Brave the Bull

The Ministry of Peace reviewed their intelligence: the numbers, positions, and capabilities of the Conclave Arcana and Oridum Graybrow's forces in the Great Lowlands. They studied the reports, weighed the odds, and looked for someone willing to lead a task force into a war zone where the enemy could melt stone and boil rivers.

Brave the Bull volunteered. He always volunteered.

Where other officers calculated risk and weighed their careers against the cost, Brave saw problems and solved them. A border dispute with raiders in the Southern Highlands? He marched his command straight into their camp at dawn. A fortified bandit hold in the Daigenloft passes that had repelled three assaults? Brave led the assault up the cliff face and kicked the door in himself. He wasn't reckless, though. Far from it. He planned, prepared, and drilled his soldiers until drill became instinct. But when the moment came, Brave stepped up. Every time.

The Ministry valued that. Those who'd served under him valued it more. He led from the front, bled with his troops, and never asked anyone to do something he wasn't willing to do himself.

The Torch agreed to commit Incaendium's efreet if the Ferexian Empire committed equal forces. The Ministry of Peace, meanwhile, demanded overall command or they wouldn't march. Incaendium accepted. The efreeti Azhar ibn Sulaim served as Brave's deputy commander. While they disagreed on tactics constantly, Brave grew to respect Azhar's discipline, practicality, and the way he cared about his efreet.

The task force marched west, with Brave at the head of the column and Azhar running the supply line and forges behind him.

Still, in spite of all their preparations, they weren't ready for Oridum Graybrow. His fire magic remade the land. Stone ran like water. The air caught fire in waves that cooked soldiers inside their armor before they could close to fighting distance.

Brave pulled back to defensible ground, coordinating with Fithe Bladestone's dwarves and using Azhar's efreet to counter Oridum's flames where they could. But the dwarves were exhausted, and Azhar's efreet held the forges and supply lines together through discipline alone, and even that was cracking. The task force bled soldiers, too many soldiers. The mage wagons might turn the tide, but only the gods knew when they'd arrive or if there'd be anyone left when they did.

Soldiers continued to die. Soldiers Brave had trained, led, and fought beside. Sending word back to Miterstedt that the force they'd given him wasn't enough felt like failure. Brave the Bull did not fail. But he needed reinforcements.

As what remained of his task force drudged beneath a horizon that glowed red, Brave chose a runner. Someone fast enough to slip through Oridum's lines. Someone he could afford to lose. Private Tazagantha, a redhair conscript who'd lost her squad and survived three engagements she had no business surviving.

Brave wrote the dispatch himself. No embellishment and no excuses, just the situation and what he needed. Then he handed Taz the sealed case. "Run east. Don't stop until you reach Miterstedt. Tell them to send everything they can."

He watched her go. Then he turned back to that red horizon.