“Your Excellency, I implore you not to go! The danger is too great!” Dimitri Daz, a lord-of-estates, cried out as he ran over to me to make this demand.
“I’m going,” I told him. “I’ll be fine. We know their soldiers aren’t positioned over there.”
“The first order can’t be trusted! Nor can the royal swords!”
I climbed onto White Sunset and rapidly secured my harness.
“If the situation looks risky, I’ll get on my eagle and fly back. All you have to do is keep the second order here until you see the flag go up, just like we planned. If they show signs of retreating before my return, charge in with your plainrunners and sow some confusion.”
“Very well. Please stay safe!” Dimitri took a step back to give my eagle’s wings enough space to expand, then saluted.
White Sunset began to beat his wings when I pulled lightly on the reins to instruct him to take off. I could feel the uplift.
“All right, here I go!”
I couldn’t wave goodbye because I was holding the reins with my right hand and a spear with my left.
Once in the air where I could view the world below, I saw the Ho family army deployed on the grazing land to the royal capital’s south. There were sixteen thousand soldiers in densely packed formations with plainrunner cavalry at left and right flanks.
Up ahead, on the southern edge of the capital, the second order was positioned and ready to meet them. Their rearmost soldiers were near the spot where we’d broken through a barricade ten days ago.
Similarly to the Ho army, the enemy was densely arranged into square units, but the shapes were smaller and less well-defined than ours.
There was no sign of the first order whatsoever. If its soldiers were mixed in with the others, then there would’ve been almost twenty thousand of them in total, which would’ve made their army larger than ours overall. Since that wasn’t the case, the intel stating that the first order had been left to guard Royal Castle Island appeared accurate.
Other eagles began to take flight after they saw me ascend. I traced small ellipses through the air while I waited for them to catch up. More and more of them took to the sky until the spectacle above the Ho army was like nothing I’d seen before.
Five hundred massive birds now filled the sky like crows circling over a slaughterhouse. Many of the second order’s sky knights, meanwhile, abandoned their reconnaissance efforts and returned to the ground when they realized they were hopelessly outnumbered.
I put an unusually large whistle to my mouth and blew hard. A shrill sound reverberated through the air—piiiiiiiiii!
Whistles like this were inaudible over long distances, but as long as the riders closest to me heard it, it would be enough to trigger a chain reaction. They all understood the plan already.
I turned White Sunset’s beak toward the royal castle.
In just a few moments, White Sunset and I passed over the troops on the ground and neared the castle. That’s when I saw the royal swords on the drawbridge, performing their role just as we’d planned.
They were throwing bottles, which had been smuggled into the royal capital in advance, onto the bridge. Even from a high altitude, I could see the black fluid that covered everything—it was crude oil.
I’d chosen this particular substance because I didn’t want to waste the light oils that we used in the Molotovs. Those lighter fractions were easier to ignite, but they tended to burn up quickly. That meant crude oil was a better choice for creating a long-burning fire anyway.
As the bridge became soaked with the liquid we’d smuggled into the capital over the course of several days, a kingeagle rider rapidly descended toward it to drop bottles of his own. When those hit the black substance covering the bridge, the whole thing erupted into bright red flames.
Rather than descend just yet, I flew around the castle in a circle while blowing my whistle twice—piiii, piiii!
The castle’s occupants appeared at the windows, gazing outside to see the cause of the commotion. As I got close to the upper floors, I saw her.
Carla’s blonde hair fluttered in the wind. She stood on a balcony just like the one Myalo had landed her kingeagle on a few days prior. For a moment, I was tempted to land there just like Myalo had, but I thought better of it—there was no need to attempt anything so dangerous.
Other eagle riders, fearless in the face of death, descended toward unoccupied verandas. Chairs and tea tables were kicked aside as their eagles touched down, or—if the pieces of furniture were sturdy enough—they landed right on top of them.
As we’d planned, no one attempted a more dangerous landing on a balcony railing. The larger verandas were safer, and there wasn’t the risk of an eagle being impaled upon landing—as long as there weren’t guards there defending them, at least.
I looked to the bridge on the island’s north side and noticed that the blaze had grown powerful enough to send up thick plumes of black smoke. That was when I descended on my landing point.
Once on Royal Castle Island, I quickly released my harness and climbed off White Sunset. I vacated the space quickly to clear the way for the others coming down after me and tethered the reins to the first object I could find.
A total of five hundred kingeagle riders landed in various places on the island, each armed with a spear.
We began running together toward the castle. Just as my intel suggested, barely any soldiers from the second order had remained here.
“Your Excellency!” a knight shouted as he hurried over to me. “Every member has landed safely—all ten squads!”
This was the captain of one of the many ad hoc landing squads, and behind him were his fifty subordinates. He’d been under my direct command since the start of the operation, and his squad had been tasked with escorting me as I made my way through such a dangerous location with only my basic equipment. Given that these men were all sky knights who’d graduated from the Knight Academy, this whole operation carried a dizzying financial cost.
“Good work. We’ll storm the royal castle as planned. I saw Carla upstairs by a window.”
“Carla...? Then she’s here. Please allow us to accompany you.”
I slowed to a walk as I led the way.
The castle’s entrance had already been forced open by others who’d charged in ahead of us. The doors could be barred from the rear with a wooden beam that rested in metal fittings, but that beam was lying uselessly on the floor inside the building. It looked like the doors had been closed, but forced open again before anyone could bar them.
In any case, this building wasn’t designed to be defended. The windows near the ground ensured we’d have no trouble entering. That said, an open door certainly made things easier.
The castle—normally a place of order and security—now looked entirely unfamiliar. I could almost smell the ravages of war.
Inside, witches were jostling each other in an attempt to escape and save themselves. These were essentially women and children fleeing a war zone.
My soldiers didn’t pursue them. We lacked the numbers to detain everyone, but there was no escape from this island anyway. The river grew strong at this time of year as waters from thawing mountain ice joined the flow. A woman without proper training stood little chance of making it across. Maybe some would attempt it anyway and die in the process, but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
I walked through the door without a pause.
Once inside, I heard cries of anger. Some occupants had taken up weapons and were fighting. Naturally, the royal castle would never be completely unguarded, though my intel had stated that only about fifty soldiers had been left here to defend it. Still, this wasn’t going to be a sweeping victory—we were lacking in numbers too.
As I began running toward a staircase, a soldier—who I assumed was from the second order—appeared from around a corner and locked eyes with me. With his spear held near his waist, he charged toward me specifically, perhaps having noticed that my armor was higher in quality than the men around me.
“Traitors! You’ll pay!” he yelled.
So the second order does have some enthusiastic soldiers after all.
His expression told me that anger drove him. It was possible that his face always looked that way, but I judged that he was wild with rage—perhaps motivated by lies he’d been fed.