A war council was called. Kamil, Cezary, Raem, and Nestor were gathered in a chamber. The chamber was situated deep within the manor and it was one of the newest rooms they had dug out and created. It was a decently sized room for four people to gather comfortably with stone walls and floor. There was a wooden square table in the middle. The room was lit by four fire crystal lamps on walls which provided plenty of luminance for the room. There was a map on the table with several pins on it, indicating where their armies as well as enemies are.
Cezary cleared his throat. “We shall begin,” He declared.
image [https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/4329/8QO6e8.jpg]
The first thing he did was point at Laufeld.
“The Estana army near us has withdrawn. We don’t know why, but I wager it has something to do with our lord selling the schematic to them.”
It didn’t mean the whole conflict was off, however, because the other Estana armies had not withdrawn. For the time being, Laufeld was safe at least.
“It probably has something to do with the fact that we don’t really have an army to speak of,” Nestor added. “We pose no threat literally.”
With the immediate threat gone, Edmund’s army was ordered to move up North to reinforce the Flissing.
“For the moment, Estana is acting like they don’t want this conflict to advance any further. Our immediate concern should be focused on the North where Atra and the Siwen are acting up,” Cezary explained.
“This reduces the chance that Estana is in league with them, no?” Kamil pointed out.
“Too early to tell, but it seems that way,” Cezary said.
Raem chimed in. “I get that the Siwen wants their former territory back. But what is Atra’s goal?”
Kamil said, “I am guessing here that Atra wants Tonga and Dido while the Siwen wants Gonne, Ediva and Maiava back.”
Cezary nodded along in agreement.
“Those treacherous bastards.” Raem growled. It had been over two years since the Siwen war. In other words, it had been only two years which wasn’t really enough time to fully recover from war.
The fundamental problem lies with Karsten Egra…
In Kamil’s mind, if he didn’t mobilize the entire nation, Atra and the Siwen wouldn’t have mobilized their own. Essentially, he created problems that didn’t exist.
“How is the operation going in Old Laufeld?” He asked Nestor who was in charge of quickly abandoning the old town. They no longer had the leeway to look after two settlements.
“They have been told to depart ASAP and have been informed that we will no longer feed them. I’ve given them a grace period of ten days. Then no more bread. They have two choices. They must either leave somehow or join us.”
There was a hard limit on how many could leave on a day. According to Nestor, at the maximum capacity, about 25 could leave for Tantan and 10 for Rokk per day. Given how many were still left, the grace period was not going to be enough for everyone to leave by airships. Some may be forced to leave by other means such as carriages.
“I’ve noticed that some are slacking and not leaving since we are feeding them. Perhaps, this will wake them up to reality,” He noted.
“Well, it sounds like we should cut them loose at this point. They’ve found a loophole and are abusing it,” Kamil pointed out.
“More or less, Milord,” Nestor agreed. They were basically giving out free food, and some had decided to abuse it apparently.
“Raem,” He looked in his direction. “I’ve told Cezary about this already, but we need more soldiers.”
“Aye, he has indeed informed me. We need about fifty soldiers for the town itself. I will prepare around a hundred soldiers that could move out.”
A hundred soldiers weren’t much; It was a drop in a bucket. Still, they had to start from somewhere.
“Alright, that is good to hear. Now, everyone, I have a request to make for all of you present in this chamber.”
Everyone’s attention was on him.
“I would like all of you to learn the Estana language.”
Everyone was like, “what?” bar Cezary.
“You don’t have to be fluent, but being able to understand and speak their language is going to benefit us.”
“May I ask why?” It was Raem.
“I’ve come to realize that our town is really close to the border. And, with the airship, sooner or later, people from Estana will probably arrive here on business or else. Like or not, we will need to deal with their language. It will be far better if we are receptive to their language than outright playing ignorant.”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” Cezary chimed in. “There is a spice vendor from Estana in the central market who is still selling his stuff in spite of what’s been occurring as of late. He speaks our language. It’s only right that we should speak some of their language.”
Kamil added, “I would like to emphasize that Estana is not our enemy. The fact that they withdrew the army near us is proof.”
“Is there a reason why you are literally bending over for them?” Raem retorted, not feeling good about having to accommodate them.
“I am not going to lie. There is a chance that we may need to surrender. If this conflict goes awry and Estana formally invades, what choice do we have?” Given how close we are to their border, we will be their first target.”
Raem grimaced visibly but couldn’t argue back. After all, Laufeld had no army to speak of. They had only defenders. With a population of about 7,500 people, probably a thousand was the most they could amass which was nowhere enough to fight in war. Upon that realization, he realized why Kamil was being passive. He had no other choice. If they were to be besieged, they wouldn’t last a day. Hell, not even a day. Several hours max.
“I … understand,” He conceded reluctantly.
Nestor pointed out, “Who can teach us their language though? The merchant Sir Waszak spoke of?”
“We can probably ask Gojar,” Cezary responded. “I think everyone in Tantan is bilingual.”
Tantan was very much cut off from trading by land. Only a sea trade route existed for them. Therefore, naturally, they traded with Estana for eons. As a direct result, many residents in Tantan were fluent in the other language.
“Alright, everyone, let’s get back to work. We have lots to do.”
The war council was adjourned soon after, but Cezary remained on. Once the others were gone, he pulled out a rolled paper from his sleeve and displayed it on top of the map. It was a rough drawing of Laufeld.
“We need to build walls, proper stone walls,” he suggested.
“Did you say that it’d be too much work?”
“I have. We still need walls. Here is my suggestion.”
His index finger drew a small circle around the mine and the manor.
“We will build walls, but they won’t cover the whole town. Thankfully, we are building an underground settlement.”
The way he drew his finger, the walls would barely cover the mine and the manor. It wouldn’t even cover the central market.
“It feels like it covers the absolutely bare minimum,” Kamil remarked while stroking his chin.
“They are. We have neither the time nor the money to build walls like Keviel or Dido. Even if Estana wasn’t breathing at our neck, I was going to build walls like this.”
“Walls are important, are they? And we are cheaping out.”
“They are important, but I don’t know for how long.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The airships. If an attack comes from above, what good are walls? If they drop soldiers from the sky, will walls help?”
Kamil narrowed his eyes. Cezary did have a point. Walls in general were highly effective against monsters. However, now that airship was invented and was spreading. Walls as a defense mechanism against other humans could be questionable.
“Several years at max,” Cezary commented. “After that, I foresee that the walls will be useless against besiegement.”
If so, spending so much money building walls sounded like a huge waste of money. They’d still need walls to fend off monsters however.
“Alright, I will go with whatever plan you have in your mind, Sir Waszak.”
“I thank you,” he replied promptly with a firm nod. After that, the meeting was truly over.
He recalled the brief meeting with the king of Estana. While he donned a gentle appearance, he could tell that the man was no pushover. Basically, he was a different kind of king compared to Karsten. It was important to remember that the king chose to meet him in person whose allegiance was not with him. And the meeting was even on solid ground. He was at great disadvantage. Karsten would never take such risks. Szalai Rajmund was certainly a different kind of king.
Would they withdraw?
In his mind, they would withdraw only if their opponents would withdraw first. They had to feel the intention to de-escalate the situation like he did. For better or worse, it had been quiet in and around the town for the next several days, and peace returned to the town albeit fragile. Of course, it didn’t last long. An airship scout made his report, and the four people, Kamil, Cezary, Raem, and Nestor, were gathered once more for another war council.
“There was a clash at fort Edimaia front, and fort Tonga is being besieged.”
Apparently, an army of 12,000 strong from Estana camped right at fort Edimaia while not laying a siege. The defenders at the fort understood it as a sign that they were preparing to siege and launched a preemptive strike in conjunction with the royal army led by Karsten. This battle ended in a stalemate with the Estana army withdrawing with some losses.
“Wait, the Estana army was not defeated?” Kamil raised his voice. It appeared that the enemy army was attacked from the front and rear. If everything went right, the enemy army should have been defeated or at least suffered a heavy loss.
“They suffered some losses and withdrew in an orderly manner,” the scout clarified.
Cezary folded his arms with a concerned face. Kamil did not like what he was told, either. Estana was nothing like the Siwen who was utterly incompetent.
“Your report isn’t finished, it seems. Is there more?”
“Yes, it is about fort Tonga. It is currently besieged by two forces, one from the Siwen and the other from Atra. Lord Fenchel’s army is advancing toward the fort. His army ran into some undead hordes and suffered minor losses. He is going around the area, thus causing a delay in his expected arrival.”
He vaguely recalled what Isaac told him previously. How the massacred city of Lyatan was abandoned because of the constant appearance of undead at night.
“His army shouldn’t have gone by Lyatan. How did he run into the undead?” Then he realized that his army did go by Lyaten since his destination was Fort Tonga, which was directly north of Lux. Meanwhile, Cezary cast a questionable look at him because Kamil knew something he did not.
“Undead? Lyatan?” He wondered aloud. “Would you care to fill me in?”
There wasn’t much point in hiding when the cat was out of the bag, thus Kamil explained to him that, ever since the massacre, undead had been appearing in and out of where Lyatan used to be.
“So, that was the real reason why the city was abandoned ultimately,” said Cezary with repeated nods. “Does this mean the blessing is wearing off?”
What?
“The blessing? What are you talking about?”
Kamil was aware of the blessing he spoke of. The holy queen, Maco, used Macomaco tea plants to cure the land. However, he had never told anyone about the vision he received from wind elementals. He wondered how Cezary became aware of the blessing.
“Well, due to the conflicts and everything, I understand that we failed to keep you updated on our exchanges with Lord Weber.”
Apparently, Aaron’s dictionary had been copied using Kamil’s “copy” crystal some time ago, and Aaron had been sending copies of the stone tablets for some time. Flora had been the main translator with both Cezary and Nestor spending their spare time assisting her. At the moment, they translated only three tablets. Needless to say, however, they learned a lot from what little they had access to.
“It’s amazing that nobody has been paying attention to the ancient texts,” Cezary lamented while looking visibly disgusted. “It contains so much useful information about our own world.”
Some nations, like Estana, revered ancient texts while the Siwen outright discarded them. As for the Kingdom of Egra, they weren’t even aware of the fact that Tantan had an ancient archive. Whatever records they may have had for their holy queen Maco, they were lost over time. Apparently, nobody really cared about the records. Perhaps, someone cared, but they had to be looked after for generations, which was something easier said than done. A collective mindset was required which wasn’t really possible when the whole kingdom was divided and whatnot. Likewise, the Siwen had been fairly unstable as well. Estana was the only nation whose territory had been relatively stable which was, in part, due to their capital, Deltalago being a natural fortress and that besieging the city was virtually impossible due to the presence of giant spiders which could wipe out a small army on its own, meaning as long as Estana royal family held onto Deltalago, any sort of rebellion wasn’t viable. This translated to a stable nation and their collective mindset of preserving ancient text lived on for generations.
“So, what have you found out?”
“The land the Kingdom of Egra currently occupies, bar the newly acquired Northern territory, used to be deadland where it was full of undead. It was simply inhabitable. About a thousand years ago, the holy queen Maco fled from what was the Siwen empire, to the South for reasons unknown.”
“Do we know why she fled in the first place? Who was she anyway?”
“Her original name was Maco Mazet, a fourth princess from the Siwen royal family. We don’t know why she fled to the South, but she had a sizable following when she made the journey. We don’t know how she cured the land, either. Well, we’ve translated only three tablets so far. I am certain that we will find out more.”
“I see…” Kamil trailed off. If the blessing was indeed wearing off, he knew how to restore it although being able to do it was an entirely different matter since it required someone with all four elemental connections. He wasn’t going to reveal anything to anyone yet and was going to let them figure out as much as they can before weighing in his knowledge. The bottom line, however, was that there was no way to restore the blessing at the moment unless he somehow acquired two more elemental types.
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“Let us get back to the topic,” Kamil told the others while clearing his throat.
“Indeed, we shall,” Cezary compiled at once. “Actually, I have a suggestion.” Then he hesitated which was rare for him.
“Go on, Sir Waszak.”
“With your permission, I’d like to perform a night raid with airships. We will recommission scout ships.”
“A … night raid?”
Cezary went on to explain his plan. He wanted to take three airships to battles and basically throw down exploding fire crystals on enemy armies. The basic concept was similar to what they had done against the Siwen during the last year, using magic to inflict damage. Using the airships, however, they would be able to get in and out at will without any restrictions.
“This will probably work only in this conflict,” he added. “Estana will soon have their own airships and will be able to counter.”
He also noted that this would work only for armies that were out in the wilderness. It would be pointless to use this attack on those who could take covers.
“The ideal condition for this attack is at night where they won’t see us coming,” he added.
“So, I assume that you intend to send the airships out to Fort Edimaia or Bika.”
“Since that’s where the current fights are breaking out. Yes, I do plan to-”
A man rushed in. He kneeled down immediately, looking down. He was one of the pilots for scout airships.
“I bring news! A fight broke out at Fort Reen and Fort Tebovo! Lord Harga’s force was defeated!”
“Defeated?!” Kamil uttered in shock. The others in the room were equally shocked.
“Fort Reen is right now under siege!”
He turned to Cezary whose eyebrows were furrowed.
“A change of the plan” Cezary spoke in haste. “We send the airships to Fort Reen right now and will perform the raid.”
“I will lead the airships,” Kamil volunteered.
“Normally, I’d advise against that but I feel you must go.”
Raem looked displeased. It was him who should have been chosen, but he could not ride an airship because of his tendency of sea sickness and fear of heights.
“I shall get things ready,” Nestor said while rushing out.
Cezary added, “Time is indeed of essence. We must save the fort or our Southern front is going to collapse.”
The fact that Noah’s army was defeated was very disheartening to hear but not completely unexpected. The army was gathered from Western houses who barely had the time to get their things together after the last war. Two years wasn’t enough time to create entirely new armies, train, and equip them. It must have been taxing for the Western houses. But there was a question: Why did Noah initiate the attack in the first place? Logically, he should have stayed within the fortress. He wasn’t a fool. He must have known that his army wasn’t trained enough.
Loads of questions, but that’s for later.
It didn’t take long for Kamil to get prepared because there was nothing he needed to bring. He no longer needed to bring any weapons because he could summon magical ones. All he had to bring was just a coin purse in case he needed some money. Interestingly, Flora was waiting for him in his room.
“Flora? What are you doing here?”
It wasn’t that rare that she was in his room, but it was always with him calling her into the room. She was never voluntarily in his room, until this point.
“I was told that you are leaving for a battle.”
She was told? By whom? If so, news travels really fast.
He was somewhat doubtful that she was told. He believed that she eavesdropped. Why, he didn’t know.
“I am. Is there something you wish to talk about before I leave?”
“When are you leaving?”
“The sooner the better. Time is of essence.”
There was a moment of rather uncomfortable silence, and he just didn’t have the time to waste around.
“If we have nothing to talk about, I shall take my leave.”
As soon as he said so, he turned around and headed toward the door, at which point he felt a gentle push from his back. Glancing back, he found her hugging him from behind.
“Ehm…” Completely lost on what in the world was going on, he could only stammer a few words out. Due to him being slightly shorter than her, her face was in a rather awkward position. Under ideal circumstances, her face should be buried in his back, not on the back of his head.
“Please come back alive,” she said very timidly, literally to his ears.
Wwwwwwoooooaaaaahhhh
He screamed internally and could feel blood rushing into his groin. He tried to calm himself down, but the sudden simulation was a bit too much. He felt like he was in a sauna. He had no idea what made her do such a thing.
“O, ooof course, I will,” he stammered.
If it wasn’t for the task ahead of him, he might have really pushed her down to a bed and made out because she was coming onto him. There was no denying that. Without looking back, simply because he was way too embarrassed, he walked out of his room and headed straight to the landing platform where Nestor and other words were in a real rush to load things up. There were two other airships in the sky, either waiting to depart or waiting to get down to load up.
“Sir? Your face is all red. Are you alright? Do you have a fever?” Nestor asked casually.
“No, I do not. It’s fine. My room was a bit too warm.”
It’s hard to believe that she -
He shook his head, trying to forget the event for the time being. There were more important things to do at the moment.
“How long until we are ready to depart?”
“This one is almost done. We have one more airship to load up. Give me an hour.”
Nodding along, he observed stacks of exploding fire crystals being loaded up. There were a lot of fire crystals. Under normal circumstances, it would have been his job creating these crystals. Thanks to Wiara’s arrival, however, some loads had been taken off his shoulders.
“Has Wiara settled down well?” He figured he’d ask about her. She wasn’t involved in higher priority affairs since she was too new; She could not fully be trusted yet. Unlike Nestor, who was a noble and had a clear allegiance due to the Vogel working for the Flissing, Wiara was someone with a mucky past. Not belonging to a noble house meant that she had no one, who was trustworthy to them, who would vouch for her, and she had no history of employment that could be proven. It was basically just her words that they had to trust. Therefore, rightfully so, she was barred from joining the war council and any meetings that required confidentiality.
Hard to recruit people. Even harder to fully trust them…
“She is doing alright. She is a veteran and knows what to do,” Nestor replied while busily gesturing to workers where to go and unload sacks.
“Can we trust her?”
“I would say… it’s too early to be honest. Perhaps after this ordeal, we could trust her more.”
She claimed to be from Gonne, working under a wealthy merchant. If she had any shady motive, it was indeed probably too early to tell. With the conflict occurring in the North, it was to be the first test for her. He silently observed Nestor do this job, opting to wait around. When everything was done, Cezary showed up with a small group of soldiers who were apparently instructed on what to do thoroughly. Among them, there was Lara who was here in Raem’s place.
“Lara? Are you coming?”
“My guy can’t come, so I am coming in his place,” she replied proudly while puffing her chest.
Is that something you should be proud of …?
She was ever an oddball, something of an enigma in fact. He could never guess whatever was going on inside of her head. She was a good spearwoman, however. The local soldiers respected her for that. Besides, in spite of her young age of fourteen, she had gone through more battles than regular soldiers did. She was an agile fighter. Her body was so light that she literally flew around in fights. Cezary approached him at once meanwhile.
“Milord, the men have been told what their job is. You may give them additional orders later according to situation. Your primary task is, in case something unexpected occurs, hold them together and get back safely. We cannot afford to lose any of the airships.”
Indeed, each of them cost at least a few gold coins. They could not afford any losses.
Giving him a firm nod, Kamil replied, “I will bring good news.”
With that, Kamil went aboard an airship which Lara was on. As they took off, he could see Raem at the mining barracks, training potential soldiers. He, too, was busy since he was to train a hundred soldiers to form the first army of Laufeld.
“Everybody is busy as fuck in Laufeld,” Lara spoke, her eyes looking down on Raem. “I am probably the least busy bitch here.”
Her choice of words needed to be looked at, but he chose not to pick on her anymore because she was with Raem. It was no longer his business to meddle in her affairs any further. Only Raem and, to an extent, Karla, were the ones responsible for her. She and Raem weren’t exactly married. Commoners didn’t exactly draw a clear line between living together and marriage. In fact, the concept of marriage simply did not exist for them. They moved in together and had children eventually.
“How are things with Raem by the way?”
“We moved in together a while ago.”
His eyes went wide. “You two moved in together?!”
“Did no one tell you?”
“Nope!” He protested.
“Well.” She scratched her head innocently. “I told you just now.”
“You people…”
She retorted with a pout, “Like I said, everybody has been busy, OKAY?!”
Instead of apologizing, now she was barking at him.
“Okay, okay, whatever. Geez, calm down, will you.”
On a flip side, she was probably one of very few who he could talk to on a truly casual level.
It didn’t take long for the trio of airships to arrive at Fort Reen. It took less than a day. By the time of their arrival, it was sunrise, and the sky was drenched with crimson-orange colors. Although the ground was still covered in darkness, torches and other various light sources from the Estana army that was surrounding Fort Reen made it clear to see that the fortress was under siege.
Clenching eyes, Kamil began a rough counting of the army.
“Slightly over 20,000, I believe,” he said.
Will just these three airships be able to inflict any meaningful damage?
He really did wonder. He had strong doubts, but it was too late for that. Looking back, he found three soldiers on each side with a sack of exploding fire crystals on their feet. Another soldier was standing by with more sacks of crystals in the back. They all looked determined.
“Where are you all from?”
Four out of seven were from Gonne. He specifically asked those from Gonne.
“What do you feel about this?” He was asking whether they felt right in doing what they were about to do, fighting for a nation they were forced to join.
“I don’t care really,” one of them said with a shrug. “Back in Gonne, every day was dull. We worked, got paid a few coins, bought some food, and got by. Occasionally, some Siwen nobles would bark at us for being poor and shit.”
Other three nodded along in agreement.
“At least in Laufeld, I feel like I am making a difference.”
A purpose in this perhaps dull world without a lot of options for entertainment. It had always been survival first and foremost. Entertainment was the last thing anyone considered.
“It’s not boring in Laufeld,” another chimed in.
Kamil looked back down on the besieging army. They were resting for the night. Since the sun was just coming up, they would soon resume their siege. He could see ladders being prepared as well as four siege towers along with two trebuchets. Burnt down battering rams were seen in front of gates. It looked like the defenders put up a fight, and they were preparing other means of siege.
“Can you guys see where the siege weapons are?”
“No, sir.”
It was still pitch dark on the ground. Only he could see.
“We are going to wait a bit. Once you can see what’s down there, we are going to aim for siege towers first and then the trebuchets. We will leave ladders alone. Once our targets are taken care of, we will aim for tents and anything that looks like they are storing food in. If everything is done, target soldiers. Unload every crystal at them, then we will get out of here.”
“Yes, sir!” They complied in unison. Casting levitation, he gave the same order to the soldiers on the two other airships. Since he cast levitation, he was flying around and approached the fortress. It was his first time seeing the fortress. With smoking arising from here and there, it had clearly seen better days. There were numerous corpses on top of the walls, and some of the defenders were dozing off behind covers. It appeared that the fortress had been under siege for just a day, and it was not going to fall anytime soon. As much as he wanted to meet Noah Harger, formerly Harder, it wasn’t the right moment. He had a job to do and wanted to meet him in a better circumstance.
“Looks like it’s finally getting brighter.”
Sunlight was finally lifting darkness off the ground. As soon as the soldiers on airships could see locations of siege equipment, they immediately began dropping exploding fire crystals. From the ground, it looked like shining red dots were dropping out of the sky, and Estana soldiers had no idea what was coming at them. The siege towers, covered with wood and cured leather, caught on fire real quick as soon as fire crystals exploded on contact. The two trebuchets withstood the initial bombardment. However, its ropes that were required for operation were burnt to crisp and soon enough they caught on fire as well. By the time the Estana soldiers became clearly aware of what was happening to them, most of their siege equipment was in tatters. Of course, worse was coming for them as their tents began catching fire violently since they were made of crudely waxed linen. The enemy soldiers were trying to kill fire fanatically. Without a readily available source of water, however, their efforts were futile.
“This is surprisingly effective…,” he mumbled while he watched enemy soldiers losing most of their equipment and food. Some of them caught fire on their bodies as well amid the chaos. Some archers on the ground fired their arrows, but the majority of the arrows didn’t even reach where the airships were. A few that did had lost its momentum and posed no threat whatsoever, bouncing off balloons of the airships. Soon, a large portion of the ground was ablaze. If the hell descended upon the mortal ground, this was probably how it might have looked like. Mere three airships were effectively dealing with 20,000 soldiers. Granted, the element of surprise probably had an effect. Still, this was a highly successful endeavor. Many soldiers were on fire and were rolling on the ground. Not many of them were successful, however, since exploding fire crystals continued to rain on them. Even those that had managed to extinguish fire on their bodies were suffering from severe burn wounds.
“We are very low on the crystals!” Lara shouted in his direction. He flew back and ordered the airships to head over to the fortress. When the airship he was aboard touched down, Noah Harga clad in full plate armor was waiting on the ground, flanked by several officers.
“Lord Harga, it has been a while,” said Kamil while bowing with his palm on his chest. Noah did the same.
“Lord Fenchel, it has indeed been.”
It had been only a few years, and Noah hadn’t changed much except for his mustache.
“I heard that lady Harga was pregnant. What’s the news?”
“A daughter.” He smiled.
“Congratulations.”
They now had a son and a daughter. As a new house, the more children they had, the better. Noah approached Kamil and placed his hand on his shoulder.
“I saw what happened. Never in a million years had I thought to use airships like that.”
“You literally rained fire on them,” one of his officers behind him said.
“My advisor prepared everything.” Kamil deflected the praise. It was true. Cezary was behind it. He had prepared the exploding fire crystals in anticipation of an event like this. The airship itself was pretty much his invention as well although its core concept was discovered by Kamil.
“They are withdrawing!” A soldier on top of a wall shouted and repeated, “They are withdrawing!” Other soldiers on top of the wall began to cheer loudly.
Kamil should have been pleased but he wasn’t quite so. They withdraw simply due to their siege equipment being burnt down. Besieging a keep with just ladders was a foolish endeavor which the Siwen tried with Dido. Still, they should have suffered some casualties.
“Shouldn’t we chase them?!” One of the officers behind Noah raised his voice.
“No,” Kamil flatly rejected his idea. “It’s inferno out there. Chasing them now will only incur your own loss without accomplishing much.”
The officer looked down in disappointment.
“Lord Harga, I heard that your force was defeated. How did this happen? And what is the size of your army?”
“Let us enter my office. A bit too many ears around.”
Noah led Kamil to his office which was one of rooms on the third floor of the keep. Once inside, he stood by a window and Kamil stood by the only desk in the room.
“9,000 was what I had. Even that was hard to assemble. We literally had to squeeze city guards to make that number. The Western cities are literally defenseless at the moment.”
Kamil could imagine the ordeal. Two years just wasn’t enough.
“Why did you confront the enemy army? They looked to be somewhere in the region of 20,000 men.”
“They tried to go around the fort; They did not seem to see us as a threat.”
It looked like Estana was provoking a fight. He was told that a fight broke out as well at Fort Edimaia. And here also according to Noah. They clearly wanted ground battles.
“What were the casualties?”
“We are down to about 7,000 men. We were outnumbered, and they were trained better. We were simply no match. I was aware of that but I couldn’t watch them get past us. The Western cities are defenseless at the moment.”
If the Estana army got past the fort and captured noble hostages from the cities, it would have been indeed headache worthy.
Noah continued to explain the situation. “Once we lost and withdrew to the fort, they started to besiege the keep. It was something we prepared for, though.”
Basically, he wanted the enemy to besiege the fortress to keep them away from settlements.
“I see.” Kamil nodded along. “I suppose you were within your right to have done so.” He saw little options. Perhaps, Noah was correct in his assessment and actions.
“Lord Harga, please use your airship to scout around. It’s been mighty useful in that regard.”
Noah had ordered an airship from them which was delivered a while ago.
“Will do.”
“I wish I could stay longer, but I must get back to Laufeld.”
Noah beamed a smile. “We are all busy at the moment. Go.”
They exchanged nods, and Kamil left.
Back on the airship, they were heading back to Laufeld pronto. While at it, he looked down to see where the Estana army was. Many burnt corpses could be seen, and the siege engines were reduced to files of ashes. He began counting the corpses on the ground; The number exceeded hundreds easily. It was clear that they did suffer some casualties. Unlike static resources, humans were far harder to replace.
They will probably come back, but that should take a while to replenish their siege engines and supplies.
He earned some time for Noah but couldn’t help to feel hopeless either way. Yes, they withdraw for the time being, but that wouldn’t change anything in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps, the night raid should have targeted men instead of siege engines. But what if they didn’t withdraw then?
Nothing is easy, damned shit.
There were three war fronts. A collapse of any war front would signal troubles. However, the Southern front was the most fragile one because there was no second barrier. For example, even if Fort Tonga had fallen, there was still Dido which was a city fortress. Even if Fort Edimaia fell, there was Keviel which was another city fortress. Now, if Fort Reen fell, there was nothing to hinder the invading force, giving them free reign to do whatever they wanted while they scrambled to divert forces to hunt them down. This was a tricky war unlike the Siwen invasion. They needed to sue for peace. In order to do so without conceding anything, they needed to be in a better position than where they currently were. Groaning with dissatisfaction, he continued to stare down at the burnt field that was quickly becoming further and further.