The Villainess Will Not Bring Dishonor To Her Family

30 - Beneath The Ashes - Part 2

—*—

The time has come. Every guard still able to fight is here, and a few young men that have swung a sword before are here as well, voluntarily... to my surprise the baker's son Asher is here as well. He's much too young, but in a fit of determination he insisted to be on the battlefield as long as Lily was, except he called her 'Hero-sama'. I put him as far in the back as possible.

I glance to Lily, who's crossing her arms and gazing at the tree line impatiently.

A man next to me looks at her with worry, and admiration.

I am worried as well, she is still a child after all... and the child of our lord.

I'll need to protect her.

Whatever happens, I need to stay near her.

—

"They're here..."

The lady watches quietly and glances to the different group. My exit is the signal for everyone to charge... but they're nervous. If any of them charge out ahead of time then her plan could fail.

The enemy stays at the tree line for a bit, as if to observe the movement in the city. Of course, there is nothing for them to see... as such they slowly begin to make their way towards the city.

Honestly, I hadn't quite believed that they would be as off guard as the Lady said they would be... but I could see their body language. They looked like they were heading to cleaning duty. They were looking forward to the spoils of war too early.

The lady had a cruel look in her eyes.

Still, could we really win this? We were outnumbered four to one, and we were heading to an empty plain.

The enemy gets closer and stop momentarily near a scarecrow we set up to measure the distance.

"Juuust a little closer..." she whispered softly.

They moved past the scarecrow.

The Lady's air changes in an instant, and she proceeds to chant a poem to activate her magic. I am not sure why she needs the poems, but as long as it doesn't get in the way I won't complain.

Her odd looking long sword appears in her hands in an instant, and she leans against the window frame as she casts another spell.

With it, I feel a rush through my body. Blood starts pumping violently and my body feels light as a feather. No, I could easily say I feel ten years younger.

A roar escapes the young lady as she charges out the door before me without a single shred of hesitation. Before I know it my own feet are following behind hers at a pace I have never run in before. I bellow out alongside her, and as I do, tens of voices behind us merge with ours into a deafening roar of war that gets my blood pumping faster.

The familiar terrain flies under my feet with ease, and I near the enemy faster than I've ever seen a man move.

Their eyes go wide, and in that moment I see their hesitance. Just for a moment too long they are paralyzed with confusion. All of them.

We hit them like a tidal wave before they get the chance to recover, and their frontline falls in an instant.

"Attack!"

The voice of their commander bellows over them and their banner rises, but so does the shining sword of our lady, who is charging in with a wave of men behind her, drunk on her leadership.

Before I know it she's halfway through their troops and is heading for their commander, leaving me with the rear, though I had planned to be at her side... but I am needed here.

I am a shieldman, and she is a charger. I'll make sure she has a place when she returns with the head of the commander.

The air flashes as the enemy soldiers unleash their wind magic upon us, and with an equal brightness Al and Tony redirect the wind with blasts of their own, making the air tremble with invisible explosions. Though Al and Tony are outnumbered, the enemy numbers fall rapidly to the violent advance of our people.

Meanwhile Whiskers, drunk on mana, blasts through enemies on his own while fending off water magic and sniffing out fires, spending his magic recklessly like a madman.

Little Asher sticks to my side with a confidence he never had before. Though he wants to be by our lady's side he knows he is not yet ready for that place, but one day he will be.

I bash the edge of my shield against an enemy's jaw and watch him drop back on the ground in a daze. The feeling of crushing his shattered jaw lingers in my shoulder as I go in for the kill, but as the enemy is finally getting a hang of themselves, another enemy steps in between us with a swing of his sword to distract me. The impact of his sword against my shield sends a spark flying past my eyes, and a shock through my shoulder as I barely get my guard up in time.

"Die!" Asher's small voice sounds as he stabs the guy's foot from under my shield, using his size to his advantage.

In the moment the man screams, I finish him with strength that didn't feel like mine alone. Next to me Asher finished off the other guy, but as soon as we finished others were there to back them up. Then a roar went through the crowd, 'forward'. I'd never though that I would be a part of a flow such as this... when those words roared out we moved like a thundering wave, and I bashed my shield violently into the man in front of me with a roar responding to hers, as I too got drunk on her leadership.

The battlefield she made was dyed with red, but even so it was as if it was blessed by a god.

The battle I had expected to last for long ended with a dreadful silence...

I had wounds I couldn't remember where came from, not that I could feel them from the adrenaline. We were all beaten, bruised and bleeding. Some crippled, some near death and some who would never return to their family.

There was no enemy left. They were all dead. The backline I had attempted to keep was far beyond the first enemy corpses as well.

With the sound of horse hooves reinforcements in the shape of the castle knights arrived, but all that was left was a silent rain and Lady Lily's appearance as she raise the sword above her as if to reach for the heavens, and roared one final time.

"VICTORY!"

And every man still standing, every man fighting to get on his feet and every man still alive roared out, joining into her scream of victory.