When the horsemen finally arrived, Konrad had his archers miss on purpose.
He wouldn't let them close enough to discover his illusions, but let them go to report back.
Maple confirmed the results a few minutes later.
'They think they've dislodged the garrison,' she messaged. 'But the pass is still unsafe because of your hiding archers. They'll send some men to take care of them soon, then the rest will follow.'
'Wish they brought everyone at once,' Konrad complained, but he couldn't have it all.
Not yet. But they might have been on the right path.
If only that damned enemy commander weren't so careful.
But, well, he would have been too; he had to give him that.
After relaying the news to Vargas, the captain laid out his plans.
"We'll strike before they come," he announced. "This commander of yours—how far is he?"
"A mile downhill," Konrad said while he unrolled his latest map. "I have eyes on him, and if we take this shortcut, we'll get to him from behind. We won't even have to fight his bodyguards."
Not that there were that many of them, and he wasn't worried about the melee either, but—
"He has a dozen telepaths on their way here, and they'd ruin our element of surprise," he claimed. "I take it you want to behead the snake and then rush his men in the chaos?"
Vargas raised an eyebrow before answering.
"You're not as hopeless as I thought," he said.
From his tone, that could've been an insult as well—not like Konrad craved his praise.
"But yes, we'd have a better shot if we could deal with them piecemeal before they reorganise."
Bor stepped closer to lean over the map, too.
"We still have a few men here." He pointed at one of the switchbacks. "Not enough to take on the commander's guards, but if they think we have guerrillas and plan to fight them—"
"Diversion." Konrad nodded. "But make sure they know what we expect of them."
Make a mess, not go down in a heroic fight. He wanted to avoid any unnecessary losses.
"What if we took your illusions and the twenty men in the nomadic uniform?" Welf interjected, dragging his finger along the road markings. "And pretended the rest of us are their prisoners."
That could have been another diversion, and an even better one.
"Good, that way we wouldn't have to wait that long for reinforcements," Vargas approved. "I only need about thirty men—of course, from the Defenders—to sneak down this shortcut."
With everyone pitching in, the plan shaped up in record time.
Their 'prisoner train' met the nomads' horse archers halfway down the road.
That's when his handful of ambushers revealed themselves.
It must have seemed like a desperate, half-hearted attack, but well, that was all he needed.
They drew attention away from his illusions, and when the riders dismounted to give chase—
The 'prisoners' freed themselves to take them as prisoners instead.
By that time, Vargas led his men into position, ready to capture the enemy leader.
Konrad wanted to join them, too, but as the only caster, he had to stay back, ready to react to any emergency. He could still follow the events through Maple's commentary, though.
If anything, the plan was too smooth. He felt like they missed something important.
'That's a healthy amount of paranoia, bossman,' the dragoness thought to comfort him. 'But I can assure you, I keep an eye on things here. And I have three wyverns above you, you know.'
'What about their shamans?' he asked. 'They should still have two.'
'Healers,' Maple corrected. 'And they retreated all the way to the foot of the mountains.'
It was all too easy.
They captured another fifty-or-so horse archers without a fight.
Dealing with the captives became the hardest part of the operation.
Vargas and his men were almost in position, too.
But then, something finally went off the rails.
'Oh, it seems we're moving,' the dragoness reported, her thoughts seeming confused. 'He turned the carriage around, and now we're rushing down the serpentine.'
'What? Why?!' Konrad demanded. 'Did he spot our men, or get a report?'
'I uh, no,' she muttered. 'He wasn't even thinking, and the carriage started moving on its own.'
That was too convenient.
'He didn't think, or you could no longer read his thoughts?' he asked, already suspicious. 'Are you sure his telepaths are still far? What did your wyverns see?'
The dragoness groaned so hard that it gave him a headache.
'People don't usually have 'mentalist' painted on them with big red letters,' she complained. 'It's impossible to tell, but according to his thoughts—'
'The thoughts he's now blocking from you,' Konrad interrupted to point it out.
It wasn't the most difficult technique. And sure, he learned that before telepathy itself, but if a commander knew one, he might've known the other. The carriage was on the move, after all.
'Can you stop them without revealing yourself?' he urged the dragoness.
'No, duh,' she moaned. 'But I CAN stop them.'
Konrad didn't want that. But he couldn't let the head of the snake get away, either.
It was a hard decision, and with every second he wasted on thinking about it, he'd gotten further away. But as with so many things in life, the control was out of his hands here, too.
Before he reached his decision, it became irrelevant.
'Oh, fuck,' Maple's voice was loud and panicked for a moment. 'We almost weered off the cliff.'
'What happened?!'
The dragon's thoughts were too chaotic to understand for a while.
'Okay, no problem,' she messaged almost a minute later. 'We're alive. I mean, the commander, too. Someone took out one of our horses, and then we got surrounded.'
She said it like that was a bad thing, but it was the best possible outcome.
Vargas and his men must have already been in position and acted faster than he could decide.
The glory the captain was chasing for Lord Schwertburg was well earned this time.
'Did they capture him?' Konrad asked. 'Talk to me, Maple.'
'They're fighting with his personal guard right now. But there's nowhere to go,' she said, her voice returning to normal. 'And it seems like your men are catching up, too.'
That was good news, but he couldn't relax yet.
'Get out of there,' he ordered. 'Don't let them see you.'
His thoughts might've been harsher than he meant, but his heart almost exploded. Even if he had eyes and spies everywhere and could use telepathy, nothing beat being there in person.
He felt like he aged years in that one minute while the dragoness didn't respond.
Leading from the back wasn't his style after all.
And even after the report that Vargas captured the target, his questions remained.
'So where are his telepaths?' he asked. 'Can't you track them through their mana or something?'
'On it, bossman, but right now I'm trying to flee, you know,' Maple complained.
She was an expert at that. And she'd only ever do it if she had nothing to do, or if he gave her an order. No more problematic than his other haremettes, per se.
Except Eyna. She was a saint.
'Shit. Found them.' Her voice almost gave Konrad another heart attack. 'And they're close.'