ACT 2
“Now then, what to do about this...” Linnea frowned, staring hard at the documents in her hands.
She was seated in a room in Gimlé’s central fortress that had been set up for her as a temporary office. Compared to her office in the Horn Clan capital Fólkvangr, it was extremely plain and bare-bones. With just her work desk and a pair of chairs for guests, it already felt cramped.
“It’s clear as day: We don’t have enough food,” she murmured.
In the course of the military campaign to subjugate the Panther Clan, the enemy had employed a scorched-earth strategy, burning their own lands. Because of that, right now the Steel Clan was dealing with refugees numbering in the tens of thousands, people who had lost everything—their homes, wealth, and jobs.
Additionally, the Steel Clan had become famous for having easily repelled the invading armies of the Lightning and Panther Clan, and then absorbing the Panther Clan’s former territory in Álfheimr. That fame had drawn a great many fortune-seekers from other nations in the region, all flooding into Steel Clan territory in search of work.
In terms of absolute numbers, the production of food had gone through a huge increase, thanks to Yuuto’s revolutionary farming techniques and the additional guidance he’d provided. However, even with that boost, at this rate the clan would run through all of its food stores before the autumn harvest.
Food was absolutely essential. Everyone had to eat, after all.
Linnea’s biological father, the previous Horn Clan patriarch, had often told her: “As long as they don’t go hungry, the people will remain calm, and attend to their own work.”
Flipping that statement on its head, that meant that if a ruler let the people go hungry, public order would begin to break down.
Not much time had passed since her clan had joined together with six others as one under the banner of the Steel Clan.
During this early, difficult period for the new clan, they absolutely had to avoid a situation that caused the people to lose trust in their rulers.
“We can fill the gap by slaughtering our livestock, but that needs to be the last resort,” Linnea murmured.
Originally, most livestock had been slaughtered before winter, in order to secure their meat as part of winter food stocks. This was in line with the common practice elsewhere in Yggdrasil. However, once the Wolf Clan and Horn Clan began using the Norfolk crop rotation system, they’d accumulated a great deal more animal feed. And so, this year’s summer season found both clans with a much larger livestock population, carried over from previous years.
What was important to remember, however, was that those livestock were also an essential part of the system for growing more crops. They needed to be able to roam over the wide-ranging fields, grazing and fertilizing the land.
If they were killed for their meat now, the increase in food production over time would slow and fail to meet the demands of the increasing population. It was easy to picture that by next year, they’d be in dire straits again.
That would just put them into a gradual, downward spiral.
The slightly elderly-looking man standing next to Linnea leaned in to offer a suggestion: “For the time being, before doing anything else, perhaps we could discuss this issue with the other six clans?”
This man was Rasmus, a high-ranking Horn Clan member who had been part of the clan administration since the days of Linnea’s predecessor.
For many long years, he had been an active leader of the clan as its second-in-command, but as of late, he had retired from that position and from active military duty, and had renewed his Oath of the Chalice to Linnea as her clan’s leader of subordinates. Now he mostly served as Linnea’s personal advisor.
“You’re right.” Linnea nodded. “It would be absurd for us to have to bear the burden of this dilemma on our own, anyway.”
At present, the food supplies being redistributed as emergency aid and support were coming almost entirely from the Horn and Wolf Clans.
That was, of course, because those two clans were the ones that had seen huge leaps in production and generated huge surpluses thanks to Yuuto’s guidance and reforms.
But each of the subordinate clans were equal members of the Steel Clan; in terms of traditional honor, it should be only right for the other clans to contribute, as well.
“Well,” Linnea said, “maybe this is also a good opportunity for me.”
She had met the other clan patriarchs at the formal ceremony establishing the Steel Clan, but she’d yet to speak to any of them privately at length.
They were each other’s sworn siblings now. As their sister, and for the sake of her duties as the second-in-command of the Steel Clan, she needed to learn more about what sort of people they were—and about the current state of their clans’ domestic affairs.
“Whatever else they may be, they’re all people who made their way into the position of clan patriarch,” Linnea said with a grim look. “They’re all bound to be sly and cunning. I imagine this is going to be a very tiring process.”
The first person Linnea visited was the Steel Clan’s assistant second-in-command, and current patriarch of the Wolf Clan, Jörgen. By good fortune, he was currently staying in Gimlé, which made him an easy first choice.
“Oh, Second-in-Command,” he said. “It is a pleasure to see you, ma’am.”
He was a tall, solidly-built, and muscular man. He was in a room the same size as Linnea’s office, but it felt even smaller with him inside it.
With scars from a bladed weapon on one cheek and across one of his eyebrows, his face was fierce-looking and intimidating, but Linnea knew him well enough to know that this appearance was deceiving. He had a sincere, caring personality and was good at looking after people, and so he was well-loved and respected by his subordinates.
His clan and hers had been bound as sibling clans for a while now, and he had first been the second-in-command of his clan before becoming its new patriarch. They’d had many fruitful discussions thus far, the first of which had been right before her group leisure trip with Yuuto to a hot spring.
She was on good terms with him, and so she could speak with him without any excess tension. He was the perfect choice as the first target for her negotiations.
“This is good timing, as I was just about to go and see you myself,” Jörgen went on.
“Hm? You had business with me?” Linnea replied to him with a familiar, slightly less formal tone than he was using. He was a couple of decades older than her, but by the Oath of the Chalice, she was above him in rank.
Incidentally, back during the period when Yuuto had first become a clan patriarch, he’d had a great deal of difficulty training himself to speak informally and plainly to people older than himself. However, Linnea had no such issues; she had been a “princess” her whole life.
Her biological father had been the previous Horn Clan patriarch, and from a young age, he had worked to give her the education befitting of a future ruler. He had hammered an important principle into her: Those who would stand above others must never allow those lower in rank to treat them flippantly or with disrespect. And so for her, behavior and social cues in accordance with that principle came naturally.
Jörgen, of course, took no offense to this tone of address, and merely nodded.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, “Father has ordered me to be in charge of planning his wedding ceremony. But considering this is Father’s wedding, the ceremony will of course be a large-scale, national event. And so, I needed to come see you and get your approval on the budget. Though, I imagine that this couldn’t be a very pleasant topic for you to deal with at the moment...”
He scratched the back of his head with one hand, looking a little apologetic.
Jörgen was well aware that Linnea was deeply in love with Yuuto, so he was probably feeling a bit guilty about bringing this subject up with her.
Linnea held up one hand. “I deeply appreciate your concern, Jörgen, but you don’t need to worry on my account.”
It would be a lie to say she didn’t feel any heartache at all about this situation, but after her talk with Mitsuki the other day, she’d managed to straighten out her feelings a little bit better.
Especially since, while Mitsuki would be Yuuto’s only wife and queen, she had expressed her acceptance of other women as his concubines. Linnea’s heart had already switched to a new goal: She just needed to work her hardest to become Yuuto’s second- or third-ranked mistress.
Linnea placed one elbow on the armrest of her chair, and continued. “Now then, my sworn brother. I think I can guess what issue prompted you to want to come and see me. It’s problems with the budget, isn’t it?” She let out a heavy sigh.
“Yes, ma’am.” Jörgen nodded, his expression growing clouded. “As you know, the Steel Clan’s finances are in a rather difficult state at the moment.”
The Panther Clan’s scorched-earth strategy had cast a heavy shadow over the Steel Clan’s finances as well as its food supply.
Everything had been burned, aside from the people themselves, across a wide swath of the country.
Rebuilding and restoration of those areas would require much, much more than just food. Just the thought of the great volume of resources and capital that would be necessary was enough to give Linnea a headache.
And at the same time that was going on, the Steel Clan also needed to construct a Hliðskjálf tower in Gimlé, its capital. The sacred Hliðskjálf tower was essential for a clan’s religious rites as well as symbolic authority.
Of course, there was also the current state of Linnea and Jörgen’s temporary offices. They were so small that they affected work productivity, and aside from that, they affected the ability to project the power and dignity of their positions when receiving envoys from other nations.
On top of that, the Steel Clan had hired a great number of mercenaries for their most recent campaign, including two thousand Panther Clan riders from among the prisoners taken from a previous battle. The accumulation of monthly salaries for all of those fighters was nothing to sneeze at, either.
Frankly speaking, the current Steel Clan was already stretched thin financially, and didn’t have enough reserves to spare for yet another large-scale expense.
“Still,” Linnea said, “even so, we can’t very well allow Father’s wedding ceremony to be a small, cheap event, can we?”
Jörgen nodded. “Just so, ma’am. Father isn’t a very showy man, and he even said that ‘Just something plain and simple is fine.’ However... we cannot allow that.”
“Yes, you’re exactly right,” Linnea agreed.
This wasn’t only an issue of national honor, either.
Yuuto seemed to always underestimate his own value and impact. The reality was that there had been a sudden and shocking national decline during his two-month absence, followed by a complete turnaround immediately after his return. These dramatic events meant that the people’s love of Yuuto and their faith in him had only grown stronger.
His new moniker of reginarch, “the Great Lord,” had immediately taken root among the people without needing any prompting from leaders like Linnea or Jörgen. And when Yuuto finally returned to Gimlé after the end of his campaign, the cheers of the populace had literally shaken the entire city. It was obvious from that just how overwhelmingly popular he had become.
Meanwhile, Mitsuki, the woman who had captured the heart of this great hero-king, was herself gathering fame and goodwill among the people.
According to Kristina’s reports, everyone in Gimlé was eagerly talking about how much they wanted to catch just one glimpse of her.
And so, if the wedding ceremony were held as a small affair with only Yuuto’s closest associates in attendance, the masses would never accept it.
Linnea leaned back against her chair, and stared up into empty space. “And yet, there’s the autumn harvest festival coming up in just two months. We just had the Steel Clan’s founding ceremony the month before last, and this month we had the victory celebration for the military campaign. If these large events keep coming in succession, we’re going to have trouble.”
Of course, in most respects, having so many celebrations in a row was still something to be grateful for.
However, as the person in charge of organizing the clan’s finances, such a string of happy events also presented a problem she couldn’t ignore.
As previously mentioned, the clan was already reeling from the expenses necessary to deal with the reconstruction and recovery in the lands the Panther Clan had torched.
Jörgen nodded, a troubled expression on his face. “Indeed. I had thought we might perhaps be able to re-use some of the resources we had been preparing for the harvest festival, but that would mean using what amounted to hand-me-downs, which would be an insult to Father’s dignity.”
“True,” Linnea agreed. “Father would probably not mind too much, but that would be no excuse. ...Hm? Wait! That’s it, of course!” Linnea stood up with a shout. “We don’t need to ‘re-use’ resources meant for the autumn harvest festival. We could simply combine the wedding ceremony and harvest festival into one event!”
“Combine them into one event?” Jörgen repeated, with a puzzled frown.
“Yes. By the good grace of the gods, Mother is newly pregnant. At the conclusion of the harvest festival, we could have her act as a symbolic stand-in for the goddess of fertility, with Father in his role as the symbol of the Steel Clan itself. And so their marriage ceremony would also be the climax of the harvest festival. In fact, doing it this way should increase the impact of both celebrations, don’t you think? And it would greatly reduce the necessary expenses.”
“Ohhh, I see!” Jörgen nodded vigorously, at last understanding the concept. “Hmm. I should have expected nothing less of the woman Father selected as his second-in-command. I am glad I came to you for advice.”
“It was just a lucky idea,” Linnea smiled. “Now then, please use that as the base for your plans going forward.”
“Understood, ma’am.” Jörgen gripped Linnea’s outstretched hand tightly in his, and they shook on the matter.
Linnea had heard that in recent years, Jörgen had been spending all of his time taking care of administrative affairs in the Wolf Clan capital Iárnviðr, but his grip still had the telltale strength of a veteran warrior; it was like shaking hands with a rock.
“Ah, that reminds me,” Jörgen said. “We have been discussing my own issue this whole time, but Second-in-Command, you wanted to see me about one, as well. What was it?”
“If I said my problem was a lot like yours, would you be able to guess?” Linnea asked.
Jörgen narrowed his eyes. “Does it have to do with the stock of food supplies?” he asked, in a much lower tone.
That show of caution was as expected for a political leader of his caliber.
If rumors of food shortages were to get out and spread, then various parties might begin buying up or hoarding what was available on the market. That would only cause the situation to get worse.
Linnea nodded at the correct guess. “Yes, it does.”
She decided to skip straight to point.
“I’ll simply ask you right out: As things stand now, is the Wolf Clan going to be able to continue providing food supplies as aid?”
Jörgen’s shoulders slumped, and he shook his head wearily. “At this point, we would have no options left other than slaughtering our livestock. If providing aid is what Father orders, then we would of course have to do so. But speaking honestly, I would love to get the chance to beg to be released from that burden.”
With the new knowledge and instructions from Yuuto, the Wolf Clan had greatly improved their irrigation technology, thereby greatly increasing the amount of farmable land in their territory.
Furthermore, cows and horses were many times stronger than the average human.
Using extra livestock to assist in farm work greatly increased productivity—and by the same note, losing that livestock would have a severe impact.
At present, the Wolf Clan’s food production was such that they had more than enough to feed their own current population. Of course, no ruler would want to take actions that slowed or stalled his own nation’s growth.
“Things are much the same for us in the Horn Clan,” Linnea sighed. “All right, I understand. I’ll do everything I can to try and get the other five clans to start contributing more of their resources, and I’ll try to adjust things going forward.”
“Ahh, truly? If you would, that would be wonderful. Thank you.” Jörgen’s fierce expression broke into a wide grin, and once more he gripped Linnea’s hand in his.
Even though he was probably only using a fraction of his strength, it was still an incredibly powerful grip. It actually hurt more than a bit.
However, Linnea didn’t let the pain show on her face, and instead broached her next topic.
“Right then. In preparation for that, I wanted to learn more about Lord Botvid, and so I was hoping you might tell me...”
Upon hearing the name of the Claw Clan patriarch, Jörgen’s demeanor changed completely. “Botvid?” he repeated, cutting Linnea off. His voice was low and chilly, and his grip on her hand grew much stronger.
“Ow!” This time, Linnea couldn’t keep from shouting in pain.
“Ah... ahh, please forgive me, ma’am.” Flustered, Jörgen quickly apologized and released Linnea’s hand, but his expression remained grim. It seemed he had a deep-seated grudge against the Claw Clan patriarch.
The air about him practically seethed with a quiet anger. It made him seem like an entirely different person from the big-hearted Jörgen Linnea knew. A more weak-willed person would probably go weak in the knees if faced with such intense, intimidating pressure.
It was, without a doubt, the force of presence befitting a patriarch.
Linnea swallowed nervously. I underestimated this man. He has been overshadowed by people like Sigrún and Skáviðr, but Jörgen is a monster in his own right.
In retrospect, that only made sense, for this was the person Yuuto had chosen to be his successor in leadership of his old clan. Of course he wouldn’t be someone ordinary.
Someone as great and powerful as this had served Yuuto faithfully for years, without ever holding any ambitions to power of his own.
With that realization, Linnea was once again made painfully aware of just how incredible Yuuto’s power as a ruler was.
“Hmm, so in summary, you are saying, ‘Give us your food supplies as tribute,’ then? That is a bit...” The middle-aged man gave a tired sigh, and scratched the back of his head. “Hahh, I am really at a loss here.”
Appearance-wise, he looked to be just over forty. His front hairline had receded quite a bit, and he already had some white hairs. His build was a little overweight and lumpy, and his face was affixed with an affable, but insincere-looking smile, like a mask.
“Naturally, I understand things must be hard for the Claw Clan, Brother Botvid,” Linnea said. “But surely you’ve heard of the terrible conditions the Panther Clan is facing right now? Helping each other out in times like these is what proper family is all about.”
Linnea managed to speak the words in a confident and resolute manner, but the inside of her mouth was completely dry.
No matter how much this person might look like nothing more than a tired, unremarkable old man, he was Botvid, patriarch of the Claw Clan.
He was notorious for his wicked cunning among his neighbors, who referred to him as the “Pit Viper.” And in the years before Yuuto had become patriarch of the Wolf Clan, Botvid and his schemes had driven them to the brink of destruction.
Jörgen had reflexively changed his demeanor the moment he’d heard Botvid’s name, showing just how wary he was of the man. She couldn’t let her guard down with him, even for a moment.
“Oh, but... you see, we of the Claw Clan live high among the mountains, and our lands are poor in resources,” Botvid told her. “We are not blessed with vast expanses of fertile land, as the Horn Clan is, you see.”
“And that’s precisely why the Horn Clan is shouldering the great majority of the burden of providing aid. We’re all struggling right now.”
“But even if you say that, I cannot give you what I do not have. We are struggling just to ration our supplies to feed our own population, you see...”
“Funny, I’ve heard your clan has been racking up quite a lot of profits from trade,” Linnea responded coolly, a hint of questioning in her tone.
She’d gotten the information from Jörgen.
The Horn Clan didn’t share any borders with the Claw Clan, and so with the modest distance between their nations, Linnea didn’t have a strong grasp of its internal situation.
On that point, the Wolf Clan had a bit more of an advantage, and so she’d sought out Jörgen to learn what she could.
Linnea had intended her remark to be a critical blow to her adversary’s defenses, making him vulnerable, but such was not the case.
Botvid shook his head sadly, his expression seemingly overflowing with sorrow. “Umm... well, actually, as of late we have seen none of that business at all, really. Father has products like the paper, you see, and the gritless bread, and the glasswares, and many others. Because of that, the merchants have simply lost interest in stopping to trade with our little clan. In these past two years, our capital city has declined so much... why, it’s practically a ghost town now.”
It didn’t seem like this was a total lie; however, Linnea also sensed that he wasn’t telling the whole truth, either.
He was definitely hiding something.
That was what Linnea’s intuition as a politician told her.
However, the reason he was giving was legitimate enough, without any contradictions. There was nothing in it to catch him with.
It’s just like I heard. He’s a wily old fox, she thought.
At first glance, he seemed like an inconspicuous, even timid sort of man. But throughout their interaction, his vague and noncommittal responses kept letting him sidestep her every attempt to make demands of him, while not giving her anything concrete for her to grab onto and use as leverage against him.
He was probably also working with the full understanding that, since the Steel Clan was still newly formed, no one would have good knowledge of the inner affairs of the other clans yet.
If possible, Linnea had wanted to settle this with nothing more than a proper, congenial discussion, but there wouldn’t be any progress at this rate.
She decided to pull out a tried and tested weapon.
“Brother Botvid, let me be clear,” she said in a colder, firmer tone. “I didn’t come all the way here to make a request of you. I am giving you an order as the second-in-command of the Steel Clan.”
Linnea let her statement sink in, and she waited.
She knew well enough that not every issue could be resolved just through discussion.
She wasn’t fond of using her authority in such a blunt fashion, but she wasn’t so soft as to let herself hesitate when the situation really called for it.
However, not even this maneuver was able to put a crack in Botvid’s gracious, smiling expression. “Hmm, well, if this is a matter of the Steel Clan’s policies going forward, then I would most certainly love to hear Father’s opinion on the matter, you see.”
Linnea felt the side of one of her own temples twitch slightly.
Botvid’s statement meant, basically, “There’s no point in discussing this with a little girl like you. I’ll only discuss it directly with Yuuto.”
He had quite a lot of nerve to show her that kind of disrespect.
“So that means you won’t listen to my orders, then?” Linnea shot back.
“Oh, no, no, of course that’s not it at all,” Botvid protested. “However, you see, it is still the case that my clan is only just barely managing to feed ourselves. And so, you see, I thought that perhaps Father, in all his knowledge, might come up with some clever solution that the two of us might never think of ourselves.”
Ahh... so that’s what it is. Linnea gave a bitter sigh... but only in her mind.
Botvid’s aim had finally risen to the surface. In exchange for contributing some food supplies, he was after some of Yuuto’s knowledge—in other words, demanding she hand over one of his inventions.
When it came to Yuuto’s inventions—whether it was the process for refining iron, or the formula behind the Norfolk crop rotation system, or any of the others—even just one of them held the potential to multiply a nation’s prosperity, and its political strength.
And that was precisely why Yuuto put such a strong and deliberate emphasis on keeping the techniques behind them a secret. In fact, ever since the period he’d spent back in his homeland beyond the heavens, it felt as if he’d gotten even more serious about that policy.
Botvid must have seen this as the best chance he would ever get to obtain one of those precious inventions. It was a shrewd move, to be sure. But one would have to be at least that shrewd in order to serve as a clan patriarch.
Linnea mulled over her options. If I bring Father into this now, things should resolve themselves smoothly... but dealing with the domestic affairs of the Steel Clan is my job as the second in command.
Besides, Botvid had challenged Linnea’s authority directly. He was picking a fight with her.
He might deny it, but between the lines, he’d done all but say aloud, I won’t obey the orders of a little girl like you.
They were both sworn child subordinates of Yuuto. And in a fight between siblings, there was nothing more shameful than calling in the parent to intervene. Indeed, it might only lead to her being looked down upon as nothing more than a child who was overly dependent on Yuuto to solve her problems.
“Father is a busy man, and I have no intention of troubling him by bringing him in to deal with such a trifling little issue.” Linnea made extra sure Botvid could hear her emphasis on the word trifling.
In other words, she was saying, Merely dealing with someone like you is nothing special.
Naturally, seasoned veteran that he was, the sly old fox’s plastered-on smile didn’t falter. However, Linnea’s eyes caught a little tell: Botvid’s hands, graciously clasped together, tensed up just a little bit.
He was probably a little irked at being spoken down to by this young girl, someone he inwardly considered to be beneath him.
“All right, then, fine, I understand,” Linnea said. “If the Claw Clan is truly in such a difficult situation, I will just look elsewhere for support. And I also won’t be coming to you to request any other assistance going forward, so please don’t worry about that.”
Linnea ended her statement with a smile, and then she stood up with every intention to leave.
“W-wait! Please wait!” Botvid hurriedly held out a hand, in an attempt to stop her.
Got you, Linnea thought deep down. But while inwardly she was smirking, on the surface, she feigned puzzlement. “Hm? What else is there to discuss?”
“Well, we of the Claw Clan are just as much members of the Steel Clan, you see. We cannot simply refuse to do anything at all to help, as that would be...”
“No, I’m perfectly fine with that,” Linnea said bluntly, cutting off Botvid. “I’m not going to ask you to put undue strain on your clan for our sake. Just focus on taking good care of yourselves.”
It was an act—she had planned all of this beforehand.
When he’d first heard about the demand for food aid, Botvid must have sized up his and Linnea’s relative needs, and concluded that this was an opportunity to try to score some extra benefits for himself.
It would be hard to predict the exact outcome of the negotiations, and there would probably be some compromises on his part, but he had surely calculated that no matter what, he would still come out with something to show for it.
But now he was in danger of getting absolutely nothing, and furthermore, facing the possibility that other more obedient clans would get preferential treatment rather than his own clan in future affairs. That would naturally push him into a bit of a panic.
Of course, Linnea also stood to lose out just as badly if she failed to get any aid from Botvid at all. Inwardly, she had been incredibly nervous about enacting the ploy, but she hadn’t let a hint of that show.
Botvid had dismissed her as nothing more than a naive little girl. That was what had sealed his fate.
Linnea had grown up as the daughter of a patriarch, strictly educated on the fundamentals of being a ruler.
She was still a bit unaccustomed to directing troops in battle on the field, but when it came to the push and pull of diplomatic struggles like these, she’d been through more than her share of difficult battles.
“I have other matters to attend to, so I’ll take my leave now.” Turning on her heels, Linnea made to exit the room.
Just as she reached the door, she heard a heavy sigh from behind her.
“...Actually, I just remembered. It so happens that we have a small amount of old food stocks in reserve, left over from a previous year’s harvest. If we use those, it should add up to a modest contribution of aid.”
“Ohh! Is that true?!” Linnea exclaimed.
Deep down, she thought, I knew you were hiding some, but she didn’t let those words get anywhere close to crossing her lips.
She acted as if she were genuinely shocked at the news.
“I will give them up, if it is for the good of the Steel Clan,” Botvid said quickly. “However, this is my clan’s emergency reserve, incredibly precious, and so I would humbly wish for some small compensation in return.”
“Ahh, but of course! Then, how about this: In exchange for every one hundred sheaves of wheat, the Horn Clan shall give the Claw Clan one of our armored wagons, which we use as part of the defensive tactic known as the Wagon Wall.”
Linnea had the option to push harder here with the weight of her authority, but instead, she made a clear offer.
And rather than trying to be stingy, she used a valuable item to make the bid.
Thanks to Yuuto’s introduction of the iron-refining process, the price of iron had gone down somewhat, but it was still worth at least as much as gold on the open market. The wagons used in the Wagon Wall were covered in iron plates.
That made them extremely valuable; something Botvid would want desperately.
Linnea’s choice of this item for her offer was more proof of her good political sense.
Once it was clear she would win the exchange, she then took care not to win by too much, and made sure the other party gained in the exchange as well. She created a win-win situation.
Machiavelli famously wrote in his essays that a ruler should inspire fear, but should work hard to avoid being despised.
That was the best path to forging good political relations over the long term. And it was something that Linnea understood intuitively.
“Ah...!” Botvid’s eyes went wide. “Do you speak of that invention which you have used time and again to successfully repel the attacks of the Panther Clan riders?!”
Even though Botvid’s nation was far away from the lands where the battles in question had taken place, it seemed he knew all about them. This was despite the fact that there had been great efforts made to keep the exact details behind those victories a secret, since if information got out about the Wagon Wall, someone might be able to try copying the design.
In that respect, it seemed the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Botvid was very much like his biological daughter Kristina, the leader of the Steel Clan’s spy network.
“A-are you really all right with giving us those?!” Botvid exclaimed.
“Yes, I am. Now that the threat of the Panther Clan has passed, those weapons will serve the Steel Clan just as well if they are in possession of the Claw Clan.”
Now that the Steel Clan had annexed the Panther Clan, the two non-allied nations bordering the Horn Clan were the Hoof Clan and the Lightning Clan.
The Hoof Clan had been trapped in a trend of steady decline after losing their charismatic ruler, the great warrior Yngvi. And at the Battle of Gashina, it had been made clear that the Wagon Wall tactic was completely useless against the Lightning Clan, as long as they had the monstrously powerful Steinþórr leading them.
In conclusion, the armored wagons were of little use to the Horn Clan at this point, while also being a source of wasteful maintenance costs.
Naturally, they were still valuable military weapons, and having powerful military resources ready in reserve was not something Linnea took for granted. However, there should be no problem with selling off a small number of them.
More than anything, there was the fact that during the Panther Clan patriarch Hveðrungr’s sentencing, Yuuto had said he intended to “rule over all of Yggdrasil.”
Since he had finished conquering most of the lands up to the western coast of Yggdrasil, that could only mean that he eventually intended to invade eastward, towards the central region of the empire.
Since the Claw Clan controlled the territory on what was currently the Steel Clan’s eastern side, then giving them military resources made perfect sense from the perspective of the Steel Clan as a whole.
The logic made sense, at least, but even so, giving one’s own limited military resources away to another nation was not an easy thing to do.
Linnea, however, was decisive and acted without hesitation in these situations. That was one of the remarkable things about her.
Later on, Botvid remarked the following to his biological daughter, Kristina:
“I took her for nothing more than a little girl, but she was more than I gave her credit for. In particular, there was the fact that I found it difficult to view her as my enemy. She’s mastered the art of making allies and winning at negotiation, and all at such a young age. It’s frightfully impressive.”
And with a knowing grin, Kristina said the following in response:
“Why are you only realizing this just now? You should already know that while Father is surrounded by beautiful girls, the only time they are ‘cute’ is when they are dealing with him.”
“All right, I’ve managed to secure something from everyone, at least.” Linnea leaned back into her chair and took a long, deep breath.
She had just concluded her meeting with Lágastaf, the patriarch of the Wheat Clan. With that, she’d finished negotiations with the patriarchs of five out of the six sibling clans. Only the Panther Clan was left.
So far, the results of those negotiations had been pretty great, or as great as one could hope for.
Just as with Botvid of the Claw Clan, each meeting had started with the other party showing that they didn’t think much of her, but that had changed as the discussions proceeded and Linnea got to work on them.
She’d variously coaxed them with offers, or allayed their concerns, or threatened them, all the while working to ascertain what it was they each most wanted or needed. At last, she had made sure that by the end, they wound up arriving at exactly the sort of arrangement that both parties could accept.
She would never gain too much at the other person’s expense, nor allow them to do the same; she would get what she wanted from the deal while letting them win something, too.
In each case, she had found that line and struck that perfect balance.
That was why, even though each of her fellow patriarchs had ended up pledging to donate some of their food supplies, they’d all left her office with satisfied faces.
“But,” Linnea murmured, “this still isn’t nearly enough.”
The other clans she’d negotiated with were fellow subsidiaries of the Steel Clan, but they had originally been small, weak provincial clans. They didn’t really have all that much to spare.
It definitely wasn’t going to be enough to feed tens of thousands of people all the way up until the autumn harvest.
Knock knock! Linnea’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden and unexpected knock at her door.
“Second-in-Command, I heard that you wished to have a word with me. Is now a good time?” The voice that called from the other side of the door was passionless and carried an eerie chill that could make a person’s blood run cold.
“Ah, Brother Skáviðr,” Linnea said. “Yes, come in.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
The man who entered had thin cheeks and a pale, sickly color, yet his eyes gleamed with a sharp and piercing light, and he had a dangerous, sinister-seeming air about him.
If she hadn’t already known him well, she might have easily mistaken him for a hired assassin and called for the guards.
This man, Skáviðr, was one of Yuuto’s most trusted advisors. He had once been the Wolf Clan’s assistant second-in-command, but had recently become the new patriarch of the Panther Clan in Álfheimr, which had sworn allegiance to Yuuto and the Steel Clan.
“It’s good to see you after so long,” Linnea said. She addressed him in a friendly manner, without formal airs. “You’ve been in good health, I hope?”
A year ago, Skáviðr had been sent on a mission to the Horn Clan’s western border region, put in charge of defending the walled city of Myrkviðr and the surrounding area. That had given Linnea a chance to interact with him regularly and get to know him.
She’d learned that, in spite of what his appearance might suggest, Skáviðr was completely loyal to Yuuto, and cared about his subordinates as well as about the lives of the citizenry. She’d grown quite fond of him as a result.
“Yes, thankfully I am well,” Skáviðr said. “I’m happy to see that you seem to have kept in good health yourself, ma’am.”
“Please, have a seat and make yourself comfortable.”
“I appreciate it. Thank you.” Skáviðr gave a small nod, and settled himself into one of the guest chairs.
Linnea sat down across from him, and set about preparing for the important discussion to come by starting off with some more standard small talk.
“So, it’s been a month now since you were made a patriarch. Tell me, how’s it going?”
“I cannot honestly say that it’s going well,” Skáviðr admitted. “I am a simple, boorish man who has spent his whole life as a soldier, focused solely on battle. This is a role completely outside of my experience, so I often feel as if I’m fumbling in the dark.”
“Is there anything in particular you’re having problems with? I know I might not seem that reliable because I’m young, but I do have more experience than you as a clan patriarch. You can consult with me about things.”
Linnea felt that she owed Skáviðr a debt of gratitude for what he’d done to protect Myrkviðr and its people. He had personally gone out on dangerous patrols in the surrounding lands, and he had put a great deal of effort into managing the city’s reconstruction efforts.
Linnea wasn’t lording her experience over Skáviðr, but rather trying to repay him.
Fortunately, he seemed to understand that. “Thank you very much, ma’am. In that case... the most prominent problem is, I would say, the great difficulty in trying to get two peoples with very different cultures and values to live together peacefully.”
“Ah...” Linnea nodded. “True, that does seem like it would be a real pain to try and deal with. After all, they’ve got a lot of enmity built up between them.”
Currently, Skáviðr’s Panther Clan was controlling territory that had formerly been under the rule of the Hoof Clan. In other words, the former Hoof Clan citizens who farmed those lands were now living side-by-side with the Panther Clan nomads who had originally invaded from the Miðgarðr region to the north.
From the perspective of the former Hoof Clan people, the Panther Clan were foreigners that had suddenly invaded, pillaged and destroyed their farms and villages, seized their food, and kidnapped their women, and then treated their lands and people as disposable after subjugating their capital.
And as for the Panther Clan, it was a clan of nomads with a long history of being scorned and mocked as barbarians by the people of settled agricultural clans.
It wasn’t as simple as saying, “All right, you’re all one clan now. Forget all of your grudges, and work together at getting along so the nation as a whole can prosper.”
“There seems to be no end to the antagonism, outright fights keep breaking out between the two groups,” Skáviðr said. “The fact that we have strict, consistently enforced laws is barely holding things together at the moment, but I cannot help but wonder how much longer that will last.”
Linnea thought for a moment. “Hmm... well, how about the idea of just accepting that they can’t live together?”
“What do you mean by that, ma’am?”
“The former Hoof Clan people lost members of their families, and were oppressed under the Panther Clan’s rule,” Linnea said. “The anger from that is going to take many decades to fade away, at the very least. Flipping that around, that means you just need to decide that trying to make the two peoples live together in peace is going to be impossible for the next several decades, and that’s that.”
“Urm...” Skáviðr frowned ever so slightly. “However, this duty is something that my liege and master entrusted me with. Giving up on that so quickly would be...”
He trailed off. Clearly he wasn’t comfortable with the idea.
“Brother Skáviðr, listen to me,” Linnea responded bluntly. “You mustn’t get your priorities mixed up. Your job as a patriarch is not uniting two different peoples into one. It’s ensuring that the people you rule over can live in safety and prosperity. As long as you do that, you don’t have any obligation to unite them culturally beyond that.”
Skáviðr seemed a bit puzzled. “Erm...? But, ma’am, if they are constantly in conflict with each other, how could I say that they are living in safety?”
“That will only be true if they all have to live together in one place,” Linnea said. “Thankfully, the Panther Clan’s territory is large. You could just go ahead and divide up the lands, cleanly split between the two peoples, and make it so that they don’t have to associate with each other any more than is strictly necessary. And if you’re going to do that, now’s the best time to do it, while reconstruction’s only just gotten started.”
Skáviðr was stunned for a moment, then let out an impressed laugh. “Ha ha ha! You really are very decisive in your thinking.”
Linnea tilted her head. “Really? But don’t you agree that it would just be a waste to pour effort and resources into something that you know won’t work out?”
Linnea made her argument as if she hadn’t said anything particularly special, but in fact, people were ordinarily not capable of being so decisive.
And, as it happened, Linnea’s reasoning had touched sharply upon a truth about the way the world works.
Far, far in the future, there would be the United States of America, for example. Even in the country known as a multiracial “melting pot,” people of different races and ethnicities would still form their own separate, homogeneous neighborhoods and communities, and though there would be exceptions on an individual, personal level, on the whole, they would not associate deeply with each other.
Then there were the nations of Japan, China, and South Korea in the same era: even though seventy years had passed since the end of the Second World War, there would still be a deep gulf between them regarding their wartime history.
Linnea was someone who believed in ideals, but at the same time, she could look at the reality of a situation from a dry, objective angle, and make firm decisions based on that.
This was one of her outstanding abilities as a ruler and policymaker.
“I cannot make my final decision right away, but I think I will strongly consider using what you have taught me today,” Skáviðr said.
“Okay, then.” Linnea nodded. “Well, keep in mind that it was merely my personal take on it. It’s your clan, Brother Skáviðr. You should govern them the way you think is best.”
“Thank you very much, ma’am.”
“Ah, right, one more thing,” Linnea added. “Just in case you end up going with my idea, there are probably going to be some people from the nomads that hold a grudge against you for making them leave the towns and cities they were occupying. There might even be quite a few of them, so I think you’ll want to make sure you ready some sort of benefits or incentives for them to compensate for that, and to keep them from staying disgruntled.”
“Ha... ha ha ha!”
“Huh? What’s wrong? Did I really say something that strange?”
“Ah, no, ma’am, it’s just that I remembered something that Master Yuuto said.” Skáviðr chuckled. “He once told me that, if we had been living in an era of peace, you would surely be known as one of the greatest rulers of our time. I now see that he was absolutely right.”
“Wha?! F-Father said something like that about me...?” Linnea couldn’t keep herself from breaking into a giddy smile.
This was supposed to be an important discussion between fellow patriarchs, which demanded a certain dignity, but she couldn’t suppress the powerful feeling of happiness welling up within her.
If Yuuto had praised her like that directly, she might have assumed it was polite flattery, but hearing it from someone else secondhand like this, she could accept that it was his honest opinion.
“D-did he say anything else about me?” The question was out of Linnea’s mouth before she could restrain herself.
She had meant to use this meeting to learn the domestic situation of the Panther Clan, but now things had moved completely off-track. But even as she thought that, she couldn’t stop herself.
“A-anything is fine, any small remark,” she added quickly. “I don’t mind if it’s something negative, either. I can always use that as a base to work on improving myself.”
“Hm... I have never heard any negative remarks about you from him,” Skáviðr said. “On the contrary: during the campaign against the Panther Clan, when we began providing shipments of food supplies for the refugees, he remarked that it was only because of you that he could deal with such an impossible task. It seems like he truly relies on you.”
“I... I see. So he thinks that highly of me!” Linnea’s voice rose in pitch as she grew excited.
It filled her with a renewed desire to work even harder to live up to Yuuto’s expectations. But just as she was thinking that, Skáviðr spoke up again.
“Ah, actually, there was something else...”
“Th-there’s more?! Tell me?!”
“He said that he adored you as much as if you truly were his little sister.”
“A-as his little sister...” Linnea could feel herself tense up, her smile freezing taut.
She’d been prepared to happily accept any criticism or complaint Yuuto had about her, but this left her with more mixed feelings.
Naturally, she was happy to know that he cared about her.
She was happy for that, but his seeing her as a little sister was a problem.
Of course, she had been his sworn younger sister for some time, but as a woman, she just couldn’t be satisfied with that sort of platonic relationship.
“Aside from that... I am sorry,” Skáviðr added. “I cannot remember anything else specifically. However, in any case, Master Yuuto most definitely holds a deep affection for you in his heart, ma’am.”
“I... I see.” Linnea’s mouth felt dry. “But... as his sister, right? W-well, that’s something I already knew. ...Ah, forgive me. Our discussion got off-track. Right now, the current status of the Panther Clan is more important. Are there any other problems you’re having?”
“Other problems... It would have to be the shortage of food, I would say,” Skáviðr said. “The aid we are receiving from the Steel Clan is helping a lot, and I am truly grateful for it, but if I must be honest, it still is not enough. And so, while I know exactly how shameless it is to make this request, would it be possible to increase the amount you give us? As it stands, we do not have enough to supply everyone, and in the outskirts of the clan, there are already more than a few who are starving...”
“I knew it...” Linnea gave a bitter sigh, slumped over, and rested her chin on one arm. She’d had a bad feeling that this might be the case.
Naturally, by Linnea’s calculations, she had been sending the Panther Clan more than enough to cover what they needed. In fact, there had even been a bit of a positive margin included.
However, humans were selfish creatures. It was inevitable that there’d be some who would greedily take more than their fair share from the supplies as they were being distributed, stealing from what should have gone to others.
Back when Linnea had been in charge of directing the reconstruction of Myrkviðr, she had seen that ugly reality for herself.
“Well, I’m sorry to say I can’t live up to your expectations this time,” Linnea said. “In fact, aid shipments are more likely to get smaller going forward. I’ve already met with the other patriarchs and struck deals to get them to contribute some of their own food, but even then...”
“I see... so you were already acting to try to solve the problem. And even then, the aid is still going to shrink. Hmm.” Skáviðr’s brow furrowed worriedly.
He was likely picturing just how much more desperate things would become for his people if their already-insufficient food supplies dwindled even further.
It was possible there would be a sizable number of deaths by starvation.
This was a man who was always ready to sacrifice himself for the peace and safety of his people. As someone with the same mindset, Linnea deeply understood the bitter distress he must be feeling now.
“Of course, I plan to discuss this with Father too, but it would be best not to expect too much,” Linnea added.
“...Yes, you are right.” Skáviðr sighed. “Even someone as great and wise as Master Yuuto cannot simply create something from nothing, after all.”
Food stocks were consumed between harvests. They never increased.
This problem was about how intelligently they could distribute the food from the supplies that they had. And the absolute amount of that supply was far too low for the demand.
There was a limit to what they could buy on the market from other surrounding clans, too. They were in a tough financial situation at the moment, and they didn’t have much capital to spare.
“Even so,” Linnea added, “I still can’t help but imagine he might come up with some idea that fixes this all. That is what’s so frightening about him.”
“Ha ha! That is certainly true.” Skáviðr gave a wry chuckle.
Linnea and Skáviðr’s liege lord, Suoh-Yuuto, was someone who had overcome a number of seemingly impossible trials.
In just two years, he’d gone from leading one of the smallest, weakest clans in Yggdrasil to ruling over what had become its third-largest superpower. And even though they had witnessed it firsthand, it was still almost too incredible to believe.
No matter what the situation, he might instantly come up with a way to eliminate the problem. That was the extent of the trust which they found themselves placing in him.
“Even on the issue of uniting the nomads and the former Hoof Clan people they conquered, I told you I didn’t think it was possible, but it’s still possible that Father could find some solution that I couldn’t... Hm? Wait, that’s it!” Linnea cried.
“What is it?” Skáviðr asked.
“The nomads! We’ve never had any need to feed them in the first place!”
“Huh?” Skáviðr’s puzzled reaction was an incredibly rare moment for him. “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”
Linnea’s words must have truly caught him off guard.
That was only natural, for even if the nomads of the Panther Clan were his former adversaries in war, the idea of not giving them any food would still seem like far too cruel of a suggestion.
“Here’s what I mean: You shouldn’t be making them do unfamiliar work assisting in the reconstruction of villages and towns; you could be having them hunt for their own food. They’re originally from the wild grasslands far to the north, where they mainly hunted for food, right?”
“Ah! I see now!” Skáviðr’s eyes lit up with understanding.
A standard bow required a great deal of training and time to master. The same was true of the experience needed to learn how to track wild game, and stalk it without being detected.
That was why, even in this food shortage situation, the idea of increasing the number of wild game hunters would ordinarily have no practical application. However, it was completely different if they already had a large population of fully trained, experienced hunters on hand.
In fact, making a group with such important skills do any other type of work in such a food crisis would be absolutely foolish.
Furthermore, if the nomads weren’t being forced to work on construction projects side-by-side with the former Hoof Clan citizens, that would cut down on the conflicts that were breaking out between the two groups. It would be killing two birds with one stone.
“Wait...” Linnea suddenly grew excited as another flash of inspiration hit. “We also have a great deal of crossbows still sitting in storage, unused. Those don’t require nearly as much time to master as a normal bow. We could order soldiers from the Wolf and Horn Clans to go into the mountains and hunt wild game with the crossbows, officially stating that it’s extra military training.”
“Ohh, that is a good idea!”
“Yes... yes, this could work,” Linnea said excitedly. “There’s no way to tell unless we actually try it, but it might work. I’ll contact Assistant Second Jörgen right away! Brother Skáviðr, I leave the rest to you!”
Linnea stood up, bristling with energy, and dashed out of the room.
Once she arrived at an idea, she immediately took action; that, too, was proof of her ability.
One week passed, and Yuuto was visiting Linnea in her office.
“Hey, Linnea,” he said. “I was just looking at the data in these reports, and it looks like we’ve got a pretty crazy number of refugees and immigrants coming in from the surrounding clans. Do we have enough food to cover everybody? If it comes down to it, you can go ahead and order the slaughter of some of the livestock, okay?”
Linnea gently set down her pen, and flashed Yuuto a bright smile.
“It’s all right, Father. There won’t be any problems. I have already taken care of it.”
The region surrounding Fort Waganea had no rivers and saw little rainfall. The land around the fortress was a wasteland covered mostly with gravel and sand, stretching out towards the horizon in all directions.
A few small shrubs grew out of the rocky soil here and there, but it was completely unfit for farming. Holding land in this area gave little material benefits, so for a long time it had been a sort of buffer zone between the controlled territories of the Lightning and Wind Clans.
For at least the past one hundred years, this useless stretch of wasteland lying between the two clans of northern and southern Vanaheimr had been the reason they hadn’t gone to war with each other.
But now, suddenly, this place had become the setting of a large-scale war between the Lightning and Flame Clans.
The Flame Clan patriarch had set up his core formation on a tall hill about two hours’ march south from Fort Waganea. From there, he gazed down to his distant front lines, where a young man with fiery red hair was plowing right through his defenses.
“Oho!” he exclaimed, the pitch of his voice rebounding with excitement. “So, he is the one spoken of as the ‘Battle-Hungry Tiger,’ is he? Enemy though he be, I can only call it splendid. See how he merely crosses through my formation, and splits them straight in two! I had taken him for little more than a man among the mice of this land, but how mistaken I was. Even in the land of the rising sun, there was never a warrior of such fearful strength. Why, he might even surpass the likes of Lü Bu and Xiang Yu!”
Standing next to the patriarch was his second-in-command, Ran, who swallowed as he watched the same scene with a tense expression.
“Is he... truly human, my liege? It still seems impossible to me that the strength and valor of one man alone could so overcome a force more than twice the size of his own.”
The Flame Clan had twenty thousand troops on the field opposing the Lightning Clan’s eight hundred.
The difference would not be so stark if the Lightning Clan were using some advantageous tactics, but they were charging right into the Flame Clan formation from the front, and still managing to overwhelm their foe’s superior numbers. It made absolutely no sense. It went against military logic.
“Decry it as impossible, but you still cannot banish the reality before you,” the Flame Clan patriarch said. “There is naught to do but accept it. And since you must see it, pay attention. This is a spectacle you shall have few chances to see in your lifetime.”
“My liege, I would think this might not be something to enjoy so much,” Ran said hesitantly. “It is our forces which are being pressed back.”
“Ah, so it is. I would have liked to watch him fight for a while longer, but now is not the time. Very well, begin the retreat. If we continue to face that fellow head-on... While we will not see defeat, I would ill wish to see the losses among our men.”
The Flame Clan army soldiers were elite fighters that had been trained up for many years to serve their lord’s desire for conquest of the realm. They were a prized national resource. It would be an utter waste to sacrifice them to a battle here in such a worthless province.
Furthermore, this entire situation was something the Flame Clan patriarch had predicted beforehand.
He had previously heard many tales of the Lightning Clan patriarch Steinþórr’s unequaled strength in battle.
According to one story, he had captured a fortress single-handedly, killing every defender himself.
According to another, he had fought as the rearguard himself while his army retreated, with only a few dozen men at his side, and personally repelled the enemy army as it tried to pursue his.
Another story claimed he had been ambushed and surrounded by seven Einherjar, and completely defeated them all on his own.
Each and every tale seemed beyond all credibility.
And so, the Flame Clan patriarch had not been fool enough to go to war with such a monster without any strategy to defeat him.
The Flame Clan patriarch smiled. “If a forward assault cannot stop him, then we need only proceed as planned, and attack where he is weakest.”
“...Something’s off here.” Steinþórr brought his horse to an abrupt halt. “Their retreat is too well-organized.”
He’d secured a win in the battle against the Flame Clan troops, and had been just about to seize the momentum and lead his men after them to launch a pursuit attack.
But not only was the retreat too organized, there were those abnormally long spears that the Flame Clan infantry had been using. It all gave him an unsettling feeling that wouldn’t go away, like a bad premonition.
He couldn’t help but be reminded of the first time he had faced off against Yuuto, at the Battle of Élivágar River.
Back then, he’d chased after the enemy as they were withdrawing, chasing them too far. As a result, he’d wound up cut off from his men and surrounded by seven enemy Einherjar, then swallowed up in a man-made flood that had nearly killed him.
Something about the situation right now bore too much of a resemblance to back then.
“In which case, I bet he’s going for an ambush,” Steinþórr muttered to himself. “Another group waiting to strike. ...But where?”
Now that he’d guessed his enemy’s aim, he imagined a map of the region, picturing the layout of opposing forces.
That quickly led him to the answer.
Memories from the Battle of Gashina flashed through his mind.
There was a position that had become the most thinly defended after the other side had drawn out his forces. And it was the position that would cause him the most logistical problems if it were captured.
“Ah!” he shouted. “Everyone, we’re returning to base immediately! The enemy’s after Fort Waganea!”
“My lord, the Lightning Clan army is pulling back!” called a soldier.
“Oh, is that so?” The Flame Clan patriarch brought his horse to a stop. “Keh heh heh, so he recognized what I was after, did he? The hearsay painted him to be a foolhardy man who knew only how to charge blindly ahead, but see? Why, he shows himself to have quite the working intelligence, as well. Splendid, truly splendid. I would most like to have him as my own subordinate.”
The Flame Clan patriarch clapped his hands, then spread them out wide.
It was a gesture of genuine appreciation, praise without reservation.
He was a man who hated incompetence, and loved those who were talented and capable.
Whether it was an ally or enemy made no difference. Even in the world he’d originally came from, he had always given his respect to those who were truly strong.
The patriarch’s eyes narrowed. “However,” he murmured in a lower tone, “great though you may be, young man, alone you lack the strength to defeat me as I am now. You may have figured out the trap at Waganea, but what about the other two locations, I wonder?”
In the Flame Clan patriarch’s strategy, even ambushing Fort Waganea was nothing more than another decoy.
Upon discovering an adversary’s hidden plan or trick, most people had a tendency to stop thinking any further.
Thus, all one needed to do was make that “answer” the bluff for a second layer of deception.
The Flame Clan patriarch had used his personally-led force of twenty thousand to draw out the Lightning Clan army, while his remaining thirty thousand troops were split into three independent groups to advance past them along separate routes.
Even if he failed to seize Fort Waganea, the other two thinly-defended fortresses would fall to him.
Furthermore, he’d sent a missive to the Steel Clan patriarch, urging him to mobilize more of his own soldiers in support.
No matter how powerful Steinþórr was, he wouldn’t be able to deal with all of this.
By odd coincidence, it was a strikingly similar sort of strategy to the one Skáviðr had used against Steinþórr at the Second Battle of Élivágar River. However, the Flame Clan patriarch was conducting it on a much, much larger scale, across a wider area.
Naturally, if he had been attempting this with an army the same size as his adversary’s, each of his divided forces would only end up destroyed, one by one. The patriarch was able to make use of this strategy because the Flame Clan could mobilize fifty thousand troops, a number far and away above the norm for the nations of Yggdrasil.
Assemble enough soldiers to completely overwhelm the enemy. Carefully organize the supply lines. Place strong and competent officers in charge of each division. Create the conditions for victory, so that victory without difficulty was a matter of course. This was the foundation of the Flame Clan’s military strategy.
There was nothing surprising or even especially exciting about it.
In the Flame Clan patriarch’s younger days, he had once led a mere two thousand soldiers to launch a surprise attack against a force of twenty-five thousand, and had managed to take the enemy general’s head in a stunning victory. However, he didn’t take undue pride in that. Instead, he’d endeavored to never fight such a risky battle again, and thereafter had always sought to gather more soldiers than his enemy before heading into battle.
That was what made this man so terrifying.
He wasn’t tempted by the glory of victory itself; he continuously worked in pursuit of the most logical means to attain it.
And that was why he had no weaknesses; he was simply and truly strong.
“I shall have him in check in about, oh, three more moves, I think.” Stroking his chin, the Flame Clan patriarch smirked.
As for the division he’d sent to attack Fort Waganea, he’d given them orders to withdraw immediately if Steinþórr returned.
If Steinþórr gave chase, the Flame Clan patriarch’s main force would move in, seize Fort Waganea, and have the Lightning Clan in a pincer.
If Steinþórr chose to stay and defend the fortress, the other two detached divisions would invade further, ravaging Lightning Clan territory.
If the Lightning Clan patriarch tried to divide his forces in an attempt to prevent that, all the better. The Flame Clan would crush whichever division didn’t have Steinþórr leading it.
There was no longer any path for the Lightning Clan army that led to survival.
“Hmm.” The Flame Clan patriarch frowned to himself. “Still, I cannot help but find it regrettable that I should have to kill such a great man.”
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