I settled into the hot spring with a sigh of relief.

The fighting in the north had really taken

it out of me, and my cavalry. It was fortunate that we stumbled across this hot springs on
the way. “Miss?”

I pushed away damp locks of hair just enough to see Lieutenant Reid’s face peering
curiously at me. “Yes, lieutenant?”

“Th’ watch ‘as reported tha’ there’re a group of people, some on foot, some on th’ legs,
so ‘e says, comin’,” Reid told me, her grey eyes bored, one hand idly resting on the saber
that she kept by her side at all times. She stood with all of her weight supported on one
leg and as I watched, she shifted to her other foot and back and idly adjusted a strap.

With a groan, I hauled myself out of the water. Water trickled down from my hair, down
my skin and back into the pool. Shivering in the crisp winter air, I quickly donned my
clothes. Pursing my lips, I let loose a whistle that ripped throughout the campsite.
Immediately, the men and women of my command poured out from where they had been
resting and stood at attention, their mounts ready beside them, reins in hand.

Loping forward, I closed up the distance between me and my people, one hand busily
tying my hair up to keep it out of my way. They didn’t shift an inch as I passed them. The
boy on watch met me as I reached the end of the line. “Report,” I barked out.

“Six horses, one wagon, three men on foot. Five women in the wagon, men on the horses
– armed,” he said shortly. “Traveling towards our direction. End report.” After he
finished, he saluted me and found his place in the line. Faithfully, the boy’s stallion met
him there.

I thought hard about this. The road we were on was seldom used and not well known.
Where we had made camp was out of sight of anyone on the road. If someone came up
this road, it could only be that they were military, like us, or –

“Mount up,” I ordered. As one, my team swung into the saddle as one. “Watch, keep me
informed,” I instructed the boy and tossed him a crystal. He caught it with a salute.
“Surround them, two flanks first, loose circle – leave them no room to turn or escape, but
don’t scare them off. Ride out.”

The boy urged his horse into a trot, heels bouncing on the big stallion’s sides, and
together, they disappeared silently into the thick foliage around us. Lieutenant Reid took
the second group automatically and we split to different sides and thundered down the
road. The crystal in my hand grew warm and then hot and I put it to my ear.

“They’re slowing down,” the boy’s voice said from the crystal.

“That’s fine, keep watching. I need your eyes out there, Stevens,” I replied crisply.
“Yes, Miss,” was his reply and the crystal grew cold again. I stood up in the stirrups as
we topped the ridge and descended down the short distance into the shallow valley where
the road cut through.

I saw the group up ahead. They had stopped to fix a split brace on the wagon. “They’re
not going anywhere,” I observed as the women in the wagon spilled out to help ease the
weight on the wagon. Several young men lifted an edge of it high enough for an older
man to crawl underneath to see the damage.

They didn’t get any farther than that. Thundering down from the gentle slope, we
surrounded them, forming first a half circle and once we completed the circle, we
thundered around them in a circle, kicking up snow and mud and ice. I raised a hand and
our circling stopped. As each horse slowed, its rider skillfully turned the horse’s head
around so that they were facing into the circle.

Several children cautiously came out the back of the wagon at the noise, staring wide-
eyed at our regiment, finely dressed in our uniforms. Jacqueline gave them a smile and
the children retreated, too shaken by the change in events to return a friendly gesture.
They disappeared back into the wagon. The men were turning their horses in frantic little
circles, brandishing sabers and rapiers in the attempt to protect their group. But seeing no
danger, they slightly relaxed. I couldn’t help but notice that their hands lingered on the
hilts of their swords.

All except for one – a young man in the back leaned against the wagon, his arms crossed
across his chest. His jerkin fit snugly across his shoulders and chest. Judging by the way
the muscles of his chest and arms pressed against his well-fitting clothes, he was
muscular in build. A fine hooded cloak dangled from his shoulders, the hood pulled up to
cover the upper half of his face. I eyed him for a moment and I could feel the stare
returned by unseen eyes.

I cleared my throat and dismounted. “We are the Twenty-Fourth Regiment of the King’s
Cavalry,” I explained with what I hoped was a not-so-menacing smile. We saw you from
our camp and wondered if you needed any help.”

“Stay away from us, blast yer hide!” the older man who had wiggled out from underneath
the wagon snarled, shaking a fist at me. “Take yer regiment and shove it up yer –”

“Please, sir! Language!” I warned him, fingering my rapier at my hip. His eyes wildly
darted about and he realized I was the only one who hadn’t drawn a blade yet.

“We don’t need help from th’ likes of ye,” an old woman said softly, a stormy look on
her face. She pointed at me. “Especially you – th’ king’s whore.”

My men growled and a few horses jumped forward. I didn’t let her words bother me.
Instead, I waved at my people to stand down and returned the woman’s glare with an
easy smile. “It is apparent that these kind folk don’t need our help, my friends. Let’s be
on our way,” I murmured. I swung easily into the saddle. Shaking the reins, I backed up
Jester, my steady, easy-going mare. She went without protest and turned to leave.

Suddenly the crystal in my hand flared hot. “Miss! Enemy riders! Coming from the
south! They’ve spotted us!” Jake’s voice cried from the crystal. I didn’t need to bring it to
my ear to hear him. Apparently everyone else heard too. I weighed the situation. Running
into the enemy out here in the open was a bad idea as they knew the ground better than
we did. The only thing left to us as an option was a orderly retreat.

“You’ve done good, Jacob, pull back to the camp,” I told him and tucked the crystal
away. “Everyone, pull back.”

“But, Miss, these people –”

“Don’t need our help, so pull back, I say, or else you’ll be the one to face the Night Patrol
on your own,” I warned the man on my left as he tried to protest. Jenkins was a good
man, but it was clear these people didn’t need our help and I didn’t want to spare the lives
of my people helping people who didn’t need our help.

You could say I was cold-hearted, but this was war. And from experience, people who
did not want our help tended to not comply with us as easily, which would cost us time to
retreat, and lives. We had few enough members already. The Twenty-Fourth broke the
circle as elegantly as we had made it and we streamed up the hill again and disappeared
into it. Jake met me halfway, sliding down a tall aspen he had climbed. I spotted his
stallion a few yards off, grazing on the sparse winter grass poking out from under the
snow. I dismounted.

“Jester, Storm, kölknat,” I ordered. The black stallion’s head came up and he whickered
at me. I gave Jester a pat on the rump and pointed at our hidden camp. Together, the two
horses trotted off.

“This way, Miss,” Jake murmured and with a leap, he disappeared into the thick
greenness of the tree, barely shaking any snow from the branches as he climbed. I quickly
followed him, careful to not touch any unstable branches with snow piled on them. Jake
was perched on a thick branch as I arrived and he cleared a spot next to him. “There.”

Taking the glass, I looked towards where the boy was pointing.

I recognized the wedge formation and knew I had been right about the type of riders that
had been coming. Matching black warhorses galloped down the road towards the group
we had just abandoned in a perfect wedge formation. Their riders, dressed in all black,
down to the last strap, leaned over the necks of their mounts. Once they rounded the
bend, they would see the group who was still trapped in the road by their broken wagon.

A small sun exploded in my palm. “Orders, Miss?” Reid’s voice asked from the crystal.
“Just wait. Keep everyone mounted up,” I murmured in reply. The crystal cooled.

“Are we going to help them, Miss?” Jake asked beside me.

I grinned. “Maybe – depending on if they need our help. No one ever survives an
encounter with the Night Patrol, so I think that – ah.” I sat up with satisfaction as below
on the road, the group spotted the Night Patrol as the first horse rounded the bend and
they abandoned the wagon. They pulled the women and children up behind them on the
horses and those who didn’t have horses picked up the children and carried them on foot.
“Come, Jake.”

I leaped for the trunk and slid the rest of the way down. As I hit the ground, I ran and
squeezed the crystal in my hand. “Reid – ride out, pick up the stragglers and lead them
here. We’ll face the Night Patrol,” I told her and let the crystal go, letting it dangle from
its strap on my wrist.

I stopped on the ridge. “Kyä cozon! Rachnïen!” I shouted. There were very few people in
our world who knew the Language of the Beasts and my father had been one of the few
and had taught me. The horses heard me and they broke into a gallop, causing their riders
to grab for the saddle or any part of the horse to hold on. Without hesitation, the horses
galloped right up to me and nudged my palms. “Good boys, now go,” I whispered to
them. They bumped against me again and disappeared behind me.

Ahead of me, a man in a hooded cloak pulled up next to me and let down the children
who had been riding behind him. “Nach pol?” he asked me.

Was this real? “Yes, it is,” I snapped. “How is it that you know –”

“The Language of the Beasts? My father taught me,” he said offhandedly.

I shook my head. “Never mind that now – we’ll talk about this later. We’ve got to deal
with the Night Patrol,” I snapped. Jester appeared at my side and I flipped myself onto
her back.

“You are just saying that in jest, right?” he asked me with a nervous laugh, pulling up
beside me. I noticed that he didn’t even touch his reins. With a whisper of grass and
snow, the rest of my regiment silently appeared behind me.

“No, I’m not.”

“We can’t let the Night Patrol get pass us, milord,” Jake Stevens explained. He was
sitting astride his black stallion. “They’re bad news, they are, sir.”

“I am sure they are, but they are very dangerous,” he said, a little concerned.
I laughed. “No, we have dealt with them before. That is why we were here in the first
place – that is why we were trained. Our regiment has been pulled off duty because we
were trained to combat the impossible – spells and legends, otherwise known as the Night
Patrol. You have obviously never seen the Twenty-Fourth in action,” I explained.

He didn’t look convinced. “That explains so much.” He rolled his eyes.

I couldn’t help but chuckle again. “If you want a better view out of danger, sir, go up on
that ridge and watch this fight – even if we get captured, do not, I repeat, do not, come
down here for us. We will be fine,” I told him.

“And you are just going to walk into this fight smiling?” he asked with a scowl. I had not
realized that I had been smiling. I laughed in merriment and my people appeared next to
me on their own mounts. They all grinned.

“Better to fight them smiling than frowning, as I always say,” I told him cheerfully. He
didn’t look too convinced but nodded and gave way to me and my men with a salute.

I nodded in reply and smiled again and shaking his head, he grabbed the crystal from
Jake who handed it to him and he rode up onto the ridge. As soon as he appeared out of
sight, on a silent command, our horses broke into a thundering gallop and we made our
way down to meet our enemy.

We needed no signal. Every man and woman knew what their places were. We had
trained for this very moment and we needed no reminders. As one, we moved down the
hill at a rapid pace. The enemy had come to the site of the broken wagon. We collided
with them before they realized we were there.

There were screams of horses as lances drove into the animal’s chests and I winced at the
sound, slashing at a mounted opponent as he rode for me. As he fell, I looked for their
sorcerer. Jester lashed out with her own hooves, fighting to keep me seated as I stood up
in the stirrups, trying to get any sighting of magic at work.

Suddenly, the air pressed heavily down on me and I knew that the sorcerer had finally
arrived. The rock in the pouch on my belt grew hot and I drew it out, careful not to lose it
in the battlefield as I dodged a blow from a mounted man. I ran him through as he raised
his sword over his head for a blow. “Yes?”

“If you’re looking for the man throwing fire from his hands, he’s at the edge of the battle,
surrounded by a guard. You better hurry – your people are dying,” a voice told me. I
recognized the voice of the man who had gone to view from the ridge.

“Thank you,” I told him. “It would be helpful to me if you could just stay where you are
and keep me posted with updates.”

“Will do.” The rock grew cold and I tucked it away.

“Come on, Jester,” I shouted to the horse, turning her around. Suddenly, blinding pain
collided with the side of my head and I was knocked into the mud. Dazed, I scrambled to
my feet, wavering as Jester fought for her life and mine as I struggled to draw a weapon. I
finally found my short sword and brought it up in time to block a powerful blow from a
sword that swung down at me, bringing me to my knees with the effort.

Sweat and blood blinded my eyes and I fought desperately against my opponent. Quite
suddenly, the powerful blows ceased and hot blood sprayed my face. I wiped the sweat
and blood from my eyes and looked up to see Reid grinning down on me. The hillwoman
was covered in blood, giving her a chilling look. She saluted me and pulled me out of the
mud and onto Jester again. Suddenly she ducked as a knot of black fire came flying at
her. The flame hit the mud and with a hiss, went out.

“Get the sorcerer!” I bellowed. My people heard me and immediately followed my

command, abandoning the other men. We all knew that the desperate fighting would stop
once the sorcerer was destroyed.