Tales of Death´s Daughter

“What are you doing here?” Miss Dove asked, freezing a pitch black vein spouting out of the ground right next to her with her icy cold sword.

“Lucy asked us to head here …” I mumbled, looking back towards the centre of the formation as a massive worm pierced the ground, swallowing dirt and sending rocks flying.

Opening my mouth wide, I could barely extend my hand towards that place until it dove down beneath the surface once more with thunderous rumbling.

“That was …” Louis said as stupefied as I. Minutes earlier, it was us who stood there and that could only mean on thing.

“It has begun.” Hannah said ominously and threw an ice spear at a black tree in the distance, freezing it completely in the process. “Did Lucy tell you anything before she sent you away?”

“No? Was this … planned?” I asked surprised, right as Hannah grabbed my arm and pulled me back from the frontline, leaving Louis along with her mercenaries to hold the position.

“Yes and no. But she was aware she was targeted and if she didn’t do anything against her abduction, we can assume it was her decision to be taken away … if she is away that is. Let’s go.” Still close by my side, we hurried back towards the centre of the army where a few humans had gathered around a massive hole in the ground, filled up at the bottom by rather soft dirt.

“Hey, you.” Miss Dove asked, shaking another man by his shoulders. “Are there any reports from the other fronts?”

“There are … only a few enemies. Nothing to be concerned about. But … we have lost the saint.”

“Tighten the ring further. And please tell our heroes to come over when they are back.”  She commanded, grabbed my arm once more and pulled me away from the hole into safety.

“What is the meaning of this? How could this be planned?” I asked, finally catching up to her quick thinking.

“Think about your role in this army. Think about what you can do and act accordingly. I can assure you Lucy isn’t in any danger whatsoever, so think about your and our options calmly.” She said, not answering the question in any way whatsoever before hurrying off south where several horns resounded already.

Stupefied, I looked over to the adjutants and scratched my cheek with worry. There was no way I could find a good solution to the mess we were in. Lucy always knew what to do and I merely followed along. So what could I do?

Not much. For the first time in a long while, I felt entirely useless. I couldn’t fight. I didn’t know what to do. I knew nothing. Crouching down on the crystalline grass, I gave my hardest to stop myself from crying because there was always an advice from Lucy in the back of my head: Crying doesn’t fix anything.

And so, I steeled myself and activated my magic to figure out a way to save her. Sadly, there weren’t any instances of a commander being abducted like this but I immediately noticed the parallels to a story where the king had been abducted. Sadly, he didn’t survive and his death plunged the kingdom into chaos, but still. There just had to be something I could do.

Or …

“Luna! Where is Lucy?!” Suddenly, I felt my shoulders being gripped tightly and looked up to see Schwarz standing in front of me, a rather crazed gaze in his eyes.

“She … she was abducted.” I mumbled and activated my special magic once more. A flood of information streamed into my brain as nearly lost memories were bought back and I finally understood what could be done. It wasn’t a good solution by any means … but it was a solution which was better than what I had before.

“What? Where is Louis that idiot?” Schwarz asked, already drawing his sword in anger which did frighten me a little. Which each passing day, he was getting more and more frantic which was honestly quite concerning considering where he started off personality wise.

“He is … he is north of us. But he couldn’t do anything as well. She did sent us away before she was taken.” I explained, hoping he wouldn’t take it too badly, even though my hopes were promptly crushed.

“That’s because you are useless.” Schwarz said, pointing the tip of the pitch black sword at me.

“Hey! What’s gotten into you lately?” Sofie asked, promptly stepping in front of me.

“They have taken Lucy! It’s the end if we don’t save her!” I understood that Schwarz was frightened by the situation. Everyone was. But there was also something in his eyes that I have never seen before. Something animalistic. Something bloodthirsty.

“Hey … I believe we can salvage this.” I said meekly, pushing past Sofie right away. I couldn’t let myself be scared by something I thought I saw.

“Can we? She was our sole strategist. We don’t have a plan for tomorrow without her, heck we don’t even know what we are supposed to do now.” The leader of the adventurers who apparently sneaked up on us said.

“Miss Dove has lead an army before.” Sofie said and turned around all of a sudden. For a mere second, the sun above our heads was blocked by a flying figure which promptly landed a few metres behind Gregory and stirred up a lot of dirt.

“Someone has said my name?” Turning around as well, I blinked a few times as I had never seen Lucy’s friend this bloodied before. It was on her face, her hands, he sword, everywhere. And even worse, it looked as if she had fun. Turning to my side, I fought the urge to puke while holding my hands in front of my mouth. So much gore was … certainly new for me.

“We need an interim commander. I presume you are second in command?” The adventurer asked while Sofie patted my back soothingly. Right, Miss Dove was always with Lucy as well. She knew what had to be done.

“Actually I’m not.” She said and probably surprised everyone with that.

“What? Who is it then?” Ellie asked straight away, probably thinking about anyone else who Lucy might have chosen. And so was I and the rest of the group.

“Luna.” A moment of silence. The waning sounds of battle died down even further as everyone stared at me. “Well, you see … the only to commands I am apparently capable of are charge and a tactical charge backwards. Lucy had apparently the opinion that I’m more of a front line fighter than anything else and I cannot claim it’s wrong either.”

“Luna … why not me? I’m capa-“ Gregory asked, but was promptly interrupted by Hannah who was apparently quite fed up with his behaviour.

“Shut up.” She merely said and glanced over towards me. “So, what are we going to do?”

“I’m not following the words of a thirteen year old.” The adventurer explained while I looked to the ground meekly. He was right. I didn’t have any achievements, let alone any education in war. But someone apparently had another idea about that.

“You will.” Miss Dove growled threateningly like I have never seen her do before and somehow, the adventurer stepped back a little and then nodded, his face showing a lot of fear. I disliked what Miss Dove did, but I also couldn’t let that opportunity she gave me slip by.

“So … uhm … we need to dig a moat.” I explained and looked around to see if there were any good spots to defend. Sadly, it was a rather wide meadow, but that didn’t necessarily have to be bad.

“Shall we build you a palace next?” Gregory sneered in disdain, forcing me to explain what I had in mind, something Lucy rarely did.

“No … but we need a way to stop their charging first wave. They have succeeded in reducing our flexibility by abducting Lucy. We cannot follow after her with an army because it would be too slow and as such, we have to stay here for a while.” We couldn’t go back, that was for sure. I didn’t want to be the person to erase all of our progress. We also count head further north because the worm travelled south, judging by how the worm dug back into the ground.

“They never attacked us with an army before.” Ellie stated, but while what she said wasn’t wrong, it was also more of a reason not to rejoice.

“They will now. Their target was Lucy the whole time and she is gone now. For whatever reason, the demons fear her.” I explained right away.

“And then we will wait here?” Miss Dove asked slowly. Apparently, she wasn’t really happy with my plan, but made no indication of going back on her words.

“We have to … while a smaller, strong force trails after Lucy. I believe there is a chance she isn’t that far away. She was probably taken south to split us up even further …” The enemy did split us apart. But luckily, we already had a largely independent unit which could detach from the main army like before.

“I’m not going there. My target is north.” Gregory said, directly earning him the ire of most of us around.

“You are going against her orders?” Miss Dove asked amused, a very dangerous smile on her face.

“Sadly, the saint has exempted us from listening to anyone in this army. We just Tag alone and do whatever we want. That was the deal, right?” That was correct. Lucy had realised she couldn’t count on them and basically allowed them to do whatever. As the second in command, I probably didn’t have the authority to overrule that.

“You can’t do that, Gregory!” Sofie exclaimed unhappily.

“Wait … let him leave if he wants.” Miss Dove commented dryly.

“It does seem like I have to do everything myself.” The second prince said and proceeded to stomp away from us slowly. I didn’t believe one second he really wanted to go out there alone, but he certainly didn’t want to save Lucy as well.

“Oh, but before you leave. These meals you are carrying are property of the army. And your shoes as well if I’m correct. And while we are at it, you didn’t buy that backpack yourself, did you?” Hannah said with a rather amused face.

“That is … extortion!” Gregory exclaimed loudly.

“Bohoo. I’m not Lucy. I don’t care if you feel treated unfairly.” Miss Dove said and waved him back towards us. Thankfully, he did oblige quickly.

“I need your help. All of your help.” I said helplessly.

“Fine … and where do we even start searching?” Well, that much was obvious. They had gone south. The earth mages already kept pointing in that direction from time to time and it would make sense for them to abduct her there. Where we came from was the last place we would search after all, but also way to stall our progress the most.

“Lucy gave me this. She told me to use them whenever I need help … but you can also use this magical paper plane to search for her.” I said, put my backpack onto the ground and retrieved a slightly wrinkled paper with a lot of magical circles on it.