Three days later, the dust-caked Grand Duke of Fisablen and his battered entourage rode through the gates of the Third Border Cavalry Corps' encampment, deployed along the vital roads of the Southern Province. After a hasty wash, the Grand Duke—ignoring the bone-deep exhaustion from days and nights of desperate flight—ordered the soldiers to sound the horn summoning the officers to council.
Before the tent packed with the Fisablen family knights and officers of the Third Border Cavalry Corps, the Grand Duke delivered a grim truth: they had been ambushed by the Northland Four Family Alliance. The First Border Cavalry Corps was likely destroyed. Windbury Castle had fallen. And the Third Border Cavalry Corps would soon face the armed forces of the Northern Four Family Alliance…
The knights of the Fisablen family and the officers of the Third Border Cavalry Corps erupted into uproar within the great tent. Some clamored for vengeance, their voices thick with righteous indignation, while others fretted with deepening worry over the combat strength of the Northland Four Family Alliance's forces. After all, the First Border Cavalry Corps had been at full strength and ranked among the top three family corps in combat power. If even they could be completely wiped out by the Northland Alliance's family forces, one could only imagine the caliber of the enemy that the Third Border Cavalry Corps—whose strength fell short of the First's—was about to face.
The Grand Duke of Fisablen offered no explanation for why he had fled Windbury Castle with only a few dozen men. He simply issued command after command in measured succession.
First: consolidate the entire army, recall all patrols operating along the roads, strengthen the camp's defensive fortifications, build up and reinforce the stockade walls, erect watchtowers and arrow towers, dig deep trenches, stockpile all manner of military supplies, and prepare for imminent battle.
Second: immediately dispatch light cavalry scouts and spies into Winston Province to monitor the movements of the Northland Four Family Alliance, gather any scattered family soldiers, and determine the fate of the First Border Cavalry Corps. If what
The third command was to send envoys to the Four Central Duchies to plead for aid. The Grand Duke of Fisablen instructed the envoys to say this: the Iblia Kingdom had been attacked by the allied noble forces of Northland Grand Duke
The greatest anxiety of the Four Central Duchies was King Augero of the Andinak Kingdom. This former heir of the Krisen Empire, once known as His Highness the
The Grand Duke of Fisablen was not entirely certain whether the Northland Four Family Alliance truly shared the Second Prince's aims. In his eyes, Lorist was not the sort of man who was genuinely loyal to the Andinak Kingdom. Otherwise, while the Second Prince was fighting on the front lines of the Redlis Kingdom, the Norton family forces would not have traveled thousands of miles to the Haneyabada Archipelago to destroy that slave kingdom in retaliation for the attack on their homeland. With the strength of the four great Northland families, had they truly stood by the Second Prince's side, he would never have been usurped by his own niece.
But this suspicion did not prevent the Grand Duke of Fisablen from using it as leverage to extort support from the Four Central Duchies. The logic was straightforward: the Central Duchies would most certainly not want to share a border with the Andinak Kingdom, as that would mean perpetual unrest. With the Fisablen family keeping the Northland Four Family Alliance occupied in the Southern Province, things were far better than having the Alliance's forces break through into the Four Central Duchies' own territory.
So the Grand Duke of Fisablen was anything but modest. In addition to sending envoys to request military reinforcements from the Four Central Duchies, he made outrageous demands for massive quantities of arms, equipment, and living supplies. His Lordship was quite confident that the grand duchies of the Central Region would seriously consider his demands. In truth, even if he received only half of what he asked for, he would be perfectly satisfied—when one starts by quoting the sky, one naturally expects the other side to haggle on the way down.
After dispatching the envoys to the Four Central Duchies, the Grand Duke of Fisablen's next orders concerned the redeployment of forces. He commanded the Reserve Corps—which had originally been scheduled to arrive at Windbury Castle within the month—to march to the Southern Province and join him. He also ordered the newly formed Fifth Border Cavalry Corps in the Eastern Barrens Province to proceed to the Southern Province, bolstering the forces under his command. As for the defense of the Eastern Barrens Province itself, that could be entrusted to the Garrison Corps. With the Grand Duke of Fisablen directing several corps to hold the line in the Southern Province, the family homeland need not worry for the time being.
Currently, the Second Border Cavalry Corps was garrisoned in the Greater and Lesser Jinchuan region under the command of Viscount Kristoph—these could not be redeployed. The Fourth Border Cavalry Corps was stationed in the Pastoral Plains Province, and these too could not be moved. On the contrary, orders had to be sent to them to guard against a surprise attack by Northland forces, for the Pastoral Plains Province bordered the Northlands directly. The best course of action would be to destroy the iron-chain bridge the Kenmace family had constructed, thereby eliminating one direction of approach. That way, the Fourth Border Cavalry Corps could use the fortress city of Petro as a base from which to harass and wage guerrilla operations against the Northland Four Family Alliance, which had seized Winston Province.
The Grand Duke stared at the map in silence for a long while before finally issuing one more command: a conscription order was to be sent to the nearly one hundred Grass Barbarian tribes on the northeastern steppe that had submitted to the Fisablen family. These tribes were to supply their own warhorses, weapons, and rations and march to the Southern Province to fight. As a reward, the Grand Duke of Fisablen generously promised that all spoils seized by these Grass Barbarians in battle would remain their own…
The family knights and officers in the great tent were stunned by this command and stepped forward one after another to protest. Opening this floodgate—allowing the Grass Barbarians to plunder freely—would bring consequences far worse than whatever military benefit their participation might offer. The moment word got out, the Fisablen family would transform from the protector of the northeastern steppe into an accomplice to the Grass Barbarians' raids on human settlements. Setting aside the damage to the family's reputation, in actual combat these Grass Barbarian fighters—renowned for their disobedience and tendency to act on their own—would add countless headaches to the family's command…
The Grand Duke of Fisablen told his knights and officers with a bitter smile: an enemy capable of silently annihilating an entire Border Cavalry Corps within a hundred miles of Windbury Castle could not be underestimated in combat strength, no matter how high one set the bar. He also mentioned, almost offhandedly, that two battalions of the Third Border Cavalry Corps—nearly two thousand men stationed at Dusk Lake Town—had also been lost. Given the Third Border Cavalry Corps' understrength condition, the Grand Duke seriously doubted whether they could withstand the Northland Four Family Alliance's imminent assault. If he could hold the Southern Province until the two reinforcing corps arrived, he would count himself blessed.
"This is not alarmism," the Grand Duke of Fisablen told the family knights and officers in the tent with utmost gravity. The coming battle against the Northland Four Family Alliance would be a prolonged and arduous war. If the Fisablen family did not give everything it had, the consequence of defeat would be the family being pinned down in some forgotten corner of the northeastern steppe, silently subservient to others in exchange for a sliver of survival—the family's fate resting in another's hands, to be carved up and manipulated at will.
But if they won, they would pin the Northland Four Family Alliance back within the Northlands and unite Winston Province, the Southern Province, and their family territories across three provinces into a single, solid stronghold—making themselves the dominant power of the northeast. Leaning on the trade routes of the Four Central Duchies, the Fisablen family's influence would flourish. Every person who distinguished themselves in this war would receive generous rewards. His Lordship would not hesitate to bestow titles and fieflands upon outstanding family knights, elevating them into the ranks of the nobility.
Therefore, the Grand Duke of Fisablen declared, the more Grass Barbarians who came to fight in this prolonged and arduous war, the better. He believed that generous rewards combined with harsh military law could keep these Grass Barbarians in line. Those who disobeyed orders could be executed outright for treason, with the punishment extending to their tribes. Those who followed commands, however, could be used as cannon fodder—depleting the Northland Four Family Alliance's strength on one hand while thinning the Grass Barbarian ranks on the other, thereby indirectly eliminating the threat these tribes might pose to the family's territories once they grew powerful enough. The Grand Duke had to guard against the possibility that the family's armed forces would suffer such devastating losses in this war that they would lack the power to suppress a Grass Barbarian rebellion on the northeastern steppe.
After concluding this war council, the Grand Duke of Fisablen wolfed down some food and collapsed into bed for more than ten hours of sleep. The past few days of fleeing had utterly exhausted him. After waking, he bathed, ate a little more, changed his clothes, and dismissed his attendants. Alone in the great tent, he took a bottle of wine and poured for himself, drinking and weeping by turns. At that moment, his heart felt as though it were being carved with knives. The memory of being chased breathless by Lorist made him feel that this was the greatest humiliation of his entire life…
Never before had he fled in such wretched fashion—abandoning Windbury Castle, abandoning Dusk Lake Town, losing the First Border Cavalry Corps entirely. This had not only thrown all his carefully laid plans into disarray; more importantly, it meant the loss of an enormous fortune and nearly two to three hundred thousand people who were to have bolstered the family's territories. It was as though he had been ambushed by bandits, struck from behind, not only stripped of everything but nearly kidnapped so they could ransom him from his family. He had been fortunate to escape at all. That was how the Grand Duke felt.
When he thought of the Windbury Castle treasures—the estates and inheritances of the Southern Province nobles he had destroyed, and the properties and revenues of the rebellious traditional lords of Winston Province—his temples throbbed. That was nearly three million gold Forde in vast wealth, originally earmarked to build and equip a resilient Garrison Corps and three impregnable fortress castles, transforming Winston Province into his ideal battleground. Now it was all the spoils of the Northland four families…
At the Rose Palace in Windbury Castle, the Grand Duke of Fisablen had exchanged only two blows with Lorist before keenly sensing that Lorist's swordsmanship and personal cultivation were in no way inferior to his own. Although his vast experience might have allowed him to spar with Lorist for two or three hundred moves—and perhaps even seize victory through a momentary lapse on his opponent's part—the Grand Duke had been perfectly clear-headed at that moment. If Lorist was telling the truth, and the First Border Cavalry Corps had already been annihilated and Windbury Castle was about to fall into the hands of the Northland Four Family Alliance, then a duel with Lorist—victor or not—would be entirely meaningless. So the Grand Duke had made an immediate decision: the only correct course at that moment was to leave the castle at once and escape the danger.
Had he fallen under Lorist's sword, the Fisablen family would have lost its backbone, becoming a scattered rabble, and the Northland Four Family Alliance could easily have claimed its victory.
That was the Grand Duke of Fisablen's thinking throughout his flight. He absolutely could not fall into Lorist's hands. Only by escaping the danger could he lead the family forces to claw back their disadvantages bit by bit, washing clean the humiliation Lorist had heaped upon him with blood and fire…
Of course, deep in his heart, the Grand Duke of Fisablen still harbored a lingering fear of Lorist's swordsmanship. He recalled Dusk Lake Town, when those six hundred-odd family soldiers had charged toward Lorist. At that moment, the Grand Duke had actually harbored the thought of launching a sneak attack himself. But what happened before his eyes next utterly destroyed any desire to face Lorist in a duel. Facing the massed charge of more than half a battalion of soldiers, even the Grand Duke himself admitted he would have to retreat, resorting to kiting tactics to gradually kill those soldiers—the most important thing being to avoid getting entangled by them. That was the same calculation most Great Swordmasters made when confronted with soldiers in battle formation.
But what did the Grand Duke see then? Lorist instead advanced to meet them—like a nimble little fish swimming freely through a rushing stream, or like a gust of breeze spiraling through a dense forest. The longswords and spears thrust at him by the soldiers posed not the slightest threat. Like the ghost of a farmer harvesting ripe wheat, he continuously reaped the lives of the besieging soldiers with the longsword in his hand…
The Grand Duke of Fisablen was badly shaken. This—this was the power of the Domain. Without a second word, he leapt onto his horse, beckoned to the guards beside him, and fled. No wonder Lorist had dared stride so brazenly into the Rose Palace to challenge him, a third-rank Great Swordmaster, to a duel—it was because he possessed absolute confidence in his own cultivation and swordsmanship, certain he could handle the Grand Duke before making such a move. Fortunately, the Grand Duke had not taken the bait, and had finally escaped his pursuit.
But the Grand Duke of Fisablen still harbored some doubts. Lorist was not yet a Sword Saint—how had he mastered the power of the Domain? In general, only those who had reached the realm of Sword Saint could command the Domain, yet Lorist did not give the impression of having ascended to that rank.
The Grand Duke of Fisablen was not unfamiliar with Sword Saints. Back when he was a first-rank Great Swordmaster, freshly appointed as commander of the Krisen Empire's Border Cavalry Corps, he had traveled to the imperial capital to pay respects to Krisen VII. The Empire's Sword Saint had still been alive then, and when the Grand Duke stood before him, it felt as though an immense, boundless mountain peak loomed ahead—only for it to suddenly transform into a vast, fathomless ocean. The only impression that remained in the Grand Duke's heart was one of unfathomable depth. It was precisely because of this encounter that, upon returning, the Grand Duke had thrown himself into his training with redoubled determination, ultimately rising to third-rank Great Swordmaster in a mere twenty years.
But Lorist had not given the Grand Duke that feeling one had before a Sword Saint. Perhaps this young man had stumbled into the power of the Domain through some twist of fate. Ah, yes—perhaps it was because Cindy had said he practiced Eastern monk cultivation techniques. In any case, Lorist had likely stepped into the realm of the half-peak, still a hair's breadth short of becoming a Sword Saint.
If only Cindy were here. The two of them together could certainly have held off Lorist, and perhaps even taught the young man a harsh lesson. The thought that Lorist had mentioned—Great Swordmaster Cindy had become a captive of His Highness the Second Prince—filled the Grand Duke of Fisablen with even greater melancholy. It was time to send someone to the Andinak Kingdom and the imperial capital to gather intelligence. He truly hoped the young man had been lying to him!
After finishing the bottle of wine, the Grand Duke of Fisablen finally collected himself. Norton's brat—Lorist, you just wait. Perhaps in personal cultivation and swordsmanship I am no match for you, but in the great army battles to come, let us see who proves the better man. I swear in the name of the Fisablen family—every humiliation will be repaid tenfold, with the annihilation of your Northland Four Family Alliance's armed forces!
…(To be continued.)