When the sounds of fighting ceased, I unlocked the door and opened it. Two dead knights lay on the floor.
“Two of them?” I asked.
“Yes, Your Excellency,” a Ho family knight replied. “The other three surrendered.”
“He must’ve been well-liked for someone so flawed.”
Ho family soldiers had been ready to surround the five escorts and demand their surrender when they heard the gunshot. I’d heard them yelling at the knights from inside the room, but only now had I learned that two had chosen to die instead. At the very least, they’d shown devotion to their master until death.
“It was inevitable that some of them would fight,” Myalo told me. “They were a chieftain’s trusted servants, after all.”
“When you put it that way...”
He wouldn’t have brought them this far if they weren’t the best five men he had. Still, I thought it incredible that some people were willing to fight to the last breath. Unlike the battlefield, where some significant fraction of the soldiers would make it out alive, their deaths had been all but certain. Few people were willing to sacrifice themselves to protect someone.
“Tell Dimitri to ready our forces,” I told the knight.
“Yes, Your Excellency!”
“And you,” I said to another. “There’s an eagle ready to depart. Instruct the rider to head for Rube Province.”
“As you command, Your Excellency!”
The knights gave me stiff salutes before running off to perform their errands.
“But will they all surrender as planned?” Myalo wondered aloud.
“Probably.”
Sky knights carrying flyers were already in the air. Even if Orone had accepted my offer, I would’ve still needed to strip the Bof family of all authority. That meant distributing flyers across all of their cities to expose the family’s deal with the witches and their betrayal of our kingdom. The eagles had set off just as Orone had entered the castle, so flyers might’ve already fallen on the nearest towns.
“I think the change to the content was wise,” Myalo said.
The flyers explaining the Bof family’s betrayal weren’t entirely honest. The agreement that the Bof family had with the witches said that up to two thousand of their retainers would be promised rights equivalent to those of a Kulati. Since the witches were never going to honor that promise, the number could just as well have been twenty thousand or two million. For our purposes, two thousand sounded a little high. If the flyers suggested that the Bof family was also trying to save those closest to them, it might convince some of their retainers to remain loyal. To prevent that, we’d changed the number to two hundred. Even if their retainers realized our deception after they’d surrendered, it would be too late for them.
“The lower their morale, the sooner they’ll surrender once surrounded by a large army,” I remarked. “Bof Province’s cities aren’t fortified. The only challenge is going to be Koturah.”
Koturah was the provincial capital. From above, it looked like a city built in the middle of a large plain, free from any hills, but the whole thing was surrounded by high walls.
Although there weren’t any rivers running through the city, it was apparently so rich in underground water sources that wells provided it with a limitless supply.
One weakness that the city had was the lack of a moat outside the walls. Therefore, it didn’t have drawbridges like Royal Castle Island. Instead, the walls protruded outward to form semicylindrical towers on either side of each of the city’s two gates. Anyone approaching a gate would be attacked from both towers.
While the gates weren’t a pair of doors, they functioned as a barrier that could be raised and lowered. I’d never seen them lowered firsthand, but we’d found annotated drawings of the gates in the royal castle, intended as a reference for anyone attempting to capture Koturah.
Since the Bof family’s ancestors—the Mulan family—had rebelled with little warning in the past, there had been a time when the royal family had been distrustful enough of the Bof family to demand that Koturah’s gates be removed entirely. They’d been restored a decade later after tensions had cooled, but brand-new structures had been installed rather than the originals. Based on the pictures, they were made from thick pieces of hardwood and reinforced by an iron lattice for good measure. I couldn’t tell how sturdy they were, but I suspected we’d have our work cut out for us trying to destroy them.
“Yes, indeed. Their gates are formidable. I fear we may incur significant losses,” Myalo said.
The gates had looked so impressive from above that I had to agree with her.
We needed a plan. A straightforward attack would result in a thousand or so casualties. The best outcome was the Bof family’s surrender, but ultimately it would be their decision.
No matter how low morale fell, soldiers defending the city walls would continue to fight. We could surround them on the plain, but they’d feel safe beyond the reach of our spears.
“We’ve only got two or three months until crusaders get here... Oh, that’s right.” A good idea had just hit me. “We won’t even need to attack.”
After some thought, I realized that I had no interest in saving the Bof family or their close associates anyway. If capturing the city posed a dilemma for me, then it would be equally tough for the crusaders. When they showed up with another giant cannon to destroy the fortifications, they’d save me the trouble. It would also delay them big time since they’d have to assemble the cannon on-site.
“Okay, problem solved,” I said.
“Huh?”
“We don’t have to waste time fighting them. We make them seal their gates, then leave the rest to the crusaders. That’s all we have to do.”
“You mean by starving them out? Except it won’t be starvation that gets them.”
“If they won’t surrender, we’ll wait until the crusaders arrive, abandon them, and withdraw to the royal capital.”
That settled it. The Bof family hadn’t assembled their army yet, so most of their soldiers would be somewhere outside of Koturah. At most, they’d have two thousand soldiers stationed in the capital. To lay siege to the city, we only needed to keep watch on their two gates, so it wouldn’t require a large army. Making sure the Bof family stayed put for a couple of months would be easy.
“You don’t need to come north with me, Myalo. It’ll be just me and Dimitri. I’d like you to continue your work cleaning up after the witches in the royal capital.”
Myalo nodded. “As you wish.”
Calm as she seemed, Myalo was overworked.
Since we didn’t have a full-blown three-tier court system, trials concluded after a single swift session. Witches were being handed sentences one after another. With each witch that stood trial, Myalo would investigate—paying informants and sharp-eared street dwellers—to find victims who’d be willing to testify against them. Such witnesses could state their case. A lawyer would then argue against them, and finally, a verdict would be decided.
If Myalo saw any signs of talent in witches who’d committed only minor crimes, she pardoned them and allowed them to return to working in the royal castle. The royal capital still wouldn’t be able to charge taxes or manage budgets correctly this year because our bureaucratic systems were in tatters, but there was no avoiding that.
“I’ll head north as soon as I’ve finished one last task here in the royal capital. See you.”
Dimitri was a reasonable man, but many soldiers serving the Ho family valued killing above all else. To them, each enemy they disposed of was considered an achievement. I’d have to keep them under control, or else they’d likely indiscriminately kill anyone loyal to the Bof family outside of Koturah.
“What task is that?” Myalo asked.
“I have to visit Ms. Ether.”
I hadn’t talked to her at all lately. It would be rude of me if I didn’t at least say hello.
“Oh. Well, take care. I hear that she’s rather popular these days.”
Popular? “What do you mean?”
“Well...rather than explain, I think you should go see for yourself.”
“Hm? All right. I will.”
I didn’t get it, but I was planning to visit her anyhow.