Her training with Bah-kan and Sir Gorrann continued—brutal mornings, everyday—until she was able to spar competently with Sir Gorrann, even beating him on occasion. All the mornings she had played swords with Wardley were returning to her, and her strokes became quick and hard as her body intuitively spun and leapt. Somehow, without her noticing, the blade and her body had become one. One morning, as Dinah was bathing, Cheshire approached and invited her to train with him on throwing daggers. Dinah reluctantly agreed, but to her dismay found that she thoroughly enjoyed herself. There was something about winging a dagger at a tree that released her growing anxiety about leading an army. Cheshire was extremely skilled with a dagger, and Dinah realized that he had generously allowed her to hold her dagger to his throat in the orchard that evening. He could have disarmed or killed her at any time.
As they threw the knife, Cheshire recounted for her parts of her childhood that she had almost forgotten—her fifth birthday, a certain croquet game, when she broke her leg climbing a statue. He had indeed been watching her, but she told herself that it meant nothing. It was hard enough to consider that she was of his blood, let alone to develop the daughter/father bond that she had been lacking her entire life. And so, she didn’t speak. She just flung the daggers, again and again, loving the thwunk! against the tree bark when the knife made contact. She enjoyed their time together more and more as the days wore on.
Preparing an army took time. There were weapons to procure, horses to train, and large caravans of food to be assembled piece by piece. It was decided that Dinah would take a thousand Yurkei warriors with her as she marched south. If there was to be even the slightest hope of victory against the King’s army of ten thousand Cards and growing, then they needed the support of the rogue Cards who dwelled inside the Darklands. These were men, dangerous men, who had deserted the Cards and fled south, where they could live in relative freedom outside Wonderland law. Then again, they had to live in the Darklands, which to Dinah seemed to be punishment enough.
Mundoo and his army of four thousand Yurkei would march north, gathering men from the smaller tribes that lay scattered below the Todren, and make their way down from there to Wonderland Palace. Not only would this ensure that the palace would be attacked from both the north and the south—essential when the palace was surrounded by a circular wall—but the King of Hearts would surely focus on Mundoo’s large and noisy army, allowing Dinah and her small army to creep up from behind. Cheshire’s hope was that Dinah’s army would surprise him, or at least alarm the Cards. They would sack the palace together, independent armies working as one. He was unnervingly clever in battle strategy, and Dinah saw instantly why the King had chosen him over his peers to be his advisor. Cheshire’s mind was not unlike his dagger. Razor sharp and lethal, it could be wielded completely in whatever way he chose. He explained that her small army of Yurkei would be there for her protection in the Darklands, but they also served as a symbol to the rogue Cards of her commitment to a new kind of existence, one in which Wonderlanders, Cards, and Yurkei all existed and fought together to end tyranny. In his words, seeing the Queen of Hearts leading an army of Yurkei warriors would be enough to sway even the hardest mind. “Wars,” he reminded her, “are won in the mind, not in the field.”
On the day of their departure, a few months’ time since Dinah had descended from the mountain with her crown, the women of the Yurkei tribe silently gathered to present Dinah with a gift: a suit for battle, adorned with elements representing both Hu-Yuhar and Wonderland. As the women unfolded it before her, Dinah bit her lip to keep from bursting into tears of appreciation. Here she was taking these women’s husbands and sons to fight for her—some surely to the death, and they were giving her a work of art, something that could never be repaid or replicated. She would make them widows and they gave her gifts. The breastplate was white—a pure, flawless white that reflected bright rays of sun. Across the front was a red painted heart, slashed through with a single broken edge—it was very similar to her father’s armor, only it had been bent and shaped to a woman’s body. It came down and hit her at the hip, where tiny red hearts lined the sharp edging. They gave her leg and arm guards, black and marked with the same red heart.
The armor, while meticulously crafted, was just a foretaste of their artistry and talent, shown fully in Dinah’s cloak. To call it a cloak or a cape was a mistake, for it was so much more than that. It fastened around her neck and was buoyed out from her shoulders by the same remarkable light wood that held the Hu-Yuhar tents aloft. A thick collar of black-and-white checkerboard fabric fanned out from the sides of her neck and curled into two hearts just below her cheeks. The collar was lined with soft white gossamer feathers plucked from young birds and the cape was made of white crane feathers. The tip of each feather had been dipped in red paint, giving the appearance of a blood-tipped wing. The cape stretched out behind her like wings, long enough to brush the ground. Dinah let them dress her and braid her hair with ribbons. When they all stepped back, wide-eyed, she knew she was ready.
Dinah settled her ruby crown on her head and turned to face the women. Some were weeping, others looked simply afraid, their wide blue eyes open in fear. As she emerged from her tent, Cheshire put his hand over his heart and gasped. Sir Gorrann, steps behind him, raised his eyebrows.