“As the old adage goes, those who do not even know their opponent nor themselves were those who marched onward on folly, and court defeat with every step.” - Liang Si-Zhu, Famed Tactician of the Huan Confederacy, circa 92 VA.

“Here, take a look, see any faces you recognize?” said Aideen as she handed Celia a spyglass after she made use of it to peer into the distance. Aideen saw around twenty people riding towards them, most of them dressed like soldiers or warriors, other than one man who was dressed in finery, despite the relative hurry they traveled in. “Bet you that the one in finery’s someone related to the dead kid.”

Celia quietly took the spyglass, and seemed to marvel at it for a while. While by now they were no longer new inventions, and were in relatively widespread use in both continents, a former impoverished peasant like her likely never even touched one in her life. Since the value of each spyglass was measured in gold coins due to the difficulty and exacting nature of their manufacture, nor would she have dared to touch one before.

As she peered through the contraption, and saw the sights from the distance clearly before her, it took her a moment before she recalled that she was not doing things for fun, and snapped to check the incoming riders with the spyglass. She saw the same sight Aideen had seen, though since she was a local, she recognized a couple of the faces there as well.

“The man in finery is the landlord of my village and its surrounding region,” she stated bluntly to answer Aideen’s speculation. “And the extra-large man whose horse looked like it would break its back one day while carrying him is his favorite attack dog. He’s the one that got sent to make… examples if some of us were late or lacking in our tax payments.”

“So no good seed in the lot then,” replied Aideen coldly, which Celia knew had basically just sentenced all those approaching men to death in so few words. At first she felt squeamish once more, but then she recalled the fates of those who were turned to examples by the landlord, some amongst him for crimes as little as dirtying his clothes by accident when he visited, and the reluctance gave way to anger and a desire for vengeance instead. “How do landlords like those work anyway? They’re not exactly proper nobles aren’t they? Yet they retain knights under them?”

“The Count appoints them. It’s a common practice in the Empire, I heard,” replied Celia. “Grandpa usually complained that only those who gave the count the biggest bribes ever get appointed, as for their status… I guess they’re sort of nobles in a way? The title doesn’t pass down to their children, though usually those who managed to get the post had also bribed enough to let their children inherit after them.”

“As for the knights, I think they just fancy calling their personal thugs and hired assholes that as a point of pride or something,” she added with a clear tone of distaste. “Grandpa loved to tell me stories about knights when I was young, and he always insisted that ruffians and assholes like these most definitely aren’t knights in the real sense. I don’t think anyone outside the local regions would even call them that at all.”

“None of them came from your village or something like that?” asked Aideen in a lighter tone to the younger woman. She was clearly worried about whether Celia could steel herself to fight against people she had known beforehand. “People like those tend to recruit from the locals as far as I know, at least, most of them did so.”

“Just ones who won’t be missed,” replied Celia with a firm shake of her head. “In every village there’s always those who are all too keen on kissing the lord’s arse and licking his boots. Usually the village bullies and the likes. Nobody decent would weep on their passing I would say.”

“Guess that seals it then,” said Aideen as she brought out her black staff from storage. Celia saw her flick her thumb at a section of the staff, and almost jumped in surprise as blades sprung out from the end of the staff and locked themselves in place. Thin black blades, ones that looked almost gossamer thin at the edge, yet clearly made of the same stuff of the staff itself judging from their eerie dark shine.

“I’ll get them off their horses and deal with most of them,” said Aideen confidently as she strode forward ahead of the younger girl, who only then brought the sword-staff she was given out of her storage as well. “I’ll let a couple get through. You’ll handle them yourself for practice. Think you can do that?”

“I’ll… I’ll try,” said Celia nervously. Over the past couple of days, Aideen had taught her on how to fight even while they traveled, and she only paused while they traveled alongside the merchant caravan. Fighting, to nobody’s surprise, was obviously far more complex than just to “stick them with the pointy end” as Aideen had once said to her, and Celia could not be considered any sort of expert at it, not with a mere day and a half’s practice under her belt.

“Just remember, girl, that there’s one advantage you have which means that you simply cannot lose this,” said Aideen as the horsemen approached them closer and closer. They were visible without the aid of a spyglass already, and would probably only take another minute or two to reach where the two women stood and waited for their arrival. “Unlike the ones you’d be fighting, you cannot die, so feel free to abuse that as much as you like. We already died before, and the only way we could die again is if we truly wished for death ourselves.”

Those words firmed up Celia’s resolve to fight and stand for herself, as Aideen made a point she couldn’t help but agree with. She was right. What had they left to lose? They already died before, and she was wont to let something like what had led to her first death happen ever again.

Celia took a step forward, and stood beside Aideen as she held her weapon in a fighting stance, as both women looked at the approaching horsemen, who would reach them any moment now…