“Precisely,” said Ashude. “So long as we can deal with the airship, we will be able to mount a counteroffensive. If we can stall them for long enough, victory will be within our grasp. The army of Missian believes that their fight is already won, and casting down the arrogant and complacent is a task at which we excel,” he concluded. His confident expression and bold, spirited words swayed his followers’ opinions in an instant. Instead of arguing with his plan, they now endorsed it.
That is, of course, assuming there is a means to deal with the airship to be found, Ashude added internally. The truth was that he believed his odds of victory to be slim.
Not long after the meeting’s conclusion, the army of Seitz withdrew, leaving only a skeleton crew behind to defend Castle Kuat.
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The Seitzan army’s unexpected retreat roused our suspicions like nothing before. Assuming we were walking into a trap, we sent out scores of agents─the Shadows included─and held meeting after meeting, trying to figure out what their aim was.
In the end, Couran decided that we would just attack Castle Kuat, risk of a trap be damned. This was an opportunity we couldn’t afford to pass up, considering how strong of a position we would be in if we could bring the castle under our control.
There was some discussion as to whether or not we even needed to use the airship, considering how few in number the defenders were, but in the end, we chose to bring it out regardless. Kuat was a massive and heavily fortified city, and laying siege to it would be difficult even under the best of circumstances.
There was also a risk of Ashude changing tactics and attacking our armies once we’d encircled the city, and since we wouldn’t be able to keep the airship hovering over Castle Kuat perpetually, we’d have to leave it in Fort Sokan. In the worst case, we could have ended up in an all-out battle without the airship to help us. I didn’t think we’d lose, even under those circumstances, but we would lose plenty of troops, and it was by no means unthinkable that we’d be forced to retreat. If we did use the airship, on the other hand, the castle’s lack of defenders meant it would be easy to bring under our control.
With our tactics laid out, we began our march on the castle at once. No enemy forces ended up disrupting our path to Kuat, and we were able to send our airship out just as we had in all of our previous battles. The castle was far larger than the forts we’d used the airship on before, but the length of its walls turned out to mean that they were weaker than those of the forts. The airship broke through them with ease, but wasn’t able to bring down the keep’s much tougher defenses nearly as quickly.
We’d instructed the airship’s crew to focus their bombardment on walls, mage’s towers, and the central keep. The accuracy of its bombardment wasn’t the highest, however, and a few blasts ended up falling into the surrounding town from time to time. We’d sent out word that we’d be carrying out the attack and recommended the people evacuate, but considering no one had ever seen an airship be used like this before, it seemed that the bulk of the population hadn’t understood what we were telling them and had stayed put. I could only hope the casualties weren’t too terrible…
We managed to break through the castle walls and disable its mage’s towers, then staged our ground assault. The lack of defenders made it quite easy to occupy, and in the end, Castle Kuat fell into our control after far less of a struggle than I’d imagined would be possible.
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“You’ve done incredible work once again, Ars. It’s thanks to your airship that the enemy concluded they had no chance of victory and chose to retreat, I’m sure. This is an achievement worthy of celebration,” Couran said after the battle was done. He’d decided to make a point of praising me for my contributions.
“You honor me with your words, Your Majesty,” I replied, wincing as I felt the stares of the nobles around us bore into me.
House Louvent hadn’t served House Salemakhia for generations. My father, Raven, was born a peasant and worked his way up to the title he’d passed on to me. I had to imagine that the lords from houses that did have storied histories of service involving Couran and his ancestors weren’t very happy to see an upstart like me receive this sort of attention.
“Tell me,” said Couran, “where did you find the man who created the airship, Shin?”
“I happened to come across him in the Imperial Capital, where I chose to recruit him,” I said.
“The capital? Ah, yes─I do recall sending you there, now that you mention it. So that’s when you crossed paths… To think that if the emperor had taken Shin into his service instead, he might have been the one to introduce airships to the world.”
If Shin had invented his airship in the capital, then the Imperial Family may very well have ended up ascending back to the heights of power that they’d once enjoyed. It wasn’t like Shin hadn’t tried to get imperial backing─he’d explained his theories to them, but they’d sent him away. If I hadn’t taken him in, he might have still been out on the streets, searching for an investor to finance his project.
“Now then,” said Couran, “our next task will be to restore stable governance to the lands of Kuat and Purledo, as instability in these counties will render the rest of this war far more difficult to fight. While we occupy ourselves with that task, I would like you to set about constructing as many airships as you can in Canarre. I will, of course, provide you with all the materials, personnel, and funding you need to make that happen.”
“It shall be done, Your Majesty,” I replied.
“And on that note, I also assure you that Shin will be given all the funding he needs to continue his research.”
“I thank you for your generosity, Your Majesty. I’m certain that Shin will be beside himself with joy.”
More money for Shin meant that not only would he be able to mass produce airships, he’d also have a chance to revamp his design. I had a feeling that we might see a new and improved airship model in the not so distant future.
With a new goal set out for us, we made our way back to Canarre.
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“Welcome home!”
The instant I arrived back at Castle Canarre, Licia rushed out to greet me.