A month after Balthazar took the bait Nia and Ark had laid for him...
“Bwa hah hah! Those Brigandian hounds might be sly, but there’s no chance that they would ever expect us to invade so surreptitiously and so fast!”
Doing his (awful) best to hold back the glee in his tone, Balthazar had quietly gathered his troops inside Brigandia’s borders. The troops under his command numbered roughly twelve thousand. The march he would lead was a little bit more than Ark had estimated beforehand.
The fact he’d managed to gather that many mercenaries was nothing to sneeze at. For Balthazar to gather such a hodgepodge of mercenaries to march for him in so little time was as sneaky and fast as he boasted.
Balthazar was by no means incompetent—really, he was skilled. The problem was that more often than not, he used his skills for the wrong reasons and without thinking things through, causing himself and the people around him to suffer.
“It’s truly amazing, Your Highness. If we attack now, it will be well within our power to catch them off guard and rout them completely!”
That was why the knight acting as his adjutant was getting carried away. While the second prince had a bad reputation, upon actually attending to him, the adjutant was able to see for himself that Balthazar was quite skilled and that his confidence could even be perceived as that of a true monarch’s. From the knight’s more warrior-like standpoint, the first prince Elmer’s behavior could only be seen as weak-kneed, which made Balthazar look better in comparison.
All of that together made the man look at the situation too optimistically, seeing no reason to question just how exactly they were able to infiltrate the borders of a nation that had defeated them so soundly in the war.
“The mercenaries are marching so briskly after being touched by your authority. I’ve never seen such obedient mercenaries!”
“Me neither!”
The other knights, seemingly feeling the same way, kept on piling Balthazar with praise, but they couldn’t really be blamed for it.
Normally, mercenaries hired for money had very little loyalty, along with little training on how to march properly, so they couldn’t usually manage to march at a measured, slower pace. But these mercenaries were different. They were obediently following Balthazar’s orders. And the knights—thoroughly influenced by the prince—didn’t think that was strange in the least.
Perhaps the situation could have changed if someone had questioned it, had even investigated it just the smallest bit. But there were any number of reasons to explain the mercenaries’ unusual behavior: the guaranteed pay, or, if they were from far away, just wanting to get the job done and leave, for example. And so, from their point of view, everything was going perfectly.
“Ha ha ha, I’m almost scared by my own talent! To think that I could make these classless mercenaries obey me so easily! With this, we’ll capture Bigden in the blink of an eye!”
“Yes, beyond a doubt! We’ll wipe them out, hands down!”
Thanks to the blatant bootlicking, Balthazar was in a wonderful mood. After all, the knights were half truthful, so he couldn’t see through any of it. In the first place, he never even thought to question praise directed at him, because he considered it all to be obvious. And unfortunately, at that moment, the knights at his side truly did believe that he was a master worthy of praise. Regardless of the truth.
And so, Balthazar’s army pressed on, with no one to remonstrate with him.
“Bigden should come into view in about two days. In that case...”
Before they knew it, they’d come that close. They couldn’t turn back anymore. And it was then that the news arrived.
“I have a report! The Brigandian army has been deployed in our path.”
“So they did sniff us out.”
Balthazar and his lackeys all looked at each other when they heard the report from the reconnaissance party they’d sent ahead. Then, they smiled.
“Everything is going according to your plan, Your Highness!”
“Ha ha ha, of course it is! I knew they’d try attacking us when they realized our numbers!”
As one of his toadies praised him, Balthazar nodded over and over, pleased with himself. Of course he would be; in his eyes, he could have hired even more mercenaries but had admirably exercised some restraint and refrained. His aim was just as he said: to lure the Brigandians into attacking him first.
Balthazar had thought that a mere provincial town like Bigden wouldn’t have the facilities necessary to hold out over a lengthy siege. Yes, “thought,” because he didn’t look into it at all. If you’d asked any sensible Sylvarian soldier, then they would’ve just silently stared into the sky.
From the prince’s point of view, Bigden wouldn’t be able to defend against a siege, so they wouldn’t try unless there was a marked difference between the number of troops on either side. He’d invaded on that guess, and since Brigandia had indeed gone on the offensive, of course he would smile.
“I would applaud them for their courage in charging without fear for our numbers, but it seems they didn’t even have the brainpower to even calculate their odds!”
“That’s right. They should have just given up and handed the town over to us!”
Balthazar and his group were at the very back of the twelve-thousand-strong army. Not only did Brigandia’s troops look small due to the distance, but all they could see from their horses were rows and rows of their own forces. Perhaps some pity could be given here, for their lack of battlefield experience led them to think their army was bigger than it actually was.
But that was exactly why Balthazar should have had a much more experienced man as his adjutant. But he had distanced himself from the knight commander Count Eisendarque and his skilled military, thinking they were nagging him. And as a result, the only people by his side now were inexperienced bootlickers. That was why there was no one to stop him, or able to move things properly.
“Everyone, our victory is assured! All troops, charge!”
“All troops, charge!”
“All troops, charge!!!”
On Balthazar’s order, the commanders placed here and there repeated it loudly, starting a chain reaction to spread his order to every end of the army. And, as it spread... More and more mercenaries started looking at each other, and nothing more.
“Bah! What are they doing?! This is why I hate mercenaries!” Balthazar cried in annoyance. In his mind, the entire army was supposed to charge at once at his orders. But in reality, they weren’t moving. Or rather, they were moving, but very slowly.
“It’s almost as if they didn’t hear His Highness’s command. Lowborns must have bad hearing,” sighed one of the toady knights, but it was probably the mercenaries who really wanted to sigh.
When more than ten thousand humans were marching, it was easy for a single voice to get drowned out. And an army couldn’t actually begin charging until the troops at the front started moving, but since they were the ones farthest from Balthazar and his men, they couldn’t hear him and only started to move once the order had been properly spread. But since Balthazar and company didn’t know that, they just got annoyed.
“They must not understand words. You, blow the charge horn!”
“U-Understood!”
When one of the indignant knights gave the order, a soldier, who had been nearby the entire time yet completely ignored, took out his bugle and blew with all his might. And just as you’d expect from a soldier entrusted with a bugle to relay orders, he had an impressive lung capacity. The strong sound carried all the way to the front lines, and whether it was a matter of them understanding the bugle or the initial order having finally reached them, they began charging with great force.
“Goodness, with these kinds of mercenaries, we’ll lose a battle we should have won,” Balthazar vented, his mood seemingly now soured. He still thought they would win, even right up until this point. Even though he could see his mercenaries as they charged and Brigandia’s army in the distance, it would take him a little while longer to understand what that meant. And that moment arrived relatively soon.
“What? It looks as if the mercenaries are slowing down.”
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it... What in the world? Were they not well enough trained?”
“No, they shouldn’t be. We confirmed that they had at least the bare minimum of training.”
When Balthazar first spoke, perplexed, the knights around him all looked confused, offering what observations they could. From what they saw, the mercenaries who had begun to charge at the sound of the horn were suddenly slowing down.