Grand Duke Fernandez had earned the King's trust again and again. The King had piled titles and land upon him and now granted him the chance to found a true duchy. Even the Church had been willing to compromise and strike a bargain with the Crown. How could such a man possibly be the incompetent fool outsiders imagined?

Appearances could deceive. History could do the same. If Fernandez failed, the chronicles would remember an incompetent royal brother who relied on the King's indulgence, squandered hundreds of thousands of lives, and still fell short. If he succeeded, that same indulgence would become proof of the King's discerning eye. Fernandez would be praised for accepting the burden of recovering the lost provinces despite universal doubt, then turning back the tide.

Fernandez did not know whether this moment would turn the course of history, but it would certainly define his life. He could not afford the smallest lapse. For all his confidence in his own intelligence, he possessed little practical experience of war. His opponents were the renowned northern knights, the same warrior class that had inflicted devastating losses on the Holy Cross Kingdom before. He therefore set himself one rule above all others: make no mistakes. Advance carefully, consolidate every step, and refuse unnecessary risks.

Fernandez understood his own limitations. After the public argument with Count Connor, he calmly reviewed the western advance with his advisers.

“The Locke men cannot be trusted,” one warned. “It may be their plot.”

“I know. More likely, their own factions are fighting and wish to use me. But the grain-store locations they gave us cannot be false.”

Fernandez wanted the granaries. He wanted Birch Fort and Augusta Domain. He wanted Saint Miller Province—and, if fortune allowed, the Northern Province beyond it. Not all duchies were created equal.

“I accepted the Locke suggestion first to use their internal conflict to weaken Saint Miller, and second to hold the northern knights in place. If I do not watch them, I must fear them no matter which direction I attack.”

Attacking through Birch Fort was not contempt for the northern knights but recognition of them as the greatest threat. His advisers agreed, though they noted Connor would oppose the plan.

“He is the Sword of God, so we must give the Church its due. Let him take the troops he raised himself and attack along another route. He can pin down the other Locke forces for us.” Fernandez did not fear Connor. The Count would never bow his head to him, but neither would he dare sabotage the campaign. If he did, the Church would be the first to destroy him.

At the same time, Connor was discussing Fernandez with his own people. “We all underestimated him.” Connor rubbed his temples. He had expected a pampered royal wastrel whom he could sideline without effort. Instead, the Grand Duke had hidden his abilities remarkably well. Connor understood exactly what the levy of so many serfs meant: Church and Crown had struck a bargain. Continuing to resist head-on would gain him nothing. Their argument had been a declaration of position, meant to force Fernandez to surrender a measure of authority. If the Grand Duke was clever, he would yield enough. If not, Connor could afford to keep arguing longer than Fernandez could afford to delay the invasion.

Connor’s eldest son tried to comfort him by predicting that Fernandez’s inexperience would end in disaster. Connor dismissed the thought. “If I held command, I would attack through Birch Fort as well. The northern knights have always been Locke's shield, and Derek is their new standard-bearer. We cannot take Saint Miller without confronting them. Politics permits compromise; war does not. A threat that cannot be avoided must be watched and contained before it grows.”

His sons possessed battlefield experience and some ability to command troops, but their strategic vision lagged far behind. That was the weakness of a newly risen house. When Connor's sons were growing up, the family had not yet prospered; they received the rudiments of a noble education, but none of the deeper instruction passed down within ancient houses. Connor himself had learned everything step by step and could offer only personal lessons, not a mature system of inherited knowledge. If only one of his sons possessed Derek's instinctive talent.

...

Derek did not know anyone envied him. In the last available time, he personally traveled across Saint Miller and even into the Holy Cross interior, avoiding small border villages while surveying terrain. The Holy Cross had prepared: militia patrolled everywhere, officials and nobles readied for war. Moving two hundred thousand men was no simple matter.

Two hundred thousand men could not simply crowd together and march as a single mob. The host had to divide across several roads, with vanguards, rearguards, and flanking columns. Relay stations and supply depots had to be established at regular intervals, with grain stockpiled in advance to prevent a single disruption from collapsing the army. Those preparations revealed a great deal to anyone who knew how to read them. Derek did not turn back until the Holy Cross vanguard's banners appeared along the border.

“They are determined to come through us.”

He pointed at his corrected map. From Birch Fort, one route drove through Augusta Domain, another toward Pran City. A force also needed to circle through Marquis Hussein’s sector and pin down troops there. On the broad battlefield, the enemy could create a two-to-one advantage; locally, even ten-to-one. A defender would be far more passive.

“Use more against fewer, advance steadily, push layer by layer. There is no reason to lose.”

Augusta City stood well on a plain beside a river and fertile fields, but was difficult to defend while unfinished. In several years, with a finished city and castle screen, Derek could defend against two hundred thousand. Now, he could not.

“Adrian, take my banner to Birch Fort. I give you ten thousand men. Hide them completely. Even if two hundred thousand attack together, you must not reveal all our strength.”

Adrian accepted without hesitation. He did not know every part of Derek’s plan, but he would execute orders.

“Sherif, your task is to stay out of the war. Move the stud farm, the master craftsmen, and certain... people to my lands in the Northern Province until the danger passes.” Sherif tried to object, but Derek silenced him with a single glare. He had never seen such authority in his brother before; the answer escaped him almost by reflex.

“Simon, you are the main force. Prepare many flags. Arrange the newly raised militia in stages and be ready for a great flight. Do not let them be caught.”

Simon obeyed but did not understand. “If we gather everyone, we can fight, or at worst retreat. Why divide strength? Preserve people, lose land, and there is hope.”

“Do not ask. I have my reasons.” Derek would not explain. This world’s old foxes lacked perspective, not intelligence.

Connor's messenger finally arrived with confirmation: the Holy Cross main attack would indeed target Birch Fort. Fernandez had divided his army into three columns, two to contain Locke's other forces and one to launch the main assault. First seize Augusta, then concentrate the army and crush each smaller enemy force in turn. The method promised no swift victory, but it offered few easy openings for defeat.

Still, good strategy did not guarantee practical command. On a battlefield, armies did not move like arms and hands. Front-line officers might not want steady advances, and enemies would not make it easy.

As information accumulated, Hussein finally leaned clearly toward defense. Southern nobles could ignore Saint Miller’s fate, but he could not. Royal demands and southern promises both required him to hold it. Two hundred thousand Holy Cross troops frightened him. It was no longer time to undermine Derek; he might undermine himself.

In truth, the South had already trapped him. The scheme had progressed too far to halt merely because Hussein had changed his mind; from the beginning, Lovett had designed it so that the Marquis would share the blame. Unable to wash away every suspicion, Hussein wrote Derek a carefully worded warning about the food supply and revealed every transfer depot under his control.

“The southerners truly meant to starve us,” Derek told his knights after reading the letter. They had expected the betrayal, but the confirmation still provoked anger.

“After we drive off the Holy Cross priests, we should settle accounts with the southerners,” someone said.

Derek had already spent his anger. “Reply to Hussein that I am fully certain we can resist. Ask him to establish a grain store here, in case of emergency. And thank him for me.” He pointed to a low point on the edge of Augusta Domain.

Hussein saw nothing strange in moving some grain closer. He wanted to believe Derek could hold. He even prayed for Derek—and cursed Lovett.

...

“So this is Birch Fort?” Fernandez looked exhausted. Despite months of preparation, dividing the columns, establishing camps, and feeding the army had proved immensely complex. Without his advisers and officers, the vast host would have collapsed. Even with them, at least ten thousand soldiers had fled, died, or disappeared during the march.

The Holy Cross commanders treated those losses as infinitely replaceable. When a soldier vanished from a unit, its officers dragged away a farmer from the roadside or conscripted the next village they passed. More men deserted, died, or disappeared with every mile, yet still more were seized to replace them. By the time the army reached Birch Fort, it had somehow grown beyond its authorized strength.

The journey itself had been a harsh education, but it gave Fernandez his first real grip on the army. Standing before Birch Fort, he no longer believed that commanding two hundred thousand men made victory automatic.

“I hear Count Connor always surveys terrain himself,” he said.

“Yes. Understanding terrain allows more accurate deployment and prevents basic errors.”

“Then let us inspect it too.”

His men arranged covering troops and chose a distant height. From there, Birch Fort’s reinforced walls and double-headed dragon banner were clear. The northern Viscount was inside.