The fighting was now sliding into its fourth week. The war of the Reideland. Korazin's 60,000 fighting men and women, headed by the 30,000 or so Kaffrarian Knights, were up against three nations, amounting to a staggering 200,000 men. The war had tolled five battles so far, namely the Battle of Alcan River, the Battle of Actian, the Battle of the Sugarcane or the Battle of Amnon Crater, the Second Battle of Actian, and the Battle of the Blood River.
When K'rar had arrived in the Reideland District four weeks ago, the invaders had been waiting for him, not sitting on their laurels. They had tried to fool him into thinking they would only defend Actian, and had almost been successful. But Tanny's spyglass had worked wonders. Before K'rar's armies walked into an ambush that would have decimated them, K'rar himself stood on a high crag at the border of the Reideland with Aroer District, and looked through his spyglass at the expanse of the cherished Reideland District. He had thus spotted sections of Rabian armies trying to conceal themselves in on either side of the road K'rar was going to use, and smiled to himself before inviting Bartle Frere to also look through his own spyglass. The reason for his smile had been because the Goldorans were using Rabier's men in the vanguard of the war, not because he was happy at being lucky. No, in fact, K'rar had already sent ahead expert reconnaissance troops, almost two weeks prior to their arrival, and they had reported the queer amassment of invading armies outside Actian. So K'rar had simply prepared to ambush the ambushers, and he had now merely pinpointed the exact location of the aggressors. Then he had sent Daena Milshkin's Artillery, in groups of less than fifty, to station themselves behind the ambushers. When K'rar's larger force came to within meters of the low-lying Alcan River road (most of the Reideland was low altitude), it had suddenly stopped. The Alcan River was a seasonal river that would inundate the road in the wetter seasons. It had been dry four weeks ago, but when Daena's gunners had opened fire, the road was covered in blood. This was the battle of Alcan, or the battle of the Disappearing River. The Kaffrarian Knights had drawn first blood. The ambushers, at low altitude, were sitting ducks. The Battle of Alcan River had been catastrophic for the invaders. Rabier had lost almost its entire army in the blink of an eye. K'rar would not have allowed it, but he let some remnants return to Actian so as to report the disaster to the Goldoran supreme commanders. He had wanted them to know that they had stamped their great feet in a wasps' nest.
The march would still go on for just over a week before Actian came into sight, as they had to cross the entire district. K'rar's native armies, headed by Ahn Emis, had barely kept up with the lightning fast advance. Yet, K'rar's plan for Actian was planned for immediate execution upon arrival. As he had intended, the Goldorans had become weary and afraid after receiving only a handful of scared Rabian fighters back from the ambush. As with Chaldea, K'rar had not wanted to smash through the walls of Actian, so his plan excluded any guns. His 41 bullguns were all at the ready, and he could have used them, but Actian was his own city. He had planned on inciting the Goldorans to open the gates themselves, by falling for a trap that involved them coming out of the city's east gate to fight. The battle plan was not complicated. Ahn Emis' men were to launch a series of pretense attacks on the east gate on the same day, and throughout the night, to confuse the invaders as to which attack would be the real one. This had been meant to draw the Goldorans out of the gate, whereupon Ahn Emis' men would make a run for it, and allow the knights, led by Bekka's Cavalry deputy, to attack the chasing pack. But Ahn Emis' men had suddenly become mutinous, and had altered the plan after the third launch, complaining about being used as baits. Instead of running back, they had engaged the invaders with their angry and tired muscles, and had been massacred in front of Actian. The rebellion had even allowed the Goldorans to spot the oncoming Kaffrarians, who by now were an object of fear, and race back into the walls. The battle of Actian had been lost. But the Goldorans had also been treated to a scary sight. An angry Shaniz Santillan, who had led the knights' advance, had passed the sentence of the mutineers on the spot, and had executed all that was left of them right before the Goldorans' eyes. The Goldorans had watched the army turn against themselves. But they had also escaped the plan, which they knew would have completely wasted them.
The impasse had then gone on for three days during which both armies did not engage, but kept sending each other threats. The Goldorans within the wall would not for their life dare come out, but they also knew that K'rar would not shell the city's walls. K'rar, indeed, continued his refusal to shell Actian with explosives. Using the attrition, he concentrated on fighting his indirect warfare, the Net System. Bekka and Sorcatan had completely wasted the Kayans in the north, and while Sorcatan and the armada patrolled and owned the seas, Bekka had been given two main orders, one each from K'rar and her cousin, to return to Chaldea to assist Pliny in feeding the Chaldeans, using part of K'rar's secret fund, and also to keep an eye on Women's Pavilion business. The latter was Shaniz's order or request.
But K'rar also had to close off Goldora's land routes. For this he had assigned General Romiel and Mongoose. Their job was not only to rout war supplies headed for the Reideland, but also to completely frustrate the border between Goldora and its western neighbors. In the first week of their assignment, Romiel's Hornets had managed to rout a convoy of Reideland spoils headed for Goldora, including the district's main products of ore and sugarcane. They had diverted the tributes back across the Korazin-Goldora border, and sent them to Tirzah. This banditry was meant to continue for a long time, even after the war, until Goldora was brought to its knees, economically. Sorcatan was also terrorizing the southern sea, sinking any Goldoran merchant ships after pillaging them. But he did not assault non-Goldoran ships, and only had them turn back. Thankfully, none of them dared to defy him, so he hadn't had to sink them. Throughout all this, however, K'rar left Tyrne alone, in spite of its susceptibility to destruction.
The third battle, the battle of the Amnon Crater or the battle of the Sugarcane, had broken out on the fourth day after the ceasefire. The turning point in the war. The Amnon Crater or valley was the swampy area covered almost entirely in farmland, mainly sugarcane plantations. This battle targeted the private armies of the businessman Gal Ilan. They were in charge of the business end of things, including watching over the farmlands, supervising the work taking place there, and protecting the harvest being carted back to Actian. They were also in charge of the other holdings that dealt in the Reideland's main goods. The deep, serpent infested swamps between them and any of K'rar's military encouraged them. To get to the farmlands, K'rar's army would have to cross very wet areas, including a tiny, but strategic, lake somewhere north of Actian. Gal Ilan only had to keep watch on the scarce dry patches of land, which was easy. Besides, K'rar was busy with the Goldorans and the Ockish in pushing and shoving. But Gal Ilan either knew nothing of the Kaffrarians or underestimated them. K'rar, who hadn't employed the Nephilim to this point, decided to do so. He sent Asthenes through the swamp in the cover of darkness, and the giant, with half of his fellows, flattened five way stations and camps, killing more than 200 men in the process. In the meantime K'rar himself had led a thousand knights and the rest of the Nephilim through the paths that the first Nephilim team had created, and then lay in wait until daybreak when men would be sent out of the small gate to investigate the situation. There were only private armies on this side of Actian, and K'rar had completely smothered their presence outside the city's walls. But he had still been kept out of Actian successfully, even with the Nephilim. However, he had now cut off much of the larger part of the farmlands from the city, and undermined the main objective of the invaders cobbled up inside Actian. K'rar kept the Nephilim along with 2,500 knights there, with the objective to keep to keep them inside the city. Then K'rar had changed the outlook of the war, by besieging the city. He had stationed battalions of knights around the city and cut it off from the rest of the world.
K'rar's plan for the Second Battle of Actian had been drawn overnight, and involved discarding the whole original plan. This was because two nights before the scheduled attack, K'rar had received word from Mongoose that Gal Ilan's father, Kahl, had been found. It was then that K'rar had learned of the feud between father and son, and the son's traitorous actions. K'rar had then summoned General Ahn Emis privately, and offered him a drink. Ahn Emis had not been allowed on the planning table for all the operations following his men's disobedience, and the native forces had not gone on any operations since, although all those Shaniz had not slaughtered had not been part of the mutiny.
'You understand, you must be held responsible for your men's actions although they are dead now,' K'rar had said.
'I shall take any and all punishment,' was the reply.
'How can you be that eager? You know that the rules of the Kaffrarian Knights are the ones applicable here, don't you?' K'rar had asked.
'They are not much different from the existing rules, though they may be harsher. But if that is what it takes to get the men in line, it must be done, my lord.'
'What does it take? What is the rule regarding your situation?'
Ahn Emis had said nothing in reply, and had just watched the young man's face in pedantic expectation. But K'rar smiled, and said,
'Your drink is about to go stale.'
'May I ask why you summoned me, sire?'
'Your punishment is treason.'
'Beg your pardon, sire?'
'I need you to commit treason.'
'I do not follow.'
'Make contact with the Goldorans, and give them our plans.'
'My lord, what are you planning? What is going on?'
'I have locked them up inside the city. They will need to come out and fight eventually. But even with their numbers, it's been four days.' The invaders had more than a hundred thousand men, but by then, they could no longer hide the truth about the Kaffrarian Knights. The Goldorans had diluted the truth about what had taken place in Moon Province, but they could not hide what had happened to Kai in the Azlan Sea, and to Rabier earlier in this war. The Kaffrarian Knights took very little or no casualties from each of these battles. They were an object of fear, and their most feared division was the artillery. However, they knew of K'rar's policy to not shell Actian with chemar explosives, as well as his reasons. So they had decided to remain on the defensive. But K'rar had now removed their best reason for doing so, that is, the Reideland's rich resources even though they could not ship them back to Goldora due to the Net System, which those in Actian knew nothing about. K'rar added, 'they have no reason to stay inside now. I am cutting off supplies, and I'm cutting off the farmlands they wanted in the first place. They cannot keep hundreds of thousands of men inside for very long. Besides, my people are suffering with them.'
'And you would like me to plot treason?'
'Yes.'
'Why would they believe me?'
'The Goldorans have benefitted from treasonous natives for years now, the latest being Lord Gal Ilan. If someone like you approaches them, they will believe you. Your men were killed right before their eyes, so if you approach them and say you'll switch sides and give them valuable information, they will believe you.'
Ahn Emis had not been very excited. But he had said,
'But if I feed them false information…'
'No, you are to tell them the truth. That way, we can destroy them.'
'But all of this is helpful for us, Your Majesty. You said I will be serving punishment.'
'The tail end of the plan involves you being physically present in their ranks. You will give them only one piece of false information, and they will turn on you. Now, we will come to rescue you, but you must prepare to die there if we fail. This is your punishment.'
'My lord…'
'I trust that you are perfectly capable of making your rescue easy. You do not actually plan on dying, do you?'
The old General shook his head.
'Good. You set out tonight. Tell them where our camps north of the wall are. Tell them we will be switching the brigades watching the swamps, and that they can attack then and take back the farmlands.'
The plan had worked. K'rar had actually shifted two centuries, and had engaged the Goldorans in a skirmish in the swamps, which for him was a pretense. But he had allowed them to take back chunks of farmland from him. K'rar knew that they would deploy thousands of men in the farmlands this time if they wanted to keep them, especially after K'rar had almost starved them. Over the next week, Ahn Emis had continued to feed them information, until the time came for K'rar to employ his ruse. Ahn Emis, believing it himself, reported a severe infectious disease among Korazin's camps that rendered many of them incapable of fighting. To prove this, K'rar had moved his main camp from the front of Actian's main gate, the west gate, and pulled them back a mile where they were not visible. The Goldorans had instantly equipped a 130,000-strong force to attack the camp. By this time there was more reason to finish off the stubborn Kaffrarians, as the Net System was beginning to take its toll. Back in Goldora, Tao was facing a volatile situation. For a couple of weeks there had been no ships, no supplies and no goods arriving in Goldora. The kingdom's three main ports, including Tyrne, had been out of work. Ships that had set sail had been reported missing, and ships due to arrive had not. However, non-Goldora ships that had happened to be in the ports had set sail and returned safely without their merchandize. It was from these that Tao and his armies first learned that Korazin was actively blockading Goldora.
The Second Battle of Actian had thus broken out. With more than half of the invading forces outside Actian, K'rar could use the full might of his army. Once more, Daena Milshkin's gunners came in handy. They had been excited to use all 41 bullguns against the Goldorans. All they had had to do was position themselves and their guns behind the invaders when the invaders marched out of Actian. The Nephilim had also been employed once more, with the support of 3,000 men that had already been hidden very close to city, knowing that the Goldorans would focus on the fleeing force. While Daena's guns devastated the invaders, the Nephilim had waltzed into Actian with no one there to meet them. The city had only 4,000 reserve armies defending it, mostly Rabian remnants and Ockish men. Before the bloody battle outside had even reached a critical stage, Actian had fallen. The Second Battle of Actian had raged on only until early afternoon the following day. Goldorans had fallen like flies. Daena's bullguns inflicted the starkest damage in the war. They left the landscape dirty and holed and bloodied. Yet, the armies they had thought were suffering from an infection also had cannon, which they wasted on the Goldorans. Then Daena had stopped firing—which she was doing invisibly from a very long distance away—and the Kaffrarians had turned to using their cold weapons, and their animals, against what remained of the Goldorans. The Goldorans had turned tail, and attempted to return to Actian. Man, wolf and bird pursued them for nearly a mile on horseback, and cut down thousands more. By the close of fighting, only 700 Goldorans were alive. K'rar called off the pursuit, and allowed them to join up with the remainder of the Ockish reserve armies that Asthenes and his human battalions had ejected out of Actian. They had fled south toward the Blood River across the border, and camped after realizing that their pursuers had stopped chasing.
And now, at the end of four weeks, K'rar was standing before Actian's population, assembled in the theater in front of the city's largest building, a palace turned government building. K'rar stood in the colonnade overlooking the concrete compound with about fifteen others including all his officers. Yet, he wasn't the center of attention. Eight Nephilim were also present, stationed around the large assembly ground. Two of them, Asthenes and Tahwan, stood to his left and right. The crowd was unable to pacify itself. It had been singing victory songs all night long and hadn't stopped. So K'rar went about doing what had brought him here, to execute criminals including General Lemina, Gal Ilan and several foreign officers. First, he walked to the foot of the stairs, and signaled his men to raise the flag of Korazin on top of the colonnade. Then he had the beheading scaffold pulled next to him. K'rar would execute Gal Ilan first, and the rest of the criminals would be lined up along the step and beheaded by K'rar's men simultaneously. The war of the Reideland had come to an end.
But not the war against Goldora.
Later that day, K'rar was in the same government building with his Generals. Ahn Emis was not one of them. Bartle Frere had just given him the casualty report, and Ahn Emis was one of those dead. The General had been killed right before Bartle Frere himself reached him near Shulam Gate with a rescue force of 50 men. The Ockish had killed him, having discovered that his misinformation about the infectious disease had lost them the war. Ahn Emis had been very meticulous at that, Bartle Frere had learned. He had told them that because Xaxanika, where the knights came from, was an entirely different land, the Kaffrarians had not adapted to Moabian food and climate, and disease vectors too. That the insect causing the infection wouldn't affect native men.
'I will create a cemetery for these men,' K'rar said of the dead warriors, exactly 1,300 in total, minus the ones who had died in the first battle of Actian. However, only 210 of these were Kaffrarians. K'rar added, 'burn their bodies, and collect their ashes. We will bury them the Kaffrarian way.'
The Kaffrarian way involved sending them off with an official ceremony. All flags throughout the country would be flown at half-mast. Then, nonexplosive chemar shells would be fired six times from twelve whizzguns in chorus in the air in a custom they called the 12-gun salute.
'Bartle,' said K'rar.
'Sir?'
'We will let off all the others except the Goldorans,' K'rar said.
'Are we suspending the total war policy?'
'Aye. War is a terrible thing, Bartle,' K'rar said, 'there are truly no winners and losers. Only those that have lost fewer men than the other.' The images of screaming men and dead bodies and burning flesh were still imprinted on his mind vividly, and the death of his men too. Men and women he knew personally. His friends. He added, 'we have sent the continent a message now. There is no need to prolong the bloodshed. I will invite all the kings of Moab to Chaldea. I will make Tao pay reparations, or risk war on his own land. But in the meantime, take 10,000 with you and finish them at the Blood River. I can't let a band of crooks conspire to disturb my peace any more after the war. I am going back to Chaldea with the rest.'
'Yes, sir.'