Chapter 14: War Preparation Part 2
The first snow of the season froze hard, covering the world in grey and white. For most people, winter was a hard time—a season to stay close to the fire and hope for spring.
But for the Leo Principality, winter meant something else. It was a time to prepare for war.
Duke Vetus was full of confidence, even in the harsh cold weather. He believed victory would come easily—to the Crown and to the whole principality. The Empire stood behind him, and that support gave him courage.
His army was large. For the coming battle at the capital, he had gathered soldiers and hired fighters from his own lands, along with mercenaries sent by the Empire. Their numbers alone made him feel secure.
Most of all, he trusted in the Empire's elite cavalry. They were led by Commander Der Gnadenlose, a fearsome warrior who had reached the Sword Master rank—the highest level a mortal could achieve in this age. Stationed on the border between the Empire and the Leo Principality, this force was the true source of Duke Vetus's confidence.
According to reports from the rebuilt Nightwatch network, Grand Duke Vetus's army of fifteen thousand soldiers had left the western fortress three days ago. In normal times, marching hard along the Western Highway, such an army could reach the capital in about ten days.
But these were not normal times.
Alexius studied every detail using the Sovereign Protocol. When he finished his calculations, the outcome was much better than expected.
The Western Highway was a "highway" in name only. It was an old dirt road, there is no technology for real highway and stone pave roads at least in this country, and only wide enough for two carts to pass each other.
In summer, it was dry and full of dust. But in winter, it became a nightmare. With fifteen thousand soldiers marching on it, thousands of heavy horses, and long lines of supply wagons, the road would be torn apart. The ground would turn into thick, freezing mud mixed with slush, slowing every step forward.
Alexius had already begun the first phase of his war plan.
He sent Vane and Aelrue ahead with more than eight hundred agents moved quietly into the western forests. They were Nightwatch scouts and elite fighters from the Venator Order.
Their mission was simple. They cut down trees of western forest to block the narrow roads. They burned the few bridges that crossed the frozen streams. At night, hidden by darkness and falling snow, they struck the enemy's supply lines—stealing, destroying, and vanishing before dawn.
In the deep winter, even small wounds could become deadly.
Draining enemy's strength and morale through relentless guerrilla attacks.
Based on the Grand Strategic View projections, Alexius estimated that he had secured at least ten more days. In total, this gave him thirty-seven days to prepare.
Time, however, was useless without action.
Alexius stood on the Western Wall, the cold wind snapping his black cloak around him. His violet eyes studied the stone beneath his feet. The walls of Arthenburg were praised in old songs, said to have been raised by the First King himself using the power of tenth-tier stone magic.
However, Centuries of peace, along with the greed and neglect of the Noble Council, had ruined the defenses. The mortar was falling apart. Stones were cracked. Some parts of the wall were so weak they shook underfoot. If the enemy brought heavy siege weapons—or powerful Earth Mages—these walls would not last more than a few hours.
He could not rebuild the walls in thirty-seven days. The stone needed for such work would take months to dig from the quarries and haul to the city.
If the shield is weak, then the sword must strike farther. Below him, the Plains of Ash—the wide, flat land before the Western Gate—were alive with activities. It looked like a huge excavation site.
Thirty thousand men covered the frozen ground.
They were the people of Arthenburg, excluding elderly, women and Children. All of them had answered the Royal Decree, with shovels, pickaxes, and hoes.
They worked as volunteers. They were given only three meals a day from the royal grain stores. Women cooked and carried food to the work lines. Men dug trenches and moved earth. Children helped carry tools and soil. Even the elderly did what they could.
These thirty thousand able bodies were ready to fight if they had to. But Alexius had ordered them to build instead. Weapons were scarce. Only five thousand people in the best physical condition were taken aside to train with crossbows and pikes.
Even so, the rest were trained in turns, learning the basics—just in case the moment came when everyone would have to stand and fight.
Alexius had ordered a huge network of trenches to be built. This idea was strange in this world, where wars were usually fought by knights charging bravely across open fields. This was a new kind of war—one built on planning and hard work, not glory.
The trenches were dug in a zig-zag shape. This way, enemy mages or archers could not shoot straight down the trench and kill everyone inside. The trenches were deep—about seven feet—and their sides were strengthened with wooden beams taken from abandoned noble lands.
In front of the trenches, the land was turned into a deadly trap. Carpenters across the city worked day and night to make thousands of spiked logs. These logs were planted into the frozen ground at slanted angles. If cavalry tried to charge, their horses would be stabbed or forced to stop long before they reached the soldiers.
The open field had been turned into a place where speed and pride would mean death.
The plan was simple.
The Western Wall was bait. Vetus would see the cracked stone and believe the city was easy to take. He would push his great army straight toward the gate.
But to reach it, his men would have to cross three hundred yards of pure hell.
Alexius turned away from the wall and walked down into the city. He headed for the Noble District—toward the old Royal Mansion where he had once lived in exile.
The mansion no longer looked like a noble home. The fine silk hangings were gone, replaced by dark, dirty cloth. The neat gardens had become piles of coal and stacks of wood. The air smelled of smoke, iron, and heat.
This place now belonged to the Dwarves.
When Alexius stepped into the main hall, a wave of heat struck him at once. The marble floor was buried under metal scraps and shavings. Twenty rough forges burned in the center of the room, their smoke escaping through broken skylights. The steady clang of hammers hitting anvils filled the air—loud, heavy, and constant, like the beating heart of the city's war effort.
The leader of the Dwarven smiths, a broad and scarred master named Thorgar Ironhand, was checking a pile of metal trigger parts. He did not bow when the Prince entered. He did not need to. Since the day Alexius freed him and recognized his skill, the two had become friends. Thorgar only gave a short nod, his hands black with grease and soot.
Thorgar and his people had once been slaves under the Vetus faction, forced to craft useless jewelry for years. Alexius had broken their chains. He paid them fair wages and gave them something far more precious than gold—the chance to forge real weapons, weapons meant to strike down the very masters who had abused them.
Alexius lifted a finished crossbow from the rack. It was thick, heavy, and plain. The handle was rough oak. The bow arms were dark steel. There were no carvings, no jewels, no beauty like Elven bows or knightly weapons.
It was perfect.
He pressed his thumb against the trigger. The parts were simple and strong, made to work even in mud and snow. Thorgar had built the workshop like a line of work stations—one group made the steel arms, another shaped the wooden bodies, and a third put everything together. Thanks to this system, they were making two hundred crossbows every day.
Beside them stood rows of pikes. Each was eighteen feet long, cut from ash wood and tipped with a sharp iron point. The back ends were weighted, so a man could hold them steady for a long time without tiring.
Thorgar walked over, wiping his dirty hands on a cloth. He pointed toward a corner of the hall, hidden behind a thick curtain and guarded closely.
Alexius stepped forward and pulled the curtain aside.
Inside were the muskets.
There were only two hundred of them. Making the long metal barrels took great care, and even the Dwarves could not rush that work. But the bullets were another story. They were stacked high—thousands of round lead balls, melted and poured from old plates and statues left behind by the fleeing nobles.
Food was still reaching the city from the north. This was the great irony of the war. Duke Marius had run north to protect his mines, but the northern merchant guilds did not truly care about their Duke's pride. They cared about money. Using the Nightwatch as middlemen, Alexius bought grain from Marius's own lands. The food was smuggled down the river on barges flying false flags. The gold Alexius used—taken back from corrupt officials—ended up in the hands of northern merchants. In the end, the enemy's own wealth was feeding the defenders of the city.
Iron came from the south-east. A loose group of city-states, usually neutral, agreed to smuggle high-quality ore through the blockade. This was arranged by Marquess Custodias. Even as he marched south to break the siege, the Old Lion reached out to his old smuggling contacts. The iron was moved at night, hidden under layers of coal, passing right beneath the noses of Vetus's southern troops.
But the most important supplies of all—the sulfur and niter needed for black powder—came from even farther south, from a volcanic region inside the Kingdom of Solara. Open trade with that land was impossible. Politics made it too dangerous. But Custodias was owed a blood-debt by a warlord there. Because of that debt, the materials were sent in plain wooden crates, marked only as "fertilizer" and "medicinal salts."
Alexius left the mansion and rode toward the training grounds in the Outer District.
He heard the shouting long before he saw the soldiers.
Five thousand men and women stood in lines across the muddy square. They were a mix of freed slaves and citizens. Some bore burn marks from old chains, others had the soft hands of shopkeepers, the strong arms of dockworkers, or the worn faces of refugees who had fled Vetus's lands.
They wore no real armor. There was no time or material to make full armour set for so many. Instead, they were dressed in thick padded coats, sewn from layers of wool and linen by the tailors' guild. It was not strong enough to stop a sword, but it could turn a weak arrow and soften the blow of a mace.
Above them, on wooden platforms, stood the veterans of the Silver Legion and loyal fighters of the Black Legion. These were hardened soldiers. They shouted commands without mercy, forcing the militia to drill again and again.
"Hold! Brace! Thrust!"
At the shouted command, the front line dropped to one knee and drove the ends of their long pikes into the mud. The second and third lines lowered their own pikes over the shoulders of the first, forming a thick wall of sharp steel points.
This was the phalanx.
Alexius watched closely, studying it through his [Grand Strategic View]. In this formation, personal strength meant little. Even a former slave who had never held a blade could bring down a knight if he held his position. The long pikes took away the reach and power of swords, and the tight ranks erased the advantage of individual skill.
Behind the pikemen stood the crossbow units. They drilled the same motions again and again.
Step into the stirrup.
Pull the string.
Load the bolt.
Aim.
Fire.
Alexius rode closer, and the shouting stopped at once. Five thousand faces turned toward him.
He saw fear in many of their eyes. They knew what was coming. They knew a trained army of superior number, led by a Sword Master, was marching to crush them.
For the former slaves, this was the first time they held a weapon to defend themselves. For the common people, this was the first time a royal had looked them in the eye and shown them respect. They were fighting for the silver in their pockets, for the food that kept them alive, and for the freedom Alexius had promised them.
He rode slowly along the line, meeting their eyes, nodding to the captains. At last, he stopped in front of a young man with wolf ears—a former slave with a burn scar across his face. The man gripped his pike so tightly his hands had turned white.
"Is the pike heavy?" Alexius asked softly.
"Lighter than chains, Your Highness," the man answered.
Alexius gave a slow nod. "Hold it steady. We stand together in this war. I will stand with all of you."
"We will hold, Your Highness!" the man said firmly.
Alexius moved on, continuing his inspection. He headed toward the special trenches dug close to the gate. There, the two hundred musketeers of the Silver Legion were training. They were kept apart from the others, for their weapons were dangerous even to those who wielded them.
Viscount Comwell Esperia stood nearby, his clothes black with soot. He looked tired, but excited.
"The wind pushes the smoke around," Comwell said, giving a salute. "So we are learning to fire in turns. The first row shoots, then steps back to reload. The second row moves forward and shoots. This way, bullets are always flying."
"How well can they hit?" Alexius asked.
"At long distance, not very well," Comwell said honestly. "But at close range, it is deadly. We tested it on a knight's armor yesterday. The bullet went through the metal plate, the chain shirt under it, the dummy inside, and even bent the plate on the back. A knight hit by this doesn't survive."
"Use the powder carefully," Alexius said. "Only two real shooting drills each day. Practice without bullets the rest of the time. We cannot waste it before Vetus arrives."
"Yes, Your Highness," Comwell replied.
Alexius rode back to the palace as evening came.
He returned to the War Room, where the great map waited for him. The red blocks that marked the enemy were moving east, slowly. New pieces now covered it—green markers for trenches, yellow markers for food stores, and blue markers for hidden mage weapons.
Alexius sat in the chair that once belonged to his father. The weight he felt was heavier than any armor.
His thoughts went to the Western Highway. It was now a frozen nightmare for Duke Vetus forces. Vane and Aelrue were making the enemy pay for every step as he ordered. A report had arrived an hour ago by messenger bird.
The bridge at River Kalt is destroyed.
They are crossing the icy water.
Three supply wagons lost.
Their spirits are breaking.
Two officers were killed last night.
The Beast is furious.
The "Beast" was Der Gnadenlose.
Alexius allowed himself a small, cold smile. Let him be angry. Angry leaders make bad choices. Angry leaders rush forward without thinking.
And when he rushed forward, he would not find a weak, fragile opponents. He would find wolves—hidden in the ground, armed with fire from a new age.
Alexius closed his eyes and began to breathe slowly, letting his mana flow and settle. He needed to be ready. He also needed to improve his strength as well.
Everything was almost ready.
(Continue.....)