Chapter 168: Rug Pulled From Under Him

"Fine, fine! I agree." Duke Tetland conceded with a slightly annoyed face. He had been hoping to have minimal concessions when discussing how they should divide Duke Rotleach's men but his entire plan depended on framing the man's death on his knights. Knights who were in the hands on King Aled. He did not have much choice if he wanted a legitimate reason to take command of Rotleach's men.

"Then I will have my men hand over the prisoners." King Aled responded with a small smile. He did not want to put off his collaborator by celebrating too much so his response was more muted than it would have otherwise been. He had not been able to split the men half and half but that had been a pipe dream anyway. Rather the 60-40 split that he had been able to get was more than good enough. It was enough to bolster his forces but small enough that they would not cause problems when Rhydian tried to manage these new additions.

"I am sure Sir Kelly is busy but would somebody ask him how long we have to organise ourselves?" After agreeing on how Rotleach's troops would be split, Aled turned to one of the guards at the entrance of his tent. He would have asked Braydon, being Rhydian's liege, but it was not good to make one of his nobles act as a mere servant. Doubly so in front of a foreign ruler.

"Your Majesty." One of the guards saluted before leaving to complete his task.

"If that is everything for now, then I would ask Your Highness to excuse myself to prepare my men." Cinar said at the first possible moment. Now that all of the boring stuff was over, he wanted to go and relax. While others might have an interest in watching the interrogation and execution of the 'culprits' of Duke Rotleach's demise, he had no such inclinations. He had already seen enough machinations over the years.

"I would also like to go and Discuss with Rhydian as well, Your Majesty." Braydon decided that since Cinar was going to try and get out of sticking around longer, he would do so as well. He might have been interested if he had any personal enmity with the knights that were about to meet their end but he did not. And as such, he had much better things that he could do with his time.

"Of course." The King could only roll his eyes at the two, glad that nobody else felt like dodging. Though 'anybody else' mainly consisted of Ethan and a few of the northeastern lords, most prominent among them being Earl Downs. The more autonomous lords still made up a substantial part of the King's army and he did not want to neglect them too much. He was glad that Rhydian had been listening to their concerns more than he had which had kept them from causing a fuss because he had noticed he had not been doing so.

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"I thought that you would have been interested in watching something like that." Cinar commented as he and Braydon walked side by side through the temporary camp. They would be going in the same direction for a while so they started talking about the things that had just happened. While they might not have been entertained by negotiations, they still knew that the past hour had been an important one.

"It is only interesting to see a knight die if it happens during a battle. Otherwise what's so entertaining about a bound man being executed." Braydon would have been far more interested if they were talking about taking a knight's head off in the midst of battle. Not removing it as a show for uninformed soldiers.

"Fair enough." Cinar shrugged, not caring either way. So long as it meant that they benefited, it did not matter to him how his enemies died. A dead enemy was a dead enemy, it was just a matter of how it happened.

"How do you feel about our odds now?" Braydon asked. He had his own thoughts but Cinar had been around much longer than he had. He had seen more battlefields and wars than Braydon ever had. Not to mention that he knew the players involved better than Braydon did.

"Well, better than yesterday." Cinar noted as he thought about his answer.

"No shit." Braydon rolled his eyes. Even if he was inexperienced, it was not hard to deduce that much. More stuff generally beats less stuff. And now they had more men than they did before.

"I am not sure about it honestly. It depends on how committed Duke Tetland is in helping us out. While we have more men than Duke Ryder with him involved, Tetland has less skin in the game. Acceptable losses for him are much fewer than acceptable losses for us." Cinar made a point that Braydon had not thought about. He knew that Duke Tetland was less reliable than a Fiverian noble since he was not from Fiverian, he simply had less interest in Fiverian matters. But Braydon had not thought about that when it came to how he would act on the battlefield.

"You think he will leave us stranded against Duke Ryder?" Braydon asked. It was the logical conclusion from the point that Cinar had just raised.

"Not necessarily, but I doubt that he would sacrifice his army for our cause." Cinar did not think that Duke Tetland would betray them but he doubted that the man would give up everything for them. If things took a turn for the worse, Cinar did not want to be depending on Duke Tetland to save them.

"Hopefully Duke Burn does not die too quickly then." Braydon said somewhat as a joke but partly seriously. He did not doubt that Duke Burn was a competent man and would not make it easy for Duke Ryder to take him out but there was only so much that he could do with such a disparate army size. Burn was a good schemer, not a wizard.

"It would be good if we could go for a three pronged attack." Cinar agreed. If that happened, he doubted that Duke Ryder would remain as a contestant for the Fiverian throne even if he did survive. And it was likely that the man himself realised that. Hence why he did not turn around to fight them even as they met up with Duke Tetland. He had been trying to bide his time for the best possible outcome so long that the rug was starting to be pulled out from underneath him.

"We will have to see." Braydon commented as they reached his destination. The guard that the King had sent had passed them a moment before, having already spoken to Rhydian. And Braydon could see that Rhydian had already noticed their presence.