Chapter 37: The Imperial Knight
After Bandit cleaned herself off, Kat decided to split up the party into two groups. One group would intercept the army marching south from near Meethil, and the other group would travel west and find once again the army marching southeast from Zinar.
How to split the party wasn’t obvious. Kat thought that she and Vulp should be in separate parties since Vulp was the other girl most able to serve as leader. Also, Shiba and Bandit needed to be separated since they were the most effective with ranged attacks—a must for the harassment they were planning. Further, Vulp and Lupy were both warriors and would be wasted in the same small party. Finally, Bandit was still pretty wiped out from her naval sabotage mission, so Kat thought it wise to put her in a group of three rather than a group of two.
By process of elimination, Kat discovered that the only viable party was for her to join up with Lupy and Bandit, while Shiba traveled in a party of two with Vulp. They went their separate ways, intent to stop the secret armies from making it to Gazahanar any time soon.
Of course, even Kat’s party wouldn’t be able to stop an army by themselves. While Bandit was on her detour to Zaranar harbor, the Guild had been deploying the full extent of their forces. A few members were rounding up anyone they could find who opposed the local lords’ decisions to house and hide armies of the Empire within their realms. Meanwhile, the rest encircled the armies from east and west, progressing south all while launching a harassment campaign.
As Guild members, both Kat’s party and Vulp’s party were welcomed to join the effort when they encountered fellow Guild members. Both armies had tried identical tactics to ward off the Guild’s interference and continue their march south toward the Empire’s capital. Kat and Vulp both received similar explanations that initially the armies had split off two detachments to pursue the interlopers while the main body of the army continued to march south without slowing.
That worked well for the armies at first. The Guild wasn’t able to rally enough combatants on such short notice to put up much of a fight, so they were forced to retreat. However, they retreated south, closing the encirclement while more reinforcements trickled in from the north. As the opposition’s force grew, the commanders of each army were forced to pull in their flanking forces tighter, slowing their vanguard. By the time Kat and Vulp arrived, each army was practically pinned, unable to proceed without exposing their backs to considerable indirect fire. If they doubled back to push against their opponents, they’d be proceeding away from their objective all while the leaner force backpedaled at double-time.
Vulp and Shiba, who had proceeded to the western army, had an even easier time because the army’s march brought them right past Khazirgarag. The Guild’s opposition ballooned even before Vulp and Shiba arrived, forcing a perpetual stalemate.
In contrast, the army Kat approached was in a more favorable position. The Guild’s efforts weren’t as coordinated and they didn’t have as many personnel. One of the leaders in the field suspected that the personnel combatting the western army were more seasoned overall. As glad as they were to receive three more bodies, Kat could clearly tell the others viewed Kat’s group of three as a few more novices who were just as likely to get in the way as anything else.
They couldn’t have been more wrong. As Guild members pulled back, Kat ran from group to group, healing them two people at a time. Due to a shortage of healers, Kat ended up being highly in-demand. Meanwhile, despite Bandit’s fatigue, the current mission played well to her strengths. Harassing opponents was what she did best, and her one-handed crossbows, while not as effective for sniping as two-handed crossbows, still greatly extended her range. Of course, she relied on the non-deadly version of her poison, leaving slightly paralyzed soldiers all over the battlefield. In such a target rich environment, she found herself quickly running out of bolts.
Through all this, Lupy was depressed. She was prepared to engage the moment any enemy soldiers strayed too far from their main army in pursuit of the adventurers and other opposition. Since that hadn’t happened, Lupy had nothing to do. The one time she tried to lure soldiers into overextending, other adventurers told her to stop. She wondered if Vulp was getting a chance to do anything.
As Kat ran low on mana, she rejoined with Lupy. While consoling the pouting Lupy she looked around for Bandit. A few minutes later, Bandit dropped down from a tree, startling both of her fellow party members, especially Kat.
“Well?”
“I’m low on bolts. If anyone from the Guild asks, I’m out of bolts,” answered Bandit.
“Okay.” Kat flagged down an adventurer who was running around coordinating the effort in this part of the encirclement. She stated that the three of them would be falling back due to depleting their mana and ammunition. The adventurer explained that they would be rearranging their forces to account for arriving reinforcements from the north, so the girls should just stay out of the way for now.
Shortly after, several waves of adventurers and other locals ran past Kat going this way and that. Once the dust settled, Kat noticed the three of them were surprisingly isolated. The encirclement wasn’t perfect and the Guild was having trouble adapting to the ever-changing circumstances.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
----------------------------------------
Marcus was one of just a few young men knighted during Noah’s reign. As one of the newest and youngest imperial knights, he wasn’t treated very well. Not only did he receive the least desirable assignments, but the rank and file didn’t respect him at all. He supposed he should feel some guilt about pointing his blade at the Emperor who acceded to his request to become an imperial knight. At least, if the Emperor wasn’t a usurper…
His mood was pretty bad even before the army got bogged down by a disorganized band of morons. For the current mission, he was in charge of thirty men, although more than half were currently down for the count, either due to some type of poison or from the occasional ranged attack spell that struck true. Due to his unit’s positioning at the outskirts of the formation, they took the brunt of the damage in this area.
His request to reposition his unit further toward the center of the formation was immediately denied. While his downed soldiers were dragged away from the front, his ever-dwindling squad was forced to remain in the line of fire. Including himself, he counted 13 people.
He got a good look at the churl responsible for launching all those poisoned bolts. She was beast-kin… raccoon or something like that. Although she was hiding in the trees, for a moment, they made eye contact. The way she immediately looked away like he was somehow worthless infuriated him. More so than the black mages occasionally striking his soldiers, he wanted to get revenge against that little girl who was making a mockery of him. Not necessarily to kill her… just to teach her a lesson. So long as she learned never to oppose an imperial knight again, he’d be satisfied. If he overdid it and she died, he wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, though.
Then his chance came. The fools abandoned a large portion of the encirclement, concentrating their forces further south while reinforcements bunched up further north. These fopdoodles honestly thought they could outmaneuver a trained force of the Empire on such short notice? Marcus was no bobolyne; he would seize opportunity when it presented itself. “All right, you dalcops! With me! Let’s teach that rakefire a lesson!”
He charged out of formation with 12 soldiers in tow. Quickly spotting the little menace and two of her friends, he changed course to pursue them. They spotted his squad and sprinted in the opposite direction. They probably expected him to give up and circle back toward the main army. They were in for a rude awakening. The two he didn’t recognize, one sporting cat ears and another with wolf or maybe dog ears, would avoid the worst of his fury. A fourth person, a young male adventurer from the looks of him, encountered the fleeing girls seemingly by chance, opting to run away in the same direction as them. Judging from the sword at the young man’s hip, he wasn’t responsible for the disgrace Marcus was feeling. Still, if the adventurer joined up with the puterelle, he was fair game for sure.
They were surprisingly quick for young girls, but he and his men kept pace. He lucked out; the girls didn’t seem to know the terrain that well either, oddly enough. Like rats, they found themselves with their backs to a sheer cliff. Even rats could be dangerous when cornered, so he’d exercise the utmost care in dealing with them. Marcus and his soldiers completed their own small encirclement, this time of the three girls and one boy.
Marcus drew his sword and pointed it at the young man. “Hey, saddle-goose, are you with them?” Marcus could see the boy was literally quaking.
“N–No…” the boy answered honestly.
“Then scram. My business is with them.” Marcus gestured, and two of the soldiers stepped aside to make an exit for the boy.
The boy looked back and forth between the exit and the three younger girls he had paired up with by chance.
“It’s okay… you can go,” the cat-eared girl encouraged him.
After a moment’s hesitation, the boy drew his sword and pointed it directly at Marcus. “I… I can’t abandon you three.”
“Sure you can,” the probably-wolf-eared girl dissented in an oddly cheery voice. “With you here I can’t bring him out.”
“What?” The boy was confused, but none of the girls elaborated.
Marcus was a bit surprised by the wolf-eared girl. Not only was she trying to send her defender away, but she was speaking cryptically about her own abilities, as though they would get her out of the disadvantageous situation. At a glance, she fought with one-handed axes… barbaric, but probably logical for lowly adventurers. Given her smaller stature and inexperience, she would struggle one on one against any of the soldiers Marcus brought along.
Of the other two girls, one was clearly a white mage. If nothing else, he’d make sure she survived. While he didn’t like the idea of her healing his enemies, especially ones who irked him so, he couldn’t bring himself to get too mad at a healer. Of course, the third was that raccoon hedge-born who was the true target of his malice. She used crossbows and was likely low or even out of bolts. He didn’t spot any other weapons on her but she may have had something hidden. The fact that she used poison irked him.
Marcus didn’t have any archers or mages attached to his unit. Everyone present was equipped with a sword and shield. Even if he did have ranged attacks at his disposal, he wouldn’t use them. He wanted to get up close and personal. If he took matters into his own hands, the four weaklings could try to gang up on him. He was sure he’d win, but taking any injuries at all in front of his men would be embarrassing. He decided to make a game of it.
“Do you four really think you can fight your way out of this? Tell you what, let’s settle this one at a time. Send your strongest fighter forward and I’ll send my weakest. If you win, we’ll move on to the second match.” Marcus choked down a laugh. “All right?”
“I think that’s the best deal we’re gonna get,” the boy muttered over his shoulder as he took a shaky step forward.
“Wait, he said strongest,” the wolf-eared girl argued. She stomped over to the young man and grabbed him by his cuirass, yanking him backwards. He tripped on the uneven ground and fell with a resounding thud as his sword skipped across the ground.
He rolled onto his back and propped himself up by his elbows, staring at the violent girl before turning to look at the two other girls. “She’s gonna get herself killed!”
The two girls averted their eyes.
Marcus laughed hysterically while waving one of his soldiers forward.
The soldier looked like he’d rather be anywhere else as he addressed the girl who would be his opponent. “You can surrender at any time. There’s no need for you to die here today.”
The wolf-eared girl turned to look at her two companions. “Are they allowed to surrender too?”