“The first thing you do when you meet with friendly forces who have been in the region for a longer period of time is to get them to brief you on the situation. No amount of reports or hearsay could match a proper briefing from the people who had been fighting for their lives all the time, even if they could supplement the information later.” - Scipius Cornelius Barca, Famed general and strategist of the Democratic Republic of Caroma, circa 62 FP.

The battle soon came to an end for the day as both sides retreated to their respective encampments. Reinhardt expected that the mood at the Central camp must be a dour one, compared to the celebratory, revelry mood that swept through the defenders’ encampment when their forces arrived from the battlefield. One look at the defenders told the tale of people who had been in a hard, yet nearly hopeless fight for a while, given a new life thanks to their intervention.

“We cannot thank you enough for your timely assistance, Your Grace,” said a tall, burly, bearded man who was easily identifiable as a southerner from his nearly charcoal-black skin tone. The man was the current acting commander for the forces at Fort Kazka, formerly the second in command, as their commander had been killed in action during a daring foray several days ago. “We shall always remember this debt of life.”

The words he said to the young Duchess might have been mistaken for an attempt at brown-nosing at first glance, but Reinhardt could tell from the man’s voice and body language that he was completely sincere. Considering the sorry situation the northern front had been in, he was not surprised at the sincerity either.

“We only did what we ought to do,” said the young Duchess humbly as she shrugged off the praise. Like Reinhardt, she had looked around the encampment the moment she entered, to get a look at the situation at hand, and like him, her brows had scrunched up at the poor situation they both saw. “Who is in command on this front at the moment? It would be good if we could arrange the strategies and command chain on the double.”

“Uh… Understood, Your Grace. If you would so kindly wait at the command tent for a moment I will have the commanders fetched for a meeting right away,” said the burly commander of Fort Kazka with some evident nervousness in his voice. Neither Reinhardt nor the young Duchess missed that hint of nervousness.

“That does not sound encouraging,” whispered Reinhardt as they headed towards the command tent together with the other commanders from the south, namely the detachment commander from Fort Kuzi, Dame Illasvey, and two of the young Duchess’ senior Knight-Captains.

“It doesn’t. We’ll see what the situation is like soon, I guess,” she replied with a nod to his words.

In the end, they had not waited long, as within fifteen minutes the acting commander of Fort Kazka returned, along with two faces Reinhardt recognized. Ser du Riffons of the Silver Eagles looked the worse for wear, with a bloody bandage wrapped around his forehead, though from the looks of it, it was an older wound as the blood looked caked up and dry. The scuffed and dented look of his armor told more of the tale as well.

Representing the Spears of Ostvin was a large therian man that resembled a jackal - which was a rare thing for one of his breed - which if he recalled right was the second in command of the Company. The lack of presence of their erstwhile Captain meant that the man was likely either incapacitated or worse, since Reinhardt doubted he would have dared to skip the summons otherwise.

Behind them, came two others, who were both helped into the tent by others, as they clearly had difficulty walking in on their own. The first one was a sickly-looking young man, who was wheeled in on a wheelchair by a soldier, both his legs tied to splints and kept immobile. The other one was a woman around the young Duchess’ age who walked with the help of a crutch - her left leg was bandaged quite heavily - and had her right arm supported by a sling, with a visible bruise on her face.

“Gris? Damien? What happened to you two!?” asked the young Duchess in visible surprise when she saw the two injured people. She clearly had known them well enough to refer to them by first name, which made Reinhardt guess that the two were likely nobles as well, since the nobles of the same generation in the region usually knew each other.

“Glad to see you’re doing better than us, Andrea,” said the woman of the pair. She then looked at the gathered commanders with a somewhat melancholic look before she continued. “I got jumped by the bastard siblings from Gestis. Barely made it out, if at cost, as you can see.”

“As for Damien, his horse fell on him,” added the injured woman almost as an afterthought.

“Oh, you’d be happy to hear that we got the two in captivity then,” said Andrea with a smirk on her face. “We got them in the assault earlier, and freed a few others we found along the way.”

“Yeah, I met Miriam already. She gave her thanks.”

“Why are you and Damien here? I had heard it was supposed to be Nestor who leads the reinforcements from Algenverr?” asked Andrea with some obvious curiosity in her tone. Nestor Ambroglio da Nunez was the eldest son and heir to the Duchess of Algenverr, and an accomplished general on his own rights. The information they received stated that he was supposed to be commanding the reinforcements from the north.

“The Centrals attacked our way as well, shortly after we sent that news,” said the injured woman. Griselda Kris el-Geroulaz was a noble scion of her own right, as she hailed from the Barony of Gerouz, to the east of Algenverr. The small barony, part of the Clangeddin Empire, had successfully colonized the eastern reaches of the swamplands that separated the regions, and had an informal alliance with the Duchy of Algenverr over the years. “Nestor had to stay back to lead the battle there, so they sent Damien first, then I came later after the situation in the north stabilized some.

Griselda was also Nestor’s Fiancee, a further tie to bind down the alliance between the powers, especially now since the countries to which both Algenverr and Gerouz belonged to were caught in the throes of civil war. The main reason Andrea had been surprised at Griselda’s injured state was because she knew the woman to be a skilled warrior herself, and had not expected her to be that badly off from the fighting.

“Well… damn. That explains a lot I guess. Let’s get this meeting in order first then. We have a lot to talk about.”