The Fifth Study: Rodrick Harrington (1)
The special hospitality the boy king had shown the orc delegation had thrown the entire Heartland into an uproar. Consuming an envoy was an act that would make even barbarians shake their heads, yet most of the kingdom’s people found the boy king’s response thoroughly satisfying.
“Uahaha! Our king has real guts!”
“I thought he was just a young boy, but he’s grown enough to avenge his father! Long live the Essil Kingdom! Long live His Majesty King Dailen!”
The people of the central regions had fought orcs for centuries. Their resentment had soaked into their very marrow. The prevailing opinion was that the only good orc—mountain or desert—was a dead orc.
“Die, you monsters!”
“This is the only answer for you orc bastards!”
“Throw the corpses in the latrine!”
“Puhahahahaha! Serves you right!”
The border lords who faced the delegation made the same choice as their king. The valiant Alansong personally beheaded the envoys and displayed their heads in the square, while the elegant Varken castrated them and turned them into clowns.
….
“We are the delegation sent by the Great Chieftain to meet the merciful Lord Harrington. We…”
The desert orc delegation that entered the audience chamber trembled with fear. They had already heard the fate of their kin who had gone to the other lords.
“First.”
The Iron Mace Count rested his chin on the armrest with a deeply displeased expression. The mere fact that these detestable pigs stood in his court irritated him to no end.
“Have them drink water and salt first.”
“…Th-thank you.”
Yet personal feelings could not override a lord’s duty. He could not tarnish the Harrington family’s centuries-old reputation by harming envoys.
“That said, I will not share a meal with you.”
….
“You hardly expected hospitality in my court anyway. Originally I planned to reject this audience and drive you back into the wasteland… but my daughter and Master Tellorian hold rather different views.”
The Iron Mace Count was a powerful border lord whose name shook the frontier. He had accumulated deep enmity with the desert orcs who had raided across the border since his youth.
….
“The grudges of the old must not block the future of the young. I will give you a chance—so seize it if you can. That will be all.”
The white-haired giant knight left the audience chamber. A young female knight with neatly bound black hair entered. She was beautiful and strong.
“We greet the beautiful Young Countess.”
“Skip the formalities and get to the point.”
“…Yes.”
The young orcs were captivated by the Young Countess’s appearance, but the elders focused instead on the young mage following behind her. They had correctly identified who truly held decision-making power.
“I hear your people are in dire straits.”
“…That is correct.”
“Our own lands are suffering from drought, so our circumstances are hardly abundant. Still, there is a saying that even ugly feelings can warm. I will provide you with food. However, we have conditions of our own…”
Belladia promised provisions in exchange for a peace treaty and tribute. The desert orcs bowed their heads at the generous terms. The elders loudly swore upon their honor that they would uphold the treaty.
“Then I invite you to a banquet commemorating this peace. I pray that this occasion becomes the foundation for peace between the desert orcs and the Harrington family.”
At the following banquet the orcs received generous hospitality. They were served meat thick with spices, sat beside the Young Countess, and discussed the political situation. After the meal came a hunt, where Belladia displayed remarkable martial skill.
“Ooh! She took a two-headed ogre’s head with a single stroke!”
“Heh! I thought human women were weak crybabies, but there are monsters like her among them?”
The orc delegation was deeply impressed by the Young Countess’s prowess. Her swordsmanship, inherited from her father, was superb, and her unusual ferocity was truly that of a warrior.
“Do you see?”
“The Iron Mace Count has raised an excellent successor.”
“She is more than worthy of your respect.”
“I acknowledge it.”
Desert orcs respected only the strong—a tradition forged through the struggle for survival in the harsh Great Wasteland.
“I know you have come looking for a place to die.”
“───!”
“The miserable deaths of the relief envoys will enrage even the most moderate warriors. Then every tribe will gather beneath the Great Chieftain’s banner.”
That was not all. Taking advantage of the desert orcs’ invasion, other greenskins would rise as well. The man-eating mountain orcs, the devolved forest goblins driven into the wild, and the ever-hungry trolls.
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This massive greenskin invasion and the simultaneous uprising of the heteromorph races was the first head of the Three-Headed Dragon’s Descent that would engulf the central regions—the Green Tide.
“That is the Great Chieftain’s calculation, isn’t it?”
….
The orc elder maintained a sullen silence. As expected, the humans’ insight was not to be underestimated.
“For the next two years.”
“…Two years?”
“For the next two years I will not interfere with the Great Chieftain’s plans. Convey that I hope he does not interfere with me either.”
Great Chieftain Belkan was a major benefactor who provided reliable support in heteromorph playthroughs. But since Tellorian had chosen Human this time, he was an enemy.
“I will convey that, human sage.”
“Then enjoy the banquet at your leisure. Our knights will escort you to the border on your return.”
Flutter.
He turned, grey cloak billowing behind him.
“One more thing.”
“?”
“I advise you to minimize the atrocities that occur while waging war. Controlling excited warriors will not be easy, but it is the only way to prevent the North and the Empire from intervening.”
…The elder who met Tellorian’s cold grey eyes instinctively realized that the young mage before him would be the greatest obstacle to reclaiming their homeland.
“Elder Kartlig.”
“!”
How did he know his name?
He had never introduced himself.
“I am human, yet I understand your position. After all, the world we mortals live in is composed not of black and white, but of grey.”
Most conflicts arise from differences in standpoint. This war was no exception.
“A long and cruel war is coming.”
….
“Even within the fiercest sandstorms, do not forget your guiding star.”
Two weeks later.
The Great Chieftain’s tent.
“…is what he told me.”
“Thank you for your efforts, Elder Kartlig.”
“Is there anything more this old one can do?”
“Your words alone are gratitude enough. You have worked hard.”
Great Chieftain Belkan personally escorted Kartlig home. Afterward he returned to his grand tent and quietly mulled over Tellorian’s message.
Minimize cruelty?
Impossible. The war now approaching was not a contest over interests but a struggle for survival. Different races and different gods meant resentment ran deep on both sides.
Yet the Iron Mace Count is the only lord who ever helped us. If the humans had done even half of what he did, war could have been avoided.
Since his election as Great Chieftain of the desert orcs, Belkan had prepared for peace as diligently as for war. He had gathered goods humans valued and attempted trade. He had invited shamans to devise ways to stabilize the water supply. All attempts had failed.
Because the human monarchs interfered.
Humans had always mocked, ignored, and deceived them. They had even brutally slaughtered the envoys sent with desperate sincerity. This matter had to be settled once and for all.
Either they all died.
Or we all died.
There is no middle ground.
That was why he had plotted with every heteromorph race in the central regions. They would lead the charge, sweep the humans away, and reclaim their rightful homeland.
…However.
What were the odds of victory?
This is not a war we are permitted to lose.
It was not merely his own life at stake.
It was not merely his family at stake.
It was not merely his tribe at stake.
The survival of the species.
The survival of orc civilization.
That was what hung in the balance.
…No matter how many times I calculate it, the result remains uncertain.
Few nobles in the Essil Kingdom possessed real combat experience. If they could eliminate the border lords, the rest would not matter. The other human nations of the central regions would be handled by the other races. The true threats were the North and the Empire.
The North and the Empire are powerful. If they join forces and march on the central regions, even if every non-human race—including the dragonkin—unites, we cannot win.
The chance that the North and Empire would join forces was roughly fifty-fifty.
Must I gamble the survival of our entire race on a coin toss?
If not, what alternative existed? Their stockpiles were already exhausted and the warriors’ fury had reached the heavens.
…A third option is necessary.
Neither total extermination nor complete peace.
Tellorian, was it?
The mage who had offered the advice seemed to have completed his calculations long ago. That was why he had urged them to reduce atrocities—so as to delay intervention by the North and the Empire.
…What does he hope to gain by giving us this advice?
If he possessed such piercing insight, would it not have been more logical to join his own kind from the beginning and block the invasion?
Or is he simply a shameless opportunist who cares only about filling his own belly regardless of what happens to his kin? Yet in that case, his sincere advice to us makes no sense either.
A truly enigmatic figure.
Then it was worth investigating.
“Elder Kartlig.”
“What is it, Great Chieftain?”
“There is a task I must ask of you.”
He handed over a letter together with a spirit stone that shimmered with the power of wind.
“Please deliver this to Tellorian, the court mage of Harrington County. It may concern the very fate of our desert orcs.”
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At the same time.
The council chamber of Harrington Castle.
“You suggest defying the king’s summons?”
“Correct. War with the desert orcs will bring no benefit to Harrington County’s development. We must reject the summons and focus on strengthening our internal foundations.”
Tellorian’s radical advice left the advisory council speechless. Count Harrington was a vassal of the Essil king—a border count duty-bound to defend the frontier against foreign invasion.
“That would constitute treason.”
“Did you not already commit it in your youth?”
“That was not treason but a righteous struggle to protect sacred rights. The king had tried to impose laws enacted solely by himself upon his feudal lords.”
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“But the situation this time is completely different.”
The Iron Mace Count spoke with a steely gaze.
“By justification, a border count has no right to refuse the king’s summons against foreign invasion. By practical interest, every noble desires war with the orcs. If we alone abstain, the retaliation that follows will be devastating.”
Long years of peace had eroded the Essil nobles’ military capability, yet their craving for martial glory had only grown. The generation that had known real war had vanished, replaced by ignorant youths convinced of certain victory.
“You need not worry about post-war retaliation.”
“…Truly? After open treason?”
“I will tell you of the future I have seen.”
He spoke of it.
The future he had witnessed.
The destruction that now stood at their doorstep.