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Chapter 20: Shadows in the moonlight

Father didn\'t joke when he said they were going to leave early. Gianni, a hundred of his soldiers, led by five mage-knights, and Cael, left at sunrise. Horses carried the mages and the carts with provisions, while normal soldiers marched on foot.

It was a balance between how fast their regiments will reach the target, and how ready they will be for a fight by that point.

Cael and Gianni rode in the beginning of the procession, where they didn\'t have to eat dust from the footsteps of their army. Cael\'s father wore a set of orichalcum scale armor covered in Arcani glyphs that made it lighter and sturdier. This metal, while softer than normal steel, was much easier to enchant. Because of that, it was highly valued, and Oliveira\'s orichalcum mine brought them no small amount of wealth.

Cael only wore a chain shirt, also enhanced with magic. He wasn\'t used to wearing heavier armor… But Gianni insisted.

"Do you have a plan, Father? A reason you only moved out now?" Cael asked soon after their group left the city.

He wasn\'t afraid to be overheard. The footsteps of soldiers drowned out all the noises farther than three paces away. Cael had to ride side-to-side with his father to ensure his words would reach him.

Gianni turned toward Cael, his steed marching forward without need for direction.

"A plan? Only an utter fool would march into war without one, son. Consider this a lesson. And that you even ask means that you can\'t even guess what my plan might be."

"Another test, Father?"

"No. You already failed that one, as I said. War is much like fencing—whoever attacks first gets initiative, but opens himself for a responding strike. And I hoped… I hoped we would be more prepared for this war than we are now."

A dark cloud fell on Gianni\'s face but disappeared just as quickly as it came. In another moment, he was himself again—a powerful, resolute general, mage and lord.

"Yesterday\'s ambush was only the first one. I am sure that Enzo\'s plan is to exhaust our forces with this tactic of rapid strikes, and then march forward through the charred land. I am going to force him to abandon this idea."

Gianni fell silent, and Cael understood it was his cue to guess. He recalled the art of strategic warfare, then looked around at the rows of soldiers.

This was just a part of Gianni\'s forces. Two more hundreds were spread over the border. But the border was wide, and this hundred of soldiers were *here*, and had seven mages in it. Including Gianni himself.

"You are going to go to Nuvoloso\'s lands… And march through it first?"

"Indeed." Gianni\'s eyebrows rose. "You actually *are* able to fix at least some of your mistakes. Yes. We will strike at the city of Lacrimarosa. If Enzo\'s forces would be too busy elsewhere, we would take the city and from it would be able to launch our own swift strikes. If Enzo\'s forces come to Lacrimarosa to join the city\'s garrison or even ambush us… Then we will ambush them instead."

Cael\'s eyes widened. *Smart!* he thought. He remembered from poking around the maps that Lacrimarosa was just a few hours away from the border with Oliveira. It wasn\'t the richest city, but it blocked—or opened—the way towards the capital of the county.

"We will reach the border fortress that evening, and march onto the enemy territory in the morning," Father added. "And remember—out there you will stay near me at all times. Never take off your Sending Amulet, either."

Cael nodded, feeling for the small amulet he wore around his wrist. Father gave it to him together with the chain shirt. Gianni himself had half a dozen of them, each connected to an important person somewhere.

***

By evening Cael realized that, though he could bear the discomforts of traveling for hours on a horseback and eating rations, he didn\'t like it at all. Those hours made him dream about achieving seventh rank.

At this rank, mages could travel through flames, or walk through space, or use other means of skipping distance to their destination. Those who found or came up with the spell, of course. What was a mage without spells? Just a miserable pile of mana.

The keep, with a normal garrison of forty men—which just showed how much Father distrusted Nuvoloso, since a normal garrison had only twenty or even ten—was too small for the hundred that Gianni brought there. They had to build tents in the courtyard, though the nobles, of course, got rooms.

Even if Cael had to share his room with Father.

It was deep at night when Cael woke up from an uncomfortable feeling. A moment later, he realized it was just his bladder complaining. Another downside of traveling—this keep didn\'t have magical toilets, like Oliveira tower… Only a chamber pot.

Cael decided, though, to not piss with his father snoring just nearby. Instead, he crept out, planning to go to the wall. Take a breath of fresh air, too.

He was passing through the courtyard when he spotted a dark shadow in the moonlight, sneaking between the tents. Cael froze, unsure that it wasn\'t a trick of the lights, when he spotted another shadow.

And this time, it was definitely not a shadow. It was a person.

Cael sucked in a sharp breath.

"Alarm! Intruders! Alarm!"