Matt looked around the crowded room. The Matriarchs had been kind enough to point out to him that their strategy room in the Citadel could be used for his work. It was not a small place; a table the size of his whole apartment back on Earth filled one part of the space, while the rest was dominated by three tiers of benches where onlookers could watch. He’d covered the table with a large map that showed the southern part of the Kingdom, with the terrain of the Grim Hollows square in the center. It had been lucky that the Matriarchs had been able to provide a fairly good sketch of the Hollows, though it wasn’t too surprising; it bordered the Darkwoods, after all.
With over thirty people in it, the meeting room was stretched to its already formidable capacity. The various Captains were discussing things with one another in a low, continuous murmur that filled the air. He could hear a variety of attitudes and tones in their voices. Some of them sounded eager and bloodthirsty; others were worried or concerned. A few were joking and laughing, while others exchanged sullen glares with rivals.
The worst of the animosity seemed to be between the captains of the Irregulars and the Frost Elves. They had apparently marched down from Winterfast together, but the shared journey had not improved their attitude towards one another. Matt supposed it would be hard to forget the bloodshed between those former opponents—some of the Frost Elves were even eying Karve askance, given his role in capturing half of them during their rebellion—but the Irregulars weren’t exactly helping things. He caught more than one freeholder-turned-militiaman laughing at the Winterknights and Skirmishers that were now technically their allies.
Fortunately, he had an idea about how to unite all of the officers in the room. All he needed was to give them a new focus—and he had the perfect task to bring them around.
He cleared his throat, and that small sound was enough to cut through the chatter in the room. Silence fell as the Captains turned from their conversations and looked to where he was standing. Matt looked back at them for a moment and then spoke in a clear voice to make sure he could be heard at the back. “Welcome to our planning meeting for the campaign against Lord Teblas and his rebels.”
The announcement caused another ripple of murmurs through the room, and Matt paused until they had subsided again. “If you are here, it is because your banner is going to accompany me on the march south to intercept Lord Teblas’ army and destroy it once and for all. Our goal will be to catch him and his forces while they are crossing the marshlands, and keep them from reaching their home in the Copper Hills. Once those forces are killed, captured, or scattered, the remaining rebels in the Copper Hills should then surrender, and the last of the rebellions in our Kingdom will be over.”
There was another mutter, this one sounding skeptical, and Matt looked over at the source. It was a Captain of the Red Guard, some of the regular soldiers that had come from the Red Moon Clan. “Yes, Captain?”
The Orc who had spoken looked back at him with an incredulous expression, as if he couldn’t believe that Matt had addressed him. Then he stood and saluted. “Sire. I was just saying that it was easier said than done. Lord Braden tried to stop the bastard last time the same way, sire.”
Matt nodded. “You are correct, Captain. At the same time, we have quite a few more troops than were available for Lord Braden.” He gestured to a small gathering of wooden figures that he had placed on the position of Teblas’ camp, still in the Sortenmoors. “When Braden and Teblas fought, Braden had about ten banners compared to Teblas’ sixteen. This time, we’ll be facing around twelve enemy banners… and as you can see, we’ll have about three times as many troops as Braden commanded.”
A satisfied murmur ran through the group. It was clear they were looking forward to outnumbering the enemy for once, and many of them were especially interested in vengeance against Teblas. Several of the captains had been present at that last battle and had been forced to run to survive the disastrous result once Braden had ordered a retreat. Matt intended to make sure that catastrophe wasn’t going to happen again.
“Teblas will be marching east in order to try to reach the Copper Hills. He’ll have heard that Margrave Morteth is invading his home from the north; he’ll want to get back quickly enough to reinforce his defenses and maybe hide there while we have to fight the Alliance of Light in the spring. If we can catch him before he successfully retreats, then we’ll put an end to his resistance.”
He looked around and saw nods from the rest of the room. When he looked back down at the map, he glanced at the cluster of figures off to the right, positioned in the northern portions of the Copper Hills. There hadn’t been any messengers directly from Morteth; for all he knew, there had been some disaster there, and the invasion had completely stalled. If that was the case, he’d need to attack the Copper Hills from the west himself, and hope that he could move quickly enough to accomplish something before the rebels decided to strike north at the Darkwoods or the Broken Hills. Both places would have garrisons, but he didn’t want to underestimate Teblas a second time.
“The question is which path Teblas will use to return to the Hills. If we pick the wrong place, he may march right by us without us knowing, and then we’ll have to dig him out of his hiding place fort by fort.”
Another murmur of agreement rose from the captains, and Matt leaned forward to trace a path through the Grim Hollows. It wasn’t an easy course; the entire area was riddled with bogs, small lakes, unbridged rivers, and untamed forests. The entire population of the Hollows was less than a sixth of Redspire itself. There were no cities, just a double handful of villages and hamlets that were scattered across the region. They would be more likely to find a hermit than a road all the way to the border of the Shining Plains, where the territory of the Alliance waited.
“This was the path Teblas followed on his way west to the Sortenmoors. If we believe he would follow the same course…”
Matt broke off as a Grimfen Goblin abruptly cleared her throat and raised her hand. She was sitting next to Captain Snolt, who nodded at her encouragingly. He gestured for her to speak. “Your pardon, sire, but he won’t follow that path. Not in the middle of winter.”
There was a rough murmur through the rest of the room, and Matt looked to Snolt as if inviting an explanation. The Captain grinned at him. “My liege, Gwelfed’s my best scout. She was born in the Grim Hollows, back before her family brought her to Shadowfen and taught her to be halfway civilized. I’d recommend that you listen to her.”
Gwelfed gave her supposed superior a quick glare, which gave Matt a moment to think about the situation. Snolt didn’t exactly have a history of deception; the Goblin was nearly as outspoken and blunt as Karve was. Aside from that, the scouts of the Royal First had saved Matt on more than one occasion, back when he’d led a raid against the Noble Races. If Gwelfed had been among those scouts, Matt needed to give her at least a chance to respond. “Go ahead, Gwelfed. You were saying he won’t take the same course?”
The scout turned her attention back to him. “Yes, sire. You see, if he takes the same route, he’d need to go through Sellsen Pass. It’s this switchback trail that goes back and forth between a big steep hill and a bog.”
Matt nodded. “Go on.”
She blinked. “In wintertime, that trail is going to be a nightmare to cross. You’d have half your supplies and a quarter of your men ending up in the bog, and most of those aren’t going to be able to get out again. If he takes that route, we probably won’t even need to fight him, because his army’s going to be half dead, anyway.”
He turned his eyes back to the map, tracing along the path until he found the path she was talking about. It was a small section of the trail, but she was right. Going around it would take an extra week, and would probably result in him getting close enough to Shadowfen that the Goblins’ scouts would find them. Not a course the rebels would likely pursue.
Matt looked up. He forced a smile. “Well spotted, Gwelfed. Captain Snolt is justly proud of having you in the Royal First.”
The scout flushed with embarrassment, but Snolt just beamed and shook her by the shoulder. A murmur of disgruntlement ran through the captains of the Shadow Hunters; they might be loyal, but they were Blackleafs that likely didn’t enjoy having a Low Folk scout get credit. He ignored them and turned back to the map, having to reconsider his plan on the fly.
Originally, he’d wanted to meet Teblas in the forest where Braden had fought him. The heavy vegetation made it an ideal ambush spot and had likely contributed to Braden’s defeat. It would have been poetic to turn that same advantage against Teblas as he moved through the area, but obviously he’d need to adapt to the change in circumstances.
There were two other paths through the Grim Hollows he thought Teblas would take. One was a path that crossed bridge after bridge in an attempt to sprint straight for the Copper Hills; the other was slightly more roundabout, skirting the rivers and using a series of fords to move deeper through the Hollows. Both seemed equally likely, depending on whether Teblas was going to be bold or cautious. Both of them, however…
Matt studied the paths for a moment longer, and then nodded. “That being the case, I believe the best spot to meet Teblas would be here, in the Lakeland Forks.” He placed a wooden marker on the spot, marking a place where both of those courses met. Then he grinned. “If Gwelfed approves, of course.”
A wave of chuckles and low laughter spread through the gathered captains, and the Goblin flushed again. Despite her obvious discomfort, she still met Matt’s eyes and nodded. He nodded back gratefully and made a note to personally thank both her and Snolt. Better to have to improvise in a meeting room than on a battlefield.
Another captain, this time from one of the two banners of Bloodsworn, raised his hand. Matt paused slightly before nodding to the man; the Bloodsworn were considered the elite of the elite among the Red Moon warriors. Einreth had confidently stated that having one banner of them was worth three banners of Spears; Karve had quietly disagreed, but Matt had taken it as a statement of their importance in countering enemy heavy infantry at the very least.
He nodded to the captain, who spoke with a grit-filled voice that would have indicated a heavy smoker back on Earth. “The Forks is a good place for a battle, sire, but could the traitor simply retreat rather than face us? With so many banners of our own, it would be difficult to chase him down and bring him to battle.”
Matt smiled. “I agree. Under normal conditions, it would be difficult.” Then he tapped some of the wooden figures that were at Teblas’ camp. “Unfortunately for our opponent, most of his troops are made up of militia.”
There was a snort from Captain Vorch and chuckles among the rest of the Irregular officers. “I imagine they’ll have a hard time running far, sire?”
“With all respect, Captain, you’re right.” Matt shrugged. “Especially since he’d have to look like he was abandoning his homeland. We could either send our mounted troops forward to sweep the Irregular banners he abandons, or stay close enough to chase him back to the Sortenmoors. At that point his forces will start to desert, and the Copper Hills themselves might surrender, leaving him with no support.”
“At which point, he’ll be just another bandit to hunt down and kill.” One of the Frost Elf Skirmisher captains leaned forward, studying the map. She seemed to ignore the sharp look from her fellow Frost Elf who was leading the Winterknights. “Is there any risk that he might reach that location before us? It appears to be closer to him than it is to us.”
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Matt nodded. “Then we’ll have to work hard to reach it first. The rough terrain between his camp and the Forks should give us the advantage, but all the same, I want to be headed south tomorrow. Are there any objections?”
No one spoke up. He looked around to make sure that there wasn’t anyone still willing to contribute. He only saw the usual mix of anticipation, worry, and distraction that he’d come to associate with the start of a campaign.
So he nodded and straightened up from the table. “In that case, you’re dismissed. Speak with Margrave Karve if you have any concerns, and be ready to march as soon as possible.”
The next day, the armies of the Kingdom marched out to confront their foes.
It was a heady moment. Matt was marching to battle at the head of the largest army he had ever commanded. True, Karve was still his second in command and seemed to be both ready and willing to deal with any problems that had cropped up in getting the troops marching, but ultimately, they were following their King into battle. However foolish that might have been of them, they actually trusted him to do what he had claimed he wanted to do.
A part of him was still intimidated by that fact. He almost wanted to turn the entire thing over to Karve and then ride back to Redspire. Supervising the finishing touches on the sewage system in Redspire sounded much better than spending the last weeks of winter in the middle of a cold swamp, hunting a rebel army that would probably do its best to kill him, personally, before it was wiped out.
At the same time, Matt knew that wasn’t a possibility. A King had to lead, especially in war, and while he trusted Karve to make good decisions in combat, he knew the people would expect him to be at the forefront of the struggle. Standing back and letting others take the lead was only going to land him a bigger share of the blame if things went right. Even if things went wrong, people would start to wonder if they shouldn’t just have someone more active in charge.
So out he rode, with Nelson at the center of a knot of lifeguards. He was roughly at the center of the column, one that stretched as far as he could see along the winding road that would lead them through the Darkwoods and into the Hollows. Songs and creaking wagons filled the air with noise as they walked, making steady time towards their destination.
The weather was grey and bitterly cold, with the clouds making a solid ceiling overhead that might as well have been made of stone. Matt worried that snow would fall and obscure the path even more, but he needn’t have bothered. There was no ill weather beyond a continued icy wind that blew from the mountains in the east, and the soldiers appeared to be determined to ignore it as they forged ahead.
By the end of the first two days, they had finally left the Darkwoods behind and entered the Hollows. It was there that the well-defined track of dirt they had followed began to fade into the surrounding tangle of woods and wetlands, making it harder for the army to continue forward. The trail remained, but it had dwindled to something where four people could barely walk abreast; the places for the army to camp grew more and more infrequent, often requiring his tired troops to spend time felling trees so that the army could have enough space to sleep amid the snow and lakes.
The only really good sign as they marched was that on the dawn of the third day, the clouds finally broke. Blue sky filled the spaces between the branches, with the occasional patch of fast-moving cloud migrating their way west. Matt grinned at the sight, even with the continual chilly wind and the clinging winter mud. If he had to fight a battle, at least the heavens would be cheerful about it.
His good humor wasn’t isolated, either. The soldiers seemed to march with a bit more enthusiasm; he heard more songs echoing among the trees as they wended their way further to the south. Around noon, they reached a fork in the road that took them west and south, bringing them onto yet another narrow track that could barely be considered a cart trail.
That afternoon, they passed one of the few villages in the Hollows, a remote place known as Vradelfeld. The ramshackle huts and rundown barns seemed to be in a perpetual state of decay, with snow piled high on their sagging roofs. Matt saw some of the villagers come out to watch the soldiers march past, though many of them chose to hide instead. He watched some of them staring at the troops. They were mostly a gaggle of brave Goblins, Imps, and Orcs, none of whom could have been older than ten, all gathered at the crooked wooden arch that marked the ‘entrance’ to their home.
Matt hated the obvious poverty of the place; he’d wager that half their children didn’t live to see their first birthday. He made himself a promise to look into the healthcare available to the Kingdom as soon as he returned to Redspire. Sewage was well enough, but doctors would help fight disease just as easily. Perhaps the changes would even reach all the way out to this forsaken place.
Karve, riding at his side, glanced at the children. He looked away for a second and then leaned over to speak to Snolt. The Copperflame Goblin looked back at the Orc, and then smiled. He lifted his sword skyward; it glinted in the winter sun. “Sound off by ranks! For the Kingdom of Iron!”
The soldiers around Matt lifted their weapons and cheered, a resounding shout that seemed to startle the onlooking children. As the next banner passed, they echoed the warcry, making the children jump again. Matt twisted in his saddle to look back as the third banner made themselves heard. By that point, the children were shouting back, waving sticks and open hands. Adults were peeking from windows. A few even started to wander out to join their children by the road, their expressions showing amazement and a hint of fear. One mother actually wrapped her arms around her child, a Goblin that seemed oblivious to her worries—she was too busy cheering.
It was a sight that kept him a bit warmer as they continued on, marching through the marshlands to where they would wait for Teblas to meet his fate.
They reached the Forks on the fourth day, while the morning was still fresh and clear.
It was a rare clearing in the wetlands, a place where the rivers had branched and fanned out around a small delta of land. There had been a village in the place once, but it had apparently been the victim of either a raiding party or a bandit attack. With no survivors, it had been difficult to tell. The buildings they had left behind were decaying, just as they had been for the other village. It was impossible to tell whether age or intentional destruction had caused the dilapidation of the place, but either way had led to houses with collapsed roofs, to broken barns half-filled with snow, to buried wells with trees growing from them.
The Forks was a quiet, haunted-seeming place. Matt didn’t like the way his troops peered at it and muttered, but he had chosen the place for the ground, not the destroyed town. Maybe if there were any ghosts in the place—did such things exist in this strange world?—they would be appeased if he built a victory for the Kingdom in their home.
Though rivers flowed freely around the Forks, none had been bridged. The reason why became obvious as his troops splashed their way through the cold water; somehow, none of them were more than knee deep, with many of them only at ankle height. A strange cluster of shining rock stood out in the middle of the source of the rivers, having somehow fractured the flowing water into a half dozen different, smaller tributaries. None of the streams rejoined each other until they drained into a deep bog further to the south.
It made the Forks an odd sort of choke point, one that was wide enough to permit large amounts of combat, but narrow enough that it couldn’t be avoided. Not that he really wanted a choke point. Such things were mostly useful for armies that needed to hold off superior numbers. Now that he finally held the advantage, Matt wanted as much open terrain as he could find so that he could cut off and surround Teblas’ troops. The last thing he wanted was a spot for the rebels to hole up and force some kind of a siege.
North of the Forks, the river was deep enough that it would have threatened even Nelson with being swept away. There were no bridges across it for about a day’s march, a fact that Teblas would know well. To the south, the many creeks and brooks sunk their way into the Crenmarsh, a shifting morass of lakes, deep marshes, and mud that could swallow a thousand banners easily, all the way until it eventually shifted into the Grenlake further on. Again, no way across for quite a while.
All of which meant that if the rebels wanted to continue east, they would have to cross here.
Matt immediately started to set his troops in order. He sent some soldiers to set up camp north of the Forks, on the eastern bank of the river. It would give him a nice, sheltered spot where he could store their supplies and tents, keeping the rebels from easily launching a surprise attack. Others he ordered to dig in around the dead town and the rivers, sinking their shovels into the cold, waterlogged soil to create ditches and barriers of earth. He might not want to stay in his fortifications, but it would be better to have them and not need them, as opposed to needing them and not having them.
While the infantry were digging in and setting up the camp, Matt ordered the cavalry to scout the nearby area for signs of the enemy. Just because he was confident that Teblas was coming this way didn’t mean Matt knew when the rebels would appear. If he wasn’t careful, the Leaffall Orcs would fall on his unaware army and kill half of them before they even had weapons in their hands.
Teblas would do it too. He was a vicious, clever leader, one that took as much pleasure in personally braving danger as he did in destroying unworthy foes. Matt had warned Braden not to face Teblas personally, and however much he’d meant the warning as something of a taunt, it had been good advice. Matt had dug back through the records and found evidence of Teblas having won nearly a hundred separate duels with various warriors, both in and outside of actual military action. For nearly three years, the Red Sorceress had used Teblas as a personal enforcer of sorts, and what she couldn’t clear away using her magic and Grim Hounds, he usually cut down with his blade.
Matt had spent much of the past few days reading about the man, as well as studying accounts of every battle the Orc had ever led in. As Sun Tzu had said, ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.’ Even if it was just one fight, Matt had to make sure it was managed perfectly.
So once he had memorized the terrain, Matt had turned to learning everything he could about his opponent.
What he learned was both encouraging and distressing. Teblas, in war, was an honorable combatant. He showed no signs of breaking truces or ignoring treaties. When an enemy crossed him, Teblas would attempt to destroy them, but aside from his rebellion, there was no sign that the Orc had a tendency to backstab and betray. Those facts held out the hope that if Teblas was intimidated enough, he might actually be convinced to surrender for the sake of his men.
Even better, Teblas was personally extremely loyal to those he knew. His rebellion actually stemmed from those facts; he’d seen Matt as an outsider turned tyrant who had murdered his lover, the Red Sorceress, and had wanted to win freedom from Redspire for his people. There were multiple accounts of him charging into danger to save friends and allies; there was even one account of Teblas riding to Lord Braden’s rescue during a battle against the Alliance to the south.
Unfortunately, there was every sign that Teblas was a brave man. He had a history of charging into battle, heedless of his own safety. There were many times that he’d managed to turn the tide of a battle by plunging him and his most elite fighters into the enemy ranks. At least a dozen times, he’d managed to injure an enemy general personally; three times, he’d actually killed the enemy leader and sent the opposition into a panicked retreat. The time he’d wounded Lord Braden had been among those achievements. Teblas had caught Braden in the open and dismounted in order to challenge him to individual combat. After he’d won, he’d even let the Bloodsworn drag the defeated Red Moon scion away rather than finishing him.
That flair for dramatic, personal strikes meant he might be able to be lured into a trap, but it also meant that there was little likelihood that he could be frightened easily. Certainly, he wouldn’t blink an eye at being outnumbered; if he was stubborn enough to bring things to battle, then Matt would have to hammer his forces enough to force him to recognize the pointless nature of the fight. Doing that without losing the forces he’d need to pacify the Sortenmoors and fight the Alliance of Light’s invasion was going to be a trick that he didn’t know how he was going to pull off.
The nature of Teblas’ forces might make it easier. As he’d said, the majority were peasant militia, likely poorly organized and led. True, they had received plenty of battle experience in the Sortenmoors, but raids and flanking maneuvers would be different compared to a pitched battle. If he could convince them to run, then the rest would be easier to deal with.
Not that Teblas’ veteran forces were that much easier. The Defiants were a band of archers, wielding longbows that any Englishman would have been envious of. They were known for launching salvos of arrows deep into the enemy ranks, and for channeling a shield of wind to guard themselves from projectiles fired at them in response. Even more dangerous would be the banners of Leapers that Teblas led personally. They used Air magic to launch themselves into shocking leaps that could carry them over obstacles or past battlelines, giving them the chance to plunge into the heart of the army’s ranks.
Still, as intimidating as they might be, they were still mortal. Matt remained confident of his position and knew that he could cover the entirety of the Forks against Teblas’ troops. If the Leaffall Orc simply ignored the facts of the situation and charged, Matt’s army would surround and crush him. All they had to do was wait, and the enemy would come right to him.
He just wished it would all be unnecessary. After the deaths at Heartlight and Shadowfen, and the wars fought in the north and east before that, all of the destruction and death was starting to weigh on Matt. Why was all of this necessary? What did it gain anyone to die in cold water and bloodstained snow? Why couldn’t he have been given a nation to rule in peace?
It was those questions that tormented him as he walked among his troops. He tried to distract himself by using his magic to help them burrow into the earth, but even seeing their gratitude and easing the rumbling energy inside him didn’t help much.
Sleep was hard to find that night, and his dreams, when they finally came, were tormented by arguments where versions of himself shouted at each other, each one making an impossible case for how the future should be forged—all while the world burned in the background.