The Lady - High and Mighty!

Commander Shaneal Nagra sat in his tent, contemplating a map of Tiadar, when he heard the crunching sound of boots on gravel in front of his tent and a moment later, he heard his subordinate and good friend Lieutenant Finley Price call from outside.

„Permission to enter?", Price asked.

„Granted", Nagra replied absent-minded.

He heard the tent cloth being pushed aside and a cold breeze brushed his cheeks when Price entered.

Lieutenant Price closed the entrance once he cleared it, saluted him and then stood by, until Commander Nagra would adress him.

They were friends, but Nagra was still his superior in rank.

The commander did not intend to let him wait for long, though. He pulled a piece of charcoal out of the top drawer of his desk and turned to the man waiting in front of him.

„Any news?", he asked.

„Not really", Lieutenant Price said.

„How are the positions?", Nagra inquired, and then listened to the Lieutenant recite the position of every outpost and search party. While he talked Nagra marked the positions on the map by drawing little crosses on the mentioned spots.

„They are all out and searching for her. But not even the hounds seem to get a whiff of her scent", Price continued, then added. „Oh, and there is a carriage coming. Lady Diana is on her way."

Nagra looked up with a start. „What? You should have led with that!"

Lieutenant Price flinched and looked embarrassed, but Nagra had no time to apologize now. He went to the chest that held his belongings and hastily donned a fresh outfit.

Lady Diana is coming here? That can't be good news… And now is an especially bad timing with all troops out on the hunt but yet no results to show for so far, he thought, grinding his teeth. This will be bad.

Without any further regard to his friend whatsoever, he left the tent in a hurry. But once outside, he reminded himself to stay calm - if only on the outside. So he channeled his jumpiness in a fast, but controlled stride towards the camp's entrance. Behind him, he could hear Lieutenant Price scurrying after him.

I swear to the gods, if he wasn't my friend I'd make him scrub the latrines for that, Nagra thought glumly.

He reached the entrance just as a nobly decorated carriage pulled up and came to a halt a few feet away from him.

When the murmur produced by the surrounding fighters died down, the driver stood up and called with a pride that seemed to come automatically by serving an established nobility:

„Daughter of Sir Joshua Duncan and rightful heir to the family's estate and properties, Her Lady Diana of Westershire."

Any chatter still going on was silenced by the announcement.

A short time later the carriage's door opened, and a handmaid stepped out first in order to lend her mistress a hand in descending the three steps.

Lady Diana stepped down onto the gravel daintily and looked around herself in unveiled disgust.

Then her gaze fell on Nagra who just in time had the presence of mind to fall to his knees.

„Mylady", he said. „We hadn't expected the honor of your visit."

„Commander Nagra", Diana Duncan said formally, after regarding him in silence for a while. „I had hoped to be able to spare myself the trip. But after your latest failure I saw no other choice than to intervene. I cannot afford to leave anything to chance when it comes to catching this beast."

Nagra bowed his head and lowered his eyes in order to convey lowliness, but Diana was clearly not finished with him, yet.

„Your superiors in India praised your military skills and your leadership ability. That's why my father, god bless his soul, had you shipped all the way to our grand home and greater isle, with no regard to the costs. And you may have done a good job in keeping the house safe, but any Rottweiler could do the same. In the end, you failed my father, and now you failed me. So I'm taking the command over these troops", she said.

Commander Nagra bit his tongue in order to keep from saying something thoughtless, before he replied with all the control he could muster at that moment.

„Mylady, the girl had help. She transformed and went into a killing spree."

„That's your excuse?", Diana scoffed. „You should have known how dangerous she is, after she… she gored my father and your men. No, you've been careless and far too sure of yourself. But no worry, for now that I'm here there won't be such a thing as a second failure. Under my command, we will catch the beast and make her atone bitterly for what she's done to Father."

The coldness in her voice sent a shiver up his spine, even though there was already a cold winter wind blowing here in the open. Suddenly, though, her voice changed dramatically into that of a sweet girl.

„Now, if you would please show me to my quarters, Commander. We have much to discuss and it's far too cold out here. Maybe when we're all settled you could be so kind as to give me a full report of what has happened, and not just the scraps of information you sent via a terrified page."

Commander Nagra uttered humble compliance and got to his feet. He had known that the boy he sent back to report the status of the hunt wouldn't do, but it had been the only one Nagra had been able to spare at that time.

Lady Diana passed by him in a cloud of expensive parfume and aristocratic arrogance, leaving her handmaid to get the luggage off the back of the carriage. This woman brought her whole wardrobe to a field camp, Nagra thought in disbelieve as he spared a moment to watch the handmaid pull down the cases of luggage. But among the chests and coffers he noticed something else. A large wooden box with holes beneath the upper rim. Nagra had no idea what could be possibly in there, but he had a bad feeling.

With a shudder he turned away and followed Lady Diana.

Finley cast him a quizzical look from the sideway and Nagra gave him a hand sign that would tell the Lieutanent that he wouldn't be needed for the moment, so the man saluted shortly, before he disappeared between the rows of tents to fulfill other duties.

Commander Nagra envied him his freedom to go somewhere else, where there would be no one-on-one discussion with Lady Diana.

Shaneal didn't like the Lady very much. In his eyes, she was still the same spoiled brat he had gotten to know when he'd begun serving Lord Duncan some twenty years ago, even though the ‚girl' was now twenty-seven years old and a grown woman - if not wed.

But Shaneal had no illusion as to why the Lady was still single.

She was lazy and vicious, and he wouldn't have been surprised to find out that she's venomous, too. Her father had made sure that she would get everything she wished for, as well as the best education he could get his hands on. But his daughter had only taken the physical gifts, while discarding the offered gift of wisdom. She could read and count just fine, but everything else had not been of interest to her. And to Shaneal, who hadn't been allowed to study anything besides military skills in India, that was incomprehensible.

He had, however, liked her father a lot. His Lordship had been a man of knowledge and science, who had often taken time off his studies to teach Shaneal how to read, after his shift had ended.

And he had been grieved to find out that the demon had killed him.

Now he was stuck with his unruly offspring.

They reached his tent that would now be hers and went inside. Lady Diana headed straight for his desk and sat down in his chair, while he fumbled to close the tent cloth.

When the entrance was sealed against the icy wind that blew outside, Shaneal turned towards the Lady - who was putting her feet on his desk.

He looked at her expressionless while she assessed the interior of his tent with a quick look around. Which consisted of his utilitarian bedsted, his chest that held his possessions, his table and his chair.

He could see the disdain in her eyes when she realized that he didn't possess much more furniture than the average fighter. Which was unusual for a man of his rank, but he always felt that bringing more pieces of furniture to a military mission just to show off rank was not worth slowing them down.

Lady Diana, however, seemed to think differently. But to his relief, she didn't comment on it.

Well, on the other hand, he would rather discuss his thoughts on interior design, than his latest failure.

„Well?", the Lady said innocent enough, but her eyes were seizing him.

As matter-of-factly as possible Commander Nagra stated his report of what had happened since the Lady ordered him and his troops out to catch the demon girl.

„We followed her through the rift", he began. „But it brought us to a location that was a bit off the girl's trail. The hounds, however, caught a whiff of her blood and led us to the trail she had taken. It led to a cave, where we found more blood. But the blood trail ended there and the dogs lost the scent. We walked on until one of our scouts saw the girl and a Death Spirit ahead of us. He reported that he had heard them talking about heading for Reskal, so I sent my fastest runner ahead. He managed to set up the town, so that by the time the girl and her monstrous friend arrived there, every inn had been prepared to serve a poisonous dish, so it wouldn't matter where the girl decided to eat and sleep.

We arrived during the night and prepared ourselves for the capture. Everything went according to plan, but…", he trailed off.

„But what?", Diana prompted him.

„But something went wrong. Your father, gods bless his soul, had told me when he was still alive, that the girl seemed to be unable to access her demonic form for some reason. So… I haven't been prepared for her to transform all of a sudden", he admitted. It was true. He had been careless there, and now six of his men were dead.

„I see", Lady Diana said.

„To my own grievance, I underestimated her", Nagra told her. „But I won't make that mistake again."

„No, you really won't", Diana said. „Because now I'm in charge."

And with that she stood up and hunkered over the map that was still lying on the desk the way Nagra had left it.

„We're searching for her with all men and hounds available. She seems to be adept at hiding. Or maybe she uses magic…", Nagra offered, but Diana gave no indication to whether she was listening or not, so he stopped talking.

Instead, he chose to have another look at the map himself, even if it was upside down for him due to the position he was currently standing on. But that didn't matter. He had been staring at the map for hours before Finley had come to deliver the news of Lady Diana's arrival.

He knew the rather circular shape of the country quite well. How the mountain range to the east and the south rose to tower over the rest of the land, while the country's capital was the farthest from the mountains - in the northwest. Most of the land was covered in forests which were only interrupted to allow civilization and agriculture to thrive. Aside from the capital, only smaller towns like Reskal or occasional holdings of nobles provided the possibility to settle. In turn, meadows, corn- and grainfields, as well as grazing lands for herd beasts and cattle or swine took the place of forest areas. The vegetation, both wild and cultivated, was fed by a huge but tranquil river, whose spring was not far from their very location - somewhere up in those mountains. As far as that went, Tiadar showed every sign to be as normal as any other freshwater country in their own world that hadn't yet joined in in the industrial craze that went around the globe. Why that was the case here, the commander had no idea. Anyhow, that wasn't something that bothered him much. They wouldn't stay very long in this unimproved country.

However, something that Commander Nagra did bother a little, because he never understood it, and he hated everything he couldn't understand, was a huge area in the northeast of the map that was again separated into four territories of which two seemed to have a holding, judged by the little castles drawn into them, and two had what looked like tents or tiny settlements, but none of the territories contained agricultural spaces. What kind of holding or settlement lived in vast territories and had no fields to feed their people? That baffled him beyond speaking. Not to mention that, if he read the map's legend correctly, one of the settlements was supposedly located in a vast area of ice and snow near the eastern mountains. Who could possibly live there?

Well, maybe they already evacuated the place and that's just a map where the settlement is still in existence. There's no telling how old this map actually is, he thought to comfort himself.

He looked at Lady Diana to see if she was as baffled by that as he was, but her attention seemed to be on a different part of the map.

She appeared to be intensely concentrated on the southern part of the map, as if, if she only stared at it long enough, it would tell her what to do.

Which, apparently, it did. Even though Nagra didn't hear anything, Lady Diana nodded as if to herself and woke from her contemplation.

„There is a mountain range south from here. She will head there, because if she continues to flee into the direction she took from Reskal, she must face the mountains at some point. She will probably want to hide in the crevices there, hoping that we will give up the chase or die trying to get at her."

Nagra looked at her in wonder. How in tarnation had she deducted that from simply looking at the map?

„How…", he began.

„I lived with her my whole life. She's stubborn and proud, and now that she's learned in Reskal what she can do, she will be full of herself. Completely trusting her demonic features to carry her through the winter while we simple humans perish in the cold.

You must never forget that she's not human. She won't either", Diana said, leaving Nagra utterly speechless. He hadn't expected this kind of fore-and insight from her!

„So, what do we do?", he asked at last. „She may be full of herself, but she's also right. If she makes it into the mountains, we are powerless. She'll be free to move and we don't have the means to lay siege to a mountain range!"

Diana looked at him reproachfully, but answered nonetheless.

„We won't let her do that. We will beat her to that mountain", she said pointing onto the the map, near the highest mountain of the whole range. „There is a meadow and a river, where we can make camp. Plus, the river will cut off her only way of retreat."

Nagra had to admit that he was impressed. But something nagged at him.

„But if we're out in the open, she'll see us from afar", he pointed out. „Why should she come near us nonetheless?"

And Diana's next reply stunned him completely.

„Because we're going to invite her", she said genially.

„What? Why should she run into something that's so obviously a trap, when she's already hiding now?", he said, making his doubts way.

Now, Diana smiled maliscously. „Because we have something that she won't be able to resist."

And when he shook his head in disbelief, she added. „Trust me. She won't."

When all matters of importance where discussed, Commander Nagra turned to leave. He had to convey the new orders to the troops.

But before he could exit the tent, Lady Diana stopped him once more by saying:

„Oh, and Commander. From now on, only my handmaid will be allowed to enter this tent, unless I say different, understood?"

He cast her a speculating look, and then nodded. „Understood, mylady. I'll make sure the men get the information."