Chapter 2081: Ashlynn’s Hanging Sword

~...I believe we have a way forward, but it’s dangerous...~

Rhys’s heart seized in his chest when he read those words, and the words that followed it did little to put his mind at ease. His eldest daughter had just conquered a march in the middle of winter, killed one of the greatest swordsmen currently living in the Kingdom of Gaal, executed an Abbot of the Inquisition, and dared both the Kingdom and the Church to stop her...

Ashlynn’s notion of ’dangerous’ didn’t exist in the same world as her father’s, and for a moment, Rhys nearly tore open Jocelynn’s letter to find out what she meant. But Ashlynn’s letter had a second page, and that felt every bit as important as the first.

"One at a time, old man," Rhys reminded himself as he put the first page aside and turned to the second. The instant he did, his brows began to rise as Ashlynn laid bare her current situation in short, neatly annotated lines.

Four Eldritch armies with close to a thousand men at arms. The number alone was shocking, but according to her notes, that force included giants tall enough to climb over city walls, sorcerers capable of matching Inquisitors, and elite warriors who could rival any Templar, and that was before she reorganized the forces of Lothian March and integrated the warriors of the Southern Steppe and Airgead Mountain.

At the moment, those forces had been deployed forward to the borders in the Little Horns, Otker Canyon, and the northern border where her empire butted against Marquis Crew’s domain. With time to dig in, it would be incredibly difficult for the Kingdom to break past her borders without at least six months to marshal and organize men... And in that time, Ashlynn’s forces would only grow stronger.

But the armies were only the beginning. Rhys pressed his hand to his chest and read over the next section three times before he could accept it. Not only had Ashlynn claimed that Nyrielle, the Lady of the Vale, could rival a Saint for power, but she had six progeny in her Empire who rivaled Exemplars and another embedded somewhere in the Kingdom of Gaal.

More shocking than that, however, was that Ashlynn had twice as many witches in her coven as Clair DuGaal had raised for hers... And one of those witches was Master Isabell!

"I don’t know how I’ll explain that to Casquas," Rhys muttered. "But he’ll be glad to know that she’s alive and well." Mentally, Rhys made a note to discuss travel with the famed poet. He was certain that Casquas and the rest of their family would want to reunite with Isabell as soon as possible. The only question was whether or not he should tell the man that his wife had become a witch...

"I’ll let Master Isabell do that bit herself," Rhys concluded as he returned to Ashlynn’s report. "Some things are best left to a husband and his wife."

After sketching out the strength of her forces and her rough intention for defenses, Ashlynn moved on to an abbreviated analysis of Keating’s industry and the impact of removing Lothian exports from Gaal’s economy.

In truth, losing the march wouldn’t hurt the Kingdom very badly. Ashlynn expected the price of wool, furs, timber, and some specialty materials to spike, but it wouldn’t hurt the kingdom’s ability to survive. For that, she had a different plan.

~Three quarters of the Kingdom’s coal is mined in Keating, Father,~ Ashlynn wrote.

~Of that, four parts in five of the coal that leaves the Duchy does so via the River Senara, and the rest comes from the eastern ports of Morecroi and Dorest. Blockade the river and those two ports, and not a single lump of Keating Coal will reach Gaalen for next winter.~

~Combine that with a stoppage of whale oil sails to Gaal and the Royal Capital will struggle to make it through the winter. It won’t work for long; within three or four years, Gaalen can easily double the size of their whaling fleet, and they can decimate forests for firewood until they can increase production in the coal mines they still hold.~

~For this winter, however, we can threaten them enough to drag them to a negotiating table, and the Blackwell Fleet is the best source of leverage we have. We can go further if we must. If Blackwell Fisheries refuse to sell to Gaal’s markets, and we expand the blockade to include wheat, oats and barley from Crew that travel down the Senara, we can make life even more painful for Gaal. I’d rather not, if we can avoid it, but the sword we hang above their heads should be very sharp.~

"Sharp doesn’t begin to describe what you’re talking about doing to the kingdom, Little Sanderling," Rhys said, whistling softly as he considered the impact of his daughter’s plan. "The king will have riots in the streets of Gaalen within a week of the first frost, two at most... He’ll be too busy fighting his own commoners to worry about sending his army after you."

Realistically, it wouldn’t be difficult to accomplish the blockade either. He’d been preparing an invasion force to help her conquer Lothian March, expecting to catch the Lothians in a pincer from two sides. But Ashlynn had already eliminated the Lothians without his help.

If he wanted to stop people from transiting from the Senara to the open sea, it was a simple enough feat to arrange. The crews of his dromons were well trained in boarding actions, and merchantmen were easier to seize or destroy than pirates.

The two ports Ashlynn mentioned on the coast of Keating wouldn’t be difficult to blockade either. He didn’t even need to send dromons that far south. A handful of fast caravels who could watch for the departure of slow-moving cogs and carry word to the fleet would be enough for Rhys and the forces of Blackwell to intercept them at sea.

Ashlynn was also right that the strategy wouldn’t work for long. Even if King Thibert had to empty the treasury to do it, he would sooner pay five times the price for coal to import it from the Iron and Garnet kingdoms than watch the common people freeze to death. And while Rhys could easily blockade a single large river that emptied into Blackwell Bay along with a pair of small, coastal ports, blockading Gaalen or the kingdom’s smaller ports to the north would quickly provoke reprisal from the Royal and White fleets...

"She wants time," Rhys said. "And she wants to buy it as cheaply as possible."

"You know that, if I do this for you, I’ll become the most hated man in all of Gaal," Rhys said with a wry smile as he set down the second page of Ashlynn’s letter. "But then, you’ve asked me for so little when you were growing up. I suppose I can indulge you this once," he said with a slight smile on his lips as he reached for Jocelynn’s letter.

His eldest daughter had truly grown up and left the nest... And now, like a gull on the wind, she was set to soar higher and further than he’d ever imagined. It was clear that she wasn’t doing it alone.

Ashlynn’s plan was more ruthless than he would have expected from her, and he suspected the hand of the vampire lady or whatever Eldritch advisors she’d acquired in the construction of her plan, but that was fine. She needed to be ruthless if she was going to win her way through this, and the fact that she had clever people around her put a portion of Rhys’s worried mind at ease.

His younger daughter on the other hand... Just what was this ’dangerous’ thing she was going to do in the hopes of mending her relationship with her sister?

~Father,~ Jocelynn’s letter started.

~In case I never get another chance to tell you, know that I love you and that I’m sorry. More sorry than words on a page can hold. I was wrong for what I did to Ashlynn, wrong to chase after Owain and wrong to hurt so many people in the process.~

~I don’t know how to make it right. I don’t think I ever can. But I’m going to do my best. Ashlynn has offered to let me join her coven as the Olive Witch. If I survive the trial, I hope to make a fresh start, doing things the way I should have in the beginning. And if I don’t survive the trial, then at least I tried.~

"A witch," Rhys said as the letter fell from his hands, landing lightly on the surface of his desk. "Jocelynn is going to become a witch...?"