The downpour arrived exactly on schedule. Even the Holy Cross rear guard, left behind to die, thanked heaven for the timely intervention. Fernandez abandoned his beloved open carriage and fled back into Augusta Domain in miserable disorder. The roads had dissolved into mud. Every traveler was filthy, and the first men had already begun sneezing from their hours in the cold wind and rain.

“Light fires. Boil mutton soup.” Fernandez forced himself to settle the nobles around him. This defeat had damaged his prestige, though the burned grain store prevented an immediate greater crisis. He needed to soothe hearts.

The defeat shattered Fernandez's triumphant state of mind. However bitter the admission, he had to face failure honestly—failure at the hands of a lowborn man named Simon, no less. Even now, he remained convinced that Simon had commanded the army opposing him.

When fires rose and nobles changed clothes, hot mutton soup restored some calm. Fernandez looked at the rain. “If I had waited half a day, perhaps I could have stopped Locke?” Rain cut an attacker’s strength severely; holding might have been possible. But regret was useless. Staying might have led to total destruction, and royal blood need not collide with lowborn lives.

He faced the watching nobles. “This defeat is my fault. I underestimated Locke cunning, northern knight strength, and Knight Simon’s ability.”

Though he still dismissed Simon in his heart, he put on a strikingly sincere display of remorse. The nobles around him had little interest in whether the repentance itself was genuine. They cared about what Fernandez intended to do next.

“No great general makes no mistakes,” someone said. “Northern knights are famous. A small loss is experience.”

Whether the first reassurance came from a planted supporter or an honest loyalist, the gathering immediately came alive. Everyone insisted that a minor reverse did not amount to defeat. Emotion thickened Fernandez's voice as he swore upon the honor of House Bruno to rebuild the army and wash away the humiliation. Once Locke's supplies finally ran dry, the enemy would collapse. He personally ladled soup into the bowls of the nobles closest to him, displaying humility to an extraordinary degree. The response was immediate: one man promised to capture Simon, another to storm Birch Fort and hang Derek from its walls, while a third swore to follow Fernandez for life. True or false, the Grand Duke chose to believe them all.

...

While the Holy Cross held its meeting, Derek was busy. Reservoirs prepared earlier were now useful. After five days of rain, they were full and the river stood high. Holy Cross noble prisoners were forced to carry shovels onto the embankment. Derek even hired painters for two great works.

“We will call them Grand Duke Fernandez Breaks the Embankment,” Derek said with a smile. “I will keep one in my private collection: my lords here digging alongside His Grace. The public version will show Grand Duke Fernandez digging alone despite everyone's attempts to stop him. Oh, and those gentlemen who hanged themselves can stand beside him. What do you think?”

The captives had no answer. The paintings did not need to serve as legal evidence; they existed to give the accusation a memorable image that could spread through both kingdoms.

The prisoners grimly moved two ceremonial shovelfuls of earth. Enthusiastic soldiers then invited them into a pavilion to rest. Fine rain whispered outside, but the interior was warm enough to make them shed their outer garments. Several painters worked furiously. Their technique was unimpressive, yet the figures wielding shovels stood out clearly enough. The paintings would never prove anything in a court of law. They would, however, make the accusation unforgettable. Farther away, laborers continued cutting into the embankment. The moment water began seeping through, they dropped their tools and ran; their overseers had fled even earlier.

With a roar, the riverbank tore. Water burst out like an angry dragon.

Derek stood. He had imagined this moment countless times, but seeing it moved him. Acting rationally did not mean feeling nothing.

“The debt can only be put on Fernandez. I am sorry. I am selfish.”

He turned his back and closed his eyes. After a long time, he faced the nobles again without extra emotion.

“My lords, Fernandez will not leap for long. I hope you choose correctly.”

The Holy Cross nobles bowed and scraped, unable to meet his eyes. Below them roared a flood that would engulf the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands. Only the height of the hill kept everyone present from joining Derek's impromptu swimming lesson.

Fields, villages, and everything in the water’s path vanished beneath it.

Fernandez had shifted troops during the rains, preparing to fight Locke again when weather cleared. Then, as rain eased, a great crash sounded. Water entered his residence before he could even dress for inspection.

“Your Grace, the wall has collapsed! The riverbank broke! Floods are coming!”

The concept existed to Fernandez, but he could not connect it to Saint Miller. Worse news came: the camp outside the city stood in the low ground beside the river—the old Locke camp—and floodwater struck it first.

Fernandez swayed. “It is over.” The rain had not been unusually heavy, and local nobles had said it was moderate. No patrol had warned of danger. Before the worst possibility even fully formed, water rose further.

Within a short time, all of Augusta City had become a vast lake. The exalted Grand Duke now found himself seated in a little open boat, while commoners clung to rooftops and screamed for rescue. Fernandez ignored them, gathered as many nobles as he could reach, and began yet another retreat. No thought was required to understand what came next. The Locke army would never waste such an opportunity.

Water rose before he could leave the city. Corpses floated everywhere. Fernandez sat pale and stunned, unable to understand how everything had become ruin in days. He was supposed to restore glory and found a duchy. It felt like a dream. Other nobles lacked strength even to blame him; they were thankful merely to escape.

Those who faced the flood directly suffered far worse. The first surging wall of water rose nearly twenty feet high and tore fortified camps apart as though they were toys. Soldiers had no time even to understand the danger before the torrent swept them away. Several camps holding tens of thousands of men disappeared beneath the flood. When the water finally receded, corpses lay scattered across the earth. The survivors hovered on the edge of madness. In two days, every familiar landmark and every familiar face had vanished, leaving only bodies and the stench of decay.

When Derek returned to Augusta City, mud had not dried and the stink was unbearable. The Holy Cross rear guard had collapsed and surrendered on the first day of flooding. Augusta’s master returned.

“Clear the bodies. Bury or burn them all.”

Then Derek led the army onward. Forty to fifty thousand Holy Cross soldiers still remained beneath Birch Fort.

Fernandez had fled there and recovered a fragile sense of safety. The remaining army was no longer strong enough to continue the campaign, but it should at least have been able to protect him. Fernandez still wanted to leave at once. After the nightmare of the past few days, even fifty thousand men could not make him feel secure.

Seeing the Holy Cross prepare to withdraw, Adrian knew the chance had come. He had been trapped in the fort for months and nearly gone mad.

“Brothers, achievement is today. Capture the Bruno Duke, and I will seek your reward.”

After months of good food, the soldiers burst from their cage like tigers. Holy Cross morale was low; front-line defeat had spread. When more than ten thousand elite men stormed from Birch Fort, the rear guard tried to resist and quickly broke. Numbers meant little after morale collapsed, especially since the fort held far more troops than expected.

Fernandez had enjoyed scarcely a few hours of rest when another chain of disasters reached him. Until now, he had believed there was little mystery to commanding an army; with discipline and orderly procedures, even he could maintain control. Then one unexpected blow followed another, and the entire structure collapsed in an instant. In the crisis, he could not even remember whom he should order to rally the troops.

“Derek, are you my nemesis?” he wept on horseback. In an instant, two hundred thousand troops had been ruined. He wished to die but lacked the courage; his knights did not dare let him. He drifted with events, and the army followed his collapse.

Adrian's months of confinement ended in an exhilarating victory. Apart from several clashes during the opening pursuit, the campaign became little more than a triumphal parade. By the time Derek reached Birch Fort, Adrian had already chased the enemy across the border into Holy Cross territory.

“Forward, forward, forward.” Derek did not hesitate. The Holy Cross was weakest now. Fernandez had divided into three armies and drawn major support from Saint Peter Province: noble sons, serfs, and great food stores. That fat prize stood before him.

When Locke cavalry arrived, Saint Peter had not learned of the front’s defeat. Its latest news still said Fernandez had struck Locke’s grain store and won the decisive victory. Nobles packed to visit him, expecting a landed Grand Duke and a great shift in eastern Holy Cross politics.

Then scattered survivors arrived, followed by Locke troops.

Derek advanced with light cavalry and Holy Cross nobles willing to submit. “Swear to me. Submit, and I will pardon your crimes.” With evidence in hand and blades at their necks, they had little room to refuse. Be a dead loyal servant of House Bruno, or a living vassal of House Augusta?

Not all betrayed. Lower and middle nobles treated loyalty as their greatest political capital and would rather die. Others changed banners, swore to Augusta, guided armies, and governed occupied land.

Derek did not continue racing blindly forward. He occupied more than one third of Saint Peter Province, then stopped—not because he lacked appetite, but because he lacked manpower. Beyond the newly seized region lay open plains with no natural barrier to defend. Several castles controlling the routes into the Holy Cross heartland now flew Augusta's banner, while large pockets of unconquered territory remained behind the advance. Some landed nobles swore loyalty to their new lord. Others raised the banner of resistance and called for House Bruno. Derek turned the army around and began clearing away those loyalists.