Enlightened Empire

Chapter 347: Unexpected Enemies

Smoke rose from the cup, and into Corco’s nose. He had always liked the aroma of coffee far more than the taste. Today, he needed both. As he sipped his liquid breakfast, he watched his troops get into formation on the plaza in front of Rapra Castle.

Just like he had promised, Corco left Saniya the morning after his meeting with Mayu. To design a proper plan of operations, he had spent the previous night with his staff. However, all their discussions hadn’t changed much about his initial assessment.

As the most immediate problem, they had to confront the Arcavians in the east first. That had been the case before, but even more now that the lords had sent Mayu to put pressure on him. Luckily, they had already expected that they would need to move out eventually, so Fadelio had readied several squads of Saniya’s army to move out before Corco’s ship had even arrived.

Although he had sacrificed sleep to finish up the preparations, he also needed to send out the troops himself, just like he had promised. For one, he needed to show some leadership to counteract whatever Mayu had been plotting.

In Medala, showing military strength was often enough to get the lords back on your side. Since Corco didn’t expect a hard fight against the outnumbered and under-supplied Arcavians, it was a good chance to put his foot down and remind the lords that he wasn’t playing around.

On the other hand, the decision to lead the troops himself was also down to a lack of military staff qualified to do the job for him. Dedrick had already left Medala around a month ago, and he had taken some of Corco’s best officers with him. Normally, there would have been enough generals left to replace him, but they were all needed elsewhere.

Paec was still left in Rasacopa to defend the palace from any sneaky tricks the captains or other Colored Kings may try during Corco’s and Sumaci’s absence. There were other generals of course, but they also needed to defend Qarasi Castle in the Narrows, as well as the entire north coast of Sachay in case House Ichilia launched their sea invasion early.

Among all the jobs that required military commanders, dealing with the Arcavians in the east seemed like the easiest and most straightforward. After all, the invaders only had a thousand soldiers with them. Even if Corco accounted for incomplete information, they couldn’t expect any more than two thousand.

While Mayu had implied that more reinforcements could be coming to strengthen the Arcavians, Corco knew better. He had put spies into Port Ulta long ago. Several days ago – when the army that was now raiding the east of his kingdom had left Port Ulta – his people had already sent the information to Saniya.

Back then, they had thought that the army was moving either south to attack Rufalasta, or north towards the Anticasa Mountain Pass. Both places had been warned in advance to stay on alert, but both had become very well defended over the past few years.

Unlike the midland hills, which were very tough to cross – especially during winter – those two places were considered the front line against arcavian invaders. As a result, both had strengthened a lot over the years, certainly enough so they wouldn’t have to worry about a thousand soldiers attacking them. While the goal of the arcavian attack had come as a surprise, they knew pretty much exactly about their numbers, and about their poor supplies.

Even if they wanted to bring reinforcements, their ultimate numbers would be pretty limited. The midlands of Sachay were not exactly bountiful, even less so in winter. Fighting a tired and outnumbered enemy army during winter and on home terrain seemed like a fight almost impossible to lose, which made it the perfect target for Corco’s strongman propaganda.

Of course, with Mayu’s challenge to Rapra Castle’s authority, his presence was also important in Saniya to ensure stability. Luckily, Sumaci had come back with him this time. As queen and member of the ruling class, she could represent him much better in front of the lords than Fadelio. While Corco drove back the Arcavians, she would keep the lords in check and make sure they wouldn’t do anything stupid.

By the time the king had drunk his coffee, the army had assembled. All in all, he would bring six thousand men with him, more than enough to deal with whatever would come his way. Even if Mayu were to try something inexcusable and assemble an army of lords to intercept him halfway, it wouldn’t change anything. With these numbers, he was confident that he could at least defend and retreat safely, even against a massive army composed of most lords in the south.

Without any fear, he led his troops through the streets of Saniya, in open view of all the citizens, and then out of the city. If everything went right, he would soon return in the same way, with his head held high and celebrating a great victory under the adoration of the crowd.

Even out in the countryside, the new highways were smooth and wide. They were designed exactly for this kind of operation, so the troops moved fast. Of course, it helped that the men were fresh.

Despite the recent snow fall, the highways had been kept clean by government employed crews. Now, all the money he had invested in infrastructure was paying dividends. With fresh legs and light baggage, it took the army less than a day to reach the edge of the Chawir Marshes. Up to this point, their entire travels had been as smooth as the roads, but of course that had to come to an eventual end. By the time they were ready to cross the border and enter the Utusku territory, Corco’s forward scouts returned with new reports.

As he watched the runners close in, the king lamented their inefficiency. For now, he had to use cultivators in these scouting roles. Using precious and rare cultivators for these positions seemed like a waste, but he didn’t have a choice. No one else had the speed and endurance to keep ahead of his incredibly fast and efficient armies.

However, he expected that to change soon. Once they bought or bred enough camels, they could finally replace the scouts and create the first proper cavalry unit in this part of the world. For now however, the scouts were still doing their jobs well enough.

“King, there are activities up ahead at the embankment,” the scout reported. “It looks like an army is working on it.”

As soon as he heard the news, Corco ordered double speed on their march. They had already been fast before, but now they were flying. Of course, he had good reason for his haste.

There was more to building roads than simply putting down the asphalt. Most of the work lay in finding a proper route and then flattening it for the road that was about to be put there. Seasonal changes had to be considered as well. Some areas would flood during rainy seasons, so they had to avoid those, or do some extra work where that wasn’t possible.

This was especially complicated in Yakuallpa, a land where water was everywhere. For example, the area between the Chawir Marshes and Utusku was marked by a meandering tributary of the Mayura River. Rather than take a long detour or cross the river several times to get to Utusku’s capital, they had decided to stay north of it during road construction.

However, for that, they had been forced to straighten the river and guide it slightly south. They also built embankments along its side to make sure its new form wouldn’t change back again and wash away their new highway.

The embankment had finished only a year or so earlier, and no further work was planned on it. Whoever was working on it wasn’t doing so on Corco’s orders, and had probably sinister intentions.

As expected, when the river came into sight, the issues were immediately obvious from a distance. The people standing on the embankment were carrying weapons, so they certainly weren’t normal workers, and they weren’t repairing the earth either. They were trying to destroy it.

With pickaxes and shovels, they hacked away at the ground to soften it and break the embankment that held back the water. If the river was released now, it would swallow the road and put a stop to his army’s advance. Attacking the embankment was a strategic move by an enemy army.

Although his men were exhausted from a long march, Corco didn’t have a choice. Without hesitation, he ordered a charge before the enemies became aware of their presence and organized a defense or a retreat. Despite their tired legs, a thousand men in the front of Corco’s army put down their backpacks and set up for a frontal attack.

Luckily, their enemies were even less prepared for a fight than his own men. They didn’t notice a thing until Corco’s soldiers had crossed half the distance and began to run for the final stretch. By that time, it was far too late for the enemies to pick up weapons and get into formation. Chaos broke out within their ranks long before the two armies collided.

Some dropped their tools where they stood, while others carried them along with them. Some picked up the weapons and supplies they had left lying around atop the embankment, some left them were they were. The only thing they all had in common was that they were trying to run, though there was no unity over their course.

Like a swarm of excited pigeons, they shot off in every direction. A small number of them took the shortest route of escape, straight towards the river. Some were dumb enough to swim across. Even if they were trained warriors, Corco knew that they wouldn’t get far. Not in winter, not with those water temperatures.

A few smarter ones ran to the boats on the shore instead, which was probably how they had made it across the river in the first place. However, with their panic and lack of coordination, most wouldn’t get away before they were caught by the onrushing Saniya army.

Some other soldiers were clever enough to flee north, across the road and further into the wilderness. While they would be surrounded by snow any ice up there, at least they wouldn’t freeze to death straight away, unlike those who had picked the river. What’s more, in the wilderness, they would be almost impossible to track down once they were scattered.

As a result, Corco decided that he wouldn’t pursue them. It would take too much time and energy anyways. Instead, he set his sights on the largest group. Most of the fleeing soldiers had rushed upstream along the road. They were the only ones who weren’t blindly rushing into some horrible circumstances. So if any of these groups could still regroup and circle back to pose any danger to them, it would be this one.

Thus, he ordered another squad to pursue along the road and scout out the area ahead. This way, they were safe from eventualities and would hopefully catch a good number more prisoners as well. While they would never be able to catch all, or even a fraction, of the fleeing enemies, any increase in captives would help Corco find out more about their enemies and their plans.

While the pursuit was still going on, the rest of the army set up camp at the embankment. Not only was it time to rest for the day, they also needed to prevent any more attempts at diverting the river. As he waited for his scattered soldiers to return, Corco inspected the leftovers of the enemy operation.

By now it had become blatantly obvious that they had been trying to break the embankment, possibly to slow the advance of Corco’s army. However, there was an even scarier possibility: They may have planned to only damage the dam, disguise their work, and then take out the rest by the time Saniya’s army came past here. Maybe the ideal result for them would have been a drowned and frozen army, with Corco among the corpses.

This was a well-prepared attack. Whoever had planned it was well-versed in the geography of the region. They had picked this place because the embankment sat at the halfway point between two of Corco’s beacon towers, and couldn’t be seen from either. They had even avoided the roads and approached from the water to make sure they wouldn’t be discovered early.

At the same time, knowing how breaking the embankment would change the course of the river meant that they knew about the position of its old river bed. Worst of all, they seemed to know exactly when to expect Corco’s army, as if someone had sent news as soon he had left Saniya this morning. A fast runner would have been able to stay ahead of Corco’s army and relay the message just in time for the enemy to start work here before they arrived.

The only reason they didn’t get caught in a trap was that their enemies had severely underestimated their movement speed across the new roads. Whoever had launched the attack, it was someone with intimate knowledge of Sachay, and possibly someone with connections in Saniya.

As his soldiers brought back the first prisoners, Corco’s worst suspicions were confirmed. Although they didn’t wear any house colors or show any sigils on their clothes, they didn’t have the light skin color of Arcavians. Instead, they had the bronze skin and dark hair of the Yaku. Before he had asked his prisoners a single question, the most important one had already been answered: Corco had been attacked by his own people.