prey.
The scent of smoke - of singed hair and fabric - made his breath catch in his throat. He had likely chewed too much of the root. He had never experienced it himself but was warned that it did at times give the user hallucinations. Maybe it was a sort of dream brought on by whatever small piece of conscience remained to him. Either way, he listened without moving or opening his eyes to confirm it. He did not need his eyes to see. He knew perfectly well that a small girl child was crawling toward him as stealthily as she could manage and that she was dragging something with her.
In the tense silence that followed, he waited for the strike. He would easily deflect it, of course, but the little thing was actually quite brave and had tried very hard to be quiet and should be allowed her chance.
The blow did not come.
"You should never--"
"AAAAHHHH!!" she shrieked, scrabbling back. "HELP! NOOOO!"
Prince Mikhail lunged forward and had to immediately grit his teeth against a fresh wave of pain from his side. He caught her easily and clamped his hand over her mouth.
Wide, terrified, eyes stared tearfully at him as she continued to struggle.
"Sssh! Easy now," he soothed. "I only wanted to say that you should never approach a man to kill him until you've entirely made up your mind to do so."
The large blue eyes blinked a few times before slowly narrowing into a scowl. Her muffled voice tickled his hand.
"I'll let you go, but if you scream again, I'll break your neck. Do you understand?" he warned.
She nodded quickly. The second he dropped his hand she drew a deep breath and opened her mouth.
"I had made up my mind!" she insisted. "I really had, and I didn't stop because I was scared either! It's just that... it's just... it didn't seem fair. I just got to thinking about it while I was coming over, and I thought... I thought it seemed sneaky and cowardly to kill a man while he's sleeping," she insisted. "But I was gonna do it!"
"The small and weak... must use every advantage they can. Fair is relative," he murmured and leaned back against the tree.
"I'm not weak! I am small, though. I'll grant you that. Oleg says I might still grow, though I'll probably never be as tall as mother..."
The girl prattled on as though at a tea party. It seemed to Mikhail that she never took a breath. It might have been a symptom of fear or nerves-- he had certainly seen men become unnaturally loquacious when threatened-- but he suspected it was likely a character flaw. Children that were overly protected and doted upon had little understanding of the dangers surrounding them. This child, in particular, while reasonably bright, had likely never experienced the painful consequences of her own poor decisions. This was why she had run through a battlefield and now sat talking to a dangerous enemy. Her family had done her a grave disservice, to be so small and to have no fear at all, was a deadly combination, and she would not survive long without strong protectors. It was purely luck that she had survived that night at all.
He should cut her. It would be the only kindness he could do for her. To snatch her hand, and cut her arm, or perhaps, break one of her tiny fingers-- something small and easily healed, but not soon forgotten. She would not be so eager to pet stray dogs in the future. It might help her to survive longer.
"...and it's actually not so bad to be small, if I had been any larger I wouldn't have squeezed through the archery window and been able to jump, and I'd be a cinder by now!" She finished and finally drew a breath. "My mouth tastes bad... like blood... I think there's blood on your hand! OH! There's an arrow! Did you know? Just there, sticking out of your side!"
"Yes," Prince Mikhail frowned.
"Doesn't it hurt?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.
"Yes," he agreed.
"You should clean it, you know. Oleg always says: leave dirt in wounds, and you'll land in the tombs! I don't have any water or bandages but..."
The child stood and brushed her skirts, twisting her neck both left and right to look down at her dress which was little more than soot-covered rags at that point. Finding what seemed to her a slightly cleaner area, she ripped it and held it out to him. "There!" she said and even had the audacity to smile. When he did not reach for it at once, she bent down and shoved it into his hand.
Prince Mikhail glanced at the dirty rag in his hand. He would eventually clean and bandage his wound, but that would come after he dug out the arrowhead-- which was not a sight suitable for a child to watch. He would certainly not be binding it with a scrap of dirty fabric from a child's dress.
Having handed him her makeshift bandage, she was still standing very close. He wouldn't even have to lean forward to grab her. It would be over very quickly- snatch her by the neck, cut her arm and say something horrid and threatening, and then pretend to be overcome by pain from the arrow, so that she might run home a little wiser.
"Do you suppose it'll be light soon?" she asked, her voice a little quieter than before.
"Four hours until dawn," he replied, wondering if it was the hutteroot which kept him from wanting to move.
"I think... I think maybe I'll just stay here... just until it gets light," she said, her voice rising a little as though asking permission. "I'm not lost, you understand. I'm really not. When I jumped out the window into the woods and then all those men came out of the north gate, I ran, and I suppose I got a little turned around, because all I was thinking about was getting away, but I know which way to go back, I think."
She sat down slowly beside him.
"But all the same, it is dark. I think I shall just--"
"If you go down that way and keep the ravine on your left, you should have no problem, even in the dark," he pointed.
"Still... it would, perhaps be safer..." she began her voice becoming fainter still.
"Safer to sit down beside an enemy who might dash your brains against a tree at any given moment?" he growled.
"Oh, I don't think you would. If you were going to kill me, you would have just done it instead of threatening to do it, or speaking to me as you have," she decided and gave him a cheeky grin. "No, I might really get lost if I-"
"You wouldn't," he disagreed.
"I forgot about it when I was running, because I only thought about getting away from the soldiers, but..." her voice trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished.
"But you're afraid of the dark," he finished.
"No... well, a little, yes," she confessed. "Not all the time. But out here in the woods, at this time of night, and to be all alone... that's the other reason I didn't kill you, you know. What if you became an angry ghost? What if I were out here in these dark woods all alone with an angry ghost?" She shivered reflexively.
"You should fear the living far more than the dead," he warned.
"Alright, from now on, I shall," she agreed happily, crossing her legs to sit comfortably. Her demeanor suggested that she had received permission to stay and not a warning to leave. Prince Mikhail groaned inwardly. "I don't suppose you've anything to eat?" she asked hopefully.
Mikhail let out a long calming breath and closed his eyes.