Whew! it's finally written!

It was time. I wasn’t afraid, not anymore, if someone was going to attack my friends I was going to go down protecting them, but my heart was strangely heavy. For one, Tameth Seer hadn’t always been very good, I mean, he’d hurt my friends, my country, and he’d had the nerve to injure me.

For another reason, There was Lord Rake’s strange, solemn words when he’d given me my title. What did he mean, “If I fall?” and Pacer? Would everyone I knew fall or betray us? Was Natalia always to be a place of tyranny?

Oh, and then there was the fact that basically my whole life was one big lie. I mean, why had no one told me the whole story until now? I could have fallen in any number of fights… Did Bastille know? Midnight? Trinity? Lord Rake? Was my name even Fleck? Oh come on!

But mostly, I was excited, and yeah, I said excited. It was gonna be a close, grand fight and hopefully we’d win. If Tameth Sneer and Bleston Badson kept their promises, we had a full out chance of winning a tight war, but if suddenly they betrayed…. I didn’t want to think about it.

I joined the five other captains and their Lieutenants (Including Pacer and his new second) in Lighthall, flanked by my lieutenant, Andrew Joveson, my brother, for a quick before-war conference. I saw some others from Halfwind, including Frye and Drand and Nate Flynn and Studge, who I remembered from the clearing battle.

The mood was silent, unlike the usual joking mood of the Forest Guard. This wasn’t quite our element. Those from Halfwind had been in full out ground battles, and frankly so had I, but most of the rabbits in our guard were unexperienced in that kind of combat.

Pacer seemed to sense this too and asked the question most important. “Why can’t we do run and hide attacks?”

Drand stood quickly up, growling low in his throat. “You fancy cowards might be the most experienced soldiers in Natalia but—”

“Did you call my crew Cowards?” I roared; it was one thing to insult me but another entirely to be rude to the Forest Guard. “Most of us are younger than you- I don’t see you risking life and limb for a cause that you’ve only read about! I don’t see you training day and night, rain or snow, blazing heat or frigid cold for anything! If you want to call anyone a coward, maybe it should be you!”

“FLECK!” Lord Rake yelled. “Calm down.”

“That’s impossible when some rabbits are insulting my friends!”

“Cove. Please, I can hear your nonsense later.” Drand sneered, and it was too much for me to handle.

“Ahem. You may address me as Captain Joveson.”

“ALRIGHT!” In all these years I had never heard Lord Rake yell as loud as he did then. It was easy to see why he’d been given his title. The entire room grew silent- even the passing footsteps outside ceased.

“Alright. Pacer, that is a good idea, but unfortunately we can’t risk it. Fleck- that was a wonderful speech, and Drand, please remember it next time you insult my rabbits. I have placed each team where I believe their skills will be best put to use. Pacer and Fleck will post their units on the plateau…”

After the conference, Pacer, Andrew, Peter, and I trudged to the Savory Den warily. Gort was nowhere to be seen, but a few soldiers had cooked up an over-salted stew and served it with mugs of coffee.

We found an empty table and sat down to talk. I swirled my soup with the fork and watched it bubble weirdly as Peter drank his coffee. “This stuff is nasty. Fleck, can I have yours?”

“I thought you said it was nasty.” Andrew murmured wearily.

“It is. But its nasty in a delicious way.”

“That’s impossible.” Andrew and Peter bickered noisily for the few minutes we were in the Den, wasting away the time before muster.

When the Cloud Defenders and Pacer’s unit were standing on the plateau with their first arrows knocked to their bowstrings, I wandered to and fro, examining every bow. We were ready for just about anything, except what came next.

-Fleck Cove