Bamba shook his head. “That invention isn’t going to last us forever. We’ve exhausted our supplies faster than expected─in fact, we’re almost out. What little we have left won’t make a difference the next time they attack. We’ve incapacitated an incredible number of their troops, yes, but there’s still far more where they came from. If we try to hold the line here, we’ll lose.”
The Missian army’s performance had exceeded Bamba’s expectations. Their timely withdrawal in the first engagement and effective anti-explosive tactics in the second had minimized their casualties. All things considered, they’d handled a new and unknown weapon with remarkable aptitude. Bamba had thought that Missian’s numerical superiority would lull them into a sense of security and prompt carelessness on their part, but that had proven to not be the case, taking his best hope of eking out a victory with it.
A number of other attendees attempted to argue against Bamba’s proposal, but he proceeded to debate them all into submission. Before long, Paradille’s retreat was set in stone.
“Very well─but we will remain in this castle, at least for a moment longer,” Seitz’s commanding officer, Boroths, declared.
“All right,” said Bamba. “You should know, though, that the hopes of your defense being successful are dismal at best.”
“I’m well aware, thank you. Defending the castle is no longer our objective.”
From Seitz’s perspective, the defense of Castle Lund had never been a necessity. Their only goal was to delay Couran’s participation in his own invasion of Seitz. If Castle Lund fell immediately, Couran and his army would make their way straight to Purledo County and Seitz’s odds of reclaiming the region would plummet. Kuat County would find itself in imminent danger, as well─there was a risk that Couran would storm across their border before they had the chance to shore up their defenses.
“Understood. Fight well, my comrade in arms,” said Bamba. With those parting words, he began directing his troops to prepare for their retreat.
○
Soon thereafter, a report made its way to Couran.
“A massive number of enemy soldiers have been spotted withdrawing from Castle Lund! They seem to be from the army of Paradille!”
“They’re withdrawing…?” Couran repeated, perplexed by the news. He had been under the impression that the enemy had full control over the situation.
In spite of tactics that had proven effective at mitigating the damage dealt by the enemy’s new weapon, it still hadn’t been enough, and he’d lost many a soldier in his previous attempts to storm the castle. The castle’s defenders, meanwhile, had barely suffered any losses at all. Couran couldn’t say for sure whether or not he would have emerged victorious in a battle of attrition, but he’d already started attempting to devise an alternative when news that the enemy had given up and fled reached him.
“Could it be that their supplies of their new weapon have run dry, Your Majesty?” Robinson proposed.
“That seems plausible, yes. If they were only invented recently, they may not have had time to make a substantial number of them. They were fearsome, though─we’ll have to take great care should we encounter them in the future. If we’d been moments later with our withdrawal in the first engagement, it may have spelled defeat for us.”
Couran had emerged victorious in the end, but he’d gone into the battle in a position of overwhelming superiority, and had almost seen that advantage turned on its head. Missian, famed for its use of explosive magic, had seen its own tactics used against it. The weapon wielded by the castle’s defenders had left a very strong impression in Couran’s mind, and he was resolved to find a way to defend against it in the future.
“It would seem that a number of Seitz’s soldiers intend to remain and continue defending Castle Lund,” Robinson reported.
“I see,” said Couran. “They intend to buy time, I’m sure. That will not be an issue─we’ll crush them with everything we have.”
“Understood, Your Majesty.”
Couran gave the order to march on the castle. Seitz’s remaining soldiers put up as much of a fight as they could, but they were unable to weather Missian’s overwhelming assault. In the end, Boroths gave the order to abandon the castle and flee when fewer than a hundred of his men remained standing.
It had been a hard-fought battle, but in the end, Couran reclaimed Castle Lund.
○
Once Purledo was firmly under our control, I spent some time standing by in Fort Purledo. I’d sent a letter to Couran informing him of our victory, and he’d responded with instructions to fortify and defend the fort to the last. We were also instructed that, in the event Seitz did not pull its troops back from their campaign in Missian, we were to go on the attack once more, this time invading Kuat County, which shared a border with Purledo. Kuat County was the third most populous region of Seitz, and bringing it under our control would strike a terrible blow to the duchy’s overall capabilities.
To be honest, though, we weren’t in the best position to go invading another county just yet. To start, we were low enough on fuel for the airship to make me nervous. We hadn’t been able to claim any wind-aspected aqua magia from Purledo’s stockpiles, so we were still working with the exact same supply we’d started out with. I’d sent Couran another letter requesting that he send us as much aqua magia as he could spare, but there was no telling when any supplies from him would reach us. Wind magic was hardly ever used in battle to begin with, so I wasn’t even sure he would have any of the resources we needed in stock at all.
On a similar note, our supply of explosive aqua magia was running low as well. It was quite a rare resource, and was fairly hard to get ahold of in the first place, but since it was one of Missian’s signature specialties, I felt certain that Couran would have a reasonable quantity of it stashed away for times like these. As such, I requested that he send any explosive aqua magia that he could spare our way as well.
From what we’d been able to determine, Kuat County had sent the bulk of its standing army out to war, and had very few soldiers left to defend it. I couldn’t deny that if we were going to claim the territory, this would be our best chance. The one problem was that, important to Seitz as the county was, its castles were well-fortified. It wouldn’t be easy to take one by storm unless we could make full use of the airship, so for the time being, I decided to focus on buying as much explosive- and wind-aspected aqua magia as I could while waiting to see what the enemy’s next move would be.
Meanwhile, we got to work restoring the fort. Depending on how things played out, there was a significant chance that we’d end up having to defend Purledo from a returned Seitzan army intent upon reclaiming it. I most certainly didn’t want to take that task on with a broken fort serving as our stronghold.