Several days later, the Raul army’s vanguard was already at our doorstep. It was twenty thousand strong, consisting half of regular soldiers and half of conscripted militia. Hereon, their numbers would only grow as more detachments arrived. The decisive day was close.
As for other notable events, I had also dispatched Deflotte le Moissan back to the imperial capital. While we regularly sent back messengers with status reports, Deflotte would be carrying with him information of a more sensitive variety—things we didn’t want the enemy getting their hands on. Given his track record so far, I’d judged he was trustworthy enough to undertake the duty.
We abandoned Reydra, having never intended on defending it to begin with, so when the enemy marched in, they did so facing no resistance. A base of operations with no walls was far from reassuring, though, which was perhaps why they’d established themselves in an encampment surrounding the city.
Still, their occupation of Reydra came with advantages too. By now, they would have obtained intelligence on the cannons we had used to destroy the walls, as well as on the abilities of our battle mages. Shame they didn’t know those were traps, though.
Of course, there was no telling how effective said traps would be until we sprung them. More than likely, they’d only provide us a moderate advantage at best. Plus, knowing about our magic didn’t really matter, so long as they didn’t find out about the mana-sealing wards.
In terms of what I’d personally been up to, I’d spent pretty much all my time charging the wards. I did this by absorbing mana into my body, compressing it, then emitting manacules into an active ward. It sounded simple, but that level of fine mana control required a significant deal of focus. Oh, and just in case, I was doing the work out of sight in my private room.
Our laborers had constructed a number of small wooden cabins in our hill encampments, and one had been set aside for my usage, with the others given to the marquesses and counts. They were a far cry from the usual mansions and palaces the nobility were used to, but on the battlefield, one made do.
Incidentally, with the arrival of the Raul vanguard, Nadine and her five hundred soldiers had departed for the defense of Keighamer, accompanied by Viscount Tristan le Fourdrain and one thousand of Marquess Mardrusa’s men. The last words she’d left me with had been “Don’t you dare do anything that would sadden Rosaria!”
I had no idea when Rosaria had managed to win her—and Vera-Sylvie too, for that matter—over so thoroughly, but I was at least perceptive enough to read between the lines and see what Rosaria was doing.
As the first princess of the Kingdom of Belvére, she was distantly related to the Bundarte imperial family, meaning the Empire’s nobility would likely have no objections against the marriage. However, as countries went, Belvére was relatively minor. From a geopolitical standpoint, if I ever married royalty from a greater power, it could push Rosaria out of the position of first wife and down the hierarchy. For the Kingdom of Belvére, this was a matter of life or death.
Thus, it was only natural that Rosaria would take measures to avoid that, such as by making allies of the daughters of influential imperial nobility. She really didn’t have to, though—I had no plans to sell myself cheaply, to foreign royalty or anyone else. Plus, having a first wife with a powerful family seemed like it would cause more problems. Taking a Belvérian spouse would leave me much more political leeway.
By the way, I was exchanging letters with Rosaria on a regular basis. We were both refraining from mentioning anything about the war, though.
Getting back on topic, our forces hadn’t just been sitting pretty waiting for the enemy to amass. The battle mages, alongside detachments from my lords’ armies, were carrying out frequent harassment raids on the enemy’s Reydra encampment. The mages in particular were going all out in hopes they’d manaburn the battlefield before the enemy could use it. Not that it was necessary; it seemed that the Raul mages would be arriving with a later contingent.
Our forces’ action in the field thus far never went beyond the level of harassment, since committing more resources and suffering losses in the process would’ve defeated the whole point, but that was plenty. Being forced to respond to each raid was no doubt wearing away at the Raul vanguard both physically and mentally.
Meanwhile, the work on Ginaugh Hill was close to finishing. So long as nothing went wrong, it would make it in time for the battle.
On to the Atúr cavalry, whose leader had said he would buy us time in the worst-case scenario. We were having them ride around Raul lands east of Reydra, disrupting the enemy’s supply lines. Of course, the enemy, not being morons, had deployed guard details, meaning there were few chances to cause any significant damage.
Still, the important part was that the Atúr cavalry were presenting a continued threat. Hit-and-run tactics were used for a reason, after all: They worked. And the Atúr were good at them—frighteningly so. Their sheer mobility allowed them to be there one moment and gone the next, and if any enemy cavalry came to intercept, the Atúr would simply shut them down with their bread-and-butter tactics.
A major factor of their effectiveness was Péter Pál’s wealth of experience fighting as a mercenary. He had a perfect intuition for gun and spell ranges, and never brought his riders into the enemy’s reach. This meant they suffered little to no losses, allowing them to stand as a persistent threat to the enemy. The Atúr cavalry were formidable enough fighters in a straight up fight, to be sure, but I suspected I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone scarier when it came to hit-and-run warfare.
The Atúr tribe, as they were also called, were the surviving branch of a greater nomadic people who had once been spread far and wide. What was more, they were heathens—believers in a religion separate from the First Faith, which was the state religion for almost every nation on the continent.
What the Atúr religion was, exactly, was something I couldn’t ask. I was an outsider—ostensibly a “believer” of the First Faith—and the emperor besides. If I was somehow proselytized and ended up converting, I’d lose all legitimacy.
Still, I’d nevertheless managed to learn a number of things about the Atúr through my conversations with Péter Pál. To begin with, as you’d expect from a nomadic people, they had no fixed city or village that they called home. But while they had once ranged great distances, traveling to the continent’s cooler northern regions in summer, the warmer southern regions in winter, and everywhere in between, the drastic decrease in their numbers and influence since the establishment of the Empire meant those distances had become a lot shorter.
Now, when I say “nomads,” you probably imagined something like the Mongol Empire, but if I had to pick, I would’ve said they more closely resembled the Romani people: the kind of nomads who were scattered across a wide area.
Additionally, it was common for the Atúr to face persecution for their heathen beliefs. In fact, this was why their population and range had shrunk over time. For them, the Empire, where the First Faith’s hold was still relatively loose, made for safer ground than many other countries on the continent. However, they remained quite wary of outsiders all the same—no surprise, given their people’s history.
The Atúr’s way of life meant that they carried all their daily necessities with them as they traveled, and the innovations in portable goods throughout their people’s history were impressive indeed. The cooking facilities, sleeping tents, and such that my tours had relied upon had apparently been developed using the Atúr’s portable homes as a reference.
The Atúr’s women and children were no exception to their lifestyle either, and also knew how to ride. There weren’t any of them around, of course—the noncombatants were elsewhere. More accurately, Péter Pál’s contingent was an offshoot that had separated from their people’s main host to earn coin working as mercenaries.
From what I’d heard, they were excellent hunters, which was how they’d used to make their living. It was just that in recent years, mercenary work had become the more profitable option.
As for the Atúr religion, its most notable trait was its deification of fire. The term used to refer to it in the common parlance was “fire worship.”
Back on Earth, the most notable religion to feature fire worship had probably been Zoroastrianism. You know, dualistic cosmology of good and evil, historically famous, that one. In contrast, the fire worship of the Atúr seemed more primitive—in the scientific sense of the word, not the derogatory one. That was just my impression, though, since researching its dogma and customs was a big no-no for me.
What was obvious, though, was the clear correlation between their worship of fire and the disproportionate number of adept fire mages among them.
Another point of interest about the Atúr was the fact that they considered mounted archery a fundamental life skill. Their children were instructed in riding and the bow from a young age.
Finally, the Atúr’s horses, which were thought to have originated from the continent’s southern regions, were most notable for having no fear of fire. Apparently, the Atúr also trained into them a tolerance for the sound of gunfire, so their only vulnerability in that regard was the sound of cannons and similar artillery. There was simply a dearth of opportunities to get them accustomed, since the Atúr themselves didn’t use any.
That was a rather long-winded bit of exposition, but hopefully it gave you a better idea of who I was working with. Their chieftain, Atúrusz-Don Pál István-Ló Péter—who went by Péter Pál in accordance to imperial naming conventions—had, at least for the moment, placed his trust in me, and was being very proactive in his duties to secure better treatment for his people.
I mention that because today, he had come to me with a vital report.