Steel and Mana

Chapter 170 – Moat

At the main crossing between the Duchy of Wheat and the Black Lands, Pion, accompanied by half a dozen of his brothers in arms, stood on the stone bridge, holding tower shields in one hand and massive pikes in the other. They looked like giant statues dressed in thick armor, intimidating the opposition at the foot of the bridge, which consisted of a hundred soldiers from Baron Tobrok's army.

Unlike the elite forces of Avalon, they were wearing leather undercoats and old chainmail thrown over them. Most of the soldiers were holding onto pikes, and some experienced ones managed to get themselves reinforced wooden shields and swords. Their most equipped soldiers were their commander, Kulahg, and his entourage, sitting atop horses with proper metal lances and well-made, curved bows hanging from the side of their steeds.

"Open up the bridge and dismantle your fortifications! This is our last warning!" Shouted the commander, sitting on his brown horse yet keeping a distance, not letting his mount step onto the bridge.

"Come over and do it yourself," answered Pion, his voice echoing from within his helmet, its visor lifted, letting everyone see his piercing gaze. "The border to the Frontier is closed!"

"This is not the Frontier!" Kulahg yelled back, feeling angry but also intimidated. He knew about Ishillian knights; he visited the capital city as a young boy and saw many armored guards who could take on soldiers three-to-one like the ones he had with him. Plus… even in his adolescent memories, those warriors were not as big as the ones standing on the bridge facing him now.

"The Duchy of Wheat was always a subordinate territory of the Frontier." Pion answered, his voice booming, heard by everybody at the opposing end of the bridge. "They are the source of food and the well-being of the soldiers protecting the Ishillian Empire from the constant threat of demonic beasts wanting to break through and annihilate everybody on the mainland. With your actions, you are threatening the integrity of the Frontier and endangering the Empire!"

“…”

Was it true? Kulahg couldn't tell. He knew that the barbarian lands were where an opening led into the dreaded Beastlands. It was never settled for real because who would want to live in a place that a monster could use as a dinner table if it so desired? He knew that there were times when they broke through and gorged themselves on countless barbarians. So, there was truth in what he was hearing, and he became even more nervous because if they were deemed to be a danger to the safety of Ishillia, it could mean the extermination of their whole families.

"We don't care about what is happening to other parts of the Empire. Our duty is protecting it, which includes you, ungrateful bastards." Pion continued, smirking under his helmet, "We were ordered by the Emperors and Empresses who sat on the throne of Ishillia since ancient days to do our duty. None of you have any power to tell us otherwise! Not you, not your Baron, nobody above them either! Bring a mandate to us, signed by the Empress herself, and we will open the border. Until then, go and try to build more crossings, and we will burn them all along with your corpses!"

“…”

When there was no answer, Pion simply slammed his feet down, repeated by his soldiers, creating the echoing sound of thunder. The soldiers transmitted enough strength from their feet to force Kulahg's horse to become nervous, suddenly backing away from the bridge.

It was the sign for him to leave, ordering his men to march, not wanting to embarrass himself. After they were gone, Pion walked back to their encampment, feeling fired up and a bit disappointed that no attempts were made to cross the bridge. He was itching to test out his new equipment in a real battle.

"I think they pissed themselves." Polo giggled, saluting them, making the other soldiers laugh with him, confident in their training and strength to stop a force like the Black Lands were showcasing time and time again.

"They won't stop. We will follow the plans of General Oleg and keep provoking them until they step over the line. We can't be the ones starting the war, but we can be the ones finishing it. How's today's report?"

"Yes." Polo saluted, reading from his notebook, "A thousand people have been detained. We had trouble containing them because they were whole families and very... very uncooperative. They tried burning down their temporary encampment where we put them and disappeared into the night."

"How many are missing right now?"

"Around a hundred, the rest has been recaptured. Baron Elliot is keeping a lookout, and our brothers are securing Avalon's borders, keeping the smallest creature from slipping by. We also got a message from the Ministry."

"Hm?" Pion hummed, taking the sealed letter, opening it, and reading it through before nodding his head and chuckling. "This could have been a hilarious sight to behold!"

"What happened?" Others asked, gathering around their commander.

"The Lion was used as a tractor."

"Huh?" Everyone gasped, trying to imagine the scene.

"Our Sovereign has ordered it to walk around the border, dragging a giant plow behind it. We are literally drawing a line around Avalon and working on diverting our rivers into it."

"We can do that?" Polo gasped, his eyes filled with wonder and child-like sparkling.

"If our Sovereign says he will move mountains and change the flow of a river… Yeah. We can." Pion answered him with pride, looking at his fellow soldiers. "Didn't we all hear it before? In Avalon, everything is a possibility."

…
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……

"You really went all out with this, Son."

"Thanks, Mom." I chuckled, walking with my mother through my garden in the center of the royal palace.

"You really woke up one day, deciding to play God and reshape the land? I don't know if I should be proud of you or not."

"Close, but I didn't come up with it by myself. It was an idea that I got while watching my kids play, digging in the sandpit I made for them. Plus, didn't Father complain about not having any reason to pilot his mech?"

"He is a big kid; you shouldn't listen to his cries whenever he throws a tantrum. Ignore it long enough, and he will settle down."

"It isn't a big deal anyway. The machine is capable enough and is a good test of its capabilities and long-range functionality. We will create a natural barrier on our borders, build bridges, reinforce them, and keep strict control over who enters our territory and who gets turned back. I don't need another vagrant bandit leader trying his luck in our land."

"You realize that even if you succeed and do not leave behind a useless deep ditch on our borders but a brand new river, they can still swim over it?"

"I know! And don't worry. I looked over it, and we are connecting two rivers; it should work... And which is easier? Having boats sail up and down on it, patrolling on water, or make them march daily?"

"Isn't it the same?" She asked back, looking at me, raising one of her eyebrows.

"I don't know, Mom, that is why I'm asking!" I answered with a laugh, "I am not sure this is something that will work out as I envisioned it, but right now, it feels like a good idea. I am just trying out my visions to see if they work. I never said I am omnipotent and perfect at everything! I'm a human, not a God."

"Haaah… So be it if you feel this is not a waste of resources; I am not going to complain. But do not keep executing every idea that comes to your mind, Son. It can lead you to a position where you waste resources on something useless and end up taxing the well-being of your people. Without them, Avalon would fall. It is not something we can afford!"

"I am aware of that. Don't worry; I sat down with my Ministers, asking them to do the calculations, and with Father's help, the manual labor was reduced to a level where we can truly do this."

"I am just curious how others would react to seeing it. This is something that I don't think Ishillia would have ever attempted to do."

"This? You think about this now?" I chuckled, looking at my Mom with a grin, "What about the highways? The aqueducts? Central heating? Radio? Merlin is with Uncle, helping him build the rest of the first telephone lines!"

"Isn't it called a Morse machine?"

"For now. Yes. What I am saying is that building a slightly bigger moat is not that weird."

"A moat?" She laughed, shaking her head, "Those are around castles, my boy!"

"The Frontier is my castle, Mom. I'm just here to protect what is mine…"

…
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"They said what?" Levy Tobrok asked, hearing Kulahg retelling what had happened when confronting Pion at the crossing.

"They-"

"Don't answer it; it was a rhetorical question; I heard you the first time."

"Yes, general…"

"Damn it… the problem is that he is kind of right. Although overexaggerating things, the Frontier's peace is important… Well, when there is a threat of demonic beasts, that is. Which has been not the case for centuries!"

"What should we do, General? The army is being assembled; we will soon have almost 7,000 troops to move against them if necessary."

"Too much. We won't have that many because that would impact our Blackrock output. I didn't order an emergency draft to maintain production, so we will only have half of that number. Still, that should be enough to deal with the Duchy… Heh, wearing that name, yet they are just barons, like us. It always bugged me. Clinging into a past glory, pathetic."

"Sorry, General, I…"

"I know, I know, you don't need to understand it. For now, they are talking big, trying to show how strong they are, but don't fall for it. Even if they move all their troops here, in pure numbers, we would still hold an advantage!" Levy explained with a smile, "We have been rounding up the refugees ourselves and will overwhelm them with not a monster tide but a tide of humans! In a few days, we will unleash at least 5,000 people on them, sending an angry mob over to their land. Let's see how they will deal with that!"

"What if they fight back? What if they begin killing them?"

"Who cares." His General answered, snorting, "It is all the better; an angry mob is just as good as an army. We just sit back, watch the fire, and have a valid reason on our hands to march in and help them restore order. Nobody would bat an eye over that! It is for the safety of the Frontier, just as they said!"

"Ah, I see! A genius plan, My Lord!"

"Still, we need to be careful… I will visit my Father and see what Earl Zimmermann's response was to the letter we sent. They were right that Ishillia would care about the Frontier's safety, so we also need to take advantage of that!"

…
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Further down south, midway between the capital city of Ishillia and the Black Lands, the earldom of the Zimmerman family was a land where the ruling lineage began focusing their attention on their industry for the past 500 years and became one of the regions within the Empire where metalworking was a prominent trait and a source of great wealth.

Their cities and mines churned out raw material while using coal from the Black Lands to fuel their blacksmithing guilds and pump out quality steel that was then shipped to the capital city to be sold for a high price. This was what the family had been doing for a long time and what earned them the nickname of the Silver Region.

The current head of the family was Matilda Zimmermann, a middle-aged woman who kept the family business running, unwilling to relinquish her seat to her children, holding onto her power with a cold, iron fist. At least, that was how people were looking at her.

"Haaah…" She shrugged, standing on her castle's balcony, overlooking the massive city and the many tiny houses, the distant chimneys, and their white smoke as people were constantly working and producing steel sheets without thinking about anything else. "Another day, another stupid mess I have to clean…" She grunted, holding a wine bottle in her hand, yet it was still early in the morning.

Swiping her lengthy, black hair out of her face to take a swing, her mature features were showing early wrinkles already, something she hated to see in the mirror. But, it was something she couldn't help because her three sons were a bunch of morons, a criticism that she many times shouted directly into their faces. She wanted nothing more than a capable heir, one who could take her seat… but nothing. Through her almost 40 years within the living, she managed to give birth to sons who were more troublesome than the previous, wanting her to curse at the Gods the same way they clearly cursed her womb.

"Three different fathers, all giving me headache instead of a proper son… Why? Oh, why…?"

She had just finished moaning about it when her head maid entered the room, walking up to her with a sealed letter in her hands.

"Don't tell me one of them did something again... I am not paying for another healer to come and cure their flaming pee holes!" Matilda groaned, noticing the envelope and the vax seal on it that signaled it was from a noble.

"I can't know, My Lady. It did come from the Black Lands, though."

"I hope it is good news." She mumbled, smacking her lips while taking it away, dreading the moment of opening it, "If it is bad news, I am going to drink myself to death."

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