Chapter 580: The Tooth Extraction Campaign
“Tell me more,” Roland said.
Edith pointed to the map. “The terrain around Hermes is unusual. The Impassable Mountain Range creates a natural slope here. The old holy city sits at the low end; the new city — the one the church actually governs from — is built on a plateau at the high end.” She traced the elevation change with one finger. “The plateau environment is harsh. Demonic beasts don’t reach it, which is why they built there. But the land can’t be farmed. It can barely sustain the people already living on it. Everything the new city consumes has to travel up from below.”
She stepped back to let the room follow her logic.
“The old city produces enough to feed its own twenty thousand people and nothing more. Everything else — grain, livestock, supplies — must come from outside. Every autumn, dozens of horse carts arrive from the four kingdoms, day after day. The old city functions as a waystation and resupply point, and the church controls the flow of people and goods through it completely.” A pause. “Which means: whenever the church mobilizes the Judgement Army in significant numbers, those merchants witness it. More than that — the changes begin before the army moves. Supply orders increase. Cargo patterns shift. Extra provisioning appears in the ledgers weeks before a soldier is visible on any road.” Her eyes moved around the table, the practiced sweep of someone who had learned, long ago, to confirm that her audience was still paying attention. “All we need is someone watching those carts who knows what ordinary looks like.”
The room was quiet for a moment.
Roland thought: Calvin Kant’s letter was not entirely boastful. He’d read the page of praise for Edith’s capabilities and taken it at the discount he applied to all parental self-reporting. Watching her at the map now, he adjusted the discount. Pearl of the Northern Region was not an honorific her father had invented.
“How do you know the supply rhythms at Hermes so precisely?” Barov asked, his beard-stroking a habit that appeared whenever he was recalibrating. “You sound like you’ve been stationed there.”
“I have.” She said it without inflection. “The Agreement on the Months of Demons. The four kingdoms each sent troops to Hermes during the demonic tide, fighting alongside the Judgement Army. Your older brother Gerald commanded Graycastle’s forces. I served under him.”
Roland looked at her. “I don’t know this arrangement.”
“I noticed.” A blink. “How can you not know? The coalition has been fighting alongside the Judgement Army for years. Over the past year, the reports suggest heavy casualties on both sides — the church’s forces as well as the coalition’s.”
“My friend Rene Medde completed his knight certification at Hermes,” Petrov said. “Most knights from the outer towns go through it.”
Roland turned to Carter. “Is this common? Why haven’t I been told?”
Carter shrugged with the slight guilt of a man who genuinely had not thought the information was relevant. “The King’s City knightage certifies through its own process — combat, loyalty assessment, knowledge review. Fighting demonic beasts at Hermes was considered a shortcut for knights from smaller towns who couldn’t qualify through normal channels. It didn’t come up because we didn’t need it.”
“We’ll revisit what comes up,” Roland said. He turned back to Edith. “You mentioned wanting to observe how the First Army operates.”
“I can’t contribute meaningfully to future planning without understanding how you fight. Capturing King’s City in a single day contradicts everything I know about siege warfare. If I’m to be useful, I need to see it firsthand.”
There was no security concern. The First Army’s methods were not reproducible by observation — they required an industrial production system, a complete logistics supply chain, continuous weapons development. A visitor could watch a battle and walk away knowing exactly what had happened and be entirely unable to replicate a single element of it. Displaying that strength to someone representing the Northern Region’s loyalists would also do useful work: build confidence, discourage any private thoughts about secession. Roland nodded at Iron Axe. “Make arrangements.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Barov, who had been visibly waiting for an opening that Edith kept closing, seized the next pause. “Your Majesty, I suggest a royal decree — issued in the king’s name, to every city and town in Graycastle — ordering the expulsion of church installations. If war comes and those church halls are still operational, they become embedded strongholds. The church will use every foothold it has.”
“Most lords won’t comply willingly,” Edith said. “The church is a primary source of their tax revenue. Lords follow the wind.”
“Better than doing nothing.”
“I agree.” She laughed — brief, dismissive, not unkind. “The Northern Region will comply fully.”
“Then the decree goes out,” Roland said.
Sylvie had been quiet, her expression carrying a private weight that had been visible since the beginning of the meeting. “Inform Lady Tilly,” she said. “The Sleeping Island witches could help against Pure Witch abilities. They should know what’s coming.”
Roland acknowledged this without saying what he was thinking: Sleeping Island’s situation with the Bloodfang Association was unresolved, and he had heard nothing since sending the intelligence report. Asking Tilly to commit her people while the island’s internal crisis was still live risked the island itself. But Sylvie was right that witches were the most effective counter to other witches — the only meaningful answer to an ability that operated faster than any guard could raise a blade. “I’ll write to her,” he said.
Agatha had been waiting with the patience of someone who had learned that the most important information was often presented last. “God’s Stones of Retaliation,” she said. “Every soldier. It is not optional.” Her voice was the flat certainty of a physical law being stated. “Over the Union’s centuries, there have been witches whose abilities operated before any countermeasure could be raised. Some take effect at visual contact — or before. A normal person without a Stone between themselves and a witch of that caliber has nothing.” She paused. “One of them could destroy a thousand lives without effort.”
“A flintlock?” Roland asked. “A cannon?”
“Consider Nightingale. She can approach your entire army without being seen. Some abilities don’t require approach at all.” Agatha shook her head. “Physical weapons assume you have time to aim. Against some abilities, you don’t.”
Roland ran the numbers silently. Five thousand soldiers, with reserves. Where did you find five thousand God’s Stones in a short period? Witch blood could split existing Stones into fragments, but the supply was finite and the time wasn’t.
“The churches,” Iron Axe said.
Everyone looked at him.
“The expulsion decree gives us access to church installations throughout the kingdom. If we move against the halls themselves — the buildings, the believers, the church property — while leaving ordinary civilians entirely alone, no lord will risk open opposition to a royal decree. We collect the God’s Stones those churches hold. We fulfill Lord Barov’s recommendation and arm the army in the same operation.” A pause. “Miss Edith observes a real engagement rather than a demonstration. More useful for everyone.”
The corners of Barov’s mouth moved upward. “You’re proposing to send the First Army to plunder the churches.”
“To remove the enemy’s forward positions,” Iron Axe corrected him. “Breaking a poisonous snake’s fangs while it’s still in the cage.”
“I think that’s more informative than any rehearsal,” Edith said.
Roland brought his hand down on the table. The impact was deliberate — the physical punctuation of a decision made. “We’re calling it the Tooth Extraction Campaign.”
The phrase settled. Around the table, people began doing what they did: Barov calculating administrative logistics, Iron Axe redesigning the order of march, Edith already thinking about the Northern Region’s roads. Sylvie’s expression remained quietly worried. Agatha’s remained professionally calm.
Outside, the summer rain that had started three days ago was still falling — the same patient, unhurried percussion against the stone walls of the castle, as if it intended to remain through whatever came next.