Chapter 41

To Wilds, We Go

"Due to my latest vision," Sylas said. "We must leave the castle again, this time toward the east." Valen sighed, Tenner winced, Ryne seemed excited, Cyrs wanted to cry since he'd be left alone in the dark, yet again, and Tebek wondered what was happening. Taking all the reactions in stride, Sylas continued as though immune to them. "Therein lay folk of the criminal world who have intentions upon our walls. We must prevent that from happening!"

"Oh? You mean the rumors about the gatherings?" Cyrs mused aloud, nodding along. "I've heard from quite a few folk over the recent years about it, actually—especially traveling caravans who oft got attacked on certain routes."

“Yes, yes, those,” Sylas nodded. “We strike preemptively, and we strike fast, and we strike hard. And by we, I, of course, mean you. I’ll be cheering very loudly—or, well, very silently, since our goal is to be stealthy.”

“Can’t we just wait for them here?” Tenner proposed. “Walls provide a cushion and no matter their numbers, I hardly expect them to have siege equipment.”

“Cold Snap is close,” Sylas said. “And they’ll use the winter’s first blizzard as a cover. If you can’t see two feet in front of you, walls do you little good. Besides, I always say it’s better to be proactive than, uh, non…active. Yes, that.”

“Where exactly is their hideout, anyway?” Valen asked.

“… east.” Sylas replied awkwardly, taking a sip of water.

“Where east?” Valen’s brows twitched gently.

“East, east. Oh, dear prince, don’t tell me you don’t even know the four sides of the world? Tsk, tsk, education these days…”

“So, your vision didn’t pinpoint the location?”

"East, I just said it," Sylas was unmoving in his stance, despite the mountain levels of embarrassment he was feeling. He wouldn't budge. He was too deep. "Perhaps you should lie down—"

“No, no, I’m perfectly fine,” Valen quickly said, the look in his eyes that of a helpless man. If the world knew that a Kingdom’s Prince had to take a step back like this… “East it is, then. There’s only so many places it can be.”

“Three-four, realistically,” Cyrs, as the veteran of the area, quickly said. “East of us are mostly steep mountains that are all but impossible to traverse. There are some paths that trace back to some few hundred years ago when we discovered a rich copper vein, but the roads have been largely unmaintained ever since the mine shut down. I suspect if they’re anywhere, they’re along one of those roads, or even near a mine itself if not within.”

“How many men could we realistically bring along?” Valen turned toward Tenner and Cyrs and asked.

“Not many,” Tenner said, furrowing his brows in deep thought for a moment. “Since we’ll have to carry the supplies with us—and no wagons can traverse those paths—we’ll have to use porterboys. If we extended that one porterboy can supply five men for half a month, at most, I propose, we bring fifty men.”

“Isn’t that too few?” Valen frowned. “Though we don’t know their exact numbers, if we are besieging, we need to have overwhelming force.”

"Not necessarily," Tenner explained. "The mine was in a faint dip that's fairly exposed from all sides. We could position fifteen or so of our best archers at high altitudes to provide cover. Besides, I don't expect them to have any proper fortification—perhaps a picket fence of sorts, at best. It will all be up to the surprise factor and how quickly we can decimate their forces before they gather their bearings."

“Yes, I agree…” Cyrs continued as Sylas tuned out. Since he managed to convince them, it no longer had anything to do with him. He’d definitely accompany them, but these men were veterans of wars and battles, and he was a guy who once squealed when he got threatened by a toy knife. Of course, he didn’t know that it was a toy knife, but still.

Though his modern knowledge afforded him some avenues where he could exploit them, none of those involved war or battle tactics. The most he knew was that the archers were supposed to go to the rear and that the cavalry was good at flanking—neither of which was something nobody else realized.

“If you can sneak me in,” Ryne’s voice jolted Sylas back into the discussion. Her interruption seemed to draw everyone’s attention as well. “I… I can place some talismans around. They won’t be able to cause any major damage, but could be used as a distraction…”

“… if it’s like that,” while everyone was mulling over Ryne’s proposal, Sylas quickly spotted a better alternative. At least better in his head. As such, he decided to risk embarrassment and share his thoughts. “Wouldn’t it be easier to set up talisman traps along the road and lure them away from the hiding?”

"Oh, yes, that could very much work," Tenner nodded, looking admirably at Sylas. "But they likely won't send many men if we just send a couple of people. We'll probably have to make a 'forced retreat' and lure them back into the trap. In addition to talismans, we can also position archers around that area."

“Yes,” Cyrs nodded, further developing the idea. “Besides that, we can also ensure we cut off reinforcements from immediately helping, forcing them to take a roundabout route, where we can posit additional traps. It would divide our forces, however. At the same time, though, we could bring more men since, if we would be laying traps, we’d stayed there for a few days. As such, some manner of logistics would need to be put into place for communication, and we can just extend those for supplies.”

“I agree. Additionally…” Sylas watched as the men took his basic idea and developed it into something far more complex, with numerous fail-safes installed in the plan in case something went wrong. A single moment of pride he experienced when people picked up on the idea was quickly snuffed out and he was returned to reality. Is my ability to die and be reborn literally the only positive quality about me? At this point, he was having a bit of an identity crisis.

While his ‘superpower’ was beyond remarkable, it wasn’t really his feat. After all, anyone put in his position could, for the most part, do all the things he’d done—some perhaps even more efficiently. From when he arrived here until now, none of his feats were truly his own—save for perhaps managing to convince the Prince that he was a Prophet. But even that relied heavily on the fact of him dying and coming back with new information and the Prince being a bit of a…

This further fanned his desire to learn the ‘Heartseeker’. He suspected it wasn’t actually a swordmaster’s technique, but rather a Blademaster’s. If we could even just learn its basic tenants, he’d have more to offer to this cause than his ability to technically be immortal.

Before he knew it, the room had emptied, leaving behind only Valen and him. As far as he caught on, the plans weren’t finalized yet; Cyrs and Tenner would draw up the battle plans and present them tomorrow, at the central meeting of all the Captains and castle’s major figures.

“Is it really smart?” Valen suddenly asked him, pouring the both of them a cup of the sweetened wine.

“What?” Sylas asked, taking the cup.

“Distracting ourselves,” the Prince elaborated. “What we saw… it’s inevitable, isn’t it? We should be preparing for that instead of some petty thieves.”

“… you vastly underestimate those petty thieves,” Sylas said, thinking back on Dyn’s abilities that even he was envious of. “And overestimate our capacity to prepare for that horde, my Prince. Besides, I suspect only a small fraction of a fraction of that horde will besiege these walls.”

"…" Valen looked at him deeply for a moment, the Prince's gaze sharp and piercing. It was truly during the times like this that Sylas was reminded that the man in front of him was a Prince and not just another ordinary youth. "Why do I have a feeling you're holding back on my account?"

“I distinctly recall you not being that perceptive,” Sylas joked, taking another sip of the wine.

"Tell me," Valen persisted. "Whatever it may be. I know… I know we haven't known each other for long. In fact, it's been, what? Less than a month?" Wow… it really has. For Sylas, he'd known the Prince for months—but from the young man's perspective… "It's truly a minuscule amount of time. But… I trust you. I truly do, Sylas. I don't know if it is smart to trust you—while you exhibit some prophetic qualities, you exhibit just as many charlatan's—but I do. On the account of that trust, I also expect you to trust me with whatever it is that you're holding back with. Does it have something to do with my father?"

“… not necessarily your father,” Sylas sighed, leaning against his left arm and looking at the Prince playfully. “Your lineage, perhaps.”

“…” Valen remained silent, expecting.

“Don’t you find it strange?”

“Strange?”

“Ghoulish invasions have been a thing since the Kingdom’s founding,” Sylas said. “Yet, not once did any of the Kings or Queens launch a major expedition to seek the cause.”

“They thought it was dangerous—”

“But we did it,” Sylas intercepted. “Easily, at that. With the help of a fifteen-year-old Exorcist.”

“…”

“I suspect that, before your forefathers came to this peninsula,” Sylas decided to give it all away and see Valen’s reaction. If it was beyond negative, he’d just kill himself and re-do the loop. If not, there were benefits to making Valen a cynic. “There was a power, a truly great power residing here. That power was, however, in a steep decline by that point. Why? I don’t know. And, I suspect that your forefathers exploited that decline—by somehow, someway, being able to instigate the Ghoulish invasions. You never got to read it or see it, but inside the valley where we saw an army was a small cabin. And in that cabin was a journal. Journal of a man who fought and held back the army single-handedly at some indeterminate point in time.

"I think that point was right around when your forefathers invaded this place. He speaks of being abandoned, of nobody replying to him, of the gates suddenly opening. I've no evidence for any of my claims, and I may well be completely off-course… but that is what I believe, at least for a moment. You said it yourself, back then—only high-tier Magi could procure what we've experienced. And it is not as though they grow on trees."

"…" Valen clearly struggled, his expression dancing between anger and wonderment. Sylas was honest—he didn't have any evidence for his claims. The 'evidence', really, was mostly just his extrapolations from the circumstantial tales he'd heard. He was missing a ton of details that would refine the story further, but, for the time being at least, he had no means of discovering them. Returning back north was out of the question. He never wanted to step foot in that place again. And other means of figuring everything out didn't elicit any true answers, especially with the two supernatural beings of the castle vanishing.

The only other potential source of information was Ryne’s master. But he could hardly trust a woman who could procure so many Exorcist through any means necessary. She had her own goals, her own intentions, and there was a high likelihood of them not aligning with his. For now, he wanted nothing to do with her.

“Did… did God tell you this?” Valen asked, calming somewhat.

“… no,” Sylas replied, not wanting to rely on the ‘God’ for everything. “I learned fractions of a fraction through His messages. Most of what I said is simply what I expect happened based on my experiences and knowledge. As I said, I could be completely wrong.”

"But you could also be completely right," Valen said. "But… I don't want to believe it. I really don't. I know my family isn't the holiest of groups in the world, but if they had means of controlling the Ghouls… why… why would they constantly send them against their own Kingdom?"

"I don't know," Sylas lied a bit—he could postulate dozens of possibilities, but didn't want to push it any further. "I don't ask you to trust me, but at least remain open to the possibility. Right now, don't make that choice—I can't in good conscience ask you to choose between your family and a stranger you've met what, less than a month ago?" Sylas cracked a smile, finally forcing one on Valen's face as well. "I believe it is of similar take to that of yours on the histories—there are some histories that skirt around the details that truly had a major impact on world events, and then there are some that dedicate pages upon pages on seemingly boring nonsense, but nonsense that defined an era."

“… yes,” Valen nodded, taking a deep breath. “You’re right. There’s no wrong in doubting. I still stand by what I said—I don’t think my family did it. But… if they did… they all deserve to burn. Plaguing our own people with the curse of the dead for centuries… there is no forgiving that.”

“Drink,” Sylas egged. “There will be few opportunities to do so in the coming days.”