Chapter 11 #3
“No other nation’s armies are permitted to cross into my land,” Sybil said, and she stood up from her throne.
“If your armies can’t handle the situation without collaborating with my forces, that is solely your own problem to deal with.
The Silver Coast is quite secure, and I will not have unknown soldiers stomping around my cities and causing God-knows-what kind of damage and havoc. ”
Several of the people around us, both leaders and advisors alike, started mumbling their disagreement with that statement.
“Queen Sybil…” Queen Doria spoke first, and Enken looked like he wanted to throttle Sybil.
“Do you fail to understand the seriousness of this threat? According to our best assessments, Khorr has turned at least fifty percent of the Haktorian’s forces.
With the limited information we can confirm, it’s likely to be much higher than that.
In order to maintain control over the four cities, the entire border, and any potential revolts from further south, there’s no way he could have fewer. ”
Sybil rolled her eyes so hard, I could almost hear them knocking around inside her skull.
“And yet,” she said. “I see no reason to coordinate with anyone else’s army. I refuse to share our training regimens or other private details with anyone. Your lack of preparation is not my problem to solve.”
“But we can help–” King Giles tried again.
“Shut up,” Sybil growled at him.
“I wholeheartedly disagree with the Silver Coast Queen,” King Horus announced as he rose from his throne. “This tyrant threatens us all. Queen Laylia and I are happy to coordinate with King Kenneth.”
“As are we,” King Mannie said. “We must face this threat together, and we must take the offensive and do something before Khorr is able to gather enough strength and numbers to invade one of our countries. I think we can all agree that will be his eventual plan.”
“You’re a lot of fools,” Sybil scoffed in a dismissive tone. “Do as you wish. I will do what is right for my people, even if none of you have the wherewithal to do the same.”
Before anyone could argue, she strode off across the grass and disappeared into her tent. King Giles sat there slack-jawed for another few seconds before he pushed himself to his feet with a deep sigh.
“My apologies,” he muttered with his head low.
He didn’t say anything else before he shuffled off after his wife with his tail between his legs.
I had no idea what the story was between the two of them, but it was pretty damn obvious that Sybil had beaten him into submission over their years together, one way or another.
He was either a weak man to begin with, or she’d spent a lot of time and effort emotionally and psychologically abusing him until he no longer felt he had any say.
I was impressed he’d tried to speak up at all. It made me think he might still have a bit of spine in there somewhere, and I wondered if there was any way we could work with him to convince Sybil of the importance of this alliance.
While my thoughts had wandered, the other nations’ leaders had called forward their Masters of War and other high-ranking advisors. I tuned back into the conversation and did my best to absorb all the information they were providing.
As it turned out, the leaders of Zall had also been trying to send spies into the Haktorian Empire, but they hadn’t had much more success than Vannesh’s people.
We spent about an hour comparing information and intel from the four other nations with what Vannesh, Palchur, and their teams had gathered.
We started to get an idea of where Khorr’s forces were stationed, and it wasn’t looking great.
It was also a very limited picture of what was going on.
It felt like trying to see through a filthy window that was half-covered in grease.
We had an idea of what was going on, but there were definitely important bits we were missing.
The border between the empire and Nalatria, Zall, and the Silver Coast was heavily armed and guarded by enemy soldiers.
That was the most certain piece of information we had.
They had cavalry as well as foot soldiers, and there were unconfirmed whispers of a defensive structure being built a few miles south of the border.
In my mind, I envisioned massive castle walls, but it was more likely to be six-to-eight-foot-tall wooden barricades, possibly with deep trenches in the ground. Either way, it was going to require some careful planning to navigate.
“I will send another set of scouts,” Vannesh decided. “Their mission will solely be to gain information on these barricades and Khorr’s numbers.”
“I agree,” King Mannie’s war advisor said. “We must know the specifics before we can build our best offense against them.”
We spent a bit longer identifying specific locations along the Haktorian Empire’s northern border.
There were some areas of the terrain that made it impossible to cross, regardless of enemy soldiers or fortifications.
About forty miles east of the western coast, there was a completely impassable mountain range.
King Mannie’s war advisor described it as having sheer cliff faces and crumbling landslides.
Much further to the east, a dangerous river flowed through the land, across the southernmost edge of the Plains of Duulg and into the Silver Coast. Apparently, it was nearly a mile wide, filled with treacherous rocks, and fast enough that no one ever dared to travel it by boat.
As much as we wanted to spread our collective armies across the entire border between the enemy and us, we respected Queen Sybil’s demands that we remain out of her country. We couldn’t afford to start a war on two fronts, and her pissy attitude was no reason to risk lives.
We picked ten locations across the Plains of Duulg, Nalatria, and Zall to set up base camps where armies could gather and train together while we continued planning what to do next.
“Sire,” Palchur murmured at my side.
“Mm?” I turned to him.
“Perhaps this would be a good time to introduce the new weapon,” he suggested. “The large device you and Eliath have been working on?”
I nodded. “Good idea.”
I stood up, walked forward a few paces, and waited for Mannie’s war advisor to finish what he was saying.
“King Kenneth?” He gestured for me to take over when he was done. “You have something to include?”
“Thank you…” I frowned slightly. “I’m sorry, I missed your name.”
“Mero, sire,” he said. “Mero Morco.”
“Thank you, Mero,” I said. “My head weapons designer and I have been working on a new device, and I believe it could be the exact thing we need for this situation.”
There was a collective response of interest, and more than a few leaders nodded for me to continue.
“It’s called a catapult,” I said. “It… well, basically, it throws a huge boulder a great distance.”
“Fascinating,” Doria said.
“Oooh.” King Mannie’s eyes went wide with curiosity. “How can you manage such a feat?”
“That does sound rather impressive,” King Horus agreed.
“Tell us more, will you?” Queen Doria asked.
“Of course.” I nodded and gestured for Anders to come over. “Will you get the model, please?”
“Certainly, sire.” Anders turned and jogged off toward my tent in a hurry.
“We prepared a small model to demonstrate,” I explained while we waited for him to return. “The actual weapon is much, much larger.”
The leaders chuckled at that, and Anders came jogging back over with a crate held carefully in his hands. The model was kind of delicate and had been packed carefully for the journey here.
“It’s a box?” Eriz asked with a curious but serious expression.
“No,” I laughed. “The model’s inside.”
I took the crate from Anders and placed it on the grass at my feet. The model catapult was a bit simpler than the final design, but it would give everyone a pretty good idea of what it was capable of at scale.
I pulled the model out of the crate and held it up for everyone to see.
“What a strange-looking device,” Eriz said. “May I?”
“Sure,” I said and handed him the model. “Actually, would you mind bringing it around to show everyone? Or they can come closer…”
“I’d be happy to bring it around,” Eriz said.
He started to walk toward the nearest set of thrones, and I launched into a simplified explanation of how the device worked.
I’d been surprised that catapults and trebuchets weren’t a thing in Kelshar, and when I’d pitched the idea to Eliath, he’d been astounded by the notion.
It had taken us about four hours of back and forth before he’d been able to figure out all the physics of how the device was meant to work.
It would have been easier if I’d understood how they actually worked instead of just what I knew they could do from movies and TV.
Prime Minister Eriz brought the model around for everyone to have a look, and then I answered what questions I could. Thankfully, most of their questions were about the results of the weapon’s use and not about how it actually functioned.
“Where do we get the stones?” Eriz asked as he brought the model back around to me.
“I actually don’t have an answer to that,” I said with an apologetic grimace. “We have some stones we could contribute. They’re leftovers from a recent bridge reconstruction project, but we only have maybe two dozen in Nalatria.”
“We can help with that,” King Mannie said. “Our western shores are very rocky terrain. It wouldn’t be difficult to mine and relocate them to the border.”
“Amazing,” I said with a smile.
“Does the model function?” King Horrus asked. “Can you demonstrate for us?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Um… I need a small stone, can someone–”
“Here!” Yori called as she hurried forward.
She placed a stone the size of a gumball in my hand and smiled.
“I thought you might need this.” She winked.
“Thank you.” I smiled adoringly at her.
I turned the crate over and set the model on the flat surface. I loaded the stone into the model’s bucket and cranked the device back.