Valkyrie's Shadow

Empire in Chains: Act 2, Chapter 10

Empire in Chains: Act 2, Chapter 10

Chapter 10

“Undeathstrial Revolution!”

Arms held out wide, Liane’s voice filled the air with a sense of grandiosity. Behind her was a newly-built workshop, designed to accommodate the latest and future industrial innovations of House Wagner.

“No,” Ludmila frowned.

“Ehhhh? Why not?”

“Just…no.”

“I thought it was cute,” Florine offered.

Since Florine could probably find something ‘cute’ about anything, Ludmila decided that her opinion should be taken with a grain of salt.

“We’re going into a nation ruled by an autocrat and run by a bureaucratic aristocracy,” Clara said. “Bringing a ‘revolution’ to our prospective clients is sure to make them go into hiding. Re-Estize will be no better if they ever truly open up to us.”

“Cheh,” Liane looked away with a disgruntled look. “You’d think a place as ‘progressive’ as the Empire would welcome revolutions with open arms.”

Is that right? No, that’s probably wrong…

As the one most familiar with the Baharuth Empire amongst them, Liane should have been well aware that the idea of radical change wouldn’t sit well with them. Her light-hearted attitude towards nearly everything, however, left ample room for her friends to wonder.

An early morning mist clung to the lands around Liane’s yet-to-be-named border town. The carriages that would convey them to the Empire were still being prepared for departure, so Liane took them around on a tour of the place. Once completed, it would be roughly as large as Corelyn Harbour and designed to process land freight headed between E-Rantel and the Empire. Though construction had barely started, the Countess of Wagner veritably bounced with excitement as she proudly showed off the foundations of her future capital to them.

“Once the town is finished,” Ludmila asked, “will you be moving here?”

“Mmh…I just need to be wherever I’m needed, yeah?” Liane answered, “The county’s administration will be here, but it’s only an hour to the city by Soul Eater. I go back and forth all the time already anyway.”

They were becoming more and more like the High Nobles of the neighbouring nations, travelling back and forth through their territories and the capital. Ludmila had visited E-Rantel more times over the summer than she had over her life previous to inheriting her title. That being said, the rate of travel in the Sorcerous Kingdom was unprecedented, making the realities of such an itinerant life nearly nonexistent. A Marquis of Re-Estize or a Margrave of the Empire could spend a week or two on the road between their capital and the royal capital, only to stay for a short period before heading back again.

As they continued to walk around, Ludmila picked up the rumble of distant hooves.

“They’re here,” Ludmila said. “I’ll be back right after I take care of this handover.”

She turned to attend to her business, then stopped to look back over her shoulder. Her frown appeared again. Clara, Liane and Florine smiled back at her.

“We wanna see,” Liane said.

“Will there be anything to see?” Ludmila raised an eyebrow.

“Of course!” Liane grinned, “You’re handing off a bunch of Death-series servitors to some guys on the other side yeah? It’s not every day you get to see the vaunted Imperial Knights squirm.”

“They’re not here for your entertainment.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining.”

Ludmila’s frown deepened. Her gaze went to Clara.

“I’ve never watched you do army work before,” Clara said.

“It will be a good reference,” Florine added.

She didn’t know what was so interesting. Liane aside, the others didn’t usually relish the discomfort of others.

At the head of a long, black column, a flag of the Sorcerous Kingdom was advancing up the highway. The sound of hooves grew closer as the procession of Undead neared. The head of the column resolved into pairs of Death Cavaliers riding towards them, lances gleaming in the sun.

“Ooh, they’re coming, they’re coming~” Liane placed her hands on her hips with a grin. “Right on time, too. Death Cavaliers, Death Knights…are those the new Death Priests? I don’t think they’ve been stationed in the interior yet.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Ludmila replied. “There are already dozens of them in the Katze Plains and around our border stations, but the interior won’t see them until after the first two batches for the Empire are delivered. They probably won’t be seeing combat – they’re more for maintenance purposes.”

“I see…thank you for the explanation, Miss Death Ranger.”

Ludmila glanced around at the empty highway before shooting Liane a look.

“I’m not a ‘Death Ranger’.”

Fear over being shunned plagued Ludmila before disclosing what she had become to Liane and Florine, but Liane seemed to only use the fact as an additional avenue through which to poke fun at her. Florine didn’t interact with her any differently than before, so Ludmila was just thankful that her relationship with the two hadn’t disintegrated. If anything, it felt like they had become even closer.

The column came to a stop before them. Ludmila stepped forward while pulling a clipboard out of an Infinite Haversack. The lead Death Cavalier drew a gauntleted fist up to its pulsing black cuirass in salute.

“Reporting as ordered, my lady!”

“Good work,” Ludmila nodded. “Did anyone have any difficulties on the way from E-Rantel?”

“Kya~ So cool–ow!”

She furrowed her brow at the commentary coming from behind. There was nothing impressive about going up to speak to a column of Death-series servitors.

“No problems to report!”

“What of the additional note on your orders?”

“…it shames us to admit that we have not settled on any names for ourselves.”

The Death Cavalier’s sibilant tones took on a note of chagrin. Of the Sorcerer King’s Undead servitors, the Elder Liches tended to have names associated with numbers – which might have been her fault – but the Death-series servitors tended to have none unless the locals came up with something for them.

Ludmila thought it rather impersonal to have people address them according to their ‘species’. Given the suddenness of her suggestion, however, she couldn’t blame them for not being able to come up with names they were satisfied with.

“Maybe the people you end up working with will figure some out,” Ludmila looked down at the clipboard. “My inspection should be brief – the imperial contingent should be waiting for us at the border.”

With another smooth salute, the Death Cavalier faced forward. Clara, Liane and Florine joined Ludmila as she slowly went down the column.

The forces present were the first set of Death-series servitors leased to the Empire: the initial ‘instalment’ of the defensive supplement for their client state. Another set would be routed through the Azerlisia mountains and come down from the Dwarf Kingdom, but both groups were merely a third of the total number slated to arrive.

Ludmila’s duty as a liaison officer was to ensure the smooth integration of these first two groups with the Legions they would be working with. Once this was accomplished, it was Lord Cocytus’ hope that the Empire would become more amenable to the presence of the Undead and take the initiative with the rest. That they couldn’t be more cooperative from the start was slightly disappointing considering their status as a friendly client state, but, at the same time, entrusting national security to a foreign power was normally considered an imprudent decision.

“How come this contingent doesn’t have any Elder Lich sergeants?” Florine asked, “Don’t they usually take care of this sort of thing?”

Liane snorted.

“As if the Empire would let any more Undead in than they needed to. There were probably forty different factions screaming about this.”

“Isn’t the Emperor supposed to be an absolute sovereign?” Ludmila reached out to straighten a harness on one of the mounts, “I thought that was what his epithet was all about.”

“Oh yeah,” Liane rolled her eyes, “he got all purge-happy right up to the point where he thought ‘oh wait, I need these people to run my country!’ I bet he’s been up to his eyeballs in paperwork until recently.”

“He was probably a bit too ambitious,” Clara said, “but this is in hindsight, yes? At the point that he decided to go through with his decision, it may have seemed like the best opportunity to address certain problems.”

Ludmila continued ticking items off on her checklist, and they circled behind the column to go up the other side. She had very little idea of what Liane and Clara were talking about.

Most of what was heard when it came to the Bloody Emperor’s rise to power were vague rumours and sensationalised accounts with little in the way of real details. The events were generally not something one would discuss with Nobles, either; despite being antagonistic towards one another, aristocrats from both nations still considered themselves as fellows who occupied the same social strata.

“Nah, he got too greedy,” Liane waved a hand, “or maybe paranoid. He already had the army on his side. Once he knocked out the major players in the opposition, he could have taken his time with the rest. That is what he kept doing, after all. The only reason he could do what he did is because of all the work that the previous Emperors put in. They were the ones that mixed the batter and baked the cake – Jircniv just happened to be the one that got to eat it.”

“Isn’t he hailed as the most talented Emperor in the history of the Baharuth Empire?” Ludmila asked.

“I’m not saying that he isn’t,” Liane answered. “But ability is nothing without opportunity. We’re all examples of that.”

No one had anything to say in response to Liane’s statement. None of their achievements would have been possible without the advent of the Sorcerous Kingdom. Ludmila would probably still be scratching her head over House Zahradnik’s impoverished state in their old manor or patrolling the border deterring the encroachment of Goblin and Ogre tribes.

They returned to the head of the column, finding nothing amiss. Ludmila handed a copy of her completed inspection to the column leader.

“Keep this one on you,” she told him, “just in case it’s needed. I’ll be submitting one to the Grand Marshal and another copy will be going to the imperial officer in charge at the border. Did you receive any additional instructions?”

“No, my lady,” the Death Cavalier put the document away. “You’ll be accompanying us to the border, then?”

“Yup,” Liane answered for her.

Ludmila nodded with a slightly bemused smirk. Four Death Cavaliers in the front dismounted and offered them their saddles.

“How charming,” Florine smiled brightly. “They’re just like the gallant cavaliers from the stories.”

“Can’t they be just a bit more intimidating?” Liane frowned, “I wanna get a reaction out of these imperials.”

“We’re not supposed to be scaring our allies witless,” Ludmila told her. “Stop trying to make my job ten times harder.”

The four Death Cavaliers led their mounts as the column advanced once more. Liane’s new town was a few kilometres from the imperial border, so Ludmila could already see the banners of the imperial contingent awaiting them over the windswept plain. The banners indicated that they were a single company of legionnaires with a mixed configuration. As expected, they were attached to the division stationed in the Katze Marches.

She twisted around in her saddle to take one last look at the column. Everything appeared to be in order.

“Did you have any concerns before entering service in the Empire?” Ludmila asked the column leader as they rode forward.

“We will serve in the capacity required of us, my lady,” the Death Cavalier replied. “But what shall we say to the imperial officers if they issue commands that contradict our overarching orders?”

Like the Undead servitors leased out to subjects of the Sorcerous Kingdom, those delivered to foreign clients had explicit instructions to disregard orders that went against the general policies of His Majesty’s government. One could not take their leased forces to raid other nations or conquer the world, for instance.

“Certain terms within the lease agreement reflect those orders,” Ludmila said. “All you need to do is point out that such orders constitute a breach of contract. My task is to ensure that the Imperial Army understands this, but it’s a massive organisation. As such, you may be tested more than a few times before everything sinks in.”

“Acknowledged!”

“Uh…what if our national policy changes?” Liane said, “Like if we declare war or at least decide it isn’t worth playing nice with a particular bunch of people…”

“These servitors would still be under their existing contract,” Clara said. “I didn’t notice any clauses that allowed for that sort of flexibility.”

“Clauses of that nature are unnecessary,” Ludmila told them. “If hostilities break out, we have the Royal Army to conduct offensive operations. It is more important that our allies are protected against reprisal or preemptive attacks by our enemies. This is a good part of the reason why the Imperial Army has been supplemented with Death-series servitors. Anyone powerful enough to declare war against us is certainly strong enough to contend with the Empire, and defending our allies will be the hardest part of waging war against that enemy. We need forces positioned to stem the tide of such an offensive – being reactive would be ruinous.”

Roughly two hundred metres from the border, the disposition of the imperial contingent changed. The entire group seemed to waver. Several of their horses bolted, causing other animals to run off as well.

Ludmila narrowed her eyes. What was this company composed of? Well-trained warhorses wouldn’t bolt easily at their distance and people with Cavalry Skills could keep animals under control if they were mounted. Bonded mounts of specialised Cavalry Classes wouldn’t run off without extraordinary measures taken against them, such as mind-affecting spells from casters potent enough to punch through the reinforcement conferred by the mount’s rider.

Had they sent several civilian officials? Most of them were equipped as light infantry…maybe it was a policing force from the area? Surely they hadn’t sent inexperienced soldiers to receive them.

“Ah~ Even our draft horses are better behaved,” Liane sighed. “What do they take us for?”

With the column a hundred metres from the border, roughly half of the hundred-man company started to fall back. Several more bent forward as they fell onto their hands and knees and wretched. A few couldn’t get their helmets off before it happened.

?Okay, I know I asked for a reaction, but this is just gross. HEY! D-did you see that? That asshole just puked right over the border! Does that count as an attack? Dammiiiiit, stop throwing up on my new county!!!?

By the time they reached the imperial contingent, a fifth of them had collapsed on the grass. Two-thirds were scattered across the field several hundred metres away, continuing to retreat from the border. The remainder were shaking where they stood, save for a single man in the trappings of a company captain. As his gaze fell upon Ludmila and her friends at the front of the column, the man’s face went through a half-dozen expressions before turning bright crimson.

Ludmila dismounted and walked up to the mortified officer.

“Good morning,” she smiled.