488
Kontia
Gilgalad, Imperial Auxiliary.
The gods had chosen a fine day to piss upon our heads.
I looked out at the scattering of tents a mile or so from the city and looked back at the concerned expression of Governor Trier, then to the stony face of the Garrison commander. I held back a sigh and trudged out into the rain and mud towards the campsite.
The heavy rain plinked off my chain shirt where it did not seep through the links to turn my itchy undershirt into a wet weight about my body. I looked up and saw three of the Lepus marching out into the rain with nought but bronze plate and bodypaint to maintain any modesty, likely an effort to keep their clothes dry. Not that the Barbarians had a concept of modesty anyway.
I followed the paved Imperial road halfway to the tents before trudging across the shin high wheatfield. I briefly wondered if the unseasonal rain would harm the crop but put that out of my mind. The Lepus horde would likely scour the fields and ruin it anyway.
"Ho there Orc! What do we owe the pleasure of your company!" A grinning beast of a woman jested as I let out a miserable sigh.
"I have come to parlay on behalf of the Lord Governor, might I have an audience with your commander?" I called out, needing to shout for my voice to carry over the rain.
"You have it! Come, let us not speak in the rain. My girls will not set about you." I looked at the women at her sides before shrugging and stepping forwards. If I was going to die it might as well be out of the blasted rain.
"Quite frankly I am insulted that the Governor is not speaking to me himself! Does he think we are some petty bandits? We are here on the behest of our Queen and this city shall be ours soon enough!" She let out a bellowing laugh while her companions fell into step at my sides, hands resting on their swords.
"It was not my decision to make." I pointed out. "Perhaps he does not wish to catch a cold." At my deadpan statement the Lepus Commander once more proved her jovial nature and filled the air with a peal of laughter.
We did not speak again until I was led into one of the large tents. Upon entering the tent I was assaulted with the rank smell of many unwashed bodies with no incense to spare my nose the offence but plenty of burning leaves to make it all the more unbearable. The expansive interior was packed with Lepus lounging around braziers and drinking wine and smoking from pipes, shouting and joking and laughing. The disposition of the Lepus could not be farther from the mood in the city.
I was led to a small table with a handful of seats arrayed around it where the Commander sat. I glanced to the women at my sides and took in their stony expressions for a moment before I joined the Lepus commander at the table.
"Wine! Bring us wine!" The commander called out only for one of the other Lepus to place a hand on her shoulder earning a frustrated sigh from her before she called out. "Tea, bring us tea instead."
"I was instructed to bring you a message from the Lord Governor." I said, eyes resting on the brown wood of the table in front of me.
"First, names. I will not parlay without giving you my name and taking yours in turn. I am Brigadier Enya, pureblood Warrior of the Tanaoi, head taker of fourteen women and twenty men. And mother to twenty three daughters. I command these women and speak with the voice of My Queen." She finished with a preening smile.
"I am Gilgalad, I'm an Imperial Auxiliary... I have a wife, and a son. And, that's it I suppose." Enya nodded at my words.
"Have you killed anyone Gilgalad?" She asked as a Lepus placed two mugs of hot tea on the table, one in front of me.
"No," I said. Taking up the hot cup if only to warm my hands.
"Every woman here has." She said, looking at me and inclining her head. "Every woman has drank the blood of an enemy to mark their adulthood, every woman has fought in countless battles and raids. Every woman has fallen upon the Legionaries and Auxiliaries of the Empire and carried off blood and treasure." I shrank back from her gaze and looked at the table again. My throat felt rather dry and I took a sip of the tea, finding the hot burning taste a respite from the intensity of the barbarians about me.
"I have a message." I felt a bead of sweat run down my cheek. "From the Lord Governor, I am obligated to give it to you."
"Let's hear it then." Enya said with a wave of her hand as she took a draught from her own mug.
"I did not make this message and I mean no insult-."
"Get on with it!" Enya snapped.
I sighed and fumbled with a slip of velum stuffed under my chain shirt and prepared for my head to leave my neck. "His benevolent Lord Governor Lucious Trier hereby offers the force of Lepus Bellacor raiders who reside outside of the walls of Kontia positions within his Lego Auxilia and total amnesty for their crimes and the crimes of their race. He so generously offers this despite the legion marching south at this very moment who will put this force in irons to be sent to the..." I blinked and quickly looked up at Enya and the crowd of Lepus around us.
"Read it." Enya demanded.
I felt lightheaded as I delayed my death by taking another drink from my mug before continuing. "H-he so generously offers this despite the legion marching south at this very moment who will put this force and irons to be sent to the whorehouses of Akusho with the rest of their race." I swallowed, the entire tent was silent and I could not bear to look up from the slip of velum in my hands. "The raiding force shall provide a response to this generous offer by midday on the morrow." With the message concluded I threw the vellum forward onto the table and kept my head low.
"Sent to the whorehouses of Akusho like the rest of our people, hah, this Lucious Trier is a bold one, don't you think girls?" There was a general murmur of agreement that gave way to deadly silence.
"I'm sorry." I muttered quickly as I felt a hand on my shoulder.
"Well girls, let's give them our response." Enya declared.
Eighty miles from Kontia
Tanya, Queen of the Tanaoi.
The camp was a flurry of activity as I made my way to a hill overlooking the camp as Cato and Furea struggled to keep pace with me. It was easy to see the distant shadows in the sky, the unmistakable silhouette of three Wyverns far off now perhaps but there was nothing in this world that could move faster. This was the wonder weapon of the Sadarians. Their fabled Wyvern Knights.
Upon one side of my camp, kept a hundred paces or so, was a row of bright and colourful tents. Taken from raids against goblinoid settlements the Tanaoi had been engaging in for centuries. The garish styles of the goblin people were made possible by the goblins' mastery of dyes and pigments as well as some, partially magical I presumed, alchemical processes to produce them.
Goblin style clothes, rugs and tents were actually well regarded and prized possessions. But to me a goblin tent offered one rather simple advantage for this specific situation.
They stood out.
It was not a matter of if, but when, Zorzal would deploy his Wyvern Knights to harry our advance on Kontia. In his shoes I would have deployed them much sooner in fact, if only to keep an eye on my movements. But there were claims that the Wyverns could spit fire. I did not know the the efficacy of this claim but assuming that they could I needed to prepare for the likely situation where Zorzal would deploy his Wyvern Knights in a strafing run of some element of my encampment.
Thus I had drilled slingers to rapidly split into company sized groups and spread out across the encampment ready to loose stones at any Wyvern that got too close. But of course even in the best circumstances it was likely that they would have a chance to do some damage. So in order to control that damage I had been using the brightly coloured and attention grabbing tents as well as genuinely using them for the storage of goods.
This was in case I had any Imperial infiltrators, if Zorzal found out I was storing materials in the colourful tents it was an obvious objective to provide to his air force. This tactic had also necessitated training the slaves and Lepus workers to rapidly empty the colourful tents and relocate provisions and other supplies in other tents.
In total it had been an inordinate amount of work to prepare for the Wyvern Knights to harass my forces and now, for better or for worse. These measures would be put into practice.
Or they would if the Wyverns were going the right way!
My second life had involved a considerable amount of training in spotting and relaying information. This meant being able to rapidly and effectively judge distance, numbers and innumerable other things about any given enemy force. Of particular interest were planes, how far away they were, what direction they were heading in and how fast they were moving.
If this world was around the same size as the one in my second life. And I had no reason to believe it was not. I made an L shape with my thumb and index finger and placed the tip of my thumb against the horizon line while carefully focusing on the three distant Wyvern Silhouettes.
"Roughly forty miles away." I muttered as Cato gave me a curious look. "Travelling eighty to one hundred miles an hour... heading roughly south east." I watched as after a few minutes the trio slowly looped back the way they came before moving back to their original heading. "They are bypassing us, I think they are travelling south east until they are about ten miles east of the Imperial Road."
"Are they heading to Kontia?" Furea asked.
"If they were, why bother diverting at all? They could just fly right over us and there is nothing we can do about that." Cato deadpanned.
"What if they assume we could do something about them passing directly overhead?" I mused.
"Why send three Wyverns to Kontia anyway? They won't make that much of a difference during a siege." Furea asked and something about the question made me pause.
The Wyvern Knights circled back again before, again, returning to their original heading.
"They are slowing themselves down on purpose." I counted the seconds in my head focusing on the three Wyverns again. The pattern became clear, they would move along their main heading at roughly eighty miles an hour before turning back. "They are escorting something."
"This far south? Even if he whipped his men to death they could not have possibly caught us yet." Furea said.
"What if he detached his Cavalry and sent them ahead. With the Wyvern Knights to guide them." Cato asked, and I turned to look at him before pondering the possibility.
"Damn." I grit my teeth in frustration. All that planning and Zorzal chooses this as his strategy.
"The Imperials have no more than ten thousand horsemen at their disposal, less now that they have no doubt suffered attrition among the ranks of their Equtes. Such a small force cannot hope to defeat us alone." Furea said confidently.
"If they reach the city they will defeat our vanguard force and reinforce the city garrison." I began, a foot tapping the ground as I worked though the new problem the Imperials had thrown at me to my most trusted advisors. "Even if it is just a few thousand men reinforcing the city, these are the best fighters in the Empire with the best training and equipment. They will delay the capture of Kontia and cost us more lives in the taking." I did not have any reliable means to reinforce my army, any lives lost winning a battle would make the next one harder.
"So we push forwards and beat them to the city, preventing them from reinforcing Kontia and crushing them in the field." Cato mused. At their current pace a force of cavalry travelling with backup horses could reach Kontia before us. If I pushed my army forward in a forced march however we would beat them to the city. But with their Wyverns they would be able to see any movement of my forces and be able to react to it without my knowledge.
"If we reach Kontia first then the Imperials can just turn away from the city and strike at our lightly defended civilian encampment." At my words both men's eyes widened as the reality of the situation set in. Zorzals gambit here was audacious, throwing his cavalry forward in such a play was something most commanders would avoid at all costs due to the risks involved. He had no doubt carefully considered his options and sought to deprive me of operational tempo. Rather than acting and having Zorzal react to me I was now forced to react to him.
Omigoto Zorzal! Having the restraint with his air forces in not using them to harass me thus preserving them so he could effectively organise such an immense field of operations. I had to rid myself of arrogantly assuming I alone had an effective grasp of tactics and strategy. Small scale tribal conflicts had made me complacent. I had to acknowledge the fact that I was now fighting the heir to a continent spanning Empire that had access to the best strategists and teachers the world could provide.
"What do we do?" My husband said softly, eyes wide with uncharacteristic concern.
"Isn't it obvious?" I asked.