Vol.4, Ch.4, P.7
Hoofbeats thundered through the night as Sig and I madly spurred on our steeds. Stolen they were from the stables of the Tallien estate, from which we’d fled with little resistance, for very few of the manor guards had remained to mount it. But needful of all haste, we’ve had to part ways with Frieda and the others shortly thereafter, promising them another meeting someday soon.
Past bleary-eyed streets and down dewy country roads we galloped, perhaps seeming to any wakeful folk like black riders on an evil hunt. True enough, there was evil on our minds, but of a sort stoking our great fear and foreboding.
“So let me get this straight: the knights’ve split, with one end meanin’ to march on Balasthea—that right!?” Sig pressed me in roaring shouts as we shot westwards through Tallien country.
“Indeed! That’s exactly their ploy!” I answered sharply amidst the haste.
“The north is ours”—if Carola had recalled true, then it was just as Sig said: the knights of the 3rd were intent upon Balasthea Stronghold, the most key target as far as northern positions go. Feeling my mind grown too mad and muddled, I drew a deep breath and collected my thoughts.
Hensen… South of it, past the woods, stood the fortress in question. And farther south was Arbel, seat of Former Ström; and east of that, over the horizon, ran the march’s borders with neighbouring Tallien.
Had the Order moved on Balasthea normally, our patrols would’ve firstly espied their numbers amassing in Tallien, and from there alerted Arbel through to Hensen with all swiftness. Thus was it in the fólkheimr’s power to deploy numbers of their own to sooner secure their new fortress. Indeed, “sooner”—Balasthea was once target to many a Nafílim offence, after all, and nigh on the daily, no less. That’s to say, the two places were quite close: an army departing the fólkheimr could stand afore the fortress’ walls after just a day’s hard march, making Balasthea and Arbel both readily reachable by the Hensenite host, should there arise an emergency for it.
Trouble was, that very army now stood far away at the Tallien-Ström border, where battle was to break shortly.
Nay. I turned full to look behind me. There, in the eastern sky: the sun, cracking threateningly above the far ridges. If our strategists had planned aright, then that battle might very well have broken already. And behind the cloak of its chaos: the 3rd’s splinter force, slithering their way over the border… and straight for Balasthea.
Mere patrols and alerts could not avail us now. No; the foresaid “emergency” was right on our hands, at this very moment. The knights had cast their die, and as things were, they stood to win the wager.
But worst of all…
“Bugger…!” cursed Sig. “Rolf! The fólk’eimr—it ain’t got one bloody brave to spare!”
“I know!” I returned bitterly. “Damn it, I know…!”
There, I found Sig with a disquieted scowl, his teeth bared with such wrath and rue that one might’ve heard them grinding above our horses’ haste. It hadn’t been long since he began his life amongst the Nafílim, but from the look of him, already had he gained from it something precious and worth protecting.
Only, there were none to do so: presently, the fólkheimr was fallowed of any fighting force free to secure Balasthea, for they had all of them marched to battle. Thus if not even a fortress could it save, what would it mean for its own homes and citizenry, were the knights to appear at its door?
A frightsome thought… though, there was one tiny solace. Strategically speaking, the splinter force need not assault Hensen—not immediately, anyway. No, merely barricading themselves behind Balasthea’s walls ought serve their ends well enough. There were supplies aplenty for it, beyond even the fort’s own stores—foodstuffs, materiel, tools, labour, all ready to be reaped from the Nafílim villages scattered anear. A repeat of past tragedies, to be sure… or worse. For without Hensen’s braves free to shield them, those smallfolk were as fawns left to the wolves—beasts silvered and more vile than the Fiefguard rabble before them. Indeed, just sustaining a presence in the stronghold would altogether make them a fearsome and decisive foe.
The reason is simple: as Hensen is our home, so it is our lifeline. But have Balasthea occupied, and the line is cleanly severed. Left in the wild without home, the minds and bodies of our braves, each and all, would soon wear and waste away. For that is all a forlorn army is: a gathering of undesirables, destined to be as feed for foreign soil when famine and affliction take their flesh—if not before the fangs of their foe do.
We had Arbel, sure. And in Arbel were stationed its own guard; that, too, was true. Yet truer still was that the free-burgh was freshly liberated from Londosius, a burgh born again, as it were, by all accounts. Not in the midst of striving to stand on their own feet should we expect its citizenry to bear so backbreaking a burden as hosting our large army—not least one composed of Nafílim.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Homeless and baseless, continuing this war would become an effort far and long beyond the vagabonds we would become. And rather than play as wolves, Londosius would need not lift even one finger to defeat us: it had only to fortify its key positions, and from high perches, watch with vultures’ eyes the slow perishing of our aimless, unsupplied army.
A sound victory for Yoná and her herd, achieved with the taking of one, lonely fort.
There was, however, a way out.
And in thinking of it…
“Ach…!”
…I could only bite at my lip in disgust.
That’s right: to survive in enemy lands, do as the enemy has ever done:
Pillage.
If our bellies growl, then raid the byres, the granaries, the larders.
If our weapons wither, then empty the armouries, disarm the mercenaries and militiae, and press service from the smithies.
If our supplies lack, then loot the workshops, the warehouses… the homes.
And if we are in want of hands…
…then there are smallfolk aplenty to enslave.
I know.
Devilish deeds these are, each and all. Deeds we ought never indulge in, mistakes we ought never commit. For in dirtying our hands so, we wash away our every right to wage this war of ours. But rob a man his daily bread, and he would rather steal for his next bite than suffer a scrapless night. Starve him till he is skin and bones, and he would fancy fattening them with those of his fellow men. Such is starvation: the nemesis of reason, the seed of unthinkable sins. And who can resist it? When taken to the brink? When convulsing at the very veins for the next crumb? The next lick of water?
That, I could—and dared— not answer.
“Was this their mind, as well?” I growled under my breath. “To drive us mad? To force our hand? To bloody them…?”
Perhaps I presume overmuch. Yet on and on, the idea whispered in my ears: that someone, somewhere, desired our starvation, all the while brooking, welcoming the foulness to follow thereafter; someone that would appear afore our pillaging and ravaging selves, and pointing to us, proclaim:
“You are as we! Molesters of the meek! Plundering at pleasure! Taking from those with naught to spare!”
And what then shall be our argument? What then can we say?
Naught. Naught and nothing at all. For our rightwise war will have long turned wretched and wrong. And with that thought, I shuddered. Whoever it was that had devised this device truly possessed a devil’s wisdom.
And the heart of a…
“Wot’s their game!? Ah!?” Sig bellowingly debated. “Givin’ up a province, all for some ol’ fort!? A bloody shite trade, by my reck’nin’!”
“Yours and mine both!” I agreed. “But… I don’t know, Sig! It’s all madness to me, as well!”
Sig’s worries had warrant. This was a strategy passing extreme, and for the Orderly knights—who all so revered the rightwise way, if not at least fancied themselves well upon it—passing peculiar, indeed. And for why but that to coerce us unto sinning was to confess their own culpability, to concede that Man was criminal all along in plundering and persecuting the Nafílim.
And as well, that in splitting their forces have they all but abandoned, too, any chance of triumph upon the plains. This was key.
At this moment was Balasthea manned by only a smattering of stationed braves. Most expected. After all, its chief gates both led to allied lands; to reinforce it so is folly. Thus would the fortress easily fall to invasion… were it not for one simple fact: that a fortress is a fortress, a military position enshrouded in walls. If even meagerly manned, it ought take more than a Orderly centuria to topple it. Meaning, that if the 3rd truly intended to take Balasthea, then it was no small number that had separated from the 3rd’s legion.
And so ought the knights be severely lacking on the plains. “Passing peculiar” is right. Or… perhaps victory was their expectation nevertheless? That their mareschal believed his handicapped legion to be adequate against the Víly-Gorka alliance? Nay, that couldn’t be right; ever was Juholt accorded a man as unwavering as he was vigilant, not some gamester keen on ungainly gambits. No… this puzzle was missing some pieces. Foulness was afoot.
A fiefdom for a fortress… Sig had said it right. A defeat upon the plains would spell for Londosius another land lost. The Tallieners had no standing army of their own, after all, having long relied on Ström’s Fiefguard to watch the Nafílim borders. Hence, were the knights to fall at the battle on the plains, our alliance would turn next to Tallien’s fief-burgh, and there capture both it and the entirety of the viscounty itself—with great ease at that, what with its lord already lying dead, itself doubtless a development no Londosius eye ought’ve foreseen.
I scowled, confounded. No matter how I tried to reason it, the enemy’s seemed too extraordinary a design. Abandoning an entire territory? Not least expecting that to Nafílim hands would it be lost? This was beyond absurd. Central would never consent to it—not the Central I knew, at least.
‘…‘Don’t tell the others,’ one said… And another… ‘The… north… is ours’…’
Carola’s words…
Was that truly the way of it, then? That a hand other than Juholt’s was moving the pieces? That to pull off this gambit under the nose of a prudent mareschal, mouths had to be hushed… and fellow knights…
“…betrayed?” I nearly gasped. “Their very own… left for dead…?”
Faintly, I felt it then. A wisp somewhere far away, watching the gameboard. And it had a name.
Ambition.
And of a sort full-impregnated with a will wicked beyond words.
Hardly an absent force in times as disturbed as these, I’ll admit. Still, could my sword stand against it? Against a foe wielding a weapon without form? Without fairness?
…Without heart?
Aface so perilous a presence, I felt my spine run cold.
───────── ∵ ─────────
Comment (0)