The Carrot and the Whip
There was an old dwarven saying, ■■■ — a word used when something was already fixed, when it was simply fate.
When they saw the envoys running toward them from the distance, white flags held high, the dwarves could do nothing but mutter that old saying under their breath.
"■■■..."
A few of the younger dwarves put it rather more bluntly.
"Well, shit..."
"Ahem. Mind your dignity."
It was only natural for the losing side to attempt negotiations. Neither Johan nor the mercenary captains under his command were particularly surprised.
The question was what kind of negotiation they would attempt!
"You will pay the ransom in full, and compensate me for the insult?"
"Yes, Your Excellency."
"Absurd."
When Johan snorted and sneered, the envoy flinched. There was a custom forbidding the killing of envoys, but that did nothing to blunt the fear.
And it was all the worse coming from a man who had personally witnessed Johan charge headlong through ranks of soldiers, grinding them to paste.
"Tell your master this. Open the gates, come out himself, and kneel before me. Then I shall promise him mercy."
"......"
The envoy wiped the cold sweat streaming down his forehead. Johan's menace was more than sufficient to demand it. But from his master's standpoint, the proposal was absolutely unacceptable.
The moment he came out and knelt, Jekillid's fate would fall into Johan's hands. Whether he would be executed on the spot or dragged off somewhere far away and locked up, no one could say.
No lord who had swaggered about as master of a marcher county would ever swallow such a humiliating offer.
"If you require hostages, I am authorized to offer the bloodline of my house."
"I don't need them. The count himself must come out."
Johan was utterly indifferent.
Had Johan been in a disadvantageous position, that would have been one thing — but from a position of overwhelming strength, there was no reason to concede a thing.
The county clinging to the edge of the peninsula had always been an aggravation, like a stubborn thorn wedged into his side. Sometimes pirates, sometimes merchants, sometimes invaders — they changed their skin as it suited them and made themselves insufferable.
The southern lords had lacked the resources to deal with them and left them alone. Johan was not the southern lords. An opportunity had presented itself, and he intended to seize it for good.
"Splendidly said, Your Excellency. There is no need to show mercy to heathen scum."
So spoke the republic's envoy with a look of satisfaction — a curious thing to say, coming from men who earned enormous revenue trading with the very heathens in question.
They behaved this way for one reason.
Because the current situation benefited the republic.
Whatever else may be true, it seems certain that Count Yeitz carries the favor of a god.
The republican envoy thought to himself. Frankly, it was a relief that Johan was an ally; if he had been an enemy, the thought alone would have choked the breath out of him.
Back in the republic proper, people shrugged — "just the strength of one individual, what's so impressive about that?" But those who had seen it with their own eyes thought nothing of the kind.
The valor Count Yeitz displayed on the battlefield could not be explained as merely that of a knight. There was something transcendent in it — something that turned onlookers' knees to water and sent them fleeing in terror.
The power to tear through a host and shatter it single-handedly, amid screaming all around and arrows raining from every direction, was nothing short of mythic.
But there's no need to start worrying about that just yet.
The republic wanted to maintain as good a relationship with Count Yeitz as possible.
They had enemies in abundance between them: the Emperor of the Holy Empire, the petty kingdoms of the eastern peninsula, the decayed heirs of the Ancient Empire — and the most ferocious and threatening of them all, the empire of the east...
With its home base deep within the Edene Sea, the republic wanted warriors to fight in its stead on the outside.
Johan, poised to become the hegemon of the south, was ideal for the role.
And then there was this...
To properly rule this county, he will have no choice but to need our help.
This land was nothing like the south. The authority of the Order held no sway here — if anything, it only got in the way. Some families would read the wind and switch sides, but plenty would also stand by their honor and loyalty.
Besides, Johan seemed so brimming with fury and piety that he appeared intent on annihilating House Jekillid outright.
That's the limit of a knight.
If he did that, the families who turned away from him would rise in furious revolt. Honor and justification mattered to heathens too.
Should that happen, this county would keep plaguing Count Yeitz endlessly — and the only place he could turn for help would be the republic.
The only party capable of maintaining steady trade with this county's lords, keeping a fleet at hand, and talking its way into their confidence!
Once the negotiations were over, the republic would be welcomed with open arms. This expedition could not possibly end in defeat anyway. Looking at Johan, losing seemed flatly impossible...
In that case, it was best to start banking on the gains to come.
"Might I offer a word of counsel?"
Johan nodded, and Ahir spoke with care.
"If you destroy House Jekillid outright, the resistance among the county's vassals will be considerable."
"What are you talking about?"
"?"
"?"
Ahir stared at Johan in bewilderment. The rumor was everywhere in the camp — spread by the envoy who had come demanding terms and been sent off humiliated.
Word that House Jekillid was about to be wiped out was even circulating among the noble hostages held in custody.
"The emir... that is to say, the count, must pay for what he's done. I cannot let stand a man who openly insulted my honor. But I have no intention of ending his house. Why on earth would I do that?"
Despite the republic's misreading, Johan was entirely rational. Dealing with the count was a matter of necessity, nothing more; he held little in the way of personal grudge.
He simply wasn't the sort to thrash about because someone had insulted his honor.
"Ah... er, is that so? My mistake, then."
"There's nothing to lose, so there's no need to concede anything."
If the man bowed completely, opened the gates, and came out, all the better. If not, Johan would simply smash into him as he was. He hated wasting strength, but every so often, strength needed to be displayed properly.
The sight of the count's walls being breached and the man dragged out of them would fix one thing firmly in the minds of everyone in the region: who the master was.
"They say the leader of the newly arrived expedition is a devil in the flesh."
"Quiet. Your voice carries."
One after another, envoys made their way to Johan's camp, which ringed the castle. These were not envoys from the count. They were quietly dispatched by the families who owed ransoms.
Their faces were thick with tension, and understandably so — they hadn't come merely to negotiate their ransoms.
These envoys had come to judge what manner of man the new expedition's commander was, and to determine how they ought to treat him going forward.
They could hardly help being nervous. Johan's rumors, meanwhile, had been embellished and exaggerated at every turn.
The nobles who had joined the battle and fled back out described Johan as some demonic knight with light blazing from his eyes and fire pouring from his mouth.
"Welcome, all of you."
"?"
And so, when Johan greeted them in a gentle voice, the envoys momentarily wondered, surely that's not the man?
"Is that the count's son?"
"No... they say it's the count himself...?"
Johan could hear the envoys' murmurs perfectly well, but he pretended not to.
He had prepared a banquet to receive them. There was nothing strange in that — nobles held feasts even in the middle of fighting.
But the order of the feast was utterly different. To their astonishment, Johan had arranged the banquet hall according to the customs of the heathens gathered there.
"...!"
The envoys were genuinely stunned, and Johan was pleased by the reaction.
"You've cleared out all the priests, I trust?"
"Yes. The men are bothering them as we speak."
Had any priest of the Order witnessed this scene, their heart would have stopped — so Johan had set his mercenaries to clearing the priests away from the vicinity. At this very moment, the priests were likely offering prayers while listening to the mercenaries' confessions.
The envoys took their seats, deeply grateful. Instead of wine, there was a cool drink made from candied fruit, and soup and fried dishes prepared from fresh seafood caught nearby, seasoned with spice.
The mercenary captains reached past their usual fare of meat, cabbage, and onions for the seafood. They came from different races and different origins, but their appetites were uniformly excellent.
Shame there's no wine.
Heathen tastes, sure enough...
Unlike the Order's envoys, the mercenary captains weren't fazed by anything Johan did for heathens. Mercenaries had always worked under heathen masters when the money was right.
Some went to serve the petty kingdoms of the eastern peninsula, and the truly fearless went as far as the Eastern Empire. Nobody was shocked by a lord adjusting his manners in front of his hosts.
Johan took a bite of salad made with sheep's-milk cheese and olive oil, nodded, and spoke in the eastern tongue.
"The food of this county is truly abundant."
"...!"
"Th-that is too great an honor, Your Excellency."
When Johan proved fluent in the eastern tongue, the envoys were astonished all over again. It was nothing like the rumors.
By reputation alone, he was a tyrant who would make prisoners crawl on their knees from the camp's entrance, cut a throat over a single wrong word, and dishonor anyone without a second thought...
Yet the figure Johan presented at this feast was the very image of a young and wise sovereign. If anything, Count Jekillid, driving his own vassals with the whip, looked more the tyrant.
Besides, several vampire knights of House Mulque stood at Johan's side, and that inspired a good deal more trust. That such men served in his retinue said everything.
Johan personally acknowledged each family's envoy in turn and spoke highly of each family's name.
Half a day later, the envoys were thoroughly charmed by Johan and completely at ease.
"The count of House Jekillid insulted my honor and raised an army against me, but I had no wish for vengeance beyond what was deserved. And yet the count still hides behind his walls and will not come out."
"A truly regrettable affair, Your Excellency."
"I told him plainly that we should settle this between the two of us and spare the blood of the vassals, and he refused."
The envoys nodded along. They had all heard of the duel proposed on the eve of battle — of how Johan had skewered several knights in spectacular fashion.
"All of this is of the count's own making."
"We understand, Your Excellency. Is this not the Lord punishing the count through Your Excellency's own hand?"
A few envoys, drunk on the mood, went too far with such talk. The ones who had been trying to restrain themselves nearly fell out of their seats. However much one erred, surely that was going too far.
"You're the envoy from House Dahya, aren't you? Those are truly moving words. I shall remember your name."
"Thank you, Your Excellency!"
Johan rewarded the man decisively. Caught up in the unforeseen current of the evening, even the others' eyes began to change.
"More exhausting than actual fighting."
"Splendidly done, my lord. Those envoy fellows didn't know which way was up."
The banquet had been a success. Most of the envoys returned with satisfied expressions, a few with complicated ones. Judging by the mood, it was plain to see which side they would take.
"Nobles are greedy creatures by nature — dangle food in front of them and they'll gobble it down and call it good. The ones who kneel and wag their tails aren't the problem. The problem is the ones still holding their necks stiff."
Not only Count Jekillid but several other families were still holding out. The Nusard brothers were among them, as were the other vassal families sworn closely to Count Jekillid.
Being so intimate with the count, they couldn't very well step forward first without reading the room.
"Well, this works out fine, actually."
"?"
Goidun looked puzzled.
"If every last one of them bows his head, I lose my pretext to confiscate their lands. I was already planning to make them pay for leaking my secrets, and if they come out like this, so much the easier for me."
The people inside the castle were clearly still dreaming. They were waiting it out — either to drive Johan off, or to force him into a negotiation guaranteeing their safety in full.
But Johan fully intended to take Jekillid Castle, no matter what.
He would have liked to seize a few more strongholds as well, but lacking justification, he had been holding back. If certain families were going to come out of their walls like this, though...
The carrot had been dangled long enough. It was time to swing the whip.
"Your Excellency! All preparations are complete!"
The dwarves came running up, shouting with excitement, their eyes blazing with naked eagerness.
"Good. I won't be receiving any envoys from here on. Begin the assault!"