Chapter 29: Chapter 29: Pratian
Pratian, leader of the fourth Megailian war party, frowned as he looked over his battle-weary and injured troops. Then, with a sigh, he turned to look back at the island he and his troops had found themselves on. The islands here were lush, filled with a bursting kind of vitality that was hard to come across when back on the mainland. At least, that was the kind way to put it.
A more accurate statement was that the people of these islands had yet to successfully clear out even the smallest fringe of the forests, giving this place a wild and untamed danger that people of the mainland were safe from. The edge of the forest was far closer than he was comfortable with, especially since his troops were still weakened.
“How many have we lost in the past two weeks?” He asked his assistant, giving his seriously damaged ships another glance.
“We’ve lost almost two-thirds of our army, in total,” said his assistant, a beefy man with eleven runes. As his assistant, the man wore a full set of bronze armor, and carried a spanthu - a half sword, on his left side. A sword that showed servitude, and also showed his position as second in command of the army. “The losses wouldn’t have been that bad if we had been allowed to retreat in a more timely fashion. Or if that accursed horror of the deeps hadn’t attacked us. Out of the thousand warriors we set out with, less than four hundred remain.”
Pratian sighed again. “So many dead?” He had known the damage to his troops were severe, but he had been hoping he was mistaken. After all, while his army was far from the most elite group, it was still a well equipped army that he had spent years training with. To hear so many of his men had died made his stomach churn, both with anxiety and with a sense of loss. His anxiety was not for the dead, though - the Ocean Mother would take care of their souls. What he worried for was those who remained.
“What do you think the odds are, if we return home?”
His assistant lowered his head, and his voice dropped to a near-whisper. “They aren’t good. We failed to conquer the Lacanarians, and were eventually driven away from the battle due to the storms and the heavy losses we suffered during the opening stages of the battle. If the king’s father were still around, he would have been willing to accept our losses and helped our war party recover from its losses. However, the new king is both glory-hungry and paranoid. With him upon the throne…” his assistant left his words unfinished, but Pratian still warily eyed his surroundings. Luckily, none of the other troops were near enough to have heard his assistant’s treasonous words.
“Do not speak of the king that way. It is dangerous,” said Pratian, putting as much sternness into his tone as he could. Then, much more warily, he eyed his surrounding troops. “You never know who might be watching these days.”
His assistant’s eyes widened. “Would he even put informants in the army of a commander such as yourself?”
“Please keep your speculation to yourself,” said Pratian, knowing full well in his heart that the answer was yes. The new king had ruled for four years now, and yet he remained an insecure child, always eyeing anyone else in the kingdom who had a high enough rune count to threaten his position. Unfortunately, the king’s delusions grew by the month, and now they even extended towards commanders such as Pratian. The fact that Pratian only had twelve runes, and was well below the threshold required to take the throne, did not seem to dissuade the king’s suspicions in the slightest.
“My apologies, sir,” said his assistant. Then, his assistant’s volume picked up again, as he glanced at the nearby troops. “Still, the fight with the Lacanarians was a mad one from the very beginning. We have no way to win this war. The new king was… misguided, when he ordered us to attack them. And if we return home as is, our families will likely be executed for our failure. Or perhaps our troops will be ordered to begin a decimation, as the ultimate form of punishment. If one in ten of our remaining troops is executed, I do not know if the morale of those remaining will ever recover.”
Pratian sighed. He agreed with his assistant’s words, for all that they sounded treasonous. The new king had none of the wisdom of the old king. He couldn’t help but wonder if the Lacanarians, with their so called ‘democracy,’ had the same problems with their rulers that the once-glorious kingdom of Megailia did.
When the current king had proven his extraordinary talent in absorption essence manipulation, he had been one of the hundreds of retainers who had applauded the previous king for finding a worthy successor. The king’s newly adopted heir had been from a less prominent family than was customary, but the boy’s incredible rune count promised to surpass even that of the previous king, with enough time. Pratian had thought Megailia would enter a new golden age once the previous king retired and the new king sat upon the throne.
Now, his hopes seemed like a cruel joke. The new king was extraordinarily powerful, and his absorption essence was unmatched. However, that was the only merit the new king possessed. His grasp of economics and diplomacy were shallow at best, and the new king seemed very aware of his shortcomings. Rather than work to correct them, he instead grew increasingly insecure, lashing out at anyone he perceived to be better than him at managing the country. Anyone who tried to advise him or teach him was strictly punished. Meanwhile, seeking a way to regain his falling prestige, the new king had launched a war against the Lacanarians, one of Megailia’s longtime rivals. However, the war was going poorly, and whispers of the king’s incompetence were growing by the day. Pratian couldn’t help but wonder, not for the first time, whether the Lacanarians were on to something when they claimed the ruler should be the wisest person in the country, rather than the strongest one.
Either way, it didn’t matter to Pratian and his men right now. Currently, they were caught in a position that practically guaranteed a horrible punishment upon their return. And since their families lived in Megailia, they had no way to run from this punishment, unless they completely abandoned their country of birth and the people waiting for them at home and pretended to have simply vanished into the sea.
Pratian sighed, before turning to the village on the island again.
“Is there any way we can avoid the king’s punishment? As it currently stands, we may be punished for desertion, or punished for failure in battle, or any number of things. I do not think the king will show mercy, since he needs this war to succeed.”
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His assistant paused, thinking back on the past few weeks, before shaking his head. He had a numb expression, as if he were already imagining what awaited them back home.
“Unless we can produce a miracle, we can’t escape punishment.”
Pratian tapped a finger against his chin, falling deep into thought. There must be some way to make this right. He couldn’t let his troops suffer from the king’s failures. He wanted to do anything in his power to protect those who remained. However, as long as their army returned to Megailia in its current state, there was no way the army would escape unscathed. However, as he was thinking, his eye inadvertently crossed the village of this island. It was near their encampment, close enough that even someone without a seventh rune would be able to see the village with ease. He gritted his teeth, before turning back to his assistant.
“What do you think of these islands?”
His assistant seemed to catch on to his train of thought, and turned towards the village as well. He tapped his finger against his chin, before frowning.
“If I were to speak of the islands themselves… they are quite rich. The sheer quantity of pearls we have seen since arriving here indicate that it would be quite easy to harvest wealth from this area. And whatever wood they use to make their boats float may create an entirely new kind of navy, if it can be used in great quantities when making our boats. I cannot help but think that large swarms of flying boats armed with astrellium weapons would be incredibly difficult for even the Lacanarian navy to deal with. However, as for the people living here…”
His assistant made a barely-audible snort. Perhaps it was pure schadenfreude that motivated his assistant’s words, or perhaps he wished to ponder someone else’s misfortune instead of thinking about what awaited them at home. However, when he spoke, it was with an audible sneer.
“They use bone weapons and don’t have a single person with more than 12 runes. They speak our tongue, which means they might have been civilized at some point in the past. However, this only makes me feel more disappointed. How could even distant relatives of our country be reduced to this? They don’t farm, or use metal tools at all. They are…” His assistant seemed to struggle to find words for his thoughts, but his assistant’s facial expression still told him everything he needed to know. His assistant had a very unfavorable view of the residents of this island. The military strength of these people was greatly lacking, and they sat on a veritable gold mine of pearls and floatwood.
“Do you think bringing word of these islands back to the king, or conquering them, may allow us to escape punishment?” Pratian wasn’t sure if this would work, but he saw no other way to keep his war party intact through the next few months. The troops may suffer some additional damage fighting the villagers, but it was far better to take losses in a glorious conquest than to a shameful execution at home. With some luck, he would be able to bring rich rewards back to the families of the troops who had died during the war, and with a few years of recuperation he might be able to turn the fourth Megalian war party back into a serious power in Megailian politics.
His assistant fell into thought. “Perhaps? If we simply bring back word of the islands, the king not believe our claims about this island’s existence, or the abundance of pearls that lie on the beach like trash here. Trying to convince him about the existence of flying boats would likely be even more difficult, but without both resources I do not think the king would care about this island enough to look for it again. And if the king isn’t interested in this news, it will not influence our punishment in any meaningful way.” His assistant paused, glancing at the village again. “It would be best to bring back an actual object of study, so that the king would be able to see the proof of our claims. If we could bring back a few of the boats from the islanders, we may be able to escape punishment. If we could conquer the islands in advance, we would almost certainly be able to completely escape punishment. The strange wooden boats the islanders use might even give us a decisive edge over the Lacanarians, which would more than make up for our failure in battle. Of course, we would need to actually win a battle against the islanders if we wished to conquer them. Perhaps it is possible to trade for one of their flying boats? If we can offer them something else, such as metal weapons, in exchange for a flying boat, we could bring it back to the king. With such an obvious example of the resources of this island, it would be much easier to arouse his interest, and that should also allow us to escape our punishment. Conquering them would be better, but riskier if we don’t have the backup of some of the other war parties.”
Pratian nodded at his assistant’s words. They mirrored his own thoughts. “The islanders should be weak, and we need something to stave off punishment. It is unfortunate, since the islanders haven’t shown any hostility towards us, but…” Pratian felt a trace of guilt worm its way into his heart as he thought of attacking the islanders. Just a day ago, the islanders had helped rescue some of his troops when they had fallen into the ocean, during the attack of the accursed monstrosity of the ocean. He would be betraying that kindness if he were to launch an attack on them, but he was already in a terrible position. Since he was desperate, even the vilest of acts became far easier to contemplate. If the previous king were still in power, he had no doubt that it wouldn’t have come to this. The previous king had been intelligent enough to realize the benefits of trading instead of conquering, and would have been delighted to take the pearls of this island in exchange for metal tools. If he were still alive, Pratian would have been able to properly repay the islanders for the help that they had shown him, instead of returning kindness with treachery.
However, the current king had a very poor grasp of economics, and preferred conquest. He would have been willing to try trading for a flying boat, as his assistant suggested, if the previous king were still in charge. But with the current king, he suspected that simply bringing word of these islands back home wouldn’t be enough. He needed a military victory if he wished to keep his army safe from a decimation punishment, and his troops had no way to acquire a victory against the Lacanarians. Since they couldn’t win against the Lacanarians, they could only search for other targets or accept their punishment.
In another life, I hope that I am able to repay you for the help you extended to me, thought Pratian, grimacing. Then, he turned to his assistant. “Prepare the troops for a potential attack on the village of this island, starting in a few days. By that time, most of the injured should have recovered. After that, we will offer the villagers an ultimatum. They must either tribute a few flying boats and a few barrels of pearls to us, and swear fealty to Megailia, or we will attack.” He frowned, gritting his teeth as he choked out orders that plagued him with guilt. But guilt wouldn’t save the men under his command. “Due to their primitive weaponry and weakness, winning a battle against them shouldn’t be difficult. We have almost four hundred soldiers, and even if some of the men will still be weakened, the village here can’t have more than seven hundred people in it at most. Many of those will be children too young to fight or elders too old to hold weapons. While we may lose a few troops, it must be done for the sake of our own futures. We don’t need to provoke the other villages in this area for now. Should we succeed, we will have a great enough success behind us that we will be safe from the king’s rage.”
Pratian sighed, feeling another flash of guilt well up in his stomach. However, the paranoid and foolish - no, the current king, was unreasonable and looked poorly upon failure, regardless of the reasons behind it. If he didn’t find something to bring back to Megailia, his men and their families would be the ones to suffer instead. And when he placed the lives of a bunch of strangers against the lives of his family and his troops, he would prioritize those he cared about every time.
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