Nessa, five proud knights, two servants and a tormented carriage driver made their way to the fortified encampment where the general Graube Muracier oversaw the northern battle line.
The place where the camp was built felt rather odd for Nessa. There must have been a reason related to the ongoing fight.
The tribes were a pretty annoying opponent for the Steelwood empire because they refused to clash against their armies properly. Since the thundering pass battle, they never fought head on again against Steelwood. They kept running around the battle lines with smaller groups to attack the villages behind or ambush reinforcements and patrols alike. They were clearly trying to bleed the armies of Steelwood slowly.
The best would have been to retaliate and attack their own villages and support but they didn't have any. The tribes were nomadic in majority and did their best to stay away from the troops while their warriors chased the lone soldiers around. The general had no choice but to stretch his troops everywhere and try to push the tribes out of the empire. Every time they thought they had them cornered and able to force a real battle on them, they'd scatter everywhere again.
With the troops running around everywhere all the time, this encampment must have ended up being the optimal place to command the armies for Graube somehow.
Nessa had followed the strategy classes along with Emp back in school so she partially understood why they chose this place to set up up their main camp. They had taken over a hill in a relatively central place and built many fortifications on and around it. Ideally they should have used some already built fortress as a base of operation but the tribes were very uninterested in them and kept steering far away from those unless they were certain to get an overwhelming victory somehow. In order to catch them, one had to focus on the space between all the fortifications instead.
They had dug trenches around the hill, buried wooden stakes, erected fences on the ground and built platforms in the trees to shoot arrows from. It was now a pretty decent place to defend but Nessa doubted that the tribes would ever attack this place directly. They'd do like for the rest of the stone fortresses and go around it.
The only way to truly stop the unceasing incursions would be to build a wall crossing the whole north of the kingdom but such an endeavor was clearly unfeasible. Instead, one had to be flexible and ready to intercept and strike back at all times. In a way, these fortifications were pointless, the encampment was too far away from the frontier to her liking as well. It felt like they gave up part of the northern forest to the invaders and she hated it.
"This general Graube better have a good reason for this." She muttered to herself.
A part of her mind told her that the man had obviously way more experience than her in wars and must be moving with the support of her father since their knights were there along with the soldiers but it still annoyed her. She spent a long time studying the ways of the battlefield and at a glance, it seemed that the man took the right solution but for the wrong problem.
Speaking of the knights, she was also rather upset by the amount of casualty sustained in their ranks. Because she knew most nobles in the northern grove, she was aware of how many were missing and had heard about many of their relatives and knights' deaths. The losses could be counted in the hundreds every year which was a truly catastrophic amount of nobles to loose.
Those weren't just normal soldiers, they were all fully fledged knights! They donned heavy armor, held magic weapons and had all been trained for most of their lives. They wielded magic and family techniques that would on their own make them superior to most of the soldiers in the army and yet, they died in droves. The strength of the northern grove was getting drained and she wanted an explanation for it.
She shouldn't get ahead of herself though, she hadn't even met the general yet so judging his actions from just seeing a camp was way too hasty and unfair. Even if she was dissatisfied with the current situation, she needed to wait and meet him before making up her mind about this whole affair. At least from what she saw, the soldiers here didn't seem to loath the way things were going.
After they managed to get through the security at the gates of the camp, her small group was guided to the pavilion tent used as the headquarters.
"General, lady Hasting is here to meet you." The soldier guiding them announced after pushing the flaps open for them.
Everything went silent inside as she stepped inside alone. Her five knights and servants would wait for her outside because she didn't have the rank to bring all of them into the headquarters. She wasn't the duchess yet and had no military rank at all, she could only impose herself for now. They only gave her a brief word of encouragement and saw her off with bow.
The flap fell back in place behind her as she took a look inside. The many men in the tent were unsure about how to react to her presence.
She just came here unannounced so it might be some important news but she was also the daughter of the local duke so having her relay messages was a bit strange. What's more, she was wearing armor. Was she just there on a whim? Was it not important after all?
Nessa took a quick look around the room before speaking just to see what she had to face now. The room was well lit thanks to the roof being pulled wide open for the sun but the smell of sweat still hung in the air as the tent retained the eat of everyone present. A large table stood in the center and was surrounded by sturdy chairs possibly brought from some nearby fortress by wagon. Documents and maps where strewn about the table and a bunch of small wooden figures were thrown everywhere on them to represent the various troops and tribes. At a glance, nothing major was currently happening, all the figures where pretty distanced from each others.
As for the people present, there were about twenty high ranked officers here. There were four generals including Graube, all recognizable by their highly decorated armors, some wallmasters and a good amount of lords who she recognized by face. Having been raised in the northern grove, there was nothing easier for her than to recognize the important people of her territory. Most of them were sons of important counts and marquess but there were also three holders of real titles here. In the past, her older brothers would have stood here too but they were all dead now.
The most important person in this place was of course Graube Muracier who was in charge of all the armies here to defend her territory, the kingdom and the empire. He had a brow raised in question, but she could hardly see his eyes because there were too much brown hair in the way.
He was the third man she ever met with brown hair, the first two being Kenneth and Emp but this one didn't seem as friendly as the other two.
Aside from that, he was the tallest man here and his armor was so bulky he seemed to be twice as muscular as anyone else in the room. She believed he would be rather good looking if he stopped being so condescending, not that she'd ever be interested in a man of his age.
"Hi, good evening." Graube and her both said at the same time.
Right away, the two glared at each other, both offended by the greeting. It was customary for the most highly ranked noble to speak first in almost any circumstance. The rare exceptions were for soldiers to greet their superiors and maybe people at a feast uniting to greet the guest of honor loudly as they came in.
In this case, she was clearly the one with the highest rank, how could he dare try to speak first! Wasn't he too full of himself? He might be a Muracier but he wasn't the great general, he was just one of many generals and this was her territory... Well, it was her father's territory but this was all the same in the end.
A general had a similar but slightly inferior rank to that of a duke and Graube being the general in charge of everything here, he currently held a similar position than many prominent dukes. However, her father wasn't just a duke, he was somewhat like a margrave as well because it wasn't a title officially awarded in Artefine. The two titles combined made him superior to what the general currently was.
This power might not directly apply to herself but she wasn't just the daughter of the current duke, she was also the future duchess herself and the only current wielder of the royal sword dance! They were in her home territory too so she should be shown respect.
The staring contest kept going for a long moment, both of them were much too proud to give in to the other. A few of the men present cleared their throats to tell the two to move on discreetly but they were all ignored. They were sorely underestimating the importance of this battle. There were too many important people for both parties for them to give in that easily.
If the general Graube was to give up now, it would hurt his campaign to become the next great general as people would see him as someone who conceded to local lords easily. On the other hand, if Nessa was to stand down now, it would tell everyone that she had no real power in her own territory or even that she didn't really feel like enforcing her authority which was much worse. It would make her look weak and being weak invited all sorts of people trying to try to take advantage. She didn't need that now or ever.
Even though this situation was extremely frustrating for her, it gave her one bit of vital information. Graube didn't act like his uncle the old man Aminui at all. The old man would have spoken first no matter what since he had the highest possible position except for the emperor himself but he wouldn't have been offended either if she had tried to speak first. He was the sort to let go easily if it had nothing to do with military affairs. She had seen him being very lenient with the students at the school more than once and she could respect that.
The general wasn't like that at all, clearly. He didn't intend to budge at all but neither did she. How were they going to end this stalemate though? The general must have realized she wouldn't give up on this either. Ideally, at this point, they should try to come to a reasonable middle ground that wouldn't hurt either of their reputat...
"Fine, I'll allow you to speak first." The general Graube said, interrupting her thoughts.
Nessa felt her blood boil at the words. He dared!
Not only did he speak first and in such a way that he placed himself clearly above her, he trapped her between a rock and a hard place. If she argued against this right away, she'd be seen as a spoiled girl and if she just went along with it instead it would seem like she accepted being under him. Her first impression of him was already really bad but now it was just abysmal. All she wanted was to get back at him somehow, counterattack and make him regret. She was so angry.
"It is not your place to allow me anything general. You've been here for years and accomplished nothing at all, my lands are still teeming with angered tribesmen. With performances like these, there is no way you will ever get the title of great general in place of your nephew. My family's been wondering for a while now why we have to put up with an incompetent like you instead of the great general himself. He should be the one overseeing this war. Obviously, you are not up for the task. As if I'd ever let someone of your mediocre talent ever speak before me, know your place. We can talk about this again once you achieve anything at all."
There, she said it.
How dare he make himself to be superior when he couldn't even drive off a bunch of barbarians with numbers over ten times theirs. What she said was surely what everyone was thinking.
Now it was his turn to get angry. His eyes turned cold and his voice rose menacingly.
"Young lady, who do you think you are to badmouth me like this in public? Do not try my patience, you're just the daughter of a duke while I'm a respected general and a true blooded Muracier. I will overlook this attack on my character this time around because I'm a forgiving man but it won't happen again. There will be no next time, is that understood?"
Of course, his answer just displeased her further.
"I think there is something you misunderstand general. You do not have enough power to make threats towards me. You're just from a side branch, you're not the heir of the Muracier house and hold no territory, your name is weightless as long as I know other actual Muraciers like lord Aminui. What's more, many of the officers here answer to my father first before you. My father being old doesn't mean you have the right to ignore him and mock his daughter in front of those managing his lands.
I came here with the intention of being polite and understanding of your lack of progress but you've done nothing else than try to antagonize me since I stepped in here. Did you really think I would cower and apologize in front of your rude behavior just because you can wave some undeserved power around?
In that case, let me make threats of my own.
I'm offended by how many proud knights of our house died in this conflict with half naked savages. This should have been over long ago already and my people have suffered enough while you're camping here living off the bounty of our northern grove. Who do you take my Hasting family for exactly? I have more than half a mind to pull back all the knights we've been graciously lending you and to send a letter back to Thronewoods asking to give commands to someone else that would know what they're doing instead."
"Lady Hasting! You can't pull back the knights! It would be a grave offence against our Steelwood empire." One of the other noble suddenly interjected.
The general also seemed to think so and was ready to laugh in the face of what he believed to be hollow threats. Pulling away troops in the middle of a war was just ridiculous after all, more so since she didn't have the authority of her father, much less of the king of Artefine.
"It would be a grave offence indeed if the great general was here but he's not. He has not come here for more than a decade. Since the great general doesn't seem to think that this stretched war deserves his attention, why are our knights dying pointlessly? There are so many soldiers in the duchy, they don't need our knights as well.
This is my territory and those are my knights, I can assign them wherever I want. They'd be better used defending the important points in our territory instead of running around to the whims of the general. As long as the empire refuses to take our problem seriously, the knights of house Hasting shouldn't be dying for the imperial army."
Graube shook his head in an mockingly appalled way. He still didn't take her seriously at all.
"Do not pretend like you understand the details of this war, you never been here before. The men here all know what we went through to get here, do not look down on the work and sacrifices we've all put into this."
Nessa almost spat out her reply in disgust.
"Do not speak of sacrifices to me, my family lost more than anyone here to the tribes. You're overwhelming them in numbers and yet they keep slipping through to murder family, friends and servants. I do not understand what is happening here yet but this is clearly not right. How can we have tens of thousands of trained soldiers and knights and still be unable to defeat a bunch of cursed-bloods? Worse, how come we're experiencing so many losses?"
Another noble stepped in again to explain things to her. That one seemed to be in a hurry to appease her. Either he had something to be guilty about or he was siding with her in her argument with her father. She'd keep an eye on him.
"My lady, you're misunderstanding. We're not just dealing with weak savages. Each of them are strong warriors on their own, much stronger than a simple lowborn equipped with a sword or a spear. More importantly, they're quick to disappear and retreat and almost always strike in the dead of night where their superior senses are at an advantage. They're far from being an easy bunch to deal with."
She turned her eyes to him and gave him a hard stare.
"But we've fought them in the past too! They didn't just appear twenty years ago, they've always been there! How come we could deal with them properly then but we can't now?
Surely this shouldn't be the case. Can't you here the false note in the music? There's clearly something I missed, something that's not working as it should. That's what I came here to find out. I want answers about the current poor state of our territory and I want to do something about it. I'll go push them out of my lands myself if I have to. The northern grove is suffering and this is more than time for us to remedy the situation."
The man ended up looking away from her to dodge her judging eyes. She snorted and spoke some more to everyone present.
"I'm not trying to hide my ambition here, I fully intend to inherit the duchy from my father and I'd like to get more than ruins once I do. Those lands are mine and I can't accept cursed-bloods and soldiers sucking out our riches, cutting down our ancestors and letting all our people die in this ridiculous war of yours! My knights are dying one after another and there are no results to show for it whatsoever! They're dying in vain!"
She turned her annoyance at the other nobles here. Most were vassals of house Hasting so they had to understand her point.
"Can none of you see that? How many knights have you all lost in this? What did it gain us until now?
Your main camp is all the way here on a lone hill while it should be miles further north! I'm not just a small and idiotic girl, it's obvious our duchy can't sustain this whole operation for much longer. If we keep the current pace, I'll die of old age before we're done and I'll only have a third of my lands left.
We don't have infinite game here for the army and the tribes to feast on either! Since Greenpeaks is in that state, where are they all taking their supplies from? They've all been leeching on our resources this whole time haven't they? This mess has been going on for as long as I've been alive, twenty years to fight off the tribes is too long! Someone has to do something, don't you see how ridiculous this all is?"
Everyone else turned their eyes away, unwilling to meet hers head on. Of course they all knew how catastrophic this all seemed. A war going on for so long was just impossible and yet here they all were. How could they face the daughter of their lord while she was smearing such a monumental failure on their faces?
Graube let out an annoyed sigh and tried to wave her out with his hand and a fed up tone.
"It has never been a real war though, if it had been, it would have been over the first year. Those are just continuous skirmishes and that's why it looks like a war without progress from an outside perspective. You're blowing the situation out of proportion and we don't really have the time to waste on a girl that believes that she knows best.
We're not here to argue with you, we're working, go find your entertainment elsewhere. Your words have no weight, you have no power here. This isn't a noble party here, this is a battlefield and you have no place here, leave us be. Someone see her out."
Hearing the order, two soldiers close to the entrance came up to her in order to bring her out but with a step and a twirl, she sent both of them crawling over the floor.
This might be seen as an attack but she really didn't feel like having those guys put their hands on her. She did it more by reflex than anything because of how frustrated she was to be taken with so little serious. She should probably just have left to try to find her answers elsewhere. Now that it was done though, she had no other choice than to go along with her own mistake.
While everyone was still at a loss about what just happened, she looked back up towards Graube.
"You are wrong, the northern grove is truly my dance floor and I assure you, I can dance very well."
The man made some sort of angered growl.
"This is not a dance, people die here. You're going too far. You don't know what you're talking about and you're really getting on my nerves now."
Oh was she? He had been getting on her nerves for a while already though. She was under the impression that he had been doing everything in his power to anger her. It was just natural that she would do the same. She could not afford to yield to this sort of overbearing person. Sometimes, it couldn't be helped, some people just weren't able to see each other eye to eye. They were fundamentally not dancing on the same tune. Nothing could be done about it.
She held up his gaze without wavering, she was not afraid of him even though she was convinced he could defeat her in battle. She did not think that there was anything he could really do against her here. His threats were just as empty as what he believed hers to be. As long as he hadn't become the great general yet, there was just nothing he could do about her except forbid her to meddle with his military campaign.
At this point though she would much rather have the young lord she didn't know become the next great general instead of him. If everything went well, he'd never get the power to actually bother her. All he could really do now and hopefully forever was to provoke her.
"I've killed before." She told him in answer. "I do know what I'm talking about and I'm not afraid to show it. I'm not a silly girl here just on a whim general, I'm here to fight, avenge my siblings and help 'my' people. I've trained for years just for this. You do not have the power to expel me from my own land and you will have to explain the many losses in the ranks of our knights at some point whether you want it or not."
She didn't say it aloud because she would have been getting ahead of herself but she fully intended to impede his plans on becoming the next great general. If she got hold of the title of duchess, she'd use all her power to convince the king of Artefine of how poor of a job Graube was doing and he'd get no support at all in his bid to become great general from the whole kingdom of Artefine.
The old duke of the eastern grove would obviously side for her as it was a secret to no one that he hated the general too. The southern grove would take her side too on account that Zoran would be the next southern duke and he was easy to push around. Only duke Noirantel might oppose her on this but at three against one, she had all the chances on her side. The king would ask the emperor directly to replace the general in charge of the place and not only would they be rid of this annoyance but it would strongly tarnish his reputation.
She couldn't say anything aloud yet but the threat to him was very real. If he didn't put an end to this farce of a war soon, he'd loose the support of one whole fifth of the empire in one fell swoop. If the situation in Greenpeaks was solved by his rival as well, he'd have two kingdom out of five turn hostile against him and he'd have to turn the three last to his side without any mistakes or he'd loose it all.
However, one could say that the opposite was also true. If he became the next great general first before she became the duchess, she would be the one in deep trouble but this was unlikely to happen. She was determined to become duchess and the nomination of the next great general shouldn't happen anytime soon.
Only once a new emperor ascended to the throne would a new great general be appointed and the current emperor had still plenty of life in him. He was likely to prolong his reign until a clear victor was set between Graube and the direct heir. Her own father was already old on the other hand, the duchy wouldn't be in his hands for much longer, she would certainly be the one to make her move first between the two of them.
She gave Graube a fierce and menacing smile. Today he had made a grave mistake, antagonizing her for no reason would come back to haunt him later. She promised him that with her eyes. He should have been respectful.
Graube answered with a mocking grin of his own.
"You really want to fight them for yourself I see. You won't understand our difficulties until you face them yourself I guess. In that case, go ahead. Take the Hasting knights with you, try it and we'll see if you can still hold that sort of speech afterwards. I do hope your inexperience won't get you killed. I believe that if you're lucky you'll find nothing at all and if you're not then you'll loose more knights than we did before and all of your dignity."
For him, it was a sort of vicious counterattack. Her best guess was that he wanted to send her up ahead by herself to die along with her threats. Even if she didn't die, she would loose all her chances of becoming the next duchess of the northern grove.
For her however, this was both a challenge and an opportunity. She would ridicule him by doing better than he ever could, rake in achievements for her own campaign and help her territory all at once. She'd have him swallow back his words with an extra serving of shame. She could already taste the perfect drink to go along with the scene. She'd just sit there with a smug air while drinking sweet tea as he tasted bitter defeat.
"Perfect, just give me back my knights and let me clean my lands of those barbarians."
The general was doing a scary smile as if she fell for his trap but really, he was just digging his own grave. A dark smile of her own crept up her face and the rest of the people present all shivered at this exchange.