Chapter 1386: A warrior’s sense(3)

As the laughter died a natural death a collective cloak of seriousness settled back over the council.

Whatever title the man in each chair held, whether legate of the legions or chieftain of the auxiliaries, one unassailable truth bound them together: they were all killers, and master craftsmen at the trade they boasted of. Some among them might not know how to read a scroll or navigate polite courtly chatter, but they understood the brutal art of slaughter and how to map it out. Dozens of years of campaigning under their king would tend to make each man a capable general in its own garden.

That mastery showed the moment Edric unrolled a heavy leather map of Oizen across the oak table.

I would have preferred something closer to home, Edric thought, his sharp eyes scanning the parchment topography where the Vulture Lord had built his lair. Still, having Oizen mapped in its entirety gave them solid ground upon which to forge their plan, a luxury far better than marching blind into the brush.

It is actually a brilliant spot, he admitted silently, tracing the contours of the land. Provided I were a scummy piece of rogue shit too arrogant to live under the King’s law. Still, those who live by the sword invariably die by it.

The intelligence Rykio’s interrogation had dragged out revealed that the Vulture Lord had struck his grand camp in the dense woodland stretching between Duresa and Aragustaven. It was a position built for long-term survival. Deep, thick forest provided exceptional cover, perfect for hiding, assuming a commander was intelligent enough not to draw attention to his own doorstep. For the first moon of the conflict, the tactic had worked brilliantly, as every raid had been struck far from their actual lair.

It proved the bandit leader possessed a genuine military mind. It was one thing to butcher everything that moved for a purse of silver; it was another entirely to ensure you didn’t shit on the very plate you ate from.Certainly it was not easy.

Of course, all that discipline had vanished the moment Edric starved out their supply lines.

Beyond the dense canopy, the site offered abundant fresh water for drinking and fishing. The deep, dark waters of Lake Turogontoli guarded their rear, the Marovio Fork anchored their eastern flank, and the roaring Allending River sealed them off to the west.

It was a magnificent sanctuary, a place where hundreds of outlaws could carve out a comfortable living undetected, provided they refrained from shouting their presence to the four winds. (map in comment).

There was just one problem. One tiny, fatal flaw.

It was Ghalrim who voiced the unsaid crux of the map.

"They’re trapped."

"It couldn’t have been stated clearer if the King himself had bothered to be here and spoken it," Edric replied, tapping his fingers against the green canopy trapped between the three bodies of water. "Their rear is blocked by the lake, and their left and right flanks are squeezed tight by deep, rushing rivers. Their only way out on dry land is straight through the front, where we are currently standing."

A dark, cruel smirk flickered across every face at the table. The grand operation had suddenly transformed from a grueling hunt into a child’s game.

"There is no land escape for them," Edric continued, his eyes gleefully tracing the trap. "Their only option is to punch through our lines. I suspect the moment our steel crests the ridge, a good portion of the bastards will break and try to slip away through the treeline." He gave a sharp nod toward Rykio.

"We shall be waiting for them in the brush," the Hound captain growled softly.

"Like a maiden on her wedding bed," Edric smiled darkly. "Those foolish enough to attempt a break through the woods will be run down by the Hounds, gutted, and strung up from the oaks. As for those who play the grand game and try to hold the forest..." He shrugged casually. "Well... they will die the exact same way, just a few days later."

Torghan leaned over the map, his sharp hawk-like eyes scanning the blue ink representing the waterways. "They’ll try the water. They’ll attempt to cross the rivers or board boats on the lake." He paused, a sudden memory striking him. "At the siege of Turogontoli, the King moved cohorts by water and scaled the cliffs to take the garrison... ’’ he suddendly stopped as he recalled a tiny detail ’’Weren’t you the one who led that assault, Edric? I thought it utter madness when I first heard the tale."

Edric swelled slightly, nodding as if he had just received a grand compliment. "Well, my legion is renowned for that. Being stark mad. Though, to my great dismay, I did not lead the climbing party in my own person. The King forbade me from scaling the rock face myself, much to my fury. Still, it was my Fourth that carved a bloody path through the cliffside defenses and took the garrison entirely unawares."

That had been a glorious feat of arms. The city’s defenders had fought valiantly, repelling every assault sent against their main gates, holding their ground with fierce honor. They held long enough for the Fourth to scale the impassable cliffs, slip into the city streets, and carve a red swath all the way to the main gates to unleash the King’s vengeance upon the city.

The King had spared the lord of Turogontoli back then, ransoming him back after the peace of the princes, only to meet the man four years later at the Ford, where the foolish lord perished in the very first cavalry charge. His sniveling son had later come to the King, hat in hand, begging for the return of his ancestral lands. The King, generous to a fault, had granted the boy a tiny castle and two muddy hamlets.Had Edric been the one with the crown, he would have given the boy four feet of dirt to rot in.

Edric sighed, pushing the ghost of Turogontoli from his mind. "Back then, the King seized every fishing boat along the shore to move our troops. I wager the Vulture Lord will try the exact same desperate trick. So, we shall beat him to it."

He turned his gaze squarely onto Rykio. "Send a detachment of your vanguard ahead to put the torch to every boat, raft, and skiff along the lake and the riverbanks. Reassure the local fishermen that the Crown will compensate them for every piece of burnt wood."

"My riders will move immediately," Rykio said, his voice hard as stone. He turned to his second-in-command, who gave a single, crisp nod and slipped silently out of the pavilion to unleash the Hounds. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Edric’s gauntleted finger dragged back across the parchment, coming to rest precisely where the two blue veins of the rivers met the dense green of the woods.

"Which brings us to the rivers," Edric said, his voice dropping into a low, predatory tone. "There are three stone bridges crossing those waters, three back doors the Vulture might try to sprint through when the fire starts burning his backside. I foresaw the problem, so I took the liberty of solving it before I called this council."

He leaned over the table, propping his weight on his knuckles. "Say what you will about the local militias we raised. Say they aren’t worth the scrap iron we put on their backs, and you’d be telling no lie. But even a dog can bark, and even a hog can clog a gate. I ordered a small timber fort thrown up at the foot of every bridge, completely sealing passage in or out. No one crosses without explicit clearance."

Edric looked up, a cold gleam in his eye. "I am sure you see my intent. The rats won’t find a single open door on those rivers."

"And what happens when they try to force those doors with cold steel?"

The voice was calm, deep, and measured. It belonged to Thalek,the betrayer’s son. The young man leaned forward, his unblinking eyes fixed on the map. "The local militia have proven utterly useless in a scrap,even behind timber walls.Two slaughtered camps are proof of that. If the Vulture brings his full strength to a single bridge, those peasants won’t put up enough of a fight to buy us an hour."

A quiet tension rippled through the tent at the young man’s forwardness, but Edric simply listened. He wanted men who looked for cracks in the shield, not sycophants who nodded at every word.

"A fair point," Edric replied smoothly, holding little malice against the boy for his father’s sins. "If the Vulture throws his full force at a wooden palisade, those militia dogs will likely wet themselves. But I have already dispatched riders to both the Lady of Duresa and the Lord of Aragustaven. They have been ordered to hold their hearth-guards in the saddle, boots in the stirrups."

He paused, a dark smirk touching his lips. "They may be Oizenian nobility, and the regent in Duresa may have been made a widow by us, and is just holding the reins until her babe comes of age , but when Yarzat calls, they had best jump and pant like dogs. The moment a bandit shows itself at a bridge, the militia’s only job is to light a beacon, slip a fast rider out the back, and hold the gatehouse just long enough for the garrisons to ride out."

Edric tapped the map hard, right between the two cities. "The moment those garrisons arrive, the bandits will be caught like meat in a nutcracker, sandwiched between the fort’s gate and a wall of heavy horse, slaughtered in the mud."

He straightened up, letting out a sharp, callous snort.

"Mind you, I know the cowardly cloth those militia boys are cut from. If they can’t manage to hold a barred gate for two short hours, then they deserve to die in the breach. A quick death on a bandit spear is a far kinder fate than the one I will give them if their cowardice ruins this hunt. On my honor as a Legate, that is a promise. I won’t allow anything or anyone to fuck this up."