The Results Will Speak for Themselves (1)
Early spring had come.
The wind rolling down from the northern White Mountain Range still carried a bite, but the snow and ice were melting, and new life was beginning to stir. Spring had arrived.
This spring in the Luxid Kingdom, however, might well see more lives guttering out than taking root.
A deep hum swelled through the air, then a sharp crackle of magic.
The First Prince's order to sortie had fallen. His voice was already a booming thing, and with a magical amplifier behind it, the cry seemed to shake heaven and earth. Perhaps even the soldiers far in the distance heard that shout.
Sure enough, as if answering his call, the entire army began to advance. Over eleven hundred knights and well over eighty thousand infantry set themselves in motion, and the earth itself began to tremble.
"We join them! All personnel, mount up!"
The instant my order dropped, the mages of the Magic Corps swung into their saddles in perfect unison — the fruit of every spare hour of drill they had squeezed in since the midwinter training.
"Move out!"
One week into the march, three days since we had entered the east, and still nothing out of the ordinary. We were only at the eastern approaches, true, but the quiet was unnerving.
No scouts at all for three whole days? That can't be right.
The situation was plainly wrong. I warned those around me to watch for ambushes just in case, though even I didn't rate the odds as high. It's wide-open plains. Where would you even hide an ambush? A knight raid would be more plausible.
Even that didn't worry me much — we were fielding an enormous army. The infantry ranks were packed so densely that knights charging in on sheer momentum wouldn't be enough. A half-hearted charge would just get them swallowed whole.
The enemy's only real chance at a deep breakthrough would be to put a Sword Master at the tip of the spear — and we already had a plan for that. Ignore him completely. Harass everyone except the Sword Master and grind the enemy down. Infantry casualties would balloon exponentially, but enemy knights would dwindle in proportion.
And if the enemy failed to pull back in time, and we managed to encircle the Sword Master? Then we pour every ounce of firepower we've got into him. Even if the operation cost us infantry in the tens of thousands, the high command had judged it a net gain if we could wipe out the Sword Master and the enemy's knight contingent.
Tens of thousands... an absurd number. But without any force of our own that can match an enemy Sword Master, we don't have a choice.
On the foundation of that strategic premise — and our superior communications — the First Prince's army was currently organized into eight army groups of ten thousand men each. If any unit ran into a Sword Master, they could buy time, while the arrangement as a whole applied pressure across the entire eastern theater. The deployment was like two diamonds overlapping into a hexagon, so that if any army group came under attack, three neighboring groups could join them within six hours.
And last of all, the knights and the Magic Corps. We sit in the center and ride to whichever unit is in trouble — a kind of fire brigade.
But far from playing fireman, not a single army group had even glimpsed an enemy. We were sitting around twiddling our thumbs when the call came.
"Commander, a message from the Third Army Group."
Hans, who was handling communications in my place while I commanded the Magic Corps, delivered the news. Had the enemy finally shown themselves?
"They approached a fortress to inspect it, sir. It was completely empty."
Huh? That couldn't be right. I double-checked the Third Army Group's transmission, but the conclusion was the same. A fortress that should have been held as a key strongpoint — completely deserted. They had even conducted a thorough search in case of an ambush nearby, and still: not a single enemy.
"They're just handing over a fortress? Not a siege trap, not even an ambush. Why?"
"I don't know, sir."
I let out a long breath. I had no idea. I couldn't begin to grasp what they were after.
The same situation repeated itself after that. Mountain forts, plains castles, manor halls — every strategic point we passed, and not a shadow of the enemy.
Eventually the First Prince summoned the commanders from every army group for a council.
"We'll begin the meeting at once."
At the First Prince's words, the Third Prince beside him clutched his brow as if in pain. A headache flaring up, apparently — and I could hardly blame him. Even in a hurry, there were minimum standards of etiquette a royal was expected to observe, and skipping every last bit of protocol to dive straight into business had everyone looking startled.
I was equally at a loss, but I could feel the First Prince staring straight at me. ...What? What do you want from me— Don't tell me he wants me to kick this off?
As that concentrated gaze locked on, the others followed it to me.
Ah, damn it. I may be an efficiency junkie, but even I don't just kick the door down like this. I looked to the Third Prince, who gave a resigned nod, and I gave up.
Sigh. This is my lot in life. Not that my reputation had much further to fall — they already call me Sternfelt's madman, after all. This was just playing bomb disposal. I'd have to speak anyway, with the two highest-ranking men in the room forcing my hand.
"We've encountered no enemy at any of the strongpoints we've passed thus far."
"Indeed. Baron Sternfelt, where do you believe the enemy is?"
It had already been about two weeks since the campaign began — ten days even counting from the moment we entered the east. We had been looting empty houses the whole time, but in terms of area we had already swallowed a quarter of the east. And not just any quarter — the plains farmland that's another heart of the region.
The east might have a strong foundation in coastal fishing and commerce, but this was still the Middle Ages. An age of agriculture, by agriculture, and for agriculture, more than any other. No matter how formidable Count Windhafen's command, would that hold once his own farmlands were all about to be lost?
Which means Count Windhafen has no choice but to go for one big, decisive blow. Abandoning every strongpoint in the first place was itself a choice steeped in the Count's intent to reverse everything in a single major engagement. So it had to be here.
"Count Windhafen, we can retreat no further."
"My lands have already fallen to the enemy! What good is any of this? If we don't counterattack at once..."
"Ahem, Count. The nobles of the faction are of this mind, so perhaps you too might reconsider and begin the counteroffensive?"
The nobles' whining filled the tent — nauseating tantrums over territories lost for a mere moment — and at the last, even the Second Prince, a figurehead if there ever was one, chimed in with garbage that didn't warrant so much as a hollow laugh. Count Windhafen barely restrained the impulse to draw his blade then and there and take every last head in the room.
"Hah hah. Do be patient, all of you. It truly won't be much longer now."
Even with that distinctive, clownish laugh and his efforts to stabilize the gathering, the atmosphere refused to improve. Damn it, you children. Don't you understand this is the only way?
By his intelligence, the First Prince's army numbered over eighty thousand infantry and some eleven hundred knights — overwhelmingly more than the allied seventy-five thousand infantry and one thousand knights. Even with the Eastern Knight Order joining them, giving them a qualitative edge in knights, it was a disparity they could not afford to take lightly.
And then there are those damned toys of Sternfelt's.
His teeth ground together. Just thinking about it set his jaw on edge. The man who had wrecked the perfect coup he had first devised — and the memory of his past self, ravaged by those toys the man had built, made it worse. Count Windhafen drew a deep breath, as if to master the rage boiling up inside him.
Fine. Admit what must be admitted. Splitting our forces because of those bastards is out of the question. Disperse the troops? Given how those people had pinpointed allied positions with uncanny precision and annihilated them, the only result would be defeat in detail. And not long ago they had even bolted those toys onto saddles and butchered allied forces with them.
Concentrate the forces in one place — but don't bunch them together. The standard tactic against knights had always been a solid formation, but once that formation was nothing but bait for the enemy's magic, only one method remained. Commit overwhelming numbers in successive waves and smash the enemy infantry. Then drive a dagger of knights into the exposed guts and leave the whole body paralyzed.
The infantry that would be spent in the process? He couldn't have cared less. A few commoners more or less — wring the women left in the villages dry and you'll have the numbers back in ten years. To the Count, commoners were livestock, no better than dogs or pigs.
And besides, he had a trump card prepared for this very occasion.
"Vice Tower Master of the Blue Magic Tower — can you proceed as I requested?"
"Preparations are nearly complete. Have no fear."
A 6th Circle Archmage — Frostrich. He would be the one to bring Sternfelt's brat crashing down.