Viscount's Rise

“Why does the amount of running around I do these days feel like more than I do on the battlefield?” Braydon asked Nela. He had thought that the life of a noble lord involved much more ordering other people to run around in his stead. How he had been proven wrong by the civil war.

“Probably because it is. There are plenty of things that can only be dealt with in person. War happens to make them occur all at once.” Nela’s response was not one that Braydon liked to hear but he knew it was true. Braydon found that the most relaxing days of war were those that he was actually on the battlefield. And they were less frequent than the word war would suggest.

“Anything new happened during the day that I was away?” Braydon hated to ask the question, any answer was not one he wanted to hear. If nothing happened that meant that his days would be more of the same, something that he was not exactly fond of. But if something had happened that would likely mean that Duke Ryder had done something again. An equally unappealing offer.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?” Nela asking that only made Braydon groan. Because she always wore that same smile, he was unsure what she was thinking most of the time, unless she let her emotions slip. It just so happened that she was collected enough to not let them slip this time.

“Since you are not upset, I can guess that your father is doing just fine, so I will go with the bad news first.” That was the one thing that Braydon could confirm, Nela would usually show her emotions when it was something to do with her family. And in this case, Braydon was more than happy about that.

“You got that part right but the bad news is still that Duke Ryder did indeed make his move.” Nela continued but Braydon did not find it all that surprising. That was basically the only thing that could be a source of bad news during a civil war. The part that mattered was what Duke Ryder had decided that he would do.

“Well no use keeping me in suspense, what did he do?” Braydon did not want to let Nela play with him this time. He had other things on his mind to keep him occupied, like a war, or odd visitors turning up in Cliforge.

“He did send his army south, and from the word that we got from Earl Downs, he had managed to get his ship a considerable way north without Duke Burn’s people noticing. From the looks of it, he intended to do exactly what we had predicted.” Nela made a slight smile, proud that she had been able to predict one of the ways that Duke Ryder himself had thought of to attack them. But Braydon noticed that she was speaking in past tense. And that could only mean one thing.

“Intended?” Braydon had noticed that the royal army was still sitting happily around Mapjess. That was not what he would expect if Duke Ryder was actually making an attempt to cross the Harmony.

“And that is where we get to the good news. Duke Burn also made a move of his own, and it was not one that anyone expected.” Nela said in a somewhat conflicted tone. Whilst she had categorised it as good news, that was only in relation to the bad news. There were obviously going to be some strings attached to this ‘good news’.

“So what has he managed to do that has convinced Duke Ryder to hold off on his plans to cross the river?” Braydon was genuinely curious. From what Nela had said, it was clear that it had nothing to do with Duke Burn’s own navy. And that was the only way that Braydon could think of that would allow Burn to hinder Ryder’s safe passage. At least when his own army was on the other side of the Kingdom.

“He managed to get some outside help of his own. Just not outside help quite as despised by our own allies.” Nela’s description of the outside help did nothing to help Braydon guess who the outside help could be. Literally anyone was less despised by the northeastern lords when they were talking about Casburland. Not to mention that they still had suspicions that Duke Ryder was being helped by some other outside force that they did not know about.

“Duke Burn even had any friends? I have no clue why anybody would even support Duke Burn in this war, it is not as if he looks like he is going to win.” All Braydon knew was that it was not going to be Casburland or Shuluk. One was going through civil strife of its own and had no time to think about interfering in the affairs of others, while Casburland was a hated enemy and would do Duke Burn no favours if he were to side with them.

“It took us by surprise as well, but apparently, Duke Burn is on very good terms with the Dukes over in Rotleach and Tetland. With them being so close to Duke Ryder’s back yard, he is obviously playing his cards more carefully.” When Nela mentioned the Twin Duchies, Braydon was completely surprised. Of the three factions remaining in the civil war, Duke Burn was the last one that he would have thought that the Dukes would support. The Twin Duchies had been one of the few nations that Fiveria was on good terms with in the past several decades. Not to mention that the border that they shared with Fiveria were next to Duke Ryder’s faction. Braydon would have thought that they would either choose King Aled, Duke Ryder or stay out of it completely.

“Are they seriously going to attack Duke Ryder?” Braydon was keenly focused on this question. Given their proximity to Duke Ryder’s faction they could deal some serious damage to the Duke if they wanted to. It was just that the Twin Duchies was a much smaller country than Fiveria, if anything went wrong for them in such an attack it would be fatal.

“That is the key issue, nobody really knows apart from Duke Rotleach and Duke Tetland.” Nela was as unsure as Braydon was. Fiverians were so used to treating the Twin Duchies as a non entity that they had no clue what would happen now that Fiveria was divided enough that they could do damage.

Darkwood

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