Chapter 32
The place lay within the windswept volcanic highlands of Agnia—not far from the secluded hot springs where Andri had spent his first night after leaving Imresnople alongside Yuki and the Dracoserpens, and where he had first learned what it meant to truly enjoy being alive.
Now, armed men stood across barren volcanic slopes of black stone and shifting scree beneath cliffs half-lost in steam and blowing snow. Ash and gravel skittered endlessly through the wind between ranks of spears and war banners, and more than one soldier found himself imagining the ground trembling faintly beneath his boots.
The highlands were bitterly cold, yet snow never lingered there for long. Heat rising from deep beneath the mountains melted it almost as soon as it touched the earth, turning the air into freezing mist that clung to armor and skin alike.
Wind screamed through the crags. Loose stones rattled constantly down the slopes, and every step threatened to send a man sliding to his death below.
Across those desolate highlands, three armies stood facing one another.
Eight hundred men under Lord Basileios Lysoklion, governor of the Agnia crown territories and ruler of Glairos.
Five hundred under Lord Leonidas Konispharon, lord of nearby Dustvalea at the edge of the Agnia Highlands.
And between them stood one of the provincial knightly companies—the Strategoi Knights, nearly eight hundred strong.
Their commander was Isakios Agrios.
A veteran general well past fifty, Isakios had earned renown for a patient, disciplined style of warfare. He absorbed the enemy’s assault, held the line without wavering, and waited for the precise moment when victory could no longer escape him. Other knightly companies often mocked him as overly cautious, dismissing his methods as the timidity of an aging commander.
Yet not once since taking command had the Strategoi Knights suffered defeat under his banner.
The battle had not yet begun.
Yet already, breathing had grown shallow throughout the ranks.
The footing alone was enough to unsettle even seasoned veterans. One careless step on the unstable slopes could send a man plunging into the rocks below, and every soldier present knew it. The thought alone left fingers clenched tightly around spear shafts and shield straps.
Then, from the center of the three armies, three mounted figures rode forward with a small escort behind them.
Barely a few dozen paces separated them now.
Any closer, and blades would be drawn.
“You are the one who crossed the border, Lord Dustvalea.”
Lord Basileios’s voice cut through the wind like steel.
“Lord Glairos,” Leonidas replied coldly, “with respect, it was your banners that marched first.”
“My lords,”
The third voice entered calmly between them.
Isakios.
Both nobles turned toward him at once, and the tension in the air tightened further. The old general met their gaze without flinching.
“I beseech you both—choose wisely. If wrong has truly been done, then let the law judge the matter. Lay it before His Majesty and seek judgment by lawful decree.” His voice remained measured despite the murderous strain hanging in the air. “Do either of you truly believe His Majesty would suffer needless bloodshed between loyal subjects of the realm?”
Though older than either lord, Isakios spoke with deliberate care. Their station still outranked his own.
Even so, both men saw it in his eyes.
Steel.
Not anger. Not fear.
The calm, disciplined gaze of a commander who had survived more battlefields than most men could imagine.
For the briefest instant, even the two lords felt the weight of that gaze.
Basileios’s mouth twisted faintly.
Leonidas offered no reply.
Neither man looked away.
Not from each other.
Not even with Isakios standing between them.
No one intended to yield.
Isakios had known that from the beginning. Once armies had marched this far, no lord could retreat without sacrificing pride, authority, and risking the loss of face before his own retainers.
Even so, the old general continued trying to hold the line with words alone.
Silence settled between the three riders.
Far across the highlands, war banners snapped like whips in the screaming wind.
“—Urgent report!”
The silence hanging between the three mounted commanders was shattered by the distant blare of a horn.
“The Royal Guard approaches! His Highness Crown Prince Antonius has arrived!”
A messenger of the Strategoi Knights came racing across the field, shouting the news loudly enough for the entire battlefield to hear.
A murmur swept through the ranks. The knights parted in disciplined lines, opening a path.
The Royal Guard rode through it.
At their center was Antonius.
Without slowing his pace, he rode straight toward the meeting ground.
Neither Basileios nor Leonidas dismounted. Both merely offered the barest formal acknowledgment from horseback.
Only then did Antonius rein in, stopping a short distance away.
Isakios left the two lords behind and brought his horse alongside Antonius’s. Remaining mounted, he bowed his head quietly.
“It seems I have truly grown old, Your Highness, if I cannot settle so childish a quarrel.”
“No. You have restrained them sufficiently.”
Antonius’s reply was brief.
Then he urged his horse a single step forward.
“By command of His Majesty King Alexios Imresius, authority in this matter now rests with Crown Prince Antonius Imresius.”
The wind snapped through the banners overhead.
“Sheathe your swords, both of you, and take your places before me. I shall hear this matter myself.”
Then his eyes hardened.
“Lysokleon.”
He spoke Basileios’s family name without title or honorific.
“Would you shame the king who entrusted you with one of the most vital crown territories in the realm?”
His gaze shifted toward Leonidas.
“And you as well, Konispharon. Your lands shall play no small part in the age now before us. Is this conduct worthy of such a charge?”
The rebuke was stern, though his tone eased slightly afterward.
“If grievances yet remain between you, then lay them before me. I shall judge the matter myself.”
There was no mistaking the force behind Antonius’s words—the absolute authority of a man who allowed no room for evasion, and the resolve to bear whatever judgment followed.
“Speak plainly. You need show no restraint.”
A faint flicker crossed the faces of Basileios and Leonidas.
They were shaken. That much was plain.
And yet neither man answered.
Neither lowered his weapon.
(…Why?)
A slight furrow touched Antonius’s brow.
Reason favored him. Their dignity had been preserved. Every road toward reconciliation had been opened before them.
So why would they still refuse to yield?
Isakios guided his horse closer and spoke quietly near Antonius’s ear.
“My Lord Commander… be wary. These men appear to be plotting something.”
“I am aware.”
The answer came at once, without hesitation.
He already understood.
—This was no ordinary dispute.
The wind rose harder. Snow swirled through the air.
Peace was no longer within reach.
Even so, Antonius spoke again, his voice unwavering.
“…Have you nothing to say?”
Then, as though that brief exchange had been the signal all along, the two men who had stood poised to kill one another suddenly moved in perfect accord.
“Your Highness,” Basileios said at last.
Yet whatever loyalty had once colored his voice was gone.
“Is it truly Your Highness’s intent to cast us before dragons as prey?”
The air turned deathly still.
“…What did you say?”
Antonius’s voice dropped low.
Leonidas spoke before the silence could settle.
“Word hath reached us that, in return for ties with Tatsuno, those beasts demanded human tribute.”
“And so,” Basileios continued, “would Your Highness cast your own subjects before such abominations… and buy their favor with our lives?”
“To such terms, we shall never submit.”
Isakios cut in despite himself.
“My lords… what madness is this? Would you claim this entire affair was but a farce contrived to defy His Highness and His Majesty the King?”
At once, the light in the two nobles’ eyes changed.
The hostility they had barely concealed until now rose openly to the surface.
“Call it what you will!” Basileios roared.
“We alone remain faithful to the true future of this kingdom! His Majesty and the crown prince alike have lost all reason!”
Leonidas raised his voice beside him.
“A king who would surrender the realm to monsters is no king we shall ever acknowledge!”
The moment the words left him, the armies of Grylros and Dustvalea moved as one.
Ranks shifted in a blur.
Shields locked together. Spears rose like a thicket of iron. Archers drew their bowstrings in unison.
And the points were turned not upon one another—
but upon the Strategoi Knights and the Royal Guard.
Isakios’s eyes widened.
“Forward! Kill them all!”
The two lords’ command ripped across the battlefield.
Then came the scream of the sky.
A storm of arrows screamed overhead, setting every nerve on edge. War cries erupted from every side at once, swallowed almost immediately by the clash of steel and the wet, horrible sound of bodies collapsing into mud.
Arrows poured down from the slopes above.
Men hidden among the rocks surged from cover.
Loose earth gave way beneath iron-shod hooves. Horses stumbled. A shield came up half a heartbeat too late—
and an arrow punched through flesh.
“Break their line!”
The two armies moved with terrifying precision. They knew the slope of the ground, the placement of every boulder, every patch of brush, every stretch of treacherous footing.
The Royal Guard’s formation twisted under the assault. The flank of the Strategoi Knights began to buckle.
From the very beginning, the local lords had chosen ground that favored them.
The next volley darkened the sky.
Then came the impact.
Arrows slammed into shields with hard cracking blows. Others tore through mail and leather with dull, sickening force before burying themselves deep in flesh.
A heartbeat later came the screams.
“Shields high! Hold the line!”
Captains shouted themselves raw, struggling to hold the line together.
The arrows found them first.
One officer staggered as a shaft ripped through his throat, his command collapsing into choking sprays of blood. Another reeled backward with an arrow buried deep in his eye, clawing helplessly at the shaft protruding from his skull before vanishing beneath trampling boots.
The front ranks of the Strategoi Knights broke apart. Even the heavily armored Royal Guard found their advance grinding to a halt.
A soldier struck through the chest collapsed beneath his shield. The horse behind him tried to step over the body, lost its footing in the churned mire, and crashed sideways into the men beside it.
The second volley came almost immediately.
Arrows slipped through gaps between raised shields and buried themselves in throats, ribs, and thighs.
Men fell shrieking into the mud, clutching at wounds that would never close. Others clawed desperately at arrows lodged deep within their bellies, crying out for their mothers, for wives, for children they would never again hold in their arms.
Some tried to crawl.
Most were trampled where they fell.
Dead horses, shattered shields, broken spears, and dying men piled atop one another until the ground became a slick mire of blood and churned earth.
“Drive them back! Forward—!”
The order still rang out.
Then the spears hit.
A wall of spearpoints surged forward in brutal unison, driven not by fury but by discipline—the killing thrust of men who had prepared this slaughter long before the first arrow had flown.
Spears plunged into stomachs and ripped upward through entrails.
Iron heads slipped beneath breastplates and tore free again in sprays of blood and steaming viscera.
Men folded around the wounds with sounds no human throat was meant to utter.
Others died slowly.
One knight dropped his sword and clutched desperately at the ruin of his abdomen, trying with trembling hands to force his spilling entrails back inside while blood streamed between his fingers. Blind with shock, he stared toward the rear lines—toward the distant road home he would never walk again.
“Hold!”
Isakios roared as the Strategoi Knights and the Royal Guard locked shields together, planting their feet against the charge bearing down upon them.
It had been a trap from the very beginning.
Antonius ground his teeth hard enough to ache. At the edge of his vision, a banner toppled into the mud—the familiar crest vanishing beneath boots, blood, and churned earth.
(At this rate—)
Then it came.
