Henry stared at Caroline as she woke suddenly and put her down safely. Something in the young woman's tone stopped him from dismissing her words.

"She'll want to hear but before the war we have a battle to win." Henry said, nodding out over the Academy. He had heard Elaeria's message but before that he had seen the nervous excitement etched in her face; a battle was coming. "The enemy who attacked Eleshir are heading here and there's no standing army; we're all that's in the way."

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[i]The following morning[/i]

Henry stood atop the wall and watched as the North of Unity burned below him. Smoke threatened to make tears spring to his eyes but he blinked it clear and tried to make out the enemy positions. Beside him the Queen and her betrothed also watched. Elaeria was there, representing Fristha, and Revaz had come at Jochi's call; the lure of battle was hard to resist for hardened warriors such as them.

"They broke down the gate at Eleshir without much difficulty and the magicks there were much older and stronger than here; they'll come right through. They'll probably be over confident after Eleshir too. After all, we're merely young nobles and there's barely a full suit of armour to be had between all of us."

They had catalogued the armoury overnight and there was no shortage of weapons; blunted words had been whetted to a razor edge and there was a good supply of various bow forms and arrows but there was very little in the way of armour beyond boiled leather. He turned away from the fires and looked down at the ground around the gate with a thoughtful frown on his face.

"We have two options. We can either attempt to bottleneck them in the gateway or we draw them out and then crush them with skirmishing tactics and cavalry charges." He eyed the ground and found it more than suitable for cavalry maneuvers and looked at Revaz. He had engaged her people several times in the previous wars and had a weary admiration of their horse archery.

"If we have your horse archers thin their ranks and have a barricade set up maybe... half a league down this road with archer platforms to stop them in their tracks we can reduce their numbers to the point one or two shock cavalry charges will either wipe them out or at least rout them." He pointed out to the locations he had mentioned and turned to those assembled but behind them he saw a hulking shape appear in the flames. He blinked, swearing he was seeing things, before he saw the shape again and he ran to the crenelations and focused on that area with no regard for the smoke billowing up around him and into his eyes. It [i]was[/i] Fenrir.

"Open the gates!" He shouted down to those below. "Friends approaching!" He quickly bowed to Queen Louise and Jochi before bounding down the steps to greet the familiar. He had seen a figure on his back but in the fire and smoke he hadn't been able to make out who it was but he dared to hope. Elaeria's bad news the previous night had put him in a strange state of turmoil; turmoil even war had not created.

Up on the wall Queen Louise looked after her favoured knight with a faint smile of amusement playing across her lips.

"I thought Henry had crushed his own heart and soul in order to become the perfect warrior. It appears there's some of the young boy I grew up hidden away in there." She turned to Jochi, forgetting that he knew nothing of her long friendship with the knight. "Let us go, Jochi. It's time to stir up the troops." Elaeria joined them.

"I'll come with you. The rural tribes from Anstarn have agreed to follow me rather than be left out of the fight; the remaining few will probably join us rather than let their 'barbarian' cousins out-do them in courage. It's a strange irony that they will follow me because I was so effective at their slaughter." There was no mirth in the grim smile spread across her face; a battle was coming and the pent up anxiety in her was just waiting to be released.