Chapter 19: Civil War Part 2 (First Skirmishes)
The Royal Army moved on the first fifty miles of the Prince's Highway, a project born of Alexius's modern understanding and driven by the Crown's newly centralized wealth, had been completed with unprescedendent speed. This wide, packed-gravel road, a marvel of engineering in a kingdom used to muddy tracks, allowed the First Legion to cover ground at a pace that would have been impossible just months before. It was the first tangible fruit of his new era, and its strategic value was about to be proven.
They marched in disciplined columns, their standardized gear a stark contrast to the motley collections of armor and weaponry that typified Leonese armies. The heavy infantry formed the core, their shields slung over their backs, their short swords at their hips. Flanking them were the pikemen, their eighteen-foot poles held upright, a moving forest of deadly points. The archers, a mix of human longbowmen and sharp-eyed elves, marched with their own supply carts, their bows unstrung but ready. And all around them, unseen, moved the true eyes and ears of the new Leo.
Cilia, Vice-Commander of the Royal Army and master of its scouts, moved through the dense woodlands bordering the highway like a phantom. She was clad in mottled green and brown leather, her golden eyes missing nothing, her movements utterly silent. Her command was a unique and deadly instrument of her own design: two hundred light cavalry, mostly fast human riders, and three hundred scouts, a fifty-fifty split between nimble human rangers and beast-kin—mostly wolf-kin—whose senses were a weapon no human could match.
They were Alexius's nervous system, extending for miles around the main army. They didn't just watch the road ahead; they melted into the countryside, mapping every stream, every hill, every village. They communicated with coded bird calls and subtle signs left in the environment—a bent branch, a specific arrangement of stones—that were invisible to the untrained eye.
On the fourth day of the march, a wolf-kin scout with fur the color of dried leaves appeared at Cilia's side as if from thin air.
"Commander," he whispered, his voice a low growl. "They're close. A day's march ahead. Moving slow. Their vanguard is a troop of knights, maybe fifty strong. Riding proud, like they're on parade. No outriders, no caution."
Cilia's lips curled into a faint, dangerous smile. "Arrogance," she murmured. "it's a fatal blow for them."
The intelligence flowed back to the command tent, where Alexius, Varrus, and a handful of cohort commanders stood around a detailed map Cilia's scouts had been updating hourly.
"Here," Varrus said, his scarred finger tracing a line on the map. "The Three Forks. The River Elmsworth narrows as two tributaries join it. The valley becomes a bottleneck, no more than half a mile wide. The hills on either side are steep and heavily wooded. It's a natural anvil."
Alexius studied the terrain, his mind cross-referencing the physical map with the topographical data the System provided. It was perfect. Their numerical superiority is nothing if they can't deploy a wide front, he analyzed internally. The bottleneck forces them into a direct confrontation with our heavy infantry and pikes. The wooded hills are perfect for our archers to rain down death from a protected position.
"We will make our stand there," Alexius declared, his voice leaving no room for argument. "We will arrive a full day ahead of them. We will fortify the position. Cilia," he said, turning to her, "their vanguard is a problem. They are a scouting element, however incompetent. I do not want them stumbling upon our preparations. I want them eliminated. Silently. Completely."
"It will be my pleasure, Your Majesty," Cilia replied, her golden eyes glinting. "I will bring you a prisoner for questioning."
Lord Aerion of House Volantis, a cousin to Marquess Dynan, rode at the head of the rebel vanguard. His family's silver hawk sigil gleamed on his polished breastplate. The fifty knights behind him were the flower of Dynan's household, their colorful banners snapping smartly in the breeze. They rode with an easy confidence, laughing and joking, their squires trailing behind with their spare lances and provisions. This was not war; this was a glorious procession to put a tyrant in his place.
"The boy-prince is likely cowering in his castle," Lord Aerion laughed to his second-in-command. "By the time we reach the capital, the peasants will probably open the gates for us!"
They made camp that evening in a small, pleasant meadow, posting only a cursory guard. They did not notice the silence of the surrounding woods, the absence of the usual chirping of crickets and night birds. They did not see the dozens of pairs of eyes watching them from the shadows of the treeline.
The attack came just before dawn, with the rising of the morning mist. It was a massacre.
Cilia gave the signal—a soft hoot of an owl.
From the east, a volley of black-feathered arrows hissed out of the mist, silent and deadly. The elven archers, firing from concealed positions, targeted the sentries and the men tending the horses first. Men collapsed with arrows in their throats before they could even scream.
Simultaneously, the wolf-kin scouts, moving with preternatural speed and silence, slit the throats of the sleeping squires. The attack was so swift, so coordinated, that half of the vanguard was dead or incapacitated before a single alarm was properly raised.
Lord Aerion, startled from his tent by the first choked cries, emerged just in time to see a nightmare unfold. Shapes moved through the mist—human riders on fast horses closing off the meadow's exit, and things that were not quite human, things with fur and claws and glowing eyes, tearing into his men with brutal efficiency. A wolf-kin warrior, massive and grey-furred, smashed a knight's shield with a single blow from a heavy war axe and gutted him with the backswing.
"To arms! To arms!" Aerion roared, drawing his sword, his heart pounding with terror and disbelief.
This was when Cilia struck. She moved like a blur, two wickedly curved daggers in her hands. She weaved past a clumsy sword swing from a panicked knight, her dagger flashing out to sever his hamstring, sending him crashing to the ground. She was on Aerion before he could even mount a proper defense.
Her first dagger parried his sword with a sharp clang, the force of the blow jarring his arm. Her second dagger, held in a reverse grip, slipped under his guard and pressed against the soft spot beneath his jaw.
"Yield," she hissed, her golden eyes burning into his, "or you die."
Lord Aerion, his face pale with sweat, his fine armor suddenly feeling as thin as paper, dropped his sword.
The skirmish was over in less than five minutes. Forty-nine of Dynan's finest knights and all their squires lay dead or dying in the misty field. Not a single one of Cilia's force had been lost. They rounded up the horses, gathered the fine steel weapons and armor, and vanished back into the woods, taking their single, terrified prisoner with them.
In the rebel command tent, the news arrived like a slap in the face. A single, wounded squire had managed to escape by playing dead and stumbling through the woods for hours.
"Slaughtered?" Marquess Dynan bellowed, his face turning a dangerous shade of purple. "My cousin Aerion and fifty of my best knights? Slaughtered by whom? By what?"
"He said they were attacked by phantoms in the mist," the reporting officer stammered. "Beasts men and elves, he claimed. He was hysterical."
"Nonsense!" the Marquess roared. "It was assassins! Dishonorable cowards who strike in the dark!"
Bishop Avarus, however, was still. His serene expression was gone, replaced by a thoughtful frown. "Beast men and elves, you say? The boy-prince's non-human pets, no doubt. He resorts to the tactics of savages because he has no true strength of his own."
Sir Gideon, the pragmatic Templar, stepped forward, his expression grim. "Your Excellency, this was no random attack. This was a professional elimination of our vanguard. It speaks to a highly effective scouting and special operations capability we did not anticipate. They knew exactly where Lord Aerion would be, and they struck with flawless precision. We are no longer marching blind, but our enemy is not. They are watching us."
"Let them watch!" sneered Sir Kael from within his helm. "Let the vermin scurry in the shadows. It will not save them when the holy light of our main force descends upon them. This changes nothing."
"It changes everything," Gideon countered, his voice low and firm. "It means the enemy knows where we are, and we do not know where they are. That is how armies are lost."
The Bishop raised a hand, silencing the debate. "Sir Gideon's caution is noted. Double the patrols. But do not lose heart. This was a cowardly pinprick, meant to frighten us. Our righteous cause and overwhelming numbers are our shield and our sword. We continue the march to Aethelburg. Let us see if his beasts can stand against ten thousand faithful men."
Despite his confident words, a seed of unease had been planted. The simple, glorious crusade had just become complicated.
Back at the Three Forks, the Royal Army was hard at work. Under the direction of Royal Engineers, they had dug trenches and thrown up sharpened-stake barriers at the mouth of the valley. The archers were positioned on the wooded slopes, their fields of fire perfectly clear.
In Alexius's tent, Lord Aerion knelt, stripped of his fine armor, shivering in his linen undertunic. He had told them everything.
Alexius listened, his face an emotionless mask, while the System cross-referenced Aerion's intelligence with Cilia's reports. It all matched. An overconfident command structure, a disunified army, and a complete lack of awareness of the Royal Army's true capabilities.
"They believe we are a rabble," Varrus grunted, a grim smile on his face. "They will walk right into the meat grinder."
Alexius nodded. He looked at the trembling noble before him. He could execute him, as was his right. But a dead man was just a corpse. A living, broken man could be a tool.
"Lord Aerion," Alexius said, his voice cold and clear. "You have served your traitorous cousin. Now you will serve your Grand Prince or the soul contract will trigger." (Soul Contract is a contract between two parties writing agrrements on the runic paper made by high level magic casters which binding to the souls of both parties, if broken soul will cease to exist in mortal realm, descend into the hell and will suffer for eternity, creator of the runic paper must be at least 3 star level in mana magic.)
He gave his orders. Lord Aerion would be sent back to the rebel camp under the cover of darkness. He would feed them exactly the lies they wanted to believe and misinfromation about the Royal Army.
After the shaken noble was led away, Varrus looked at Alexius with a newfound respect. "A cruel move, Your Majesty. But a brilliant one."
"War is cruel, General," Alexius replied, his eyes fixed on the map where the two armies were now only a few miles apart. "The only brilliance is in ending it quickly."
The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the valley. The First Legion was in position. The stagel was set. The enemy was approaching, blind and arrogant. The first skirmishes were over. Now, all that was left was the hammering to stick to his plan.(Continue….)