Chapter CXIV – For they shall have an attack without mercy.

12th of Autumn 5859
Imperial Highway №04-765, Libertycave

Today was a cold day out in Azdavay. Bilal regretted not bringing another coat as he sat on the back of a carriage going down the newly-built stretch of macadam road. Along the road were occasional pools of half-melted snow that soon would cover the highlands and, eventually, even the lowlands of Casamonu. Passing by a milestone, it read “Imperial Highway №04-765 – 10 miles from Libertycave – Built by the National Guardsmen of Libertycave in 5859”. He couldn’t help but let out a slight snicker at the Imperial moniker. The public roads connecting cities had been known as “imperial highways” since time immemorial, and so the Republic had kept the naming and numbering system intact even as it built new ones meant to help erase the Imperials. “I wonder if, one day in the future, ‘imperial’ will only refer to these roads” he thought out loud.

“If we do a good enough job in burying those Imperial bastards into history, yeah” replied the carriage driver on the front. “They deserve to be trampled under us once they’re buried, no?”

“Hmm…” Before Bilal could find a clever comeback, he had come to the end of the road and had to get off and do his job. There was a camp for the construction workers, the enlisted workers of the National Guard, who were currently on break. The banner of Libertycave, a white triangle representing a cave on a copper-orange background, flew on a few of the tents. An odd vexillological frenzy had overtaken the locals with the foundation of the Republic and the ascension of Casamonu as its first state, and they had voted in this banner to be the official banner of Libertycave a few days ago. Perhaps it was enticing, for those who had been enslaved so long, to practice their liberty by getting to use the rights of holding their own banner like a nobleman would. Unlike a nobleman’s banner however, everyone got to hang the banner of Libertycave if they so wished. Libertycave banners had flown off the shelves a few hours after the vote had been concluded. Speaking of flying off shelves, “why are there stalls here?”

“Oh, Mr. Bilal!” The bloke at the stall answered “We had some people passing by here, so we thought we could conduct some extra business with the passersby.”

“As long as you aren’t delaying the road construction…” Bilal shrugged, continuing his trip around the camp. He greeted a few of the workers and did some small-talk to make sure things were going well. Most of the conversation was pretty regular: complaints about the weather, copper tools breaking, some coworkers being annoying…

“…I was wondering if we should get some walls up for our camp. Things are dangerous, I hear” said one worker sitting around a fire to warm up.

“How so?” asked his co-worker.

“Haven’t you heard the criers going around, warning about a potential attack?” The worker looked around him with paranoia, as if cavalrymen could jump out at any moment.

“Realistically, we won’t need to worry about horsemen riding up the mountain. A horde of horsemen couldn’t easily make their way through here…” Bilal was interrupted by a horde of clops heard from the direction of where the road was. He turned around to see that, indeed, a horde of horsemen could fit on the road, and these horsemen certainly looked foreign. The National Guard jumped up from their cozy seats to gather their spears, though the horsemen would have long overrun them by the time they scrambled together in a formation to stop them. Thankfully, the horsemen didn’t seem hostile… yet. “What’s going on here?!”

“Gentleman, and ladies, calm down please.” A familiar priest rode forward on his ride. Vaiz stopped when he thought that enough people had seen his presence “They’re our new allies from the Casamonu Host. I’m returning back from a diplomatic mission, and it’d be quite helpful if we could take a rest here without incident.”

“Oh, I was worried for a second…” Bilal relaxed his shoulders, relieved that he wasn’t going to die today “Well, I’m sure that the people here don’t mind some visitors. Where are you headed to anyways?”

“I’ll stop for a meeting with Mister Brown, while these guys are going to be busy setting themselves back up in their land and protecting the guys constructing the other highway.” Vaiz got off his horse, and so did his nomad comrades. Things quickly got lively as the men of the host mingled with the workers, and soon there was a festive environment around the place. The workers exchanged their trinkets for odd bits and bobs from the other side, meat jerky from the host was traded for slime jelly, and so on and so forth as impromptu cultural exchange happened.

Bilal and Vaiz retreated to a corner to have themselves some calm over tea. “Do you have any news from the people over in the other highway? Having the dwarves trade over here would be a huge help to Libertycave.”

“Hmm…” Vaiz played around with the cup, waiting for his hands to warm up “I’m not really in the business of economy and infrastructure, but from the way that Mr. Brown was talking, I got the idea that the road would be done way before winter came if nothing goes wrong.”

“If nothing goes wrong.” Bilal too was playing around with his cup, though for a different reason. He looked down from the road, towards the direction where Casamonu would be. He wondered how things were going over there…

12th of Autumn 5859
Imperial Highway №04-030, Casamonu

It was a cold day out in the lands of the highway. Autumn had truly come, from the countless orange leaves to the mountains in the distance slowly getting snowier and snowier. About twenty miles (32 km) of road had already been laid, with 80 miles (129 km) to go. Their dwarven comrades on the other side had done around the same amount, and with such a pace, Casamonu-Zon’guldac would be connected again by the middle of Autumn.

The wagons upon wagons of construction goods had been retracted once more to form a wagon fort staffed by the workers of the National Guard. They had been on high alert ever since the scouts had been scouted out. Four lookouts circled around the wagons, keeping their torches high in order to lighten up anyone trying to approach during the night.

Such a delicate situation required guards with keen observation skills, ones with experience and gusto. Billy wasn’t any of those things, but he had survived the siege and joined the National Guard as he couldn’t really get any other job in Casamonu. Now, as fate had doomed him to, he was guarding a place once more. Right next to him was a tough-looking lady who had a sword that was as tall as a wagon and as thick as a board. He was bored, so he slowly sidestepped towards her “Yo, ain’t the weather cold today?”

Shakira, the wielder of the absurdly large armament in question, continued idly looking at the sky. Billy was about to get the message and abandon her right before she finally said something “…it’s Autumn in Casamonu. What did you expect?”

“Erm, yeah.” Billy scooted back towards Shakira’s side “Standing idle, it just makes a person colder y’know. Drinking something usually makes me feel warmer. Wish I wasn’t on guard so I could grab a drink.”

Shakira yawned “I’m definitely gonna go back to the city on the weekend to grab myself something or two.”

“Oh!” Billy hadn’t even needed to ask her what she was doing on the weekend “I was planning on just that as well! Maybe-” His conversation was interrupted by the sound of hooves pounding the ground. “Crap, is it those nomads?!”

“It’s just one horse, dumbass. I don’t think they’d approach this place with just one man.” Still, Shakira unsheathed her massive sword just in case she needed to cut prime chunks of unprocessed glue.

They rushed to the gate of the wagon fort, only to be met by a solitary horseman who bore the yellow uniform of Casamonu. He had already gotten off his horse, and he had his package cradled in his arms “Delivery for the road builders!”

“Lemme see-” Billy almost stumbled when the deliveryman dumped a stack of paper in his arms. “Woah, what are these?” Billy couldn’t read what was written on them, but he could understand that these texts were printed rather than hand-written.

“Your wages; give one paper to everyone in the camp. You’ll be able to exchange these for libra once you’re back in Casamonu. There are also some educational pamphlets for those of you who can read.” He raised up a copy that he had taken for himself to show the illiterates in front of him what that looked like. It was titled “Elementary Knowledge on Mathematics” for short, with a very long “For those looking for the fundamental knowledge on simple mathematical principles, originally printed for public schools of the Republic, available for all citizens to peruse if they so wish” added below the title as a subtitle. At the bottom there was a text declaring it to have been the “1st Edition - Printed in Casamonu, on orders of the Council of the Gemeinplatz Republic, written by a commission headed by Dr. R. R. Rabanowicz, Watanabe Haruhi, H.E. Vaiz and John Brown.”

“I don’t know if anyone will be interested in that, but we’ll try and deliver them.” Billy was about to dump some of the papers on Shakira for her to hold, but his eyes noticed movement outside the gate. He couldn’t understand what or who it was, but there were figures swiftly moving in the plains. They were way too far, so far that they looked like ants, but Billy could see the light reflecting off of their helmets. “Someone… A lot of someone, people, people in the distance!”

“Huh?” Shakira too noticed the group outside. The deliveryman too turned around, and jumped back in fear.

“This movement… It must be men on horseback!” The deliveryman dragged his horse inside the wagon fort in a hurry.,

“Damn it, it’s the nomads!” shouted Billy. His shout woke up some in the camp, who proceeded to panic themselves, and soon the whole camp was awake. Everybody scrambled for their weapons: a lucky few had standard-issue copper spears, while all others had to make do with what they had brought into the National Guard. A wall, if it could be called that with how wavy it was, formed around the “gate” of the wagon fort while others with ranged weaponry scrambled to climb on to the wagons.

As the cavalrymen got close by their blue-red tabards became clearly identifiable, which showed that they were no friends of the yellowcoats. The battle began with a horse archer firing the first shot, and soon many others followed suit in their way towards the residents of the wagon fort.

Thus had begun the Battle of the 30th Highway.