The Foolhardies 220 In the Heat of the Nigh

Down below, the tension between Luca and Dawn was like a match just waiting to be lit. Unfortunately, the people and wall surrounding them were the oil. Just one spark and it would all go kaput. 

I grabbed onto the nearest bundle of rope I could find and then tossed it over the wall. 

"This line secure?" I asked one of the new recruits who standing was standing close by. 

"Ye-yes, C-commander," he answered nervously. 

It was a little surreal that a human who looked to be a few years older than me was stammering in my presence. It was a bit hard to get used to although it happened every time now. I guessed surviving a fight with a great general made me a bit more famous. 

"Dean!" Arah had just come out of the command room. "What's going on?" 

She joined me on the wall. Aura followed right behind her. Both of them looked down. 

"Is that… Luca?" Arah asked in disbelief. 

"Isn't that the Dawnbreaker?" Aura added in a tone that mirrored Arah's. 

"Yeah… you two prepare the men in case things get hot and heavy," I said. Then I turned back to the new recruit I'd spoken to earlier. "Gather your team and follow me down there, soldier." 

Without waiting for a reply I slung the rope over my waist and jumped over the wall. 

No, I wasn't committing suicide if that's what you readers are thinking. I was just rappelling down the twenty-foot wall to get to the barren landscape below. 

Halfway down the wall, I heard the screams from both sides of the forces gathered there, soldiers egging their leaders on, new recruits cursing and taunting the enemies on the opposite side — juvenile stuff really. 

Luca was usually level-headed enough not to give into name-calling, but an incident from the other night had really shortened my little brother's fuse. 

It all had to do with Pike. 

We'd sent her and a small team of flyers over the wall for recon work. Sadly, a fresh pixie recruit named Zidane was a little too eager to impress his superiors. He'd flown too closely to the Dominion's wall, was discovered. and then shot at. His wing got clipped and he fell from a height of thirty feet. He would have died from the fall if Pike hadn't swooped in to save him. 

Unfortunately, this brought her low enough for someone to get a lucky shot, and she'd been pierced in the left shoulder for her trouble. The wound was pretty close to the heart too which made her return to our side while wounded and carrying an invalid a really remarkable feat, one that earned her a lot of attention from the unit higher ups.

In fact, I'd been planning to promote her to full squad leader soon as I needed another flight capable squad working separately from Qwipp's Talons. It would have to wait until she was back on the active roster however.

Luca had been patrolling somewhere else that night, but after he'd learned that the pixie he had a thing for had been wounded, it took me and Edo to calm him down. 

Honestly, fifteen-year-old Luca was really all hormones and teenage angst. It was a stage I was lucky enough to miss on account of having to be responsible and all. 

Which brings us back to tonight where my little brother was now in the demilitarized zone and staring down at the enemy officer who I knew from experience was a bit of a loose cannon herself.

My feet hit the dirt, and I was just beginning to unravel the knots of the rope on my waist when the sound of metal clashing against metal reached my ears. 

I turned around in horror and found Luca and Dawn with their blades locked against each other. 

"Those stupid idiots," I cursed. 

On the wall opposite ours, a small group of Dominion soldiers were already climbing down their wall. Above me, a similar scene was playing out as well. 

I didn't have time to wait. I dashed forward just as they broke their sword lock and sent their greatswords crashing onto each other a second time. 

"Oh, great fool, let me see the unseen that I might know the unknowable," I whispered while I ran. 

The sound of Shadowblades grating on each other was like a nail raking across a chalkboard. It was at this time when Fool's Insight's combat mode activated. 

"Damn," I pulled out my falchion from its sheathe and then pulled my sword arm back just as I yelled, "Quit it, you jerks!" 

I threw my falchion forward in the trajectory given to me by insight's analysis of the distance plus wind factor. 

It spun forward like a wheel and angled at just the right moment so that it cut right into the space between Luca and Dawn. 

This sudden appearance stopped them both in their tracks just as they were about to slash down at each other for the third time. 

Now came the hard part. 

I raised my sword hand forward, and like Darah had instructed me, willed the air elemental spirits inside the spirit stones Zarz had attached to my sword-hilt to return to me. 

The tricky part was not to get sliced up by my own weapon, and it was always a little unnerving when it was soaring right back toward me. 

Luckily, I did manage to catch it and upright too. This might have even made me look cool to the two pairs of eyes that were now staring back at me. 

"Are you two idiots trying to start another war?" I yelled at them. "Stand down already!" 

Although Luca immediately deflated at my reprimand, I was a little surprised that Dawn — who was a two-thousand-man commander in the Dominion army — too had visibly conceded as well. She dropped her sword and bowed apologetically to me. 

My men had just dropped down to the barren floor but I held up a hand to keep them from charging. Dawn had done likewise to the twenty soldiers who'd arrived to back her up. 

"I didn't come here to fight," she said quickly. 

I walked over to her and Luca. 

"So why'd you draw your sword?" I asked as I stopped beside them. 

"I wasn't given a choice…" Her eyes darted toward Luca and back to me. "There was a misunderstanding…" 

In response, I glared at my brother. "Well?" 

It was a long moment later before Luca responded, "The enemy soldiers were firing arrows at our wall—"

"—which is what they do every night to taunt us," I reminded him. "What was so different now?" 

"Usually the arrows just land on the ground but tonight," as he spoke my brother's face hardened, "one of those arrows hit our wall, Dean…"

That's when I realized that Luca had been more affected by Pike's injury than I thought. The sight of arrows hitting our wall, even if it didn't actually go over it to hurt our soldiers, must have jump-started his protective side. 

"I saw that their commander had come out and thought they were readying to attack us," he reasoned. "So I went to confront her and things got a little heated." 

"Your brother demanded compensation for the other night's fiasco," Dawn explained. 

"What kind of compensation?" I asked while still eyeing my brother warily. 

"A confrontation with the soldier who'd hurt one of your officers…" Dawn sheathed her greatsword. "You understand that I couldn't allow it." 

The fact that Luca had just lowered his head told me he knew his justification was flimsy at best. He knew he was in the wrong. 

"One week latrine duty," I said to him. "And I want you to tell the unit exactly why you're being punished and what you did wrong… might actually help to cool their heads and keep them from the juvenile mudcrap they've been pulling every night…"

Luca nodded wordlessly. 

I placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, which I hoped convey that I wasn't really mad at him. I just needed to be strict in front of an enemy commander. 

"Head back up to the wall, Luca," I ordered. "I'll handle this." 

Luca's eyes looked up at mine for the first time since he lowered his head.

"Dean, I—"

"I've got this," I nodded to him. 

He sighed once. Then he returned his claymore to the strap on his back and walked back toward our side of the line. 

Satisfied that the situation had de-escalated, I turned my attentions now on Dawn and scanned her face. 

The tall redheaded half-elf with the pretty face — high cheekbones and a spattering of freckles across her cheeks and perfectly straight nose — was exactly how I remembered her. 

She was looking back at me with something like a half-smirk on her pretty lips. 

It wasn't lost on me that I'd gotten flustered during our first meeting which had also been our first duel. Finding out that the warrior who gave me such a difficult time was one of the prettiest girls I'd ever seen made me somewhat flustered. And my reaction to her reveal was equally embarrassing. Now, however, I was determined to look like a respectable commander. 

"So, why were you taking a stroll down here?" I asked. "I'm assuming it was to get my attention?" 

"They told me you were smart," she said while her green eyes appraised me. "It didn't seem that way on our first meeting."

I blushed at her dig. It was something only Aura managed to do to me. 

"I was just caught off guard," I said defensively, and desperate to change topics, I quickly added, "So what do you want from me?" 

"It's not what I want," she said as she pulled a tiny scroll from the sash at her waist. "It's what my Lord Rah wants that matters here." 

She offered me the scroll which I took gingerly from her hands. 

Curious, I unfurled the scroll, and the short message written within it caused my heart to still for half a moment. 

I glanced back at Dawn. "Is this for real?" 

"What do you think?" She replied. 

Chapter end