Fearless (A Mulan Retelling)

Chapter Seventeen

Iris was still for a moment, and Zayn's words rang through her ears. The crowd parted to let her pass, but she did not move until the general held out his hand in her direction. Then, she stiffened and began to walk. Trying to walk with dignity, she kept her chin up as she marched to the stage.

When she arrived, she shook the offered hand and ducked in a small bow. Now, it was her turn to take her place at his side. When she did, she let her eyes survey the crowd. Among the men, she actually saw Kelgar, who looked just as surprised as she felt.

"As for those of you remaining, you will march for Krenshai Caverns immediately!" the general's voice was firm, "I will stand aside and let Sergeant Tusal instruct you on what to do next. As for the scouting groups, you are now to exit and follow your respective leader. That is all."

At that moment, General Zayn swiftly cut his hand in a sort of follow me gesture towards Iris and the rest of his group. Without pause, Iris followed the instruction and was the first one trailing after him. None of the spoke until they reached his office.

Zayn was the first to speak.

"Welcome to the scouting group, soldiers," he shot them all a very serious look, "I chose all of you because I know you to be very good at what you do. You're all my best fighters. We have already been called for a serious mission. While the rest of the men will be standing to fight against the Token army at Krenshai, we are assigned a different task. You see, while we know that they are invading our borders, we do not know why. We also do not know who is leading them. Our task, is to find out..." he paused, "as they have snuck past our borders, our job is to slip by theirs."

He pulled out a piece of parchment with all of the Tokens movements and attacks labeled onto it. He pointed at a place just outside of the country's southern border.

"From what we can tell, this seems to be the center of all the attacks. This is all we know. We sent out a few spies a few months ago when the problem started, and they found this place, but they were unable to slip through the entrance. They say it is heavily guarded," he motioned to a large fortress that had been drawn on the map. "We are going to attempt to do what the spies have not. I have reason to believe that their leader is within that very fortress." Iris stared intently at the map, wondering how they were going to accomplish such a feat. It seemed as if more than she had been thinking that very thing.

"Sir, how are we to do that?" the golden-eyed archer asked him.

"This is why I have chosen a group, Shen. One man alone cannot possibly think of everything by himself. We need perspective."

He looked around to a now excruciatingly silent group.

"Can we not just force our way in?" said Ra, the warrior, "if their army is marching out to meet our soldiers in the caverns like you have predicted, then how can there be a lot of men still stationed there?"

Iris knew upon hearing this that it wasn't the best idea.

"I suspect that their army is bigger than they are letting on. This is why I have drafted new people to this war. I hoped that the new trainees will give us advantage in numbers."

This made everyone in the group look over at Iris subconsciously. She wanted to squirm at all the stares, but she kept her composure. After that, no one had any ideas, only questions.

"Do we know how guarded this entrance is?" the other archer asked.

Iris could tell that he was a brave man, but he was a bit anxious at the idea of close range combat. After all, he was an archer. The general looked over at him.