Valkyrie's Shadow

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 2, Chapter 2

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 2, Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“G-G-G-Glasir, what’s going on?”

“Dunno.”

“Glasiiiiiir!”

Olga’s desperate voice streamed into Glasir’s ear. She already told the student lord that she didn’t know what was going on, but Olga seemed to believe that repeatedly asking the same question would produce a different answer at some point. Well, she wasn’t wrong – they would know what was going on eventually.

“You didn’t even say that your mother was back!” Olga said.

“But you said you saw her this morning at the shrine?” Glasir replied.

The student lord gave her a teary-eyed look. What did she want?

“W-we’ll be f-fine,” Raul did not sound fine. “It’s two against one, right? We even get more soldiers.”

Around the hillside, the other students quivered like leaves in the wind. Even the idea that they were fighting against the Warden had turned them into a mess.

This part Glasir at least understood: the Warden was a Warden, after all. Even monsters would stop and turn right back around when confronted by a Warden in their territory. She heard that an army of over a hundred thousand Demihumans had threatened invasion in the past and the Warden had simply obliterated them. That was the sort of thing that Wardens did.

And now it was their turn to be obliterated. Why was she standing on this side again?

Following the usual post-school ritual, they went over to the Warden’s home to get some Elder Liches. What they found there, however, was the Warden accompanied by someone by the name of Countess Clara Odilia Dale Corelyn – who had been introduced to her the previous night – and some other strangers who were introduced as Vicar Themis Aspasia, Sister Alessia di Altamura, Countess Liane Loretta Dale Wagner and Baroness Florine Kadia Dale Gagnier.

The students, of course, were ecstatic that the Warden was back…at least until she heard what they were up to. She suddenly smiled and said ‘let’s fight!’, before strolling off to await them in the north.

After everyone gathered their things and picked out a battleground, the Warden explained how the battle would work.

They would be participating in a match using Bronze-league rules. Olga, Raul and the Warden would all have standard teams. Olga and Raul would be working together to defeat the Warden, meaning that they had a total of ninety-six points versus the Warden’s forty-eight. Additionally, the Warden didn’t have any equipment for her soldiers while Olga and Raul were allowed to use what they had prepared.

It didn’t sound that bad…maybe. They at least appeared to have an overwhelming advantage, but all sorts of weird things could happen during their matches.

The students eventually gathered behind the east hill of the battlefield. Olga and Raul faced one another with crossed arms.

“What were you going to do, Olga?”

“…”

“Olga!”

Olga bit her lip, looking down to the side. Their war plans were supposed to be a secret. If they revealed what they were up to, it wasn’t just a single day of battles that would be affected, but every day after that until enough changes could be made to their strategies and the equipment production that revolved around it.

“Fine,” Raul said. “You go on that side and I’ll go on the other side. We can figure out our formations later.”

The Olga tribe and the Raul tribe went their separate ways. Glasir went with Olga’s group as usual, watching them discuss how they would equip their soldiers.

“What are we going to do?” An apprentice Blacksmith asked.

“I don’t know!” Olga answered, “I haven’t fought Lady Zahradnik before!”

Everyone looked at Glasir.

“What?” She frowned.

“Do you know what your mother will do?”

“I dunno,” Glasir replied. “I haven’t seen her fight before either.”

The girls sighed. They were usually so enthusiastic, but that was all gone now.

“Then what’s good against everything?” Someone asked.

“If there was something that was good against everything,” Olga said, “that would be all we’d use. Hmm…we have equipment and Lady Zahradnik doesn’t so maybe Zombies will be good again?”

That seemed like an okay idea. Back when they just started using equipment, it made a huge difference. They had the Elder Liches summon twelve Zombies and the team started equipping them for battle.

“Do you think Lady Zahradnik will use the same summons that we do?”

“I-I think so?” Olga replied, “It isn’t as if she has a different choice of summons. Plus she probably knows we use Undead so she won’t use stuff with abilities they’re immune to…”

The student lord mumbled away to herself, brow furrowed in thought. Twelve Skeleton Riders were added to the force, as well as twelve Skeleton Archers. The final twelve points were used for two Fire Elementals and two Air Elementals. They had built up enough equipment for the Undead at this point so they were all fully armed and armoured. The two Air Elementals received two shiny steel sabres that would twirl around them as they attacked.

“Something like this?”

Why are you asking us? You’re the student lord…

As time went by, Olga knew more and more about the armies and leading them. No one else on the team could say what to do with any confidence unless it was a field that their apprenticeships covered. Once in a while, people had interesting ideas but they couldn’t just randomly throw them in. It was up to Olga to put everything together and make things work effectively.

After equipping their soldiers, Olga and Raul brought them together behind the hill. Raul wrinkled his nose.

“Weak!” He said, “Almost everything you picked is puny!”

Unlike Olga, everything that Raul used was a Second-tier summon. There were eight Undead Beasts in the shape of goats, four Fire Elementals and four Air Elementals.

“Don’t assume that big and strong means everything!” Olga shot back, “We’re fighting Lady Zahradnik, you know? If we don’t have enough soldiers to counter what she’s doing, we’re going to lose.”

“How do you know what she’s going to do?” Raul frowned.

“I don’t! We need to be prepared for everything.”

“How do we prepare for everything? That’s crazy!”

“Maybe we should figure out what we’re doing,” Glasir said. “We’re gonna run out of time.”

Everyone gathered around as the two student leaders discussed their plans. They couldn’t come up with much because they didn’t know how the Warden fought or what to expect beyond the best summons they knew of. The consensus was that Lady Zahradnik would use something tireless, tough enough to withstand being outnumbered and had decent natural weapons, which essentially meant Elementals at their league rank.

“If I knew we were going to summon the same Elementals,” Olga grumbled, “I would have gotten different ones.”

“That’s why I asked what you were going to do…” Raul grated.

His reply only seemed to antagonise Olga even more. Their attempts at planning ended with a regular-looking formation with heavy infantry – the Zombies and the Zombie Beasts – in the front. The mobile Skeleton Riders occupied the wings and the Skeleton Archers made a line in the rear centre. A few metres above the infantry line, the Air Elementals floated quietly with their sabres. The Fire Elementals were arranged three to a side behind the Skeleton Riders.

They marched their army around to the front of the hill and Glasir sat down near the command platform so she could hear what was going on. The battlefield this time was about two hundred metres from end to end, with wavy ridges spaced out evenly from each other all the way across. Stones and boulders were also strewn randomly about and some stone pillars stood in a few places in imitation of trees and bushes.

One of the girls went around serving cookies. Glasir shook her head when she was offered one.

“I got in trouble for eating cookies last time,” she said.

“You got in trouble?” The girl frowned, “But we’re allowed to eat snacks when we do this.”

“I know,” Glasir replied, “But when I eat cookies I get ants.”

Glasir didn’t mind ants, but Lluluvien was really annoyed when she found them invading the house. They made a big long line through the window shutters and wove through the solarium to get the cookies in Glasir’s pot. Then a bunch of them wandered off and went all over the house. The Half-Elf Maid kept jumping up and shaking out her clothing from time to time for a week after it happened.

On the opposite command platform stood Lady Zahradnik and the strangers who had come with her. She raised the flag that signalled that she was ready. Olga and Raul exchanged confused looks.

“I don’t see anything…does anyone see anything?”

A few of the students on the hillside stood up and shaded their eyes against the late-afternoon sun. One after the other, they turned and shook their heads.

“Maybe she’s hiding everything behind the furthest ridges,” Raul suggested.

“Well, she says she’s ready, so I guess…”

Olga raised the ready flag. Without any information to act upon, uncertain looks painted the two student lords’ faces.

?Surrender!?

A wave of pure dread rolled across the field and slammed into Glasir. She threw herself on her face, cowering on the ground with her arms covering her head.

?Oh, did I win already??

It took Glasir a good dozen seconds to raise her head and look around. All across the hillside, the other students were still on the ground. A movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention: Olga was frantically waving a white flag over her head. The Elder Liches below the platform were all turned to look up at her. Beside Glasir, the Death Knight with her pot shook its head.

?I suppose that is lesson number one. Winning without fighting is best, so long as you destroy your opponent’s will to fight. Now, shall we have another battle??

Yup, the Warden was scary. Fear was her harbinger and it shattered the wills of those who tried to resist.

It took several minutes for the two student lords to stop trembling and signal their readiness again. The demand to give up didn’t come this time, but that didn’t change the fact that there didn’t appear to be anything to attack. Glasir climbed up her Death Knight, standing on its shoulders to see if she could spot anything from higher up. Still, nothing could be seen.

“What do we do?” Olga said.

“Is she using some sneaky summons?” Raul scratched his head.

“Are there any sneaky summons in this league?” Olga asked, “The best I can think of are some of the beasts, but we should be able to see them if they’re out in the open.”

“What if they fly or burrow? Or maybe she’s using Air Elementals?”

“We are under attack,” one of the Elder Liches informed them.

A dull clunk came from in front of them, followed by a light thok thok thok that was occasionally punctuated by another clunk. Three of the Skeleton Archers fell apart before the northern wind was all that could be heard once again.

“What?!” Olga shouted.

“Rocks!” Someone called out, “They’re throwing rocks at us!”

“Rocks?” Raul’s head turned everywhere, “From where?”

“I don’t know! They’re coming from above!”

That either meant they were being attacked from very far away or something was dropping rocks on their heads. The two student lords leaned back and forth on their tiptoes, trying to see if they could locate their attacker.

“Over there!”

Several rocks a bit bigger than Glasir’s fist arced high over the nearby ridge, landing amidst the Skeleton Riders on the right flank.

“Pull back!” Olga shouted.

“Get them!” Raul shouted at the same time.

“Huh?”

“Why?!”

Raul’s forces charged towards the ridge while Olga’s pulled back.

“We can’t see our attackers,” Olga said. “Attacking blind is stupid!!”

“Lady Zahradnik only has forty-eight points,” Raul countered. “We can win with numbers!”

The shower of rocks stopped before Raul’s forces crested the ridge. No sounds of battle could be heard.

“What’s going on back there?” Raul asked.

“No enemies have been located,” an Elder Lich below reported. “We await your command.”

“Bring them back before something happens,” Olga said.

Raul bit his lip with an indecisive expression.

“We are under attack,” an Elder Lich said.

“Where?!”

“The forces over the ridge,” the Elder Lich replied. “They are being assaulted in the same manner as before.”

“What’s attacking them?”

“Unknown.”

“Ugh! Pull back!”

The summons returned, short one Undead Beast. Raul sighed in exasperation.

“How can we fight if we can’t even see what we’re fighting?”

“What can throw rocks that far?” Olga murmured, “It would have to be pretty strong…”

“Uh…Earth Elementals?” Raul offered, “No, that has to be it – that’s why we can’t find them or see anything!”

Medium Earth Elementals were as strong and tough as a normal Ogre, making them the only Second-tier summon capable of throwing rocks from so far away. More importantly, they glided through the ground as easily as a fish swam through water. This made them effectively invisible when the entire battlefield was made of stone.

“Grr,” Olga pouted, “if we had our own Earth Elementals, we could have forced them out.”

That was how she dealt with Earth Elementals the last time they were used: while they were strong and tough, they could be forced out of the ground and broken up with blunt arrows. Since they were pretty slow, it was easy to get rid of them once they were out in the open.

“Can we lure them out?” Raul asked, “Give up something cheap so we can jump on them.”

“I don’t–”

Rocks came flying in from behind a different ridge. This time, both of the student lords pulled back their soldiers.

“We can try,” Olga said. “We need to keep the Skeleton Archers alive though. They have blunt arrows…that’s probably why Lady Zahradnik targeted them first.”

Another barrage of rocks came in from a different angle, destroying four Skeleton Riders. The students’ forces backed away from the source of the new attack.

“D-did they split up?” Raul said, “Maybe we can beat up one side.”

“We need to do something,” Olga replied. “We’re getting picked apart!”

Three Skeleton Riders on the other side shattered. With the latest losses, they were down from ninety-six points to eighty-two.

“Then pick a side!”

“Um…right! Go!”

Olga pointed to the ridge northwest of them and the remaining five Skeleton Riders galloped off with the Air Elementals flying overhead. The Undead Beasts and Fire Elementals were slower, while the Zombies shuffled after them.

“Erm, wait,” Raul said, “isn’t this bad? We’re all spread out!”

As if on cue, two Earth Elementals emerged from the stone, smashing their way through the Skeleton Archers. Olga let out a ‘kiiii!!!’ sound like she usually did when some trick got the better of her.

“Zombies, turn around!” She screeched, “Get those Elementals!”

The Earth Elementals did not oblige her attempted response, vanishing into the stone before the Zombies could get close.

“Tell me we at least got something over there,” Raul said.

“We have encountered no enemy forces,” an Elder Lich said.

“This one’s Fire Elemental has been lost,” another reported.

“What’s going on here?!” Raul let out a frustrated shout.

They were down to sixty-nine points and still hadn’t a clue what was happening. The two student lords couldn’t see what was going on behind the ridge and the rules said that they weren’t allowed to move from their command platform. League battles from Bronze to Gold had static command posts to mirror the fact that Commanders in the Royal Army weren’t allowed to risk getting too close to the front lines. Many potential enemies could threaten someone at that level of strength.

Olga and Raul pulled back their forces again. They tightened their formation and kept as far back from the nearby ridges as possible. Once in a while, a bunch of rocks would fly over but they had figured out how far their forces needed to be to stay out of range.

“Hey,” Olga addressed the Elder Lich who had reported last, “how did you lose your Fire Elemental?”

“A ranged volley consisting of large stones.”

“We lost a Medium Fire Elemental to rocks?!”

“Many rocks,” the Elder Lich said. “Fire Elementals have no particular resistance against bludgeoning damage.”

“Where did the rocks come from?”

“Judging by the angle, the next ridge.”

Glasir peered in the indicated direction, but they couldn’t see past the ridge. The Warden hadn’t moved from her platform – why could she see? Was it because she was taller? She looked at the ridges on the other side.

Oh, I get it.

“She can see the backs of the ridges on our side,” Glasir told Olga and Raul. “Just like we can see the backs of hers.”

“But…but that means we’re stuck,” Olga said. “If we try to get out, she can command her forces while we can’t even see what’s going on!”

“We still have more points. If we defend, we still have the advantage.”

“But what if they start throwing rocks from the top of the ridges?”

Clack clack clack clack clunk clunk clack clunk clunk clunk.

More rocks started to fall. Two Zombie Beasts were destroyed, followed by another Fire Elemental and the remaining Skeleton Riders.

“What!” Olga squawked, “How are they still hitting us?! No, wait…”

Olga peered upwards, squinting into the sun.

“The angle is wrong,” she said.

“The angle?” Raul frowned.

“Those rocks from just now weren’t coming from the ridge, they were coming from the sky!”

Glasir peered upwards, but she couldn’t see anything. There weren’t any more rocks falling, either.

“That can’t be right,” Raul said. “I thought we decided they were Earth Elementals–see, look!”

More rocks came over the ridge. Raul pointed a finger.

“Send an Air Elemental to see what’s there!”

“Four Medium Earth Elementals,” an Elder Lich reported several seconds later.

“See?” Raul said, “They have four Earth Elementals there, and there’s probably four more on the other side at least. That’s thirty-two out of forty-eight points.”

“Ah!” Olga pointed to the sky, “They’re coming again! They’ve been using the sun to hide!”

Several swirling collections of rocks came to a hover above them. One at a time, the Air Elementals tossed rocks down at the student lords’ remaining forces.

“Get them!” Raul cried, “There’s only four!”

Their six Air Elementals rose to intercept their rock-tossing enemies. The students looked up in anticipation, but it was difficult to see what was going on.

“Once we finish them off,” Raul said, “we can do the same thing back to them.”

A half-minute later, an Elder Lich’s voice drifted up from below the platform.

“This one’s Air Elemental has been lost.”

“What about the enemy?” Olga asked.

“This one’s Air Elemental has been lost,” another Elder Lich said.

“This one’s Air Elemental has been lost,” added another.

“What!”

“This one’s Air Elemental has been lost.”

“Argh!”

After losing the last of their Air Elementals, rocks resumed pelting the Zombie Beasts. Olga slapped the wooden railing of the command platform with her palm.

“This is mean and unfair!” She said with flushed cheeks, “We can’t even fight back!”

Rather than share in her sentiment, Raul sighed and reached for the white flag at their feet.

Glasir hopped off of her Death Knight and the rest of the students rose from their seats on the hillside. The Warden and the others with her came over to join them a few minutes later. An Elder Lich floated down from above.

“Out of a total of ninety-six points–”

“Kyaaa!!! Lady Zahradnik, you’re so wonderful!”

Olga’s excited squeal drowned out the Elder Lich as she ran up to the Warden. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were flushed as she bounced on the balls of her feet. Glasir eyed Olga dubiously as the student lord bubbled with adoration.

Weren’t you just complaining about how mean and unfair the Warden was?

She didn’t get it. Whenever she thought she learned something about Humans, she learned that there was more to learn.

“I cannot say that an enemy commander has ever thanked me for defeating them in battle…”

“But you were so amazing!” Olga gushed, “You snuck up and pinned us down so easily. We couldn’t do anything no matter how much we struggled – all we could do was cry helplessly as you destroyed us!”

“…”

“…”

“Hey, she’s, like, twelve, right?” Countess Wagner – a slender woman with jaw-length waves of light blonde hair – frowned at Olga’s rapt expression.

“Children these days are so advanced,” Baroness Gagnier – a woman with a dark brown dress that hid her figure – remarked.

“She’s just like Zahradnik,” Countess Corelyn smiled.

“I-I am not like that!”

The Warden’s eyes shifted back and forth. She didn’t sound convincing at all.

“Hmm…you are not very good at the lying, domina. It is nothing to be ashamed of anyway, yes? This sort of desire becomes harder to satisfy the stronger one is, so your frustrations are understandable.”

“I am not frus–”

“Sister Alessia is right,” Themis Aspasia cut her off. “It is perfectly natural to desire the strong. This should especially be the case for warriors like you.”

Glasir nodded in silent agreement. Living things sought those with competitive advantages to have offspring with. It was perfectly natural.

The last two who had spoken both wore something like an apron of black fabric with silver trim over their plate armour. According to the Human villagers, they were like the Lizardman Priests and the Humans went to them for wisdom and guidance. Though the Warden wasn’t exactly a Human, she appeared to defer to them in the same way.

In the end, they discovered that the Warden had used eight Air Elementals and four Earth Elementals for her army. If they had charged across with everything right from the start, they might have been able to take the Warden’s base. Instead, the Warden had taken the initiative, turning their caution over the apparent lack of enemy forces into an overly defensive mindset. After that, she could dismantle their army at her leisure.

“At any rate,” the Warden said after the review of the battle was complete, “I hope I provided you with some valuable experience. As Humans, it is understandable that little consideration has been given to air power so far, but can you share what else you have learned as Commanders?”

Olga raised her right hand.

“It’s better to be unfair and crush the spirit of your enemies!”

“In war, yes,” the Warden nodded. “The rules of diplomacy and war are different from the rules of everyday life, so do not go around doing that to your friends. Now, why do you think it is better to be unfair and crush the will of your enemies?”

“Um…it’s better? When we have battles, we always lose soldiers and our equipment needs to be fixed and replaced. You didn’t lose anything at all and you used rocks. Rocks don’t even need to be crafted!”

“Believe it or not,” the Warden smirked, “one can run out of rocks. You are generally correct, however. Preserving personnel and resources is important in many ways. Wars that result in too many losses create weaknesses that others might seek to exploit. It is not good for your enemies, either.”

Olga and Raul furrowed their brows at the last statement.

“What does that mean?” Olga asked, “They’re enemies, right? If we win, we can do whatever we want to them.”

“‘Can’ and ‘should’ are two very different things,” the Warden told her. “The people who act as you describe are the ones so full of themselves that they cannot consider the situations of others. An enemy today can be a friend tomorrow and every country has its place in the overall balance of power in the world. This may be used to our advantage or at least to the detriment of other potential enemies. How one conducts war lays the foundations for whatever may come in the future.”

“…I don’t get it.”

“You will learn those intricacies as you grow,” the Warden smiled warmly. “For now, hmm…think back to your old villages. If Ogres came raiding, what would the villagers do?”

“Hide,” Olga answered.

“Fight!” Raul said.

The two student lords frowned at one another.

“Fighting is dumb!” Olga said, “Hiding means the village only has a few people taken away. If you fight, a lot of people die!”

“If you don’t fight,” Raul countered, “they’re gonna keep coming back! Not fighting is giving away food for free. If you hurt them enough, they’ll think twice about bullying the village again.”

“Well,” the Warden said, “how about we pursue both lines of thought? Olga, what happens after you hide and lose a few people?”

“Go back to work.”

“But what will you do about the Ogres?”

Olga fell silent for a moment before replying.

“The Village Chief would ask for help from the lord.”

The Warden turned to look at the other Human Lords.

“What will the lord do, Wagner?”

“Uh…depends on the lord and how they’re taught to manage that sort of problem. I guess you might also say that it depends on how ‘good’ they are.”

“What is the most pragmatic solution?”

“Tell the Village Chief to contract new tenants in the local town or city,” Countess Wagner immediately replied. “There are always spares who are desperate for tenancies.”

Without exception, the students all frowned at Countess Wagner. Baroness Gagnier pinched her in the arm.

“Hey! What was that for?!”

“No reason.”

Baroness Gagnier looked away. The Warden hid a smile behind her hand.

“What about the obligation of a lord to defend their tenants?”

“There are justifiable limits,” Countess Wagner replied. “A lord needs to project the losses to productivity incurred by raiding and see whether they’re worth hiring Adventurers over. If they’re not, they can argue that it will do more harm than good. Nobles who can afford to keep retired Adventurers or armed retinues will use those, of course.”

“You have a few of those, right?”

“Yep,” Countess Wagner nodded. “They’re handy to have around. Our Maids, too.”

“Your Maids?”

“Hell yeah! Rose is a Second-tier Caster. That’s strong enough to be in a Gold-rank team…well, by outsider standards. Anyway, it wasn’t raids we had to deal with most of the time – it was bit crooks. Thugs who thought they were tough enough to defy the law and try to take over or smugglers sneaking through our territory. Smugglers especially: they knew we’d hang ‘em if we caught ‘em, so they always tried to fight or run.”

Glasir didn’t know what thugs or smugglers were, but they sounded dangerous. She wondered what they looked like.

“Back to the Ogres,” the Warden said. “You say justifiable limits, but since raiders do not target territorial assets, that means replacing lost tenants is always more ‘justifiable’ than financing an armed response.”

“As long as there are spares willing to migrate,” Countess Wagner replied. “The riskier they feel a move is, the less likely they’ll want to go. Frontier territories like Warden’s Vale had an especially hard time with that and the usual way they got migrants was from other frontier territories. The upside for tenants of frontier territories is that they can negotiate more favourable terms and lords tend to be nice to them because bodies are scarce.

“At the same time, it’s one of the reasons why Houses like Fassett can treat their people like dirt. Spares think they’ve lucked out getting a contract in a County on the Royal Highway. They’ll figure out it sucks after they arrive, but by then they’re legally obliged to stay and the lord can enforce the terms of their contract. That contract will favour the lord because desirable territories have higher competition over tenancies.”

She didn’t entirely understand what Countess Wagner was talking about, but Warden’s Vale sounded a lot better by far. People were happy here.

The other women frowned in a biiiiig way at Countess Wagner. She shifted uncomfortably under their stares.

“Wh-what? You asked, so I answered. In the end, it’s all a calculation and a lord’s liege has to recognise those considerations. Also, as long as the lord is acting in good faith, the spare that gets picked up is saved from urban life. You saw how Arwintar was: conditions for spares in cities are crap unless they have something that makes them stand above the rest. That’s like one in a thousand people.”

“That ratio seems off,” the Warden said. “Should it not be closer to one in ten with the demographics we saw in Arwintar?”

“Haha, no. The people in comfy places keep everyone else down so their kids and friends get the opportunities first. All those poor people stay poor and their kids also stay poor unless they’re the one in a thousand that I mentioned and if their talents are even recognised in the first place.”

“But the Imperial Examinations–”

“Aren’t so hard that only geniuses can pass it. I hate the fact that you seem to be right about this, but the Empire by necessity has to have a system where average people can succeed because exceptional people are so rare. A guy that isn’t dumb and works hard can secure a job at one of the ministries. Those with power, wealth and influence can not only pay for the best education and training, but put their favourites first in line. The Empire is satisfied so long as they get a functional bureaucrat that follows the rules of the bureaucracy. Good luck being an illiterate schmuck from a farming family who wants a government job in the city: you have zero chance to even qualify for the exam, never mind take it.”

It seemed that, despite their tendency to transform the world to suit them, the basic laws of nature still applied to Humans. When territory and resources became scarce, only those with the right advantages for their environment could thrive. It sounded like everyone else just suffered trying to survive. Having a predator put them out of their misery seemed more merciful.

“Then what happens to the village that fights?” The Warden asked, “You just pick up fifty spares to replace fifty dead tenants?”

“It’s more annoying to dig up that many at once, but the alternative is fifty tenants’ worth of unmanaged land. At the same time, the village fighting and losing so many is more likely to result in retaliation against raiders.”

“Why is that?”

“People react to stuff,” Countess Wagner shrugged. “Nobles are people too. People don’t feel anything when it’s small losses over a long time, especially when they don’t happen right in front of them. Lose entire villages at once and it’s a big problem right in your face.”

The Warden let out a long sigh before turning her attention back to the students.

“Now, assuming that the Noble facilitates a substantial armed response for the Ogre raid, what options are available to the Commander?”

“Go and beat ‘em up so they don’t come back!” Raul answered.

“Attack them the next time they show up to raid a village,” Olga said.

The two student Lords glared at each other again.

“You don’t even know where they are,” Olga told Raul. “We can’t fight like that even when the battle is fifty metres away so how can we fight in a forest?”

“Maintaining soldiers costs money,” Raul countered. “All of the supplies and equipment will suck up the lord’s budget worse than it sucks up ours. You don’t even know when they’ll show up next.”

“You are both right,” the Warden nodded, “but being right in this case brings you no closer to a long-term solution. I cannot claim that there is such a thing as permanent peace, but there are ways to structure conflicts to reduce the chance of future conflict. By the same token, you can structure conflicts to increase the chance that future conflicts will happen.”

“How?”

“There are many ways to do it. You can maintain eternal vigilance as Olga suggests, which is what the Empire has done for generations. If you go with Raul’s choice and manage to secure a decisive victory, you can also subjugate the Ogres and incorporate them into your territory.”

“Make the Ogres join us?” Raul frowned.

“That is what His Majesty has done on several occasions,” the Warden told them. “The Lizardmen living here got ‘beaten up’ too, but, as you can see, they do not have to stay beaten up. If you become Commanders in the Sorcerous Kingdom’s Royal Army, you cannot just think in Human terms. Using diplomacy and trade like my friends here can also work and there are many other options besides. The military is but one weapon in a nation’s arsenal; as a Commander, you must be aware of what those other weapons are capable of, where they might be better suited for any given situation and whether they can be used in concert to more efficiently achieve your objectives.”

Olga and Raul remained silent at her explanation, their expressions devoid of understanding. The Warden crossed her arms and cupped her cheek with a hand. Sunlight glistened from the jewelled ornament on her ear as she tapped her finger lightly below it.

“I believe you will have an opportunity to see some of what I speak of firsthand,” she said after several moments.

“Zahradnik!” Countess Corelyn looked at the Warden in shock, “You cannot mean–”

“I do. All apprentices have instructors and are afforded practical experience; Commanders should be no exception. Practical experience is especially rare for us, so we should take advantage of it whenever it is available.”