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Meanwhile, in Fort Purledo…
“An invasion from Canarre…? Wh-What should we do?”
Barth Micnisua, the Count of Purledo, was paralyzed with indecision. The previous invasion of Canarre had been led by Boroths, but he was off participating in the invasion of Missian, leaving Barth on his own. That meant that it was Barth’s responsibility as count to take command and repel the invaders. To make matters worse, Canarre had already put him and his men through several painful defeats. A sense of inferiority had begun to fester in Barth’s mind, and as a result, the news that Canarre was attacking had left him shaken.
“We should reinforce the fort and prepare to repel them here!” declared one of Barth’s men. “Canarre’s soldiers might be the best of the best, but not even they could storm Fort Purledo!”
“That’s right!” exclaimed another. “If we go on the attack, there’s a chance we’ll lose a massive chunk of our army for nothing! We should put our faith in the walls of Fort Purledo and prepare to defend it!”
“Hmm…”
Barth’s followers were certain that holing up was the soundest strategy, but while he’d given the option serious consideration, he wasn’t convinced it was the right course of action.
“How many reinforcements will the surrounding counties be able to send?” Barth asked.
“What troops they had have all already been mobilized, Your Lordship,” said one of his followers. “It would be best to assume that no reinforcements will be coming. If any are dispatched at all, they will be few in number.”
“I see… Well, so long as we work together with Castle Auros, it won’t be easy for them to seize Fort Purledo… But then again, we are up against Canarre… And His Lordship the Duke seems unlikely to pull back any of the invading forces to help us, being as we have the manpower to defend the fort as is…” Barth muttered. It seemed that the previous war with Canarre had left him rather traumatized.
“Reports have it that they’ve invented something called an ‘airship,’ which they’ve carried to Fort Coumiere,” noted one of Barth’s followers.
“An airship…? Does it fly by magical means? Such a device could be a threat, certainly, but if it’s only just been invented, I hardly think it will be ready to do us any harm. No need for us to intervene,” said Barth.
“I suppose so,” the follower conceded. “I’m told it’s quite large, so even if it does fly, we’ll just have to have our mages shoot it down.”
The airship’s existence─and even Canarre’s intention to use it─was known to Purledo’s defenders. They simply didn’t see it as a threat worth preparing for.
“What of the enemy’s movements? Should we expect them to attempt to claim Castle Auros first?”
“That seems very likely, yes…and if they do, we need only cut off their supply lines, then catch them in a pincer attack between us and the forces stationed in the castle. Canarre’s army will be crushed before they even realize what’s happened to them.”
“Hmm… That logic is sound, indeed…but wait. What if they realize that we intend to fight defensively, and use the opportunity to raise a fort of their own, or something to that effect? On Heine’s Hill, for instance, or even closer on Klax’s Hill? That would make cutting off their supply lines a far more difficult prospect.”
“Th-That’s true…”
Barth’s followers were caught off guard by his theory, and in their surprise, they were unable to argue against it.
“Could they really build a fort that easily, though?” one asked.
“That’s true!” said another. “That sort of construction is no simple task, even with earth magic! It would be outright impossible, unless they have a specialist in fortification on their side!”
“Are you mad?!” barked Barth. “We’re up against Canarre, remember?! They have all the specialists they could ever need! You can’t mean to tell me they wouldn’t have someone who specialized in building forts?!”
“Ugh…” the follower who’d objected grunted. Everyone present understood Canarre’s distinctive strengths painfully well.
“We’ll send our troops to Klax’s Hill to start,” Barth said after spending a moment mulling over his strategy. “If they built a fort there, we’d stand almost no chance of victory.”
“And what of Heine’s Hill?” asked one of his followers.
“Indeed… Considering their current rate of advancement, the enemy will reach Heine’s Hill before we could. We’ll start by securing Klax’s Hill, and if they begin constructing a fort on Heine’s Hill, we’ll send a detachment in to disrupt them. A fort on Heine’s Hill would be a blow, but nowhere near as dire as one on Klax’s Hill. No need for us to go to incredible lengths to stop them from claiming it.”
“I see…”
“Very well, then! Prepare our troops to march at once!”
His plan laid, Barth spurred his men into action.
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“The enemy army’s set up camp on Klax’s Hill,” Clamant reported to Rietz partway through their march.
“Klax’s Hill…? I see…” Rietz muttered. “I suppose they’ve realized how dangerous it would be if we built a fort there, and have decided to head off the possibility. From their perspective, it’s understandable─a fort on Klax’s Hill would allow us to defend our supply lines more effectively, and would make their defense of Castle Auros much more difficult. They’ve moved to ensure that doesn’t happen…but since that was never our intention to begin with, it works in our favor. They can fortify Klax’s Hill all they want. They’ll just be doing us a favor by overlooking our construction of a fort on Heine’s Hill.”
“You don’t think an enemy encampment on Klax’s Hill could pose a problem?” asked Clamant. “The way I see it, there’s a risk they’ll slow our advance.”
“True… Even after we’ve laid waste to the fort from the air, we’ll still need to send in troops on foot to secure it. If we ignore the encampment on Klax’s Hill, it could make reaching Fort Purledo challenging.”
However little threat the enemy posed at the moment, ignoring them could spell disaster for Rietz’s force when they advanced further down the line.
“We’ll prioritize the construction of the fort on Heine’s Hill, to start. We can decide what to do about the enemy encampment after it’s done,” Rietz eventually concluded. His force would continue its march, as planned.
A few days later, Rietz and his troops arrived at Heine’s Hill. The enemy had set up on Klax’s Hill in the meantime, and hadn’t made any moves from that position, focusing instead on shoring up their defenses.
Rietz’s troops had yet to finish the new fort, but they’d already begun raising a simple defensive wall around its perimeter. The longer they spent working on it, the stronger the enemy’s defenses on Klax’s Hill would become, but Rietz stuck to his plan, prioritizing his own fort’s construction.
Driving the enemy away from Klax’s Hill had the potential to take longer than anticipated, and would likely involve casualties on Rietz’s side as well. Even if they did sally forth to obstruct Rietz’s force’s advance in the long run, fighting them in the open would put the army of Canarre in a better position than charging their encampment would. There was, in short, very little reason to bother attacking them at the moment.
The construction continued under Rietz’s supervision. Canarre’s mages made good use of their earth magic, and made remarkable progress on the outer walls.
“We’ll need a wall over here too,” said Rietz.
“Coming right up,” Charlotte replied. She cast a spell, and a wall began to form.
In no time, a massive wall towered over Charlotte. No ordinary mage could have made a wall that tall─it was a stunt that only a caster of her aptitude could hope to pull off. Two mages casting the same spell could accomplish vastly different things, depending on which had a greater aptitude for spellcasting. And, considering that Charlotte’s spells used up the exact same amount of aqua magia as all the other mages’, having her do as much of the casting as possible was the most efficient option.
Still, Rietz doled out instructions at a rapid pace to the whole unit of mages. Having only Charlotte do the casting would have been the best option as far as resource consumption went, but unfortunately, it would also have been too slow to complete the fort in time. Canarre’s stockpiles of earth-aspected aqua magia were sufficient, so speed took priority over resource efficiency, and every mage was asked to pull their weight.
The construction of the fort carried on for some time. Small units of enemy soldiers occasionally arrived to attempt to obstruct the process, but they were driven away with ease, and didn’t even cause any delays worth mentioning. Work was continuing apace.