Forged in Frost

Sun-Scorched

Evelyn's mind works as she mechanically follows the others to the training yard. They line up in regular formation to wait for the general and commander. Evelyn finds herself next to Timothy, relatively healthy.

"What was it like?" Evelyn whispers, hesitantly.

A scratch along his cheek has crusted with blood. Evelyn stares at it while he says, "The wildest battle of my life. Men were attacking from every direction. It was all I could do to keep my sword in my hands. But Caius set fire to the longboats, and he actually had our men fell a tree across the path they'd be coming, which delayed them slightly. If not for that, I don't know what would've happened. It's amazing so many of us made it home."

"Who didn't?" Evelyn can't help but ask.

Timothy's face falls. "Still too many. And Leo?"

"He's all right," says Evelyn. "I just came from the chapel. He'll be glad to see you."

General Asher and Caius emerge from the training centre then. General Asher stands before them all, on the raised platform of the Wheel of Death. Caius stands to the side, jaw set, eyes distant like a man about to be hanged.

"Our victory was not an easy one," Asher begins, voice booming in the silence of the late afternoon. "The men from Lockmire, from Prynveil, from Vestar and Ralik, even Tarreth... they died brave men. They died soldiers."

Heavy silence lays over them, a memorial to the dead. An honour to the courage of the fallen. Evelyn thinks of the icy fear that shot through her when that bandit pointed a blade in her face. What if it had all ended there? She feels such gratitude. Such loss. And fear at man's fragile mortality.

"Although this victory has earned us a forward step in this war," Asher goes on, "it is not a big step, and it came at a large and unnecessary cost. In war, battles must be fought. Men must die. But a proper leader will choose his battles with wisdom and tact. He will not run into battles with nothing but pride. That is when deaths are useless. That is when loss is so much more grievous."

Caius lowers his head. Evelyn's heart pounds painfully.

"That is why it is with heavy heart I inform you that one of our own has led you into unnecessary suffering. That a leader you trusted with your very lives risked them for glory. The deaths of the forty-eight men, the countless injuries... I cannot tell you if they would have never happened. But I can tell you that many could have been prevented if certain orders had been followed."

Gods... Evelyn can't look. She grips her crutches until her fists seize around the handles, dropping her eyes to the weeds at the base of the Wheel of Death. 

Asher's voice seems so much louder when he speaks again: "Our own commander has forsaken his responsibility of leadership by neglecting my commands to take the mountain pass and avoid all battle until our troops could be there. He pushed headstrong into a battle he knew we were ill-prepared for, not knowing that the enemies he fought worked with our larger enemy, Esterden. This reckless decision led to their aggressive retaliation, resulting in eleven killed in the bandit ambush, and thirty-seven of our own company killed in the battle for Prynveil, not to mention forty-one Prynveil guards and seventeen civilians, including three children. These are the people we are sworn to protect."

Not a whisper passes through the soldiers. Every eye is fixed without wandering, whether on the ground, on the shoulder of the man in front, on Asher's sober expression or Caius' bowed shoulders.

"Given this tragic result," Asher says, "I have no choice but to—"

"It was me," Evelyn cries, stepping out of formation on her crutches. "Sir, I was the one who urged the troops to attack the bandit camp."