Chapter 54: The Awl In The Pocket Is Protruding (2)

The Awl In The Pocket Is Protruding (2)

The king considered the Second Prince’s daring intercession, finally conceding that the Balahards played a very important role in the realm.

“I will send two legions of mercenaries, instead of one. I will also not prevent you from leading your knights to the north, as you are free to choose your own battles. However, the Hana Knights and the Central Army will not be deployed, and this is my final judgment.”

With these words, the meeting was called to an end. The king retired to his chambers, summoning the Second Prince for a private audience.

“Maximilian, you are correct. The Balahards cannot be allowed to fall.”

The Second Prince was surprised by this statement. Only a while ago, his father had only wished to send a single legion of mercenaries, yet after hearing his son speak, he had upped that forced to two.

“I know, father. Yet, I feel that your dignity has somehow been tarnished by that meeting, in the eyes of some lords at least.”

“Son, I am already rolling in this muddy swamp of intrigue that has been spun about me. Don’t you think that if I shovel even more dirt into the chaos that I don’t have a reason for doing so?” The king said, his tone sounding embarrassed. What his tone failed to convey was the utter reckless disregard he held his own actions in.

“I… I don’t understand why Your Majesty would foster the stigma against the Blahad’s like the cruel cancer that it is,” Maximilian stated, his face openly showing his sorrow. The king gave a guffaw at this statement.

“Burgundy has eyes and ears everywhere. One needs to dissemble if one’s intentions are to remain a mystery to one’s rivals,” the king stated in a whisper. “If I were to rouse all my troops and march north, what do you think the empire’s response would be? Montpellier would scoff at the possibility of Balahard asking me for aid. No, he would think I aim to invade his lands!”

“If…”

“There are no ifs, boy! Do you want to have the royal family kiss Count Balahard’s arse and sing him to sleep? You know how Adrian acted at the banquet.” The Second Prince and the king continued like this for a while.

“Maximilian, you are my son.”

“Yes, sire,” the prince said as he knelt.

“It saddens me, but I have passed this frightful cause onto your shoulders. You will ride north, as you said you would. The north must be firm, and voices such as Bielefield’s must be silenced in my halls, as their dissent borders upon the traitorous. You are upon the right path, and those who still serve Leonberger’s name will flock to your cause.”

“I will see to it,” Maximilian assented with a sluggish nod.

“It won’t be easy. Count Balahard has formally declared himself to be Adrian’s guardian, and he is not one to ever break his word, especially not where guarding things are concerned.”

“Yes father, I know Winter Castle might possibly be filled with traitors seeking your downfall.”

The atmosphere in the room suddenly became thrice as cold, and Maximilian wisely said no more. He was not swayed to his father’s point of view, though.

“Never forgot what shame your older brother has bought upon our name, all those years ago.”

“He was only thirteen at the time!” Maximilian sputtered in defense of his sibling.

“That child ran his mouth and almost sold the future of our kingdom to the damned empire!”

“But he…”

“I will hear no more!” the king bellowed, his voice brooking no dissent. “I can still see it so clearly… Their shattered swords, their screams as the rings were cut from their fingers… Their bloody tears and that cruel laugh of Montpellier… I will never forget!”

“Sire… Father…”

“Decades of planning, all for nothing. The collective effort of many generations, destroyed in an instant.”

Maximilian hesitated before he spoke once more.

“I believe that my brother is repenting for the errors of his past. He is truly contributing much in his defense of the north.”

“Hah! He does not know regret, or seeks repentance. No, the cur has forgotten his sins entirely! I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Go north, son. And beware of Montpellier, for he would disrupt our efforts at every turn.”

“My will is my own, father. Please remember that.”

The king sadly shook his head at these words. At that moment, he seemed to have aged ten years.

“Please… Go well son, and good luck.”

Maximilian bowed to his king and made his departure, giving a sad sigh once he was out of the monarch’s earshot.

* * *

The preparations for the campaign were completed in due time. It came to be that the king disguised some of his elite troops as mercenaries. They were to be led by Count Ellen and included knights and infantry from the central army as well as Wire Knights. Three thousand Silver Fox mercenaries, famous across the continent, had also been hired.

The troops were ready, yet the supply lines were not. Every day that his march was delayed felt like a month to Maximilian, and every week like a year. There was no trumpeting of horns or fluttering of flags as the army set out upon the royal road; no, they marched off in silence so as to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. He was frustrated at their slow pace and finally forced the soldiers into a brisk march, not wishing to come upon an empty plain of corpses. Finally, the northern pass was reached, though ten percent of his forces, this being four-hundred men and about forty wagons, had been left behind in the march, some passing out due to exhaustion and others simply deserting.

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Many men complained about the frigid climate, as they had not come upon an empty grassy plain but stood staring at an endless flat expanse of pure white snow. Carts struggled through the snow, and beside them walked men wearing thick fur coats, their eyes squinting as the winter winds blew endlessly into them. Seeing these carts, two scouts detached themselves from the vanguard, wishing to know who would brave the snows so deep into winter. The truth was unsettling.

“Refugees?” Fumed Maximilian. The men had come from the south of Balahard’s lands. If people were already fleeing, then perhaps things had become far worse since the army had marched from the capital. His fears were soon allayed, though, as it seemed that Count Balahard had issued a decree of emergency, wishing to keep the populace under his care out of harm’s way. However, the presence of refugees still boded ill, for it meant that the Count considered the fall of Winter Castle to be within the realms of possibility. Maximilian pushed his men even harder after this, leaving those who could not acclimatize laying in the snow. It was not only the cold that plagued the hearts of his men, for their meeting with the refugees had, in some sense, spread fear of the battle to come throughout the ranks.

As they moved further north, the number of refugees they met heading the other way increased. No longer did single families flee to safer climes, now entire villages of hundreds of people had been uprooted by the threat of war. The refugees themselves could not tell the prince much, for they were simply following Balahard’s decree as enforced by his Rangers. Maximilian became greatly impatient at the pace of their march, yet had to content himself with it as they struggled through blizzard after blizzard. He knew that if he commanded greater speed from the soldiers that many would desert. It was within one of these blizzards that the sound of voices was heard, the prince commanding his men to march in its direction.

“Green… as bloody… before… peaks… advance…”

These fragments of a song the prince heard. His men now picked up their pace at their own accord. Finally, the entire song could be made out over the roar of the snowstorm:

“We piled up green carcasses, raising a mountain! Ha!

Red streams flowed from it, as bloody nails. Ha!

We honor our fallen before this mountain of ours! Ha!

In the harshest season, we sing the bitterest songs. Ha!

Silent are the snowy mountain peaks and the blood-drenched walls. Ha!

Only our horns of war are heard, for a new day dawns into which we advance! Ha!”

The song had a martial theme; of that, there was no doubt.

“Are those soldiers of Balahard?” Maximilian asked one of his scouts. He soon gained his answer as a knight appeared, infantry in snowshoes plodding after him. Maximilian called a halt to his army as the man identified himself:

“I am Chuong Seong, commander of the third company of Balahard’s Rangers,” the officer said, saluting with a hand wrapped in thick fur. “It is an honor to greet His Majesty, Second Prince Maximilian!”

“We had received reports that a great force was moving through our lands, and I was anxious to know whether it was the army of our king. However, with the weather like this, it took us a while to track you down. The Ranger bowed respectfully. “Your Majesty, my suggestion is to leave the carts behind and march your men to safety. We can return for the baggage trains once this inclement weather passes.”

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The prince hesitated, then saw the wisdom in Chuong Seong’s words.

“All divisions, move out! Take what you can carry, we will return for the baggage! Keep your eyes open in this storm, I do not want a single man left behind!”

His orders were soon relayed among the ranks, and a struggling march set out under the guidance of the Rangers, who once more took up their battle songs.

“Huh, they said that the men of the north were dour and silent, never prone to song. How wrong they were,” Erhim Kiringer, deputy commander of the Wire Knights who had been disguised as mercenaries, stated as he clucked his tongue.

“Ah, I love this song. It is the third legion’s battle chant, ‘Winter City’. It is quite inspiring,” the platoon commander informed the prince with a smile. “When we sing this, we feel warmer and haler, so we always sing loudly when we march.”

Maximilian nodded at this, feigning an act of understanding.

“Well, it is partly a song created by the First Prince, but we added lines and made it our own.”

“My brother wrote this?” Maximilian asked as his eyes widened. He would never have imagined his brother as a dabbling poet, and the obvious admiration the Ranger showed when talking about the First Prince was also surprising. Erhim Kiringer had noted this latter fact as well.

“Your majesty, your brother had created another song. Should we sing it?”

Before the prince could even answer, the Rangers once more broke out in song and sang for a goodly while, clearly enjoying every moment of it despite the jagged nature and lack of rhyming that the chant exhibited.

Maximilian and Ehrim exchanged looks. These rangers were clearly not the dour Northmen they had expected to meet. Despite their weirdness, they were definitely Rangers, for they led the entire army despite the blizzard and the approaching night, guided by their intimate knowledge of the land.

Only

“A blizzard like this was also raging when His Majesty the First Prince came to us,” Cheong Seong said, his expression taking on a strange cast. Once more, Maximilian was surprised, for this man clearly greatly admired the First Prince.

“He came out of the blizzard, bearing a wounded soldier upon his back.” Maximilian gave an awkward chuckle at this statement. The Ranger once more took to the song, and the prince soon grew bored with the man. After some time of marching, the blizzard raged less around them. Cheong Seong halted them, pointing to a far-off spot.

“There lies Winter Castle, the kingdom’s most northerly fortress.” The Ranger sounded quite cheerful while saying this, though the scene itself was very grim, to say the least. Corpses of Orcs were scattered across the snowy fields. Some were mere skeletons, and others had been locked in ice, unseeing eyes staring at the soldiers who marched on by.

Maximilian bit his lip as the pungent smell of rotting meat assaulted his nostrils. A group of men appeared in the distance, approaching the army. It was a Ranger platoon.

“Have you gone out on reconnaissance?” Cheong Seong asked their leader as they finally came up to them. The man nodded and informed them that they had run into a small squad of Orcs. The First Prince had come with these men.

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“Hail Cheong Seong, and who are these guys with you?”

The Ranger Platoon Commander’s eyes widened at this. How did the prince not recognize his own brother? The Second Prince was clearly shocked that his older brother had changed so much, while the First Prince acted as if he had never seen his brother before. Truly, this was an awkward reunion between the two.

“Hello, brother,” Maximilian said, finally breaking the silence that had stretched out between them.

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