Chapter 1377: Sour feelings (1)

The brooch that fastened Nibadur’s cloak was the tower of his house, wrought in silver and gold, one resting upon each shoulder in true homage. For long, agonizing months, Zayneth had seen his prince clad only in grey mail, plate, greaves, and gorget, all bearing the family crest.Standing at the head of the army that should have given the start to a political unification of the South.

Where the Peasant Prince’s armor was as black as sin, Nibadur’s was usually a splendid, eye-drawn green bisected by twin stripes of polished grey. How a royal could march into the field draped in nothing but soot-blackened iron was beyond Zayneth’s comprehension, a man of noble blood ought to ride into battle looking like a walking rainbow of power and privilege.

Today, however, the Prince of Habadia had shed all brightly colored pretenses. He wore a simple doublet of muted, greyish black, though it was not half as dark as his mood as he waited for Zayneth to deliver his report.

There had been precious little good news of late, and unfortunately, Zayneth was not about to break the drought.

The humiliating defeat handed to them at the Bastion, and the catastrophe at the Ford immediately after, had thoroughly shattered whatever grand design Nibadur held for advancing his cause. Worse still, the rising storm in Kakunia threatened to bring everything he had labored over for decades crashing down in a matter of moons.

Zayneth was here for the grim duty of laying bare the full weight of those failures.

Nibadur’s sharp eyes tracked his spymaster as he crossed the room. His liege was a brilliant man; he likely had already divined half the dark tidings before Zayneth even opened his mouth.

"What has gone wrong now?" Nibadur asked, his tone heavy with exhaustion.

The solitary candle on the table cast long shadows across his face, carving out the deep, hollow groove between his brows. Zayneth wondered briefly how many nights had passed since the prince had last known a decent sleep. Not recently, certainly. But Zayneth was not here to offer polite comfort.

"We have received the latest tidings from Kakunia, Your Grace. It appears both sides have formally drawn their battle lines. Lavus’s attempt at conciliation collapsed into nothing, just as you wisely anticipated."

The flattery failed to lift so much as a shadow from Nibadur’s brow.

"As anyone with half a brain could have foreseen,that is everything but wise" Nibadur scoffed dryly. "It tells us all we need to know about that pig of a prince if he honestly believed words could put out this fire. What insult did he try to pass off as an offer, anyway?"

"A full pardon for Merelao and every lord who took up arms alongside him," Zayneth replied smoothly. "Along with a lordship in Ricorum, and the promise of a royal marriage for their children."

Zayneth didn’t bother pointing out that Lavus had no living daughters eligible for marriage. The offer was a thinly veiled declaration: he meant to wed Merelao’s future son to Latio’s daughter whenever he got around to siring one, effectively promising the crown to his own bloodline down the road.

It was a moot point anyway.Merelao already held Ricorcum and even had the advantage of momentum.

The crown of Kakunia would be claimed by blood and iron, not ink and promises.

"I would have spat in his eye for such a pittance," Nibadur growled. "Who contents himself with a stale crumb when the entire cake sits on the table? And the Mad Bull’s appetite is far more ravenous than Lavus gives him credit for." He scowled deeply at the mention of the rival prince. "Say what you will of Merelao, the man has a sharp head for command and a frame built like a siege engine. He looks the very image of a warrior-king... unlike Lavus. Why, even Lavus’s bastard son doesn’t makes a better showing of himself."

Indeed. Where Latio was narrow in the shoulders, carrying a soft, wobbling belly that bounced with every step, Merelao was wide of chest and back, with a gut as hard as mountain oak, and cursed with enough tragic charm to win over half the realm.

"Which of the lords have declared for the rebel?" Nibadur demanded.

Zayneth swallowed hard, taking a slow, steadying breath. "I fear there are many who have proven foolish enough to back the madman. From the high-born houses down to the commons, tales of his feats during the War of the Bloody Penny have spread like wildfire, proving to be the best formentor of his cause. He is the only tongue wagging in every tavern and grand hall across the south. The Battle of the Ford did far more for his credibility as the legitimate heir to the throne than Latio’s bastard blood ever could."

Nibadur’s mouth twisted as if he had just taken a swig of curdled milk. "I don’t give a runny shit what peasants and sheepherders dream about over their ale.They can go worship and honor a side of bacon, as far as I care. It is the lords who supply the steel, the coin, and the war-horses for an investiture to succeed, not the smallfolk. Names, Zayneth. Who declared for him?"

Zayneth fought back the urge to remind his prince that it was precisely an army of landless second sons and desperate hedge-knights that had allowed Merelao to march south and bail out the Prince of Yarzat in the first place.

"The lords of Florum, Polleson, and Laccenilia have all sworn their swords to the rebel," Zayneth reported, counting them off. "As has the Lord of Iutegovium, whose sister currently enjoys the Mad Bull’s high favor. Whispers suggest they are arranging a marriage contract."

"May the whore be barren and their wedding end in red," Nibadur spat. He caught the slight hesitation in his spymaster’s eyes and leaned forward, his knuckles going white against the table. "Who else? Must I drag every name out of your throat with a hook? Spill it!"

"The Lord of Presoncu... he has cast his house behind the rebel’s banner."

Nibadur’s jaw dropped, mirroring the exact shock Zayneth had felt when the raven arrived. "Wasn’t the Lord of Presoncu cut down outside the very walls of Ricorum?"

"He was, Your Grace. The madman sallied forth from the gates and shattered their ranks. Lord Silveraxe was among the slain.Some say by Merelao’s own hand.

His bloody axe was sent back to his brother as a sign of respect, the new lord of the house. We have no eyes inside those halls to know what poison was whispered once the gates closed, but when the new lord emerged, Red-Lip had pledged Presoncu’s full strength to Merelao and sworn oath of loyalties."

Nibadur slammed his heavy fist onto the oak table, sending the candle sputtering.

"Fickle, faithless, whoring Kakunian dogs!" he roared, his voice echoing off the stone walls. "They swap their oaths faster than a tavern wench slips off her breeches! They spread their legs for whoever holds the largest sword, swearing eternal loyalty in the morning and selling their liege by nightfall. The whole wretched lot of them have no more honor than a pack of stray hounds fighting over butcher’s scraps! A man cannot build a war on the word of Kakunians,they hold their cloaks to the wind so often their arms must be sore from the twisting!"

Zayneth remained perfectly motionless, barely drawing breath as he watched the storm rage behind his prince’s eyes. He understood with perfect clarity why the news of Red-Lip’s defection struck such a raw nerve, it was a blow far more devastating than simply another standard rallying to the rebel’s side. The Lord of Presoncu wasn’t just a player on the board; he held the key to the game itself at least on the Habadian side.

Presoncu straddled the sole viable royal highway. If Habadia truly intended to march west and reinforce Prince Lavus, they absolutely had to hold that road. With Red-Lip now a sworn rebel, their entire invading force would be bottlenecked.They would be forced into a costly, bloody siege, laying investiture to Presoncu’s holdings just to open the path deeper into Kakunian territory toward the capital.

The only remaining alternative was the pass through Gegiodupi. And while that lord stubbornly held onto his oath to Lavus, the road itself was a logistics nightmare. Trying to march a royal army through a narrow, treacherous mountain pass, while simultaneously attempting to sustain the logicistics and supply chain for a major campaign, was a fool’s errand. It was a deathtrap, plain and simple.

Merelao had struck absolute gold, and they both knew it. With nothing more than a few honeyed promises, some calculated sweet-talk, and the return of a silver-encrusted axe, the Mad Bull had dealt a far more crippling blow to Habadian support for his uncle than that Prince of the Mud in Yarzat could ever hope to accomplish on his best day. The war had truly shifted with that one single move before it even begun.

’’Good news’’ Nibadur’s muttered , his hand making bread of his shaved chin. ’’Do you have some good news?’’

’’A few , your Grace. A few’’

Though he did not suppose they would please him so much either.

Especially after so sour a meal.

Map about the Kakunian civil war.