Once upon a time, there was a land far, far away, a fair land blessed with perfect weather and constant good fortune. Its prosperity was the envy of all its neighbors, but such good fortune did not come without great effort. A mighty warrior whose blade was quick and whose justice was certain protected this land. Her shield and her favor were the deep purple of the sky at nightfall, and her crest was the royal crown itself. She had championed her land for many years, and though she was weary, she would not give up her responsibility.

One day, she received word that a beast was coming from the south, a terrifying creature surely spat up from Hell itself. The many tongues of rumor reported the beast's deeds: it had ravaged villages, devoured innocents, destroyed all in its path. The champion heard these things, and her heart was heavy in her chest, for she recognized this beast, the one enemy she had never been able to slay. She had grievously wounded it time and time again, but she had never been able to do more than send it back to its southern lair. Now it had come further than ever, and this time, the fight would have to be to the death. She could no longer force the beast to retreat in order to buy herself and her fair northern land another year of prosperity.

She could not do this alone. Proud she might have been, but she was not foolish enough to allow her pride to endanger the land she called hers. She would need allies, shieldmates she could trust at her back. And she would need more than sheer force of arms to beat back the hell-spawned beast.

She knew where to find her first ally, a woman who had fought at her side more than once against this beast and the other enemies that had sought to destroy the fair northland. A magician non-pareil, this woman could dazzle enemies' eyes with a few passes of her hands, leave them as statues with the speed of her spells. Many stories were told about her in the taverns of the northern land as she performed parlor tricks for them; some said that she had come from a realm far to the east to seek her fortune, while others swore that the blood of monarchs ran in her veins. She would answer all these stories with an inscrutable smile and a toss of her raven-black hair. "Believe of me what you will- it's what you'll do even if I were to tell you the truth," she would say.

So the champion of the north strode into a tavern in the capital of the northern land where the magician was earning her keep by making balls of multi-colored fire dance in her graceful hands. "The beast has returned, old friend, and I need you by my side to defeat it for once and for all," she said.

The magician smiled and brought her flame-wreathed hands together. The sputtering rainbow light played off the planes of her face and lit her dark, mysterious eyes. "I'd never give up a chance to fight by your side, old friend," she replied. With a snap of her fingers, the fire vanished from her hands- perhaps it was a trick of the dim light in the tavern, but it seemed that the fire was now in the magician's eyes.

Together, the magician and the champion traveled the breadth and width of the northern land to band together the greatest fighters there were, and indeed, there were many, drawn to the champion of the north as moths to a flame. One was a doughty warrior from a foreign land far to the south; the magician took one look at the strong, dark woman and knew immediately that she was of royal blood and would not falter against even the most terrifying of fiends.

Another came to their campfire in the dead of night, slipping in among them like a shadow. "I've come to protect our land," she said in the morning, and when she drew a knife and sent it deep into the trunk of a tree twenty yards away, the volunteer was accepted. She was strong and hardy, never protesting when the trail grew rough or the weather stormy (for the land reflected its fortune, and with the beast upon them, the rest of the land's good fortune ebbed like the tide).

Another was a cavalier, brightly dressed in white, red, blue, and orange, and haughty from her place upon her steed. She would have gone to face the beast herself, so confident in her ability was she, but the magician cast an illusion of the beast, and the cavalier was afraid. For glory and honor she joined them; her blade was quick, and she was a mistress of distraction, able to draw enemies to whatever part of the battlefield she wished.

Another was an archer who practiced her craft in the high, thick forest. Daughter of the trees, she could spot a wren in a darkening glade from sixty yards away, and hit it with her arrow as well. She came with an elder of her people, not her mother but one close to to her kin, and their woodcraft would serve the party well as they traveled towards the beast that had invaded their land.

Another had been a farmgirl, but strong and broad, skilled with the implements of her trade, and blessed with a warrior's instincts. The champion had bid them stop here, and she spoke long with the girl before returning to the party with the girl in tow. "I grow tired and my sword slows. I need a squire who can take up my mantle when it is time, and this girl suits me, for she reminds me much of who I was at her age, and I can train her to follow in my footsteps." And though the archers, the cavalier, the volunteer, and the southern warrior silently questioned the wisdom of bringing a green girl to fight against the fell beast, the magician smiled and said nothing.

Another was a rider from the borderlands. Her people had for centuries raised horses, and she had a rapport with them that no one could understand but she. She could communicate with animals, a skill she used well to hunt meat for their pot. She wielded a lasso alongside her short sword, and those who questioned the wisdom of her weapon soon found themselves trussed upon their horse, with the rider's laughter strangely echoed in the horse's neigh.

Another was a Spartan, and her people trained both men and women in the art of warfare. She was cunning and swift, and her vengeance was terrible to behold. Her hands moved like lightning, and the magician saw in her an apprentice, if not to her true magic, at least to the tricks she performed for silver. Though there was little need for money when traveling with the champion, the knowledge was useful to have, and her earnings could immediately be found in the nearest beggar's bowl.

Another was a knight as beautiful as the dawn. Although she was young, her armor was already daubed in the blood of her enemies, and the champion was pleased that others would fight for their land as she did. She had the patience of a woman twice her age; her enemies fell when they could no longer abide waiting for her to attack them, and rushed her in a maddened haze. Unlike the Spartan or the cavalier, her strokes were slow and deliberate, but she found her mark as often as they did, and could endure longer in a fight. She was a good woman to have at one's back, for she was a master at defensive arts.

The last two were warriors from the far west. They bore long, straight swords and spoke little to anyone save each other and the magician, who seemed to know their foreign tongue. They gave no reason for joining the group, not even to the magician, whose dark eyes could pry secrets out of anyone. It mattered not: so long as they were willing to fight the beast, they were welcome in the group, and the two who fought as a single unit were gifted enough that they were a boon to the group.

They faced many fell creatures on their travels: wolves that spoke with the seductive voices of women, a giantess a full head taller than the champion (a giant herself), a red-daubed raider and her rag-tag band, and stray fighters who challenged the band so that they could have the honor of facing the beast themselves. All of these were minor nuisances, easily dealt with, but in these small scraps, they learned much about each other and how they could fight best together. They strategized and schemed, and bonded as shieldmates in the heat of battle and by the heat of their campfires.

So they were thirteen in number, twelve fighters and a magician, when they reached the fringe of the beast's destruction in the southern reaches of the fair land. The young knight closed her visor at the desolation around them. The cavalier looked sick, though she did her best to hide it. The rider wept at the wanton devastation of nature. All of them swore vengeance at the beast.

"Halt," the magician said, her voice barely a whisper. "The beast is near. That cave- there. It loves the darkness."

And indeed, as they approached the cave's mouth, they could see the beast, yellow as jaundice, a sick, disgusting color. The magician bade them hold, and from her upraised hands came brilliant amethyst fire. The beast charged from its hiding place in rage, half blind from the light- but the beast had a dozen heads, each hissing in the voices of a dozen damned souls, and half-blind still meant a half dozen heads snapping and lashing out at the fighters. The champion nodded, and the cavalier in her brilliant garb rode out on her white horse, streaming the royal standard behind her. As the beast turned its attention to her, the rider emerged from hiding, her golden hair flowing behind her like a second flag. She rode alongside the cavalier, lassoing the heads that whipped out towards her and the cavalier so that they were immobilized for one of the swift western warriors or the Spartan.

On the other side of the fray, the archers turned their tear-stained faces from their bowstrings as shot after shot flew straight and true into the flanks and eyes of the beast; they wept for the kinswoman that the beast had consumed so many years ago. The knife thrower, she who had volunteered for their mission so early on, also cried bitter tears, for she heard the voice of a dear sister in the beast's howling. The knight in scarlet armor charged the beast again and again, first with sharp stabs of her lance, then with her sword. The southern warrior fought with her bare hands, and it was her strength that wrestled the heads of the beast into position for the archers and the volunteer.

And in the middle of the action, there was the champion of the north, even larger than life now, back-to-back with her protégé as they hacked and cut at any part of the beast that dared come within their reach or grasp. Though she could feel her young apprentice trembling, the champion had no fear. The joy of the fight sang in her blood, and there were long stretches of time when the battle-lust stole her senses completely as she gave herself over to the fight. As her shieldmates took on the many heads of the beast, she and her squire savaged its body, seeking its vital organs; she knew better than to try and find a heart within the beast, for none would be there unless it were the heart of someone it had consumed in its hatred and mindless destruction. That had been one of her earliest mistakes, and she was far wiser now.

The battle raged on for hours. It took its toll on the brave warriors of the north. The cavalier was gravely wounded, though the volunteer was swift to remove her from the danger of the battlefield, and she was safely in the care of the distant archers. The young knight, whose armor had been scarlet with the blood of her enemies, was now soaked in the unnatural blue ichor that gushed from the beast's veins. All of them were weary, their strokes slowing, and though they had cut off ten of the beast's heads, two still remained with sharp teeth, barbed tongues, and poisonous breath that further sapped the strength from their limbs.

But all of them had forgotten about the magician within their ranks, although she had never forgotten about them; for all those hours, she had cast spells to shield them from blows that would otherwise have killed them, created illusions to dizzy the beast and draw its attention away from them, and sent her own strength into their bodies when they faltered. Such magic takes a toll on its caster, and the magician was no exception. Darkness crept in on the edges of her vision as she watched the battle, and she knew that she could not hold out much longer; if she were to fall, then even maimed as it was, the beast could still rise up and destroy her band of warriors, and she would not allow that so long as there was still breath within her body. She marshaled her strength for one last spell, one that she could only do now that the beast was so weakened. Snapping out words in a sonorous foreign tongue, she spread her hands, fingers extended towards the beast, and brought forth a pearly gray fog that wrapped itself around the beast and lulled it into slumber. Its baleful eyes closed, and its scales made an evil hiss as its body relaxed.

The warriors gave a tremendous yell and rushed in together to hack off the remaining heads and sink their blades into its vital organs. Deep in its enchanted sleep, the beast did not react to its death, though its helpless body gave one last shudder when the champion's protégé cut off its last head at the same moment that the rider plunged her short sword into the beast's belly and laid it open. As the beast's thrashing slowed and ceased and its body went rigid, the warriors rejoiced at the greatest victory they had ever won. Only the champion saw the magician waver on her feet, slump to her knees, and collapse face-first on the barren ground to lie deathly still. She was quick to leave the celebration and run to the magician's side. She knelt beside the other woman and raised her head from the ground, silently despairing at the magician's chalk-white pallor. "Speak to me, old friend," she begged.

The magician's eyes cracked open. "Let me rest," she whispered, her voice the barest of breaths. "I am weary to my bones, old friend, let me go."

"No!" Hot tears fell from the champion's eyes to wash the magician's face. She looked out at the young band of warriors still celebrating their victory over the beast. They were strong and clever, and their skills meshed well together so that one's weakness was buttressed by another's strength. Her protégé had matured quickly in these months of constant battle, and the Spartan had learned well the tricks of the magician's art to go alongside her lightning blade. The champion had served many long years in her role as the protectress of the north, knowing that if she fell there was no other. Now there was a band of warriors to protect that sunny, agricultural realm, all of whom had earned the title of champion.

Her decision was as swift as her blade and as certain as her justice. Unbuckling catches and shrugging off her heavy burden, she left herself in a tunic and leggings, nothing more; she was merely human now, no longer the fierce warrior that had been her only definition once, and yet somehow she was still larger than life. "If you are so weary, old friend, then rest a while with me. I am tired as well, and these champions have no more need of me." She steadied the magician's struggling breath with her own and drove away the chill touch of death with the warmth of her body, and a smile curved her stern mouth in response to the faint smile on the magician's face. She mounted her faithful steed, and with the magician cradled against her protectively, rode towards the west.

When the others returned to the hill where the magician had cast her spells, there was nothing there but the champion's shield and armor, gleaming as the sun struck them. "Our champion has left us? Our land is doomed!" the cavalier exclaimed.

The young archer, whose ears were as sharp as her eyes, and who had been watching from the trees for the entire battle, shook her head. "Before she left, she said that we no longer needed her." As they stared at her in shock and dismay, she met each one's eyes with eerie maturity. "She said that we were all champions now."

"Then it is our duty to defend our land," the volunteer said, her gaze as sharp as the knives she bore. She turned to the champion's squire. "Take the armor she left for you. And you-" this was to the Spartan- "you will have to perform the feats that dazzle our enemies. We have been given a sacred duty, and we cannot shrink from it. Our courage must not fail- it will not fail."