A few days of marching later, we finally arrived at Chelán Hill. Our pace had been fairly expedited, owing to the tight nature of our schedule, but the new recruits had done well to keep up. I’d rewarded them with wine and praise for their efforts. The former wasn’t the stuff nobles drank, so it wasn’t particularly sweet, but it was of decent quality all the same. The soldiers had certainly seemed to enjoy it. Come to think of it, I’d had no idea that it was conventional for the nobility to prefer their wine sweet. Given the exorbitant price of sugar, maybe it was brewed with honey or something.
Anyway, on to the topic of Chelán Hill. It was a strategically vital location I had taken note of during my third tour of the Empire, located at the border between the Duchy of Aphoroa—one of my direct holdings—and the County of Veria, which was Raul-held territory. This also placed the hill between the major city of Keighamer, which was located at the easternmost tip of the Duchy of Aphoroa, and the major city of Reydra, which was at the westernmost tip of the County of Veria. In short, Chelán Hill was one of several of our fronts against the Raul army in this civil war.
Also worthy of note was the major highway that connected Keighamer and Reydra. Although it was in good condition and sizable enough to convey a marching army with ease, it curved south in order to circumvent Chelán Hill. That meant that possessing control of the hill was as good as possessing control of the highway—which, by the way, continued beyond Reydra, linking to a number of other major cities in the Duchy of Raul. Of course, the reverse was true as well; it was also one of the highways that led straight to the imperial capital.
All in all, that made Chelán Hill a strategic position that could not go ignored. Just as the enemy could use it as a foothold to advance on the capital, we could use it as a staging ground to invade the Duchy of Raul.
Incidentally, Count Veria had been one of the nobles who’d fallen victim to the Three Houses Coup, the bloody debacle that had resulted from the succession dispute before I’d been born. The Chancellor and Minister of Ceremony had each backed different sisters of the previous emperor, and one of those sisters had been Count Veria’s wife.
In the end, my birth had caused the Chancellor and Minister to do an about-face. Deciding that the emperor’s sisters would only be obstacles to their plans to use me as a puppet, they had machinated the coup to eliminate all three sisters and the houses they’d married into.
The former Duke Raul had governed the County of Veria ever since—an entirely arbitrary decision, I might add. It was basically no different from outright occupation. No one had criticized him for it, though, because the Minister of Ceremony, his political opponent, had similarly occupied the Marquessate of Agincarl d’Decci, forcibly installing his son into power despite there being a legitimate heir higher in the line of succession. Incidentally, the third territory freed up by the Three Houses Coup was the Marquessate of Ramitead, which had been occupied by the Chancellor until Fabio had incited an uprising.
With all that in consideration, the County of Veria was actually not stable territory for Raul. From what I understood, the surviving vassals of Veria still bore a grudge, and occasionally raided Raul merchants and messengers.
Getting back on topic, there was also a pagan myth surrounding Chelán Hill that claimed it was the gravesite of the Harperion Empire’s last emperor, the Harperion Empire being the legendary historical superpower from which the Rotahl Empire had drawn influence. And maybe it was confirmation bias speaking, but I could see how a part of the hill looked like a collection of burial mounds, if I squinted a bit.
Hmm, what’s that? Wasn’t it bad luck for an emperor to fight atop an emperor’s grave? Maybe, but I didn’t mind. You could just as easily spin that superstition the other way and say the past emperor would be watching over me for the battle. Besides, it was only a myth; no archaeologically significant remains had been found in the area yet.
Now, geographically speaking, Chelán Hill was technically a formation of three separate hills. Byner Hill was the tallest, as well as the largest by circumference, with Ginaugh Hill situated to its northeast and Mifeux Hill situated to Ginaugh Hill’s west. Worth particular note was the steep slope on Byner Hill’s eastern bank—the incline was so severe that it essentially qualified as a cliff.
I had charged Fabio with fortifying Chelán Hill into a solid defensive encampment. However, it seemed that a rather serious problem had occurred, requiring us to hold an urgent council to address it.
I’ll begin from the top. In general, the construction of the encampment—ostensibly a “fortress” as far as the public was concerned—had been performed exactly as I’d instructed. It consisted of leveled ground ringed by deep ditches that would serve as dry moats, in which had been installed wooden chevaux-de-frise to deter cavalry. The slopes of the ditches had been cleared of vegetation and stones to make them easier to fall into, and dirt walls had been erected along the interior to provide our soldiers cover. Trenches had also been dug behind those walls for much the same purpose. The entrance and exit to this fortification had been constructed at Byner Hill’s southwest side.