The next morning arrived with a sky the color of bruised fruit. Clouds hung low and heavy, blocking the sun and casting the camp in a dim gray light. The soldiers woke very early, their movements quick and quiet, without the usual grumbling that accompanied morning routines. Everyone felt the tension. It sat in the air like a weight, pressing down on shoulders and making breaths come shorter than usual.
Something had happened during the night. Subaru noticed it as soon as she stepped out of her tent. The camp felt different. Emptier. The usual noise of soldiers moving about, sharpening weapons, and shouting orders had been replaced by a careful silence. People spoke in whispers. They moved with purpose, not wasting energy on unnecessary words.
At night, the soldiers had been secretly transferred to the outskirts of the city. They had moved in small groups, avoiding the main roads, using the darkness as cover. By the time the moon had reached its highest point, most of the army had already taken their positions. They had hidden well, among the trees and in the shallow valleys, their armor covered with cloth to prevent any glint of metal from giving them away. If the demons attacked, they could spring from these hiding spots and shock the invaders before they had time to react.
Subaru sat on a wooden bench near the center of the camp, watching the activity around her. Übel sat beside her, her staff resting across her lap, her green eyes scanning the scene with casual interest.
Near the command tent, a man who looked very much like Wirt stood giving orders. He had the same red hair, the same build, the same way of standing with his weight on his back foot. But Subaru had spent enough time around the real Wirt to notice the differences. This man's voice was slightly higher. His gestures were less precise. He was a lookalike, a decoy, someone to stand in the commander's place while the real Wirt was gone.
Almost seventy percent of the army had left with Wirt during the night. They had taken the curved roads around the city, moving through the hills and valleys, positioning themselves for an attack that the demons would not see coming. The decoy would make the demon scouts believe that the army still sat in the camp, unprepared, unaware. A nice way to deceive the enemy. Simple but effective.
Übel and Subaru had been given simple jobs. Übel was to stand on the front line, in plain sight, her staff ready, her presence meant to draw attention and hold ground. Subaru had a different task. She was to stay in the woods, hidden among the trees, and fight any demons who tried to flee from the main battle.
Now Subaru was afraid of demons. She had never met one before, not one of her own kind, not since waking up in this body. She did not know what they looked like up close. She did not know how they fought or thought or spoke. The stories she had heard from soldiers and travelers painted them as monsters, cruel and cunning, without mercy or hesitation. She was about to face them for the first time, and she would be fighting alongside humans who would kill her if they ever learned what she truly was.
But the immediate problem was not the demons. The immediate problem was her escort. Wirt had assigned twenty four men to her team. Their mission was to spread through the woods and intercept any demons who tried to escape the battlefield. No demon was to slip past them. No demon was to reach the city or the hills beyond. Twenty four soldiers, trained and armed, and one fake mage who was actually a demon herself, all waiting in the trees to kill anything that ran.
Wirt was certainly going all out with this plan. Subaru had overheard soldiers talking the night before, whispers around the fires, fragments of conversation that she had pieced together. Wirt had some kind of issue with his father, Lord Orden. A disagreement, though no one said what it was about. Lord Orden had an injury to his eye, a fresh wound that kept him from leading the army himself. That was why Wirt had taken command. That was why this battle mattered so much to him. He wanted to prove himself. He wanted to show Lord Orden that he was capable, that he could lead, that he could protect the city and its people.
His plan was simple. The decoy would hold the demons' attention. The hidden soldiers would strike from the sides. The demons who tried to escape will get attacked by the hidden soldiers in the woods. In theory, it should work. But theory and battle were two different things, and Subaru had learned that plans rarely survived contact with reality.
A horse rider approached, his mount breathing hard from a fast gallop. He wore the colors of Wirt's personal guard, and his face was flushed from the cold wind.
"Miss Übel," he said, nodding toward her. "You are to come to the outskirts with me. The commander is already there."
Übel stood up slowly, stretching her arms above her head. She looked completely relaxed, as if she was about to take a pleasant walk instead of heading toward a battle. She swung her staff over her shoulder and mounted the horse that another soldier had brought for her. The animal shifted beneath her weight, but she held steady, her green hair blowing in the morning wind.
She looked down at Subaru and waved. A small gesture, almost casual, as if they were parting ways after a simple errand.
Übel smiled, then turned her horse and rode away, following the messenger toward the outskirts where the front line was forming.
Subaru watched her go until the green of her hair faded into the gray of the morning. Then she turned and looked at the group of soldiers waiting for her. Twenty four men, armed with swords and spears and axes. Their faces were serious, focused. They knew what was coming. They had probably faced demons before. They probably had scars to prove it.
One of them, a tall man with a scar across his cheek, handed Subaru the reins of a horse. The animal was large, brown, with dark eyes that seemed to judge her and find her lacking.
Subaru gulped.
She could not ride a horse. She had never ridden a horse in her old life, not once, not even for fun at a fair or a festival. The closest she had ever come to riding was sitting on a wooden rocking horse as a child. This was different. This was a living creature with its own will and its own opinions, and its opinion seemed to be that Subaru did not belong on its back.
But she could not say that. She could not admit that she was useless on horseback, not in front of twenty four soldiers who expected her to fight beside them. She was supposed to be a mage, powerful and confident, someone who could handle anything. If she could not even mount a horse, they would start asking questions. Questions she did not want to answer.
She grabbed the saddle, put her foot in the stirrup, and pulled herself up. The horse shifted beneath her, and for a terrifying moment she thought she would fall. But she held on, swinging her other leg over and settling into the saddle. She grabbed the reins, her hands gripping them tighter than necessary, and tried to look like she knew what she was doing.
The horse took a step forward. Subaru leaned the wrong way, then corrected herself, then almost leaned the wrong way again. She looked like someone who had learned to ride approximately ten seconds ago, which was exactly the truth.
The soldiers watched her. A few exchanged glances. No one said anything.
"We should head to the woods," Subaru said, trying to sound confident. "Let us get stationed before the demons arrive."
The tall man with the scar nodded. He raised his hand and pointed toward the tree line in the distance. "That way," he said.
Subaru nodded, though she did not fully understand the geography he was describing. She nudged her horse with her heels, hoping the animal would move in the right direction. The horse walked forward, slowly, and Subaru bounced awkwardly in the saddle.
I am going to fall off, she thought. I am going to fall off in front of everyone, and then the demons will come, and I will be lying on the ground with a twisted ankle, and that will be how I die this time. Not in battle. From falling off a horse like an idiot.
But she did not fall. She held on, swaying with the horse's movements, gradually finding a rhythm that kept her in the saddle. It was not graceful. It was not comfortable. But it was enough.
The soldiers formed up around her, their horses moving in a loose formation that spread across the path. They rode toward the woods, the trees growing larger as they approached, their shadows stretching across the ground like dark fingers.
The morning light was weak, filtered through the clouds, casting everything in shades of gray. The air smelled of pine and cold earth and the faint sharpness of coming snow. Somewhere behind them, the decoy continued his performance, shouting orders that no one followed, pretending to command an army that was no longer there.
Subaru looked back at the camp, then forward at the woods, then up at the sky. The clouds were moving faster now, blown by a wind she could not feel from the ground.
This is it, she thought. This is really happening.
She tightened her grip on the reins and kept riding.