In a considerable hall, many people were running around in a panic toward the entrance. The doors swung open hard, and a group of soldiers came in carrying a dying man.
The hall went completely quiet. Everyone stopped what they were doing, all their attention pulled toward the dying man. This was their baron, their lord, the man who had taken charge of his army and gone to war against the neighboring baron after he declared a territorial war against them.
He had left with his back straight, smiling and joking around with his knights, his armor shining, and his sword sharp. Now he was coming back with his armor dirty, full of dents and cut marks all over it. His face was tight with pain, his lips pressed hard together, no sign of his smile anywhere, and the corners of his eyes were red.
In the hall, the silence was broken by the steady sound of small drops hitting the cold floor, falling from the baron's leg. From below his knee, his entire leg was gone, with a cloth tied tightly a few inches from the wound, cutting off the heavy blood loss.
"Quick!" the steward shouted at the soldiers. "The doctor is already waiting in his room! Take the baron there!"
The soldiers ran with the baron in their arms, almost running into a young man who was standing still in the middle of the hallway. There was no time to waste. The baron had only gotten very basic medical care at the camp, which had barely slowed the bleeding and helped a little, but his wounds were too serious, and he needed more treatment.
One of the soldiers stayed behind, standing behind the young man. He was one of the baron's knights and had made sure personally that the baron made it back to his manor. Now he found himself not really knowing how to go up to the boy and comfort him. He slowly reached his hand out toward the boy's shoulder when, all of a sudden, the kid turned around and asked:
"Why? Why is my father like this?!" the boy cried, looking at the soldier.
Knight Marlleo looked at the young boy in front of him, having never seen him like this before, and took a few seconds to find the courage to answer.
"It's… pretty difficult to talk about; even I find it nearly impossible to believe," he sighed, feeling helpless. "We won many battles, one after another, pushing them back to their main village with nowhere left to go. But nobody could have known what tricks Baron Grojo had ready for us. We started losing, having to pull back multiple times, and in this last battle we lost almost a quarter of our men, and our lord too," he said at the end, beaten down. But then a massive anger came out of him, and he clenched his teeth hard, frowning deeply and squeezing his hands into fists. "Those dirty bastards managed to get help from one of the Marquis of Chrysalis's theurges."
Marlleo's words hit Licerio's mind like a bell, shaking him. The air left him. A theurge. Deadly enemies for any army that didn't have one of their own. Where the best spear is nothing more than a dead branch in front of them.
The value of a theurge was so high that he couldn't picture what could possibly be so important in their territory for something like this to happen. Just thinking about that enemy made Licerio's legs and hands shake, the corners of his lips tremble, and his heart beat hard and fast.
Licerio was pulled out of his thoughts when a hand landed on his shoulder. It was Knight Marlleo's hand. He had gone down on one knee, putting himself at the same level as Licerio.
"Young master, we have failed, and in this last battle a quarter of the company has been put out of action, and the morale of our troops gets lower every second. With the baron going down, everyone has been left broken, and the look in their eyes has no will or confidence left in it at all. We need the young master to be our commander and bring the army's spirit back up."
The hall, which had managed to get some of its movement and noise back, went completely quiet again. These people had no idea about battles or wars, and hearing how bad things were with their troops hit them hard.
Licerio also stared at the knight next to him in disbelief. This knight was one of the men closest to both him and his father, and it was possible his father had told him some of his secrets.
His eyes stayed fixed on the knight in front of him. His legs and hands were shaking, not for the same reason as before, and his mind was pushing him to run, to get away somewhere safe. But against that, something came up inside him: a burning rage. He squeezed his hands hard, getting the shaking under control, and took a deep breath. The look in his eyes changed, and he nodded. When he raised his eyes, he wasn't looking for comfort anymore. He was looking for the fire of war.
"I will take command of the army. Knight Marlleo, I need you to go get my horse ready. We leave in twenty minutes."
With that, Licerio turned around and walked down the side hallway, heading to his room to get ready.
Once inside, he went to a corner of his room where a suit of armor had been kept ready. His father had always told him that a man should always be ready to go to war for his family line and had ordered a suit of armor made for him when he turned fifteen. He had never thought he would actually have to use it this soon, and even less without his father by his side.
After putting on his armor, he was ready to go, but he stopped when he walked past a somewhat rough mirror in his room, looking at his face and the figure inside the armor.
Seventeen years had gone by since he had been reborn into this world. He didn't know how he had died. He only remembered walking quietly down a street when a ray of light bounced off a parked car and blinded him. When he opened his eyes again, he was already here.
One of his hands moved toward the mirror, touching the reflection of his face—a face that still felt strange to him. His lips were shaking, his eyes unsteady, traces of tears still there, but behind all of that was a burning look, a decided look. His mind was still a bit of a mess as he tried to take everything in, but right now there was only one thing he needed to focus on: fighting in a war.
Not many people in the house knew. Since he was little, he had been known as a great genius, always surprising his father while he was being taught. So that people wouldn't bother him, he had asked his father not to tell anyone about how smart he was, with only his teacher and a few people very close to his father knowing.
Among his skills, he had shown a strong ability in math and some interest in the art of war. He wasn't a great master in it, but it had been something he had to learn during his education as a noble, and he had ended up being pretty good at it.
These were just things he had learned—theory—and he didn't know if he could actually use any of it in real combat. He had to find his courage and take it one step at a time. He pulled his hand away from the mirror, and his reflection faded behind him as he left his room and made his way toward the entrance of the manor.
There, Marlleo and the other two soldiers who had brought his father back were waiting. When they saw Licerio walking into the hall, they came toward him and got down on their knees in front of him.
"Get up. We've already lost enough time."
The three soldiers got up and cleared the way for Licerio. With steady steps, Licerio walked out of the manor. Outside, the steward and other servants were there with the horses already ready.
The steward's eyes were heavy, and his face looked older than Licerio remembered, watching Licerio's figure as he came out. He opened and closed his mouth over and over, trying to talk him out of it, trying to tell him he didn't have to go through this, didn't have to go to war. But his words stayed stuck inside him, too afraid of what they might do.
Licerio and the three knights rode out of the village on their horses, heading north toward a large open plain that went on for kilometers.
The line between the two territories had been set along a natural border made by a river cutting through the plain. Baron Grojo's forces had attacked unexpectedly, and by the time Baron Bareo got there, they had already crossed the river.
That didn't stop him. He ordered a fast charge, trusting in his better quality, pushing the enemy forces back toward the river and sending them running in panic as they crossed it.
Thereafter, Baron Bareo kept going after them, winning two fights in a row.
Licerio listened as the knight told the story of what his father had done during the war. He couldn't deny the excitement and pride he felt hearing about his father's bravery, but he was unable to hold onto those feelings knowing what state his father was in now.
Licerio's face tightened and his eyes sharpened as Marlleo's expression and voice changed, watching how he pressed his lips together hard and squeezed the dirt in his hands.
"My lord led the campaign all the way to the enemy's main village, ready to take it down fast. He decided we would rest for a day, get our spirits as high as they could go, and get all our strength back, and the next day we had the army ready to attack. But ultimately we couldn't," said the knight, his voice heavy with anger and a bit of helplessness.
The knight stopped talking, his face showing a powerless look, glancing sideways at Licerio, a little ashamed and afraid to keep going.
"Why not?! Keep going!" he ordered. "What happened?!"
Pushed by Licerio's insistence, Marlleo had no choice but to fight his reluctance and keep going with the story, knowing it would bring more pain to the young man in front of him. Not being able to stop it even if he wanted to.
"Just as we were about to charge the city, twenty of Baron Grojo's soldiers blocked our way. My lord quickly gave the order to hold, having seen the mark they were carrying on their hands—the marquis's—and the baron went to talk with them. They said the marquis's second son was in the village for a week before leaving and that we had to wait before attacking the village."
"What kind of nonsense is this?! What right does this marquis's son think he has to act this way?!" Licerio snapped, eaten up by anger.
Marlleo stayed quiet while Licerio let it out and waited for him to calm down before going on.
"My lord has always put a lot of value on his word and on promises, and he trusted them," he sighed, helpless. "Two weeks went by, and they were still there—the baron held on. Another week passed, and we saw a blue and gold carriage with the marquis's mark leave the village. At that point we got ready and went to attack the village, but who could have known that those three weeks they made us wait were to give one of the marquis's theurges time to get there?"
Licerio clenched his fist, and anger burned through his whole body. He couldn't believe the Marquis of Chrysalis would play things this way, playing with his father and stepping in on Baron Grojo's side.
Thinking the marquis had nothing to do with all of this was impossible. Moving a theurge is as big a deal as moving a royal army.
"How could the marquis move one of his theurges? What would he get out of that?" Licerio muttered.
He was really curious about what could be in their territory that would make even the marquis agree to help Baron Grojo in this war.
The horses had rested, and they started moving again, not stopping until they reached the camp of their lordship's army.
At nightfall, they reached the edge of the camp.
What they saw was awful. Plenty of wounded men lying on the ground with only a piece of cloth between them and the dirt, crying out or mumbling in pain. With every breath, a metal smell hit Licerio's nose, making him dizzy and sick to his stomach in a way he could barely keep under control.
Some wounded had deep, very clean cuts across their bodies. Others had limbs cut off with a strangely smooth edge.
But he had to focus on other things now and had to pull himself away from the wounded. After finding the company captains, he asked for their reports on troop numbers and told them to meet him in his tent in half an hour.
He went to the biggest tent, the main one, and sat down in front of a table covered in papers and maps of the land. At that point he had fully taken control of the army, and he felt something changing inside his body—a tingling feeling running through him from the inside.
It was a force coming up from within him, a force passed on by his current vassals through the gift tied to his very being. A force he had felt as a child, though he had never managed to get real results from it, since nobody had ever truly felt and accepted him as their lord.
With a whole army under his command, that connection had turned into a real advantage for him, all the bonds with his vassals feeling like solid threads giving him a big boost physically. Though nothing close to what a theurge could do.
He had tried to figure out this strange power inside him before, never getting anywhere real with it, leaving him with more questions than answers.
Time passed, and the reports came in. They were pretty worrying, and a look of concern slowly grew on Licerio's face.
The army his father had put together had a hundred and fifty-two people in total: three knights, eight mounted squires, fifteen archers, twenty mercenary crossbowmen, and a hundred and six infantry lancers.
This showed how much money his father's lordship had, but more than fifteen soldiers were dead and over twenty were wounded, six of them seriously.
Baron Grojo couldn't have had a big force since he had only just been given his lordship not long ago, with a weaker economy and fewer trained soldiers. But against a theurge, every advantage fell apart.
Baron Grojo's army had started with one knight, two mounted squires, twenty archers, and seventy-four lancers—a decent force for a newly named baron.
From the reports on the table, his father's army had killed both squires, eight archers, and more than twenty lancers, hitting the enemy force really hard. On the other hand, Licerio's side had only lost one squire and twelve lancers.
The night went by far too fast. Licerio and his knights had stayed up all night trying to come up with a plan to deal with the enemy theurge. At least they knew he was an elemental type, tied to the law of wind.
They also couldn't kill him even if they managed to catch him or cut him down in the middle of the fight. They wouldn't be able to handle the anger of the Marquis of Chrysalis.
The hardest part of the plan was keeping the theurge safe. They couldn't hurt him badly, much less kill him. A theurge was a big prize for any noble, and they were unable to deal with the fury of the Marquis of Chrysalis if he found out they had killed one of his theurges.
Everything seemed to be going against Licerio and his knights as they stared at the maps with only a few hours left before the next fight.
The reports said the theurge could throw wind blades that could cause serious cuts and also use updrafts to kick up dust and blind the enemy army.
Now they needed to find out his last move, since an apprentice could only use three techniques.
To catch the theurge, they decided to put together a squad with one knight, three squires, and five lancers, who would carry the strongest shields they had to block the wind blades. Their job would be to keep the theurge busy and catch him.
Everyone else would charge hard at the enemy, making the fight as messy as possible so the theurge couldn't freely attack anyone else in case he got away from the squad.
One of the biggest problems with this plan was not knowing what the theurge's third move was. It was a really dangerous unknown that they had to face and hope their preparation would be enough. The worst case, as one of the company captains brought up, was that the theurge had some kind of escape ability. If he spent the whole fight running and stayed hidden behind his lines, the battle would end in a loss. To win, the theurge had to be taken down.
He got his soldiers together, and they marched toward the fight, heading to the spot they had picked to cut off the enemy advance—a place with not much grass and fairly wet ground, without much loose dirt.
Licerio led the army from the front line, with Marlleo at his side, helping him out and giving him tips here and there. There had been some pushback from Marlleo and Astor about him leading from the front, since this was his first battle. They were worried he might get hurt during a possible enemy attack, which would destroy the morale of his soldiers.