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Sitting in a tent arguing wasn’t the best way to make military advancements, but Prince Cletus had a vested interest in being ignored as long as possible. Faron could handle himself just fine. At the current moment, Prince Silvio was trying to make a point. Whether it would do him any good was another question. “… then there was an ambush involving fey magic. You said they weren’t a problem!”
“They weren’t. Until they became more organized around a particular village we were attacking,” Prince Faron seemed as if he would shrug if his armor didn’t make it difficult.
Prince Silvio slammed his hand on the table, gesturing angrily. “You never said anything about them leaving their villages and attacking people! Your job was-”
“To deal with as many magic users in Othius as possible. I wasn’t a scout, I could have told you nothing at all. It would have been amusing to have your soldiers come back with your corpse.” Prince Faron’s posture maintained a bored look, though he wore full armor even at the moment.
Silvio’s face wrinkled in annoyance, “You fled the area after a single minor disturbance. A sign of weakness, like your mother.”
Prince Faron’s stance shifted in a way that made Cletus pull away, and he wasn’t even the target. “You have the guts to say that when you ran away with your tail between your legs after you found out you weren’t just going to be fireballing unarmed peasants? Kneel and beg for forgiveness and I might let you live.”
Prince Silvio held himself up high, “You wouldn’t dare try anything here. My mother is a favorite of-”
Faron moved forward in a flash- the heavy armor not restricting his lithe motions- grabbing Silvio’s shoulder. With his other hand, he pulled out a dagger and pressed it to Silvio’s chin, drawing blood. A moment before, Silvio had been confident in his shields, but they were torn away by a single touch of the black mage-hunting armor. “One more word and I’ll remind you what we do with men of inferior blood. If we didn’t need all the magical support we could get, you’d be bleeding out on the ground.” Faron flicked the dagger, drawing a line of blood along the chin and throat. Then he hooked Silvio’s leg and shoved him into a chair. “Now sit down and shut up.” Faron turned to the rest of the assembled princes. “Remember that there is no need for useless princes. I took an active role to come here, the rest of you needed to prove yourselves. If you don’t plan to usefully contribute to the tactical conversation, then you can volunteer for the frontlines.” Faron took a deep breath, “Now then, even though his pride was squashed, Prince Silvio survived the fey attack because he knew of the possibility. Some others haven’t been so lucky. We need to remember that though Othius has no formal magical practices, there was an entire nation of magic users hidden under the surface. Even if there are only a few thousands, they easily outnumber the mages of Vospia or Bryria. And they clearly have learned to fight. So here’s what we’re going to do…”
—–
While Cletus didn’t particularly like training closely with other princes and showing his techniques to them, he had to admit that there was often a lack of valuable teamwork among them. It was like being back in their first schooling, but without so many scheming mothers involved. They were relearning basic principles and group tactics- more than just ‘make sure someone else dies first’. They would also be moving in groups no smaller than two princes and their troops, so that they wouldn’t be so easily overwhelmed by numbers. That was something Cletus had already known about, and working with Faron wasn’t so bad. As a bonus, people assumed he was roped into it instead of assuming they had a preexisting alliance.
Both he and Faron knew how to fight against other magic users, though dealing with the fey and their ability to do the unexpected was more difficult. However, that was something that could be solved with greater involvement of troops. Many of the princes underestimated the power of a dozen archers shooting at someone to make them poor at spellcasting. That was also true in the other direction, which is how Othius was so annoying. They had an abundance of archers waiting to take shots at Scoubarrans from the forest. If he was in charge of policy, Cletus wouldn’t even bother invading Othius. Then again, if he was in charge of policy he would be nice and comfy back in Scoubar itself, and maybe he wouldn’t care about the sacrifices. But even so, he could be more efficient about how resources were used. And maybe they would have done a better job stopping The Reaper… because it seemed like half the time smaller groups never reached the front lines. It couldn’t possibly have been that frequent, but it was clearly more than one person or even a small group could do. But since there was nothing official to be done about it, he would just take care of himself.
—–
It was difficult to drain Scoubar’s resources while also preventing them from retaliating against Dalgare. While such retaliation might provoke the ire of the common folk, it could also make them resent the resistance. Proper balance was important, and fortunately Scoubar seemed to be lacking in their ability to manage the area. Perhaps that was just whoever was in charge, or they finally overstretched their limits. Regardless, it made Anna’s job easier. Or… vaguely possible.
Letting the soldiers fight their way into Othius was an unpleasant choice to make- but if they were going to do anything big, the resistance couldn’t afford to have an army that could just return at any moment. It would be best if they could coordinate with Othius itself, but it was too risky to make the attempt. It was hard to keep the full extend of what they had under wraps.
If Scoubar didn’t have a seemingly endless supply of soldiers and even princes, their job would have been easier. Even if they were successful, and in the best case scenario they took back Dalgare and drove out Scoubar completely, they couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t come back. But hopefully there wasn’t anything they wanted enough after that point.
—–
It was strange, where formerly Sarah had only seen humans, to see so many fey. They could all use magic- but not all of them trained it to a high level. Most of them had been like apprentices in power, and even after a few years most of them weren’t that much by themselves. Librarian Reed was most involved with training them for battle, but her father Raymond was involved as well. She honestly didn’t know that much about what fighting he had done, but seeing him in action let her be certain he had been underplaying his ability.
She was still slightly bitter about his previous refusal to train her in combat magic, and the limited training in general… but with a bit of distance she understood at least what he was thinking. Even now Vospia was in a war with Bryria just because they were raising up wizards of their own. There was also the part of the library that had been snatched by Secure Vantage and their Little Endless Library… but that was mostly an excuse. They hadn’t had access to it for years before that and hadn’t even noticed until it was truly gone.
It was ironic because everyone in Vospia spoke Bryrian. Even if they didn’t want to admit it, the upper class and wizards had to speak it so that their servants couldn’t talk behind their back. Sarah had been formally taught Bryrian, though she’d slightly picked up on that attitude. It was shockingly easy to look down on people… but now she was immersed in books almost exclusively written in Bryrian. Magic books, all just as good as any of the Vospian pieces she’d read- and her father assured her it was the same for the rest. After all, the language someone spoke didn’t change whether they were a good wizard.
Sarah wanted to go join the war in Bryria, but for various reasons she wasn’t going to. Explaining where she came from would be difficult- either for her or for Lucy, who she had never met but knew as Douglas’ sister. She was pretty important, apparently. The best reason she wouldn’t be involved in the war was that she was still not a battle mage. She could fight to defend herself if necessary, but she found it more interesting to delve into the deep and interesting bits of magic that didn’t necessarily involve fighting. Douglas was the same… but he always found ways to use things for battle. Considering how his life had been, she understood why, but it didn’t fit her.
The fey were also going to fight. Their home country was currently being invaded. Even if they didn’t necessarily get along with any of the humans there, they still had friends and family and just other fey countrymen that they wanted to defend. Perhaps they would bring them all back to Secure Vantage. They probably couldn’t support so many people all at once, but they were growing steadily. Sarah wanted to help with that battle effort too, after hearing about it.
But she couldn’t contribute directly. That didn’t mean she couldn’t help, because there was something important that she could do. The fey spoke the language of pure magic- and sometimes that of Othius- but they didn’t have tomes of magic. Those of them who had the capacity to be wizards needed access to reading… and what they had access to was Bryrian. She could teach that, and at the same time learn the language of magic with more fluency from them in return. So while she might not be going to the battlefield herself, she was at least helping to prepare them.
As for Douglas… he was up to something. He wasn’t acting quite as crazily as he was when he planned to decouple their section of the library from the rest of it, and to be honest he was always a bit focused on his studies, but he was clearly up to something special. With how much he conversed about his sister- at least in comparison to people in general- it was clear he cared about her. Sarah just hoped he didn’t do anything too crazy. He had a lot of insights to give her on magic, and honestly the library might fall apart without him. Maybe literally, though Sarah was pretty sure she could keep it going as it was for a long time- and she could still learn more, but that wasn’t the point.