Airka has known she would be the last to reach the command tent.  The silent looks of the weary soldiers, both here and those under the other Sergeants, had made it apparent that they were all waiting for for the news.  The only thing that broke that silence was the booming voice from the other tent, the other was demanding where she, and only she, was.  Even without his angry voice making his angered state apparent, Airka would have expected nothing less of her welcome from Glout.

“Oh, little miss farmer finally arrives,” he began.  Glout was big, probably the biggest man left in the army.  His his frame though was showing the slimming they all felt at this point in the war.  His hollowed cheeks took the edge off of his anger.  “Well Airka?  You’ve dragged us all here, you gonna tell us what we owe our ancestors, that we must hold to our stories?  Cause I’m telling you right now that means nothing when we’re all dead in a field.  Our officers seem to have set a pretty good example of what we should do and I for one think we should follow their fine example, nay that we should take it as an order.”  Glout stopped there under the chorus of agreement from a couple of the others, another two were silent though, quiet and watching.  They’d all had conversations near this, never this dire but close, and they wanted to see what Airka had, what counter point she would bring.

“Well, what do you got Airka?”  Glout continued when the cheers from his fellows had finished.  “You really think dying is worth it?”

Airka had been thinking how strange it was that she was calm, that since she had opened a tent none of the stress of the walk here had remained.  It was all simply decided.  She marveled that her arm didn’t shake as she slowly lowered her spear and place its head on the center of the table.  She waited for it to cackle, the bolt of blue lightning to arc, and for them all to jump.  As silence reined them all turned to look to her.  

“No, I’m telling you we can win.”

—————————————————————————-

The meeting had turned quickly after that.  They were all children of the Provinces and they all knew their legends, even those coming from the North.  A Heir of Brokel was the counter to the Dawn Queen.  Airka’s only fear had been that any of them would ask why she had waited until now to reveal the spear.  Had thought of the difference it could have made.  It was a thought that had long haunted her as she struggled with the power of the weapon and the legacy her family had long avoided.  However, none of them had asked.  The lightning splitting the chair Glout sat upon had been enough to prove her validity.  Being raised on stories meant that they all knew that timing was vital.  So, instead of debating if they should fight, the meeting had discussed strategy.  They agreed that the hill the officers had been guiding them towards reamined the best position they could reach.  Their cavalry was now riding out both to report back on the hill and to also place the location of Argentum army.  The rest of the Sergeants were leading their divisions in breaking camp and getting ready for the last day’s march to bring them to site of the battle.

Airka had returned to her tent and found Wignot inside.  He poured them both a cup of tea, the aroma filled the space and Airka looked at him with surprise.  “This is the real thing?”

“The last of it regrettably, been saving it for what I figure would be our last march.”  The way he said last brought Airka’s gaze up from her mug.

“There’s one more, the one home.”

“I don’t doubt your plan, not after what you showed today, and I figure that whichever of us make through it will be proud enough to dance home,” He smiled for a moment and Airka had returned it but then it faded. “Some of us though, we’re not going to make it. Story can’t work that way.”

Airka stared at Wignot, at the scares he had built up, at the gray that had crept in his hair, the wrinkles he’d developed.  Sisters, this war had aged them so.  “We’re some of the few left you know, from the first calls.”  She stared down at her mug, unable to face his blue eyes boring into her.  “You’ve gotten me through a lot…my parents…”

“We got each other through a lot,” Wignot corrected and she heard him step closer, looked up when he rested a hand on her shoulder.  He was smiling once mroe now.  “No matter what, it’s been glorious to see you.”

She laughed, soft from his closeness, “I haven’t even thrown a lightning bolt yet.”

He smirked, “I didn’t need to see that.”  His hand left her, the cold biting at her shoulder from the difference, and he backed to lean against the table.  “That does beg the question if you’ve thought about what Argentum is going to do.”

“I’m thinking hold back  their infantry, let their irregulars tired us out, and if they brought any cavalry in their ships hold them to press us when the lines get disorganized.”

“I was thinking more,” Wignot interrupted, “what you’re going to do when the Dawn Queen and the Dusk King learn that the third Silver Lord has been found.”  Airka had not been thinking about it, had only been thinking of that battle.  “They’re going to want you to join them, after all their story states that it was the Silver Three that inherited Quartes’ legacy.”

Airka went cold at that for a moment.  If she was going to meet the Dawn Queen it would only be to put her spear through her, but Wignot had a point.  He often did, looking forward was something he had long done for all of them, part of the reason he had taken over managing their supplies.  “I kinda figured I’d put it back away.  Even if we win this I think we all know there’s still an end to the war coming, an end to the Provinces.”  She frowned, “Going to be a bit hard isn’t it?”

Wignot shrugged, but it was softened by the smirk he wore.  “Not like any of us are going to go talking to an Argentum about what we know.  Besides, I think I have an idea that can help out a little bit,” his smirk grew into a beaming smile, “and it’ll even give you a look that’ll dress you appropriate for talking to a general before you send him away with his tail between his legs back to the Silver Kingdom.

—————————————————————

So it was that as the army dug in at the hill Airka found herself not in her command tent but that of the army’s captain.  Wignot had gone, off to execute the few remaining preparations that Airka no longer had time to oversee, as the remaining officer aides dressed her.  When he had fled, the captain had left behind his armor.  While a bit ceremonial and bulkier than the leather chest piece Airka had grown accustomed to, it did have the advantage of sporting a closed face helm.  Wignot had further proposed, and Airka had regrettably been forced to agree, that a senior officer,  made much more sense as the wielder of the Spear of Brokel.  A leader after all had to be expected to wield the Spear of Brokel and to oversee a battle that would shatter an Argentum army and send shockwaves through the Silver Kingdom and Four Provinces.  More than that Airka hoped that it would that when Argentum came looking they would be looking for an officer, not some sergeant operating above her station.

Airka rolled her arm, growing accustom to her movements and the weight of the metal armor.  It had shocked her how well the armor moved, the added weight felt but not as severly as she expected.  She had to admit that it was not only an impressive sight but would allow her to fight largely as she was accustomed.  The Captain had been from Verken and the armor had been crafted with a bird motiff, wings on the helms and etched feathers on the vambraces.  The aid had polished it to a sheen, and staring at it Airka had a moment to think if this was what Brokel would have wanted.  After all, the Dawn Queen and Dusk King had been his allies.  On the other hand, he had left them.  Had valued his independence enough to not see it fit to support their actions once their mission was done.  Brokel had been loyal to the peace Quartes had tried to make, a peace that Aus Argentum in its arrogance had thought it right to break.

No, this would be a reminder to the Dawn Queen and the Dusk King of their station in the world, that they were not the ones writing the story.

She heard the horns then.  By now it was a sadly familiar sound, after all she had heard their counterparts many times before.  It sent her heart beating faster, but she closed her eyes and took a breath.  When she reopened them she looked at herself once more in the mirror.  Encased in her gleaming armor this would be a day for the Provinces, for Verken.  The horn had paused the aides but they finished up, helped her pull on the last pieces of her armor, and then pulled aside the tent flap as she exited.  The attention of the army had been drawn by the horns and the murmuring that had been building at the sight of the arrival of the forces of Aus Argentum had grown quiet as the soldiers of the Provinces saw the force arrayed against them.  Airka took the moment first to look at her fellows.  They had made the best of the hill.  Their reserve of spears, having grown greater than the soldiers available to wield them, had been lashed together and dug in, creating a battlement that would slow the advance of their enemies.  She’d discussed with the other Sergeants and they had ultimately decided to keep their limited cavalry behind their own defenses, unmounted but ready to answer the call if the opportunity came.  All along the hill the banners of the Provinces snapped in the growing wind.  Most of them were battered, some had been trampled at battles but later recovered, but that was their story and something not to be forgotten.  A gust blew against Airka, pushing her backwards a step and her gaze turned briefly to the storm that was blowing in from the sea.  Moving behind the army of Argentum, or perhaps pushing them towards her.

She watched her advancing enemy now.  They didn’t march in the tight regiments of the Provinces’ armies.  Rather, they eschewed the warfare plans of Koric and instead advanced in small bands.  Each no larger than a dozen individuals advanced under a banner.  Like the banners of her army, each of the Argentium units told a story, the story being the accomplishments of the adventuring band, the Knights of the kingdom, that carried it.  Airka remember how early in the war she and her fellows had scoffed as the disorganization of allowing adventurers to make up the bulk of an army.  It had seemed simple then to believe that such discontinuous units would break on the organized ranks of spears and shields and for a time they certainly had.  Argentum though had the numbers, perhaps had the training born of fighting the dragonkin still present in the North.  They had learned, and no doubt part of it had been that their people had answered the call.  Adventuring groups were organized into types, horns and banners had better communicated and Airka had seen just how flexible and effective it could be.  It had created a force nimbler than the Province’s ordered lines and regiments, better able to take advantage of any weakness they encountered or any advantage terrain offered.

She remembered her first battle, her line breaking as a pair of bands crashed into the side of her unit, the Knights of each glistening as they cut down her companions.  She gazed out at the Knights now.  More of them here than she had ever seen before.  The elite of Argentum no doubt, meant to make a statement with a crushing victory.  No doubt meant to look their best in glistening armor and weapons as they rode about the towers of Verken in their victory.  She hated the Knights like she hated their lords, their armor inscribed with traits they felt they had imbued in it, so confident that they were worthy of creating items that would carry on their legacy.  She hoped to leave them here to rust today.

As Airka had stared out first at her fellows and then her enemy the din of those around her had grown, first in renewed response at the sight of the forces of Argentum, their size, gear, and splendor but the tone had shifted around her.  The shift had worked it way down the hill and Airka realized now that many of the soldiers were turning to face her.  The report of her appearance, in the splendor of the Captain’s armor that matched that of any worn of the Knights, had spread.  She looked at all faces turned up towards her, felt a knot in her gut just as she felt the tiredness and hunger in some many of their gazes.  She searched for words to give them, knew that word had gotten about, that Brokel’s spear was with them and with it a remnant of Quartes, the true hero.  Before she could find words or be lost to the sight of those eyes towards her, a drumming went up from the lines.  Airka started and saw that it was from the front, the corner where here own division held their bulwark of spears.  Airka saw Wignot, Kara, Anders, and Malcolm.  Each of them banged spear shaft against shield or vambrace.  Those in their regiments joined in, a booming that worked back towards her as each of the regiments took it up.  Airka found her gaze drawn to Wignot, even at this distance she could see his steely eyes focused up on her.  She felt the thrumming around her and lifted up Brokel’s spear above her, pointed towards the sky and the drumming gave way to a cheer.

In the distance, rolling in from off the coast, thunder rumbled.