Ashtik: The Champion of Black.

Chapter Three: Bloody Battle.

              There is a sound nature hates most. It's men, clothed in steel, marching in the rain. It's the beating of war drums in a peaceful village. It's the sound of needless death, and nature would suffer this day.

Her men had worked well, as had the women Vamet had managed to recruit. They erected shoulder high walls around the Elder's home. They dug tunnels from within and spread them around the village. They worked as a community on the brink, as the best of humanity.

She knew the best wouldn't be enough.

"Ash." The little voice whispered, breaking her trance. She turned to look at her. Evara stood so small. She had removed her armour and donned a thick smithing apron and gloves. An emerald stain slashed across the apron like the stroke of a brush, or blade. "It's done." "Good." Ash darkly replied. She could see the smith and her father by the gate house, spreading the golden resin over the soaked wooden walls. Rain beat down hard, but it at least kept them cool as they worked.

"Can..." Evara eked. Her voice failed betrayed her as she looked to the horizon, and the ravenous horde that blocked it out.

"What?" Ash kindly pushed. She took her little sister's face into her hands and forced her gaze from the killers, to her.
"Can we win?" Evara choked.
"I don't think so." Ash warmly admitted. "But I think we can survive." Her smile wasn't quite forced, but it was hard to keep.
"Go back to the Elder's home." Ash ordered. It flipped Evara in an instant, and her eyes set to anger.
"No." Evara said with little left on her fuse. She didn't quite stamp her feet, but she did look unusually petulant beneath the rain.
"Go back to the Elder's home." She slowly repeated, much more severely this time.
"But..."
"Go back to the Elder's home." She quietly repeated a final time. It was enough, Evara gave in. She grunted and stormed away, back to their impromptu keep.

"She's a great shot." Carolet whispered from beneath the alure. "We need her."
"They're going to kill us, Caro. Her being a good shot won't save her, but her being a good shot from behind those walls may." She hopped down and met him beneath the wall. He was sharpening his steel in the only place covered from the rain. He oiled it and dabbed it in a foreign manner. A method he must have picked up on his journeys as a free rider.
 "It's a waste of her abilities." He insisted, though with little vigour.
 "You said the same of me, then you complained when I was given charge." Ash grunted. She sat on an empty barrel beside him, and he passed her an apple from his pack. She thanked him with a nod and sliced into it with her dirk.
"That posture will kill you when you get to my age." He laughed. She was sat with one leg dangled over the barrel and her cheek resting on the other. Her back was bent and arched like some raging feline.

"I have many things to fear in the future, getting to your age is not one of them." She laughed, though she did straighten out somewhat. They sat quietly for a moment while he oiled his halberd, and she crunched away at her apple.

"I'm sorry." He finally said. He placed his weapon aside and looked to her. It caught her by surprise, and she choked on a chunk of her apple.
"F- for what?" She spluttered.
"You are right," he sniffed as he spoke. "I said you wasted your abilities, and then the Elder forced you to act upon your potential and I was petty."
"Oh, I-" She tried to say but he interrupted her.
"You have done more than I would have. Should Temujin have given me the command, we would have fought and died honourably. Under your command, many may yet live. I will not be amongst them." His voice took a grim turn at that, but he wasn't done. "I would have fought how I have always fought. The time-tested methods of honourable combat. You fight in a new way, in a necessary way. Remember that when you take your Championship, but also remember what comes next. I want you to watch them as they burn. I want you to remember the effects of your choices. The skin melting from young boys who fight only because they must. The pops as bubbles beneath the flesh burst. The heat of hellfire. Remember what you have inflicted, and what you have the potential to inflict upon this world. Then, I beg you, give a thought to honour. To the right way of war."

"I don't want to fight wars, Caro." Ash whispered. She tucked her knees into her chest and buried her face. "I don't want to watch them burn. I just want to go home."

"I know, child, but this is the consequence of this kind of victory. If the Elder is correct – if you are the Champion – you will never go home again. I'm sorry."