Edmund and Elias were on their horses on a hill. Their army of 6,000 men were a distance behind them at the bottom of the hill. The two men were observing Fortress Tonga under heavy siege. There were several burnt siege towers near its walls. Broken and burnt ladders were scattered about on the ground. And charred battering rams were present near its two gates, North and South. Enemy corpses were filling up literally on the bottom of its walls. At the moment, the besieging armies were divided into two groups, presumably one was the Atra army. The other was the Siwen. It was clear which one was the Siwen by just looking at how disorganized soldiers were. They were exchanging arrows non-stop while soldiers were trying to lay ladders to claim its walls, which wasn’t having much success at the moment.
“As expected from the Flissing. When it comes to defending a fortress, nobody does it better,” Edmund remarked, looking impressed. “Elias, your opinion on our next move?”
Holding his chin, Elias studied over the battlefield. “I don’t think we need to worry about the fortress itself. Lord Flissing has the situation under control.”
“Clearly.”
For as long as the Kingdom of Egra existed, whoever was in charge of Dido defended the Northern border. Unlike the Fenchel, the Flissing wasn’t the original founder of Dido but they had done the job very well ever since they were granted the city. Of course, it didn’t take away the fact that Baptiste was exceptional at his job. He and Edmund were the two pillars of the Kingdom. Karsten alone wasn’t enough to have survived several wars in this generation. In a sense, the kingdom had been extremely lucky to have been gifted three capable generals.
“I say we wait,” Elias declared. “Eventually though, we will tackle the Siwen army.”
Edmund chuckled. It was obvious. The Siwen army was very disorganized. Any general could tell this by just looking at how food was distributed which required on field experience to get it right. Over a distance, several Siwen soldiers were cooking something over several campfires, and they were arguing and fighting over who’d get whatever they were making. Additionally, the wounded were left to fend themselves, ripping tents or extra clothes to produce makeshift bandages. It was a rather ugly sight to see an army in such a disarray. Worst of all, they failed to notice Edmund’s army approaching. Granted, they were using a hill to conceal themselves, but a proper army camp should have scouts scanning twenty four seven.
Having seen enough, they turned around their horses and went down the hill. Theo Ros was in front of the army, waiting for orders.
“Sir Ros, we will withdraw further away. Find a spot where the men could hide effectively,” Edmund said.
“For how long, Milord?”
The duration mattered. If it was going to last more than a day, they would need to deploy tents. If not, they’d just make themselves comfortable.
“We will attempt a night attack, so it won’t be too long. Don’t deploy tents. No campfire, either.”
Theo nodded affirmatively at once and turned around toward the men who were a distance away and attentively looking at him. He was an agile warrior, thus he wore half plate. His long spear, which was even taller than himself, was equipped on his back. His spear had a clever mechanism in the middle where he could fold it, reducing its height by half, thus enabling him to conceal it better. When folded, it effectively became a short spear. Looking his men into his eyes, instead of barking out an order, he made a series of hand gestures. The ones in front seemed to have understood and whispered to the men right behind them. The silent order was relayed to the entire army within seconds, and they spread out to set up whatever they had to do to make themselves comfortable.
“Is that the…?” One of the soldiers pointed at the sky at one point. Edmund and Elias looked up, following his finger to find a tiny dot circling around in the sky.
“An airship, huh,” Edmund remarked with clenched eyes.
“Must be from Laufeld. I’ve seen it flying around. They are gathering intel, I believe,” Elias said, also looking up with clenched eyes.
Chuckling, he said, “You know, I wondered what the hell the kid was thinking when he suggested that he’d step out of the limelight and go to Laufeld of all places.”
Laufeld was founded by farmers who left Lux on their own accord. The farmers were led by a distant member of the Fenchel house a long time ago. He had two goals by venturing out. It was to establish his own sphere of influence and help alleviate food shortage which Lux was going through at that time. The land around Lux was quite perfect for wheat. However, there was a limit to how far local farmers could venture out without immediate fear of being harassed by monsters. Thus, it was logical to set out to establish a settlement and protect accordingly. He was mildly successful in establishing what would become Laufeld. The Lux Fenchel sent out a small army to help build log walls so that they could defend the village with a minimal amount of soldiers. However, the man who set out to establish his own settlement passed away due to an illness and left no heir. Thus, the ownership of the village fell into the Lux Fenchel rightfully so. The village would eventually be named Laufeld, and the Fenchel continued to treat it as a satellite settlement. It provided enough extra wheat to satisfy Lux’s food shortage, thus the Fenchel had little need to install a proper governor and risk letting it gain full independence.
“I understand that you didn’t want to let him have Laufeld,” Elias said while tracking the airship in the sky. “But he was willing to step aside for your son. It was perhaps a small price to pay instead of risking an internal conflict.”
Any form of succession crisis was always costly. Noble houses did whatever they could to avoid it, even if it meant paying off the other.
“I don’t think I would have been able to get rid of him anyway.”
“No, you could have perished instead. He already had a few allies within the manor. If you crossed the line, he would have crossed also. It would have turned ugly, I am sure.”
Edmund groaned, recalling back at the last royal party where Kamil mentioned the birth of his son, which was never mentioned to him. He and Elias suspected a spy within, and Emily was suspected because it was odd that she never went with him to Laufeld. However, she never left Lux afterwards and ended up settling down as a member of the Lux guild. She had been observed for over a year without any sign of attempting to make contact with Kamil. Elias eventually concluded that she was an unfortunate victim of suspicions. Edmund was annoyed and amused equally by the fact that he was played by a kid. It wasn’t the first time he was played by him, either.
“He was really adamant that a son would be born as well,” Edmund added. “It was as if he knew absolutely certain that a son would be born.”
And he did convince him that it’d be true.
“It’s intuition more or less,” Elias replied, dismissing his concern.
“What made him so sure, though?”
“We will never find out.”
Edmund shrugged in return. It wasn’t in Elias’ interest to keep fueling his doubts. As far as he was concerned, Kamil had left, and the matter was over with. Additionally, both men knew that they would soon lose control over him along with Laufeld. That was because of the night raid that stabilized the Southern front. Once the conflict was over, Kamil was likely to be granted Laufeld fully and become a tier 1 noble. Since both had the same last name, he would be given a choice to change his last name. Should he choose to keep Fenchel as his last name, Edmund’s house would be known as the Lux Fenchel where Kamil’s house would be known as the Laufeld Fenchel. Once Laufeld is lost, Edmund would need to open diplomatic talks with Kamil for a new wheat deal. It was certain that it was no longer going to be as favorable as before.
“It’s much better to keep him as an ally,” he added, reminding Edmund not to worry too much.
“Well, let’s focus on the matter at hand.”
“Good.”
As darkness descended upon the ground, it became pitch black. A form of a light source was required to perform any actions in such pitch black darkness. Edmund’s camp was trying to be discreet. Therefore, they weren’t using fire to light the place up. What they had instead was fire crystal lamps with shutters. With its shutter ever so slightly open, they could control how much light it let out. This was their own invention. After the Lux Fenchel purchased the airship schematic, some of his own scholars were fired up and wanted to invent something. This was the result. The invention of the airship opened eyes for many scholars who were pretty much stagnant in their fields. Seeing the impossible, flying, being invented right in front of their eyes made them realize that anything should have been possible as long as they were open-minded and creative enough. This shutter lamp was a small step. Another invention was in its final stage in addition.
A scout had returned who had been observing the camp of the Siwen army, giving them green light to go ahead.
“Absolutely no one was watching the perimeter, and they seemed to be very disorderly.” He spoke, down with one knee and his eyes downcast.
Edmund let out a silent scoff at the scout’s findings.
“They never learned a lesson, did they,” he remarked to which Elias shrugged, and Theo beamed a crooked grin.
The Siwen was simply too corrupt to be able to revert back. From the very top, it was rotten. Of course, after their complete loss to the Kingdom of Egra, there were some voices that wished to reform the government and its structure. Alas, such voices were quickly shuffled after being told that it was just a fluke. Of course, an entire army of 60,000 men being wiped out was never a fluke, but they claimed so anyway while dismissing calls for a reform. The writing had been on a wall since that point with rapidly growing discontent from common folks due to extremely high taxes to fuel their next war. What made it probably worse was how Siwen nobles reacted to the loss. They took their anger and embarrassment to the common folks, barking at them that it was their fault that they lost the war. In their own words, “they weren’t good enough.”, explicitly telling them that no properly trained army should have gone down like this. They did not even acknowledge the fact that their force was wiped out by mage corps. All in all, it was a tightly sealed boiling pot that was about to explode. All they needed was a final nail to be hammered in.
“We move out,” Edmund gave out an order. “Everyone will wear a piece of cloth on their face in order to identify themselves.”
Those around him nodded firmly in acknowledgement.
He added, “Our primary task is not to kill them. It is to destroy their camp. If their army is as disorganized as the report claims, there should be no coherence among them. They aren’t even an army, just a group of conscripted peasants. Remove the reason for them to stay, they will scatter.”
Everyone nodded once again, their eyes full of determination. When it came to beating the shit out of the Siwen, the people of Egra were always extra determined. Even those from the newly acquired territories started to show a certain level of disdain toward their former country because, under Egra’s rule, their lives became much better overall. It literally opened their eyes that their overlords sucked literally.
“We will rendezvous back here. A few of us will remain here to maintain the perimeter.”
It took a short moment for Edmund’s order to spread out throughout the six thousand men. Once everyone understood their order, Theo Ros led most of the army silently toward the Siwen besieging camp. Meanwhile, Edmund and Elias along with about a hundred of his personal guards stayed at the camp. A leader never fought on front lines in the Kingdom of Egra after all.
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“What do you think will happen once the Siwen army is defeated?” Edmund asked Elias, both of them were on top of the same hill a day before, watching Theo Ros and his men approaching the enemy camp silently.
Elias replied with a hand on his chin, “They are on their last legs. This war, they shouldn’t have even participated.”
The Siwen was the exact opposite of Estana. Corruption ran amok, and their history was war-ridden. It used to be the Siwen empire where it used to rule the Eastern end to Western end. Then a civil war divided the nation into three. That was about a thousand years ago. The nation had been in decline ever since.
“Do you think the Siwen will fall if they lose this?”
“It will be either by Atra or by their own citizens.”
Folding arms, Edmund groaned. “Shouldn’t we try to conquer some cities then?”
“And how are we going to deal with their corrupt upper class? Let Atra deal with them,” Elias retorted. They already had their hands full with nobles from Maiava. The Siwen nobles within the city wanted everything for nothing. They demanded to be treated with respect and wanted their status quo upheld. Long story short, Fabian kicked most of them out to the North. Such a method worked only because it was just one city. If they had to deal with a whole bunch of them from numerous cities, such an action would literally be asking for uprisings of some sort.
“Even so, I would be questioned if I just let Atra take all of the remaining cities.”
They were better prepared to deal with the cold in the North this time, but the core weakness remained: The lack of numbers. Edmund’s army was 6,000-strong and were predominantly infantry with some archers mixed in. They had no siege engines since they didn’t expect to besiege any settlements. While obtaining materials to construct siege engines was a possibility, the main issue was the lack of numbers. For a siege to work properly, an army had to be big enough. If a besieging army was large enough, there was a decent chance of a settlement surrendering even before they were besieged. To lay siege on any of larger Siwen settlements, a 6,000-army wasn’t going to suffice at all.
Meanwhile, Theo Ros and his men were slowly approaching the Siwen siege camp. Cracking sound from numerous campfires and bits of ember were flying about in the air which helped the men to conceal their footsteps. Now, instead of trying to attack right away. He and his men casually walked toward the camp. Of course, not all at once. Theo and several men walked in and then the others slowly flooded in. Interestingly, no Siwen soldiers minded their presence. All of them had the lower half of their faces covered but, at night, such detail wasn’t as bluntly clear.
“Spread out,” he whispered to the men behind him. “When I run amok, that will be the sign.”
Most Siwen soldiers were exhausted to a point that they were sleeping on the ground while snoring loudly and clearly didn’t care whether they were on a makeshift bed or not. There were a few men who were standing guard but they were dozing off as well. Evading them with ease, Theo eventually ended up at a large tent. There was a pair of guards who were also dozing off at its entrance. Assuming that the tent was of importance, he grabbed a torch from a nearby torch post and threw it down at the tent while casually walking away as if nothing happened. By the time the tent was engulfed in a violent flame, it was already too late to put out.
“FIRE!” The guards bellowed their lungs out. “Fire! Fire!!!”
The whole camp was seeing fire breakout here and there in an uncontrollable manner, and the Siwen soldiers were running around like headless chickens, unable to do much since there was no permanent water source nearby. Soon enough the whole camp was ablaze, and Siwen soldiers started to abandon the camp. This was when Theo drew out his spear and shouted with it in the air.
“ATTACK!”
His men, who had been silently waiting, drew out their weapons and started to cut down clueless and defenseless Siwen soldiers who were so confused at this point that they weren’t even sure what was going on other than fire had broken out. Meanwhile, Theo was fanatically searching around for something or someone. He was specifically looking for a general of some sort. It was the only reliable way for him to earn prestige. Like Noah, he also intended to follow his path to become a landed noble.
“Where…, where….!”
He was running around and looked for a general and found an obese man fleeing in a rush with only his undergarments. There looked to be a pair of half-naked women with him as well, out in the wilderness with only a thin nightgown. The obese man was likely the commander of the army. Obesity was very rare in this world since sugar wasn’t readily available to common folks, and people had to work all day long to keep themselves fed. Only lazy nobles would have a chance to get fat.
“You dare to bring whores to a battlefield?!” Theo growled with an enraged voice. “Elementals of fire, heed my call! Feel my anger and manifest it as a fireball!”
A ball of fire formed the top of his spear which increased in its size until it reached the size of a soccer ball. He swung his spear around, and the ball of fire flew toward the obese man and struck him on his lower legs. Screaming, the man fell down while the women near him abandoned him at once and disappeared into darkness. The women would be very lucky to survive the night. Werewolves were known to favor women over men.
“What the fuck! Hot! Fire! Water! Help!” The obese man was trying to put out the fire on his legs by hands. Since there wasn’t anything to burn, the fire was put out with a mild burn on his skin. When he looked relieved and was about to stand up, Theo’s spear had pierced his neck. Choking with blood, the man looked at Theo with his eyes full of disbelief. He couldn’t speak a word while futilely trying to pull the spear out of his neck.
“Obesity is a mark of a worthless noble,” Theo declared as he struck his spear further into his neck, eventually piercing through his flesh. His body eventually went limp after a short moment due to asphyxiation.
“Sir!” One of his fellow men shouted at him from a short distance. “The camp is clear. Most of the enemies have fled. Should we chase?”
“No, let the monsters take care of them,” said Theo with his eyes fixed at the dead man at the end of his spear. The whole area was brightly lit with fire, and surprisingly only a few men were dead on the ground.
“This man came out of that tent,” he said while pointing at a luxurious tent which wasn’t yet set on fire. “Search inside and look for his identity.”
“Yes, sir!”
The obese man did turn out to be the supreme commander of the army which meant that Theo had earned the highest honor from this relatively easy battle. Edmund’s army didn’t really inflict any damage to enemy soldiers directly in this attack. However, as the enemy soldiers fled in all directions at the dead of night, a lot of them were consumed by monsters. Those who managed to survive the night went straight to their home instead of reporting back.
With the Siwen besieging army literally vanishing over a night, the Atra army, about 30,000 men, was in a limbo. They could no longer maintain the siege and withdrew a distance after abandoning their camp. With the immediate threat taken care of, Edmund and Baptiste finally met at the Southern gate. They exchanged a fist bump.
“You’ve come to my rescue again,” Baptiste said gleefully with a smile.
“As if you needed any. They could have besieged you for years, and your fortress wouldn’t have fallen,” Edmond replied equally gleefully.
There was Daniel a short distance behind him who bowed once he noticed that Edmund saw him.
“You brought your son?”
It was a fairly risky move. If both of them fell in combat, it would mark the end of the Flissing. Granted, the house did have distant relatives to take over, but the loss of the father and the son would severely weaken the overall influence. There was even a chance that they could lose their landholdings in such a case.
“The lad is old enough. He needs to learn the ways of the Flissing first hand.” Then he beamed a crooked grin. “Now, how is your son? I mean, the real one. What’s his name?”
“It’s Reuben. He has just started walking.”
“Good, good!” He laughed pleasantly, but Edmund’s face was a bit dark.
“Look, Bap. I am sorry about your daughter.”
“What? Did something happen to her?”
“No, I mean …”
In Edmund’s mind, Baptiste allowed the marriage in an expectation of Flora becoming the wife of the Lux Fenchel. However, as things stood, that was not going to happen.
“Fear not, dude,” Baptiste said bluntly with a grin. “My girl is where she should be. My son-in-law is building a whole city from nothing. I have no issue with him. He is a man, period.”
Edmund beamed a bitter smile. There was no doubt in both men’s minds that Kamil was a gem, and perhaps he should have been selected as the heir to the Lux Fenchel. He may have not been his biological son, but the blood connection still existed. There would have been no problem for him to inherit Lux legally.
“Anyway, what now?” He chose to change the subject, and Baptiste tapped on his shoulder.
“Come on in. Let us have a drink. Atra can’t do a thing at the moment.”
The fortress had a permanently stationed army of a thousand. Baptiste’s own army was six thousand. Added with Edmund’s army, their force stood at 13,000 strong and were in a defensive position inside of a heavily fortified fortress. The Atra force of 30,000 wasn’t enough to crack the fortress at this point.
About ten days later, during which the Atra army didn’t move one bit, they received shocking news which arrived via an airship.
“Every Siwen city is revolting!” A scout, clad in leather armor, made his report in front of Edmund and Baptiste in a hall who were dining lavishly. The men looked at each other with bemused eyes but didn’t seem too surprised.
“They had it coming,” Baptiste remarked.
After their army was scattered, those who survived returned to their homes and told the others what had occurred. The common folks were enraged by the fact that they were defeated once again due to sheer negligence. Another fact that made them madder was that they didn’t put up a fight at all. Questioning their upper class, common folks began to arm themselves in defiance. Predictably, the Siwen nobles attempted to suppress them only to find out that they were dealing with a potential revolt. The situation could have been under control if it wasn’t for some tone-deaf nobles who continued to suppress their people. Eventually, a full-blown conflict broke out between the lower and upper class. Having been drained of their soldiers, the nobles didn’t quite have enough men to combat rapidly encroaching pitchforks. Additionally, some of their own soldiers turned against them. The outcome was a foregone conclusion. Regardless of what was happening over there, Edmund could not leave the fortress while the Atra force was camping outside. He would need to wait until they got the wind of the event.
“I understand that you are taking Esther in,” said Edmund out of blue in front of Daniel who was taking a scheduled walk around the walls. It took some courage from Edmund to strike the conversation. They had run into each other numerous times during the past ten days, and it was only at this moment that he grew enough courage to speak to Daniel. In truth, he had been rather afraid of meddling in too much because he had deep regrets over what he had done to his first child, Icilia. Elias knew this and had repeatedly told him that it was the right choice at the time. Still, murdering his own flesh and blood with his own hands had left him a permanent scar.
“Yes, ehm…” Daniel wasn’t sure how to respond. Edmund abandoned her. Thus, he was right over her. For nobles, legality mattered significantly. He was never going to call Edmund his father-in-law for example. Still, the situation was a bit awkward because of the fact that Esther was his daughter.
“Fear not. I am not going to ask you anything. She is not legally my daughter.”
Legally, no. But there was the connection regardless.
“I will treat her fairly,” Daniel said eventually, but both men knew her fate was uncertain. She was to be a mistress after all. Mistresses were often at the whims of the first wife. Thankfully, their relationship was going to be a distant one which was definitely going to work in her favor. Edmund smiled and said no further words. There was nothing for him to say. Again, Esther was not legally his daughter. He moved his attention to the Atra army far away. It was clear that they hadn’t received any words on what was happening all over the Siwen. If they did, there would have been movements. They were able to obtain information swiftly thanks to the airship. Scouts traditionally were basically fast runners who were also adept at hiding at night. Spread of information was, therefore, slow. If a scout happened to perish, there wouldn’t be any information flowing in at all. With the airship, the scouting changed entirely. It was just too bad that they weren’t able to take advantage of this.
It took additional several days before the Atra army deconstructed their camp in haste and started moving North which was a clear sign that they became finally aware of what was going on. This was also the cue for Edmund’s army to move out as well. His goal was not to conquer any of the cities but tried to look the part. His report would say that he failed to conquer the former Siwen cities due to Atra.
“It’s quite surreal to take in that the Siwen is no more…,” Edmund said slowly while on his horse. His army was on move toward Suvi which was presumably where the Atra army was heading toward as well. If his army headed toward Elsos, there was a chance that he could conquer the city, but conquest wasn’t his focus. He needed excuses.
“Indeed, we knew they were on their last legs, but going down like this… Our mortal enemy is gone,” Elias replied.
It was what they ultimately wanted: The fall of the Siwen. But they couldn’t help feeling empty inside. Then they saw the airship in the sky once again, collecting information.
“Time’s changing, isn’t it,” Edmund said while looking up with clenched eyes to which Elias beamed a bitter smile. The time was indeed changing, and his time was coming to an end. He was 52 years old at this point and had a plan to enter semi-retirement soon by taking only administrative duties; He would no longer accompany Edmund to battlefields because he felt he no longer could fight in melee against younger men. If a man couldn’t defend himself in a battle, he shouldn’t be on it was his belief. He also thought about what Kamil told him before in Laufeld. Perhaps, it wasn’t too late to start a family since he was healthy with a youthful appearance. He had so far refused to be granted a fief because he was single. Given his past achievements, if he asked, he would certainly be granted land. Being a scholar and a gentleman at heart, he wanted to settle down somewhere quiet and perhaps start a new settlement like Kamil had been doing. Retirement didn’t seem such a bad idea in such a case. It wouldn’t be boring to watch a community grow right before his eyes while raising a family of his own. His wife, his childhood sweetheart, was his true love. Alas, she passed away from a disease. They married in their late teens, meaning it had been more than three decades. It had been so long that he could no longer clearly recall her face. While his love for her remained unchanged, he himself had changed over the years. He had been to numerous wars in his youth. He strongly felt that it was time to settle down, sit back, and enjoy life.
Elias Hunt was about to embark on a new chapter of his life in his twilight years.