The First Imperial Legion, such as it was with a mere 2500 men and women at arms given its recent inception, was the best that the Coalition-cum-Empire could offer. Many of them were veterans of The Mountain's Fall, personally loyal to Heda Lexa and the Sky Princess after the bloody siege and razing of that nightmarish place. As such, it was they who had been chosen to defend Avalon from any Azkru incursions during The Festival, though they were not yet aware. Many had guessed, of course, because otherwise there would be no need for so many warriors to be encamped in a forest a scant handful of miles from the city's gates. It wasn't as if anyone else would be trying to cause trouble besides the northern-most tribe, and they all knew better than to trust Nia and her ilk to keep their oaths sacred.

Their suspicions were all but confirmed when Lincoln and his three wives had arrived in the camp, armed and armored, and ordered the legion to prepare themselves for battle. When the Sky Prisa herself galloped into the camp, shouting for the musicians to sound assembly, they were within formation in but a moment. Regimented lines of legionnaires, shields and pilums braced to attention, stood silently as she sat before them on her charger.

"Brothers and sisters of the Empire, loyal soldiers of the First Legion!" she cried out, back straight and hair windswept. "As we speak, three thousand warriors of the Ice Nation march on Avalon's sacred gates, intent on claiming it for themselves! We stand at the precipice of a war that has the potential to eclipse any other in scope! This night, this moment, will be oft spoken of, the first swords drawn and the first blood spilled in the pursuit of Unification and Peace! Shall it be said that it was a minor victory, a desperate and pyrrhic defense of our homeland?"

"No!" the legion roared back as one, dismissing the possibility immediately as absurd.

"Of course not! You who have fought the Mountain, you who laid it to ruin, and you who searched beside me in the ruins of fallen Polis…you are greater than any Azkru warrior! The Azkru, who grew fat and lazy in the security of their frozen, lifeless wasteland of a home while others protected them from the monsters of the deep…they stand no chance against ones such as we! We shall meet this ragtag band of bandits in battle, crush them like the ants that they are, and drive them howling into the teeth of winter! Then, when spring has come once more, it is you who shall lead the charge to crush them in their dens of disloyalty and free their people from Nia's Maker-forsaken rule!"

The legion howled its approval, stamping their feet and beating their spear-hafts against their shields. The song of battle was filling their blood once more, and this time they knew that they had the advantage. This was an enemy that they had fought before and would surely fight again. No 'grenades' or 'gatling guns' or acid fog, just sword and spear and arrow. No monstrous Maunon, just Azkru. Mortal men, not demons straight out of their nightmares. Men they had fought in the past, men they had beaten in the past. They had new weapons, new tactics, new tactics and strategies, new ways of waging war that their enemies could not predict or skillfully counter. The only advantage that their enemy possessed was that of body-count, and that was an advantage easily overcome.

The legion swung into motion, striding towards a future that they would help secure with their own two hands.

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Agustus kom Azkru smirked with manifest smugness, infinitely pleased with himself as only the truly arrogant could be. His career, such as it was, read much like some sort of drama from a book or a play. The poor farmboy joining up with the army in an effort to find a better life, with several successful battles and one campaign against some (non state-sponsored) bandits with himself as the commanding officer following his own CO's untimely death. Of course, said CO had died in rather suspicious circumstances not long after the mission had been launched, and Agustus had taken it upon himself to 'show initiative' and 'carry out their orders in spite of their losses'. Such things were not unusual in the cutthroat political and higher-ranked military world of the Ice Nation, after all, and so it was more or less ignored. It helped that he was actually a fairly competent commander, with a solid grasp on 'The Book'. Thinking outside the box was hardly his strong suit, but he had conventional tactics and strategy down pat.

The Agent, as he had taken to calling the mysterious woman who had appeared in his tent, had departed not long ago with a horse and mounted escort, riding towards Gaithers at her best speed to bring further orders to Prince Roan and the other generals. She would make excellent use of the relay stations to acquire fresh mounts as needed, allowing her to make greater speed than most could manage. One of his great Queen's innovations, of course.

He would be the toast of Gaithers, no doubt, when she arrived to announce that it was he who had captured and purged The City of Light for the Frozen Throne. The rewards would be great, he was sure, as would the expansion of his political influence and personal power base. He doubted that he could topple Azrael from the lofty, if unofficial, position of Consort, but he might gain the hand of Princess Sylvanas. With such a beauty as his, and with his prestige, he might be able to claim the Throne for himself once Nia passed away.

"General, scouting party returning! They report that the walls are unmanned! There are sounds of conflict within the city, likely the last vestiges of the old order resisting our Queen. There are no military elements of the enemy within sight, but reports to indicate there are at least some a few miles away, on a training exercise of some sort." One of his officers rode up to him, clasping one hand to his chest in salute.

"Very well. We'll advance to the city at best speed. If we encounter this training force we will crush them before claiming the city. Otherwise, we will detail half our men to guard the gates while the rest assist the Queen in taking what is her's from the weaklings of the south." He ordered, turning to look at the Hortator. "Increase the pace to double-time. Anyone falling behind is to be flogged."

The Hortator, the 'keeper of the beat', and his immediate subordinates immediately increased the tempo of their drumbeats to a driving rhythm, one that would not have been out of place on an ancient Roman trireme. With the response engrained by years of training, every soldier increased their pace to be just short of a jog. It would take them scarcely a half-hour to reach Avalon now, or rather to reach the edge of the 2-mile clearing around the city's walls. With the inside of the city in chaos and the gates unbarred and unguarded, they should meet little effective resistance.

Doubtless many slaves would be taken, and he found himself wondering if the other Skaikru were as beautiful as the first three. If so, he might need to acquire some 'spoils' for himself. Yes, Princess Sylvanas was the pinnacle of lethal beauty, but once she was with child he would be bereft of company. Best to plan ahead for such an eventuality.

As his forces entered the clearing, another drumbeat rose to meet his own, accompanied this time by the sound of horns. Another force was exiting the forest opposite his own position, the rampant griffon of the Skai Prisa flying at its head. Pulling out a spyglass with the swift ease of long practice, he raised it to his dominant eye and inspected the approaching troops. His jaw nearly dropped in surprise, for the woman leading the approaching force was Clarke herself. This was a better opportunity than he ever could have dreamed of! He could capture the blonde woman himself and drag her in chains before Nia! This guaranteed that his ambitions would come true!

"Get me an estimate of their numbers, and fan out into a battle-line! These must have been the troops on the training exercise. We will destroy them before moving into the city!" he snapped at his command staff, who saluted before wheeling their horses about, orders bellowed at the top of their lungs. Even as his own forces began rushing to get into the loose, pre-charge formation common amongst the tribes, he watched the visibly smaller enemy force begin their own deployment. Thicker flanking forces of what looked like overly-long speared armed conscripts with a thinner center line of more experienced swordsman. A logical formation, but a weak one when he had numerical superiority. If he smashed their center line they would rout and be slaughtered.

"General, our best estimate is that we have some thousand men more than the enemy force!" one of his staff shouted down the line to him, and he snorted in amusement. Brave of them to confront him with so fewer the manpower, but bravery would accomplish little in the end. Oh, they would fight their hardest, but bravery alone could not overcome a nearly thousand-man disparity. "Should I have skirmishers on our flanks in case it is a trick?"

"Its no trick, they have no more men to send. That looks to be about the right size for a training force, and they couldn't know we were one our way to the city. No, they are rushing to try and stop our Queen from barring the city against them. We will advance and crush them here and now." He scoffed, dismissing the idea with a negligent flap of his left hand. "Sound the attack, standard tactics. Smash through their center and their line will collapse. Bring me the Skai Prisa and any notable commanders alive!"

The Azgeda infantry, now formed into semi-cohesive blocks, began loping towards their opposite numbers with confidence. Those ultra-long spears on the flanks were impenetrable without archers, certainly, but once the center was broken they would be helpless. The lances were far too long to swing around fast enough to react to such a breakthrough, and even if they had swords it would take them precious moments to swap weapons, especially in a panic.

"Let them reach the mid-range of our archers, we need them to think continuing the charge is worthwhile. Don't discourage them too much, but don't leave them be either." Clarke ordered almost absently as she watched the enemy force advance towards her own. "Pikemen, present arms. Swords, ready pilum to throw on my command."

Though she did not have many archers with her current force, the longbows they bore had both the range and the power to cause great damage, and so they did. Angry buzzing filled the air as salvo after salvo was launched, black arrows plummeting from the sky to rip holes in the advancing formation. To their credit, the Azgeda adjusted quickly and made use of their shields in an effort to block the sharp hail of wood and metal. Men still fell, staining the ground with blood and the air with screams of agony, but it was not the bowmen that would settle this conflict. No, the cold steel of the battle-line would be the ultimate factor, and though Clarke was confident in victory she had no doubt it would be costly.

Onward and onward came their enemies, and she waited with measured breath and sharp eyes for them to reach that moment of turnover, that invisible line in which they would be committed fully to their charge. That moment when the jaws of her trap would no longer be escapable but would encircle them entirely. Some of them might escape, and most of them would likely die fighting, but she nonetheless could hope that at least a few of their number would be wise enough to drop their weapons and surrender. There would be plenty and more blood shed and lives taken come the spring campaign to the northern lands, and she would do whatever she could to keep her throne on the shortest pile of corpses possible. Such was the price of empire-building. Such was the price of a future secured.

There it is. The thought crossed her mind, and an instant laterthe trotting Azgeda switched into a headlong charge, howling warcries and threats at the top of their lungs as they waved their weapons in the air. It was all very neo-barbarian, compared to the ordered and silent lines of her legion.

"Pilum ready!" she shouted, and arms cocked back with the short throwing spears. At her command, the spears flew through the air, a far thinner but no less deadly hail compared to that of the archers. "Draw swords! Brace shields! For the Empire!"

"In the name of The Maker and Mankind!" her legionnaires roared together, and then the enemy smashed into them. Even the best of boots would have slid on the soft grass and dirt of the battlefield from such a force, and though they did indeed slide to some degree, the small studs Clarke had ordered part of the boot's construction gave them a degree of traction their enemies couldn't match. Axes, swords, spear hafts, even gauntleted fists slammed repeatedly into the upraised shields, a cacophony of noise that resulted in little actual wounding and no deaths. She doubted that that such a thing would last overly long, but one could hope.

As they had been trained to do, rhythmic shield-thrusts and sword-strokes began to pile the corpses of Azgeda around the feet of the shield wall, but superior training, weapons, and tactics could offset the weight of numbers only so much. Legionnaires began to fall, and the center line thinned further as support ranks had to step in to fill the breaches left by the deaths of their comrades. A sharp, whistled signal had them falling back at a slow walk, focused now on maintaining contact and preserving their lives rather than killing the enemy. Emboldened, the Azgeda warriors pressed their 'advantage' and attacked with vigour and determination uninhibited. Keying her radio, Clarke spoke.

"Spring the trap. Wipe them out."

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A few hundred yard's away, still hidden in the forest, two hundred hussaria rustled in anticipation as their Queen's orders were relayed to them by their ranking officer. To lie in wait, not contributing to the battle and knowing that their brothers and sisters were dying on the other side of the treeline, had been agonizing. They might understand the necessity, might admire the strategic ingenuity that would allow their relatively small force to not just defeat but destroy a numerically superior force, but that knowledge did not do much to ease their burdens. Now, however, the time had come to strike. They would sweep out of the woods, destroying the enemy command group and smashing into the Azgeda army from behind.

Horses nickered softly and pawed at the ground, sensing the battle ahead with the tension and anticipation of their riders. Riders that were climbing into their saddles and hefting the long shafts of their lances, checking the small crossbows that would serve as their ranged option until something a little more modern could be provided. Not as dramatic as the crashing volleys of the original Polish Hussars' flintlock pistols, of course, but as long as the Azgeda died the purpose would be fulfilled.

With a chorus of whistles and clicks of encouragement, the lancers egged their mounts into motion. The rhythmic pounding of hooves on the forest floor would doubtless have given their position away to their enemy (though likely not soon enough to save them from the Hussar's charge), but their prophesized ruler had found a way to minimalize such an issue. Special hoof coverings muffled, if only slightly, the inevitable noise and reduced it to such a level that the pitched battle would cover their approach until they were practically on top of the Azgeda.

The intervening distance, the expanse of forest that separated them from their infantry comrades, was quickly devoured by the long strides of their mounts, and the cacophony of war grew in volume steadily the closer they got to Avalon. Soon only a handful of trees lay between them and their targets, and they paused for a handful of moments to redress their line. It wouldn't have quite the same impact if they arrived on the field strung out and scattered, after all.

A gesture from their commander had a handful of Hussaria raising horns of various sizes and shapes to their lips. Forth went their song, low drones rumbling beneath the higher shouts in a natural thunder that echoed across the field. With a roar they spurred their mounts into motion once more, sweeping out of the trees and taking their enemy entirely by surprise and off-guard. Augustus kom Azgeda died first, an expertly maneuvered lance impaling his sternum and sending him to the ground, a rather undignified look of shock and terror forever frozen on his face.

As they swept across the field, the 'retreating' infantry halted and locked themselves down into a solid wall. With unmovable shields before them, pikes to their flanks, and heavy cavalry bearing down upon their rear, the Azgeda army did the worst possible thing: they panicked and devolved into solo combat. Though they had been fighting as individuals before, more or less, they had still supported one another and worked together in a general sense. Now, though, it was truly every man for themselves. Unfortunately for them, it turns out that cohesion is vital for surviving situations such as this.

They crumbled, falling like leaves before their enemies, who cut them down left and right without the slightest hint of mercy. Even Clarke, normally one to spare people whenever possible, showed no inclination to allow survivors. In later years, more peaceful ones, it would be a matter of some debate why this was the case. The vast majority of people would agree that these Azgeda had tried to threaten, and in fact were in the way of her reaching, her unborn children. Stuffy historians would scoff at this and make long dissertations about 'strategic necessity' and 'sparing enemies that would have waited for a critical moment to rise against her being an insane idea', but most people would ignore them or listen politely with amused and knowing smiles.

The Azgeda force annihilated utterly, the Legion turned its attention to the City of Light itself, moving swiftly through the gates They would smash any resistance between themselves and the palace before purging any and all enemies from its environs and the city itself. Not that they expected any fighting at the palace, Heda Lexa and the other Companions probably wouldn't leave anyone alive for them to deal with…

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"Breaker take you!" Octavia snarled furiously as she put her blade through her current opponent's throat, ignoring the gout of blood that sprayed across her face as she used her shield to push him away. Echo moved past her, replacing her on the front line as she stepped back and wiped the drips away from her eyes before they could impede her vision.

The Azgeda and Maunon grunts were falling in droves, caught totally flat-footed by the prepared defenders of the palace. Though they were few, and mostly consisted of Clarke's Companions, their prowess and the choke-points formed by doorways and corridors had more than countered the sheer weight of numbers their enemies could bring. Unsurprisingly, the ring-leaders of the attack were nowhere to be seen, but she doubted they were far. Likely waiting for the defenders to be exhausted and worn down so that finishing them off could be easier. Base cowardice to go along with greed and opportunism, how dreadfully shocking.

The problem was, their little plan was working. The defenders were getting tired, and it seemed that the members of the coup had more bodies to sacrifice than Octavia and her fellows had energy. They would need to achieve something decisive, and soon, or they would be in pretty deep shit. As if by divine providence, the sound of shouting echoed from behind their assailants, and Octavia grinned. It looked like some allied warriors had broken through the fighting in the streets to help them, and a damn good thing too.

The enemy line collapsed in on itself, some turning in a panic towards the threat at their rear, and the gaping holes and vulnerabilities were quickly taken advantage of. They crumbled under the onslaught, but then gunshots echoed before her. The ring-leaders had shown themselves at last, it seemed, and were firing their guns at any loyalist they could. Octavia cursed and took cover, mind racing as she tried to find a solution to this reversal in firepower. The only people who had guns on her side were set up to shoot people coming through the door, not to fire on people outside of it! A banzai was one option, but it was a damn shitty one. Still, she wouldn't let any harm come to Lexa or Raven while she still…

Lexa had, apparently, gotten tired of sitting in the back waiting for her chance to defend herself and those she cared for. Striding into the open with little care for her safety, eyes cold and face set in stone, she raised her own pistol and opened fire. Shumay, one of those wielding a weapon, went down with a cry. His wound wasn't fatal, but his dominant arm was now useless. The Maunon leaders fell quickly, only the amoral Doctor surviving by using one of her fellows as a human shield, desperate to survive even another minute more.

Diane Sydney, seeing her last chance at survival and power crumbling around her, opted to flee. Dashing down a side hallway, she began what turned out to be a fruitless hunt for an escape route. Doors closed before her, windows refused to open or break, and every dark corner became flooded with light. Escape was impossible, truly impossible, for it seemed that the palace itself was hindering her flight. Which, though she didn't (and never would) know it, was exactly what was happening. Avalon belonged to its Queen, and those that threatened her within its walls would find the city itself acting against them.

"You can't kill me, you sub-human trash!" the former Chancellor raged as Lexa and a handful of the other Companions fanned out around her, trapping her like a the rat she was. Cruel smirks were on their lips as they stared her down, satisfaction wafting off of them.

"You're right, I can't kill you. After all, the people want your head for what you tried to do to Clarke, and I would hate to disappoint them." Lexa drawled in acknowledgment, eye filled with hate for the woman before her. "That being said…you don't need to walk to reach the headsman."

The gun in her hand barked twice more, the bullets obliterating Sydney's kneecaps, and she looked over to Echo as the former inhabitant of The Ark collapsed to the floor with high-pitched screams of agony. A silent gesture with the still-smoking pistol was all that was needed, and the former Azkru moved forward and began binding the freshly-inflicted wounds. Giving a short, vicious nod of approval, Lexa turned and stormed (there was no other word for it) from the room, shouting for someone to bring her a status report…and some chocolate pudding.

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So…pregnant, angry and protective mother-to-be Lexa is very unrestrained and scary Lexa

Yes, its short. Yes, it took far longer than something this short should have. Stuff and Thangs happened, there is also the fact that the story is almost over. One chapter and an epilogue remain. The plan for this story and the sequel have undergone so major shifts, but I think its for the best and that it will make the sequel even better!