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Chapter 889: A Key Person

Tangen, pressed by circumstances into the First Army’s company, realized he had severely underestimated them.

The battle had required no hand-to-hand combat. No shower of arrows, no brutal melee across the five-hundred-meter front. The First Army soldiers simply kept shooting and the Kingdom of Dawn’s soldiers kept falling at the sound of the guns. To his eyes it looked almost theatrical.

But the shrieking from the main road corrected that impression. An extremely fierce battle — it only looked easy from this side of it. The First Army’s performance made the disparity of strength undeniable.

He finally understood, watching it happen, what Nail had been describing.

He had never seen an army this disciplined. These men moved in the dark without noise and reached their ambush positions before first light. They lay motionless in the wheat fields for hours. When the order came they fired as one — not hundreds of individuals, but a single mechanism. No supervisor walked the line. Eagle Face himself had taken a position in the grass rather than waiting back in camp. Every soldier remained alert and attentive. Every order traveled without lag from mouth to trigger.

Without these men, the fierce weapons alone would not have been enough.

After witnessing it, Tangen found himself quietly, unexpectedly glad that he had chosen to leave Hermes when he did. A merchant who’d been financing trade with the church — financing the enemy, it might be called now that the First Army held the territory — would have had a very short conversation with whatever officer processed the city.

He breathed out slowly. If I get home from this, I’m never leaving Evernight again. Carry on business inside the walls. Earn less, live longer. No expeditions, no church trade, no clever routes through mountain passes.

And Fuer, in her place — Paradise on Earth. She must be missing him very much.

I only wanted to get home.

Toward evening, Eagle Face entered the temporary tent and saluted Edith, handing over a sheaf of papers. “The field has been cleaned up. Reports from each squad, briefly summarized.”

“Thank you for your hard work.” She accepted the report and scanned it. The casualty figures were exactly what she had expected: First Army, zero. Kingdom of Dawn — over a thousand dead, roughly six hundred wounded. The engagement had reduced Dawn’s force by approximately twenty percent. Most of the dead had been killed in the bombing and the subsequent stampede; the rifles and machine guns had amplified the chaos without directly accounting for many lives.

The numbers aligned with the Adviser Department’s projections. The garrison’s troop count was modest, and the Magic Ark could carry only so much ammunition. Without an effective pursuit force, the majority would be allowed to escape — but driving them away had been the objective, and the objective had been met.

Over eighteen hundred people had surrendered at the battle’s end and laid down their weapons. Twenty-five of them were nobles. The highest in rank was an earl, lord of Bloom — but Edith found herself more interested in a baron named Remin Payton. According to the reports, every captured noble had pledged ransom and demanded preferential treatment. Every one except this one. Remin had repeatedly insisted that he was personally acquainted with a distinguished official of Graycastle and was a friend of the king.

“He really said that?” She shook the pamphlet slightly.

“I assumed it was posturing.” Eagle Face frowned. “Or perhaps he still thinks the king is Timothy Wimbledon. What do you want done with the nobles?”

“Their families can’t ransom them here — throw them in the dungeon.” She considered for a moment. “They may be of use later. As for the civilian prisoners, release them. We don’t have the food to feed them.”

“Yes.”

“Did you find Appen Moya?”

“We checked every corpse. No one matching his description.” Eagle Face shook his head. “Under interrogation, one prisoner reported seeing Appen and his personal knights fleeing the field. According to him, Appen and his men changed into ordinary clothes and carried nothing bearing the royal coat of arms, and anyone who tried to join them was stopped by his knights. The prisoner admitted he wasn’t certain — he saw it from some distance, and the army was in chaos at the time.”

“Where was this witnessed?”

“Inside the old Holy City.”

“Then there’s a strong chance it was him.” Edith shrugged slightly. “A king doesn’t lead an army of ten thousand in the field without being somewhere in it — and if he was marching with the column, where would he be?”

Eagle Face hesitated. “At the front?”

“Behind the vanguard, to be precise.” She let him work through it. “The old Holy City has no walls — the first men into the city collect the most trophies. To make certain he was first, Appen would have put his own knights at the van: clearing threats, securing his share of the plunder. Which means he and his household had already entered the city before Bomber Action began.”

“So he was inside the walls when Maggie and Hummingbird started their runs. He had time to assess the situation and choose his escape route.”

“Correct. And credit where it’s due — putting aside his dignity to flee in disguise, quickly, without waiting to see if the situation would reverse itself — that was the wise decision.” A faint curve touched her lips.

“Damn it.” Eagle Face’s jaw tightened. “The big fish got away. If I had arranged another group to pursue—”

“It wouldn’t have helped.” She cut him off gently. “On open ground that broad, catching him would have required knowing his route in advance. Our ambush on the main road succeeded precisely because we exploited their retreating habit and herd instinct. If they had scattered into the wheat fields on the opposite side of the road, the results would have been considerably less tidy.”

He didn’t argue, though vexation still sat plainly on his face.

“Don’t blame yourself. It may not be a bad outcome.” She smiled.

He looked up. “How?”

“Fear travels. When the people of the Kingdom of Dawn understand what they encountered today — what this army is capable of — they’ll never again dismiss His Majesty’s warnings as empty rhetoric.” She paused. “Appen Moya is going to have a difficult time.”

Eagle Face recognized the expression that settled over her face — the one that meant she had more thoughts she wasn’t sharing — and let it go. “What do we do next? Move to occupy the old Holy City?”

“No.” She dismissed it without hesitation. “Five hundred soldiers is nowhere near sufficient. We wait.” She glanced toward the tent’s opening. “Miss Maggie has gone to bring back a key person. With her help, we may be able to take this city without spilling another drop of blood.”

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