Date: April 17, 541, from the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored
The air in the Agrim estate library was different from that on the training ground or in the tea house. It was dry, cool, and still, saturated with the smell of old leather, wood polish, and the barely perceptible dust of ages. Tall oak shelves, reaching to the very ceiling, were filled with scrolls in leather cases and heavy folios with metal clasps. Light filtered through narrow stained-glass windows, tinting the dull rays in blood-red and sapphire tones. Silence reigned here, but not a peaceful one—a tense one, as if the room itself waited for the secrets stored on the shelves to begin speaking.
Their mentor in this field was Archivist Orven—a gaunt, bony man with gray hair combed back and eyes hidden behind thick spectacles. He moved silently, like a shadow, and his fingers with long, sensitive pads touched the scrolls with almost religious reverence.
"History," he began, in a voice like the rustle of a turning page, "is not a set of dates and names. It is a map of currents. Political, economic, social. He who knows how to read it sees the future in the patina of dust on the archives. Today we will study the origins and nature of our adversary—the Consulate of Alvost."
He unrolled a huge parchment map of the region on a large oak table. Dur, accustomed to his naive, leather-drawn map from the orphanage, was stunned by the detail. Not only cities and rivers were marked, but also trade routes, ore deposits, seasonal wind directions. Alvost lay to the east, beyond a ridge of low but rocky mountains known as the Ridge of Sorrow.
Maël immediately engaged, his eyes lighting up with the familiar fire of a connoisseur.
"A Consulate, not a Kingdom or Empire," he immediately explained to Dur, seeing his confusion. "They are ruled not by kings by blood, but by elected military consuls. Every legionnaire dreams of rising to the top. This makes their army incredibly motivated, but… unstable. Power rests on the soldiers' personal loyalty to the commander, not on law."
Archivist Orven nodded approvingly, adjusting his glasses.
"Correct. Their strength lies in the aggression and discipline of their legions. But their weakness is the constant internal struggle for power. However, right now," he pointed a long finger at the symbols denoting troops near the border, "they have been temporarily united by Consul Valerius. His personal spirit, 'Inexorable March,' can charge entire legions with fury. He uses the old enmity over the fertile valleys of the Liran River as a pretext for expansion."
Dur listened, and in his mind formed not an abstract political picture, but a familiar, almost hunter-like schema. Alvost was like a hungry, aggressive beast, perhaps a wolf pack. Strong, but governed by the instincts of its leader. Its motivation was simple and understandable: territory, resources, power.
"Why now?" Dur asked, addressing Maël more than the archivist. "What changed?"
Maël looked at Orven, who gestured for him to answer.
"According to our intelligence, Alvost has had crop failures for two years straight," Maël said, his voice becoming businesslike, analytical. "Their gold mines on the eastern slopes of the Ridge of Sorrow are nearly exhausted. Agrim, thanks to trade routes and our land cultivation techniques, is stable and rich. We are a tempting morsel for a hungry neighbor. Valerius needs war to solve internal problems and unite the legions against an external enemy."
Dur nodded. Now it all fell into place. This wasn't sudden malice, but cold calculation. Like a predator sniffing out its prey's weakness. But the prey—Ligra—wasn't so weak.
"Their tactics?" Dur asked, looking at the map. He mentally pictured the forest where he would soon have to hunt not beasts, but soldiers.
Orven unrolled another scroll, covered in diagrams of formations and siege engines.
"Direct assault. The Alvostians rely on the power of heavy infantry clad in bronze, and the ramming attacks of their cavalry. Their engineers are skilled in building siege towers and catapults. They will try to break our walls with brute force. Our defense is built on discipline, archers on the walls, and…" he looked at Dur, "…on knowledge. On the ability to anticipate their movement."
And then Dur made his observation, born not in lecture halls, but in long hours of tracking game.
"They move along the roads," he said, pointing at the map. "Like us. And here," he jabbed his finger at a patch of forest north of the main road, between two outposts, "the ground is soft, washed out after rains. Their heavy wagons and infantry in full gear will get stuck. That's a trap. But if we let them go there, and then strike from the flanks out of the forest… their formation will crumble."
Silence fell in the library. Orven took off his glasses and slowly wiped them with a cloth. Maël looked at Dur with open admiration.
"That…" the archivist began. "That is elementary from a logistics standpoint, but our strategists have always thought in terms of fortified positions and frontal clashes. You think like a… partisan."
"Like a hunter," Maël corrected him, smiling. "He doesn't see lines on a map, but the ground underfoot. And he understands where the beast will make its next misstep."
Orven put his glasses back on, and his gaze became intent.
"Your proposal, young man, though crude, makes sense. It requires courage—to deliberately weaken a section of defense to lure the enemy into a trap. But it's risky. If the calculation is wrong, the enemy will break straight into the heart of our defenses."
"Hunting always involves risk," Dur shrugged. "But if you sit in ambush and wait, the beast will either leave, or attack itself when you least expect it."
This lesson was a revelation for Dur. He understood that his skill—his hunter's logic—could be as valuable a weapon as legions clad in steel or magical spirits. He could think differently from everyone else. And that was his advantage.
As they left the library, Maël clapped him on the shoulder.
"See? I told you. You're the sand in the gears. Sometimes, it's the sand that gets into the right place that can stop the whole machine. You just need to learn to aim."
Dur watched the setting sun paint Ligra's walls in crimson tones. Now he knew the enemy not just as an abstract force of evil. He knew its motives, its strengths, its weaknesses. And this knowledge was heavy. It meant the clash was inevitable. And lives now depended on his mind, on his ability to "read the tracks" on this giant map. The burden of knowledge, it turned out, was no lighter than the burden of steel disks on Koch's training ground. But he was ready to bear it. For the sake of that oath sworn under the canopy of the Old Pine.