Vol.5, Ch.3, P.2

 

“…Hereby be established the three-front offensive,” declared Lise. “Assaulting from Isfält’s north is to be the Víly-Gorka alliance, the Reùlingen host from its south, and the Cutcrowns from its east.”

The jarl-daughter’s voice rang clear through the parliamentary chamber. Her diction, too, had been rather ceremonial throughout the council—a telling contrast to her usual nonchalance. Albeit stiff had been her cheeks and brows, and oft did she gulp or purse her lips; a bout of frayed nerves, from the look of it. Doubtless this momentous occasion was stretching her thin.

Poor Lise. She’s no less like to lose her spine, I guess. Just like the rest of us, I mused to myself. But as though the thought had writ itself clear upon my face, I soon found Lise shooting a sharp glare my way. I winced. Well, almost. But at this rate, her dagger-stares would have me shot full of holes before sundown, I imagined.

“Astonishing. Most astonishing,” Walter uttered from across the aisle. “To have made accomplices of mercenaries, much less of Men—even a blue moon would think it baffling.” Contrary to his words, there was lit not a spark of spite in his tone. Indeed, to my ears, his was but a pure surprise for yet another abrupt shift in the winds of this war.

“A sign ’e be, I deems,” Dennis responded to him, “o’ the world wheelin’ down ways never a-wander’d ’fore, as one might say.”

“Then one would speak the truth,” I added. “This day marks a watershed moment. My presence here alone proves it.”

Watershed, indeed, what with my station as a Mennish war chief—a commander with a complexion contrary to that of his charges. And that’s to say naught of Arbel itself, which I doubted Walter and his companions could’ve marked without wonderment. No; not after taking their first steps past its gates and meeting the sight of Men and Nafílim living in equilibrium. What debate might their ambivalence mount now, having gleaned this miracle?

“Ah, you be yet a-worry’d, ’ey?” noted Dennis, who seemed to have sighted a cloud of consternation yet hanging over the rest of the Reùlingen entourage. “Aye, I sees’ee well enough. I feels. All the misgivin’ses, all the bad blood. But now bain’t the time to fret. We fight, we win, we live—through the next battle, through to tomorrow.” Words conveyed with conviction. But then, scratching his head, the master mercenary’s sternness softened. “’Cos, er… who knows, ’ey? Maybe by then the bad blood will’ve a-wash’d away. Maybe by then we’ll be a warmer lot than we be today.”

“‘Warmer’,” Walter echoed thoughtfully. “Yes. A thing most wished for, warmth.” To that, we all nodded. That point alone—of a chance for true alliance after our next triumphs—lent weight enough to the battle at hand. And thankfully, none in the room seemed spitefully fain for defeat—not even Walter’s more cautious companions. “Just as wished-for as this three-front assault was to us,” the Reùlingen hero added with confessive sheepishness. “But with it granted here and now, I must say, I do look with hope to tomorrow.”

“As do we all. But enough about us; what about the enemy?” quickly enquired a young woman from amongst the Reùlingen party. “Lise? You have more to tell, or?”

Erika was her name; a close confidante of Walter and—from the easy way of her last words—a face long-known to Lise.

“More, yes,” answered the jarl-daughter. “First, we have the Champions Salvator, as we all expect. And if Rolf has predicted true, then soon to join them… are the knights of the 1st Order.”

Londosius’ finest and fiercest. Lise’s mere mention of them cowed at once the spirits of all those assembled. Yet, shaken though they seemed, no one dared the slightest debate, for in their hearts, they knew it to be true. Déu Tsellin—a holy mountain and, to the Deivic Quire, a symbol and sanctum both to the Yonaistic faith; with all swords and spears on hand would the zealots fight to protect their precious plot of earth. But with the sovereignty and spirituality so closely intertwined, it followed that the Crown, too, would share in the Quire’s priorities… and desperation withal. Thus explained my prediction as told by Lise: just as we aimed to wreak our greatest wrath upon Déu Tsellin, so would Londosius answer cruelly in kind.

“The 1st…” Walter muttered with a sigh, “…to that I feared it would come. And if the 1st, then the hero-dame Estelle, too, sends silver against us.”

“Don’t you fret, Walter,” snapped Erika. “I say you seek out this Estelle, and show her who’s the real hero here!”

He who attends a hero oft plays the voice of reason. Such was Erika’s erstwhile role: as would any adviser to a king or an adjutant to a commander, it fell to her to rein in her heroic charge whensoever he… well, charged in too heroically, as it were. Yet here it seemed the opposite was playing out: Walter, the prudent moderate; Erika, the hand ever itching to stir her hero to action. It certainly helped little that the two others in their entourage did naught but knit their brows troublingly at the exchange.

“More clouds there be to this storm,” Alban stated with no joy. “The Roland Concern—they have sent us intelligences.” Rising from his seat, the jarl came down to the aisle, and taking and unfurling a scroll from the rostrum there, summarised aloud its contents. “All the lands of Londosius be now astir, their knights galloping in great numbers. Yes; like pieces on a board were their posts reshuffled, and to a drastic degree, the Rolanders report. Such activity portends but one thing…”

“…An adjustment,” I followed, “to pave the way and welcome yet another force into the Salvators’ fold: the 2nd Order.”

Unsought news to all ears present, who could but purse their lips in further dread. Defence was the Londosians’ advantage here, understanding so well as they did the lay of their land and how best to employ it. We, on the other hand, could boast of little outside of our numbers. Yet, were it so that our enemy had scried our recruitment of the Cutcrowns, then quickly would they have recognised the inadequacy of their own numbers, where even the combined might of the 1st and the Champions Salvator would not win them the day. Indeed, such a chink in their armour could never’ve gone long without address; an armour that now seemed more impenetrable than before.

What’s more, to deploy in parallel the 1st and the 2nd… A herculean task, no question, and one requiring herculean capacity besides. After all, those two Orders had each their own web of charges to mind, their own lands to look after. Not without having waded through the mire of men, money, material, and management could such an order have ever been entertained, to begin with. Certainly nary a foe to misguess, Central, if within their ranks sat so brilliant a brain.

“Stefan Croheim…” Lise uttered amidst the stony silence. The look on her face was none too glad.

Mareschal to the 2nd, Cronheim’s was a heart rightwise and a hand most just. Albeit as the whisperers would say, never was he a man immovable nor a soul steeped in his own excesses. Gentle he was; staunch when virtue best availed, soft when solace best served. “Sir Stefan the Unsullied”, “a knight amongst knights”; such titles had his preeminence earned him. But beneath it all, let it not be mistaken, did he possess a strength of arms most terrible to behold.

“Hmm… The 1st. The 2nd,” Jarl Dušan next spoke. “That ever would loom the day when Dame Estelle and Knight Stefan affright the same battlefield. Storm, indeed!”

“Forget not the Champions Salvator,” Alban quickly reminded us. “Theirs be a mettle equalling, exceeding an Order’s, it is said. And one amongst their number is vaunted in especial: a certain son of the Isfälter chief.”

“Of this son I’ve heard, as well,” said Walter. “Alfred? Alfred Isfält? Yes, yes… for true might he be a foe hard-fought. We ought train to him many a cautious eye.”

Alfred Isfält—a name, too, that I knew of, along with the man’s regard as a great sorcerer to vie with any of the Order mareschals. Altogether, there was no doubting what a goliath we were up against. Quantity or quality, we outmatched them in no category. But, there’s no helping it now. We’d employed what means as we could, amassed what men as did answer our call, and pieced together what plans as might prove to our advantage. And though our enemy did seem sunderingly mighty, our morale was not any marred for it.

We shall win.

We will.

For all that have fallen before us.

For a future that dearly deserves its dawn.

 

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