Jeyne V
The detailed war map laying before them was sculpted to match the topography of the land, with bumps and ridges for hills, and shallow crests for valleys. Along a line of hills at the southernmost border of the Coalition's territory stood a line of simple rectangular wooden blocks. Each marker represented roughly a hundred soldiers and there were eight in total, guarding the border. Eight hundred soldiers, along with their associated supplies and domesticated creatures, were spread out along the line of fortified hills, weaving a tight defensive mesh. More soldiers and supplies were being shipped to them every day, to bolster their ranks with more manpower. If the Northern Coalition was ever attacked, the most likely place the enemy would strike was the southern villages, or perhaps another isolated castle like Open Hearth. For that reason, every member of the Coalition was instructed to send soldiers to help guard the borders and repel invasion.
Already they had tightened up the lines so that no scouts could slip past into friendly territory. Merith was overseeing the southern defenses. She wrote back that the border guards were organized into small teams, each one guarding a hill or fortified vantage point. They were spaced out all along the border such that one team could always see another team on either side of themselves. Their job was to watch for enemies trying to cross the border, and if such an enemy were spotted, then a quick line of signal fires would alert the rest of the army.
We'll stop them from ever harming another innocent northerner, Jeyne told herself. She still shivered at the memory of seeing her close friend Kevan's mutilated body. I was responsible for sending him to negotiate with the enemy, falsely hoping they could be reasoned with. I'm sorry Kevan. I won't let your death be in vain. I've learned that the only way to stop these monsters is to meet their violence with equal vigour. We'll pay them back in kind for the lives they've taken already.
But a nagging voice at the back of her mind always questioned whether they would really be able to drive the invaders off. Recent reconnaissance reports from Lily showed that they were not dealing with just a single army, but now three. She had spotted three flags flying from the Protectors' forward operating base; a black tyrannosaurus against a red background, a white tyrannosaurus against a blue field, and finally a green tyrannosaurus on a yellow field. The argentavis rider's findings were extremely troubling. By her reports, the Protectors could field anywhere up to 3000 soldiers from the three armies gathered at Cerulean Falls. On the warmap, the massive host was represented by a cluster of rectangular blocks concentrated around the castle. The blocks stood there menacingly, a constant reminder of the seemingly overwhelming numbers the coalition might oneday face. Worse, Lily had spotted all sorts of carnivorous mounts inside the castle and in the field camps surrounding it. She had not been able to get a very clear look, but she remembered seeing at least four tyrannosaurus rex and three spinosaurus, as well as entire packs of allosaurus, raptors, carnotaurus, and other predators. That was not to mention the herbivorous giants the Protectors commanded, like hundreds of parasaurs, triceratops, stegosaurus, and even a diplodocus or two.
In contrast, the Northern Coalition struggled to match their enemy's strength. So far only 1800 people had enlisted in the army. Until they were fully confident of the Protectors' numbers, Jeyne and the others assumed that they were at a numerical disadvantage. In terms of domesticated creatures, the numbers were not as grim. The Northern Coalition commanded a respectable force of both herbivores and carnivores; the southern villages contributed roughly twenty parasaurs and iguanodons, ten gallimimus, a dozen triceratops, three stegosaurus, and even two therizinosaurus. The southerners lacked the same power in carnivores, but they still managed to scrape together a few. There were more dilophosaurus than anybody had bothered to count, as well as a dozen raptors, five terror birds, four carnotaurus, two baryonyx, and three allosaurus.
It was the northerners who provided the bulk of the army. All together, including the mountain clans, the northern castles mustered up an impressive roster of creatures. There were at least two-hundred megaloceros, a hundred equus, forty wooly rhinoceros, thirty mammoths, twenty chalicotherium, four megatherium, a dozen doedicurus, and as many ankylosaurus. Thanks to Otto's militarization policy, they did not lack carnivores either. They had somewhere close to sixty hyaenodons, a dozen sabertooths, five direbears, ten daeodons, sixteen purlovia, twenty argentavis, a single yutyrannus rex, and of course nearly forty direwolves, around twenty of which were from Winter's pack. Not to mention their strongest weapon: Argentum. With the giganotosaurus' armor pieces being finished one by one, the titan would soon be completely outfitted for battle. Otto had arranged for some mountain clansmen to stay at the Wolf's Den and properly train the giganotosaurus. When Argentum was ready for war, the Northern Coalition would have one of the strongest forces of nature on the Island. When used at the right time and place, Argentum would be able to completely wreak havoc on whatever stood in his path. All he needed was a few more months to get ready.
However, the hope was that with defender's advantage, they would be able to match the strength of the invaders. Whereas the Protectors had to march forward into enemy territory in the cold of fall, the Coalition could dig in at advantageous terrain and hold there. The Northern Coalition's army would be well-rested and supplied, whereas the enemies would hopefully be tired and disoriented in unfamiliar territory. If just enough factors pulled together in their favour, the Northern Coalition might be able to fend off an invasion.
There was a knock on the door. A few moments later, a messenger burst into the room and kneeled. "Queen Jeyne. A report from our allies. Honeysuckle and Brandy refuse to mobilize soldiers onto the front."
That's right. I'm Queen now, Jeyne thought to herself. She stood upright. "Send another messenger to ask them again. But if they don't want to send any soldiers. . ." she sighed, staring at the warmap and the underwhelming forces the Northern Coalition commanded. "Well, there's nothing we can really do, short of forced conscription. But everybody should have a choice whether they want to fight or not. If those villages refuse to send soldiers, then I'll respect their decision. As long as they send us supplies and equipment, that'll have to be enough."
The messenger nodded and ducked out of the room. Jeyne turned back to the map, frowning. We may really need a miracle for the Northern Coalition to make it out of this war intact. Jeyne glanced at the pile of reports sitting on the corner of the desk. She had personally taken on the responsibility of managing all their resources and getting everything ready for the war. She knew little about warfare itself, but at least she could help by organizing the army and the supplies. The job of thinking up strategies fell to experienced warriors and military commanders, like Otto. Occasionally, when Jeyne was rifling through reports about the supplies and militias of each village, she also read interesting letters that included some military tactics and suggestions. A lot of people were trying to contribute to the war cause by coming up with strategies for the army. Jeyne recalled that Willam had come up with a particularly clever suggestion that involved using the mountainous terrain to funnel the enemy army into smaller groups, then using a fast and powerful army of northerners to pick off the smaller groups. They would pool all their strongest assets like Argentum and other apex carnivores into one unit and task them with quietly killing off small chunks of the Protector's army. Willam had even studied the geography of the land and found a perfect area to set up such an ambush.
Jeyne spent the rest of the day reviewing numbers, painstakingly updating the warmap based on reports about her allies' and enemies' movements alike. After a few hours of silent concentration, occasionally interrupted by messengers barging into the room or military commanders stopping by for quick chats, Jeyne finally had enough for the day. She retired from the map room, leaving the figures and reports behind for another day. She grabbed her coat from a rack by the door, navigated her way down the twisting castle halls, and emerged outside the mountaintop castle. Jeyne took a stroll around the castle, glancing down at all the bustling activity in the lower plateau. Soldiers were drilling, supplies were being hauled by draft beasts, and the common citizens were going about their daily business.
Afterwards, Jeyne stopped by a war room in the main hall to listen in on the meeting being held there. She quietly slipped in and leaned against the back of Otto's chair. Her husband smiled at her briefly but quickly returned his focus to the mountain chieftains who were visiting to help plan defense of the northernmost stretches of their territory. After a long day of arranging logistics, Jeyne found it hard to focus. Soon enough, the other military commanders finally finished the meeting and left the room after some final words, leaving her more or less alone with Otto. These days it was hard to get any time together, so they made the most of it.
Jeyne and Otto went to the kitchens to pick up trays of food, then gidilly returned to their private chambers to share a nice meal beside their roaring fireplace. They sat on the edge of their shared bed, laughing and basking in one another's company. The time flew by faster than Jeyne imagined, but fortunately nobody disturbed them the entire time. After a fun and relaxing evening, they put out the fire and climbed into bed together. After a few more hours of fooling around in the darkness, fatigue and weariness finally claimed them both. Jeyne fell asleep quickly, drifting into unconsciousness snuggled against Otto's chest.
Suddenly and without warning, the castle erupted into commotion in the black of night. Jeyne jolted awake, blinking sleepily into the darkness. Otto was also up quickly. Old habits died hard, she supposed. Any survivor who had spent any amount of time fending for themselves in the wilderness could wake from sleep at a moment's notice. They both strained their eyes and ears against the pitch black room. Outside was yelling and shouting. Jeyne even heard a bell ringing, which could only be from the castle's tallest tower. Whatever had happened outside, the guards had apparently decided it was urgent enough to wake everyone in the castle.
They quickly got dressed. Otto buckled on Frostbite and cautiously led the way outside with his blade in hand. They followed the noise outside the castle, where a small crowd was already gathered. Guardsmen and half-dressed servants were gaping and pointing at something off on the horizon. Jeyne was relieved that nothing in the immediate vicinity was wrong. She had feared something was amiss at the Hotspring Hold. But even as she had that thought, her heart quickly dropped.
Far off in the distance, a huge column of smoke was rising from a bright red speck. Jeyne squinted harder and realized with growing dread that it was a distress signal from the Wolf's Den.
Author's Note:
Girlbook, I think a few of them have some idea, but most are definitely in for a surprise.
Caleb R. Watson, Good point there. And of course the rangers were only beating Larbert enough to scare him. They probably realize it isn't a good idea to cripple their own soldiers, so their cruelty has its limits.
DinoNerd89, Definitely a tough situation but necessary for Daven to choose wisely.
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