Wolves and Dogs - 1
The Central Theater Army’s corps and the central provincial forces, having marched out in grand style, paused to catch their breath in the Hablem Duchy. Sending soldiers who would have to fight those doglike nomads straight north without a break would have been too cruel. They needed rest before they truly crossed the border.
Of course, the northern and western contingents had already left the Hablem Duchy and were stationed near the frontier, so the respite would not last long.
"Everyone’s here."
While the rank and file took what might well be their final rest, the senior commanders and staff officers answered the Duke of Victory’s summons and gathered in his tent.
Why am I here?
I had no idea why I was sitting among the high command. I had come when called, but did I even belong in this meeting?
"The inspector is charged by His Majesty to observe the expeditionary force’s situation. That is why I summoned the inspector as well."
The Duke of Victory spoke first, as if he had read the question on my face. Whatever the Emperor might have foisted on me in name only, an inspector was still an inspector—so I was to sit in.
"I am grateful for the consideration, Your Grace."
It was more courtesy than I deserved, so I bowed my head in thanks. Honestly, I was a blade-swinger on the front lines, not a commander or a staff officer. Sitting through a war council would not magically produce good ideas from a non-specialist like me.
Even so, he had called me partly because of the inspector’s title—and partly, I suspected, to share real-time intelligence with someone who already had a long, ugly history with Dorgon. For that, I was truly grateful.
"A report just came up from the Northern Theater Army commander. Even now, no nomads have been sighted near the border. They have abandoned any thought of striking first and mean to draw us deep into the steppes."
Having assembled the leadership, the Duke of Victory cut straight to the point.
The expeditionary force would have to push all the way north and kill the nomads themselves. If the goal was to subjugate them, entering the north was inevitable—so that part was unsurprising—
"Unexpected. The northern and western forces are concentrated now, so touching them would be difficult, but before that there must have been plenty of chances to raid, were there not?"
The Second Corps Commander spoke for everyone in the tent.
That our side had to go north was a given. The nomads might be rough, but they were not stupid; knowing the Empire was walking into their own front yard, they might simply be husbanding their strength.
Yet just as the Empire regarded the nomads’ cavalry as a serious threat, the nomads feared the Empire’s sheer numbers. As the Second Corps Commander said, if they had raised hell on the border before the great host assembled, they could have chipped away at that mass at least a little. And yet they stayed quiet?
Last time those bastards never stopped yapping.
If they had been this silent before, I would have shrugged and thought, Ah, so these dogs are specialists at waiting it out. But I remembered how much we had suffered from their hit-and-run tactics in the last war.
Worse, the land north of the Hablem Duchy was open plain opened up when the north was settled—perfect country for nomads to run wild. In the worst case, a few volleys of arrows from a distance and then a clean escape would leave the Empire taking the beating one-sidedly and grinding its teeth.
And yet they were quiet. My body might be comfortable, but the news made my head ache.
Is their house in more chaos than we thought?
The thought crossed my mind unbidden. From the Empire’s side, that hit-and-run was blood-pressure poison—but for the nomads attempting it, it was also a gamble that could end with them caught and finished. Pillaging a border village was one thing; playing games against hundreds or thousands of soldiers was genuinely dangerous.
So in the last war, Kagan had held the interior in an iron grip, and plenty of men were ready to throw their lives away on his word. If Dorgon had not yet reached that level of control, I could force myself to accept the silence.
No—wait. That bastard had already styled himself Khan. He was not the sort of empty windbag who would fail to lock down his own people and still strut around calling himself Khan.
What the hell is this, really?
No matter how hard I thought, I could not see it. Strategy and tactics were simply not my field.
"We cannot even find a nomad to interrogate, so for now we can only guess. Either disorder still roils inside their ranks, or their strength has weakened enough that they want a decisive fight rather than reckless provocation."
The Duke of Victory seemed just as tangled; in the end he settled on the orthodox reading.
Regrettable as it was, there truly was no other way. Without information you could not even speculate properly, and without a single prisoner to squeeze, what else was left? Guessing blind was nothing but a coin toss.
"Five years ago we had to enter the north with our soldiers already worn down by nomad raids. I do not know the full circumstances now, but at least the burden on the troops has lightened—that is encouraging."
Into the heavy atmosphere, the former Count Horpfelt spoke up.
It might have sounded a little irresponsible, but it was not wrong. Separate from the high command’s need to read the enemy’s intent, the load on the men who would actually fight had dropped sharply—that was fact.
"Agreed. Whatever they intend, an armed clash is unavoidable. That makes the soldiers’ morale decisive, and we must think how to use that morale to crush the enemy’s momentum."
When the Fifth Corps Commander followed the former Count Horpfelt, the Duke of Victory gave a slight nod.
If we did not know the nomads’ hand, the right move was to maximize our own. If they would not touch us, we would prepare to thrash them in peak condition. Whatever trap they laid, we would smash straight through it.
...Of course, we still could not afford to forget their hand entirely.
The old camping grounds of the Gaar tribe.
No children’s laughter, no bleating of sheep remained, yet this place had once housed a tribe that stood at the heart of the north. As a base, it lacked nothing.
"Imperial forces are massing near the border. As the Khan commanded, we are scouting at the greatest possible distance, so the details—"
"An army of that size preparing to march can be read even from far off. Hold the present distance."
"Yes, Khan."
I watched the keshik bow and leave the tent, then tipped my head back.
My heart was strangely calm. No tension, no thrill. Claiming the title of Khan and declaring the Gaar tribe’s rebirth had set my chest pounding far harder than this.
Three years, is it?
I let out a quiet breath. Three years since that war ended. Three years since the north’s collective will had been broken.
And after three years, we would collide with the Empire again—by my will, by the decision of a man who followed the hero who once led the north, not the hero himself.
Kagan...
Through long history the north had never once been united. He was the nomad leader who bound that north into one and threatened the Empire.
The hero who showed the world that nomads were not creatures to be swept away one-sidedly by the Empire—not mere weaklings to be trampled.
Today of all days, I missed him more than ever. I wanted to see a truly great warrior, not a counterfeit like me.
"We have lived as dogs. Dogs that sway at the Empire’s beck and call, dogs that must drop to their bellies the moment the leash is pulled, no matter how loudly we bark."
The words he had spoken five years ago, just before raising the army, rose in my mind. He had poured wine into my cup with his own hand as he said them.
"To them we are talking dogs and nothing more. They toss us scraps and manage us, and when our numbers grow too large they dispose of us. Beasts that must be killed if they dare slip the leash and bite a man."
The shock of hearing him call us dogs so calmly still had not faded.
No—perhaps I had always known it, and simply refused to admit those words could leave the mouth of a man who had always been so proud and strong. If even he called us dogs, who could deny it?
"Yet in a dog runs the blood of the wolf."
Looking at me when I could not speak a word, he continued as if it were nothing.
"In the past, when the notion of settled peoples did not yet exist, when nomads raced across the continent—we ran like valiant wolves beneath the Eternal Blue Sky. Our beginning was the wolf."
"But time erased the steppes where wolves could run, and at last it fastened a collar around the wolf’s neck. Thus we became dogs."
Having said that, he lifted his gaze to the sky—a sky without a single cloud, blue upon blue.
"Born wolves, we became dogs. But there is no law that says we must live as dogs and die as dogs."
"Our ancestors, our history, our pride flow in this blood and this soul. Even if the flesh is oppressed, blood and soul do not yield."
At those words I found myself looking up at the sky as well.
"We will cast off the leash and become wolves once more. Not dogs that crawl at another’s feet, but wolves no one dares treat lightly."
My heart had hammered. With him, it truly seemed we might become wolves.
"And the sky we look up to on the day we become wolves will be eternally blue."
How many warriors must have raced dreaming of that day—to become wolves instead of dogs, to look up at the sky at his side.
In the end we failed—yet it seems there was some small fruit after all.
At least we made it to rabid dogs.
A short laugh escaped me. The Empire knew we were weaker than before, and still it mobilized a great army with such speed. That would have been impossible if they still saw us as feeble, laughable dogs.
We never reached the dream, but we showed the possibility—the possibility of becoming wolves and tearing at the Empire’s throat, a future in which the Empire could no longer control us one-sidedly.
Measured against how close we once came to the dream, it was wretched. Even so, was it not a fairly decent result?
...Rabid dogs.
I closed my eyes quietly. Rabid dogs—lesser than wolves, yet still not creatures to be treated carelessly.
"I will run to become a wolf. Bearing the north’s will, I will run until my heart bursts and I die. But if I die carrying that will, I leave what follows to you."
At the least, he had lived as a wolf and died as a wolf. I, inadequate, was nothing more than a mutt too shameful to call a wolf—a mutt that only barked, having inherited his excessive faith and will.
And a mutt has a mutt’s way.
"Go forward by your own way, different from mine who failed and died."
For my people, for our north, I would go forward by my own way.