War is not like the paintings in the Hall of Tapestries. It is not an eternal charge under the sun with immaculate banners. War is the smell of three hundred men who haven't washed in a week. It is the constant sound of grindstones sharpening iron. It is the fight against an enemy more insidious than Orcs: rust.
Geneviève's vanguard had left behind the scented vineyards of Quenelles. Now they marched through the "Borderlands," a strip of grey land that no one claimed, where the grass grew stunted and the trees looked arthritic. The army routine was a vice that squeezed the soul.
The wake-up call sounded an hour before dawn. Geneviève was always the first up. Or rather, the first to emerge from her meditative vigil. She came out of her small personal tent (the only concession to her rank, necessary to keep the secret of her sex) already fully armed. She walked among the dying bivouac fires, observing the camp waking up.
She saw the sergeants, common men recruited from villages, cursing the damp cold that got into their bones. She saw them checking horse straps, greasing boots with stinking tallow, fighting over a piece of bread less hard than the others. She saw the Knights of the Quest, fallen nobles or zealots seeking the Grail, praying in silence, polishing their weapons with fanatical devotion. For them, mud was a test of faith. For the sergeants, it was just mud.
Moving three hundred men and horses required monstrous logistics. Geneviève soon learned that a General must first be a quartermaster.
"We lost a wheel on the supply wagon, Sir Gilles," reported Baldrick the One-Eyed on the fourth day, spitting black tobacco. "The smith says it will take two hours."
"We don't have two hours," replied Geneviève's gravel voice. "Distribute the load onto the pack horses. Abandon the wagon. If we stop here, with this fog, we'll have company tonight."
Geneviève rode back and forth along the column. She checked that the horses' hooves didn't have stones stuck in them. She checked that the men drank (dysentery killed more than arrows). She stopped beside a group of archers repairing arrow fletchings around a fire. When they saw the black shadow of the Gromril armor, they fell silent, intimidated. Geneviève dismounted Duraz. She took an arrow from the hands of a trembling boy. She examined the poorly glued goose feather.
"If the feather is crooked, the arrow lies," said Geneviève. "And if the arrow lies, the orc reaches you." With slow, precise gestures of her gauntlets, she straightened the fletching and handed it back. "Take care. Your life hangs on that glue." She remounted. As she rode away, she heard the boy whisper: "He touched my arrow... maybe now it will actually hit."
Night was the worst time. The camp turned into a small city of canvas and smoke. The scent of bean stew and salted meat filled the air. Laughter could be heard, dice rolling on drums, the sound of an out-of-tune lute. Geneviève stayed apart. She couldn't sit with them drinking warm ale. She couldn't tell dirty jokes about court ladies. She was The Iron Idol. She sat on a log, a little distance from the main light, with Duraz acting as a shield against the wind. She ate quick bites of dried meat, lifting her visor barely enough when no one was looking.
Tristan de Quenelles approached often, bringing the watch report. The young noble had changed. His silk cloak was stained with mud, and he had stopped asking for heroic stories. "The men are nervous, Sir Gilles," said Tristan one evening, looking south. "They say the water in the streams tastes metallic. And that the birds don't sing anymore."
"They are right to be nervous," replied Geneviève, sharpening Vesper's Light. "Fear will keep them awake. It is hope that worries me. Hope makes you lower your guard."
On the seventh day, the landscape died definitively. The grass disappeared, replaced by black moss and mushrooms that released toxic spores if stepped on. The trees became twisted skeletons that looked like hands trying to claw out of the earth. The fog, which before was merely annoying, became a solid wall: the Grey Lady of Mousillon.
They arrived at the point marked on the map by Geneviève during the council. The Toad's Path.
It didn't look like a path. It looked like a throat, a wound in the earth invaded by thorny brambles two meters high and marsh reeds rustling without wind. The air was heavy, hot, and humid, with a sickly-sweet smell of rotting flowers and swamp gas.
The vanguard stopped. The horses neighed nervously, refusing to advance. The sergeants exchanged terrified glances. "Do we have to... go in there?" asked a veteran, turning pale. "Sir, that is beast territory. A horse breaks its legs in ten steps."
Geneviève rode to the front of the column. Duraz, the dwarf horse, did not back down. He was used to the dark of mines and hard stone, and he trusted his mistress more than he feared the stench.
Geneviève turned to her three hundred men. She saw the fear. She saw the desire to turn their heels and go back to the vineyards of Quenelles. She had to speak. Not like a noble, but like a warrior.
"You are right," croaked the gravel voice, powerful and inhuman through the helm. "In there is death. In there, the ground will try to eat you and the water will try to poison you." She unsheathed Vesper's Light. The holy stone in the pommel shone with a white, pure light, cutting the greenish fog for a few meters. "But behind us is Bretonnia. There are your homes. Your children. If we stop here, this rot will not stay in the path. It will come out. And it will knock on your doors."
She pointed the sword toward the darkness of the path. "I do not ask you not to be afraid. I ask you to have more anger than fear. Whoever wants to live forever, turn back. Whoever wants to kill the nightmare, follow me."
There was a moment of silence. Then Baldrick the One-Eyed spat on the ground, drew his rusty sword, and kicked his horse. "To hell with it," he grunted. "I hate living forever. It gets boring." Tristan drew his immaculate sword, face pale but resolute. Father Jerome began chanting a litany of protection.
Geneviève turned toward the Toad's Path. She lowered her visor until she heard the click of the hermetic seal. She gave a tap of spurs to Duraz. The black horse advanced, crushing the brambles under shod hooves. The vanguard entered the shadow. The world of light was over. Now began the reign of Mousillon.