The moment Couran learned that the army of Seitz was on the move, he directed his own troops to advance toward Castle Lund on the double. A very significant portion of Seitz’s troops had pulled back, meaning that Couran would not have to send his entire force to retake his lost territory and could afford to have twenty thousand of his men make their way to Purledo County instead. With them, he sent a message to the army of Canarre: they were to march upon Kuat County next.
In Couran’s mind, this moment─when Seitz’s defensive forces were scattered─was the prime opportunity to take Castle Kuat by storm. The airship that Ars had used in his recent campaign had proven incredibly effective, and it was safe to assume his enemies would still be unable to mount an effective defense against it. Pressing that advantage now would allow Ars to fight from a dominant position.
The remaining troops in Couran’s army would strive to retake Castle Lund. Once the castle was reclaimed, Couran intended to turn his attention fully upon Purledo County and join in the effort to claim Castle Kuat.
Those plans, however, would prove premature. Bamba, who had stayed behind in Castle Lund, was about to make the process of reclaiming Couran’s lost territory much harder than it otherwise would have been.
○
A meeting was being held in the conference chamber of Castle Lund. At the moment, that castle was under siege by a massive army. Couran himself had sallied forth to lead his troops in the effort to take the castle back, and those whose job it was to defend that castle were deep in discussion, trying to come up with a way to fend him off. The gathered nobles had proposed one idea after another, but none of them seemed to have any real potential to make a difference. The meeting, in short, had been an unproductive one.
Ars Louvent…the child. Yes, I remember him well, Bamba, Paradille’s commanding officer, thought to himself. He crossed his arms, conjuring an image of Ars’s face to mind.
“So the youth truly was no ordinary being. My divine eye has not deceived me,” Bamba muttered with a sardonic sneer.
The truth, incidentally, was that at the time, he hadn’t thought much of Ars other than that he was a rather clever child. Bamba hadn’t imagined he would become this important. He was, in short, making it up as he went along.
The Seitzan commander who was seated beside Bamba, Boroths, had overheard his mutterings and was now looking at Bamba with the bewildered expression of a man who had no clue what to make of his new comrade in arm’s nonsense. When the bulk of the Seitzan army had retreated, Boroths had been left to lead those few soldiers who remained.
“Umm, Sir Bamba? Would you perhaps have any suggestions?” one of the Paradillean nobles asked, prodding their commander for an idea.
As a general rule of thumb, Bamba never volunteered his ideas unprompted, even when he had a fully developed one in mind. He would either wait for someone to ask him for input, or otherwise bide his time until the absolute last second to speak up. His reasoning was simple: he thought it made him look better, in a dramatic sort of way. The lords of Paradille found his eccentric behavior obnoxious, but couldn’t deny that his suggestions were often the stuff of genius. Playing along with him was a regrettable matter of necessity.
“Our foes have placed us in a perilous position─that, none can deny. They have beset us with a force four times the size of our own, and the walls of Castle Lund stand unmended. Paradille, meanwhile, lacks the ability to send reinforcements our way,” Bamba said, summing up the current state of affairs in a calm, collected tone.
The assembled nobles hung their heads in despair. If not even Bamba could come up with a tactic to turn the tide, it seemed that surrender was their only remaining option.
“However,” Bamba continued, “our defeat is not yet set in stone. The enemy’s vast numbers are their bane. Their strength will surely have bred complacency. I do believe the time has come…to use our trump card.”
“Our…trump card?” Boroths skeptically repeated, unable to understand what Bamba was alluding to.
A number of the nobles from Paradille, however, seemed to grasp the implications of Bamba’s words.
“You mean to say you brought them with us?” one of them asked.
“I did. Just in case worse came to worst and the time came for their unveiling,” Bamba replied with a self-satisfied smirk.
“It’s time for you to learn that you’re not the only one who’s invented a new weapon, Ars Louvent.”
○
The moment Couran confirmed that the Seitzan army was on the move, he set out to retake Castle Lund. Though he had planned on ordering his subordinates to take care of the task, the unfortunate fact of the matter was that he didn’t have total faith they would carry it out. In the end, he chose to see it done himself.
Missian had claimed the advantage in the war, but if Castle Lund wasn’t reclaimed in quick order, that advantage could be flipped on its head. As such, the battle to retake the castle would be an important one, and a battle of that significance was one that Couran felt the need to be personally involved in.
“The enemy seems intent upon weathering the siege, Your Majesty,” said Robinson.
“Hmm. I’d thought that would be next to impossible, considering the damage that’s been done to the castle’s walls. Still, it works in our favor,” said Couran.
“How shall we stage our assault?”
“No need to wait them out. We’ll bring down the walls and take the castle by storm,” Couran replied. Neither Robinson nor any of his other subordinates objected to the plan, and the attack began in short order.
“Your Majesty, the enemy has mounted something on the castle’s wall,” Robinson soon reported.
Couran took a long, hard look at the wall in question.
“Hm…? Is that…a catapult?”
In the modern era of magical warfare, a catapult’s simplistic ability to hurl stones wasn’t relevant anymore. They’d all but vanished from the battlefield in recent times. Even in the era where they were commonly seen, they were used as siege engines to knock down walls and fortifications, not bombard enemy armies from atop them. That’s not to say it was unheard of─sending a catapult stone into the middle of a battalion was a rather effective way of breaking their formation─but it was certainly rare.
“What could they intend to accomplish with one of those in this day and age?” Couran muttered.
The catapult launched its first stone, which crashed into one of Couran’s formations. An unfortunate soldier who failed to dodge in time became an instant casualty, but it seemed the catapult wasn’t powerful enough to launch anything particularly large. Bringing down one man per shot seemed to be the best it could hope to accomplish, and the soldiers of Couran’s army were used to storming across battlefields where powerful spells fell like rain. This was far from a threat that would make them falter. Couran’s army continued to advance…but then, a moment later, the stone that the catapult had flung exploded.