Lada is but one name added to the list in your head.
You glance back at the crowd one last time. You can see nothing of the two siblings. With a final shrug, you continue on your way.
Deeper into Wrido's royal palace.
Next
-Two Weeks Since Arrival at Wrido-
Two whole weeks have passed. By this point in your life, you've gotten used to how fast time seems to slip by.
At least when you have a purpose.
You've been at work, checking defenses, spectating trainings, analyzing the peasantry—all beneath Belos's nose. Today, you stand atop the outermost wall of the fortress city. A fortress city that has stood above these plains for ages, predating even Kanton itself.
The late summer sun blazes the fury of its dying season, baking the ground dry. Such dry ground makes it exceptionally easy to spot approaching caravans or parties.
Small plumes of dust accompany individual riders as they set out to and fro, marring the otherwise green and rolling plains of central Kanton. From such a high vantage point, you can see for miles. Pockets of trees and small lakes occasionally break up the landscape.
Most of the wildlife besides the mice or domestic animals live in these small pockets of cover. Hunting parties make their way to these lucrative pockets to find their prey.
Farmland, abundant with planted crop bound for harvest come autumn, is scattered all across the plains. Some estates hug the walls of Wrido, vying for the protection of its shadow, while others stay far away, avoiding the attention and danger a city, no less the capital, may bring.
Stradford, the land of the crown in Kanton, is a quaint province. Idyllic, peaceful, and in its own simple way, beautiful.
Maybe peace would quell your inner turmoil.
You rub your scalp. After two weeks, the throbbing ache in your skull has died down. The bruises are mostly faded, and it no longer hurts to the touch.
It's not like this down in the southwest, a fact you know very well. Nor up north, but you've little experience with the merchant peoples who deal in their furs and fish.
In the southwest, woods take the place of plains. The farther south you go, the worse the conditions get. The trees grow higher and higher until they eclipse the sun itself when viewed from inside the choking forests. The vegetation grows thick and low, every step touching some variety of plant. If one is unlucky, the plant will be poisonous.
And the bugs. The vast swarms of gnats, flies, and the accursed mosquito, fly through the air, barely kept at bay by the light of a fire.
But fire is a rarity inside the soaked forests. If one can break through the trees and see the sky, they will find no sun. Only the black clouds that pour rain down upon the lands, soaking what was already soaked.
Such bad conditions breed hardy people. With so many ways to die, women often took over men's estates upon their untimely deaths, or as practice for the inevitable.
The sense of community built there is intoxicating. Neighbor looking out for neighbor, after all.
You idly smirk as you remember Duke Rade getting used to the conditions. Reicster, his own duchy, lies to the east of Stradford and shares many of its outstanding conditions. Vast plains, farmlands, and in the far, far east, the Great Steppes.
Such conditions are evidently different from the wet hell of the southwest. While they both are beautiful from afar, the sun actually shines in the east. The same could hardly be said for the southwest.
You remember how much Rade cursed when he first lost a boot to the mud. Though he adapted quickly. Faster than you had. Even though you were battling the Erisians for a whole year before Rade showed up, he was weathering the rough terrain in two months at the most.
The way he fought was asymmetrical.
He met the Erisan warbowmen with the might and tactical flexibility of the Krorid Rangers. The powerful skirmishers of the southwest named themselves after their former kingdom before it was conquered by Kanton, two centuries in the past.
You fought alongside the men who your ancestors killed.
With civil war breaking out in Kanton, and what was once Krorid no longer under direct threat, you'd not be surprised if Krorid rebelled. It's a valid strategic option, and honestly, you wouldn't hold it against them.
As long as you wouldn't have to fight there again.
And witness it all again…
Next
Men, legs rendered useless by exhaustion or the strikes of the enemy sink into the mud.
No.
You fall with them. Mud pours in through your visor and—
Stop it.
You grip your wrists with your opposite hands, clenching tight. You drag your nails across your wrists subconsciously, tearing into the skin. The small trickle of warm blood brings you back to your senses.
Your pulse pounds in your ears. Blood runs down your tingling wrists.
Mud pours in through your visor and blinds you.
You can still remember the taste. It was disgusting. It tasted like it smelt.
But you also tasted the blood that was stirred into the mud. The blood of those who fell in front of you.
The memories hurt. But you embrace the pain. The pain in your mind, the pain in your wrists, everything.
You cannot break now. Not after making it this long. Not now.
The memories hurt more now than ever. After the numbness of the last five years, it burns all the more.
But you will overcome. You will repress. You will contain it back within yourself. You've been through worse than just a few… memories.
With a final breath, you steady yourself. You have much more to focus on now.
Mainly the massive plume of dust off in the distance, quickly approaching the capital. Judging by its size, it's roughly five hundred men strong. A smaller cloud, maybe a tenth its size, is detached and moving much faster than the larger one.
The contingent has returned.
Next
You fiddle with the collar of your tunic, readjust your sword belt, and head for the towers dotted across the walls. Inside each tower lies a stairwell that leads down into the streets below.
You pass by the guard posted in the tower without interference. Over the last two weeks, the two of you have come to an understanding. He was reluctant to let you by at first, but after you began bringing him bottles of cheap ale, he was more than happy to let you pass.
As you pass by him, he gives you a small, subtle salute. You give him a nod.
You walk down the steps with moderate haste and exit out the bottom half of the tower into the city streets. The hustle of the city streets is no unfamiliar experience to you. The roads, this close to the walls, are paved. Not out of a respect for the civilians, but because it makes transporting troops to the walls easier.
In the shadow of the outer wall, it is much more opposing. The wall is roughly forty feet tall, half its height thick, and made from cut stone. An excellent defensive structure.
Focusing back on the crowds, you notice the amount of commotion inside the city. While Belos may have kicked you out and refused to listen to your counsel, he still took a few points from it, at least.
More and more men have been levied. The rich pay the recruiters away, while the poor are drafted to war. Despite being forced, there is little unrest. Most of the men know not the horrors of The War and seem excited to go and fight.
War is romantic on paper. Going out to fight for the crown, fighting for honor and glory, gathering wealth, wine, and women. Many veterans still hold this belief. Many who fight come back with smiles and loot.
But not you. You watched men drown in mud. You watched misery and death. There was no glory in The Border Wars.
You move to make it to the gatehouse, though the crowds clogging the streets make movement against the flow of traffic difficult.