Map Room, Great Palace, Jin-Hark, Kingdom of Louria
"Your Majesty, I believe that with our new flame cannons, the Lourian Navy will be able to win a direct engagement against the Qua-Toynians even when outnumbered," stated Grand Duke Sharkun.
"So you can win naval battles, but what of this potential war?" asked King Hark IV.
The Grand Duke tilted his head slightly with his eyebrows furrowing. "The Qua-Toynian Navy is an armed merchant navy. Their ships are built to quickly transport and protect their food shipments across the South and East Parpaldia Sea. Even if we force them into a large battle against our concentrated fleet and then blockade or capture their ports, by the nature of their fleet, there will be a large number of ships able to continue the war as they return from their many voyages to defend their home waters.
Our ships are too few and too slow to be able to spread out and destroy the Qua-Toynian Navy as a whole across the seas, and we may not be able to prevent Fenn reinforcements from landing before we fully establish the blockade under the invasion plans."
Grand Domestic Junfila spoke up, "Your Majesty, the Fenn pledge of military support to the Qua-Toynians is of only 2000 men. Even if they are armed with their reported chargeguns, I do not believe the Fenn reinforcements will prove a significant factor in this proposed war. As long as the navy can guarantee the safety of a supply route over water, the numerical superiority of the Lourian Army and our expertise in siege warfare should enable us to attain a decisive victory against the armies Qua-Toyn and Quila muster against us.
The newly rejuvenated ancient strategy of building roads and forts along our line of advance should negate the crippling advantage the Qua-Toynians historically enjoyed from their rapidly growing forests. The loss of Aquila at the Varun Disaster, otherwise known as the Battle of the Inner Gim Forest, shall not be repeated.
In addition to our change of strategy, the new repeating arbalests finally give us an answer to elven longbows. The infantry arbalest exceeds the effective range of a long bow with accurate fire up to 365 metres. The dragoon arbalest, while being lesser ranged and power, enables cavalry arbalists to let loose its entire magazine of ten bolts as quickly as they can work the lever. In open terrain, we can rapidly destroy longbow archers while they are forced to use plunging fire."
Junfila's enthusiasm swept aside most of King Hark IV's doubts, but the Lourians never had a tradition of using ranged light cavalry before as their cavalry was mainly composed of cataphracts. "Will the newly trained dragoon arbalists be up to the task?" he asked.
The Grand Domestic answered, "The Parpaldian advisors have taught us their battle-tested tactics regarding the use of dragoons. From what I've learned, they are meant to attack ahead of cataphracts, screening the movements of the heavy cavalry. After they finish unleashing their barrage of ten bolts, they move away to allow the cataphracts to charge in. Once a rout occurs amongst the enemy, the dragoons quickly pursue to finish them off in the melee.
Thus our training focuses on getting the dragoons to get their pacing and time of movement coordinated with the cataphracts rather than actual individual skill at using arbalests from horseback. The light cavalry formations we've converted into dragoons have had no big difficulty in adapting. I would dare say they're already ready."
"What about the dwarfen clans? Would they continue their policy of neutrality should we invade?" asked Sharkun.
"On that, Grand Duke, I can answer," said King Hark IV. "The dwarf clans have confirmed that in the event we invade Qua-Toyne, as long as we respect their self-governance and only ever impose non-prohibitive taxes at internal trade rates, the clans will not directly intervene. You do not have to worry about dwarfen nail makers and carpenters abandoning your shipyards. However, dwarfen pike mercenary companies will still conduct business throughout the war. The free companies are expected to honour their current contracts to Qua-Toyne, so Junfila here will still have to deal with them on the field."
"Your Majesty," said Junfila, "dwarfen pikemen will not be a significant problem despite their vaunted reputation of being unmovable by either cavalry or infantry. At closer ranges, our repeater arbalests can penetrate dwarfen armour beyond pike length. Thereby we can force them to either move off any favourable positions they hold or whittle them down at our leisure."
King Hark IV nodded. He looked at the hand-drawn map of the Rodenius continent and traced the invasion route into Qua-Toyne with his finger.
It was time for him to make the announcement. "I'm glad that the lands of Qua-Toyne are conveniently flourishing enough this season to single-handedly feed our invading forces even into the winter. It would be a much more difficult campaign if all food had to be delivered via the supply trains along with equipment and construction material."
There was a moment of silence as the commanders of the navy and army processed the true meaning of his words.
"So it's confirmed, Your Majesty?" asked Junfila.
"The Chief Minister has received the manacom reply from our envoy regarding our request to the Principality of Qua-Toyne for spring season food relief at the quantities we requested. It is a firm no. Instead, the Qua-Toynians offered to deliver more grain if we pay at half higher than the current rate."
King Hark IV slammed a fist onto the map. "The wood elves have shown their malignance and contempt toward us for the last time! For generations they've ensured Rodenius remained divided since the four great peoples of the world fled here during the Great Demon War! Now the eyes of the Grand Secretaries have finally been opened. All have fallen in line to call for war. With this end of peace, we will finally right the great injustice that began when the first elf whispered poisonous words to his human neighbour!"
Sharkun and Junfila bowed. "We give Your Majesty our minds and bodies for this most sacred mission!" exclaimed Junfilla. "May the lands of Louria expand to riper fields!"
The King paced around the table once to calm down and formulate his commands. "Official declaration of war will be held back as long as possible. Begin assembling the comitatenses, the bucellarii, and what foederati we have on contract for war, Grand Domestic, and prepare the limitanei for incursions from the border with Quila and counter-invasions from Qua-Toyne while the campaign is underway. Grand Duke, start impressing merchant ships for transportation duty. I want the row of forts to reach at least halfway to the Green City by winter. May the four stars be with you and your soldiers as we let loose the dogs of war!"
"By your will, it will be done!"
Boat Pier, Harbour of Jin-Hark, Jin-Hark, Kingdom of Louria
"Alright Ashan, here are the supplies for your boat cabin, plus a keg of beer as a gift for your patronage," said Davon Thunshield. He placed a stopper in front of the cart's wheels to stop it from rolling off the wooden pier and sinking into the waters of the harbour.
"Ah my merchant friend, thank you very much!" said Ashan. The suntanned human stopped work on the cabin and climbed from his fishing boat onto the pier. He checked the quality of the waterproofed wood and nails. Satisfied, Ashan handed over some coins to the dwarf. "Come down into the boat with me and share a drink."
"I'm fine right here on this unmoving constructed surface." While Davon dealt with all manner of ship-related jobs, he stayed well away from actually being on them like any sane dwarf.
Ashan shrugged, then procured two empty cups from somewhere, placed them on a crate on the pier, and poured some of the keg's contents into them. He handed a cup to Davon as he drank.
"Ah, that hits the spot. Your cousin's brew, right?"
"Yup, as always. How's your renovation coming along?"
"Good good good. Florus's plans have proven easy to follow. With the supplies you brought me, I only have the roof left to build. How about you? How's business?"
"Growing actually," Davon drawled, "It was a good thing you pre-ordered in a contract. The prices for every ship-related construction good have risen four-fold over the past few days. Needless to say, carpenter Joben was unhappy when I showed up to pick up your order."
"Ah, the Lourian navy must be preparing to move. I'm sure you have contacts who know more about whatever the nobles are doing."
"Yeah, heard something about the elves and the King's men having some pissy contest."
At that moment, Davon heard someone muttering, "It's all bull's balls. Damn the navy." He turned around and saw a familiar ship owner.
"Hi Donus, something wrong?" he asked.
The medium-weight class sailship owner stopped and turned to him. Donus held up a scroll to the two as he walked over. "This is what's wrong. I and my ship just got impressed to carry cargo for the navy."
Ashan sucked in his breath. "Impressment, that's really bad luck. The navy must be doing something more than just moving around its ships."
"They're going to try to invade Qua-Toyne."
There was a moment of stunned silence before Donus spoke up, "Really? Just several months before winter?"
"As confirmed as it can be without being officially confirmed when I drilled the naval impressment Banner-Bearer for information. He was sure that war will be declared after the fleet is already on its way. Bad timing for me too. I was scheduled this week to deliver a full load of pottery to a Parpaldian merchant ship out at sea so they could avoid docking costs. Now I have to carry who knows how many stinky pigs and chickens around the continent while avoiding being skewered by elven archers."
"Poor man... You don't think they'll impress my vessel too?" asked Ashan.
"Not unless you magically enlarged your dinky ship four-fold by tomorrow, Ashan. Give me a drink."
As Ashan obliged, Davon remembered that he had something to do. "Enjoy your drinks. I'm so sorry for your circumstance, Donus. If you come back, drinks are on me. I have another customer to get to." He downed the rest of his cup and quickly rushed off.
"Don't trip on your beard!" joked Ashan from behind. Of course, Davon regularly trimmed his beard so that it reached no longer than nipple height.
He quickly shuffled across the harbour, avoiding horses, carts, and wagons that would all easily trample him without seeing him at his height. After several minutes, he was out of the harbour zone and past the walls to the city proper. From there he slowed down to a fast walk and eventually turned off the road into an alleyway, and then made several turns until he ended up at the backdoor of a three-story apartment. A series of methodical knocks later, the vision slit in the door opened up.
"Who's there?" asked the eyes that looked around the alley walls above Davon.
"Down here dumbass."
The eyes turned downward. "Oh of course. My apologies." The vision slit shut and in a few moments the door opened.
Davon stepped into the apartment. Ahead was a curtain that led to behind the counter of the owner's popina. He could hear customers ordering takeout of porridge, nuts, fruit, bread, fish, cured meats, and of course beer or wine.
"Wait for me in the usual room. I just need to inform my wife I have… business."
Davon opened up a door that led to a very small room with two chairs and a table. He left the door open and took a seat. After a few moments, the apartment owner returned and closed the door as he sat down.
"So what do you have for me?" he asked softly.
"The navy has started impressment of merchant ships. They're heading for Qua-Toyne."
The human man cursed. "Impressment means they're serious. The kingdom has never been one to negotiate deals at the last moment once mobilization occurs. Do you know when they leave?"
"Within the week."
More curses followed. "Well my dwarfen friend, you've still saved at least several thousand lives with this new information. Anything else?"
"Not at the moment. I'll come back if I learn anything major."
Davon accepted a small stack of coinage. Clansguilder of course. Both Lourian and Qua-Toynian currency would soon undergo a period of devaluation, as his banker cousins would say.
"I'll be off." He stood up.
"And I have messages to send. Good work."
They shook hands.
The Emerald Castle, Qua-Toyne, Principality of Qua-Toyne
Prime Minister Kanata kneeled on the green carpet and bowed to about forty-five degrees.
"Rise and report, Prime Minister," said a mature, graceful female voice.
Kanata slowly stood up, beholding the Princess, the sovereign of all Qua-Toyne and beautiful and terrible as the morning and the night. She was fair and dreadful but still loved by all subjects, including those who knew her terror.
Kanata felt like a child before her shimmering emerald gown, her crown, and her ring of power. As Prime Minister, only he, along with the Master Jeweler and the Arch-Sorceror, knew just how true was the remark by foreign diplomats a couple of centuries ago that she was as strong as the foundations of the earth. As the Bearer, she could both furnish and scour the soil of sacred Qua-Toyne and its surroundings and thus controlled both life and death and equal measure.
Her ring was one of the three sacred rings of the elves of Arda. The second was one of resistance and concealment, held by the Emperor of the Holy Milishial Empire. The third was lost forever and knowledge of its effects was lost with it.
The three rings of power were true magical artifacts, older than the Ravernal Empire, and their origins were unknown. All the arcane knowledge attained thus far was unable to determine how they work, and so the rings remained unique and unreplicable. However, as speculated by the Arch-Sorceror, it may just be because all current advances in magic revolve around gems, crystals, and the mana present within creatures. The Princess's ring did not run on gems or crystals, so feeling the sense of control and observation of its effects remained the most anyone could do.
"Your Highness, I must report grave news. Our spies have reported from Louria. Lourian troops will soon be marching on us within the week with the Eastern Fleet and Army. I can confirm from a highly-placed source that King Hark IV will not seek peace before the invasion. How do you wish to respond?"
The Princess did not move from her throne of woven wood. Her face did not change expression from its neutral rest. "Evacuate everyone west of Inner Gim to the east of Fortress Ejey. All troops in the area shall prepare defences in the Inner Gim Forest with orders to delay the enemy's advance as long as possible before falling back to Fortress Ejey."
"Are we abandoning the City of Gim then?"
"Yes, there will be no defeating a fully supplied enemy enjoying numerical supremacy. The Lourians would siege, assault, and raze the city's inadequate defences as we are incapable of gathering enough reinforcements to match their standing army in time."
Kanata nodded. As expected from the older person in the room, the Princess's strategic reasoning was sound. She had fought off the last invasion when Kanata was still studying under his tutor.
"Recall the ships from abroad and arm them for war. Send word to both the Sword King and the Beast King to send their banners here as soon as possible. I will have them honour their oaths. Call all banners here except for Duke Nou. He will hold Fortress Ejey with his banners until my vassals and allies fully muster to relieve him. Once these tasks are done, summon the Privy Council and we'll assign commanders to the great army and fleet."
"By your will, Your Highness."
"Now go."
Kanata gave a standing bow before leaving the throne room. "Long grow Qua-Toyne."
"May the Goddess bless you."
East Comitatenses Field, Rav-Niki, Kingdom of Louria
Spear-Bearer Albeit Ducas watched the hoplites sparred against each other with oval shield and spatha. With massed field drills over, the hoplites had ditched their spears and pikes to line up in two segmented rows and duel one on one. After about two minutes of vigorous bashing, thrusting, and slashing with their blunt training spathas, the row segments would rotate sunwise to switch partners to duel once again. By the end, each Shield-Bearer involved in each row segment will have fought every member of their segment.
On the other side of the field, the arbalesters were busy unleashing volleys of bolts into straw targets. Previously, they were archers, but the conversion over to the repeating arbalest was surprisingly quick. To Albeit's eyes, the continuous barrage of bolts seemed a lot more impressive than the sporadic launch of arrows.
A lot of the older men complained that the arbalest reduced the skill gap between novices and experts like in archery. The expert archers amongst the arbalesters still insisted on carrying their war bows and quills of arrows to battle in addition to the new weapons for emergencies. Hopefully, their paranoia about the reliability of the arbalest would not be proven true ever.
Unlike the rank and file Shield-Bearer, Albeit was a Spear-Bearer. He had the important role of transmitting and receiving manacommunications and runner messages from the domestics at the rear to the phalanxes at the front. Most often Albeit worked with the comitatenses, the field infantry, though sometimes he trained with the bucellarii, the domestic's private cavalry.
His direct commanding Spear-Bearer was Adem Aspietes, a man infamous for handing out corporal punishment for even relatively minor offences in the East Lourian Army. Nicknamed Black Mushroom for his odd choice of hairstyle with no traditional curly strand in sight, Adem nevertheless also had the reputation of actually knowing what he was doing despite his sadist tendencies. For his competence alone, a quality increasingly rare amongst wealthy commanding Spear-Bearers who more often knew more about estate management and nepotism than warfare, the grunt Shield-Bearers shouldered the lashings he personally dealt out.
Oddly, Adem seemed particularly unusual today. After the morning drilling, he appeared to have some head pains and retired early to his quarters. Albeit had thought to ask about his health but kept his mouth shut. There were rumours that war was imminent between Louria and Qua-Toyne, and Adem was simply the most capable man the East Army had.
As the sparring continued, Albeit heard the snapping of metal from his right. He turned his head just in time to see the cracked top half of a spatha spin in the air and hurtle towards his head.
"Oh shi-!"
Spear-Bearers Quarters, East Bucellarii Barracks, Rav-Niki, Kingdom of Louria
The hammering on the door slammed into Adem Aspietes's consciousness.
"Spear-Bearer Aspietes. The Domestic wants to see you immediately!"
Adem groaned as more hammering added to the pains of his migraines. Rolling over, he lurched over the side of his bed and puked into his chamber pot.
"Spear-Bearer Aspietes!"
"Stop hitting the door! I'm coming out!" he growled. Finally managing to get up despite the pulses in his head, Adem, grabbed a rag and cleaned up the puke from his lips. He dragged himself over to the door and opened it to see a sentry. Yellow light flooded into his eyes and he instinctively raised a palm to shield himself from the intensity of the sentry's light gem amidst the silver line of Tears across the dark sky.
"What in the blazes! It's the middle of the night. What does Pandour want now?"
"Domestic Raoul did not specify, Sir," said the sentry, "Only that it was of royal importance."
That perked Adem up enough as a brief respite from his head pains came through. Anything of royal import meant a message came straight from Jin-Hark. "Bring me to him."
As he followed the sentry, he had to slow down a bit as another wave of migraine smacked his brain. He swore and grabbed his forehead.
"You okay, Sir?"
"Just give me a moment," he gasped. Eventually, the pulses subsided again. Finally opening his eyes again, he saw the sentry's look of concern. "Get moving now."
The sentry turned away and headed off again. Every now and again to Adem's irritation, the sentry would glance back to ensure Adem wasn't being left behind.
Finally, they arrived at Domestic Raoul's office. Adem entered as the sentry held the door open. The light gems in their holders illuminated the wooden walls of the room. Domestic Raoul, Chief Planudes, and Deputy Argyros were sitting down at a table with a map sprawled out.
Adem bowed his head, "Domestic Raoul. Chief Planudes. Deputy Argyros."
Domestic Pandour Raoul looked up from the map. "Take a seat, Deputy Aspietes. Shield-Bearer, leave us."
The sentry left and closed the door behind him as Adem sat down. Chief Kalsio Planudes had a full stack of scrolls laid out on his end of the table that Adem recognized as the service roster. Deputy Junfilla Argyros seemed to be looking through the cataphracts' supply list.
"We're going to war, Adem," said the Domestic as he dropped formalities.
Adem only opened his mouth for a few seconds before he reacted, "Well it's about time, Pandour. Qua-Toyne right?"
The Domestic nodded. "We march for the border as soon as the artificers arrive. The official declaration of war will occur just before we cross. We are the tip of the spear. The Grand Domestic wants us to advance ahead of the artificers as they build up roads and forts through the forests and fields of Qua-Toyne all the way to the Green City of Qua-Toyne itself."
Adem winced as a single stab of pain struck.
"Are you not pleased? I thought you would be happy?"
"Oh no," Adem shook his head. "I am happy. Finally, glory after all this time spent training. Just some head pains."
"Head pains?"
"Not enough to interfere with my job, Pandour," lied Adem. In truth, the migraines, which had started slowly over the past year, had now become a nightly occurrence. It was clear to the shield-bearers under his command that his mood had turned for the worse recently.
Pandour looked at him skeptically as Kalsio spoke up while continuing to shuffle around some scrolls, "Perhaps the town herbalist's medicinal tea will help."
"Maybe, I'll visit town later." Adem failed to inform the two that he had already visited the town herbalist. The traditional remedies of pine tea, eld tree sap, and luxyia flower tea had already been tried and failed. Even alcohol was not even a temporary solution.
"Now that you're here, let's spend the rest of the night figuring out how by the Four Stars we're going to avoid being catastrophically ambushed by elven foresters," announced Pandour.
Adem only thought that maybe he could become so exhausted that he would fall asleep through his migraines.
Road to the Eastern Border, Louria
The sounds of thousands of men and horses moving along the hard dirt road could be heard from beyond visual range. The artificer companies had arrived at the East Army barracks with wagons of construction tools and supplies along with the first convoy of food and ammunition.
When Adem had called Albeit forth to put the tagma's twenty banda of 200 infantry each on the march, he discovered to his surprise an ugly bruise on Albeit's face. Apparently, Albeit had been unlucky enough to be struck by the flat of a training spatha's broken blade. If Albeit was just a little more unlucky, he probably wouldn't be able to join the campaign.
Adem looked around from his riding horse at the four banda of cavalrymen stretching behind the infantry. One cataphract formation and one dragoon formation were available at Domestic Pandour's disposal. Including the battle mages, artificers, garrison occupational forces, the armed supply train, and servants there was a total of about 10000 men in the vanguard. A smaller group of about 5000 camp followers were following further behind, consisting of the family members of the poorer members of the vanguard who could not afford a home for them and entrepreneurs who provided additional supplies and services to wherever the army encamped.
A rider galloped in the opposite direction of the marching army. The horse quickly passed by an anti-wyvern ballista cart. Finally, he arrived beside Adem and turned the horse around. "Spear-Bearer Aspietes, the scouts report that the Qua-Toynian border sentries have already fled ahead of our advance. The road to Gim is open."
"Excellent. Scout ahead to Gim and see if the Qua-Toynians have decided to make a stand at the city, or otherwise have mounted defences before then."
"Yes, Spear-Bearer." The messenger galloped away.
A shadow passed by overhead. Adem looked up to see the magnificent wyverns of Louria's aerial cataphracts fly across the blue sky in an arrowhead formation, underneath the white line of the Tears orbiting Arda faintly visible through the blue sky.
Qua-Toynian Embassy, Jin-Hark, Kingdom of Louria
Yagou's hands shook as he read the scroll in his hands in front of the excubitores formed up at the gate to the two-story villa the Qua-Toynians used as their embassy. The Lourian royal guard had suddenly arrived in force on horseback and demanded to present the scroll to the Qua-Toynian ambassador. Unfortunately, Ambassador Quori was away from the villa at the moment on a meeting with the local dwarfen elders.
"So this is it then," he said bitterly as he rolled up the scroll. The indications from the increased Lourian naval activity at the port had proven true. He looked the commanding excubitor in the eyes. "War has come to the fields of our countries."
"The die is cast, diplomat. This same message is now being delivered in your capital," responded the excubitor dispassionately. "By the grace of His Majesty, King Hark IV, we excubitores are to escort you Qua-Toynian emissaries onto a ship with safe passage back to your homeland no later than sunset."
"The ambassador is away on a business matter within the outer city currently."
"Then you'll lead us to your elven master," snapped the excubitor with unexpected intensity.
Yagou understood the slight against him. Yagou was human, and by stating Ambassador Quori was his master with such viciousness, the excubitor made it clear that he viewed Yagou as a disgrace. A servant. A race traitor. Yagou gritted his teeth as he held back his instinct to angrily retort against the armed commander.
The excubitor put back on his neutral tone. "Pack his belongings and throw them onto your luggage train. Once we collect your ambassador he will be unable to return here. There is not much time to waste considering the deadline. If you're not on the ship in time, we will be forced to arrest you and your fellows as prisoners of war. In such an event, I cannot be certain if by the end of this war the king would still be in the mood to ransom you."
Yagou paled. Captives in previous wars had found themselves hanging from the city walls when Lourian kings became unhappy. "I'll… I'll go check with the capital first via manacom."
"Go ahead, it's your own time you're spending after all."
Author's Note
Some hypothetical reader: What's this? The Rodenius War starting before the summoned nation meets Qua-Toyne? Gim being abandoned? Rings of power?
Well, dear reader, the meat and potatoes of this NHS/TBO fanfic have begun. I want to thank you for continuing to follow along. As always, your comments and feedback will be read, and I'll often reply if you have a question to the best of my non-spoiling ability.
And note: In case you're wondering, no, this will not go full-blown LOTR with One Ring of Power MacGuffin.
Made an update to better fit Lourian army structure to the Byzantine tagma. General is now Domestic (from Domestikos). Adem is now a Deputy. Added Junfilla Argyros as second Deputy under Domestic Pandour Raoul.
Update to fix mistaken reference to Kalsio being hit by the broken blade when it was Albeit. My apologies.