Chapter 829 — The North

Magic-powered vehicles bearing the imperial emblem crushed their way across the permafrost of the Far North, still stubbornly frozen, the music of wheels and engines breaking the silence of the wilderness; vehicle after vehicle, loaded with men and supplies, rolled along the Imperial Highway—a road that had only just been entirely rebuilt—winding across it into a dark brown river of iron.

The contours of the northern mountains grew ever sharper on the horizon, and the clear, high blue sky hung like a curtain behind the ranges, glittering in the light of the Giant Sun.

Through the carriage window, Byron gazed at a landscape utterly unlike that of the south, at the ranges sheathed in ice and snow; across from him sat the Duchess Victoria, quiet as an ice sculpture.

Byron had been ordered north to build up the Empire's coastline on that land at the far northern edge of the continent, and at the same time to act as the Empire's representative in receiving guests from the Holy Dragon Duchy. The Duchess Victoria, having finished her report at the imperial capital, was likewise returning north. Their paths happened to lie together.

The foreign scenery grew ever clearer before his eyes, and even a man of such blunt temperament as Byron could not help but marvel. "I never thought I'd one day set foot in the northernmost reaches of this country—and as a general, no less... Fate is a thing beyond all figuring."

Victoria, sitting opposite, looked over at the sound of his voice. "I hear you were once a mercenary who roamed far and wide, General Byron."

"Roamed far and wide..." Byron smiled and shook his head. "Back then, fighting off a few bandits and wild beasts in the woods and valleys around a town counted as being battle-hardened. Having visited two or three cities was enough to boast of having roamed far and wide. The wildest tales a pack of mercenaries ever spun over drinks in a tavern wouldn't amount to a single railway line of today's Tepor-Cecil. People in those days... ah."

The mercenary knight, nearing fifty and having lived through everything from the very bottom of society to the very top of the Empire, spoke with a trace of self-mockery, yet a hint of memory crept onto his face despite himself. "But then again, those dozen-odd years as a mercenary, I did meet no small number of interesting fellows. I remember I led a very small company back then, and in it there was a swordswoman named... Elaiza, or Elaina, something like that. Tough as any man, she was. A northerner. Said her family came from a place called Kazabole... To us in those days, that was practically another world, it was so far away."

"Kazabray," Victoria corrected. "Near Winterhold. That's no short way from the southern marches. How did your friend end up in the south?"

"Supposedly she traveled with her parents as traders when she was small, and the family caravan ran into bandits near Pompeii... or maybe it was the local lord's black gloves. The whole family died, only her and an old servant left. Then the old servant died too, and she drifted south somehow... That's roughly how it went, though no one knew if it was true. Mercenaries love to invent outlandish origins and histories for themselves—it's the capital they use to boast and to prove they're 'one of a kind.' In reality they're probably just ruffians who ran off from some nearby village, and that sword of theirs was pieced together from scraps bought off some down-and-out old veteran."

Perhaps she had never heard such a story from the "lower depths," or perhaps she had taken some interest in the "mercenary" trade—a profession now sliding into decline these past two years—and the tales behind it, for Victoria actually showed a flicker of curiosity. "You became a knight later. What of your comrades from back then? Did that swordswoman ever return north?"

Byron was silent a moment, then shook his head. "No. And she never had the chance to go back. To ordinary folk twenty years ago, the northern border was simply too far away."

Victoria regarded Byron for two seconds with those ice-crystal eyes, then calmly withdrew her gaze and looked out the window once more, toward the north, as though speaking offhandedly. "After spring, the push on the north-south railway artery will speed up further. Once the magic-energy trains are racing across this wilderness, no corner of the Empire will be remote any longer."

"That'll be a fine thing indeed," Byron said, breaking into a smile at once. "After rattling along in this carriage so long, every bone in my body's started to ache—mind you, I've no complaint about the quality of the Imperial Highway. It's just that for long journeys, trains are plainly steadier and more comfortable."

"The Gorgon River won't rise until mid-Month of Revival, and by water you can go no farther than St. Sunil at best," Victoria said, unhurried. "In truth, if the 'aerial routes' His Majesty envisions could be put into service sooner, they might be the better choice: flying is surely faster than trains or ships."

"...I don't think I'm ready to embrace the sky just yet," Byron said after a moment's thought, somewhat awkwardly. "I've experienced gryphon flight... regrettably, it left me with no good memories. And those craft made of steel and crystal... they unsettle me even more than gryphons."

"But the sky will become part of the battlefield of the future, General Byron," Victoria said earnestly. "Even on battlefields of the old style, mages with the power of flight have more than once shown they can turn the tide of a fight. If not for the limits of technique and cost in the past, what nation would not want to command the blue sky?"

"Of course, of course, I understand the reasoning," Byron said quickly, his expression rather helpless—it had suddenly struck him that this Duchess Victoria was somewhat like Philip; both had that earnest temperament, that habit of suddenly turning serious in the middle of a joke. Yet he could fence with Philip by sheer eloquence, whereas he could not out-argue a peer of the highest nobility schooled in formal logic and trained in rhetoric. So he could only nod. "In fact, I've even considered whether future warships might carry small dragoon flyers, to scout sea conditions from high above and find safe routes. It's only that I personally am rather... about flying..."

"Carry flyers aboard warships?" Victoria paid no heed to the rest of what Byron said. Her eyes lit up, and a clear curiosity showed on that usually expressionless face. "Is this your idea for building an 'imperial navy'? Is this your conception of the warships of the future?"

Byron was taken aback, and once again realized that when chatting with someone who might turn serious at any moment, one must watch every word—he had just grabbed some new bit of technology and flung it into the conversation on a whim to dodge an awkward moment, and now the Duchess before him had gone and taken it seriously?

The future Admiral of the Navy let his gaze drift unconsciously, glancing at the horizon beyond the carriage window.

A few hours' drive still remained before the great northern pass.

So then... how was he to improvise his way out of this?

...

The bitter wind, carrying snow from the mountain peaks, howled and swirled among the gray-white high walls of Dragonrest Keep and the steep crags of stone, as though laying a hazy veil over everything. Amid the wailing of wind and snow, the shield that protected the city blurred as well, becoming a dull background hue within the veil.

Sir Golosh Hikkel lifted his head and looked at the summit now veiled in wind and snow, as though he could still feel that gaze piercing the curtain of storm—a gaze cast down from the palace at the very top of Dragonrest Keep, seeming to rest upon him now.