Chapter 21

An awkward silence fell over the ridge, punctuated by the sounds of diminishing battle. Ludmila flicked the blood off of her glaive.

“Apologies for interrupting your fight,” she informed Captain Zade. “But I felt that your opponent presented an untenable risk.”

She turned and walked towards the overlook, putting her glaive away by hand. All along the riverbank, the Demihumans had broken and were scattering into the trees with the loss of their Lord. The Imperial Knights that had previously been locked in combat with them pursued, cutting them down as they ran.

Ludmila sighed, shaking her head as she watched. Her gaze turned up to the three distant Wyverns observing the battle from the skies. The Sixth Legion probably wasn’t making a good impression.

The sound of metal plates filled the air as the squads sent by General Ray finally made it to the top of the ramp.

“You missed it,” Pol smirked as he leaned on his spear.

Ludmila turned back around, eyeing the Dragoon Captain.

“Did General Ray have any further instructions, Captain Zade?”

“Nothing since the strike order,” Captain Zade replied. “We look about done here, anyway.”

“What’s going on with those Wyverns?”

Captain Zade turned his gaze towards the southern skies.

“We first noticed them about an hour ago,” he said. “They have riders but we’ve been keeping our distance from one another.”

“What do you know about the Wyvern Rider Tribes?”

“Aside from stories that say they exist, nothing. They’ve never come anywhere near the imperial border. Anyway, back to the skies with us – thank you for the assistance, my lady.”

Ludmila nodded at the Captain’s salute. She looked around at the squads on the ridge, who were mostly gathered around the corpse of the Ogre Lord.

“Take inventory of the fallen and their camp,” she told them. “The General will want us ready to move as quickly as possible.”

The squads dispersed, leaving Ludmila with her bodyguard. They and their equipment appeared to be in good condition. She activated her ear clip’s Mana Essence.

“Ward; Redwyn – mana?”

“About half-done, m’lady,” Redwyn replied.

“Same here.”

Was that correct? Mana Essence should have been precise but what she saw through it did not match their responses.

“What qualifies as ‘half’ in the Imperial Army, Priest Ward?”

“Halfway to the point that we experience mana exhaustion, my lady.”

That explained that. Mana exhaustion manifested before one actually ran out of mana, but it was a crippling condition that rendered magic casters not only combat ineffective but also inflicted severe physical exhaustion. Running someone entirely out of mana meant that they had to be carried away – it was not something a squad wanted happening during operations.

As far as she knew, Elder Liches and Death Priests did not suffer from mana exhaustion – likely because the Undead were immune to physical exhaustion. It seemed like yet another advantage that the Undead held over the living.

“You should take care of the searched corpses while you have a chance,” she told the Clerics. “The Second Legion’s companies always reserved half mana for the return to camp. Is that true here, as well?”

“It hasn’t happened yet, my lady,” Joachim replied, “but I don’t see why it should be any different. In fact, we should be more cautious given how deep in the wilderness we are.”

“Yeah,” Redwyn said. “Bennet should be on top of things, though. The General’s an aggressive campaigner, but not to the point where he’ll risk wearing down his soldiers to nothin’.”

The men settled into the familiar routine of plundering their battle’s aftermath. Though he was attired differently from the rest of his tribe, the Ogre Lord did not appear to have any magic items or even crafted equipment. He did not use any Martial Arts, either: simply employing brute force. She supposed that it was a lucky thing for Captain Zade.

『Form up on the double! We’re headed back to camp.』

The men dropped what they were doing and filed down the ramp to the riverbank. Ludmila narrowed her eyes at the General’s tone. They rejoined the company as they rode back north along the shore and she made way to General Ray at the centre. He turned to pass a cursory gaze over her.

“Lady Zahradnik,” he nodded, “I’m glad you’re unharmed.”

“Your orders seemed urgent, Your Excellency.”

“Not my orders,” he replied. “General Gregan’s. Demihuman activity in the highlands has changed and he’s halted our advance. A meeting of his general staff has been called – Hippogriffs are on their way to pick us up.”

She looked over at the mountains to the east. What could put the advance of an entire Legion on hold?

“Were there no additional details?”

“Not as such, no. But his initial orders gave enough away. The Fourth and Fifth Divisions are coming into this valley. They’ll be occupying and expanding two of the outposts we’ve set up.”

“He wants the Sixth Legion to push into the plateau? Or is it containment?”

“It has all the tells of a defensive reaction, so likely that General Gregan has tentative containment in mind while we make sense of what’s going on.”

Their route followed the river all the way back to the battalion’s third outpost, where an Imperial Air Service flight with an extra pair of Hippogriffs were already awaiting them. The men of her bodyguard looked to her for orders.

“How long will this meeting have us away for, Your Excellency?” She asked.

“Between travel time and everything else,” General Ray answered, “we’ll probably be tied up until tomorrow morning, at least. Will fifteen minutes be long enough to ready what you require, my lady?”

“Yes, I’ll be right back.”

She jogged over to her tent, quickly putting her furniture and magic items away. Outside, Joachim Ward was waiting for her by the fire.

“Did you have any instructions for the men, my lady?” He asked.

“They don’t have any camp duties like the rest of the battalion,” Ludmila answered, “so take advantage of the opportunity to perform drills for the Martial Arts they’ve been aiming for. You and Priest Redwyn will have plenty of mana to work with, so make sure you use it for training. They did well today helping assault that position and the reason why certain techniques must be learned will be more apparent to them now.”

“I’ll let them know. Have a safe trip, my lady.”

Ludmila returned to the centre of the camp where a Dragoon waited for her with her Hippogriff.

“Have you ridden a Hippogriff before, my lady?”

“I have,” she replied. “A short flight out of Enz.”

The Dragoon held out a burnished metal broach.

“This item will bestow an Endure Elements effect on the wearer,” he explained. “It will keep you comfortable in the cold. We’re over a hundred kilometres to Aoten and we’ll be cutting over the mountains to the northeast.”

She received the item with a smile of thanks, pinning it near the clasp of her mantle. It was one of the many common places where one might have an accessory, but no magic items of that sort had been included with either of her outfits and she wasn’t sure why. Ludmila activated the item, but because she was immune to cold and had fire resistance items, she couldn’t tell whether it was working or not.

With a single, smooth movement, she mounted the Hippogriff. The Magical Beast let out a surprised squawk as she landed in the saddle, turning an incredulous eye at her. Ludmila returned its look with an apologetic one, raising a finger to her lips and activating her flight item to negate the weight of herself and her equipment.

General Ray appeared from the direction of his pavilion with two bags slung over his shoulders. The Dragoon at his Hippogriff helped him to mount.

“I see that you’re ready to go, my lady,” the General said.

“Magical containers are a wonderful convenience, Your Excellency.”

“I can only imagine,” he snorted. “If we had one for every Imperial Knight, our logistical expenditures would be a tenth of what they are now.”

The Dragoon Captain took wing, followed by the rest of his flight. They slowly ascended the valley on steady wing beats that eventually brought them over the highland plateau to the east. Ludmila studied the rugged, mountainous woodland trying to gain a sense of why General Gregan had halted their operations in the wilderness.

『Are you from the First Division camp, Captain? Do you know what’s going on in the highlands below?』

『Something started to rally the Demihumans a few days after we all started pushing in, my lady. They’re organising fast, so we suspect it’s a Hobgoblin General.』

『You haven’t found their headquarters?』

『Not yet. It’s a big, unfamiliar wilderness. There are probably a thousand caves and other hiding places down there.』

If it was night, she might have been able to spot movement under the presumed cover of darkness. In the bright afternoon, however, she couldn’t see anything at all – probably because they were wary of being spotted from a distance while they organised.

『What are the estimates so far for their forces?』

『Anywhere from five thousand to fifty thousand. Our flights are working as quickly as possible to gather intelligence so the picture should be much clearer by the end of the day.』

Aoten came within sight as they crossed over to the northern slopes of the plateau, though their flight did not bring them to the fortress town. Instead, they landed in an encampment ten kilometres east of it, not far from where Captain Randall and his company intercepted the large raiding party the previous week.

Upon entering General Gregan’s pavilion, Ludmila’s suspicions of who would be attending the meeting were proven to be true.

“Welcome, Lady Zahradnik,” the greying General said. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“Thank you, General Gregan,” she replied. “Will there be no representatives from the Fifth Legion at this meeting?”

“None, my lady,” General Gregan replied. “Their defensive posture has not changed since we last spoke.”

She examined the men gathered around the table. In a word, they could be described as ‘dour’, save for General Ray who wore a blank expression. Several aides came to update the map of the southern wilderness and she immediately realised what the ‘emergency’ was: the Demihumans that should have been evenly dispersed over their respective territories were entirely absent from the outer slopes of the highland plateau.

“It appears that your opponents across the border understand what you’ve been trying to do.”

“It certainly seems that way, my lady,” General Gregan replied.

As a result of the Sixth Legion’s continued aggression, the Demihumans had finally organised. Amusingly, that organisation had manifested in the exact opposite response that they wanted.

In the Baharuth Empire – no, in the Human nations of the region – the tribes beyond the boundaries of ‘civilisation’ were seen as savage, aggressive primitives. If exposed to sufficient provocation, then they would surely retaliate with reckless, unthinking violence.

Except that wasn’t true at all and that truth was now staring the Sixth Legion’s general staff in the face. Instead of falling to their ploy, the tribes of the wilderness had simply withdrawn and were in the process of preparing to defend their homeland from the imperial invaders.

The success that the Empire’s expeditionary force thought would be coming their way never existed in the first place. They had placed their faith in a plan founded on misconceptions about their supposedly stupid opponents. Ludmila could almost imagine them fuming over the result. The fact that the Fifth Legion was probably being quite smug about it only added fuel to the fire.

General Gregan and his staff were notably absent of energy as the aides walked away.

“We can still assault their position,” General Ray said.

“We’ll be ground down in turn,” Commander Tilman’s black goatee wagged as he spoke, as if to wave away General Ray’s statement. “The passes of this plateau would be painted with the blood of our men if we went on the offence.”

“That’s a gross exaggeration,” General Ray snorted. “It isn’t as if all of them will appear at every point we attack. As imposing as their position may appear, the initiative is still ours to take.”

“They know where we are and they’ll know when we move. From this development, it should be clear enough that it can’t be assumed they’ll remain static if we attempt to exploit openings.”

“This defeatist attitude is inappropriate for our army group,” General Ray said. ”Our duty is to find solutions that will help us achieve our objectives, not withdraw into our shells the moment something unexpected happens.”

Commander Tilman bristled at General Ray’s words. Beside him, the Fourth Division’s Commander, Schuler, made a calming gesture.

“We do not have infinite resources at our disposal,” he said, “neither do we have infinite men. Our newest recruits took six months to train to their current state; losses in a protracted, direct conflict cannot be sustained. Bleeding ourselves dry for mountainous wildland of unproven value will be entirely unacceptable to the Court Council and we all know it.”

“What about the Undead?” Commander Wurtz asked, “This is the very scenario where they would be invaluable to the Imperial Army’s efforts. Did the Second Legion not have squads of Death-series servitors at their disposal for a similar situation?”

Around the table, General Gregan’s staff turned their gazes towards Ludmila.

“The Second Legion was tasked to resolve a specific issue with the Death-series servitors at their disposal,” she said. “The Sixth Legion’s campaign is a foreign venture unrelated to national defence.”

“I’ll agree that it is a ‘foreign venture’,” Commander Wurtz replied, “but the terms of the Undead lease agreement state that they cannot be employed offensively against officially-recognised political entities. This wilderness contains no such entities.”

“I am not an avenue through which you may negotiate changes in your domestic affairs, Commander Wurtz. This is the Empire’s business…or am I to interpret this as a desire to change the nature of the relationship between the Empire and the Sorcerous Kingdom?”

Faces turned pale at Ludmila’s question. She could have probably worded that better, but she didn’t like being treated as some sort of convenient loophole.

“That’s…of course not, my lady. But the most effective solution is to bring the Death-series servitors to bear against our adversaries. If–”

“Enough,” General Gregan’s calm voice cut firmly into Commander Wurtz’s reply. “Lady Zahradnik is correct. We cannot go against imperial policy and override imperial law simply because they become inconvenient. Beyond that, standing around making conclusions based on conjectures is not what I’ve brought everyone in for. We need real information to work with.”

“So you want us to force these Demihumans to give up that information,” General Ray said.

“In a reasonable manner,” General Gregan replied. “Grinding our men into sausage is not the only way to get the answers we need.”

General Ray crossed his arms, twisting his lip as he examined the map before them. The aggressive and ambitious man was clearly displeased with the disposition of his fellow officers.

“You have gone from one extreme to the other,” he muttered. “A careless misconception has likely led you to yet another.”

“Speak plainly, Ray,” General Gregan frowned. “This isn’t a ball in Arwintar and you’re not pretty enough to make me want to dance with you anyway.”

“I was wrong about how they would react,” General Ray said. “Since I was producing some results, you all threw your lot in with me. We were proven wrong in our assumptions, but just because we were proven wrong does not mean we go from believing that our opponents are heedless and unsophisticated to thinking that they are a force that can outwit a General and match the Imperial Army. You are simply exchanging one set of blinders for another. We need to go into this with both eyes open: the situation has simply changed and we need to see it for what it is.”

General Ray uncrossed his arms, reaching down into one of the bags at his feet. A heavy thump punctuated the silence as a large stack of papers landed on the wooden table. Written on the covers were titles and dates; each set of papers reporting a day of General Ray’s activities.

“These wilderness tribes are not Imperial Knights,” he said. “They do not enjoy the benefits of our civilisation. They do not have plate armour; their weapons are fashioned from wood, bone and stone. They do not benefit from the Imperial Army’s organisation nor its monolithic drive. We are not fighting an army backed by industrial might, complex economies and advanced artifice. Nor are they even an army…not yet. They are simply small, independent Demihuman communities subsisting in the wilderness. General Gregan: how far back have movements related to this Demihuman rally been noted?”

“Since shortly after that set of raids hit the border.”

General Ray nodded as if he had expected the response.

“It has been less than a week since they’ve started moving,” he said. “Can a true army form in a week? Can equipment and discipline be forged on such short notice? Can infrastructure and logistics on such a scale be established? The answer is no – not even for Hobgoblins.”

“What are you proposing?” Schuler asked.

“It is not so much a proposal as it is simply what needs to be done,” General Ray answered. “We need to attack. Watching and waiting will only give the enemy forces time to grow in size and strength. We need to smash their foundations while they are still trying to build them.”

“Our divisions aren’t ready,” General Gregan noted. “They’ve occupied the passes over the imperial border and it will take at least two days for the Fourth and Fifth Divisions to get into position in the west.”

“My men are ready,” General Ray said. “We can begin our offensive at dawn. Give me the order and I will end this threat before it can rise to stand against us.”