There was no time for Leon and the others to rest once they reached Ironford. A group of one hundred stone giants was hard to miss, especially with so many panicked messengers from eastern towns and villages bringing word of their march west, and so when Leon arrived at the eastern gates of Ironford, a runner had been sent by August to bring him directly to the palace for a debrief.

Walking into the palace, Leon found that the entire place was practically jumping with excitement, and not the good kind. Assistants, lower-ranked soldiers, and secretaries were running every which way, carrying stacks of papers with harried looks about them. As Leon walked further toward August’s offices, he found the level of activity only increasing.

“Ah! Sir Leon!” cried someone from amongst the hordes of scurrying assistants. At the sound of their voice, however, the crowds parted, revealing Publius, the King’s Spymaster. He was standing off in an alcove near August’s personal office apparently waiting for his turn to speak with the Prince.

“Sir Publius!” Leon exclaimed in surprise.

Publius walked over with a beaming smile on his face. “It’s good to see a familiar face!” he said as he clapped the younger man on the shoulder. “How have you been? I’ve heard you arrived with hundreds of giants at your back!”

“I suppose that’s accurate to say, though it’s only ‘hundred’ singular, not ‘hundreds’ plural.”

“Oh. That’s still hardly a shame, I’m sure that Prince August will be—”

“Sir Leon!” August shouted from the doorway to his office. “And Sir Publius! Please, both of you, come in!”

Leon and Publius walked into August’s office where a few of the Prince’s secretaries were clearing out some documents on his desk.

“Your Highness…?” Leon hesitantly said while glancing meaningfully at the secretaries.

“Oh?” August said in momentary confusion. “Right, sorry. It’s a bit hard to remember that you’ve been gone two weeks given everything that’s been going on lately.”

“Good stuff?” Leon asked, though, given the way everyone else he’d seen in the palace had been acting, he wasn’t too hopeful for a positive answer.

“Uh, you could say that, I guess,” August replied, though his tone indicated that the truth was more complicated. “On paper, we’ve been doing very well…” The Prince trailed off a bit as he waited for his secretaries to leave, but once they were gone and the door was closed, he seemed to deflate and collapsed into a nearby chair. “Minerva and Brimstone successfully occupied most of the Great Plateau,” the Prince explained. “All that’s left is to take Clear Ice Fortress, and Brimstone has already put it so siege.”

“What’s the problem, then?” Leon asked.

“I may know,” Publius offered. “I’m assuming this has to do with recent events in the capital?”

August nodded.

“I thought so,” Publius continued, giving the Prince a nod of solidarity. Leon, however, stared at him, silently awaiting an explanation. “Much has happened in the past month, Sir Ursus,” Publius said. “Sir Arellius has been relieved of command of the 2nd Legion, and the only reason they didn’t immediately rebel or desert is that the Earthshaker Paladin has been keeping an eye on the rest of the Legion knights commanding them.”

“Where is Sir Arellius now?” Leon asked. He remembered the lightning mage who commanded the 2nd Legion rather fondly, even if he didn’t conduct himself as well as he would’ve liked in their brief duel.

“I’m not sure,” Publius replied, eliciting a look of extreme skepticism from Leon. “I’ve been relieved of my post, as have many more of my colleagues. The Chancellor is now Countess Floriana of Lindinis, while Duke Decimius has been made the Steward. Sir Avidius was also relieved of his post as Consul of the Central Territories after the failure to take Ironford, and was summarily replaced by Duke Duronius of Valentia, Prince Octavius’ maternal grandfather.”

“Is that even legal? I thought that landed nobles weren’t allowed to hold such high offices,” Leon asked.

“No, but Octavius secured a special dispensation from the advisory council,” Publius said.

“Who replaced you?” Leon inquired. “And what’s going on with the Sapphire Paladin? I can’t help but notice that no one’s mentioned her, yet.”

“Not sure who replaced me, I left before the post was filled. I was the last of King Julius’ administration to be let go,” Publius replied. “However, the Sapphire Paladin I do know about; she’s remaining in the capital at Octavius’ side. I don’t think she’ll move unless something truly devastating to their side happens.”

“None of that really matters, now,” August said as he straightened up a bit. “Duke Duronius wasted no time organizing Octavius’ forces to counter our offensives. Roland down in the Southern Territories managed to halt their attempts to take Ariminium by land, but the fleets are amassing for an obvious attack on the city. What’s worse, Roland is outnumbered and has been losing ground to Duronius for several days.”

“The new Central Consul is in the south? Why not leave things to the Southern Consul?” Leon asked.

“He’s still there, but Octavius gave Duronius overall command,” Publius answered.

Leon nodded in thought. “And I take it that all this is why you’re preparing to go?” Leon asked as he pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward the door, where the sound of assistants and secretaries hurriedly packing could be heard even through the sound-insulating enchantments of the office.

“That is my plan,” August said with an appreciative smile. “I’ll be bringing thirty thousand of our noble retinues to reinforce Roland. Marquis Aeneas will be leading the force, but I’ve decided not to sit by and wait for victory to be won on my behalf. I will ride out with my loyal vassals and fight alongside them.”

Leon cocked an eyebrow at the Prince. “I didn’t expect that from you, Your Highness, I have to admit.”

“Well, I kind of have to do so. The eastern knights almost turned on me when I told them what you were doing, so I’m going to have to go with to show solidarity and improve my relations with the eastern Lords and their knights if I want to keep their loyalty. I can’t just order them to march west while I stay here in safety, especially now that you’ve arrived, and they’ll be fighting alongside the very giants that precipitated this crisis.”

“So I’m not going north?” Leon asked, the disappointment evident in his voice.

“No, I need you and your giants in the south,” August answered, but when Leon pursed his lips a bit and looked more than a bit reluctant, August quickly added, “Of course, if you believe that you would be better assigned back under Minerva in the north, then I… can make that happen…”

His jaw stiffened as he spoke those words, showing just how reticent he was to make that offer, and he practically stared at Leon like a puppy about to be abandoned.

“… No, that’s fine, I’ll go south,” Leon said, though he waited a moment to allow the words past his lips. He hadn’t actually been planning on defying the Prince’s order to go south, especially since he’d been gone for two weeks and wasn’t quite up-to-date on the strategic situation. But he didn’t like how August had just decided for him to go south when he wanted to go north—he saw it as a perfect opportunity to secure the rest of his family’s archives, but given their defenses, he wasn’t seriously worried about losing them to this conflict. “There apparently isn’t much happening in the north, anyway. Is there?”

“No, no there isn’t,” August answered, relaxing now that he saw Leon wasn’t going to fight him on this deployment.

“When will we be leaving? I would like the opportunity to wash up a bit…” Leon raised his arms a bit to show his relatively dirty clothing, but given that he was at least competent enough in the use of water magic to wash on the go, he wasn’t nearly as filthy as he was following the operation against Gaius’ army—he hadn’t wanted to waste the magic power back then on something so trivial, but when he was on the road, it was no matter.

“Of course, right now it’s looking like we’ll be marching out in about three hours.”

“That should be enough time.”

“Wonderful, then I’ll see you at the western gates in three hours.”

With that, Leon departed the office, leaving August and Publius to have whatever meeting that Publius was waiting for when Leon arrived. He hurried back to where he left the rest of his followers and informed them of the news. Alix and Valeria weren’t too happy, but Anzu and Lapis were about ready for anything. The rest of the stone giants, too, had nothing to argue.

And so, Leon, Valeria, and Alix spent their three hours getting what little food they could shovel into their mouths followed by a long bath, and then it was back on the road. August and a number of other very important looking people were waiting for them when they arrived—along with a mass of people outside the walls that Leon knew to be the army August was going to lead to Roland’s aid—and Leon noted more than a few sour looks at the sight of a hundred giants walking in a rather disorganized mass behind him.

He might not have cared, but some of these people unable to hide their displeasure were in the fifth and sixth-tiers, so he made sure to note their faces in case they tried to argue against the giants’ presence with more than just words.

“Sir Leon!” August called out in greeting, and Leon gave the Prince a stiff bow. Most of the leaders were on horseback, and Leon could see many of the higher-ranking knights were mounted as well; it seemed that this army would have a higher cavalry-to-infantry ratio than he was used to, as much as a third of the entire force if his estimation was accurate.

“Let’s not waste any more time!” August called out as Leon fell in beside the Prince. Most of the leaders bowed to the Prince and scattered to their retinues, while only a single man stayed behind.

Leon easily recognized this man despite having never interacted with him before in any meaningful way; he was the Marquis of Aventino, the father of Marcus Aeneas and the brother of the Legate of the Knight Academy. He was tall and broad-shouldered, though his waist was a bit soft compared to most fit mages that Leon had seen. His hair was a deep brown, he had a strong chin, but a thin face and small nose. The Marquis was handsome in his own way, but he had a more cerebral look about him than being classically pretty or rugged—which Leon found rather appropriate for the head of the House that had quite literally written the most well-known books on basic strategy and military tactics in the Kingdom. For a thousand years, House Aeneas had been keeping the northern stone giants from heavily raiding the Eastern Territories, and in that time, they became one of the most experienced noble families when it came to commanding an army.

“Sir Leon,” he said with a rigid nod of the head. Leon could detect scorn in his eyes, but he was too used to seeing that from higher nobles to care.

“So,” Leon said as he drew parallel with August, “how’s things? Anything else change in the past two weeks that wasn’t mentioned a few hours ago?”

He could feel Aeneas’ gaze boring into his back—possibly for being a Valeman, but Leon also knew that he wasn’t showing August the proper respect and deference that a subordinate ought to. If he held more respect for the noble ceremonies of the Bull Kingdom, he would be behind the Prince, not beside him, and he wouldn’t ask questions so freely.

August, however, didn’t seem to care, and Leon was having too much fun by so publicly flaunting the guidelines for noble behavior to stop for any other reason. The only thing he stopped—and which only exacerbated the issue—was to quickly hop onto Anzu’s back.

“Gaius Tullius was ransomed back to the Duke of Lentia,” August said. “His Grace was actually surprisingly quick to send payment for the release of his younger brother.”

“Ah…” Leon replied as he thought about the young nobleman. He had to admit that after interrogating him, he had started to feel some amount of grudging respect for the soul-crushing duties he had to shoulder while working under Octavius, and a part of him wasn’t too upset that Gaius was so quickly released to go back home. “That’s good to hear. By the way, Your Highness, would you or your people happen to have a pair of horses to spare?”

August cocked an eyebrow at him in confusion; Leon already had Anzu, so August was momentarily at a loss as to why he was asking. But then Leon gave him a meaningful look and glanced backward at Valeria and Alix, who were still on foot. Leon hadn’t realized they’d need horses since they were relatively strong mages and didn’t strictly require them to keep up, but it was more a matter of prestige than practicality. He couldn’t very well ride his own war beast and force them to walk.

August nodded in understanding, and in less than five minutes, a pair of spare horses were loaned to Leon’s two knightesses.

During that short time, August and Aeneas struck up a short conversation about the goings-on in the capital, and Leon learned from listening in that the Legate of the Knight Academy had been replaced, and the Legate that Leon knew from his time in the Academy had been arrested. Aeneas was irate that his brother had been so treated, and even more so because he hadn’t even received a request for a ransom. He didn’t even know if his brother was still alive.

But that anger paled in comparison to the fact that he hadn’t heard from his son in a while, and he feared that Marcus had been arrested as well. The last time he heard about his son, the Legion he’d been assigned to had been moving into the Southern Territories more than a month ago, and then not a word since. It wasn’t a stretch for him to assume that Marcus had been taken into custody just as his brother had been.

“We’ll get them back, My Lord,” August reassured the Marquis. “I can’t imagine that Octavius would do anything to them while in captivity, assuming he even has your son. The nobles on his side may see your kin as an affiliate to a rebel Prince, but they’re still noble. How Octavius treats them would show the rest of the nobles how much respect he has for their rank and station. I’m sure it will be little more than house arrest at the worst.”

“If my brother is not returned to me… If he touches a single hair on my son’s head…” Aeneas growled, his voice so deep that Leon was almost shocked that it wasn’t shaking apart the horse beneath him.

“Octavius has many crimes to pay for, my Lord,” August reassured his vassal. “Many crimes. He’ll be made a head shorter before this war is done, on that you have my word.”

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