71 Time of Transition (2/2)

When Lord General Alfwin had been alerted of what was happening, the mother and daughter pair had seen how he had rushed back to the gate from his place of command near the front. Now, he was standing framed by the first of the palace's broad, well-fortified gates, which he seemed to have ordered to remain open. Even though several soldiers were standing with him, echoing his silence, there was this sense that he was alone, a last bastion against an enemy whose nature remained cloaked to all except himself.

But not for long. From behind the women came the barely audible sounds of footsteps. At first, the light treads seemed to come from only one individual, but when they turned to look, they discovered it came from two.

The Lord's remaining children, who had been walking side by side all their lives that it had become second nature for them to synchronize their steps, passed them by after each giving a nod. They eventually stopped behind their father -- his heir to his right, his spare to his left.

'That man...' thought Lady Ilse, feeling all the alarm and discomfort she'd been trying to bury beneath optimism throughout the day rise to the surface, refusing to be pushed back down. 'What is he doing? Women wielding swords? Leading wars? Killing and being killed? And not just Hilde, his own daughter too...' This time, it was bile that rose up to her throat. Unconsciously, she reached for Gisela and drew her closer. 'Just why... why?'

***

”What are you thinking?”

Hilde sat on the hard ground of the alley where their group hid, leaning against a building's wall and trying to look past the narrow gap between roofs to the starry sky of late summer. Thus far, all she'd managed to glimpse were stray twinkles beyond a thick canopy of clouds. It was getting colder, and the wind that occasionally blew was fresh and crisp.

They were doing nothing except waiting for reports and resting while they're at it, yet it was still a strain due to the constant noise from without and the worry that someone would choose this path over the wider ones to get somewhere else, stumbling upon them in the process.

Leal sat beside her, but not quite near, and it was he who'd posed this quiet question.

After a brief hesitation out of habit -- her first instinct had been to either ignore him or give a barbed reply -- Hilde answered, ”I've been doing a lot of thinking this day. Just now, I was trying to think of absolutely nothing.”

”I see,” said Leal with a small snort-like laugh. ”That makes two of us, then.”

”I'm not really used to it, to be honest,” Hilde admitted with a self-deprecating smile, for the umpteenth time semi-consciously adjusting the fit of the borrowed armor she was wearing. ”Are you?”

The man also shifted subtly to allow circulation back to another part of his torso, in the process cutting off blood flow to another part. ”Not quite in this manner, no.”

Noticing his discomfort, she grinned but also decided to lower a bit more of her defenses. ”What are YOU thinking now?”

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