The Crimson Tigresses didn’t waste any time on the morning of the third day.  The entire unit woke up before the sun rose and left their camp just as dawn broke.

But that speed didn’t mean that their departure went unnoticed; Valeria distinctly heard at least half a dozen scout teams from other units keeping an eye on their camp.  She guessed that there were at least three more, to make one team from each of the other units, but she couldn’t detect them.  Regardless, she hurried her unit out into the forest, wanting them to stay on the move rather than hole up in their camp where they’d have to endure attacks from the other units at the other units’ leisure.

Many of the scouts watching their camp made an attempt to follow the Crimson Tigresses into the forest, but they were quickly dispatched with well-placed arrow fire or the quick feet and quicker swords of second-tier trainees sent by Valeria.  And so, the Tigresses quickly vanished into the forest.

The ladies ran for several miles until Valeria and Asiya were sure that they weren’t being followed, then they stopped for a short rest.  They were less than half a mile from the Blood Eagles, something that was by design.  Valeria gave her unit several minutes to rest, then set out again.  By the time the Blood Eagles left their camp and started marching into the forest in the direction of the Tigresses’ camp, the Tigresses themselves had already gotten into a strong position along the Eagles’ most likely route.

Before they had traveled even a quarter mile from their camp, the Blood Eagles were hit with a withering storm of training arrows, followed immediately after with Valeria and Asiya leading a dozen second-tier Crimson Tigresses out from the thick underbrush of the forest to crash into the Eagles’ formation.  The first sustained salvo of arrows and the Tigresses’ surprise attack cut the Blood Eagles in half in less than fifteen seconds as well as cost them three of their four third-tier mages and more than three-quarters of their second-tier mages.  In the face of the determined and well-prepared Crimson Tigresses and with their numbers quickly evened out, the remainder of the Blood Eagles fell in short order and their banner was taken.

But that wasn’t to say that the Crimson Tigresses didn’t take casualties; in fact, their losses amounted to a dozen trainees, more than a fifth of their entire unit.  It was still a great victory, exchanging over one hundred Blood Eagles for twelve of her own, but Valeria knew that that pace couldn’t be sustained.  It would take the Blood Eagles a day or so to recover, as the Crimson Tigresses had elected to wipe them out completely rather than do the more common and honorable thing, which was to leave a few of their enemies standing to tend to their casualties and help them recover sooner.  This was supposed to only be a training exercise amongst the Kingdom’s fellow nobles, after all.

But this ‘dishonorable’ act bought the Tigresses some breathing room.  The other units wouldn’t come poking around the Blood Eagles’ territory for a while, and by the time they would, the Tigresses would be fully recovered.  For the time being, Valeria led her unit to take over the now empty Blood Eagle camp, leaving the Eagles themselves lying in the dirt.

There was no concern for their safety as the Eagles’ Instructors and other knights of the Academy lurking out in the forest wouldn’t let the unconscious unit out of their sight.  The same was true for all the other units in the Academy, whether conscious or not—they were all under constant surveillance by the Academy’s cadre.

After a few hours passed, the casualties the Crimson Tigresses had taken recovered, and the unit left the Eagles’ camp.  Now with three banners, they knew that they were going to be the biggest targets for the FTX’s immediate future, surpassing even the Snow Lions.

---

The Crimson Tigresses regrouped on a hill about a quarter mile from their camp as the sun set on the FTX’s third day.  Their unit was in high spirits after defeating a full-sized unit, and had spent most of the rest of the day running hit-and-run attacks on any other unit that came close to them.  They were met with success, but hadn’t managed to seize the last unaccounted-for banner held by the Black Vipers.

Now, they had only to return to their camp where they could rest behind the safety of their walls—assuming the place was still standing.  However, they’d have to be incredibly careful on their approach to ensure they wouldn’t be ambushed.  Given how fervently they’d been pursued all day by the other units, they knew it was a strong possibility that one or more of the other units had laid a trap close to their camp, just waiting for them to return.

So, they made their way back to what they figured would be their home for the next two months with great caution.

As they moved, the sun finished setting and a thick curtain of darkness settled over the forest.  As a result, the Tigresses easily noticed a small fire burning in the forest as they made their way back to their camp.  Out of curiosity, Valeria took her squad to investigate.  To her extreme surprise, she discovered Leon sitting alone by the fire, looking like he just camping out in the forest rather than occupying himself running a training exercise, slowly turning a fat rabbit on a spit over the fire.

Valeria sensed a trap, and she signaled for Asiya to come and join her.  They silently crept up on Leon, who didn’t bat an eye once they had completely surrounded him and walked out into the firelight.

“What are you doing here?!” demanded Valeria in disbelief, her incredulousness only growing when she saw that Leon wasn’t even wearing armor.

“Waiting,” Leon answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if what he was doing should’ve been obvious.

“For what?” asked Asiya, her usual cheeriness gone in the face of so suspicious a scene.  Her hand came to rest upon the hilt of her sword, ready to draw at a moment’s notice.  All around her, the Crimson Tigresses were doing the same, as well as raising their shields and casting their eyes outward just in case an unseen foe struck at them from the depths of the forest.

“I’m waiting for you,” Leon responded, only looking up at Asiya and Valeria once he had.

“What are you playing at?!” asked Valeria as she assumed an aggressive position and raised her glaive threateningly.

“I’m playing at being a decoy,” said Leon completely honestly.  His words had barely entered their ears before a storm of arrows fell upon the Tigresses; the Snow Lions weren’t hidden in the forest around them, they were above them, hidden in the dense canopies of the trees.

Over one hundred arrows were fired at the Tigresses, then another hundred mere seconds later, which was followed by another hundred.  In a matter of seconds, all the Tigresses save for Valeria, Asiya, and three second-tier trainees had been stunned, despite their caution.  Those five only made it through by virtue of their own stellar reflexes in raising their shields or dodging the arrow fire.

Dozens of Snow Lions scampered down from the trees to surround the remaining Tigresses, but Valeria didn’t care.  She knew they had already lost to the Snow Lion ambush, so she struck out with her glaive and slashed Leon across the chest, intending to salvage at least a little bit of her unit’s dignity.  He fell back off the log he had been sitting on, as unconscious as the majority of the Tigresses.

Seeing this, Castor and Alphonsus only smiled.  They slowly walked forward and, after several minutes of searching, found all three banners the Tigresses had.

“We’ll be taking these,” Castor said, handing the banners off to Aemilius.

Valeria only glared at him, and Asiya’s furious visage mirrored her silver-haired friend.  Two second-tier Snow Lions walked forward to pick up Leon, but they hesitated when it seemed like Valeria was going to try and stop them, as she tightened the grip on her glaive and took a step toward them.  However, as she looked around at the numerous Snow Lions staring back at her, then down to her Tigresses lying on the ground, she loosened her grip and let the Snow Lions take Leon.  They had stopped attacking her so she could take care of her trainees, so she decided to show them the same respect.  This wasn’t an actual battlefield, after all, so she could take a defeat gracefully.

Once the Snow Lions grabbed Leon, they fell back, practically vanishing into the shadowy evening forest.  As she watched them vanish into the darkness, a terrifyingly resolute look appeared on Valeria’s face, and she thought, ‘We’re going to get those banners back!  We will find where you hide yourselves, and we will retrieve what’s ours!’

Then, she smiled.  The day had gone almost too well for her, and despite this setback, she felt the rush of a new challenge: finding and defeating the Snow Lions, then taking all nine banners they now held.

---

Both the Crimson Tigresses and the Steel Century were in for a surprise on the morning of the fourth day: they ran into each other just outside of the western mountains.  The best place to enter the Academy’s mountains was at the very center of the border between the mountains and the forest.  The hills there were steep but allowed for better access than the tall cliffs to the north and south.

The Century arrived there first since their camp was closer to the hills.  The Tigresses, however, left earlier than they had, leading to them emerging from the tree line behind the Century mere minutes after the latter had.

“TURN AROUND!  GET IN FORMATION!” Marcus bellowed as soon as he saw the Tigresses.  The Century had been about to disband into scouting groups and spread out into the mountains to search for the Snow Lions, but they quickly formed back up and got into a shield wall to face the Tigresses, who responded in kind.

For several minutes, the two formations stared at each other and didn’t make a single move.  The Century held a complete tactical advantage, being on higher elevation and possessing greater numbers, so it was understandable why the Tigresses didn’t attack.  However, Marcus didn’t want to fight; he wanted his people to venture out into the mountains to find the Snow Lions, not get tied down with fighting and the subsequent recovery.  A battle here would cost a lot of valuable time.

After those few minutes, Marcus shouted “HOLD POSITION!” to the Century, then slowly walked out from the formation.  He made a show of returning his sword to its sheath and laying his shield on the ground so that the Tigresses knew he wasn’t attacking them.  After a short delay, Alcander ran out to join him.  Seeing what they were doing, Valeria and Asiya did the same, leaving her formation and meeting Marcus and Alcander halfway between their formations to talk.

There was another moment of silence as the four tension-filled trainees waited for one of the others to speak.  Marcus was the first to break that silence.

“… We’re not looking for a fight.  We don’t have any banners, and neither do you.”

Valeria visibly bit her teeth in an obvious show of frustration, and replied, “Our banners were taken by the Snow Lions.  We’re going to find them.”

“Well… that just so happens to be exactly what we’re doing…” Marcus responded.

“And we’re not getting very far alone,” Alcander admitted, drawing a quick glare from Marcus, to which he responded with only a shrug.

“Are you implying that you want us to join forces?” Asiya asked.

With a sigh and understanding why Alcander had made that admission, Marcus stated, “It would make things a hell of a lot easier.”

“It might,” Valeria mused, “and it would be nice to have some backup when attacking the Snow Lions in their own territory.  They undoubtedly know these mountains better than we do…”

“But we don’t need them,” Asiya protested with a slight frown.

“No, we don’t,” Valeria conceded, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t all work together to make this easier on ourselves.”

“If their actions thus far have shown anything, it’s that they won’t go down without a fight,” added Marcus as he stared first at his unit, then at the Tigresses.  Thinking aloud, he said, “I think… we’re going to need all the people to join us in this fight as we can.”

“… What are you getting at?” asked Valeria suspiciously.

“Only that even the two of our units together might not be enough to successfully assault the Snow Lions if they’ve fortified their positions enough.  The more allies we have, the better.”

“Do you have any other units in mind?” Alcander inquired.

“Maybe…”

“Then perhaps you should ask them; we haven’t agreed to anything, after all,” said Asiya with an impish grin.

“Then what would you need to get this alliance off the ground?” Marcus asked.

“Our own banner back.  That much is non-negotiable,” said Valeria.

“Then we would make the same demand; they have our banner too,” responded Alcander.

“They also have quite a few others, and if we beat them, we’d have to find a way to split the other seven banners two ways,” Asiya reminded the group.

“We’ll take care of that when the time comes,” said Marcus.  “Although, having another unit with us would make that particular issue easier to deal with as well, as we’d only have to split the nine total banners into equal thirds…”

“We still have to actually seize the banners, though,” Alcander said.

“Right.  So, then, can we do this?  As long as we get our unit’s banners back and an equal share of the rest, we can work together?” Marcus asked the group.  Valeria nodded silently, and Asiya deferred to her.  Alcander nodded his head as well, and with him on board, Marcus knew the other two third-tier nobles in his unit wouldn’t argue with this decision.

“Wonderful!  Let’s meet back here tomorrow morning and plan out our next move!” Marcus said enthusiastically.

---

“What are they doing here?” Asiya wondered out loud with a faintly disgusted tone as she stared at the Deathbringers, Gaius’ unit having been brought to the hills at the foot of the western mountains by Marcus.

“Don’t know, but I would appreciate an explanation,” Valeria said, glaring at Marcus as he approached with a genial smile.

“I invited Gaius’ unit into our little ‘alliance’, of sorts, and I’m happy to say that he accepted!  The Deathbringers will join our search for the Snow Lions, and our assault on their camp when we find it!” Marcus said eagerly.

“And you didn’t ask us first?” Asiya asked, her icy voice sending a chill down Marcus’ spine despite her bright and sunny expression.

“… I figured you’d be fine with it, I mean it always seems to me that you—or Valeria, at least—are on good terms with Gaius.  Plus, this means that we won’t have to fight each other over a spare banner until we return to our own camps!”

Valeria frowned, but she was on fairly good terms with Gaius, having grown up in Calabria, whose hinterlands bordered Gaius’ Duchy of Lentia.

Gaius himself, accompanying Marcus simply smiled and said, “It would be a great honor to work with you both in defeating the Snow Lions.  At this point, I’m ready to admit that this is what is required to defeat L—the Snow Lions.”

Valeria’s frown lightened in the face of Gaius’ politeness and humility, and in the end, the three-unit alliance went forward without any objections, but Valeria made it abundantly clear to Marcus that any more invitations without her knowledge would end with the Crimson Tigresses leaving and going their own way.

As the three units pooled their resources, they debated the most likely locations for the Snow Lions to be hiding, and it was decided that they would focus their efforts on the northern parts of the mountains.  When Leon and the other Snow Lions counter-ambushed the Century and Tigresses’ attempt to capture him, he and his unit showcased a great knowledge of the stone maze on the northern edge of the Academy’s training grounds.  The third-tier nobles in the alliance felt that this came from a familiarity with the terrain that only living near the maze would provide.

And they were right; it took only a week of searching to find the gorge that the Snow Lions had encamped in.

—-

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