Chapter 30

An abandoned Demihuman settlement to their northeast was the closest Ray felt that he could get to the enemy force without giving away the fact that his battalion was in reality pursuing them. Up until that point, the Demihuman columns travelled eastwards at the same, steady pace.

After telling his men what was going on, Ray set his battalion in pursuit of their objective, ordering them into a steady cadence which was roughly double the pace of their quarry.

“Hopefully they won’t react too quickly,” Ray said. “If we can make it to the ridge before warning gets to them, we’ll be able to hit them late in the evening.”

“You’re willing to commit to a night battle?” Lady Zahradnik asked, “General Gregan must have agreed to some substantial support.”

“The entire air wing has been placed at our disposal,” he answered. “According to headquarters, they’ll be ready to sortie within the hour and it will take another hour for them to reach us.”

“If the army group’s air wing is being committed, Your Excellency, would it not be better to have them pummel the enemy into submission from the sky?”

“We still need to catch them on the ground, my lady. If our attacks break them up, their Commanders will escape and raise a new army elsewhere.”

Stamping out Goblin armies every other week wasn’t something any of the Sixth Legion’s Commanders was keen on doing, so they needed to settle things decisively. It would be worse if the Hobgoblins escaped to not only raise new armies but establish highly defensive positions that would be costly to assail.

Puffs of smoke rose from one of the peaks of the ridge ahead of them. Ray cursed.

“So much for a delayed warning,” he said. “That can’t have been ten minutes since we changed direction.”

“Has there been any progress in deciphering what these smoke signals mean?”

“Progress is slow on that front,” Ray replied. “The general staff is limited to drawing correlations between each signal and the ongoing enemy movements, but it’s not so simple as that. We don’t know which groups are responding to which signals or even whether the signals mean different things to different groups. They could be anything from detailed reports of our movements to predetermined patterns based on the enemy Commander’s preparations.”

The Imperial Army relied on Commanders communicating with one another and the troops within their effective radius. Longer-distance communication was accomplished by using Message spells. These two methods were far superior to the smoke signals that the Demihuman tribes were using, but, at the same time, Ray could see ground reconnaissance parties using them for emergencies instead of waiting for scheduled communications from army mages.

“Will this change anything for us?”

“What we do on the ground will be contingent on how they respond,” Ray replied. “If there’s a chance of us catching up soon, the air wing will need to conserve mana for support.”

“Where are the other divisions right now?”

“The Fourth is half a day behind us and the Fifth is still making its way up. The First, Second and Third Divisions are facing stiff resistance in the northern passes. The reaction of this Demihuman force to the east suggests that they believe that we’re a greater threat than our size suggests. If we give them time to stop and think, they may change their minds and turn their forces against us rather than continue to evade.”

They were a greater threat than the battalion’s size suggested, but Ray was reasonably sure that the Demihumans had no way to know that. Nothing they were doing suggested anything more than what their numbers were capable of if it was composed of regular companies. Still, having the rest of the Sixth Legion join in their operations was preferable so keeping the enemy on the run bought time for that to happen.

“Should that not also achieve the goal of keeping them here?” Lady Zahradnik asked, “If they turn around to pursue us, we’ll still end up buying time for the rest of the army to arrive.”

That much was true, but he didn’t fancy the idea of ten thousand Demihumans chasing them through the wilderness. Being caught in a compromising situation was potentially catastrophic.

“If it comes to that,” he said, “then we’ll have to humour them. For now, the initiative is theirs and we at least need to make it to the top of this ridge before finding a place to retire for the night. Otherwise, they’ll be fighting from the high ground if they steal a march on us.”

The passage of an hour saw them over the ridge in question. Further east was the second of the two shallow valleys that ran through the highland plateau. Ray peered into the distance, trying to make out any sign of the enemy army through the sparse vegetation.

『Griffon’s Nest here.』

『This is Harrier. What do you have for me?』

『Our friends have turned south towards an escarpment about three kilometres away from their current location. The groups nearby are converging on their destination.』

『They’re settling on a defensive position?』

『That’s what the general staff thinks. Your orders are to keep them pinned there while the rest of us catch up. The Fourth Division will be there around midday tomorrow.』

『Understood. I’ll see what can be done.』

Ray let out a sigh after the Message spell ended.

“Is something the matter, Your Excellency?”

“The enemy changed direction,” he replied. “It looks like they’re still unsure about our strength but they’re confident enough to risk a fight under favourable conditions. We’ve been ordered to keep them where they are. The rest of our forces are making their way here, but only the Fourth and Fifth Divisions have a clear path to us…and they’re too far to help if we make contact with the enemy prematurely.”

Instead of chasing or being chased, the enemy Commander had settled on a different option entirely. As much as some would have liked to label this as ‘unpredictable’ or ‘irrational’, it was likely that there was some other piece that the Imperial Army was missing that made the move an optimal one in their opponent’s eyes. Figuring that part out was difficult with incomplete reconnaissance and little experience dealing with other races.

It was perhaps another piece of the ‘answer’ that the Empire required to satisfy the Sorcerous Kingdom. A world of unknown adversaries awaited them if they were to aggressively expand and their ignorance of how other races thought and behaved could lead to undesirable outcomes both on and off the battlefield. If the Sorcerous Kingdom’s Royal Court was like any other governing body, their image in the eyes of those that they served and the world at large was just as important as raw might. A member of their hegemony damaging that image would be frowned upon severely.

“What is involved in ‘keeping them where they are’?” The Baroness asked.

“We have to get close enough to punish them if they try to reposition,” Ray answered, “and we have to get there before they realise that there are more of us coming. It shouldn’t take more than four hours but we’ll have to fortify our camp as well…assuming that they’ll let us.”

“You think that there’s more to what they’re doing?”

“I do,” he nodded. “Gaining tactical advantages by settling on a battlefield of one’s choosing is all well and good, but tactical victories should always be in service to overall strategy. The enemy Commander has only offered token resistance to our advance so far, preferring to abandon positions in favour of preserving forces. I’m of the mind that he’s been working to consolidate and organise the Demihumans of this plateau into something that can fight us on better terms and he does not believe that they are ready yet.”

“But the strategic gains are not clear.”

They were to him, however. It was something of a weakness of Captains like Lady Zahradnik: they were tacticians first and strategists second. Their place in an army had them tend toward this, so Commanders and Generals were generally superior at broad strategy. This wasn’t to say that they were incompetent when it came to strategic thinking, but their skills were such that they were better off carrying out the orders of their superiors.

Whoever had dispatched the Baroness to the Empire as a liaison officer understood this fact very well. They had developed an incomprehensibly vast strategy that affected every level of the Baharuth Empire, then picked out tools that they knew would produce the results that they wanted. That they could even grasp the depth of Lady Zahradnik’s involvement and its myriad outcomes served to further highlight the fact that the Sorcerous Kingdom was not only stupendously powerful but possessed monstrously competent executives.

Ray examined what he could of the landscape, formulating what he surmised to be the enemy Commander’s objective.

“Rationally speaking,” he said, “there is a clear strategic gain to be had here.”

“Oh?”

“An opportunity to eliminate the dog nipping at their heels,” Ray told her. “Our reinforcements are too far for a counterattack, yet we’ve shown our intent to pursue. The enemy Commander is giving us what we want, which is the chance to pin him for our main force to deal with. Other groups of Demihumans are on their way to join him. They’re not just reinforcements, but a distraction from the rest of the Demihumans setting up a trap. Once we’re where they want us, they’ll hit with overwhelming force in an effort to dispatch us quickly and move on.”

“That’s a very specific read on the situation.”

“If it was a different opponent,” he said, “I would have considered other possibilities. Hobgoblins, however, are known to be orderly and rational. This particular Commander not only displays this trait through how he organises his forces and he is also fighting defensively. The Imperial Army is full of orderly and rational Commanders who prefer to fight defensively, so I’ve had plenty of practice dealing with them. Strangely enough, this enemy Commander could be mistaken for one of us.”

“In that case,” Lady Zahradnik said. “What will you do?”

“The answer is obvious,” Ray smiled. “Our orders are to pin them down, but cannot enter into a standoff without also entering into their trap. Therefore, we attack.”

Joachim frowned as the lights carried by ‘Ray’s Raiders’ slowly receded into the trees ahead. The members of the Baroness’ bodyguard looked on with similar expressions.

“This is some crazy-ass idea,” Igvel said. “You sure the General didn’t eat anythin’ funny, m’lady?”

“Not that I noticed,” Lady Zahradnik smiled at the infantryman’s discomfort. “Regardless, those are his orders. For an army to function, all of its parts must work properly, yes?”

“Those parts might be dead in a bit here, m’lady.”

“They might,” she admitted. “One can only trust that their life is not pointlessly expended.”

Audible swallows sounded from around him. The only comfort in Lady Zahradnik’s voice was the cool certainty of one who dealt with death on a regular basis. Nearly all of the men in the squad were from the towns and cities and Joachim doubted that they had yet to embrace that particular reality of being in the army through training alone. Even veterans would only expect to lay down their lives in some clearly understandable act of sacrifice in defence of the Empire and its citizens.

That same sense of noble sacrifice could not be found here. They were on the offence and their orders were issued to achieve a different sort of result. Joachim, however, did feel something – something that he was unsure was proper at all. He glanced at Lady Zahradnik, whose eyes glistened as she watched the battalion leave them behind. Not the slightest shadow of the men’s concerns could be found on her handsome features.

General Ray’s ‘crazy-ass idea’ involved walking face-first into a deadly trap that potentially had them up against a ludicrous number of enemy soldiers. Indeed, the very notion could not be better described than how Igvel had put it.

On the side of the Empire was the battalion under the command of General Ray. Three companies had been left behind to man the supply outposts constructed along the way. That meant seven companies remained, many of which had seen at least a handful of fatalities. Combined with Lady Zahradnik’s company of ‘irregulars’, they had just under a thousand soldiers. The Sixth Legion’s air wing invisibly glided overhead, adding its full ten flights – each flight consisting of three Dragoons and a War Wizard – to the order of battle.

Opposing them was – presumably – a Hobgoblin Commander with the main force of three thousand assorted Demihumans. Four detachments with an estimated two thousand Demihumans between them were coming to join the main force from where they had been moving parallel to it. Estimates put upwards to five thousand more Demihumans lying in wait around where the trap was presumably laid: a river ford below the escarpment where the main Demihuman force was positioned.

General Ray made his first move by slowing the battalion’s advance, allowing the night to take them. This allowed him to advance under the cover of darkness out of range of the enemy’s Darkvision. He had the Human companies employ Continual Light spells to illuminate the way and mark them clearly for the Demihumans to see. Two kilometres from the river, Lady Zahradnik’s company detached itself from the battalion to begin independent operations. They did not carry any lighting whatsoever, instead relying on the full moon overhead.

The General’s plan of attack was theoretically sound. Attempting an encirclement had the effect of stretching one’s forces thin and exposing each component to flanking risks. The Baroness’ detachment was tasked with eliminating the eastern half of the encirclement while General Ray would stray to the west as he approached the river, ‘accidentally’ tripping over whatever awaited on that side.

Between their respective offensives, they would turn the carefully prepared trap into a catastrophic mess, forcing the main body of the Demihuman army to come down out of their defensive position to salvage the situation.

“My lady,” Joachim said, “how do you feel about General Ray’s plan?”

“It’s bold and decisive,” she replied. “General Ray may have gone down the path of a civilian Noble, but the hallmarks of his ancestry still show strongly in his attitudes when it comes to martial matters.”

“I don’t understand what you mean by that, my lady. The lords of the marches are the defenders of the Empire. This has nothing to do with protecting our citizens.”

“Martial Nobles are both shield and spear,” the Baroness told him. “We are not just defenders: we are also conquerors. Humanity being on the defensive for so long has had this other aspect of being a Frontier Lord grow rusted and forgotten. Having your duty to expand taken away probably pushed you even further from it. But it doesn’t take much to stir again…I suspect you can feel it as well. A sense of deep anticipation; fulfilment that only comes when raising the banner of the Empire over foreign lands. Given the more benign tenets of your faith, it might appear to you as a dark, seductive dream given form by your experiences on the battlefield. The harder you fight, the sweeter it tastes.”

This time, it was Joachim’s turn to swallow. She had described exactly what he was feeling.

“Then…you feel this way as well, my lady?”

“Expansion was always one of my house’s duties, so I am not as far removed from those feelings as a member of the Empire’s martial nobility. Still, that same conservative mindset harboured by most of the Imperial Army also dominated my upbringing out of necessity. It wasn’t until recently that I finally came to embrace that part of myself and I have His Majesty to thank for that.”

“You’ve met the Sorcerer King before?” Yohann asked.

Considering that Lady Zahradnik was one the few Nobles in the Sorcerous Kingdom and the country itself wasn’t very large, it was perfectly reasonable that she had. Joachim supposed that commoners would equate it to themselves meeting the Emperor, which was next to impossible.

“I have,” the Baroness replied.

“What’s he like? Is he really some sort of Undead?”

“He is,” Lady Zahradnik smiled fondly for some reason. “As for what His Majesty is like…he is a man who cares for his own. In private, he is friendly and generous, showing great love for his interests. A part of me believes that he would rather be out on grand adventures with his friends, but, as a sovereign, he must act for the greater good of his nation and those that he cares for.”

“You make him sound like a regular guy.”

“Is that so strange? When you take away the trappings of their station, Nobles and Kings are people too – even if they are Undead.”

Joachim cleared his throat. Something inside him squirmed over the way that the Baroness portrayed an Undead being who had massacred so many in a normal and even positive light.

“What did the Sorcerer King do that you have to thank for in this regard?” He asked.

“Hmm…I suppose you can say that he created a place where I could explore aspects of myself that had always been suppressed due to my house’s former situation. If you haven’t noticed by now, I actually enjoy fighting. Furthermore, I feel the most at home in the army camps and on the battlefield. It is where I can be a great part of what I am: a woman born and raised to stand at the forefront of battle, leading my forces through the struggles of war. The greater the struggle, the more alive I feel and the tenets of my faith do not censure me for such sentiments.”

“B-but what about all that you’ve said about the Demihuman tribes? About the way we’re expanding into the wilderness?”

“Everything I’ve said regarding that still stands,” Lady Zahradnik replied. “And it is not as much of a paradox as you might think. I fight for order; to uphold the will of my sovereign and do my part in creating a prosperous realm. Because I stand on both sides – destruction and creation; death and life – I feel that I have a greater appreciation for what I do than most would pretend to.”

Did his father also feel that way? His grandfather? Though the army had hundreds of martial Nobles, they had never shared their perspective on this matter as Lady Zahradnik had. On the other hand, they did like to fight and they absolutely refused to retire from service.

And then there was the aspect of her faith that she had mentioned. The Faith of the Six was well-known for its belligerent views, so many of the things that the Faith of the Four abhorred, followers of The Six embraced. Still, she displayed an unbelievable degree of temperance in the things that she professed to love, so it may have been that there was a certain truth to her words.

Joachim gave his head a shake. No, it wasn’t right. Even the thought that it might be right wasn’t right.

Several small figures appeared to the east, casting shadows in the moonlight: Goblins that Lady Zahradnik had sent to scout the way ahead. The Baroness nodded as each one reported what they found to her. Then, the cool authority of the young noblewoman’s voice filled his mind.

『We’re closing on our first target – fifteen hundred metres to the southeast. I hope you’re ready for a long night.』