Chapter 772: The castle on the lake(1)
Following the victory at Apurvio, and the three days of rest and unrestrained plunder the Yarzat soldiers took to sate whatever appetites the battle had stirred, Alpheo found himself staring at a hard decision.
It was the kind of choice commanders liked to pretend was simple: either keep to the original plan despite the new complications, or risk overreaching in pursuit of a prize too tempting to ignore.
The scouts’ reports had brought him the complication. Many of the Oizenian lords who had escaped the field, ragged remnants of their former pride, had taken refuge within the walls of Apurvio. They had brought with them whatever troops had managed to survive the rout.
Alpheo doubted there were many. With Egil free to ride unopposed across the field, unshackled from the chore of countering enemy cavalry, Yarzat steel had cut through the fleeing Oizenians like a farmer’s scythe through ripe wheat.
Still, "not many" was a relative thing. Compared to the host that had faced him in the open, their number was paltry. But compared to the forces needed to defend a stone-walled city, they were more than enough to hold out.
And so the choice sat before him:
Besiege Apurvio and crush what was left of Sorza’s host in one final stroke before marching on Turogontoli... or leave the city behind and stay the course, keeping his timetable intact.
Each path had its own reward. A successful siege of Apurvio would see him with prisoners worth o ransom, and the satisfaction of wiping the enemy’s last chunk of organized force from the map. But there was the matter of time. The harvest had already been taken in, and Apurvio’s granaries were no doubt full. The city could likely hold out longer than his supply lines could sustain him.
An assault was out of the question. Whatever Alpheo thought of Oizenian soldiers on the open field—which was with the tags of pigs, mostly—they were a different breed behind walls. Pigs they might be in the mud, but atop a parapet, with stone under their feet and arrows in their hands, they could fight like cornered lions.
In truth, the question boiled down to a single calculation: was Alpheo confident he could take Apurvio and still wrap everything up before his own supplies ran dry?
The answer, after a long and sober consideration, was a resounding no.
The victory in the field had already been a crippling blow to whatever organized resistance Sorza might muster.
And the sight of the Oizenian prince himself fleeing like a thief in the night had been worth a dozen proclamations in its effect. That image alone would fester in the minds of the lords, making them think twice before rallying to his banner again. If Alpheo feared any serious counterattack during his push toward Turogontoli, the odds of it were vanishingly small.
The rewards of Apurvio were undeniable. A successful siege would mean ransom gold, prestige, and the satisfaction of wiping the slate clean before moving on. But rewards had to be weighed against time , and time was the one currency Alpheo could not afford to squander.
His most urgent need was not to fill his coffers but to link his conquests. He was deep in hostile country, and the lifeline between his new holdings and the Yarzat heartland to the north was as fragile as a single strand of thread, as after all, the sea was notoriously petty with any man who thought of owning it.
A land connection would mean security. It would mean the ability to move troops, goods, and orders without waiting on the tide. It would mean turning this latest conquest from a mere temporary prize into a permanent addition to Yarzat’s domain.
And that meant marching north to the Lampainais, taking the crossings, holding it, and slowly cutting a road home. Apurvio, tempting as it was, would have to wait, as right now there were things with much higher priority.
Was this what Hannibal felt afterCannae? He had wondered with the foul taste of an uncomfortable decision in his mouth.
For no matter how much logic he used, leaving such a dangling prize behind left him unsatisfied, no matter how much he had eaten before.
Still, the decision was taken, and so the army took the field once again.
Three thousand two hundred troops, excluding the column of camp followers and other non-combatants, marched unopposed through the rolling Oizenian countryside.
The wounded that came from the battle, which were barely reached two hundred, were left behind in Freuren to recover. After all with a haven behind , it didn’t really make sense to bring the wounded with them as they marched, as they would only really slow down the military machine and lower morale.
From his saddle, Alpheo let his gaze drift back over the long column. Javelins rose and fell like a rippling field of grain in the sunlight, the Royal banners snapping sharply in the wind. The breeze caught his hair, tugging it back from his face, and the cool touch against his skin was a welcome reprieve from the heat.
"Nice day, isn’t it?" A familiar voice called from his left.
Alpheo didn’t need to turn to know who it was. "Yes," he replied, still facing forward. "I quite like the wind on a day like this."
The steady thud of hooves drew closer until Egil’s horse matched his pace. The cavalry commander looked content, almost boyishly so, his wet hair plastered against his brow and trailing in dark strands down his back.
They’d halted an hour earlier to water the mounts and refill canteens at a shallow river, and many men had taken the chance to cool themselves in the shallows. Egil, clearly, had been one of them.
"Do you think," Alpheo asked suddenly, eyes still on the road ahead, "that we should have besieged Apurvio?"
Egil’s brow furrowed slightly as he flicked a damp lock of hair aside. "I don’t know," he admitted. "You made strong arguments either way. In the end, anyone could have had their own opinion, and either of us could have been wrong.
It all comes down to time: either we wasted gods-know-how-long starving them out, or we pushed north to try and take... whatever that city was called" he waved a vague hand at the name he did not recall "before our supplies ran thin. Then we could move on with your plan for the river crossings."
"I see," Alpheo said simply.
Egil shot him a sidelong glance. "Why? Are you getting cold feet?"
"Not really," Alpheo replied, mouth curling faintly. "As you said, either choice could have been right or wrong. I only wondered what you thought. You were silent when we discussed it before."
"Perhaps I had nothing to add," Egil said with a small, crooked smile. "Wouldn’t be the first time."
"You don’t give yourself enough credit."
Egil’s chuckle was low, almost swallowed by the creak of leather harnesses and the steady tramp of boots behind them.
"A sword only needs to know how to swing," he said, as if that explained everything.
"That’s what others think of you, a sword. But is that what you think you are?" Alpheo’s gaze fixed on him, his tone calm but edged. "What people believe and what truly is are as far apart as the sea and the mountains. Don’t let their opinion define you. You are your own man, with your own strengths.
I’ve seen how you act in front of the other lords, feeding that ’wild brute’ image they’ve painted for you. It is clearly an act.
At the feast after Herculia, you made a spectacle of yourself. And more than once you’ve voiced thoughts better kept to yourself. Loudly."
"Maybe that’s just who I am," Egil replied, shrugging, his voice deliberately flat.
Alpheo shook his head. "I’ve known you long enough to know that’s not true. You’re far more thoughtful than you pretend to be. I’ve even been caught off guard by the sharpness of your words. So I’ll ask again, why do you do it? Why keep confirming their view of you?"
Egil’s eyes didn’t meet his. He shifted in the saddle, fingers drumming idly on his thigh before speaking
"Because when things like Aracina happen, and they will happen again, the whispers should circle me, not you.
Let them call me the savage, the brute, the beast that slipped the leash, I don’t really care about any of it. What I care about is that those rumors will rotate around me and not you.
That way, when the blood’s fresh and the lords are looking for someone to blame, all you have to say is that I acted without orders... or that my nature got the better of me. At worst, you take the fault of keeping an unruly servant and give me some light punishment."
Alpheo studied him for a long moment. The man’s gaze was fixed ahead, unreadable, but there was no mistaking the intent in his words. It was protection, disguised in the same rough hide Egil wore in every feast hall and council chamber.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
Egil only gave the smallest tilt of his head, as if brushing off the remark, and kept his eyes fixed on the horizon.
After a few moments, Alpheo spoke again. "So, back to what we discussed earlier... what’s your opinion?I would really like to hear it"
Egil eyes moved back to Alpheo’s , for a long instance he said nothing.
Perhaps when he realized Alpheo truly wanted to hear it, he relented.
"One’s worth the other, I suppose...."
With that he spurred his horse forward, riding ahead toward the column’s point, revealing, coincidentally, for the matter’s sake, that his opinion truly did not matter.