After her drills with the recruits ended and the clang of swords faded into the distance, Kane Mendel slipped into her black training gear and made her way toward the eastern edge of the grounds — a secluded grove bordered by dense rows of cypress and lush shrubs. The rest of the soldiers rarely ventured there. It was a quiet space, and she needed it. That's where she trained the ones often overlooked by the battlefield — the women.
It had started small. Just a few curious members of the Gabriella Guild — healers, scribes, and messenger girls — eager to learn the sword, the bow, the basics of strategy. But word spread quickly. Within weeks, wives of blacksmiths, sisters of soldiers, daughters of stable hands came, unarmed but not unwilling. Even children — some as young as nine — stood in neat rows with fierce determination in their eyes.
Soon, they were over a thousand.
