The Bull Kingdom’s maps were very well made. There was hardly a single place in the entirety of the Kingdom that wasn’t marked on one map or another, and often with extreme accuracy. However, it was one thing to analyze a map to get the lay of the land and another thing entirely to see it from above.

Leon found himself happier than he had been for a while—probably since before Trajan had been killed and Naiad left—as he rode Anzu through the clouds above the Eastern Territories. Below him stretched countless hills, mountains, and valleys, some bare stone colored red from its high iron content, while forests blanketed others, filling his sight with a panoply of greens and reds that he hadn’t seen since he left the Forest of Black and White.

One thing he couldn’t see, however, was the force of knights that had been dispatched to the south of Ironford by Octavius. He figured that a force large enough to act as the hammer to the anvil of the Legions facing down Roland and Minerva had to be easily seen from the air, but so far, he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them. Anzu had carried him about two hundred miles out from Ironford, and still nothing. At this point, he was undoubtedly back in the Royal demesne rather than the Ironford March, so he reluctantly had Anzu turn back around.

He was tempted to have Anzu continue onward for another hour or two since the feeling of flight was just that enjoyable, but he decided to put his duty ahead of his fun. Besides, he hadn’t seen all that the Ironford March had to offer, and there were countless places for even an entire Legion to hide in the wilderness between himself and Ironford.

Great green carpets of thick forest spread out below him, punctuated by lakes, hills, and mountains, and here and there were villages connected by dirt roads. He was far from the realm of paved streets and stone buildings, but if anything, he felt safer and more secure than he had in his own villa.

Anzu carried him through the air with ease, cutting through the sky like a hot knife through butter, flying at speeds of more than a hundred miles per hour with his wind magic catching his wings and keeping them aloft. The griffin seemed more alive than ever, and he clearly shared Leon’s joy in flight.

As they flew, Leon finally spotted something of note: a long, thin line of dull grey that he could just barely see passing through the center of a forested valley—obviously armored knights. They were mostly concealed by the trees, though, and it was only by chance that he managed to catch a few glimpses of reflected sunlight off their weapons shining through the leaves.

Leon had Anzu fly a bit closer, but he kept a safe distance from the column. He couldn’t see the entire thing with the forest in the way, but he could give a rough estimate based on how long the column seemed to be and how many knights were walking abreast. He put the number at easily ten thousand knights, probably more.

For a brief moment, Leon contemplated using his magic senses to get a better read on their numbers and capabilities, but he decided against it. He wasn’t so powerful that his magic senses could wash over the knights below him unnoticed. Anzu had little protection in the air save for his wind magic, and while that might prove enough to keep them safe from arrow fire and blasts of magic, Leon wasn’t willing to take the risk. Instead, he contented himself with simply flying over them for a time, staying high enough that the sheer distance and sharp vertical angle masked his and Anzu’s movements as he took stock of his opposition.

Once he felt like he had a good idea of the forces he faced, he turned and began to fly back toward Ironford.

He met back up with his force of loaned knights not too far south of the city. He’d sent them roughly south toward a prominent mountain about ten miles from Ironford that was easily scalable from the north to wait for his return. When Anzu landed on the slopes of the short mountain, the force of two hundred knights and one stone giant had already made camp on a flat rocky outcropping on the north side. His ‘command staff’ hurried over to meet him, consisting of Valeria, Grim, Alix, and two more fifth-tier mages, a middle-aged man and woman who seemed to be in her mid-twenties by mortal standards. Lapis, with no method of efficient communication with the rest, simply decided to guard Leon as best as it was able while leaving the decision making to everyone else.

Valeria was the first to reach him, running over to meet him and gave him a paradoxically terse, “Sir Leon,” despite this rush. Alix reached him next, giving Leon a similar greeting and stroking Anzu’s neck feathers as the rest gathered—Anzu, now much calmer and more tolerant than he was when Alix had last served under Leon, allowed her touch without even the slightest hint of wariness or disdain.

Leon didn’t wait for the others to join him, though, and had Valeria lead him and Anzu over to the command tent that had been set up. It was just big enough for all of the humans to fit, but not so for Anzu and Lapis, who were forced to wait outside. Once inside, Leon filled everyone in on what he had seen.

“… and they’re about fifty miles to our south, which at their pace shouldn’t take longer than three or four days to traverse. They could be at Ironford within the week, assuming they don’t stop to take any small castles between here and there,” Leon explained.

Between the mountain and Octavius’ force of knights were three small castles, barely large enough to house two dozen knights let alone a force large enough to oppose an army of ten thousand or more. They had mostly been built to house the minor Barons that administered this land and to protect them from bandits. In fact, the castles were more akin to fortified houses with four rooms at the most than what might otherwise be thought of as a castle and weren’t even made of stone.

“If it were me, I’d stop and take those castles and would seriously consider taking some of the larger villages in the area,” Grim said, pointing to the villages in question on the maps in front of the small group. The villages were small things, a hundred families at the most, but Leon could see Grim’s point. These hills were sparsely populated, with these villages essentially the only sources of supplies for dozens of miles, while the castles could be used as safe havens for anyone who might want to launch raids against the knights as they marched.

“I’m not so sure they’re going to do that…” Leon murmured, more thinking out loud than truly offering his opinion. Still, he said it and Grim heard it.

“What do you mean?”

“Hm? Oh, uh, well, they weren’t marching like they were going to try and take any of the nearby villages or castles. Just one long column moving through the forests, staying away from most roads, and heading about as straight for Ironford as they possibly could.”

“That might make some sense,” the fifth-tier male knight said, “they might be on a time crunch and not want to spare the hours it would take to secure those locations, even if it does leave them open to attack from behind.”

“Yeah, they’ve got friends back on the Iron Road that are going to be getting slaughtered in droves while they waste time with mining and hunting towns,” the fifth-tier knightess added. “If these traitorous asshats make it all the way to Ironford, they’d trap our people in the pass and effectively win this whole thing immediately. What're a few tiny hamlets compared to the prize of August’s noble ass?”

Grim nodded in concession of their point.

“I would err on the side of caution and assume that we have less than three days before they reach Ironford,” Leon said. “What are our supplies like? Do we have decent ranged gear? How about spells? Are we going to be reduced to relying upon melee weapons?”

“We have enough food and drinkable water for two weeks,” said Alix. “I believe that everyone also has bows and a decent supply of arrows, but we don’t have too many spells.”

“That’s unfortunate but not as bad as it could’ve been…” Leon said as he stared down at the map in thought. “I couldn’t get a good read on how strong their average fighter was during my scouting, but I think we can assume that a significant portion is made up of squires who aren’t yet knights, and even more men-at-arms. Would I be foolish in this assumption?”

“Not at all, I for one can’t imagine that we’re looking at ten thousand Legion-quality knights,” Grim said, and the rest of those in the tent seemed to agree. Leon, however, wasn’t going to take it for granted. In the Royal Legions, the third-tier was required for someone to gain their knighthood, but the same couldn’t be said for the servants of the nobility. A first-tier mage or even a mortal could technically be given a knighthood.

However, the standard in the Bull Kingdom was still that a becoming a knight meant third-tier, and most knights who might be deployed in a combat scenario would have a squire and probably a handful of men-at-arms. These assumptions were less accurate for more bureaucratic-focused knights, but Leon figured it was still a safe assumption to make in this scenario.

“Their squires and weaker men-at-arms will slow them down, whereas we don’t have a single knight with us lower than the third-tier,” Leon stated, looking around to the other five for confirmation. When no one corrected him, he continued, “That means that we can move a lot faster than they can. We need to use this, hit them hard and fast when and where they least expect us. Harass them, hit their supplies if we can injure and kill as many as we can in as short a time as we can, and then melt back into the wild. Even if our average power level is greater than theirs, facing ten thousand or more with only two hundred in a pitched battle would be suicide, and I don’t know about all of you, but I still have far too much to do in my life to waste it here.”

“Well put,” Grim said.

“Indeed,” the knight whispered.

“So, what I’m thinking is that we spend the next few hours closing the distance with them,” Leon continued. “We need to get a better idea of what we’re facing. How vulnerable are they? How do they make camp? Can we hit them during the night? How sturdy are their camp defenses? What routes are they taking?

“Regarding that last point, it looks to me like they’re going to be heading this way…” Leon indicated the end of the valley that opened up into another valley. Both were quite heavily forested, but if they reached the end of the second valley, then they’d be back on the Iron Road and only a few short miles away from the outskirts of Ironford, and they’d be in a perfect position to flank Minerva, Roland, and Brimstone. Minerva had specifically told Leon that he didn’t have to stop this force from reaching that point, but he was going to try regardless. Fortunately, Leon didn’t have to explain all of this to the other knights. “There are a few places I see where we can hit them with relative safety, mostly as they pass through some of these larger hills. We’ll also be attacking at night, hopefully when they aren’t expecting it. And even then, we won’t stay long. Hit them hard, hit them fast, and then get the hells out with as few casualties of our own as possible.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me, I have nothing to add,” Grim said. Leon looked to both the fifth-tier knight and knightess, and both shook their heads, and their actions were mirrored when he glanced at Valeria and Alix.

“All right. Then that’s what we’ll do. I don’t think we’ll hold them off completely, but so long as we buy enough time for the 3rd Legion to reach our people in the pass and for the 7th Legion to come up behind this force, then we’ve won this round. So let’s get going, I want us to hit them tonight first. I want us ready to go in an hour.”