IV
The Imperial Army, Kier Fortress
Five days had passed since the devastating attack on Osmund’s forces.
“Soldiers! At last, the time has come!”
There was a roar from the ranks. In tones of triumph, Rosemarie issued her commands to the assembled officers of Crimson and Helios so that the entertainment she had been eagerly anticipating could begin. In the first strains of dawn, the rays of the sun glittered. The tightly sealed first gate of Kier Fortress swung solemnly open.
“C-Captain! The gate!” Shouts flew between the commanders of the units on the front lines as first, out of the now-open gate, there came a lone soldier, robed in a cloak of majesty and bearing the white banner of the Helios Knights. They were followed by the brave peal of trumpets and the Helios Knights themselves, marching forth in step.
“The hell are those bastards doing?!”
“I don’t know, ser, but I think we have a chance to take the gate!”
“No! Remember the last attack at night. Run in without thinking, and like as not we’ll be playing into the enemy’s hands. We should wait and see.”
The Royal Army had been handed the opportunity, too good to lose, to break into Kier Fortress. And yet not one of their commanders could give the order to charge. In part, they were too taken aback by the brazen display from the Helios Knights. But mostly, they highly suspected a trap.
After the Helios Knights, the Crimson Knights emerged in the same fashion, and last of all a line of horse-drawn carts. Each cart was laden with large piles of wood. In the end, the Helios and Crimson Knights stood in a ring broadly encircling the carts.
Neinhardt’s Camp, the First Allied Legion
The first word to reach Neinhardt, who was commanding his forces on the front lines, came thirty minutes after the gates of Kier Fortress opened.
“So not only did they just open the gate, but they started parading?”
Kier Fortress was no common fortification. Up until the day it had been captured by the imperial army, it had been known as the Impenetrable Fortress. Right then, the sun shone down, nothing at all like the conditions of the last nighttime attacks. There was, in other words, no reason from the imperial army’s point of view to actively throw aside their advantage and come out into the open.
“We also have a report of a large number of carts piled high with wood,” said Captain Katerina Reinas. Neinhardt’s expression automatically darkened.
“Piles of wood? Not weapons?”
“I asked, but apparently it is definitely only wood. With that on top of the parade, I can’t work out what the imperial army is planning.”
“My feelings exactly, but if they’ve come out, we have to meet them.”
The imperial army’s actions were a mystery, but they couldn’t afford to speculate. Neinhardt gave Katerina his orders, but in the midst of their preparations to engage the enemy, a new report arrived that put a deep frown on Neinhardt’s face.
“A ring formation, you say?”
The runner looked bewildered but said, “Yes, ser. They’ve shown no sign of moving since.”
A ring formation, it scarcely needed to be said, placed emphasis on defense. Logically, it was ill-suited to an attacking force. In other words, the imperial army had come out into the open, and yet did not mean to attack. Neinhardt could see why the commanders at the very front had failed to act for fear of a trap. He himself kept the possibility of a trap in the forefront of his mind while he scrutinized the situation, and saw that, in the middle of the ring formation, the imperial army had started to build something. He saw nothing at all there to indicate they meant to attack.
Just what sort of scheme is this? When a situation didn’t make sense, it wasn’t unacceptable, tactically speaking, to play it by ear and attack anyway. What held Neinhardt back from taking the first step to attack was largely this: he still had not found a clear answer for why Osmund’s unit had been destroyed.
“Your hesitation is understandable, ser, but I think we ought to attack. It will be hard on the soldiers’ morale if we don’t.”
Katerina’s words made too much sense for Neinhardt to ignore them.
“Give the archers orders to attack.”
“Yes, ser!”
Out of the limited options he had available to him, Neinhardt had settled on a longbow assault at range.
“Loose!”
“Loose!”
“Loose!”
One after another, the calls of the archer commanders rang out, and a great mass of arrows rained down on the heads of the imperial forces. But thanks to the solid wall of shields that rose up to cover the entire formation, not one imperial soldier was shot through. A second volley was loosed, then a third, but the archers only succeeded in wasting their arrows.
“That defense, isn’t that...”
“The High Tower defense. A favorite of the Helios Knights.” Seeing that further volleys would serve no purpose, Neinhardt immediately gave the order for the attack to cease. The Helios Knights lowered their shields, with no sign they meant to mount a counterattack. The same was true of the Crimson Knights.
“Are we going to engage them directly?” Katerina asked. Neinhardt pondered for a moment.
“Any movement from the Winged Crusaders?”
“None, ser.”
“What about General Lambert?”
“None from him either, ser.”
“Then let’s wait a while and see how things develop. I don’t know about the Winged Crusaders, but Lambert’s at his best on the attack. If he hasn’t acted, he must have a reason for it.”
“Very well, ser. It suits us too if they stay where they are. Our objective is to keep the imperial army pinned down at Kier Fortress, not to defeat them, after all.”
“Exactly. We aren’t trying to defeat them,” Neinhardt echoed. He was trying to reassure himself. Or was it a sign of the unease that had started to take root inside of him? Right then, Neinhardt couldn’t have said which.
Lambert’s Camp, the First Allied Legion
Lambert had predicted that the enemy, after the large attack some nights earlier, would soon act again. Now, he had been proved right, but in a way so entirely different from what he had expected that for different reasons again to Neinhardt, he found himself immobilized. That being said, he had not dismissed the possibility that this was a demonstration designed to put them off their guard, and so he had ordered Lieutenant General Hermann Hack, who was known to be strong on the defense, to organize an iron wall formation with the Barthes Mountains to the north at their back. The mountains were treacherous, but they also connected to imperial territory. On the off chance that reinforcements came from the Azure Knights, Lambert meant to block them. But no imperial forces appeared.
“He’s become cautious too, it seems...” Neinhardt, encamped at the point closest to Kier Fortress, must have felt just as unsettled by this bizarre series of actions from the imperial army. His longbow volleys had bounced off their strong defenses without making any mark. Before long, the sun reached its zenith, and still the situation continued to smolder without catching alight.
“Our foe is going against all the principles of war,” remarked Grell Heit, more wrinkles appearing among the many that already covered his face. Lambert wholeheartedly agreed. Back when Lambert was only a snot-nosed little boy, Grell had been the mentor who had drilled into him everything there was to know about war. Now, the old man served as his aide.
“This is a different beast altogether to when they were sneaking about like rats on those night raids,” Lambert said. “If you’re going to throw away your advantage to fight out in the open, you ought to have a plan you’re certain will win. But this lot just got into a ring formation and haven’t budged since. What are they thinking?”
“The reports said they’re sending carts laden with wood into the ring, ser.”
“Laden with wood? What, are they trying to build a castle overnight?” Lambert said, referencing a legend from a country far to the east no one was sure really existed. He wasn’t being serious, of course; it was only a simple jest born out of frustration.
“I would dearly love, ser, for you to enlighten me as to what the point would be in building a fortification a stone’s throw from Kier Fortress. For my future reference.” Grell narrowed his eyes, and Lambert, cowed, couldn’t help but shrink into himself. That was when he remembered: such quips never landed with his former mentor, who had no sense of humor.
Lambert hurriedly explained the joke. Grell’s manner only grew more forbidding.
“Still telling your so-called jokes. Some things never change.”
The next morning, however, Lambert saw with his own eyes that his joke was a joke no longer.
“They didn’t really build a castle overnight?!” Lambert squawked as he stared through his spyglass at the gigantic shape. Many of his soldiers stood around him, but they didn’t seem bothered by his tone. All of them were talking among themselves about the looming structure.
“Less a fort than a wooden watchtower,” Grell said dryly, looking through his own spyglass.
“You call that a watchtower?” Lambert looked more closely and saw that it was true; the construction didn’t appear to be as sturdy as he would have expected for a fort. But he had also never heard of a watchtower of that size. In either case, it still served absolutely no purpose to the imperial army when they had Kier Fortress.
“Hmm. Why don’t we poke it and see what they do?” Grell said, then immediately ordered an attendant to bring him his horse. Not again, Lambert groaned inwardly as he hurried to stop the old soldier.
“I told you to stop trying to go off on your own.”
“There’s no law I know of that says that I have to sit here quietly after a thing like that was built right under our noses. Here, I’ll take only my own force. Nothing for you to fear, ser. Every one of them ranks among the greats of history, as you know. We’ll just go and have a quick look to see what sort of thing our foe’s got in mind.”
“‘Force’? You’ve got what, twenty men or so at most?”
On top of that, it had been many years since they had numbered among the “greats of history.” These days, some looked like a good breeze would knock them over. Every one of them should have retired from warfare long ago. Despite that, Lambert felt a loyalty to Grell that was without parallel. If Grell had ordered it, he would have happily followed the old man into the land of the dead itself. Usually, Lambert would have balked at being seen bringing such men to the battlefield, but as they were all private soldiers employed by Grell, he had looked the other way until now.
“Now that’s a laugh. Talking about a trifling thing like numbers. Take a look at them yourself and say that again, ser.”
Grinning fiercely, Grell turned. Lambert followed his gaze and saw that at some point the old soldiers had assembled, spears in hand, with their chests thrown out. Most of them were shaking all over, unsteady on their feet. Lambert, who could see that this was not out of fear, struggled to find the words to respond.
“Seems that put your mind at ease, ser,” Grell said, his face now full of pride.
Inwardly, Lambert shouted back, At ease, my ass! But so as not to wound Grell’s honor, he chose the words he spoke with care.
“Grell, if something were to happen to you, the consequences for the rest of the war would be immense. Please, I’m asking you to stay back and advise me here. It’s true, I can’t fathom what our opponent is up to in building a thing like that, but our basic strategy hasn’t changed. Throwing away lives for no purpose is not the act of a great warrior.”
Grell was silent for a moment. “Hmm. Well, if you insist, ser. I’ll stay.”
Lambert’s desperate appeal had worked. With a careless wave of his hand, Grell sent back the attendant who had brought his horse.
Battle is a damn sight easier on my nerves... Lambert thought. His realization that this incident had been nothing in the scheme of things would come a little later.
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