'We go to war.'
It was the first time Joan answered the hopeful gazes of the other slaves. Those who once cowered beside her in the prison cell no longer bore that same lost, uncertain look.
She could not understand how they—armed only with sticks and stones—could ever hope to bring down foes clad in steel and shield. Yet she tightened her grip upon her weapon all the same.
Battle was instinct. Instinct required no hesitation. And so she marched, step after step, toward the nobles' cities…