6 Planning the Counter Attack

Afonso told the whole story to Baltazar as they left the dungeon and headed back to the Great Hall. Along the way, they passed the king's personal doctor, who took care of the knight's pulse. It could have been much worse, the doctor observed as he applied an ointment to the wound and protected it with a bandage; there was a man who had lost his hand to that beast in the same way and another who did not even return from the visit. Dungeon trips were strictly controlled, and none were made without the king's permission.

When they reached the Great Hall, Baltazar had heard the whole story. How Magnus will discover arcane scrolls and planned to use them as a way to strengthen Albaran against future foreign threats without risking the lives of its people. How promising the plan will sound at the time. How Magnus was allowed to conduct the experiments in the hope of perfecting a way to control the transformations and the abominable creatures that resulted from them.

How Afonso perceives Magnus's sickening obsession and finally ends the whole enterprise. And how Magnus, using the obscure skills he mastered, transformed the detached guards to imprison him in monsters that aided his escape from the tower.

Baltazar's head hovered away after Afonso finished telling the story. He sat in silence, sitting at the heavy oak table in the center of the room, and looked into the distance, his mind trying to reconcile all that. He had been created to believe in the existence of things that went beyond understanding, invisible forces and much greater than he. But seeing these things with your own eyes was quite different. No known scientific or natural phenomenon could explain it and that he had witnessed in that dungeon or the story that the king told him later.

And he agreed with Afonso that no God he was faithful to would create something so devilish, so disturbing, so detonated and detonated. Something so. infernal.

"This is Chris," announced Afonso, pulling Baltazar out of his thoughts. Baltazar got up to greet the man as usual, he did not know where to look when the king's adviser bowed before him. Chris was a black-necked man, bald and stocky, of ordinary appearance, except for the scar that he ate diagonally across his face just below his left eye, passing through the top of his nose and on both sides, ending just below the right side of his chin. . Baltazar had seen a lot of war wounds to recognize one, probably made with a long Southern sword years ago. Although the scar was disturbing to many, Baltazar felt reassured by it. He gave more importance to the words of men who learned the price of war in the first place. They tended to speak the truth more directly.

"It is a great honor, Sir Baltazar," said Chris when he bowed. "The king has delighted me with stories of his heroism many times."

"There is a fine line between heroism and obligation," replied Baltazar. "I prefer to think of my actions as the latter."

"Chris is my oldest military advisor and chief spy," said Afonso. "Few things happen in the realm without his knowledge. He's been struggling to find Magnus's whereabouts since his escape. Chris?"

Chris rolled out a map of Lower England on the table, placing goblets and candlesticks in the corners to keep it in place. The map was all adorned with Chris's handwritten notes.

While studying it, Baltazar was immediately taken back to the Southern war. He always stayed in Afonso's tent with the king and his war council, studying campaign maps and discussing strategies. The oldest of Afonso's advisers was furious that an ordinary soldier had been invited to a high-level meeting, but the king, having known Baltazar after Galileo, insisted on that. All these nobles and knights tell me only what they think I want to hear, confided to young Baltazar. Your desire to win my acceptance for agreeing with me all the time will still kill us all. I need men with the courage to disagree with me when I'm wrong.

And so Baltazar did as he was asked and spoke the truth when he saw it. Afonso's noble advisers had no choice but to tolerate his presence, his objections being restricted to stealthy glances between them, especially when the king preferred to accept Baltazar's advice.

"Magnus left here with six of our men that he perverted at will," said Chris, pointing to Libra on the map. "Twenty days ago. Since then, we have received several reports of disturbances across northeastern Albania. Ordinary people fleeing homes, claiming that they were attacked by angry beasts like no one has seen before, With each new report, the number of beasts increases. I believe that Magnus is making his way to the border of Nortumbias, increasing his army with each new city and village he enslaves on his route. "

For Baltazar, everything still seemed so unbelievable. He had faced dozens of military instructions, and yet nothing like that. It was more like something out of a nightmare, or a ghost story told around the campfire by travelers to scare each other. It couldn't be real, and yet he couldn't deny what will come with his eyes. It took a while for his mind, still spinning at full speed, to concentrate and find his first question.

"How big is that army according to the most recent report?"

"The villagers we spoke to are not very reliable," replied Chris.

"Many are in shock, babbling. But the most coherent among them said he counted close to a hundred." Baltazar stopped for a moment to think. A hundred of those, things, like the one he had seen in Afonso's dungeon? The thought made him shiver.

"Where is him now?"

"The last known whereabouts occurred here," replied Chris, pointing to a small town almost a hundred kilometers from the border where Albania ended and Notumbias started.

"At this rate, it may reach the southern border at the end of the month."

"And what is his intention when he gets there, asked Baltazar." First he presented this bestial force as a way to deter another Southern invasion, "said Chris." But now, I appreciate trying to predict the actions of a man so clearly insane, but I believe he intends to launch some kind of early attack on their territory. "

"If you really intend to attack the Southerners on your own soil with such little force, I suspect that the problem will be resolved soon," suggested Baltazar.

"They may not seem like many," says Afonso, "but, considering our experience, only one of these beasts is capable of taking down a dozen armed men. Who knows how many more Magnus he will have acquired by the time he reaches Nortumbias? With the power he employs, their enemies will not fall on the battlefield but become their subordinates. Soon the Southerners could turn against themselves "

There was silence for a moment in a Great Hall Afonso waited while the full implication of the situation entered the mind. Baltazar had become a specialist in war, in theory and in practice, but this was no longer war as he understood it. The rules had changed. Of the ancient people, the way it will happen for thousands of years, the sides lost men in the battle. However, under the new rules of Magnus, the victor brought the loser into his ranks and each conquest becomes more powerful. It was a terrifying idea, strategically and in other ways that disturbed Baltazar in even deeper fashion. It was Chris who broke his thoughts.

"Our concern is not about a war between the Southerners and Magnus's army, we can call it that. And that any kind of attack from within Albania is seen as carried out in the name of the king. If Magnus breaks agreement and attacks Nortumbias, it will set fire to an already precarious situation.

"And yet another total war," said Baltazar. It was a strange thing, he thought, to choose considering ways to prevent an attack on the Southerners after all the times he had helped to plot offensives against the Southerners, after everything they had done to him with those he loved, but the kingdom simply couldn't to indulge in another war.

"My advice is simple, he said. Dispatch a full force from our armies to intercept Magnus that arrives at Nortumbias. Crush him quickly, with overwhelming force, and end the matter for good."

"If it were that easy," replied Alfreda with a deep sigh, looking at Chris.

"Our forces are spread across the kingdom if Chris, pointing to various notes on his map, indicating the layout of infantry camps and other military groups.

"Even at our best speed, they have little chance of getting together in a force strong enough to destroy Magnus before he reaches Nortumbias. And even if it were possible, compromising that would leave the rest of Albania with weakened defenses, should the Southerners seize the opportunity. to attack from anywhere along the border. No, our best chance, we believe, would be to take him by surprise, using a small, fast and mobile force, one specially formed for this mission. "

Baltazar scratched his head, confused. "If Magnus's strength is equal to more than a thousand men, what chance would a small contingent have against him that we are more likely to be sending only more men to enslave him."

For the first time, Afonso allowed himself a smile. Baltazar knew it well, the malicious look that the king loved when he had a brilliant scheme.

"Magnus is not the only one with magic tricks up his sleeve," he said.

"Come with me to the chapel. Thanks, Chris"

The priest walked back and forth before the stone altar in the Libra chapel. He had been warned to wait for the presence of rel, and he had even waited for more than an era. Still, he is waiting to bother him, but worrying about what would be asked of him when he finally arrived. He had been practicing all hours of the day and night and was sure that he had mastered what was asked of him. But he also knew, more than most, what was at stake - it is pressure of failure, both for him and for the men who would leave life in their hands. A small mistake, a poorly pronounced syllable, or a moment of hesitation would trigger disaster. Irony did not escape him. By nature, it was not work for martial professions; entering the priesthood largely because it was a path of peace. But that peace had distorted itself in an unforeseen way and will take you exactly to what you hoped to avoid - a war, not any war, but one fought with weapons more horrendous than anything ever conceived by man. A shiver ran through his body only partly because it was cold in the small stone chamber. He heard the chapel door open behind him and turned to see King Afonso enter with a person he did not recognize.

In the eyes of the young priest he looked like a commoner, but the man's questioning look suggests that he was some kind of soldier. The priest swallowed and corrected his posture when they approached.

"Your Majesty," he said, making a great bow to the king.

"Cuth, this is Sir Baltazar," said Afonso.

The priest's eyes widened a little; he might not have recognized the grimy-looking man beside the king, but he certainly knew the name. It was not in the presence of just one living legend, but of two. He looked at Baltazar and tried to conjecture something to say, but he couldn't think of anything that wouldn't make him look like a complete idiot. Afonso felt the priest's embarrassment; he had gotten used to it and knew it was more pious to get right to the point.

"Cuth was one of Magnus' assistant clerics in the Church," he explained to Baltazar.

"He has a keen aptitude for languages, so the archbishop appointed him to work on interpreting the scrolls. He was the first to successfully decipher what confused many more experienced scholars."

"If I had known what was in them, I would never have consented." Cuth was quick to clarify. He had seen what the archbishop had forged in the courtyard in Libra from the words he will help to decode, and the guilt weighed on one side. He felt responsible for all the deformed monstrosities that the archbishop had created and just wanted an opportunity to fix things. .

"I didn't say that to blame you," said Afonso, placing a reassuring hand on the cleric's shoulder.

"This should be attributed only to Magnus. I meant that you are among the brightest in the Church. And perhaps you are our brightest hope." Cuth felt for a moment elated by the praise, only to be even more nervous when the king's words remind him of the responsibility that now also weighed on him. He put his hand on the back of the neck and rubbed it nervously.

Baltazar did not know what to make of the impoverished and restless little man who stood before him. Little more than a boy, actually. He saw many like him during the war, pressured to enlist, despite protests and tears. Most of them did not survive long. But, behind all the shyness and instability, Baltazar recognized a spark in the boy's eyes - a keen intellectual curiosity that he remembered burning inside himself as a young man, before the war made him a luxury to be had. left out.

In a way, he envied Cuth. Before the Southerners arrived, he himself dreamed of entering the priesthood and devoting himself to a life of silent study. In the next life, he said in his heart. "Did you come with Magnus to Libra?" He asked Cuth.

Cuth acquiesced. "I was one of the many that he brought from the Church to help him with ..." He hesitated, looking for the right word. "... His ... experiments. He didn't dare refuse, but he pretends to have an illness contracted on the journey so that he could be as little available as I could. Many of us were not comfortable with what the archbishop was doing. Few of us had the courage to refute or question it. "

"What happened to the other clergy when he escaped?"

"One tried to stop him. It was transmuted, God help him. The others fled shortly afterwards for fear of being punished for complicity in the archbishop's crimes,"

"But you do not."

"I have no family, no resources, nowhere to go. I cannot return to the Church. And even if I could, I would not return. I vowed to help in some way to undo what I helped to create, and I have already told His Majesty this."

Baltazar smiles was starting to like that man. Almost always nervous behavior like Cuth's can be confused with lack of marrow, but the more Baltazar examined him, he became convinced that Cuth was not a coward. From his own experience, acquired with difficulty, he knew that true courage was not the absence of fear, but doing what needed to be done in his often paralyzing presence.

"In studying the scrolls, Cuth discovered that there was more than just words of transformation," explained Afonso. He looked at Cuth. Still hampered by nervousness, it took a moment for the clergyman to realize that the king expected him to continue the story.

"Ah! Yes. The scrolls also contained detailed descriptions of several other very interesting invocations, some of which I believe were created to contain the transformative effect, to put it simply, I think it may be possible to bless an object, such as a set of armor, with a sign of protection that would dispel any magic directed at him. "

Baltazar looked at Afonso in bewilderment.

"I thought I ordered the destruction of these scrolls."

"I've been working on a lot of memory," explained Cuth. "Mine is quite good."

"Does Magnus know about this?" Asked Baltazar.

"No. By the time I deciphered these against spells, I had already realized what the archbishop was doing, and I decided it was best not to pass on more knowledge to him. When he asked me, I replied that the rest of the scrolls were beyond my ability to translate." Baltazar was impressed. That young priest could be anxious and clumsy, with a survival probably measured in seconds as soon as he entered a battlefield, but Baltazar's father will teach him to value the intelligence and insight of the mind more than any other quality, and he was almost getting Of course, Cuth owed nothing on any score. Still, it was hard not to feel extreme uneasiness when considering the strategy that Afonso had so confidently proposed. Reis, considered Baltazar, were always more bloody with their war strategies than the men in charge of leading them on the battlefield. He gave Afonso a skeptical look, as few in the court would dare to try.

"Is that your plan? Magic armor?"

"At this point, I'm sure you agree that Magnus's magic is not fantasy," said Afonso. "If the arcane arts with which he conjured these monsters cannot be doubted, why shouldn't we have the same confidence in other spells taken from the same scrolls?"

"I look at it as if I were looking at any other weapon of war," said Baltazar.

"I will believe in its usefulness once it has been proven in the field. How exactly do you propose to test it?"

"I thought we could put the armor on you and send you over Magnus," said Afonso with a sly smile. Baltazar turned to the cleric again.

"Does your knowledge extend to anything that we could use offensively against Magnus and his horde?" Cuth looked taken aback.

"Excuse me, my lord ... like what?"

Baltazar looked at him angrily.

"I don't know! A rain of fire? Enchanted arrows? Tell me, you are the expert!" Cuth looked down, ashamed.

"No, my lord. None of that, I fear."

"So you can protect me against these spellcaster spells, but not against the beasts he creates."

"For that, my friend, you will have to rely on your sword and your reflexes, as always," said Afonso, with a smile that he hoped could instill some encouragement. What did not happen. Baltazar sighed. It was becoming increasingly clear that there was no escape from this risky mission - not just because of the debt he felt he owed to Afonso, but because the more he saw and heard about Magnus' witchcraft, the more genuinely he feared the chaos and destruction it would spread. He could refuse and go home, but then how long would it take before the war or something even more terrible arrived in his village, threatening his wife and son?

No, that crazy priest needed to be stopped. And if he didn't, who else would.

"Wanting to choose the men I myself will take with me," he says to Afonso with the annoying tone of reluctant acceptance.

"Sure," he said, trying not to show his relief. Cuth was still there rubbing her hands in silence. Baltazar looked at him, now with a shake of his head.

"Starting with him." Cuth's eyes widened in alarm.

"Sorry how?"

"If this campaign is to be successful, my men and I will depend a lot on your knowledge. Your unique knowledge"

"Yes, yes, of course," stammered Cuth, with the start of what seemed very panic. "But I can carry out my activities here, enchant any armor you require before leaving with your men. Anything."

"It won't be enough," interrupted Baltazar with a wave. "This magic of yours is not proven. We may need your expertise to maintain or adapt it. And I am almost certain that we will find situations that will require some improvisation. You will be better served by us on the field."

Cuth could hear her own heart pounding in her ears like a drum, and the darkness seemed to creep into her peripheral vision. The knees felt soft. The stomach, contracted. His mouth was suddenly so dry he could barely speak, but his keen sense of self-preservation somehow pushed the words out.

"My lord," he said sweetly, his voice trembling.

"With all due respect, I am a scholar, not a soldier." Baltazar patted Cuth on the shoulder, and the cleric's legs almost gave out.

"My friend," said Baltazar, "starting today it will be both."

Cuth was dismissed, and when the priest hurried off towards the nearest outside bathroom, Baltazar and Afonso left the chapel for the courtyard where Baltazar's horse was housed. For a time, none of the men spoke a word. But the shroud of unspoken words hung over them, until Afonso was forced to say something. Anything

"Where are you going to start," he asked.

"I will find Edgar". Baltazar replied without hesitation. I had thought about it long before.

"There is no battle or campaign that I can conceive of fighting without him by my side. As soon as he is with me, the others I need will follow me."

Afonso nodded, nodding, and they walked several more steps without saying anything. Baltazar looked at the stones between his feet, sunk in sober contemplation.

"Sure, first I have to tell Gwen the good news," he observed, his voice lower now, as if speaking to you.

"How will she react?"

"To be honest, I don't know who has more ... whether Magnus's army of abominations or her reaction," replied Baltazar, only partially joking.

"I promised I would never go to war again. It was the only condition she imposed when she agreed to marry me."

"You are not going to war," suggested Afonso. "It is a peculiar mission in the name of your king ... and, frankly, of your God. Gwen is a woman of faith, is she not? Surely, she will understand."

Baltazar thought for a moment.

"A campaign," he said at last.

"Just a little one," agreed the king, ironic, with a smile that he noticed had no answer from Baltazar. Afonso knew his friend well enough to realize that there was more to his mind, something he was reluctant to express.

"Is there anything else you want to ask me?" He asked. And that was enough to make Baltazar stop. The knight turned and looked seriously at Afonso, with something that approached a rage that the king had never seen directed at him.

"I have only one question to ask," said Baltazar. "How could he have been so blind not to see where this madness, this ... heresy would take him". Afonso looked around as if searching for an answer. And Baltazar saw things on his face that he had seen many times in other men, but never in his King Remorse. Fault. Shame.

"I've asked myself this question many times. Also ask God so far, none of us have had an answer. All I can say is the following: all the things I did in my life, including this terribly wrong endeavor, were compelled for a single aspiration to protect and defend this kingdom. So knowing that my actions may have put this kingdom in greater danger than any invader can ever hurt me more than you can imagine. But that's why I ask you now, not as yours king, but as a friend, to help me with this one last time. To help me undo the harm I caused myself. "

Baltazar watched his king. Afonso found his expression impossible to decipher and waited for some gesture of understanding or, he dared to hope, absolution. But all Baltazar gave was a single shake of his head before he turned and walked away towards the stable, where the mare was waiting.

"It will be done," he said without looking back.

When Baltazar came home, it was worse than he feared. Gwen screamed and cursed and threw everything his advanced pregnancy allowed him. Afonso was wrong, of course - not about Gwen being a woman of faith, but in suggesting that it would help her understand why Baltazar needed to leave her when her belly was already ripe and she needed him most. Baltazar knew that Gwen would never have believed in a story of monsters and magic, so he invented that a band of dangerous heretics led by a stray priest was spreading blasphemies and needed to be liquidated - which was, after all, the truth, by so to speak.

But invoking the obligation to God and the relativity had little effect on Gwen, whose priorities now began ended with the gift she carried within herself. Tell Afonso that he can stick his little campaign in the tail! She shouted to her husband between the bangs of copper pots hurled from the pantry - God doesn't want you hunting crazy priests hundreds of miles away - He wants you here, with me and with your child to be born! How can you do such a thing as we do now? That is why warriors should never marry, Baltazar thought, lying late as he straightened his saddlebag and tended a brow wound caused by a milk jug that Gwen had aimed at with particular skill, because war is a jealous lover.

There is a way to kick us back to her, long after we think we say goodbye forever. Baltazar mounted Polly and left shortly thereafter. At least he hoped to stay that night, but Gwen told him, in very straightforward terms, that the only place he would have to sleep was the stable.

And so he rode into the night, heading east, where he knew he would find Edgar. He stopped at the top of the hill and looked back, hoping to see Gwen watching him from the door or the window. But there was no sign of it.

Sad, he turned and spurred the mare.