Her style is immobile, defensive, even. It assumes the enemy will be coming to her, and that she has something to defend; against a more acrobatic foe, this isn't as much of a weakness as it might be, since she's not slow in the slightest. But she's still a mortal human, and if the Acolyte pushes into the superhuman, she won't have any good answer beyond making her loss as expensive as possible for him. 

This is meant to assess his abilities, so it wouldn’t be good to hold back too much. At the same time, there’s no point to being excessive here. 

He will go a bit beyond the conventionally hunan, enough to communicate the possibility of going even further, but stop before making a decisive or truly harmful blow. All together, the fight was likely as much an exhibition of skills and a test of endurance as it was anything else.

Eventually, the ice guard is forced to her knees anyhow, bruised and exhausted by a long and stubborn fight.

"Hmph. Well, you're better than most of the people with have to guard." She says, her voice still full of hard-edged pride even now. 

The Acolyte will offer an amicable hand up, more out of habit than a belief that the ice guard needs or wants it. "And I will certainly appreciate having a warrior of your caliber at my back."

She will take the hand. Pride is one thing, but stupidity is another.

"You'd better." 

She will continue to follow him and train with him, for the remainder of his time in the city, ensuring he is not accidentally killed by ruffians or sorcerers or some such. 

As unlikely such an event was, it can only be even less likely now. Over the following days, the Acolyte will test to see how sociable he can coax the ice guard into being. Maybe get her name, perhaps in exchange for giving her the story of why he has none.

Regardless, soon the day of the Acolyte's mobilization comes.

She does not, in the passing weeks, cease to treat him like a dangerous stranger, but names can be exchanged, nonetheless. 

Messangers are sent out, and the pulk is gathered. There is much tooing and froing, and many horsemen are sent out in the planned path of the army, warning those ahead to prepare supplies and rotas to join the army. Rotas of city-folk, armed well with good armour and fine weapons are raised to join the Tsar's guard, the winged lancers, and several other elite units - including one equipped fully with fine rifles. Two ice-witches are assigned to join; one a senior witch of great power, and a journeyman, allowed to leave the ice-witch training grounds for the first time in years. 

The Tsar gives a grand speech to all of the men before marching out. He outlines the horrible dangers they will face, protecting the motherland and freeing it from the clutches of their foes. The particular foes they will be facing on this campaign are greenskins of the red eye -  foul night goblins, with all the evil intentions and monsters of such, the horrific blight of the forests and mountains, who must be exterminated before they form a true Waaagh and travel into Kislev proper. The Tsar's speech is formulaic and rote, but his words about bravery, danger, and duty are undercut by his clear enthusiasm for the battle; this man is a true warrior with a true love of battle, and that provokes enthusiasm from his troops where his mediocre rhetoric does not. Morale is high, and the people are glad to march to war. 

The Acolyte's place in all this, apparently, is to be kept in the middle of camp under watch of both body-guards and the other better-trusted magi, and brought out during battle as a sort of person-shaped artillery-piece. (The army has a single ancient cannon, dragged by a pair of bears, but is otherwise without weapons heavier than a longarm). 

A pair of...bears? Okay.

He hasn't been in a proper military group since before he gained his current proficiency with the rending flames, but he expected a position similar to this, given it's a natural fit for his strongest expressions. While the Acolyte's love of battle, true killing battle, is rather lacking, he does his best to enjoy the high spirits. Maybe he can rope some of the other marchers into discussions, or entertain them with demonstrations of his abilities, or join in any communal story-telling to pass the time while at camp.

Presumably they will eventually encounter some enemies and battle will be joined. Whether it's as planned, or is more of a surprise, is another question.

Bears! There are actually nearly three dozen bears with the force, being used as mounts or companions by senior nobles, cavalry commanders, priests, and the senior ice witch. They're being surprisingly docile, for bears, but they do in fact appear to be wild bears who have voluntarily decided to be here, and are treated with respect and reverence. Many of them have custom armour, often of very high quality, their teeth and claws augmented with steel, antler, and in two cases, enchanted ice. 

Nobody trusts him, per se, but it's still not hard to find chances to drink and talk with various members of the army. They have numerous stories about previous campaigns - it's universally agreed that this Tsar is the first good one they've had in centuries, that he's really putting the motherland to rights, by clearing it of undead, forest spirits, beastmen, greenskins, and norscans. 

The rotas set to scout report a steady stream of small skirmishes and encounters with single monsters, the direst of which provoke forces of cavalry and priests to rush to the front, but no true battle; the Acolyte is kept in reserve. As the weeks pass, the army swells with supplies and kossars, armed with bows and axes, and the mix of encounters reported shifts from forest monsters to greenskins - little gangs of goblins lead by a single orc, squigs roaming wild, the occasional troll.

In the foothills, army meets a group of dwarves, about a hundred in all, short and surly and heavily armoured, for all that these are apparently scouts and spys; the armour is camouflage-patterned and they're armed with heavy crossbows of the finest make. The leader has much to say to the Tsar and his council, but doesn't deign to talk to anyone else. 

Bears! One of his most frequent companions in his old world, a fellow knowledge-seeker and a disciple of lightning and sound, had a talent for communicating with animals that she always insisted was completely non-magical, and he's reminded of that now.

He makes sure to take note of any useful information regarding the capabilities and doctrine of the kislevites' enemies. Never know when you might need it. The Acolyte will be happy to provide tales of his own, if he finds good places and times to share them.

Some part of him is a little sad, though not misunderstanding of the reasons why he is kept back. Maybe he can make himself useful around camp at least. Cutting wood, maybe, or purifying water.

Dwarves. Odd little men. The Acolyte's terribly curious about them, but after his preliminary attempts to socialize are thoroughly rebuffed he will settle for learning more at a later date.

The old soldier's tales are a little exaggerated, perhaps, but he can get a more sober view from the commanders, especially of their current foe, the red eye tribe. They're greenskins, which means their principle advantages are numbers and an idiotic sort of group-think inspired bravery, but they're night goblins in particular, which means they incorporate a cunning of incredible viciousness - use of poison, ambush, combat drugs, and suicide attacks to tremendous effect. 

The Acolyte pitching in is cautiously appreciated, in the way one appreciates an artillery piece using its shells to build a camp bed for you. 

The dwarves themselves don't want to talk, but he can learn about them from the Kislevites - they're good allies to humankind, apparently, dwelling beneath mountains in highly fortified mountain-holds. They have better technology than everyone else - one person has even heard rumours that they have flying machines. There used to be dwarves in the north, but they died to a man holding against the same armies that destroyed Praag.  But the one thing he hears over and over again - never cross a dwarf. Never cheat a dwarf. Never betray a dwarf. They remember every grudge, every slight, every misdeed, record them for posterity, and they'll see every single one avenged. They once invaded an imperial province over a two-pence shortchange in a trade deal that occurred decades earlier. Their high king rides into battle with a book listing every sin ever committed against the dwarvern race, so he can check them off as they're repaid in blood. But they're as solid allies as they are enemies, and this campaign is going to take place across territory which was once theirs, in halls and fortresses they built in a bygone age, so everyone is glad they're around. 

That is unfortunate news. The Acolyte's skills aren't especially well-suited to detecting ambushes or long-range information gathering, but he'll redouble his efforts to ensure the camp's food and drink are pure, and if he finds any poisons he'll be sure to report it.

Hm. They almost sound a bit like a mixture of the Pale Strand's cairn-dwellers and what the Acolyte has heard of people from the lands beyond the great southern desert. He's not sure how apt either comparison truly is, especially since neither is even close on its own, but he'll keep it in mind whenever he manages to get information on them from a dwarf. Regardless, the Acolyte has a well-developed habit of keeping his word, so he doesn't expect to encounter any problems on that front.

There are attempts at ambushes and poisoning, but none have the numbers or skill needed to meaningfully do more than light attrition to the pulk at this stage. 

Eventually, the army, pushing through increasingly steep foothills, reaches a valley-entrance guarded on either side by watchtowers, places cunningly so that they're not visible unless you're already in the mouth of the valley - finding this place was the responsibility of the dwarf guides, apparently. The towers themselves were once the finest stone and utterly sound, but long ages and myriad sieges have reduced them to crude wooden replicas of those ancient fortifications, covering a fine stone foundation with a mish-mash of crude wood-work splattered with red painting of great eyes and inhuman many-teethed skulls. The first stage of the campaign will be to take these watchtowers, so that they can be used as a defensive beachhead against anything coming out of the mountains, now or in future, which, if successful, will make clearing and re-colonising the forests and hills they were travelling through a more viable task. After that, the army will push as far as possible into enemy territory, in the hopes of provoking the enemy to, in its crude animosity, give battle and be destroyed, which will allow time for the fortifications here to be properly rebuilt. 

Alright! Even if the Acolyte isn't necessarily the fondest of warriors, it is good that this venture will hopefully soon begin to produce fruit. All he has to do give them all the reasons they need to trust him, to let him do the work he really wants to do.

The commanders of the army presumably have a place for him to be, and a signal to wait for. The Acolyte is where they put him, staff gripped tightly in hand and ready to wreak all the considerable violence his Knowledge can muster.

His place is on a hill with a better-than-nothing view of the battlefield, surrounded by a dozen ice guard, with one of the ice witches in the general vicinity, while the kossars prepare to take the crude palisade crossing the valley between the two watchtowers. He is given his leave to use his magic as he wishes, as long as he only hits the enemy - the commanders are not stupid enough, they say, to try and dictate the whys and wherefores of the spirits or the winds of magic. 

The Acolyte will refrain from clarifying that neither the spirits nor the winds govern his magic. This doesn't seem like the time for a lecture. He will wait for the enemy. He will be ready. No doubt, enemies will be cut down.

Indeed! Today, the enemy seems to be a smallish force of orcs and goblins in very large hats stiffening vast ranks of goblins armed with spears, stones, and the occasional crude shortbow, the walls packed dense enough that the shoving and jostling for position seems to be killing a steady stream of the less fortunate goblins as they're pushed from the walls of the watchtowers and the much lower palisade connecting them. Each of the watchtowers has a catapult on top, which have been taking pot-shots at the supply wagons all morning and largely missing. The plan seems to be using superior archers to suppress the masses of goblins long enough for men with axes to take down the walls with the aid of the rare canon-shot. Once the walls are destroyed, the cavalry (bear and horse) will chase down any remaining goblins or engage any remaining forces - the dwarves have advised that there is probably another force under the watchtowers, in whatever tunnels the goblins have dug in the past centuries. 

Hm.... How far should he take this? Expressing true power could show just how useful he is, but at the same time it wouldn't be good to inspire fear in the people whose trust he's trying to earn.

There's an itch, a familiar itch to any knowledge-seeker. He hasn't gotten to really stretch his Knowledge of Flames, not like he's been pushing his Power and Determination. He wants to use it, and he doubts he'll have a better opportunity soon.

The plan is to get rid of the walls? Let's get rid of those walls...once the cavalry are in position, of course. No point in being premature.

The cavalry are in position in good time; they're very good horsemen. As they're lining up, a beam of vicious green light flies from the eyes of the goblin in the biggest hat (big enough to render them a stand-out from the ground despite being about two and a half feet tall), bursting the head of one of the cavalry commanders. Things do seem to get settled in reasonably good order, and the goblin has to duck away to avoid the hail of arrows and bullets which fly it's way. 

Let's see that goblin hide behind a wall that doesn't exist anymore! With the cavalry in place and handling the loss of one the commanders well enough, the Acolyte will unleash rending Flames upon the wall and its goblin defenders, rendering the entire thing to splinters in only a moment.

Everyone on both sides are shocked to silence and stillness for a moment, and then the goblins behind the wall (of which there were many) largely turn to run as they find themselves subject to a hail of arrows, and a screaming charge of the gryphon legion, lead by the tsar's son upon the very largest bear in the entire army. The watchtowers still hold, though, dropping rocks and bits of dung and catapult-stones upon the foe, but they don't have enough space into which to sally out. 

The Acolyte will continue to cut down any enemies who show themselves to him for long enough to get a lock on them, but otherwise doesn't instigate any more demolition unless he receives word from command to do so.

Yeah command would like those towers intact, unfortunately, since they don't have a huge siege train and want to defend this position later. 

The ice-witch, not to be outdone, fills one of the watchtowers with killing frost, and the other is taken with long and bloody room-to-room fighting. The cavalry feels somewhat impotent, running back and forth killing goblins who'd already broken, but this wasn't the sort of battle where they shine. There will be time for that. 

Hopefully that doesn't breed too much resentment, from either the witches or the cavalrymen! With the largest acts of destruction and death of this particular battle done, and the goblins likely not showing themselves in great enough numbers for the scale of the Acolyte's magic to really display itself, his contribution to the battle has likely passed its peak.