Valdan had always sort-of looked forward to the day when he would get to fight in a real battle, rather than simply spending his time training with weapons and mock fighting. Now that such a day had actually arrived, however, he realized how foolish his wish had been. He had always known that being in combat would involve killing, but to actually have to resort to this method of ending a fight was repugnant to him. But, as he soon realized when they encountered the first group of enemy soldiers in the city, often it was necessary to take the enemy’s life in order to preserve your own. Valdan, surrounded by his own band of soldiers, always gave the enemies they encountered a chance to surrender first, but it was rarely the case that things went that smoothly.
As he and the men who followed him moved through the city of Elgon, going from house to house and looking for enemy soldiers, he was constantly dreading that each minute would be his last. Most of the time they met little resistance – most of the soldiers seemed to have fled already, no doubt due to the fact that his sister Sylvie was busy taking on the main army just outside the city walls. Every now and then he’d catch a glimpse of her head, towering above the surrounding buildings, and, despite their almost lifelong dislike for one another, Valdan was glad she was here. She certainly made his own task a lot easier. Despite that, there were still troops loyal to Argo hiding in the city, and Valdan had ample opportunities to see if his combat training had paid off. Almost every soldier he encountered was older and more experienced than he was, but most of them, no matter how loyal to their overlord they might be had little desire to be here, while Valdan had the greatest desire in the world to save this city, the city of his father, from being ruined. His own troops were just as passionate about defending their homeland, so the young prince had every intention of winning this battle.
As they neared the castle on top of the hill, the enemy forces they encountered grew steadily less and less. Valdan even began feeling more confident in getting all of this horrid business over with soon. With only the uppermost terraces of the city left to clear, he ordered Commander Ansur to head back downhill, taking with him a portion of his men, to help Sylvie with her own battle outside the gate. Not that Sylvie needed any help dealing with an army of thumb-sized soldiers, he knew that. But he also knew that his little sister was as inexperienced in battle as he was, and she might have no idea what to do once she’d convinced Argo’s army to surrender to her, which Valdan knew she’d be able to accomplish. In the meantime, he’d make sure that the city itself was free from any and all invaders.
He and the others with him split up and went from one home to the next, making sure all the inhabitants were safe. Thus it happened that Valdan, upon entering a small house by himself just outside the castle gates, found himself confronted by four of Argo’s soldiers. Two of them were in the act of assaulting a young woman, who was screaming and trying to fight back against the men tearing at her clothes. On the floor lay the bodies of an older couple, no doubt the girl’s parents. Valdan was shocked by what he saw, but he had no time to think about it as the two other soldiers came rushing at him simultaneously. He sidestepped behind a chair and kicked it at one of the men, causing him to trip and fall. His companion’s sword came down on him, but again Valdan managed to step aside just in time and counterattack. He stabbed the second soldier in the leg, disabling him for the moment, and leapt onto and quickly dispatched the one who had fallen down as well. Then the remaining two let go of the girl they were struggling with, but, rather than attack Valdan as well, they ran into an adjoining room, trying to escape. Valdan ran after them without a second thought.
Left alone for the moment, the young woman the soldiers had attempted to violate slowly got to her feet. She was still in an extreme state of shock, but she knew she had to escape. She was about to make a run for it when Valdan returned from the other room, his sword covered in blood and his face looking very pale. He immediately came to the girl’s aid, catching her just as it looked as if she was about to collapse, and helped her sit down on a chair.
“You’re safe now, don’t worry,” he told her, trying to sound optimistic, while realising he had no idea how to console a woman who had just lost her parents, and had been almost viciously attacked herself. The one soldier he’d spared was still groaning and crawling towards the door. He was met by three of Valdan’s own soldiers, however, and didn’t make it any farther than that. Two of the soldiers then began to remove the bodies from the house, while the third checked on the bodies of the man and woman.
“Prince Valdan, this woman is still breathing!” the soldier said, and Valdan looked over at him. “She’s barely clinging to life, but I think she can still be saved.”
“Then we have to get her to safety at once,” Valdan said. “I should come with you…but I can’t leave this lady here by herself. She’s in a terrible state as well.”
“We’ll take her with us as well,” the man replied. “You should head on up to the castle and make sure Argo is captured. Letting him get away would be a great blow for us.”
Valdan wanted to argue, but he could see that what the man said made sense. Usually he wouldn’t be happy about taking advice from a common soldier, but he knew he was a novice when it came to situations like this, so he agreed. He helped the young woman to her feet and assured her that everything would be all right, then handed her over to the soldier, who helped her out of the house. The other two, once they had finished clearing the house of corpses, placed the unmoving body of the girl’s mother on an upturned table and carried it off. Valdan was left to himself again, but he could see other soldiers still rushing up towards the castle, so he decided to join them and end this once and for all.
It was not to be. Valdan and his soldiers swept through the castle without encountering anything more than a token resistance. They found plenty of people locked up in the dungeons or strapped into cruel torture-machines that must have been brought here by the enemy, since Valdan knew his father would never approve of such devices in his castle. There were also the bodies of victims, several dozen of them, attesting to the cruelty of Argo and his minions. It made Valdan feel ill, each time he entered a room of the castle he had spent much of his childhood in, only to discover it had been used as a room of torture and other unspeakable crimes. His only consolation was that they had arrived in time to prevent even more bloodshed. Even so, he felt it still wasn’t enough, and he wished he could’ve arrived even sooner and prevented more death; he also knew his sisters would share that feeling. But, despite having proven victorious, there was no sign of Argo himself anywhere; the evil instigator of all of this had made his escape. Several of his soldiers who were captured were asked whereto he might’ve fled, but none of them could answer, and Valdan felt sure they didn’t know either. Argo seemed to have deserted his own troops without a word of warning, once he’d seen he was on the losing side.
After all of the fighting was over, Valdan felt he needed some time to himself. Some of his soldiers were still searching the castle and the city beyond for signs of Argo, but he himself had had enough for one day. He longed for his mother and father’s return and wished they were here to sort all of this out, as they usually did. As he sat on his father’s throne in the empty throne-room, wishing he knew what to do next, he heard his name being called from outside. He walked over to the window, which looked over the fields outside from atop a high cliff, and found himself looking down at his gigantic little sister. Sylvie was standing at the bottom of the cliff, just outside the city walls, and her head still rose nearly to the level of the castle’s lowest floor. She looked up at Valdan and he was shocked by her appearance: blotches of blood on her face and armour, scratch marks on her neck, arrows stuck in her cheeks, ears and hair. She had clearly had just as rough a day as he had, despite her obvious advantages in battle. But he knew she had had to face a much more formidable field of opponents. She lifted up her arm and held her hand just beneath the windowsill, and he hopped into it. For once, the two of them were overjoyed to see one another. Sylvie held her tiny brother close against her chest and he pressed himself against it, even though from his perspective he was hugging an enormous steel wall.
“I’m so happy you’re all right,” Sylvie said. “I was so worried you wouldn’t come back out of that city alive!”
“No, I’m still alive, don’t worry! I’m happy to see you too – even though you look just terrible.”
“I feel terrible…” she replied. “I just want to lie down and sleep…but first I need a bath and a meal and…and to get rid of these horrible things…” She scratched at a handful of arrows stuck in her cheek, but they remained stuck in her skin and she winced in pain.
“Hey, let me help with that!” Valdan chimed in. “Lie down so I can reach your face, Sylvie. It’ll be easier for me to do it than for you.”
Sylvie agreed and lay down on her back, placing her big brother by the side of her head. Valdan immediately began to work on getting the arrows out of her skin. It would be a long and tiresome process and he doubted that he’d be able to get every single one of them, but at least he’d spare his sister the ordeal of having to it all herself. As he began to remove each arrow, as carefully and deliberately as he could, the two of them spoke about their ordeals that day. It had been a terrible day and a terrible battle, but they both knew it could’ve gone a lot worse, and it was only Belena’s quick decision to come to Elgon’s aid that had spared the town from an even more terrible predicament. Argo might’ve escaped, but his return seemed unlikely at the moment, now that he knew what Vandan’s royals were capable of doing to defend their land. All that the two of them wanted to do now was to reunite with their older sister and head home – before the work of rebuilding and cleaning up after the battle, which still lay ahead for them.