by Iliev, Neven
The old Ranger marched up to the front gates, where a long line of returning combatants waited to be processed. Each person had to have their identity verified by a Scribe’s Appraisal before being allowed inside, a basic precaution against spies. Faehorn recognized many of the faces he passed by the line, and each gave him a respectful salute or nod. He would’ve liked to stand in line with the rest of them, but he had to consider his position as an officer and act accordingly. He therefore, as politely as possible, cut in front of the line, submitted to a cursory Basic Appraisal, then made his way towards the keep in the middle of the fort.
Once inside the large building, he climbed to the third floor and entered the room labeled ‘Forward Command.’ The large space housed desks overflowing with various reports, multiple shelves filled with various supplies and tools, and numerous maps covered nearly every wall. These were all manned by dozens of people who worked to organize and coordinate the war effort in this part of the country. They were all as busy as one might imagine, but still found the time to give Faehorn a short round of cheers and applause.
The Ranger walked up to a stern-faced, middle-aged elf with ginger hair. He wore a stuffy-looking uniform that consisted of a long-sleeved coat, pressed trousers and black knee-high boots. His clothes were mostly brown in color, except for the sleeves that were black from the elbows down. Noticing Faehorn’s approach, the intelligence officer stood up from his station and greeted him with a salute.
“Good to have you back, sir.”
“Don’t be like that, Silus. You’re technically above me in rank, you know.”
“Perhaps in military rank, but definitely not in ability. Sir,” the officer added with a wry grin.
“See, you say that, but I’d never be able to do what you do,” Faehorn shot back.
Indeed, it took a special kind of man to run things as smoothly as Silus Underwood. He was the chief intelligence officer at Fort Yimin, and had the responsibility of managing, collecting, and analyzing the information flowing through his office. Considering he constantly received field reports from nearly fifty separate sources, this was no small task. He had assistants and subordinates to help, of course, but Silus painted the big picture that his superiors looked at when making strategic decisions. Right now, his duties demanded that he and Faehorn retreat inside Silus’s private office for a moment. There would be a full debriefing later on, but the two of them wanted to compare notes beforehand.
“So, how did we do on our mission?” the high elf Ranger asked.
“I believe the words ‘resounding success’ were thrown about here and there,” his ginger colleague declared. “We expect that Imperial detachment to be delayed by at least three weeks before they can replenish their supplies and their numbers.”
“That’s good, I suppose. Do we know how many casualties we inflicted?”
“According to preliminary reports, our ambush eliminated about sixteen hundred enemies.”
“Sounds about right. And those griffins? What was their deal?”
“We’re still trying to figure it out, but signs point towards some kind of strategic strike against our back lines. We’re honestly lucky you managed to intercept them.”
“Yeah… Lucky… What about our losses?”
“We’re still processing all of the ones that returned to base, but we estimate no more than sixty were killed in action or have gone missing.”
“I see. That’s… better than I expected.”
Even if it was an almost insignificant loss from a military standpoint, Faehorn took every death of those under his charge as a personal failure. It was a bad habit from his time serving as an instructor, but he couldn’t help it. He was an adventurer, not a soldier. Even if the notion that the people he laughed and ate with yesterday might be dead the next day was not foreign, he still couldn’t get used to it. Still, he knew how to cope with it, in his own way.
“Then… there’s the matter of the recon team Three-One,” Underwood added.
“Uh… Who?”
“The team consisting of Lola Yeres, Jules Morel, and Keira Morgana, sir. I believe the last one is one of yours, yes?”
“Ah, yes, that’s right. She performed quite well, didn’t she?”
“Indeed. It’s my professional opinion that your ambush wouldn’t have worked as well without her significant contributions in keeping an eye on the enemy’s movements.”
It wasn’t as if Three-One was the only team tracking the Imperial detachment, but it was fair to say that their commendable efforts were instrumental to the plan’s success. Since Keira Morgana was the Ranger in charge of Three-One, it was only natural that she’d get most of the credit. Hearing that she had done an outstanding job made her teacher practically swell with pride.
“Hmm, I expected as much,” Faehorn nodded approvingly. “She may be young, but that girl has the best judgement of her entire class.”
Of course, Faehorn could have just as easily done the same, but he was unfortunately needed elsewhere. That ambush was just a small part of a much larger conflict, after all. He also noticed those weird arrows the beastkin used in the battle itself, likely yet another gizmo from that golem she had befriended. Their effects were very similar to the Burst Shot Martial Art that any Ranger could learn to use, but being able to combine that effect with Multishot was truly inspired. It allowed her to sow chaos and panic among the enemy ranks, despite her much lower Level.
Faehorn had to admit, he now felt a bit stupid for warning Keira against becoming an Artificer, but wasn’t too prideful to admit he was wrong. His initial skepticism was entirely understandable, however. It had only been a century since the Artificer Job’s discovery. The gnomes of the Horkensaft Kingdom were still actively developing and exploring the profession at that very moment. Artificers hadn’t yet fully figured out their role in society, let alone what military applications their craft could have. Their technology certainly had a lot of potential, but it was difficult to compete with well-established professions with centuries of development behind them, especially magical practices like alchemy or enchantment.
As someone who knew a good trick when he saw one, Faehorn decided he would love to have a chat with his star pupil regarding this new weapon of hers.
“Wait, why did you bring up Morgana’s team?” he suddenly realized. “Surely it wasn’t just to commend them.”
“Yeah, about that…”
Silus Underwood reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a crystal cube that was about eight centimeters on each side. It had a label stuck the side that read ‘3-1.’
That was a Comm-crystal, a magic item that allowed for instantaneous long-distance communication between two people. As vital as it was to this mission, it still had a number of flaws. For one thing, the range was impressive, but not unlimited. It also demanded some of the user’s MP to activate it and was rather expensive to make. Perhaps the most glaring flaw with this magic item was that Comm-crystals were created in pairs, and could only connect to one another. Meaning that if Underwood were to tap on the cube in his hand and activated it by speaking the password, then the only people it could reach would be the adventurers of recon team Three-One.
However, doing that right now would be pointless. For the normally blue-tinged cube had turned a lifeless gray. A clear sign that its paired Comm-crystal had been destroyed.
It was something all recon teams were told to do in the event that they were about to be captured.
Part Three
The group of six men responsible for leading the 8th Imperial Expeditionary Force convened in a large white tent, its canvas stained red by the setting sun. They sat around the three-meter-wide stump of a chopped down hylt tree as if it were a table. In fact, this flat surface was the main reason they pitched the commander’s tent over this particular spot. Humans liked their large tables, after all. Perfect for both strategizing and hosting victory banquets. However, the looks on their faces was anything but jovial, making it clear that th
is would be no celebration.
“So, what’s the final verdict?”
Baron Hayhurst, the one in charge of this military expedition, spoke up first. He was a heavy-set man with a short-yet-thick black beard and hair, and he spoke with a commanding tone fitting of his station.
“Permission to speak freely, your lordship?”
The one that answered him was a brown-haired, clean-shaven youth that served as the force’s quartermaster.
“Denied. Just give me the facts, Simmons.”
“Yes, your lordship. We lost all the horses, almost all our supplies, and one thousand three hundred and forty-six of our men are either dead, crippled, or missing for. All but twelve of the horses are dead, and we lost most of our supplies.”
“Disgraceful,” said a middle-aged bald man with an eyepatch.
“You’re out of line, Hale,” the baron chastised him sternly.
“Am I? How many times did I tell you not to underestimate those fucking twigs? I kept telling you a few of my scouting units disappeared over the last few days. That was clearly a sign of them preparing an ambush, but you didn’t listen!”
It was at this point that a lanky, blonde-haired man with a bit of a pot belly chimed in.
“With all due respect, sir, they’ve most likely been playing with us from even before we crossed the border.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hale snapped back.
“The horses. The poison in their bodies was something they’d been carrying for the better part of a week. Even if your scouts managed to spot the ambush coming, it would’ve already been too late to save our cavalry.
“…”
Hale reigned in his outrage and quieted down. As the one in charge of scouting and gathering information, he understood the failure of preventing such sabotage fell squarely on his shoulders.
“How did they manage to poison the horses without anyone noticing?” Hayhurst asked. “And why aren’t any of the men affected?”
“Best as I can gather, the enemy contaminated the wild grass and shrubs along our route with an unknown toxin. The animals’ appetites did the rest.”
Granted, it was just a theory, but it was supported by the fact that the only steeds that survived were the officers’ mounts, which were on a strict diet of specially prepared feed.
“Clever of the damned elves,” the baron remarked. “We’ll need to notify the other regiments to be more careful of what their animals graze on.”
“I’ve already sent word via Comm-crystal, your lordship,” the apothecary bowed his head.
“Very good. Simmons, what’s the state of our camp?”
“We’ve mostly managed to secure our position and establish a perimeter,” the quartermaster replied. “However, we’re having trouble procuring lumber to establish proper fortifications, and what little remained of the supplies will not last us long.”
“What about the supply drops we were supposed to receive via griffins?”
“They reportedly met with heavy anti-air fire and were forced to withdraw.”
“Local procurement efforts, then?”
“… We’re still looking into it, your lordship. Feeding this many soldiers without pre-prepared rations is no easy task”
One that was made even harder given their location on the edge of the Clattering Plains. The endless fields of tall green grass ahead of them had very little in the way of edible wildlife and vegetation. The forest behind them was another story, but human hunting parties tended to make great targets for the Republic’s Rangers. It wasn’t as if the 8th didn’t have Rangers of their own, but their training and Skills were focused on archery and warfare, not exploration and sneak attacks. They were soldiers, not adventurers.
“I guess we’re going to have to wait here until we get reinforced and resupplied,” Hayhurst sighed. “We’re certainly not going to be able to fulfil our original objective without our cavalry.”
“Probably just what those twigs wanted,” Hale spoke up.
“That reminds me, I heard your men captured some prisoners,” the commander changed the subject.
“Yeah, we got three groups of them, eleven in total,” Hale confirmed, “although my men were not too happy about it.”
Hale’s forward scouts had rushed to rejoin the main unit once they’d heard the thunderous roar of that landslide. Though they failed to prevent that masterful ambush, they were nevertheless able to intercept a number of enemy combatants. Some of them tried to fight back and were killed, but those who dropped their weapons in surrender were hastily taken prisoner.
It went without saying that the Imperial foot soldiers wanted righteous vengeance for their fallen comrades, but they couldn’t just kill the surrendering combatants. Doing so would constitute a war crime in the eyes of Axel, the God of War and Combat. The deity was one of honor and duty rather than slaughter and destruction, so he abhorred the merciless killing of those who had lost the will to fight and had admitted defeat. Any soldier who did so would find themselves branded as a heretic, and their side of the conflict would lose favor with Axel. The same applied to those that perpetrated other war crimes, but the killing of prisoners and noncombatants were the main sins that common grunts needed to be wary of.
Hayhurst himself didn’t complain, as he would have wanted at least some of the Republic’s troops captured even without some divine being’s meddling.
“Did you manage to get anything useful out of them?” he inquired.
“No, and it’s unlikely we will,” Hale reported. “They’re all simple conscripts without any documents or maps on them. They’d been getting their orders via Comm-crystals, but those were all broken either before or during their official surrender.”
“Hm. I expected as much.”
It was possible to peer into how a Comm-crystal was used by reading the residual magic imprinted within the crystal due to a commonly known quirk of their design. A skilled Enchanter could use those remnants to replay any and all communications used within the last thirty hours or so. It was theoretically possible to eliminate this security risk, but that would reduce the Comm-crystals’ range from a few dozen kilometers to about twenty meters, rendering them effectively pointless.
“What about interrogations?”
“Pointless. There’s no way those twigs would tell those grunts more than they need to know. If any of them knew something of value, then they wouldn’t let themselves be captured in the first place.”
“Excuse me, your lordship?” the quartermaster raised his hand.
“What is it, Simmons?”
“I’ve heard talk among some of the men about… ‘using’ the female elves we captured.”
“Tell them to keep it in their pants. We’re not savages.”
“Savages that would resort to ambushes and poison, then run away from a fair fight?”
“That was strategy, Simmons,” the baron said sternly. “The fact we got done in so completely by a bunch of lowly adventurers merely proves our own failure as officers and soldiers of the Empire.”
Although similar on the surface, there was a huge difference in mindset between an adventurer and a soldier. While trained military personnel were generally speaking stronger in a straight up confrontation, they were not nearly as flexible or adaptable as a skilled adventuring party. The main problem with including both types of people in an army was that of authority, as adventurers actively questioned orders they deemed stupid, suicidal, or both. They also lacked the knowledge and discipline that was crucial to pulling off large-scale tactics and formations. Even if the Republic forces’ hillside ambush was effective, their disorderly retreat proved just how difficult it was to coordinate between so many small groups out for themselves.
However, the leaders of the 8th Imperial Expeditionary Force had clearly underestimated the creativity and resourcefulness of the Ishigar Republic’s adventurers. The one-sided loss they had suffered earlier that day was humbling, to say the least. None of these six men wer
e willing to let it happen again.
“Shall I send word to have our superiors send us some consultants, your lordship?” Simmons offered.
“Indeed. Just make sure they triple-check their backgrounds. The last thing I need is for some blasted spy to worm themselves into my regiment. Next, I want to discuss where we go from here.”
The setting sun slowly but surely descended beyond the horizon as the post-ambush debriefing carried on. The darkness of night had firmly settled in by the time the meeting was adjourned. Tonight was also cloudy, leaving torches and lamps as the only sources of light within the sea of tents in the Imperial camp. Magical illumination was also present, of course, but that was reserved for lighting up the perimeter beyond the camp’s hastily-erected guard towers, ramparts, fences, and other fortifications. The fact that the Imperials had managed to set all this up in less than half a day was a testament to their tenacity.
Quartermaster Simmons walked out of the command tent, parted ways with the other officers and made his way over to where the prisoners were kept. A total of five steel cages lined up in the open and surrounded by several guards. Two of the men stationed there greeted the officer with salutes while the others remained vigilant. The quartermaster then informed the soldiers of Lord Hayhurst’s decree—the elven prisoners were not to be touched. He then left them to their duties so he could attend to his.
“That’s a shame,” one of the guards grumbled. “They really are quite the beauties, aren’t they?”