[Chapter Size: 2000 Words.]
Third Person POV
Northern kingdoms.
...
...
Calanthe returned to the command tent, as Mousesack had demanded her presence, and Eist accompanied her. She approached the place while her mage was already there with the boy, conversing while calmly looking at the map and discussing among themselves.
"A good day to you." Calanthe announced her presence, as Mousesack looked at her and bowed his head.
"My queen," he said.
"..." Madara remained silent, calmly looking at Calanthe.
Calanthe, already accustomed to this behavior, did not complain as she looked at the map with curiosity. "What do we have here?" she asked as Eist also looked on curiously.
"Madara explored the entire region and brought many interesting things and..." he spoke and looked at the boy.
"We have some letters that I took from the enemy's main tent," Madara completed.
"Let me see that," she said in a louder tone than usual, as it was a letter from her enemy. She took the letter from the table, narrowing her eyes at the content.
"We need to find a way to end this war as quickly as possible. The situation in the capital is not helping, with families pressuring me due to the high costs this war is incurring. We must show some results; otherwise, things will get bad for all of us. My son is also not helping, so I am sending him to you so that you can put some sense into him. If he does not show results, I swear I will order his elimination and make his younger brother my heir..." Calanthe read the letter that most caught her attention, raising her eyebrow.
"The scoundrel is thinking of killing his own son? Why?" Eist asked, raising his eyebrow.
"I would like to know as well, but the letter does not say much about the details. So we only have this, but it already shows the man's desperation. This is good; we can use this king's anxiety to our advantage," Calanthe commented with satisfaction in her voice.
"Not only that... Madara managed to find some very interesting places while scouting the region," Mousesack commented with a smile.
"You did this in just one night?" She raised her eyebrow at him. "Well, why should I be surprised."
"Yes, we can circumvent the army through some places. The forest is dense around us, but I found an open area further in. We can create a path ahead by cutting down trees, killing some scouts placed in that area. We can make a passage with a group of soldiers to catch the enemy army from behind," Madara said.
"Are you sure about this?" Calanthe asked, surprised.
"Yes, the path leads to a place where we can surprise them. I can do this easily after tonight, but we need to clear the path in the dense forest," Madara said.
"That's great. Let's start working on this. I'll assign a team for this. How long do you think we can achieve this?" she asked.
"We should be discreet, so working with 50 men at most to avoid drawing attention would be ideal. It could take about 3 weeks to a month," Madara said.
"Then we should follow them for a week..." Calanthe said thoughtfully and nodded at the end. "Alright, ... we'll do that," she confirmed as Madara nodded.
They began to discuss the planning, while Calanthe ended up trusting Madara and his strategy. After all, a group of soldiers surprising the enemies from behind could finally bring a victory in this dispute.
Madara continued monitoring the hidden camp, while the exercises would not happen in the coming days, which occurred once a week. They clashed, exchanging some blows, and then retreated without anyone winning. Once a month, a real battle happened, with them trying to gain territory from each other. But after Cintra managed to push the army to the border a bit, it had stagnated there in recent months without anyone gaining more territory.
Madara spent the next few days training, trying to increase his chakra, while Calanthe provided a team for him to command. Madara introduced himself to them as a tracker, while the nobles asked about the origin of this man who wore a cloak and whom the queen seemed to trust, while he sometimes did some things in the camp.
Madara continued taking letters but did not bring them back to the Cintra camp, as it would raise suspicions. He continued reading the king's complaints to hurry the war, as the general's responses were not very positive, since they could not break through Cintra's defense.
But he also discovered something interesting, as the prince would also be involved in the war and was being escorted, which would give Madara an opportunity to talk to him, since the king's complaints about his heir were very mysterious.
"Are you working in the forest too?" A Cintran guard asked another while they were warming up in front of the fire to protect themselves from the cold.
"Yes..." the other replied. "My commander assigned me today, as one of the men got hurt and Queen Calanthe asked for someone to replace him," he said.
"So, have you seen him?" The first guard whispered.
"You're talking about him, aren't you? No, but I talked to the other men cutting the trees. He appears from time to time... just to give orders on where to cut and open the path and then disappears," he said.
"You know... Nobody knows about him... I just hear that he is short and is the best tracker in the kingdom. Queen Calanthe herself summoned him. Some saw him walking around with a scroll, but he is very mysterious, almost like a ghost..." they commented, and suddenly a shadow appeared in front of them.
"What?! Who are you!?" The men stood up and immediately backed away, as the mysterious figure looked at them from under the hood with a mask.
Madara just looked at them while they were frozen and began to walk, heading towards the royal or mage's tent.
These conversations were common in the camp among the army since he was a mysterious figure walking here and there, with most people only hearing about him. But for Madara, this didn't matter, as he headed towards the tent with the royal guards taking shifts to guard the royalty, he approached.
"Anything important, boy?" The royal guards were already familiar with Madara in the castle, so they were not surprised after discovering that the tracker was the boy.
"I would like you to deliver this to the queen," Madara approached while handing a letter to them.
"Yes, is it urgent?" one of them asked.
"No, you can notify her tomorrow. I'm leaving," he said and began to walk after that.
He left the camp after that. As he left, he headed into the forest, bypassing the military camp of Angren, passing by their sentinels unseen, and headed east. His goal was to find the prince before he arrived.
He continued on his way as another day arrived and ran for miles until he finally found the border. It was in the middle of the afternoon when he spotted the group with at least 200 armed men escorting the Prince of Angren, while he watched from a distance.
Hours later, they began to find a place to camp until they found a reasonable clearing and started setting up the tents. Madara observed all of this from a distance, calmly perched in a tree.
Meanwhile, in the camp, after it was set up, a small discussion was taking place in the main tent. "My prince, you should join your men for dinner; it will boost their morale," an elderly man said, looking worriedly at the heir to the throne of Angren.
"I'm not in the mood, Lord Vergan," the throne heir of Angren said, not very excited about it.
"My prince... you have been avoiding them since you left the capital. Your men are already commenting on this. Your prince, the one they are risking their lives for, is avoiding them... this is not good for the prince who will take the throne one day. You were summoned to prove yourself worthy in this war..." the man said with some concern.
"A war that my father created. Two years ago, he got it into his head that we should take Cintra for Angren... and look at all the misery he has put us in by listening to those counselors of his..." The prince seemed far from pleased with this, as he stared at the man in front of him.
"I know you are still mourning, my prince... but bad things happen, it's been two years since..." He spoke calmly but was soon interrupted.
"Do not dare speak her name!" The prince growled at the lord in front of him, who was also his advisor.
"I know... I can understand your pain... alright, I will leave you alone now..." The man gave up arguing as he began to stand and leave the prince behind to give him a moment to cool off, heading out of the tent and passing by two royal guards of Angren, responsible for the heir's life.
Prince Thorne, in his early twenties, currently single after losing his fiancée, had come to this war with no desire to participate. He calmly stood up from where he was sitting and grabbed a jug, pouring wine into his cup before drinking it.
"I hope my father knows what he is doing..." he said before showing an angry face and throwing the cup with the remaining wine at the tent's pillar, the wine splashing onto the ground.
He seemed quite frustrated as he sighed, then extinguished his candles and lamps in the tent and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling, looking thoughtful.
The hours passed for Prince Thorne, and he began to hear less noise outside his tent as sleep finally started to come, feeling tired. However, as soon as he closed his eyes to sleep in the darkness, something made him open his eyes quickly, a fearful feeling covering him. Instead of the clean ceiling he expected to see, it was filled by someone above his bed, looking at him calmly. Prince Thorne would never forget this scene; after all, those eyes should not be human, with strange patterns while their red color shone like live blood in the darkness.
"Who are you!?" the prince asked, raising his voice despite the fear covering him at that moment. But as soon as he tried to continue, he felt he no longer had control of his body, as if those eyes had put him under some spell. He had studied magic with the kingdom's mage a little when he was young and knew that wizards had various abilities to control a person or create an illusion, but he had fallen into something he had never heard of.
He would complain to that mage about it if he could, but the same had been dead for over a year, and now he found himself in a situation wondering if he would die there, perhaps it would be a chance to reunite with his beloved.
"So, you are the prince of Angren... the heir to the throne... this will be interesting, let's have a chat." Madara said with a slightly amused neutral tone, while the heir prince could only listen without responding, wondering how he had fallen into such a situation.
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