Chương 108: The Cut-Off Order

On the night Kichan left, the lamp in the human army operations tent stayed lit until late. On the table were drawings of the newly repaired bridge and the hill on the opposite side. Outside the truce line, the positions both armies had vacated stood empty. Lauren, the human army operations officer who had handed over the grimoire, placed a wooden horse marker on the map.

"Before the truce ends, we must inspect the hill on the opposite side."

"The commander ordered us not to cross the river." The adjutant said.

"This is not an attack. It is limited reconnaissance."

"The moment we send troops, the other side will see it as an attack."

"That is why we send only a small number." Lauren wrote two restrictions into the authorization: no attack, and immediate withdrawal upon contact. Then he removed the operations seal from his wrist and stamped the document himself. Before dawn, twenty human soldiers crossed the bridge. Their spears were on their backs, and their shields were loaded on a cart. The soldiers in front recognized faces that had sat at the same griddle on the day of the prisoner exchange.

In the demihuman outpost across from them, there were warriors who remembered them too. Ern, at the front of the human soldiers, slowed down in the middle of the bridge. Karun stood across from him. A few days earlier, he had pushed meat onto Ern's plate. They did not know each other's names, but they remembered which hand the other used to hold a weapon.

"Let's wait here." Ern said to the soldiers behind him.

"The authorization says we go as far as the hill on the opposite side." The commanding officer pushed the cart forward. Ern could not refuse the order. Instead, he did not take the spear off his back.

"Stop!" Karun shouted. The human commanding officer held up the authorization.

"This is reconnaissance. We have no intention to attack." The river swallowed half his words.

"Reconnaissance" vanished in the noise. So did "no." Only "intention to attack" carried across. The horn of the demihuman outpost sounded. The human soldiers took their shields down from the cart. Neither side shot first. But no one retreated. Reports reached the two commanders almost at the same time. Marten read the authorization in the operations tent. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Who authorized this?" Lauren was not in his seat.

"Pull them back immediately." Haven had followed the herb cart across the river into a demihuman village the day before and could not be reached. Marten called Seru, the owl who had carried the truce extensions. He wrote the short order on two sheets, placed one in the document tube, and gave the other to a mounted messenger. Withdraw from the bridge immediately. Do not make contact with the forces on the opposite side. Anyone who violates this order will not be protected by the human army. Seru flew first.

When the owl passed over the human camp, one sentry saw the white wings. He was a soldier who had heard the rumor that Seru, who had carried truce documents a few days before, was an enemy scout. He also believed that Marten was communicating with thieves.

"Enemy messenger!" The soldier beside him shouted for him to look at the messenger mark. The arrow had already left the string. The arrow pierced Seru's chest. The bird struck its left wing hard against a palisade post with the document tube still attached, then fell inside the human position. The wing bone that had been set a few days before broke again. The soldier beside the archer ran over and held Seru. Through the blood on its chest, he saw the commander's seal.

"It is our messenger." He removed the document tube and ran to the operations tent. At the entrance, Lauren's direct subordinates blocked his way.

"Its identity has not been confirmed."

"It has the commander's seal."

"It may be forged." The document tube was not opened until the meeting ended. Inside, the withdrawal order lay folded and soaked in blood. The mounted messenger was seized before he could even leave the tent. Lauren's direct subordinates suspected that a commander colluding with the enemy commander was trying to overturn a reconnaissance order bearing Lauren's authorization seal.

"Wait until the order is confirmed."

"Confirmed by whom?"

"By the participants in the operational meeting."

"The commander is the one with command authority."

"A commander who sends medicine to the enemy commander." The messenger's sword and documents were placed on the meeting table. Grad sent a withdrawal order too. He handed a red knot to his fastest warrior. It was an order to pull the outpost at the bridge back immediately and to raise no reinforcement signal no matter what the provocation was. The messenger was seized by three guard captains. They had already found a molly medicine pouch and a note written in human script in the commander's tent.

"You mean to carry an order from someone colluding with humans?"

"It is the commander's order."

"That is why we are stopping it." The messenger did not draw his sword. He also took his hand off the hilt. He could not deliver a withdrawal order by cutting his way through his own tribe. He was bound. The two withdrawal orders did not reach the bridge. Around sunrise, demihuman reinforcements appeared on the hill across the river. The human vanguard saw it as preparation for an attack. The demihuman outpost saw the human soldiers deploying their shields and mistook them for a bridge occupation force.

One soldier was shoved forward. Two spear tips struck each other. No one knew whether that was the first attack. The front ranks of both sides tangled all at once. Ern and Karun, who had eaten meat together on the day of the prisoner exchange, blocked each other's weapons.

"Go back!"

"You first!" Neither of them stabbed the other, but the troops pushing in from behind saw it as a fight. A red reinforcement signal rose from the demihuman hill. Originally, it was a signal meant to protect the outpost. In the human camp, it was read as a signal to begin the attack. The preloaded catapult spell array fired. A burning boulder crossed the river. The demihuman leyline battery activated too. It had been prepared to return fire whenever it detected human bombardment.

No one needed to issue another order. Both systems were already loaded and aimed at each other. Marten rode out of the tent on horseback. When Grad saw the red signal, he headed for the front line himself. One man blocked the path of his own cavalry with his body.

"Come back from the bridge!" The other cut down the chieftain's flag that had raised the reinforcement signal.

"Who told you to raise that?" Their voices were buried under the sound of bombardment. The first burning boulder fell in the middle of the new bridge. The wedge stones people had fitted sprang up all at once.