A Letter After Three Years
The wind in Almers, nestled in the northeast, was as cold as ever.
Along with its distinctive dry scent came the smell of earth from the carts of merchant caravans that had traveled long roads, and that strangely blended fragrance had, before anyone quite realized it, filled the city with bustle.
In the past it had been a place where only the occasional traveler or a handful of small caravans would stop by from time to time. Now, however, mid-sized and smaller merchant guilds had established bases there, and traders came and went day and night, drawing crowds of people.
And naturally, the center of that change was the Shadowteron Merchant Guild.
Starting from Almers, passing through Buratirukan, the Shadowteron Merchant Guild had now advanced all the way to the Imperial Capital itself.
And there, on the outskirts of the capital, stood a tall, sturdy building that gave off the impression of a noble estate’s manor. On its highest floor, in the office of Guild Master Lisiven, a sudden scream erupted.
“Yaaaaaaaaaah!”
Along with the scream, someone urgently kicked the door open and rushed inside.
“Guild Master!”
“What’s the matter!”
Lisiven stood before her desk, clutching something in her hand and trembling violently. At the sight, Vice Guild Master Keiton and Lisiven’s bodyguard Zillakram immediately took up a full defensive stance.
“D-Did someone attack?”
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
Keiton approached Lisiven. But she shook her head and said,
“A-A letter has arrived… from Lord Arteon.”
“……What?”
In an instant the air in the room froze solid.
Arteon. The man who had single-handedly elevated the Shadowteron Merchant Guild to the very threshold of the top guilds. Yet three years ago all contact had been completely cut off.
The last letter three years prior had detailed what the Shadowteron Merchant Guild needed to do going forward, along with things that would help maintain continuous ties with the military. With predictions so accurate they seemed to foresee the future, the guild had been able to expand its influence several times over. Thanks to that, it had now reached a status where even the Empire’s core powers sought out the Shadowteron Merchant Guild first.
Keiton asked Lisiven with a startled look.
“R-Really? Lord Arteon has contacted us?”
“Yes, so just wait a moment. I’ll check the contents first.”
Lisiven opened the seal with trembling hands. As she read the words one by one, her expression twisted strangely. Seeing that, Keiton asked with an anxious face.
“Wh-Why are you like that? Has something happened to Lord Arteon?”
But…
“Prel…dior?”
The weight of that single word that slipped from Lisiven’s lips was greater than expected.
Lisiven, who received countless pieces of intelligence from across the Empire, knew better than anyone what kind of region Preldior currently was. The front line of the northern battlefield. The first advance point of this northern subjugation campaign.
Hadn’t they been promised enormous compensation for supplying the weapons and military matériel heading there this time? Considering the scale of it, one could tell how massive the battle that would unfold in Preldior would be.
Keiton thumped his chest and said,
“D-Don’t leave me hanging like that and just tell me.”
“……Lord Arteon says he is going to Preldior. It seems he has been assigned there and is preparing for the war to come.”
The warmth in the room drained away in an instant.
Keiton spoke in a sigh-laden voice.
“If it’s Preldior… isn’t that the first advance point for the First Prince’s carefully prepared northern subjugation this time?”
Those who would die there would number in the throngs. And Arteon would be standing in such a place.
Lisiven suddenly sprang up from her seat. The chair scraped back and thudded against the floor. Her eyes held a mixture of worry and resolve.
“Prepare a carriage. There’s somewhere I need to go.”
Keiton looked at her face and immediately nodded.
The northern sky hung low.
Gray clouds spread thin as if trying to chill the entire land, and a cold aura settled like breath upon everything. As they entered Preldior, the first thing that struck them was its distinctive “chill.”
It was different from the flesh-cutting knife-winds of Helikel Canyon, different from the blizzards of the Belikezel plains—a strangely compressed cold. The wind did not blow fiercely, yet a cold that seeped slowly between mountains and hills pressed in.
Standing at its center, Velkain gazed at the unique terrain of Preldior unfolding before him.
“It has a rather peculiar feel to it.”
“One of the north’s peculiarities.”
At Claw’s words Velkain spoke in a low voice. What looked like hills from afar became mountains up close; what looked like mountains from a distance became low ridges. Endless successive slopes stacked upon one another, forming layered walls. Beneath the gently continuous undulations, thin white snow glittered, and the narrow roads winding between them followed the low valleys.
Unlike the barren harshness typical of the north, it felt somewhat soft—yet the cold that laced it was denser still, and thus more dangerous.
“Tell the soldiers to be especially careful of the cold. In temperatures like these… frostbite can strike in an instant.”
Instead of knife-winds and snowstorms, a silence and a bone-deep, strange chill crushed the body. It was a landscape so quiet one almost expected to hear the sensitive breathing of nature itself, as vast as the mountains.
Claw nodded.
“I’ll make sure the commanders drive the point home. Still… getting over these mountains will be the key.”
Looking at the ridges and mountain forms stretching ahead, Claw spoke with a frustrated expression.
“Wouldn’t it have been faster if we had started from the eastern side of Belikezel and crossed the mountains directly?”
Velkain slowly shook his head.
“If we had, there would have been no answer when they struck from both sides. More important than shortening the advance route is… not creating variables.”
He swept his gaze across the terrain again. Gentle hills spread in front, yet behind them mountain ridges suddenly rose higher, interlocking from both sides like a natural, colossal threshold. The road between them was wide enough, but far too narrow for fifty thousand troops to deploy in formation.
Combat in a confined passage was lethal. Especially if there was an ambush.
Claw spoke low.
“Here too, if the enemy lines the hilltops, the risk of a surprise attack is high.”
“The hills in front are not the problem.”
Velkain’s eyes turned farther out.
“The problem is the rear.”
The ridges behind rose more than twice as high as those in front, and the slopes were far steeper. Ambushers could be anywhere. Having fought long on the northern front, he already knew: in unfamiliar terrain the greatest danger was not the enemy’s skill or numbers, but the changed battlefield itself.
Unfamiliar. That means… this is a battlefield advantageous to the enemy.
Velkain let out a deep breath. That chill and tension settled deep into his lungs as if battle had already begun.
They had always been the ones defending whenever large forces of the Kar tribe attacked. The Kar tribe and the imperial soldiers who protected the north—if one looked at them one by one, the gap in ability was beyond words. Until only a few years ago there had been almost no regular troops in the north; most had been forced conscripts under punishment. Even when four or five penal soldiers were only equal to a single Kar warrior, they had been able to hold because they fought on terrain familiar to them.
But now…
The positions had reversed. Roughly half the imperial soldiers heading north were now regular troops of excellent skill. Yet in inverse proportion, the topographic disadvantage had grown enormous.
“We already suffered greatly from inadequate reconnaissance at Belikezel. The same mistake must not be repeated.”
Of the soldiers who had retaken Belikezel, ten thousand had gathered at Preldior. On top of that, reinforcements numbered a full forty thousand. All of it was power the First Prince had gathered and gathered again over the past three years.
“This is the first war into which every scrap of that power is being poured. Failure will never be forgiven.”
Velkain’s expression was resolute. It was not because of the outcome of the First Prince’s struggle for the throne. This northern war was the purpose of his life, a long-cherished wish he had to fulfill no matter what.
At Velkain’s words Claw nodded.
“The supplies will arrive soon as well.”
“The Shadowteron Merchant Guild?”
“Yes. They have independently covered sixty percent of the matériel going into this war.”
“That eases one worry.”
If one were to name the largest merchant guilds in the Empire, three or four would come up, and among them the Mion Obsidian Merchant Guild could not be left out. Yet after the struggle for the throne began, they had completely shifted toward the south and pulled their feet out of the north. That had left a massive hole in the supply of the northern battlefield.
But the Shadowteron Merchant Guild, which had been growing its bulk with Almers in the north as its base, had by now expanded to a size rivaling the Mion Obsidian Merchant Guild and completely plugged that hole. It was no exaggeration to call them a guild specialized for the northern battlefield; they were stably supplying matériel on an enormous scale.
Claw nodded.
“We have also received a letter that Prince Sedrian will arrive before long.”
That much showed how critical this first war was. Velkain nodded in turn.
“Prepare so that there is not a single gap.”
With those words he looked up at the sky. Before they knew it the northern cold was descending even more mercilessly.
How we endure this cold… that may well become the key.
The greater the number of soldiers, the more variables could arise. On this frigid battlefield that could be the greatest problem of all—yet a single commander could not prevent or block every one of them.
In the end… am I supposed to pray to the gods?
Gazing at the vast mountain ranges of Preldior spread before him, Velkain’s eyes sank low.
The air of the northern city of Renfior was far too chill for a city.
There was almost no wind, yet a cold that seeped deep into the body lingered. The peculiar northern stillness that settled between hill and hill lay over the streets.
Clack.
When the carriage that had entered the city stopped, the first to step down was Kairon.
“Ugh, it’s freezing… Why is it so cold?”
He rubbed his arms, trying to drive the chill away, but it was useless. His cheeks felt as if they might freeze solid. Yet Arteon, who followed right after, let out a small breath with an expressionless face.
“If you call this cold, you’ll feel pain enough to freeze to death on the battlefield. You need to get used to it.”
“……This cold? No, wait—you’re saying it’s colder than here?”
Kairon asked as if speech had failed him. Arteon looked around calmly and answered,
“Here you can still endure bare-skinned. The wind’s not even blowing much, is it?”
“……Good grief.”
It was a moment when even the thought of going to the northern battlefield began to feel unwelcome. But then—
“I shall escort you.”
The coachman who had parked the carriage approached Arteon and spoke. When Arteon nodded, the coachman took the lead and began walking somewhere.
“Where are we going?”
Kairon asked as he followed, but the two simply walked the road in silence. A short while later they turned into a side alley of the city, and at the end of the lane a small shop came into view. When the coachman finally stopped in front of it, Kairon’s gaze rose to the signboard above.
“This place is…?”
“Somewhere we absolutely must stop before heading to the battlefield.”
With those words Arteon stepped into the shop.