Chapter Text
“So remind me again,” Swartt asked her as they struggled up the mountain pass, “why are we wasting time traveling to some dingy old castle in the exact opposite part of the world from Mossflower?”
It wasn’t the first time he’d asked that question, or even the fifth, and Tsarmina was getting sick of answering it. So sick, in fact, that she was genuinely tempted to hurl the idiot Ferret off the side of the mountain instead of answering.
But she still needed him, or rather his horde, so instead of sending him tumbling off a cliff Tsarmina merely grit her teeth and answered. Again. “How many creatures do you command, Sixclaw? Three hundred at most?”
“Three hundred and forty as of this morning.”
“Right. And, as I’ve said before,” Too many fucking times, “that simply isn’t enough creatures to topple Mossflower. Especially since they’ll surely bring the might of Salamandastron down on us as well. You do still want to get your Badger slave back, right?”
“Of course.” Swartt smirked. “Been too long since I could discipline little Scumstripe.”
“I feel the same towards the little furball. And if the two of us want to mete out the discipline and justice those idiots demand, we need to have a strong enough army at our backs.” She gestured towards the mountains in front of them. “My grandfather used to rule land up here. Perhaps if we find Castle Mortspear, we’ll be able to find a loyal creature or two.”
“Seems like an awful large risk and an awful small change of reward, if you ask me.” Swartt grumbled. “Suppose we find an empty castle? Or worse, a castle filled with enemies?”
Tsarmina shrugged. “If it’s empty, we claim it and raid the surrounding area. If it has enemies, we defeat them or turn them. Either way, we come out with soldiers, slaves, or both.”
“Or we die of starvation, freezing, getting stabbed, or some other gruesome end.” Swartt growled, his paw dropping to his sword hilt. “I’m starting to regret ever listening to you, Cat.”
Tsarmina groaned mentally. Blooming hellgates, this one’s just as idiotic as the rest of ‘em, isn’t he? For some reason she was reminded of Bane, and the discussion they’d had back when she was still trying to persuade him to help her bring the Woodlanders to heel. Guess this Ferret’s another one I need to spend a lot of breath on. “Is there anything stopping you from turning around and marching down there?”
“Nothing but an arrogant and deluded Cat.” Swartt slid the sword out a few inches, just enough to show the tiniest hint of steel. “One that may wind up being a slave after all.”
“One that will only be a slave during the time it takes the Thousand-Eye Army and the Long Patrol to batter your horde to dust.” Tsarmina forced herself to remain calm instead of ripping Swartt limb-from-limb for his insolence. “After which poor, soft father will send me on my merry way once again. Do you even know how many soldiers they have?”
“Verdauga only brought a few hundred against us when we fought, and that was before we -”
“Killed some of them?” Tsarmina scoffed. “Believe me, they’ll have replenished the numbers. Likely just with Woodlanders, but still. And it’s nearly been four years, plenty of time to train them a good bit. And as for the Long Patrol, count on them adding on at least a hundred and fifty or so. Go now and you’ll all wind up dead.” Looking over Swartt’s shoulder, she noticed his chief lieutenant was jogging towards them. “Not to mention that turning back might not be as simple a matter as you think. Just ask Aggal there.”
Swartt frowned and turned. “Do you have something to report?”
Aggal dropped to one knee. “No, sire, the soldiers were just getting restless at stopping for so long. They asked me to come up and check to see what was going on.”
“Your leader here has decided that we need to turn around and march back down the mountain at once.” Tsarmina replied before Swartt even had the chance to open his mouth.
As Tsarmina had hoped, Aggal’s face immediately twisted into a look of pure horror. “T-truly, sire? At once?”
“Oh, yes. Swartt, would you care to tell the horde, or should Aggal and I do it?”
Glaring daggers at Tsarmina, Swartt whirled back around with a humph and adjusted his cape. “Was that supposed to make some kind of point?” The Ferret was silent for a heartbeat, after which he shook his head and slid his sword back all the way down. “Fine, you’re right. Ask the horde to just up and turn around now and they’ll mutiny.”
“So...we’re not heading back down then, sire?”
“Of course not, you nitwit! We press on, and hope that Tsarmina’s quest is actually worth it.”
“It will be, you have my word on that.” Tsarmina strode up to Swartt and patted him on the shoulder, enjoying the look of indignation on his face. “Now I’ll admit that you’re the craftier one when it comes to battle plans, but when it comes to the bigger picture just let me take care of the planning. I’m far better at it than you.”
***
She’d meant what she’d said about Swartt being the better tactician, what with her only foray into that area ending in disaster, and so when they arrived at Castle Mortspear only to find it occupied she sat back and let Swartt take the reins. She had to admit it was a decent formation, with a hundred pikebeasts marching in step behind her and Swartt, twenty-five archers to each side shadowing them along the cliff, and the rest held in reserve just out of sight but close enough to charge in at a moment’s notice if necessary.
All the same, in the interest of keeping their force as intact as possible Tsarmina decided to forgo bloodshed for once in favor of simply talking it out. And so, when they were in front of the castle, rather than give the order to attack, Swartt held up a paw and bade his hordebeasts to stop. Tsarmina then stepped forwards, making note of the disorganized line of spears in front of her. All told there were about sixty, far fewer than she’d hoped, but still enough to potentially cause some trouble.
“Are you those who were once sworn to King Mortspear and the castle that bears his name, or descended from them?”
An old Weasel dressed in a ragged cloak pushed through the line. “Aye, but Mortspear is dead. His heir Ungatt Trunn is also dead, his line ended.”
“The line of Mortspear is not ended. He had another son, Verdauga Greeneyes.”
“Verdauga?” The Weasel snorted. “He grows soft in his Woodland stronghold, him and his two children both.”
“Only one of them.” Tsarmina removed her cape, allowing the Weasel to see the worn, damaged green eye carved into her cuirass. “You look upon the granddaughter of King Mortspear, Tsarmina Greeneyes, a Wildcat as hard and strong as the liege you and your kin once served.”
“I see.” It was plain by the look on the Weasel’s face that he was unconvinced. “If you are truly the granddaughter of Mortspear, then you must prove it.”
You have no right to demand I prove anything , Tsarmina thought, but she said “what must I do, O great one who served my grandfather?”
“The test is simple.” The Weasel stepped to the side and tapped the ground with his spear four times in quick succession. The line of spears parted like a wave, revealing the gaping entrance to the old castle.
Tsarmina wondered if there was some trial within she would need to overcome, but almost the second that the last creature moved aside a massive shadow appeared in the doorway.
The creature that strode out was massive, easily half again as tall as she was. It was covered in thick brown fur, but she could still see the immense muscles under each limb. It carried a battleaxe as large as Swartt, but judging by the length and sharpness of the claws Tsarmina guessed that the thing barely needed it. Standing there, seeing the beast walk towards her, Tsarmina realized she was more afraid than she’d been since her father had exiled her from Mossflower.
“This,” the Weasel intoned as the creature marched forwards, “is the Bruin. Mortspear first laid claim to this land by defeating one of its kind. If you wish to prove you are truly his heir, you must defeat one as well.”
“Heh.” Tsarmina forced herself to laugh as she grabbed her own weapon, a greatsword Swartt had given her. “Just one creature? I’ll pass your test before you can even blink, old one.”
The Bruin snarled at her, but Tsarmina stood her ground. Seeing that his opponent was not going to back down, he roared a battle cry loud enough to all but shake the foundations of the castle before charging forwards.
Tsarmina met the Bruin’s downwards swing with a parry, gritting her teeth as the vibrations from the impact coursed through her body, before pushing up and out to try and throw the Bruin off balance. But he was too strong, and Tsarmina found herself completely unable to make any headway, and suddenly she was the one being pushed off balance.
If I fall, I die. Tsarmina had no idea just how she knew that, but it was a fact she was sure of: the second she was on the ground, the Bruin would cleave her skull in two. But that’s not going to happen. Tsarmina kicked at the monster’s leg with as much strength as she could spare, hoping to take the momentum out of his attack, but to her dismay she found that the limb felt less like a leg and more like a tree trunk, and then all of a sudden she was even more off balance.
She hissed, less at her opponent and more at the realization that the only way to escape was to use a trick she associated with, off all beasts, Martin. She stopped trying to resist the Bruin’s push and instead rolled with it, diving out of the way as the great beast stumbled. She whirled and delivered a slash across the back, one aimed to cut her opponent almost in half.
Instead, all she accomplished was to cut into a layer of thick fat and send a small spray of blood down onto the barren rocks. Blast, he’s tough under all that fur.
The Bruin roared at her again before charging, axe swinging wildly. This time Tsarmina put all her strength behind each counter swing, not wanting to get caught in the same trap as last time, but all the same each reply to the endless onslaught took more and more out of her, and Tsarmina felt her guard begin to slip.
Crunch! With a sickening noise the battleaxe landed on her cuirass, nearly biting straight through it and still managing to bruise at least a few ribs. Tsarmina grunted from the pain and stumbled backwards before lunging forwards and swinging at the Bruin with a vertical cut. The Bruin raised his battleaxe to parry, meeting Tsarmina not with the steel, but with the splintery wooden handle.
Perhaps what happened next was the fault of the handle; perhaps the wood was simply too old, too brittle, too weak, for when Tsarmina’s greatsword collided with it in a slash filled with the last, desperate strength of one facing their death, the greatsword hacked through the wood like paper and continued onwards. Now it was the Bruin who grunted and faltered, a trickle of blood running down the thin cut he now carried from neck to lower stomach. He took one look at the severed halves of his weapon before throwing them to the side, and before Tsarmina could prepare a defense lunged straight at her.
The Bruin’s right paw slashed across Tsarmina’s face, briefly turning the world red as she reeled back, yelling in pain. Now her blood was on the ground as well as the Bruin’s, a fact that she found strangely fascinating: it had been years since she’d seen that much of her own blood, not since that damned Squirrel had stabbed her half a dozen ways.
The massive paws shot out again, but this time instead of raking Tsarmina across the face they tightened around her neck, and she found herself sputtering and struggling to breathe as the Bruin lifted her towards his snarling face. Am I going to die here? The thought filled Tsarmina with terror. I don’t want to die! I can’t die! Not here! Not while Martin and Gingivere have what’s rightfully mine!
She had one trick left. Unfortunately it was another of Martin’s, but all the same it was a good trick.
She jabbed downwards with her greatsword, hoping and praying that, by some miracle, it would land in her opponent’s paw.
It did. The greatsword sunk straight through the Bruin’s paw, snapping in two as it hit the rock, but causing the monster enough pain that he released Tsarmina as he roared in agony.
Without thinking, without looking to see if even half a greatsword was still a usable weapon. Tsarmina crouched down and threw herself at the Bruin’s face. She slashed out madly with her own claws, hacking at the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the neck, everything, yelling and hissing out every curse she’d ever heard, ripping, tearing, slashing, until…
“Tsarmina!” Swartt’s voice cut through her fury like a knife. “It’s over. You killed him.”
Pausing, breathing heavily, Tsarmina looked down and observed the Bruin. Or rather, what remained of its head. Then, standing up as straight as she could, she forced a smile on her face and turned to the Weasel.
“See? I passed your little test.”
“Aye, you did.” The Weasel leaned on his spear. “Yet I have blinked several times since the battle started, have I not.”
You can’t be serious. Was the Weasel truly considering denying her victory over something as trivial as that? “That’s just semantics.” Turning her head a fraction, she nodded back to Swartt. The Ferret raised a paw, and Tsarmina heard the sound of a hundred spears lowering behind her along with the sound of fifty bows being drawn. “Although I suppose you could try and force the issue if you want.”
The Weasel looked Swartt’s horde up and down before shaking his head. “That will not be necessary, Tsarmina granddaughter of Mortspear. We who have remained are at your service. Come, and take your grandfather’s place as monarch of the Northlands.”
“No.” Tsarmina shook her head. “This land is old, and done. The future lies to the South.”
“In the very same lands that turned Verdauga soft?” The Weasel asked.
“Yes, and no. Come with me, and I will turn those lands as hard as these. Come with me, and we can uproot the soft branch of Mortspear’s line and burn it to ashes.” Speaking to the entire group in front of her now, Tsarmina raised her voice. “Come, and you will know battle and fire the likes of which you have not seen before! Come, and you will be feared by all who live between the River Moss and the great Western Sea! Come, and I will show you power! WHAT SAY YOU, THOSE SWORN TO MY GRANDFATHER? ”
“ AYE! AYE! ” All fifty of those behind the weasel replied as one. HAIL, TSARMINA! HAIL, HEIR OF MORTSPEAR! RISE, QUEEN TSARMINA, AND SHOW US ALL THAT YOU PROMISE! ”
For his part, rather than take part in the cheers the Weasel strode up to Tsarmina and knelt before her. “O mighty Queen Tsarmina, I, Roga, pledge myself to your service. From this day until my last, me and my soldiers are yours to command.”
Tsarmina looked over at Swartt, whose face reflected a mix of envy, joy, and the tiniest hint of fear. And you thought coming here was a foolish idea. Well, Ferret, never doubt me from this day forward.