The invading army had sacked the city, indiscrimately killing its inhabitants. The survivors retreated into the large church, defending the women, children, and elderly from the repeated onslaught. Yet, manpower was low, and there were entrances that could not be simultaneously defended.

The morning assault caught the defenders by surprise, and it was taking considerable manpower allocated from other guard points to hold them back. No one noticed a company of armored men sneak their way around to the rear entrance except for a woman with flaming auburn hair. Leaving her defense point to the others, she made her way to the rear entrance, urged some children to help her block the doors from the inside, and made her way outside, knowing that the blocked doors could not possibly hold. She had arrive just in time, for fifty paces away at the bottom of the steps leading to the doors, the armored men came.

Gripping her sword with both hands (she had lost her shield in the fight she left), the woman watched as they came up the steps, the one in lead charging ahead. The woman saw him bringing up his shield and shifting his sword in a piercing move, and prepared to respond in kind with a diagonal slash to his neck.

She was a shield maiden, and today she would become the ultimate shield to protect her fellow people seeking sanctuary inside the church from the bloodthirsty blades of her enemies.
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Yeah yeah, crappy story, go ahead and toss veggies at me already =/

Done in Photoshop. Lost track of the time, and I have to apologize to the person who commissioned me to do this for taking so long. I lost a lot of architectural work because stupid Windows crashed on me, and I was so ticked off I didn't bother redoing the details on the church =___=

Guess how many layers I used? Go ahead, take a guess!

Oh yeah, before I send the print version off to him...if there is anything that could be changed within a reasonable amount of time, then please do offer pointers. Thankies~