Valkyrie's Shadow

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Chapter 9

13th Day, Upper Wind Month, 1 CE, 0500 Hours

“I can’t see anything…”

“What?!”

“I said I can’t see anything!”

“WHAT?!”

Olga sighed, wiping her goggles with a finger. It didn’t fix the fogged-up insides. She lifted the goggles, wiping the rain from her face.

She always thought the rain came out the bottoms of the clouds, like a sponge dripping water all over the place. When the Elder Lich flew their Skeletal Dragon into the bank of clouds coming over the mountains, she thought they would hit the side and go splat. Instead, she got a face full of fog, then a face full of rain. It took all of a minute to get soaked through to her skin and now she was the sponge dripping water all over the place.

Olga wiped the inside of her goggles, looking at her surroundings. It was dark and they were inside a cloud. Putting on her goggles only showed the inside of the cloud, which was like standing in the morning fog in Warden’s Vale.

Raul still looked as excited as when they first got rained, though. He kept slashing through the rain with his hand, making whooshing noises like boys in her old village did when they pretended their sticks were swords. Later, she learned that it was a sinful thing to do: unless it was an emergency, only soldiers were supposed to act like soldiers.

When she looked over at him, he stopped. And then he started again when she looked away. She wondered what the Elder Lich sitting behind him thought.

『The ground is getting close. Ascend two hundred metres. Watch out for the mountainside.』

She felt herself press into the Skeletal Dragon as it rose with bony wingbeats. Lady Zahradnik was somewhere below the clouds, seeing where they were going. Highfort was near the beginning of the mountains, so they were probably close.

The Baroness had roused them from their sleep about three hours to dawn, telling them that they were going to break the siege around the fortress of Highfort. Their briefing was brief – partly because they already knew what little there was to know, but mostly because the attack would be conducted in a specific window of time that had been determined just before they woke up.

“Go left!”

Olga jerked to the side as Raul’s Skeletal Dragon collided with them. A cliff suddenly appeared to their right. Their Skeletal Dragons struggled to stay aloft, wobbling in circles until they untangled themselves and pulled back to hover in midair. Olga and Raul stared at the wall of dark grey stone looming nearby.

“I think we’re going to go smush from an accident before any Beastmen hurt us,” Raul said. “Maybe we should go above the mountains.”

Olga looked up, trying to find the mountaintop, but the cliff only vanished into the darkness. The Elder Liches exchanged a look before raising their hands.

“「Summon Undead V」.”

Two sets of four Wraiths materialised in front of them. They went ahead into the fog and the Skeletal Dragons resumed their flight.

“Or that,” Olga said.

Another ten minutes passed before the Elder Liches cast Invisibility on their mounts and they descended below the clouds. The only sign that there was anything below were a few points of light around one area of the ground.

According to the maps from the Draconic Kingdom’s royal archives, Highfort was built atop a hill overlooking the Seylan River, which cut a deep canyon out of the mountains on the northern border. The fortress occupied the narrowest point of the canyon, serving as the northernmost border post of the country.

Reconnaissance conducted by Bone Vultures and Wraiths discovered around three tribes’ worth of Beastmen occupying the jungles on the Draconic Kingdom’s side of the fortress, but, strangely enough, they couldn’t find anything on the Beastman Country’s side. Since Beastmen rarely used campfires, Olga couldn’t figure out where they were.

『The western approach is cleared of sentries. Wraith contingents: get to your positions on the far side.』

Olga adjusted her goggles, trying to make anything out. The ground was uneven, with only the tops of the ridges and hills directly below appearing in range of her Darkvision.

“Can we go lower?” She asked.

“The precise elevation of the terrain is unknown,” the Elder Lich replied, “we will descend once our first sweep identifies all hazards.”

The palace archives only had basic maps for their border fortresses for some reason. According to what she had read in her books, strategic and tactical information was precious and difficult to get, but she didn’t think it meant that the people that owned the stupid fortress wouldn’t have anything. Commander Lluluvien suggested that the Draconic Kingdom might be wary of spies, but that meant they suspected people might sell the information to their enemies somehow.

『There won’t be an end to this rain anytime soon, so be ready for some treacherous terrain conditions.』

Olga wondered how far Lady Zahradnik's ‘voice’ could reach. All Commanders were supposed to be able to communicate over long distances like that, but Olga and Raul were still stuck with shouting and relaying their orders through the Elder Liches.

A sigh escaped her lips as they flew silently through the darkness. She thought she was doing really good with how much practise they had over the winter. Then she found out that she didn’t even have the Skills and Abilities that the Royal Army considered ‘basic’ for Commanders. It was a prerequisite for Silver-league matches, too.

『Commencing assault. Don’t let any Beastmen escape past the fortress.』

Olga leaned forward, trying to spot any sign of fighting. A point of light flared in the canopy to her left.

“There!” She pointed.

Their Skeletal Dragons angled towards the light in the trees. Even circling directly overhead, however, they could only make out shadows dancing between the gaps in the leaves. The rain and the wind drowned out any sounds that might have filtered into the sky.

A few minutes later, the light vanished, dousing the world in darkness once again.

That’s it?

According to their brief briefing, they would be eliminating the tribes spread out along the canyon near the fortress. Lady Zahradnik said that there wouldn’t be a huge battle this time, but the fight just now didn’t even look like a fight.

Another flare appeared half a kilometre away. It went out just as quickly as the first. Olga looked back and forth, straining her eyes and ears for any sign that the Beastmen knew what was going on.

“I can’t tell what’s happening,” Olga muttered.

“Captain Zahradnik is the highest-rated Commander in the Royal Army in the category of guerilla-style warfare,” the Elder Lich replied. “The rating would require review if you could tell what was going on.”

She knew that Lady Zahradnik was sneaky and unfair, but winning against apprentice Commanders in an exercise was nowhere near the same as fighting real enemies on the field. Below them, battles were fought and won without the enemy knowing that had even happened.

“Then what is she doing?”

“The Captain is removing the Beastman camps that are most isolated from one another first,” the Elder Lich said. “The squads in the infantry company are being manoeuvred accordingly. Once they draw close to a target camp, the area is illuminated by arrows enchanted with Continual Light to facilitate mid-range identification and interception of individual enemy elements.”

“Won’t the other Beastmen notice?”

“The sergeants monitoring enemy positions have noted no reactions thus far. The attack was purposely timed to be conducted in these environmental conditions.”

Lady Zahradnik did say that the bad weather wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon.

“How did she know it was going to be raining like this?”

“Several reconnaissance elements have been stationed at a high altitude to monitor local patterns of weather.”

That would explain why the planning for Highfort felt so vague. The general staff usually tried to make things as strategically precise as possible, but their assault on the Beastmen here was dependent on the weather. All of the books she read talked about armies avoiding bad weather or things like storms delaying offensives and wreaking havoc with logistics, but the Royal Army was using weather and all the problems that it caused to their advantage.

No one could hear or see very well, so they were being picked off camp by camp. It would be difficult to move overland, but the Undead wouldn’t get tired mucking through the terrain. Flying Undead like Wraiths and Bone Vultures wouldn’t be impeded at all. The jungles covering the bottom of the canyon had become a giant mud pit filled with obstacles and the Beastmen probably had no hope of escaping.

The light of morning had turned the rainy skies a dim grey by the time they moved to the main Beastman camps. One was on the shores of the river, just beyond the edge of the clearing downstream from Highfort. The other two were further up the slopes south and southeast of the fortress, sitting in shallow ravines. Several other camps that were too close to attack unnoticed were scattered between them.

Lady Zahradnik and Saiko flew up to meet them. The Baroness’ hair had been tied back into a plain ponytail and she looked completely unbothered by the rain. Even with the terrible weather, she was as gallant as ever.

“So,” she said, “is everyone thoroughly miserable yet?”

Olga’s brooch kept the chill from affecting her, so all she felt was wet. It wasn’t the greatest feeling, but it was better than life in her old village. Winter was the worst: it was wet, cold and dark. People got sick all the time and they were always hungry because they needed to stretch out their food until the next harvest. Even when they did so, some starved. Compared to that, life as a Commander-in-training was nothing to complain about.

“We couldn’t do anything, Captain,” Raul said. “It was hard to even see. Is fighting in the woods always like this?”

“It depends on the forest,” Lady Zahradnik replied. “The canopy here is very dense compared to back home. Beastmen prefer to set up their camps in the woods rather than in clearings, so that makes it extra annoying. But the advantages to having concealed camps can also be disadvantages.”

Olga nodded. By hiding themselves in the woods, the Beastmen didn’t just hide from their enemies, but their friends as well.

“Also,” the Baroness added, “You need to get stronger if you want to be able to keep track of what strong things are doing. I’d say that one needs to be around Gold-league to begin following a Death-series servitor’s movements properly. There may also be magic items, spells and Skills that help with that sort of perception, but those won’t always be at your disposal.”

“What are we doing next?”

“Well, attacking any of these remaining camps will probably alert the rest, so we’re waiting for a bit more light. That way, our pickets can catch them crossing the fields around Highfort if they run that way. We have Wraiths set up all along the northeastern entrance to this canyon and there are Bone Vultures patrolling the cliffs just in case the Beastmen try to escape by scaling them.”

“Is it bad if they escape, Captain?” Raul asked, “I get that we don’t want them to go into the Draconic Kingdom, but if they go back to the Beastman Country, then we don’t have to worry about them.”

“We don’t want the Beastmen to know what we’re doing here,” Olga said.

“We can’t guarantee that news about what’s happening in the Draconic Kingdom won’t make it back to the Beastman Country,” Lady Zahradnik said, “but I’d still like to slow down the spread of information. News of the Undead encroaching on the border might provoke a response from the entire country. I can only assume that they have more resources at their disposal than these migrating tribes trying to pioneer new territory, so I would rather avoid ending up with something ridiculous on our hands when we least expect it.”

“But people inside the Beastman Country will notice, right?” Raul said, “Like their patrols or just people wandering around or hunting will notice the Undead guarding the border and report it to whoever’s in charge on their side.”

“I do not doubt that it will happen eventually,” Lady Zahradnik replied. “It’s something that we’ll have to manage as it happens, but that doesn’t mean we should force the issue. I’m hoping the forces in Highfort will provide us with some insights on their neighbours so we can handle border security more effectively.”

They waited a half hour more, at which point the canopy below appeared dimly in the morning light. The downpour steadily grew stronger and the river swelled beyond its banks to spread across the canyon floor. Their Skeletal Dragons were flying low enough now to catch a glimpse of Death Knights, Death Warriors, Death Priests and Zombies steadily advancing through the flooded jungle.

From what she could see, the Beastmen were moving up the slopes to avoid the rising waters. Many carried their belongings, moving to places where more prudent members of their tribes had set up their homes. Their panicked movements turned into pure panic when the infantry squads charged straight into them.

This time, the Skeletal Dragons were flying low enough that their fighting below reached their ears. Just like how Humans made gestures and noises that Lizardmen couldn’t understand, other races did things that Humans couldn’t decipher without learning about their behaviour first. All of the growls, snarls and roars probably meant something, but they didn’t come out into words.

Some of the Beastmen ran out into the clearing, which made it easier for the Undead to catch them. Others tried running up the mountainside and were sent tumbling back down by Bone Vultures into the waiting claws of pursuing Squire Zombies.

Even if they could issue orders, everything was so one-sided that any special instructions felt pointless. Everything happened so quickly that she could only see what was happening to groups of Beastmen as the Undead ran them over. Lady Zahradnik said that there were plenty of things that the army could improve on, so Olga probably needed to get stronger to notice as the Baroness had said earlier.

It wasn’t long until the tribes were cleared from the canyon. The infantry squads were arranged in the jungles around the fortress before Lady Zahradnik came back up to fly alongside them again.

“It’s time to pay Highfort a visit,” she said. “Hopefully, they’ll cooperate with a minimum of fuss.”

With the sheer power employed to break the siege, Olga couldn’t imagine that Highfort’s garrison would create any ‘fuss’.

13th Day, Upper Wind Month, 1 CE, 0800 Hours

“General!”

A fist pounding on the door snapped Vincenzo Inserra awake. The pounding grew more insistent.

“Gen–”

“I heard you, dammit! What is it?”

He rolled off of his mattress and searched for his pants while the officer replied through the door.

“We have guests, sir.”

“Then stab them and throw them off the walls! No, wait – make sure they die on the walls: we’re running low on meat again.”

“They’re Humans, sir…I think.”

“You think? Are they furry or are they not?”

“‘Not’, sir. A few are on the bony side, though.”

What the hell did that mean? He cocked his ear, listening for alarms or men rushing through the halls. It didn't sound like they were under attack. He straightened his uniform before opening the door. One of his Captains, Cosime Sella, awaited him outside.

“Did the Theocracy finally show up?”

“No, sir. They claim to be from somewhere called the Sorcerous Kingdom.”

“The hell is that?”

“Beats me. No one’s heard of it before. Their Commander’s got a writ from the Queen.”

Was it a mercenary army from somewhere? Maybe the Queen got tired of waiting for support from the Theocracy and called in someone else. Adventurers were strategically ineffective, so it stood to reason that she would turn to other avenues with things as they were. Some countries hired their armed forces out in other parts of the world, but they usually didn’t come so far north.

“Does this Commander have a name?”

“Zahradnik, sir.”

“Sounds southern,” Vincenzo said.

“Looks southern, too,” Captain Sella nodded.

“Let’s hear what she has to say, then.”

Captain Sella led him through the keep, but instead of going down to the courtyard, they headed up.

“They flew here?”

“Yes, sir. They said they have a company out there somewhere as well.”

Would they suggest a joint operation to clear out the Beastmen? He hoped they wouldn’t try to make it easy on themselves by using his men. Whenever Mercenaries were mentioned in tales, they swung back and forth between being proud professional soldiers to unscrupulous thugs.

Vincenzo stepped onto the top floor of the keep, finding their guests seated at a plain wooden table. Several officers and their adjutants were assembled around the room. His eyes crossed over them as he came forward until they rested upon a set of unfamiliar figures.

The first thing about their guests that struck him as odd was the two children standing with her. They weren’t too young to start soldiering, but they were too old to be hers. Maybe they were camp brats that showed promise.

As for the woman, she had a look that matched the southern descent her name suggested, but she didn't have the dusky complexion of a career soldier. Then again, it was still early spring and he had no idea where she had been campaigning before.

“General Vincenzo Inserra,” he raised a hand in salute. “Commander of Highfort. Welcome. We weren’t expecting any guests…at least not the friendly sort.”

“Captain Ludmila Zahradnik,” the woman returned his salute with one of her own. “Chief of staff of the Sorcerous Kingdom’s forces in the Draconic Kingdom. Thank you for your welcome, General Inserra.”

Not just a Captain who had arrived with her company, but also the chief of staff of the forces deployed to the Draconic Kingdom? If that was the case, they had a battalion at best.

Would it be enough to secure any meaningful strategic gains? It would depend on the strength of the mercenary forces and the overall situation of the Draconic Kingdom, but he couldn’t imagine that a battalion could have the strength of an Adamantite Adventurer team. According to the last report they had received, the country’s situation had degraded past the point where deterrence through tactical victories was sufficient. Trading an Adamantite Adventurer team for a battalion would change little.

There must be something else to this…

“Captain Zahradnik,” he said, “you’ll have to forgive me for skipping any further pleasantries, but we haven’t received any word from the interior for nearly a year. The last we heard, half of the Oriculon Reach was taken and the Beastmen were advancing in all directions.”

“We’ve just recently arrived, Your Excellency,” Captain Zahradnik said, “so we don’t have every detail of the past year, but your country was overrun.”

The men attending the meeting broke out into exclamations of anger and sorrow. Vincenzo released a sigh.

"How bad did things get?" He asked.

The voices filling the room hushed.

“You may have already guessed,” Captain Zahradnik replied, “but the goal of the Beastmen this time around was conquest.”

“So the people have been turned into livestock,” Vincenzo’s voice turned grim.

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

He drew a hand over his beard, taking a deep breath. Could they have done something? Helped somehow?

At no small expense, the Draconic Kingdom had raised a line of fortresses along its borders. Patrols regularly went between the fortresses – at least they normally did – but the most they could ever achieve was a porous state of security. Their ‘ideal’ was achieving a grim equilibrium where the soldiers lost would both keep the Beastmen satiated and kill enough of them to keep their numbers in check.

Unfortunately, their measures were not effective against major raids. If one fortress fell or was otherwise suppressed, the Beastmen would flow in from there. They had neither the resources nor the men to spare for reserve forces; neither could one garrison abandon its position to reinforce another.

“In that case, what is the Queen’s command?”

“Her Majesty has entrusted me with the authority to reorganise the Draconic Kingdom’s military as I see fit,” Captain Zahradnik said. “This is under the premise that I will be using that authority to restore control and maintain order. My forces are in the process of sweeping the invaders out of your country, but, while we were liberating your lands, we discovered some…problems.”

“What sort of problems?” Vincenzo frowned.

“It has to do with what Your Excellency mentioned before. The people have been turned into livestock. Over the course of the Beastman occupation, citizens in occupations with no relation or immediate importance to operating a ‘farm’ have been culled. There are Farmers and Fishermen aplenty, but everything else…”

Dismay filled him as she continued her summary. Shared sentiment over Captain Zahradnik’s grim report was evident on the faces of his officers. An incalculable amount of damage had been dealt to the Draconic Kingdom: they might be able to eat, but everything beyond that was broken. It was essentially a declaration of doom for their country.

“For Highfort’s part,” Captain Zahradnik said, “its garrison is needed for policing duties. Our forces are not familiar with your nation’s laws and judicial procedures, nor would it be appropriate for them to take on that role as a foreign army.”

Vincenzo nodded in agreement. From what he could tell of her so far, Captain Zahradnik was an admirably austere individual who expressed no desire to abuse her position or the authority granted to her by Queen Oriculus. She knew her boundaries and stayed strictly within them, though he imagined that an experienced Mercenary could be quite imaginative when it came to that.

“That sounds reasonable enough, Captain Zahradnik,” Vincenzo said, “but what about Highfort?”

“The company that accompanied me here will take over garrison duties,” Captain Zahradnik replied. “On that note, Your Excellency, I’d like to lean on the expertise of you and your subordinates in a few matters.”

So she had more than a single company. If they were strong enough to hold the fortress with that few, the others might be able to do a good amount of damage to the Beastmen in the country. Still, freeing everything would be a long, hard fight, if it was possible at all.

“If it’s something I can answer,” he said, “I’d be more than happy to help.”

“First and foremost,” Captain Zahradnik said, “is the behaviour and culture of the local Beastmen. We’ve discovered much about them thus far, but many societal aspects remain a mystery. The ‘divided’ nature of their society is one of them…or perhaps it should be considered regimented? Each clan and tribe appears to occupy a place in what appears to be a caste system.”

“That’s something we discovered over the past year,” Vincenzo replied. “There are weak ones and there are strong ones. Most of them are weak.”

“If Your Excellency is categorising them in that manner, one would wonder why the Draconic Kingdom had any problems in the first place.”

He exchanged looks with a few of the other officers. What he was going to say would probably be considered crazy by normal people.

“Those problems are very much the normal state of affairs, Captain Zahradnik,” Vincenzo said. “It’s probably the garrison stationed here that’s gotten strange.”

“…strange?”

“Yeah. Before everything happened, we were just like any other garrison. Some people that went on patrols survived, some didn’t. Same for raids. Most men assigned to the border don’t live for long, but we still come, hoping to do our part.”

It was a familiar story to the citizens of the Draconic Kingdom. There was nowhere to run or hide: they either fought or they died. Or their friends and loved ones died. The average Human couldn’t put up much of a fight against a Beastman, but it was better to die fighting than just waiting to be picked up like a meal at a hawker’s stall.

“There were five thousand soldiers stationed at this fortress – plus the residents of the fortress’ village – when we were cut off from home. The patrols coming back in were destroyed first, and then they started raiding us for food. We fought them for months and the garrison kept shrinking, but, at some point, we…we stopped dying.”

Captain Zahradnik and the two children at her side quietly listened to him. They didn’t react to his words, so maybe they thought he had lost it and were politely keeping straight faces.

“I-it didn’t all happen at once,” he said. “Our losses slowly tapered off until we were able to successfully repel the Beastmen every time they tested our defences. We’ve all gotten stronger or…or something. That’s how we’ve come to divide those Beastmen between the weak ones and the strong ones. One of us can kill a weak one on our own. A strong one takes a squad to get rid of, just to be safe. Our superior defensive position helps, of course.”

“I see.”

Vincenzo blinked at the woman’s dispassionate response. Something more incredulous was probably in order.

“You don’t think that’s weird?”

“No, Your Excellency. If anything, it’s to be expected for your circumstances.”

“If it was ‘to be expected’, Captain, our military wouldn’t have had so much trouble with the neighbours. Everyone would be able to resist them like we do now.”

Captain Zahradnik regarded him with the same placid demeanour as when he told them the soldiers of the garrison had just stopped dying. After a moment, she asked him a question.

“Is Your Excellency aware that Beastmen tend to target the strong?”

“Of course, Captain,” Vincenzo replied. “They go after magic casters and anyone that acts like an officer, too.”

“And I assume that most of your losses during regular operations occur when patrols are attacked by raiders or you sortie in response to raids.”

“That’s right.”

“Then that is the reason why you don’t see it normally,” Captain Zahradnik told him. “Strength comes with experience, and it comes gradually. That strength does not allow you to single-handedly turn Beastman raids, so your forces continually lose experienced soldiers in a continuous battle of attrition.

“From what we’ve observed and going by the accounts of the many citizens that we’ve spoken to, the Beastmen have a ‘culture of strength’ that determines the worth of both individuals and groups through their raw power. I don’t know what measures they have in place to keep them from tearing each other apart internally in that sort of competitive culture, but I do know that any measures they have for themselves do not apply to foreign warriors like yourselves. As a result of their cultural values, any strength that your army cultivates is purposely targeted.”

“If that’s the case,” Vincenzo asked, “how did we manage to run that gauntlet? By your reasoning, we should’ve died in turn when we gained in personal strength.”

“You were dying in turn,” Captain Zahradnik answered. “But you weren’t dying fast enough. This fortress kept the Beastmen from slaughtering you with impunity, buying you time to gain experience and become powerful enough to conduct an effective defence. That would have probably lasted for about as long as you weren’t famous enough to attract clans of powerful Beastman warriors.”

If that was the case, then what hope was there for the Draconic Kingdom? For humanity? Beastmen were strong and their numbers were seemingly endless. Humans, on the other hand, were weak by comparison and the strong few would be continually eliminated.

“Then how do you do it?” Vincenzo asked, “How do Humans survive in a world where nearly everything is stronger than we are? You seem to be doing well for yourself, at least.”

“Oh, the answer to that is simple,” the corner of Captain Zahradnik’s lip turned up in a slight smile. “The Sorcerous Kingdom is not a Human nation.”

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