We were being hired directly by Mister Giesebrecht and also, by extension, the canton itself. That meant the money was coming out of his pocket and any other expenses would need to be covered by us. I wanted an imperial patrol to come, preferably with some soldiers in tow, so that we didn’t have to be saddled with extra costs. The magistrate wouldn’t quibble about penny-pinching, but drawing out this affair would result in a bigger debt for the canton. Building more emergency residences or protective measures on the outskirts of the canton would only sink money into the matter right in front of us. These types of war preparations put a strain on the public, but undercooking them would result in those same people being taken over—it was a tricky situation.
The problem was that we didn’t even have a reply from the magistrate, let alone reinforcements. Therefore, we needed to make quite the risky gamble. Under the assumption that the first horses sent out had been attacked on the way, I decided to send out some Fellows with a letter from Mister Giesebrecht. I already had decided who would be going.
But man. If we were facing zombies, I really wished we had some heavy machine guns. Four of those could solve most of our problems. Couldn’t someone at the College or some such have cooked some up for me already? Wait, wait, if they did, it’d totally shift things away from my beloved fantasy setting. I had loved a certain world that combined guns and maces before, but I didn’t want to deal with real-world advancements that changed what it meant to be a foot soldier. No thank you to a world of endless trench-digging.
The burial ended as I contemplated just how much things weren’t going my way. Around the same time, our mounted messengers finished their preparations. As a safety measure, I’d sent Margit and two skilled Fellows atop my Dioscuri, just in case anything bad happened out there. The party left Mottenheim without issue.
My horses would only take a day or so to reach the magistrate at their standard clip. I could expect it to take around three days for them to petition the magistrate and for him to give his response. Add to that another day for the return journey, and we had a five-day wait on our hands. Factor in another one or two days’ buffer in case they needed to avoid anything dangerous. On top of all that, I asked them to gather some intel on the way, so I could expect them to take yet another day for that.
It was disheartening to be without Margit for that long—she was practically my other half, after all—but it was scarier to think about important information not reaching the magistrate. Right until their departure I’d fought with myself about sending a different scout party, but I wanted to be prepared, so in the end I decided on Margit. Having only one scout and one bodyguard would be terrible, balance-wise, and I wanted our best woman on the job, so I decided to let her go.
I hoped I’d made the right decision. The woods seemed calm; it was unlikely they would send another army of undead soldiers right away. To make sure, Siegfried or I would lead a scouting party to do a sweep once a day. Our defenses here were improving, so it made sense to make sure that the messenger party, a bigger source of worry at this point, was safe. Even if I knew the answer in my head, I couldn’t shake off my anxiety. This was why war was scary. The tally at the end only showed if you won or died.
In this case, I needed to hold my head high and make sure the work here proceeded smoothly. I couldn’t let my spirit be worn down. In the words of the poet Bernkastel, whose incisive insight had made him one of my favorite wordsmiths this world had yet produced, a strategist’s job amounted to convincing a block of ice to hold fast atop a hot stove.
One false move would crush this tiny canton in a second. If we had arrived a mere fortnight later; if we had begun our training ten days later; if the completion of the walls and abatises had been three days later; if the mines had been laid one day later, we’d be living in a nightmare. I’d be rounding up anyone still with their wits about them to pick over the people of Mottenheim, giving them the same treatment I’d administered to our zombie aggressors so that they couldn’t be reanimated and leveraged against the survivors. Hell, arguably that wasn’t a sufficiently catastrophic worst-case scenario; I could just as easily have been stuck leading my underlings and the scant survivors out of a burning canton. We got lucky.
We couldn’t rest on our laurels, though—there was no telling when the God of Trials would smile down upon us. That was especially true when luck often gave me the cold shoulder.
While Margit was away, I would use everything in my power to defend this canton. Information moved slowly in this era. It made me anxious, but I couldn’t let that spur me into anything rash. I’d take on this battle properly and push on through it. The enemy’s objective was still a mystery to me, but if I was correct in assuming they were pulling similar ploys on multiple fronts, then it was unlikely they would pull any more nasty tricks.
This was just like ehrengarde. If a watchman wasn’t budging from a really annoying spot and you couldn’t avoid or take it, then the only answer was to attack from another angle. Miss Cecilia had often backed me into similar frustrating corners; I knew this feeling all too well. Despite liking proper strategy, she was really damn good at those nasty plays. I still really dreaded the idea of making an enemy of her, especially if she ended up landing some kind of state administrative role like so many of her folks had been steering her toward.
“Looks like we’ve finished the burial. The sun’s low in the sky, so let’s save our prayers for tomorrow. We can get a priest to perform proper rites.”
With this job done, it was time to discuss our next moves with Siegfried over dinner. It felt like he’d been cold to me all day, so I wanted to smooth over any misunderstandings that’d cropped up between him and me. He was a sharp guy, in his way. If I didn’t choose my words properly, I could expect a fist to the face.