Part 1
Moments after leaving Thessaloria's battered gates—and hearing them slam irrevocably shut behind them—Bisera's weary soldiers found themselves in a nightmare. Gillyrian infiltrators, emerging from the city's interior, seized the ramparts the Vakerians had just vacated. Meanwhile, a Gillyrian force materialized in the farmland ahead, effectively herding the Vakerian column back against the walls they no longer controlled.
The Vakerian soldiers exchanged tense glances, swords half-drawn. Their battered ranks huddled around the SUV and the military transport truck, both oddly out of place against the backdrop of damp fields and looming ramparts. The ancient stone walls of Thessaloria rose behind them, slick with rain. Suddenly, up on those same ramparts, silhouettes emerged—hooded individuals, likely Gillyrian infiltrators—taking over the very battlements they had just abandoned.
Bisera fixed her intense blue eyes on the threat. Her long blonde hair, damp from the downpour, spilled out from beneath a crested helm. A mixture of mud and rain dripped from her plumed horse's flanks.
"Shields, up!" she bellowed, her voice echoing off the walls. "Form defensive columns!"
Her officers relayed the order along the line. The exhausted Vakerian troops raised battered wooden shields overhead in a ragged wall. The muddy ground underfoot churned with each anxious step. Suddenly, a piercing horn cry shattered the momentary stillness. Arrows whistled through the air from the ramparts in deadly arcs, prompting Bisera's warhorse to rear and paw at the mud. Bisera parried several of the incoming shafts with quick flicks of her sword, her nostrils flaring in anger as she realized the Gillyrians intended to trap them against the city walls.
Next came the clay pots, lobbed from the ramparts and crashing onto the cobblestones. They erupted into roaring gouts of Gillyrian fire, a burning substance that hissed and crackled, fanning out rapidly across the slick stones. Smoke and sparks rose in twisting pillars, casting a hellish glow on the rain-soaked battlefield.
Amid the confusion, more arrows rattled off the SUV's steel hood.
Inside the military transport truck, wounded soldiers groaned, frantically bracing themselves as flaming debris rained around them.
Bisera and Vesmir spurred their mounts through the muddied ranks.
"Vakerians—close ranks and retreat away from the city walls!" Bisera commanded.
The command swept through the formation. With disciplined resolve, the troops arranged themselves into two wedge formations. Each wedge was anchored by a core of cavalry on either side, their horses stamping and snorting in the wet earth. Bisera led the charge at the forefront, Vesmir on one flank, a third captain on the other—together, driving the wedges toward the city's outer roads.
If they lingered near the gate, Bisera knew they risked being sealed against the walls by fresh Gillyrian forces. Her voice pierced the turmoil once more: "Don't let them pin us against the gates!"
The gates and ramparts, however, were not the sole threat. Through the dreary veil of rain and morning mist, another host of Gillyrian warriors in lamellar and half-plate stepped from hidden roads and farmland. Nikolaos's men—thousands strong—had formed a curved encirclement in front of the Vakerians, trapping them against Thessaloria's stone perimeter. A cold dread clutched Bisera's stomach as she recognized just how dire their predicament had become.
Part 2
High on a distant bluff, partially veiled by drizzle, stood Nikolaos—bow in hand. A tall figure with a bandaged shoulder and a dark cloak whipping in the wind, he overlooked the sprawling fields outside Thessaloria's walls. He pulled back the bowstring; a faint glow spiraled around the arrowhead, shimmering with mana. Then he released.
The missile hissed across the sky with impossible velocity. Bisera glimpsed it in the corner of her vision while parrying the showers of arrows from both the rampart and the new ambushing troops. She twisted, whipping her sword up. Clang! The arrow deflected, though the shock nearly tore the blade from her grip. Gasps rippled through the nearest Vakerians.
Another arrow followed—and another. Each soared from some invisible vantage, each glowing with swirling mana. Bisera deflected them with desperate precision, sparks dancing in the rain. From so far away, supposedly no mortal archer could aim from such a distance. Yet Nikolaos was no ordinary archer. His archery was legendary and famed among the Gillyrians; his nickname was Death Mark.
"General!" Vesmir called. "We must break through before we are fully encircled."
Bisera nodded, teeth clenched. She could see the ring of Gillyrians tightening from all sides, creeping in like a living net—infantry, light cavalry, and even catapults being hurried into position. The infiltration squad atop the walls launched volley after volley; the ground was a carpet of arrows and ranging fire.
As per Bisera's directions, the Vakerians shielded up in a formation and marched steadily toward the enemy lines that encircled them, focusing on a short stretch of the overall encircling formation of the Gillyrians. One of the Gillyrian catapults, perched on a faraway slope beyond the Gillyrian formation, started swiveling a rock toward the shielded Vakerian formation, cracking holes in the lines as soldiers were crushed under the stone. Simultaneously, from the rampart, clay pots were thrown onto the formation, causing fire to spread among the Vakerians. As soldiers rolled on the ground in attempts to put out the flames, the entire formation fell into chaos.
The Gillyrians doubled down on the rain of arrows from both sides and the rocks thrown by the catapults. From afar, Nikolaos observed with satisfaction—he would eliminate the Vakerians right here and then and take Bisera's head as his trophy. He would go down in history among the greatest Gillyrian tacticians of his time. He would be famed for defeating the unbeatable Vakerian general, Bisera.
Then he recalled that day when his amazing tactics, spending months planting infiltrators within Thessaloria, led them to stir a riot on the very day his 3,000 troops besieged the city. He had been so close to taking it. The Vakerian garrison was desperate, having to put down the riot while defending the city walls against what they thought was a legion or more. Morale must have been low. Nikolaos was certain that his torchlight tricks had worked; the garrison must have thought his troops were many times larger than their true size. He made sure his soldiers spread out around the cities, each group of three holding a torch to make it look much larger than usual, since the normal ratio would have been five to ten soldiers per torch. But he was informed that the pigeon station received an imperial order telling him to refrain from attacking the city until the Vakerians had successfully retreated, to minimize bloodshed. He did not agree with the Emperor, but he could not openly disobey His Majesty's orders. However, the Emperor did confirm that the order to ambush and take Bisera, alive or dead, still stood.
Now that his operatives had taken over Thessaloria with minimal bloodshed from within, what better time was there to ambush the Vakerians, just as they were backed against the city gates? And now, he would claim his victory as he shot arrow after arrow toward Bisera from the faraway hilltop where he oversaw the entire battlefield. But Bisera was simply too good. Nikolaos was genuinely impressed by her skills. He truly respected her; she was as great as they came—though, to him, for a woman. It would have been even more glorious to capture her alive and parade her in a triumph that he surely deserved. His family would be honored, and his brothers would respect him. No one would view him merely as a pretty face anymore; he would be taken seriously.
But then, suddenly, an idea came to him. If Bisera was good at defending herself, why not attack James and lure Bisera into an exposed position?
Nikolaos whispered something to the men beside him, then he rode off toward the Gillyrian line.
Suddenly, a Gillyrian catapult crew frantically cranked the windlass, loaded a huge rock projectile, then aimed it at the SUV. James promptly opened the door and leaped out in time, just as the boulder arced overhead and slammed into the SUV's hood with a horrific crunch of metal. James ducked just in time, shards of twisted steel flying past his ear as panicked whinnies from terrified horses added to the cacophony.
"James!" Bisera shouted, spurring her horse toward him. Another volley of normal arrows rained in, bouncing off her raised shield, though one found a gap in a Vakerian soldier's armor, and he collapsed with a cry.
Then, Vesmir ordered the cavalry to split into two groups, each roughly a hundred strong, slamming into two separate sections of the Gillyrian formations—behind each stood a catapult. They broke through and charged toward the catapults, cutting down the infantry around them and toppling the catapults. They crossed over and began wreaking havoc amid the Gillyrian infantry, though with significant losses, as the Gillyrians shielded up into small square formations, leaving only their spear tips to meet the Vakerian cavalry.
Nikolaos, watching from afar with a satisfied expression, loaded another arrow and aimed at the now-exposed James. Then he released it with mana channeled into it at the moment of release. It pierced the air and flew right toward James. Now beside James, Bisera dismounted and parried the arrow for him, but it was followed by another—while arrows from the ramparts showered down on them. Suddenly, the Gillyrian line encircling them against the gate concentrated their arrows on Bisera and James, and Bisera desperately parried them, making sure none struck James. Sporadically, a powerful arrow from Nikolaos would streak in. As Bisera parried one particularly lethal arrow, another struck her, and then another one nearly hit James—until she covered James in an embrace, taking the arrows in her own body.
"No!" James yelled in shock. Then Seraphina's voice came to him: I told you you should have started learning some martial skills. Now our dear Bisera will die saving you. It's a touching love story, but it's a tragedy when you're the protagonist.
James was desperate and exasperated. "Please, don't rub it in now. Save her, please. I will do anything," he said.
Sure, I take it as a promise then. I'll find a way to get you guys out of this mess, but you will take on martial arts training with Bisera once she recovers, Seraphina said.
James agreed promptly.
Then, suddenly, an assault rifle appeared in James's hands. Shoot only at their legs. Do not kill them, and provide them with healing services afterward. The overall cost will be borne by you.
James had no time to think and agreed.
To Adelais's shock, the strange item in James's hands started spraying out invisible projectiles that punctured bloody indents in the Gillyrian soldiers' legs and even in their shields when they lowered them to guard their lower halves. As a large portion of the first line of the encircling Gillyrian formation fell under James's assault-rifle fire, the entire battlefield fell into stunned silence; both Vakerians and Gillyrians were transfixed by the weapon's noise.
Then James declared loudly, "Gillyrians, leave now! Or else stay forever buried here." He tried to sound as threatening as possible, though his body was already sweating profusely with nervousness. Deep down, he asked Seraphina for a reload of ammunition. Then an arrow flew from beyond his line of sight, and Bisera, in one quick motion, embraced James, turning so the arrow penetrated deep into her upper left shoulder. Bisera let out a cry, and James watched in horror.
Then something in him changed—a swelling anger and a deep sense of guilt and shame at his incompetency. It sparked an engulfing flame within him. A surge of energy he had never felt before coursed through him, and he felt his arms grow stronger than ever, his muscles coming alive. He lifted the assault rifle with one hand and started spraying bullets at the Gillyrian formation like a firefighter spraying water on a raging blaze. The Gillyrian soldiers fell one after another, despite trying to lift their shields. The bullets penetrated them, taking men's lives with shocking ease, as though the Angel of Death were himself upon them.
Upon seeing the situation from his hilltop, Nikolaos was stunned.
Similarly, Adelais was stunned too. She had been hiding behind a circle formed by a few dozen soldiers specifically assigned by Bisera to protect her and the orphans and the truck carrying the wounded. Earlier, she had silently cursed Nikolaos for this ambush, as she would be forced to blow her cover if necessary to protect herself. But then, if the Gillyrians failed to wipe out the Vakerians, she would be left with both a failed mission to discover James's secrets and potentially fighting her way out of Bisera's Vakerian army, as Bisera's warrior instinct—already suspicious—would likely order her arrest.
The sudden burst of power from James truly shocked her. She had never expected such powerful lethal magic. She had never heard of such immense power… Could he really be Seraphina's emissary? But why would Seraphina side with the barbarians over civilization and her devout followers? And what did that mean for the Gillyrians? For Emperor Alexander's plan? Had the Universal Spirit decided to deliver the Gillyrians into the hands of their enemies for some unknown transgression? Then, images of that night's encounter with the three harassers resurfaced, and for a moment, fear took hold of her as a frightening yet plausible explanation rooted itself in her mind.
Then James stopped and, in his mind, asked for another reload. He spoke again, this time angrily and with an air of authority: "Leave now or die."
Slowly, the Gillyrian soldiers began pulling back and retreating, despite orders to stand their ground. These troops were mostly new recruits from Governor Nikolaos's themes; they were as disciplined as any, but James's overwhelming display of firepower had instilled a profound fear in them.
Nikolaos watched with exasperation and promptly gave orders for the Gillyrian army to conduct an orderly retreat. He feared that if this continued, either his entire army would desert or be mowed down by James. He had not accounted for James's power. Who was this James? Nikolaos had heard rumors of a great mage traveling with the Vakerians, but he never believed them. He did not trust tales of divine blessings, as they could be propaganda. But now he realized he had underestimated his opponents. Being a wise man, never one to fight impossible odds, he resolved to bide his time.
With that, he led his cavalry to withdraw.
"Shield formation now! Do not give chase," Bisera ordered, in a weaker voice, as she directed her infantry to form shielded formations and the cavalry to pull back. There was still the enemy on the rampart, though they seemed far quieter now after witnessing James's stunning feat and the Gillyrian army's retreat.
Then Bisera began stumbling forward. James dropped his rifle and caught her, helping her by placing her arm around him. Bisera was panting heavily, five glaring arrows protruding from her armor, with the one in her left back shoulder appearing to be the most troubling. Vesmir ordered the troops to extinguish the fires with dust and form a defensive position against the soldiers on the rampart while guiding James and Bisera's slow retreat into the military transport truck.
Part 3
Bisera stirred, the dull ache in her left shoulder reminding her she was still among the living. She found herself lying on a bed plusher and more expansive than any she had ever known.
She tried to sit up, the tunic riding high on her thighs. A fragment of a half-forgotten dream flitted through her mind: she'd been wearing something just as short, in a room with James while his gaze lingered on her with unmistakable warmth. Spirit help me, she thought, her heart thrumming in quiet shame. Though she had grown adept at suppressing her more private feelings, the memory of that dream felt scandalous, stirring an unbidden flush.
The door creaked softly. Her heart jumped, and she clutched the blanket tighter. James entered, carrying a small tray and looking relieved—almost tender—when he met her eyes. Bisera swallowed hard, painfully aware of her half-covered state. Realizing the arrow wound on her upper back was now bandaged, she deduced that James must have removed her tunic entirely to dress her injuries.
She offered a quick, silent prayer for composure.
"Bisera," he said gently, setting the tray on a small table. "I'm so glad you're awake. I… was worried."
His voice was as warm as his dark gaze. Gratefulness pooled in her chest, but a flare of guilt tugged at her, too. She couldn't stop picturing his hands on her bare shoulder, carefully cleaning and dressing her wound. Even though he'd clearly shown care and respect, she felt a pang of embarrassment at the thought of how intimately he must have seen her.
She forced herself to speak. "Thank you… for saving me. And for this." Her hand drifted over the bandages peeking out from beneath the tunic. Yet just as she spoke those words, an image of James standing outside the cathedral that night, Adelais at his side, flickered in her mind. The memory cut through her small bubble of warmth with a sudden chill. She tried to dismiss it, but the echo of it lingered—stirring feelings she was not ready to face.