NABC Chapter 73 Army at the gates
Chapter 73 Army at the gates
There were a total of nearly fifty thousand men in the army Callane raised.
A might capable of easily threatening the capital were she to let them loose and direct them to march towards the king's seat of power.
Yet, despite raising an army capable of breaking the kingdom apart, resisting foreign invasion, or creating all sorts of other potential troubles... she opted to bring them all the way to the edge of the outlands instead.
A move that puzzled all the house heads as the reports from their agents poured in... but still, a move that allowed them to lower their guard, saving on the insane costs that came with raising armies on their own.
"She's mad in love," some rumors said, claiming she wanted to lay siege to the unbreakable barrier of the gate.
"There were some weird movements on the northern border, so she went ahead to give her troops an exercise they desperately need," others, those more aware of the state of house Perell's military power, claimed.
"She's just posturing," some dismissed, taking Callane's act as nothing more than a stupid bid to make a show of herself to boost her popularity in the capital's social circles... conveniently forgetting the fact that, save for dealing with some matters, she rarely even visited the place ever since she graduated from the royal academy.
Whatever all of those people said, what Callane was doing right now was sitting down in her saddle, overlooking the long stretch of her army marching down south, to where the lands of men came to an end, meeting with the lands of all the monsters and beasts their ancestors drove away from the lands they claimed.
A feat that, to this day, left the contemporary scholars baffled.
After all, if their ancestors had the power and ability to drive those freakishly strong and dangerous monsters away, why wouldn't they eradicate them in the first place?
This question, however, would remain without an answer, just like the question of just who constructed the gate of mankind that stood on the border between civilization and the outlands.
"All is working as it should," Callane muttered to herself as she looked ahead, to where the front guard of her army already moved off the road and started to mark out the zone where their semi-permanent camp would be set.
Now, just an hour's ride away from the gate, she had to resist the desire to just pick her elites up and ride off for the gate, ready to cross it with the help of the guild-provided criminal currently riding in a prison coach smack-dab in the middle of her entire army.
"My lady," one of the front-guard officers rode up to the side of the road, against the general flow of the men, before making his horse quickly climb up the small hill Callane paused on.
"Speak."
"The sweepers have secured the approach," the man reported with haste. "We are done deploying the watch."
And now...?
Now, Callane was finally ready to rectify all of her mistakes, to put a stop to the ongoing injustice, and, if the worst were to happen, to put Theo's corpse on her banner and bring fire and death upon all those who decided such was his fate.
"That's not what I asked about," Osman muttered, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile when he saw the fierce look in Callane's eyes.
'If only those idiots in the capital saw her right now...' he thought, shaking his head. 'Love and reason be damned, she's going to pull this out even if it means plunging the whole kingdom into the abyss not even that vile fucker could hope to do.'
"I don't really care what you asked about," Callane rebuked the man.
Since when was the noble employer obliged to answer the questions of the lowly mercenary in her employ?
"What I care about is if you yourself are ready," she turned Osman's question around, sending him an intense stare while she gathered her horse's reins in her hand.
"Ready to keep this place off-limits for all those stupid enough to try to go through?" Osman smiled as he looked down at where the front of Callane's marching column was already dispersing into the limits of their new camp, chopping down trees and uprooting the bushes to make room for the tents while the engineers already moved to use the freshly obtained materials to secure the camp's perimeter.
Osman then shook his head.
"With the army you are leaving me, I would lose all of my reputation if I dared to fail!"
For a moment, Callane stared the mercenary down before slightly nodding her head.
"I will leave this task to you then. And don't forget, if you do well..."
"Then I'm going to become a lesser noble," Osman nodded his head with a bright smile adorning his lips. "Trust me, I'm the last person that would forget about your promise."
This was the ultimate price of Osman's services, a reward that came at the cost of the hand of one of Callane's cousins.
Yet, given the man's track record and both alleged and proven abilities... not that big of a price to pay for his loyalty.
"I'm off then," Callane stated, only to then squeeze her knees a bit, giving her trusty mount a signal it was eagerly waiting for. "If all goes well, we shall meet again soon."