On The Way

“What was that out there?” Engel stood over Jente where she was kneeling behind a fallen chariot, trembling, bleeding from a wound in her thigh.

“I saw --” She swallowed hard. “It’s time.”

“Time?” Engel turned to gaze across the battlefield, at the fallen soldiers from both sides.

“I saw him. At least, I think it was him. It was either him or a memory.”

Jente might have been talking to her herself; Engel wasn’t sure.

“So we have to go back to Old Master?” Engel asked.

“No. We move on. But we have to make a stop on the way.”

Past and Present, Tense

Jente danced with her sword, carving destruction and death, painting the air with blood, moving to the song of screaming soldiers. If she closed her eyes, she could remember the first time she clashed with the Hittites in illusion, in dreams, staring down at charioteer with hair like frost and eyes like a fjord at dawn.

When she opened her eyes, she saw a man standing on the edge of the battlefield, pale-haired, ocean-eyed, white-robed, and her heart stopped, her rhythm stuttered. She didn’t even scream when an enemy stabbed her. She stabbed back, and she fled.

Sides

“What? What is it?” Engel asked.

Jente was kneeling at the mouth of the tent, gasping and choking, coughing.

“I - saw something.” Jente clutched at her throat, eyes wide. Engel scrambled to kneel beside her.

“What did you see?”

“It’s almost time,” Jente said.

“Time to what?” Engel asked.

“Return.”

“To Old Master?”

Jente nodded. She dragged her hand across her mouth and stared out at the golden desert sands, at the thousands of tents arrayed beneath the stars.

“How soon?” Engel asked.

“Not until this battle is won,” Jente said.

“Won by which side?”

“That only time will tell.”

For A Time

“Who taught them how to fight before?” Engel asked.

Jente scrubbed a cool, damp cloth over her face, scrubbed a hand over her short hair. “Who knows. Someone who wasn’t taught by Old Master, obviously.”

“They’re strong and fit,” Engel said. “It’s a question of technique and instinct at this point.”

“It’s an adjustment for us,” Jente said. “When was the last time we fought with troops on this massive a scale? Some ingenuity and wit is sacrificed for the sake of controlling so many men.”

“So we’re just here learning?” Engel asked.

“Not just learning. Waiting. For a time.”

Like That

Jente joined the troops three days later, hair shorn short, fitted in the smallest, cheapest armor the armorer could find. He’d sneered at her and scorned her for her paler skin (which gave her an excuse to wear a tunic for modesty’s sake), but she’d just bobbed her head politely and skittered into place.

She scared the daylights out of the man next to her when she surged into action at Engel’s direction, swinging her sword with practiced ease, dancer’s grace.

At the lunch break, one of the soldiers smiled at her. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

In a Few Days

“No one’s going to respect me if you loom there in all your girliness,” Engel said between gritted teeth. He and Jente stood at the top of the steps overlooking the courtyard where Pharaoh’s army trained. Engel wore the simple leather armor of Pharaoh’s troops, though it was more ornate as befit a commander.

Jente was dressed like one of Pharaoh’s queens, all silks and linens, head held high, eyes lined with kohl. She admired the neat rows of troops, their gleaming dark skin, their alert faces.

“I’ll cut my hair and dress as a boy in a few days.”

Of The Matter

“Well done,” Jente said. She sat on the edge of her luxurious couch bed, combing out her long, dark curls. “Now his royal holiness has a new general.”

Engel said nothing.

Jente arched an eyebrow. “Not pleased at your success?”

“Pleased, yes,” Engel said. He studied his hands. “Just...I cannot forget my past failures.”

“We’re human - it is human to fail.”

“Are we human? Andrev wasn’t human.”

The heart of the matter. Jente said, “He was a person, wasn’t he?”

“I thought so. He was just a boy.”

“What’s done is done. We have a new job to do.”

Sticky Situations

“How dare you mock the efforts of my soldiers!”

Pharaoh roared, and the guards standing on either side of his throne went to draw their swords.

Jente dipped into a low, graceful bow, one more befitting a dancer than a warrior. Engel wished he knew what her skills were before they got into these sticky situations.

“We do not mean to mock,” Jente said. “We watched the battle, and we sorrowed for your men. We merely wish to help, to prevent as many men dying in the next battle.”

Pharaoh hummed thoughtfully, turned to Engel. “What would you have done?”

Watch and Learn

“Are we just going to watch them slaughter each other?” Engel asked when Jente made no move to draw her weapon and charge down the hill into the fray. Something in her expression was distant, dangerous, unreadable.

“Not just watch - learn,” Jente said. “About how those chariots function in battle, what their typical formations are. And then see how we would do it better.”

“Would we do it better?”

“Pharaoh had better believe we would.”

Engel watched spears and arrows zip through the air. “Pharaoh would be the man dripping in gold jewelry?”

“Yes, that would be him - the Pharoah.”

In the Market

Engel and Jente stood at the top of a massive sand dune and stared into the distance at the massive stone structures, gleaming, peaked, that arced toward the sky. Jente noted, idly, that they mirrored a pattern of stars and wondered if they were religious markers beyond tombs.

“What is this place called?” Engel asked.

“I don’t know what the locals call it,” Jente said, “but I’ve heard people call it Egypt.”

“What are we doing here?” Engel asked.

Jente nodded down at the approaching army of rumbling chariots. “I’m thinking Pharaoh is in the market for a skilled general.”

Try to Rule the World

“I like these things,” Engel said, popping another small, green pitted fruit into his mouth. He smiled as he chewed. “They’re good, but not too sweet. Not like those other ones on that tree. I think I much prefer this vine business.”

“That’s because you like wine,” Jente said. “The oil from those green things burns clean, if you ever need a torch.”

“How do you know these things?”

Some things Jente had seen, like how armies of the olive-skinned men who roamed this land donned armor and marched from the seven hills to try to rule the world.

On Their Own Now

“I don’t like this one bit,” Engel said. He and Jente stood on the edge of a massive fjord that emptied out into the icy ocean.

“You didn’t seem to mind it when we sailed here.” Jente hefted an axe and started for the nearest useful-looking tree.

“I just don’t see why we have to go alone, just the two of us. You saw how well that worked last time.” Engel glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t see why we couldn’t have brought Dagaz or the twins or --”

“They need to learn to make boats on their own now.”

Memories Long Lost

“So...we trained them all, and now what?” Engel asked.

“We leave them to train more, train others. It’ll be a while before they have numbers sufficient for our operation,” Jente said. “But for the record we do head south. And east - further east than they’ll be going in a few centuries.”

“In a few centuries?” Engel echoed. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere I saw,” Jente said. “A while ago.”

She closed her eyes, and a voice echoed in her mind, one from memories long lost.

“For Pharoah!”

Golden sand, rolling war-machines, spears, dark-skinned warriors, giant stone tombs.

Somewhere Else

“You’ve never had the urge to go somewhere...else?” Engel asked. “Somewhere much, much further east? East of where we met?”

Dagaz and the Red Twins peered at the map. “Where are these places?”

“Old Master scouted,” Jente said absently. “As for further east - for the moment, I think we can trust it on its own. You and I do need to visit some other places, though, while this lot gets ready to move on out.”

“Can we trust them on their own?” Engel asked.

“They need time to train and grow and build,” Jente said. “And they’ll need boats.”

The Plan

The fire had almost died and the mead was gone; the Red Twins were snoring on each other loudly. Only Dagaz and Engel were awake, staring into the redness of the embers. Engel thought it looked like blood crystallized. He wondered if Dagaz had ever seen real blood earned in battle. He was about to ask when the door of the hut creaked open and Jente stepped out. She looked pale, exhausted.

“Well?” Old Master asked.

“We mobilize, sweep south and east, and we mingle, settle, drop roots, and wait.” Jente handed him a crudely drawn map.

Old Master smiled.

An Answer

Engel had never seen Jente looking for something; it always seemed impolite to watch her work her...whatever, even though she’d seen him use his gift dozens of times. Engel had never considered that Old Master might not be allowed to watch Jente do her thing. The two of them sat outside of Jente’s hut, drinking mead and keeping warm with a small fire, and waiting to see what she saw.

Eventually the Red Twins and Dagaz joined them, bringing more honey-mead, meat, logs for the fire.

“What are we waiting for?” Dagaz asked.

Old Master said, “An answer.”

What I Cannot

Old Master appeared in the doorway of the empty mead hall where Engel and Jente were arguing over tactics on a raid to one of the southern lands.

“How goes training the ranks?” he asked.

“It goes,” Engel said.

“They’re natural warriors. Sometimes they have to learn to curb their enthusiasm lest they sacrifice the element of surprise,” Jente said. She rolled up the map. “What do you need?”

“I wondered if you would look for something for me,” Old Master said. “I have a plan, but I need your guidance.”

Jente blinked. “Mine?”

“You can see what I cannot.”

At Least Ten Times More Weird

“Seen him before how? Have you been to the North with Old Master before?” Engel asked.

Jente shook her head, tapped her temple. “I think I’ve seen him. Before.”

“Oh. Seen.” Engel knew his own ability to move things without touching them was inhuman and uncanny, but he was pretty sure Jente’s ability to see things before they happened was at least ten times more weird. “Do you think he’s important?”

“For now, he’s the only one who has a decent sense of stealth,” Jente said, and she lifted her bow, fired an arrow. One of the Red Twins cursed.

Seen Him Before

Dagaz was a golden-haired boy, green-eyed, more slender than some of the others - like the Red Twins - but strong all the same. He wasn’t nearly as surly and aggressive as the Red Twins; rather he was charming and boyish, at times inappropriately loud and enthusiastic, like an overgrown puppy, but he showed promise with a sword.

Engel didn’t like the way Jente looked at him.

“He’s too young for you,” Engel said.

Jente rolled her eyes. “Everyone is too young for both of us, and I’m not interested in him. I just feel like I’ve seen him...before.”

Dagaz

“What do you mean, ‘yet’?” Engel asked. He swallowed hard, remembered Andrev.

“Old Master has not spoken to the pale-haired stranger in a while,” Jente said. She lowered her hand and straightened up, hands clasped behind her back as if she were standing guard. “Dagaz is on his way.”

“You said they had to come unseen.”

“No mortal would see him.” Jente elbowed Engel lightly, and he realized this was the first time he’d seen her smile in a long time. “Now come on. Pretend. So they can learn.”

Engel sighed and obeyed. “Dagaz is your favorite, isn’t he?”