Chapter 11

An hour before dawn, Joachim Ward stood outside Lady Zahradnik’s tent. The metal plates of his armour glinted in the firelight as he reached into a belt pouch to check his watch.

Five thirty…

Baroness Zahradnik appeared like clockwork, stepping out onto the veranda of her tent. Though it wasn’t required of her, she adhered to the army’s schedule, going to bed and waking up with her men. No, given everything he had seen of her, she probably went to bed later than her men and woke ahead of them as well.

The young noblewoman somehow maintained her dazzling appearance without the assistance of maids in the cramped and isolated wilderness outpost. She did have a small arsenal of magic items that even a High Noble might envy, so Joachim decided that she was similarly armed with whatever mysterious tools women required for grooming in her magical containers.

“Good morning, Priest Ward.”

“Good morning, Baroness Zahradnik.”

Lady Zahradnik briefly scanned the alley of tents leading to the centre of the outpost. All of the men were already out and about, making their preparations for the day. Many of them seemed to be awaiting her appearance as if their morning wouldn’t be complete without catching a glimpse of her.

“The General said something about the army’s schedule being especially rigorous,” the Baroness said in casual tones, “but this shouldn’t be too far removed from any rural village, should it?”

“No, my lady.”

One thing about General Ray was that he always tried to place himself above others. Not only that, but the men who served him also had to be greater than those who might be compared to them. They rode further, fought harder, slept less – or more, depending on who he was trying to appeal to – ate better and the list went on. It wasn’t all empty posturing as he did expect his men to be what he said they were and drove them to meet his expectations, but he tended to talk himself up and talk others down when he had no cause for civility.

It was certainly an approach that marked him as a civilian Noble. Anything and everything was used to create a superior position for negotiations and political manoeuvring. Joachim understood that not all civilian Nobles were like that and some didn’t need to go out of the way to make themselves appear greater than others, but such individuals were relatively rare.

Joachim’s father, who had attended the Imperial Magic Academy and the Imperial Military Academy at the same time as General Ray, had a different explanation for his behaviour. It was one that Joachim was inclined to believe: that Ray was a competitive man with an inferiority complex.

Born to a minor martial house in the Wyvernmark, General Ray had inherited a modest Barony and his ambitions always exceeded his modest means. His attempts at manoeuvring as a youth in the academy always fell short; he was always lacking in status, wealth and influence for whatever he was trying to do. As a result, he sought to leverage the power and resources of others to supplement his own.

The man was something of a contradiction. He was a Noble who had turned his back on his family’s traditions and had become a creature of cunning instead of a man of valour, yet had still joined the Imperial Army. To him, however, it was not a vocation of honoured service, but a path to power. General Ray’s ambitions were selfish ones and everything he did could be counted upon to be self-serving in some way. He clothed his naked ambition in all manner of pretence, technicality and a thin veil of plausibility.

Joachim’s grandfather had another word for him: bastard. While being a bastard was rationally not the bastard’s fault, Ray was a bastard in spirit – a man who had willingly chosen to forsake his family’s roots.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, m’lady.”

Lady Zahradnik made her way through the lane between the tents, greeting the men of her bodyguard with a pleasant smile and warm words. Joachim glanced nervously at each as he followed in her wake. Many of the men did not bother hiding their lustful regard for the young noblewoman, or perhaps they weren’t aware that they were wearing their feelings for her out in the open.

She was a liaison officer but never showed any interest in ‘liaisons’ with the men. Given how strong she appeared to be, Joachim had few worries about whether she could fend off their advances and the men should also have been aware of the fact. Actions often came absent of thoughts, however, and even good men could succumb to base instinct. As time went on and the battalion’s isolation from civilisation extended, he worried that their conduct would invite reprisals that resulted in Joachim’s rapidly-depleting mana pool.

They arrived at General Ray’s pavilion, where the battalion’s gathered intelligence and routes were being reviewed for the second half of their local sweep. The General nodded in greeting at Lady Zahradnik’s approach.

“Good morning, General Ray.”

“Good morning, Baroness Zahradnik.”

With a gesture of his hand, General Ray called for breakfast to be brought to the table. Many of the Baroness’ questions had been answered the previous day, so their discussion mostly consisted of the battalion’s immediate operational plans. Near the end, Lady Zahradnik made an odd request.

“Do you have any Weapon Masters in your battalion, Your Excellency?”

“That’s…we have men overseeing drills and exercises in the camp, my lady.”

That was probably the most he could claim with her being present to verify his words. Due to the nature of the General’s purposeful selection for his battalion and the generally young age of the soldiery in the Sixth Legion, certain types of soldiers were in short supply. Third-tier casters immediately came to mind, but there were many professional fields that required time to master.

The engineering corps was filled with inexperienced people, which occasionally manifested some ‘interesting’ results. Several careless errors by the logistics staff early on had led to the men needing to trade meat for grain and potatoes with nearby villages. Weapon Masters were even rarer than War Wizards.

“May I know why you’re asking?” Ray asked.

Ah, his mask is slipping...

With a ‘weakness’ identified and exposed, the General turned evasive. Truth had an amusing way of shattering pretence. The Baroness, however, did not seem to care either way.

“Because performing drills in the camp is a part of what the men should be doing,” she said. “I can’t have them stand around all day doing nothing, can I?”

“You’re not accompanying us on our sweep today, my lady?”

“That hardly seems reasonable,” the Baroness replied. “You’re rotating your companies because of the strenuous pace you’ve set. All of my men have been riding for two days straight. For half of them, it’s been three since they were on a sortie during the afternoon that I arrived.”

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“Then I can arrange for another squad to guard you while these men rest.”

“I’d like to keep disruptions to your operations at a minimum, Your Excellency,” Lady Zahradnik said. “Besides, you don’t plan on having me ride out every single day, do you?”

An awkward silence fell over the table. Several officers who had come to see the General – or perhaps use their business as an excuse to linger around Lady Zahradnik – stared at him.

Joachim’s lip twitched. Considering that she had been riding all over the place with the Fifth Legion while setting up the Death-series servitors, he highly doubted that the Baroness could get tired just from two days of following General Ray around. General Ray, however, had somehow convinced himself that she was a delicate flower sent for appearance’s sake. Based on how they behaved around her, most of the men in the battalion were lent to similar assumptions.

Because of the way they had been trained, their limited experience and the fact that they were being purposely kept apart from those who had the Empire’s martial culture hammered into them, all but a few of the soldiers in General Ray’s battalion were entirely unaware of the walking calamity that was a female martial Noble.

It didn’t have to be this way, but Joachim and the others who knew all remained silent on the matter out of some strange unspoken agreement. Because it was funny whenever someone’s erroneous assumptions abruptly intersected with reality, which was now happening dozens of times a day. No wonder the rest of his family was like this.

Whether General Ray – who should have known – eventually removed his self-imposed blinders or remained wilfully ignorant until whatever happened to him happened was the foremost question on everyone’s minds.

“I’ll let the officers on duty know, my lady,” the General said. “Please enjoy your rest.”

Lady Zahradnik saw the General and his three fresh companies off with a smile. After that, she informed her bodyguard about what they would be doing before returning to her tent. The men seemed glad for the opportunity to rest and a relaxed mood fell over them.

“Joachim.”

He looked up from where he was loosening his armour straps. The bodyguard’s other Cleric, Redwyn, came over from his tent on the opposite side of the campfire.

Redwyn was about as short as Joachim: a man with fiery hair which Joachim suspected was dyed. His scapular was red and adorned with the blazing iconography of the Fire God. He left his heater shield at his tent, but a mace remained in its scabbard at his waist.

“What’s going on?” He asked, “Why are we on camp duty all of the sudden?”

“We’ve been riding for two days,” Joachim answered, “some of us three. We should be in the camp, yes?”

“I guess…” Redwyn replied, “It’s unexpected, is all.”

“Unexpected…Redwyn, you transferred from Engelfurt, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How long did you serve there?”

“A year or so? Why do you ask?”

“Did you serve with any women? Ones in the Army, not the Temples.”

The Cleric of the Fire God gave him a strange look. Admittedly, it was a strange thing to ask with no context.

“The closest to it would be the three in the air wing,” he said. “All mages. I’ve only spoken with ‘em in passing, though.”

“I hope you’re ready to burn through a lot of mana then,” Joachim told him.

“I get that we’ll be doing drills, but…you saying the men will be going at it extra hard with her around?”

“Technically, I don’t think that’s incorrect. Well, you’ll see. Help me out of this thing.”

Redwyn went around to get at the hard-to-reach straps of Joachim’s armour harness. He slipped into his priestly vestments before heading over to assist the other Cleric with his.

“You were with her while she went around the Fifth Legion, right Joachim?”

“That’s right.”

“What happened?”

Joachim furrowed his brow.

“What do you mean by ‘what happened’?”

“She was bringing Undead to them, yeah? I don’t know how you could’ve stomached watching all that.”

“If the High Priests can’t officially object,” Joachim said. “I don’t see how you think I could have done anything. The Empire has always been like that: we serve our faithful where we can.”

Out of the nations with Human populations in the north, the Baharuth Empire was the only one that openly saw the Temples of the Four as ‘competition’ and actively worked to limit its influence over the citizens. Though Re-Estize was also a secular state, the Temples there were mostly left alone. Roble had a lineage of kingpriests and worked closely with its priesthood. In the City State Alliance, their faith was one of many religions and didn’t merit any special consideration by local governments.

“I wonder how the Temples do in the Sorcerous Kingdom,” Redwyn said. “Did you hear anything about it from her? People from Re-Estize worship our gods, last I heard.”

“I haven’t asked, actually,” Joachim replied. “I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea.”

“Why not? Don’t you want to know what happened to those poor people? We’re all praying for their safety.”

“Well, our prayers have probably been answered – she at least makes it sound like people go on as normal there. The reason I didn’t ask about the faithful there was because she’s not one of them. Lady Zahradnik is an adherent of Surshana.”

Redwyn stopped and stared at him, his wool tunic hanging open around his shoulders.

“As in that god of death? From the Theocracy?”

“Yup.”

“A death worshipper. No wonder…”

Joachim frowned at the other Cleric’s words. While being an adherent meant that one identified with the aspects of a specific god enough to call themselves a follower, it didn’t mean that they exclusively worshipped that one god. In a polytheistic religion, one recognised all of the gods in a pantheon where they applied in daily life.

As a Cleric of a polytheistic religion, Redwyn should have known better. Then again, the rocky history between their two faiths often had one focus on the differences between them. It didn’t help that the Faith of the Four considered the Undead anathema while followers of The Six nonsensically worshipped an Undead god.

Shortly after they finished preparing themselves, Lady Zahradnik reappeared. Much to Joachim’s relief, she didn’t look like she intended to participate in the men’s exercises…unless her weapon was a book.

“That ain’t Dreams of Red,” Redwyn eyed the massive tome warily.

“You’ve read Dreams of Red?” Lady Zahradnik asked.

“Sure have!” The Fire Cleric brightened, “I brought both volumes with me on this offensive.”

Joachim narrowed his eyes at the beaming man.

What happened to the whole ‘death worshipper’ thing from just now?

He vaguely recalled that Redwyn was something of a hopeless romantic as well. From fantastic tales to imperial propaganda, he ate it all up.

“Well, unfortunately, this isn’t volume three,” Lady Zahradnik smiled back, “but I hear that it’s supposed to start appearing in stores this spring.”

Redwyn stared at the Baroness, eyes wider than when Joachim had informed the man that she was an adherent of Surshana.

“R-r-really? I sure hope we’re done here before it sells out…who’s your favourite character? Mine’s Veronica.”

“Out of the main characters, Clarence is my favourite. I also like Grand Duchess Chartia. Veronica is promising, but she still needs work."

The Grand Duchess uncommonly appeared in the story, but Joachim supposed that the choice made sense for someone like Lady Zahradnik. Clarence, however, did not. As a civilian Noble, he was nothing like the Baroness.

“But that’s what’s so great about Veronica, yeah?” Redwyn gushed, “She’s a real underdog that gradually makes her way up through all sorts of challenges.”

Veronica was popular amongst the common folk precisely because of that. She was a disadvantaged girl who still possessed a sense of destiny and doggedly followed it. Most of the Imperial Army was a fan of Ludwig, though…were they going to be caught here all morning talking about Dreams of Red? It wouldn’t have been the first time…

“Oh, I agree,” the Baroness replied, “but her tendency to believe that everyone is fated to one thing or another is a crippling limitation, especially when she tries to read and interact with those around her. People can be far greater than themselves if they wisely utilise the means available to them and learn to rely on others. Speaking of which, our squad is due for the exercise field. I’d like to see what the men are capable of before the morning is done.”