So it is that they take the field in the crisp of a spring morning, Pepperidge carefully holding a pole that tugs with the wind-plucked weight of a long skein of cloth. Undoubtedly symbolic colours and heraldry she can't read; save for the prominent design of a heart, ringed by stylised leaves.
"Ours, aye?" she says to Longeye.
"And an age since it's seen the sunlight!" Longeye says, part fierce pride, part solemn to the challenge of the day.
Today is not a day for poets to lope about willy-nilly; Lilliana is not by her side, placed elsewhere to make best use of her. Longeye, however, is here, and Pepperidge is glad enough of her not to say a word about wasting her good sword arm on minding a wayward scholar's hide.
And, of course, today Pepperidge is not her own; today, she carries the weight of elven stories.
"Luck willing, it can sleep long again after today," she says. "Dreaming on today's glories, aye?"
Longeye cocks her head. "You've been listening to those bastard huddled generals, Professor," she says softly. "Don't you fret the banner's sleep, nor its glories; the thing'll take care of itself, but it won't take care of you. If it's your life or the symbol, you drop it and take to your heels."
"And you?" Pepperidge cocks a sceptical brow.
"And I fight to my bloody last to keep the Heart-Bearer alive to see the sunrise, even as you run," Longeye says lightly. "Foolishness beloved to the elven heart is foolishness all the same; you know very well I'm that fool. We'd be here upon a field like this, sooner or later, with or without you, Amaranth; and, fools, we're all like to die. I wouldn't see you with us in that."
Pepperidge reaches out hand for Longeye to solemnly clasp. "It's fine advice, Longeye," she says steadily, "for anyone not fool enough to pick up some sly magical trinket to start with. No, we're in this now, I think."
"Well, then." Longeye squeezes her fingers. "We'd best die together or not at all, then; I'm not going back and telling the poet you got yourself stabbed."
"I shall do my best."
They breathe the dewy air, look across the field at the Fürstens' ranks.
"Should I know some kind of battle cry?" Pepperidge asks finally.
"Oh, there's surprisingly little poetry in actual battle," Longeye says sadly. "Before, usually. Some after. Lots, enough time after. During, mostly just screams." She retrieves a smile, though it's not as bright as usual. "I could teach you to yell Up Your Bumholes! in an old enough dialect, but we've not the time to correct your accent."
"Well." The Professor shifts her grip on the banner's pole, feeling every detail of the wood grain, the burgeoning sun on her face, the clarity of the air. "...A lesson for enough time after, then."
"You do know we're quite outnumbered, Professor, aye?"
Pepperidge swears for a moment she can feel stories pressing in on her chest, squeezing her breathing. That won't do.
"I know the Heart's not done with us," she says firmly. "I know we're not done with those scoundrels. Outnumbered, are we? Three, four to one? And here I am, bad with a sword and busy holding a big hankie on a stick — why, Longeye, that means you'll have to do my share for me. Eight of the Ecclesiarch's murderers for you to strike down! Think you your arm will tire?"
"You're a scoundrel," Longeye says, but her smile is real now, and it eases Pepperidge. "Flay four of 'em yourself with that tongue!"
It is, Pepperidge thinks, like lighting a fire; setting one's fuel, striking sparks, gently blowing. She'll never know the feeling of the elven comprehension of future possibility, but today she can almost feel the flutter of the Termist army's mood, the manner it's balanced in a way that could fall to pessimism or catch alight; the way she has been placed as tinder.
Everyone knows that the language of high scholarship — of law, medicine, philosophy, theology, of the secret gatekept towers of thought — is High Elven, that imaginary language which to the elves is simply a code-switch away, the tone one takes with an ancestor-grandparent. Except, of course, elves, who don't know that because they don't read human scholarship.
She smiles, and shapes her mouth carefully around syllables she knows from the crudest of scribbled marginalia critics.
"Up their bumholes," she says distinctly, and hears the crackle of catching fire in Longeye's gasp, in the elves around them staring at her, feels the heat as the ranger throws back her head and howls with laughter. It seems like just the moment, as the breeze just happens to surge, and those within earshot turn eyes on them, to tilt the banner-pole anew so that the air unrolls the sign of the Heart.
Coincidence, surely, that the horns and shouts of commencement should begin just then, in a moment of conspicuous glee and rampant symbology, as the young flames of martial optimism flare. Coincidence that sets every hair on her body prickling on end.
Steel rings around her, the heat of zeal batters from all sides.
"Straight for the bastards at the next call, then, aye?" she says, and Longeye nods.
"Nothing fancy," she says. "These things go simpler and quicker than you think. Hold that flag high, set your steps toward 'em, and trust me to hold their steel off you."
"I trust none better," Pepperidge says, holding herself proud, eyes on the Fürsten lines as indomitably as she can find it within her to fix them.
Her guts are roiling like a millpond, then the cry rattles down their lines. The world mercifully shrinks, for a while, to keeping her gaze on the slowly closing ranks of the Highland soldiers, putting one of her feet in front of the other, and keeping the banner high.
The Fürsten, in their iron commitment to never changing, believe in neither archers nor cavalry, and the Plainsmen — somewhat consequently — believe in both; but the Fürstens' refusal to ever have this fight by rolling their forces down to the plains has made it impossible to field horses in any useful number. Volleys cut the air, doing what they can to level the Termists' numerical disadvantage.
The wind snaps and whirls, eddying weirdly. Pepperidge dashes sweat from her eyes with a shaking hand, redoubles her grip. She suspects, first as an additional twinge in her gut, then a plummeting thought, what is to come.
The frantic scramble of leather, steel and flesh shifts around her, and she stands atop a knoll, dimming sunlight glinting on death and mayhem. Ahead, likewise for a moment still, stands the Stormcrow.
Fear slips a silken, threatening fist around the Professor's throat.
The elven sorceress smiles. "I know you," she carols, grotesquely cheery. "Human pet of the Empty Bone-Cage! You run well."
Another hand clenches in the pit of Pepperidge's stomach, burning. "Murderer!" she spits.
The Stormcrow guffaws. "The old man is nothing to you. Those are the words of the lackwits you run with, little book-scholar."
"They name me kin! I name them kin! He was my Ecclesiarch, kinslayer!" The Heart throbs against her hip, and a word jumps from the pit of her lungs, roaring into the air, cutting sharp: "Ghul!"
Much of the amusement falls off the Stormcrow's face. She takes a step forward, eyes narrow, the sky blacking in step with her demeanor. "What did you call me?"
Terror is strangling Pepperidge. She stands her ground. Not trusting her voice, she rolls her jaw to gather enough from her suddenly dry mouth to spit, vehemently, in the elf's direction.
The sorceress points an accusing finger. "The death I give you will burn so bright," she promises, "that even your own dull people will one day learn the songs we will sing of it." She reaches up, grasping as though lightning is simply something to be fetched down from a high shelf.
An instant of white light smashes the Professor into darkness.
