"They're just sitting there in a standoff, without moving an inch?"
Elizabeth furrowed her brow.
For a fortnight now, the two armies had faced each other across a wide plain. The Human Army and the Demon Lord's Army—the world at large called them the Kingdom Army and the Imperial Army, but Elizabeth flatly refused to use those terms—and neither side was making the slightest move.
Henrietta gave a slight shrug from beyond the magic crystal ball.
"Mm. Truly, I have no idea what they're scheming."
It wasn't as though the enemy's inactivity was her fault. That was the feeling she got.
"It takes two to clap, you know. We've sent letters telling them to come out, challenged them to duels, tried everything we could—and still they won't budge. I came all this way expecting a grand campaign, and now it feels like I'm laying siege to a fortress."
"Hmm. That is strange. Dragging things out wouldn't benefit the Demon Lord's army in any way…"
The longer a war dragged on, the more the attacker was at a disadvantage. Invading another nation and pushing deep into its interior inevitably stretched the supply lines thin. Guarding those long, tenuous lines was never easy.
Of course, there was a simple solution. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes and asked, half-hoping:
"Have they been conducting raids?"
Even as she posed the question, Elizabeth secretly doubted it could be so. Dantalion was a man more obsessed with legitimacy than anyone. It was hard to imagine him, at this critical juncture—the very height of the wheat harvest—rampaging through the countryside in indiscriminate plunder.
If he did something like that, public sentiment would swing squarely toward Henrietta's side. Henrietta was ruthless toward the aristocrats and the republican faction, but she was kind to the common folk—those humble people who quietly believed the Goddess had chosen the Emperor—and she never levied excessive taxes.
Sure enough, Henrietta shook her head.
"No, that's not it. Instead, something like a 'safety tax'—they say they won't raid, but in exchange, they're taking one-tenth of this summer's harvest."
"I see. One-tenth of the harvest, then."
That was reasonable. Considering that roughly three-tenths of the food stockpiled in civilian homes would typically be plundered, guaranteeing the safety of villages and cities for a mere one-tenth was remarkably generous. It was no empty promise—they would enforce it to the letter, no doubt about it. Just as expected, Dantalion was gunning for the support of the people.
"…This is getting even stranger. Henrietta, surely they're not just meekly allowing the grain tax to be collected?"
"Of course not. What do they take us for?"
Queen Henrietta pouted her lips in a huff.
"They've been sending out knight detachments to snatch our supply lines the moment they spot them. They tried to make the routes convoluted on purpose to make it harder, I'll give them that, but they're still outsiders. They don't know the terrain."
She was right. Supplies were the problem.
Queen Henrietta hadn't merely been posturing to bolster her troops' morale. She had learned how the human girl serving as vice-commander of the Demon Lord's army had taken Heidelberg Fortress — by seizing control of the river channel and cutting off the fortress's supply lines.
If that was the case, then the answer was to deny them the river altogether from the start — to keep it as their own backyard so the enemy could never lay claim to it. That was Henrietta's countermeasure.
Her desperate stand did increase the tactical burden, but Bretagne's army now had a simple solution to their supply problem. All they needed was for the grain boats to come up the river with food.
The Demon Lord's army, on the other hand, was struggling to secure provisions. Not only had they voluntarily banned pillaging in order to maintain legitimacy, but to make matters worse, their unfamiliarity with the terrain meant that even the grain they had managed to collect as a safety tax was being seized by Bretagne's raiding parties.
"That's why I'm consulting you, Élisabeth. You said it yourself — that vice-commander over there is no ordinary child. So why aren't they making any move at all?"
"……."
As time went on, the Bretagne army was gradually gaining the upper hand. There was no way the Demon Lord's army didn't realize that.
Élisabeth murmured.
"…Could they be deliberately sowing doubt in our ranks, trying to bait us into attacking prematurely?"
"Ah. I thought about that too, you know."
Henrietta twisted the corner of her mouth in dissatisfaction.
"Dantalion is over there, after all. And Barbatos. Hrmm, how should I put it…"
"It would be too feeble a trick for the likes of them…"
"Yeah. Something about it just doesn't feel right."
The two rulers sank into thought with their chins resting on their hands. The enemy's intentions wouldn't come to them easily.
Élisabeth let out a sigh.
"I don't know. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help."
"No. If you'd figured out something I didn't know, my pride would've been so wounded I wouldn't have slept for two days straight."
Henriette flashed a grin. She was being considerate. It was moments like these that made Élisabeth feel fond of her.
"This is just my theory, but Dantalion might have secretly formed an alliance with the Frankish nobles. While the Demon Lord's army invaded from the outside, the nobles agreed to stage a rebellion inside Parisiorum."
"Hmm..."
"The plan must have been to crush us in a pincer from inside and out. But when I purged every last one of the nobles, the whole plan fell apart. The dog ended up chasing the chicken. Right now, the Demon Lord's army is probably stuck between a rock and a hard place, waiting until a new plan can be drawn up."
It was a plausible enough guess.
No — if one wanted to explain the Demon Lord's army's irrational posture, there really wasn't any other answer that came to mind.
"...That might be the case."
Élisabeth didn't feel any clearer. If the guess was correct, it meant Dantalion had left the success or failure of the operation entirely in the hands of the Frankish nobles. Would Dantalion really have done that?
Burying her doubts in her heart, Élisabeth spoke.
"In any case, I'll be joining up with your side soon."
Officially, Consul Élisabeth was said to have gone out on an inspection tour to gauge public sentiment. In reality, she had been subtly extracting small contingents of knights from garrisons across the nation, assembling a military force without the public's knowledge. It was a special operations unit of fifteen hundred cavalry, composed entirely of mounted troops.
In a war where forces numbering tens of thousands clashed, a cavalry force of fifteen hundred might not amount to much. But having something was obviously better than having nothing, and Élisabeth had decided to lead the special unit personally so she could help Henriette even in some small way.
She planned to use the chaos of battle to launch a surprise assault on the enemy's rear. The enemy would be thrown into complete disarray by an unexpected attack from behind. There was nothing more terrifying in the midst of battle than chaos erupting in one's rear.
It had taken this long to disguise the armor and banners as Bretagne's equipment. Only today had the preparations been completed. The fact that the Habsburg Republic had intervened in this war must absolutely not be revealed.
"Right. A battle could break out as soon as tomorrow, so I can't afford to be late. Leave it to me."
"Mm. Try not to be late, would you?"
Since they had no way of knowing when the fighting would start, there was a pressing need to move as quickly as possible. Élisabeth cut the communication and immediately took her place at the head of the cavalry.
"Still just building palisades today?"
"Yes. The enemy is bringing in lumber from the nearby forests."
Henrietta sighed at the messenger's report.
She had told her friend that battle could break out at any moment, but Henrietta herself had been skeptical. It seemed the Demon Lord's army intended to turn a field battle into a siege. Watchtowers were being erected at breakneck speed, and palisades were being deployed.
"They've even begun building earthworks."
"Are they planning for a long war stretching a full year? At some point, they won't be able to sustain such a large force. It's strange."
Saint Longueville narrowed her brow, looking troubled.
The generals nodded in agreement with the Saint's words. Under current circumstances where resupply was difficult, it was simply impossible for the enemy to maintain a force on the scale of five hundred thousand indefinitely. They would have no choice but to split the army into smaller units to forage—whether through pillaging or some other means.
That would be the day the Bretagne forces could claim victory. There was nothing to be gained by dragging things out, yet the enemy showed no signs of anything other than fortifying their encampment as though preparing for a drawn-out war. What was going on……
In the end, Henrietta had unknowingly told her friend the truth. That very night, Henrietta was jolted awake by the urgent voice of a general.
"Your Majesty! The enemy has begun crossing the river!"
Still foggy with sleep, Henrietta sat up. She rubbed her eyes and asked in return.
"……Crossing? What do you mean?"
"A scout's urgent dispatch, Your Majesty. The enemy is crossing the Marne River using pontoon bridges and rafts."
Henrietta's head cleared in an instant. The question that had lingered unanswered all this time was resolved in a flash. Henrietta sprang to her feet in her nightclothes and shouted.
"Damn it all—they never intended to fight from the beginning!"
She threw a cloak over her nightgown and rushed out. The attendants, flustered, begged her to at least put on some armor, but Queen Henrietta couldn't be bothered to reply. In daylight, her thin garment would have left little to the imagination, but it was night.
Queen Henrietta glanced up at the sky. Dark clouds hung thick across the night sky.
"No moonlight either. They planned this."
Henrietta entered the command tent. All the officers had gathered—except for one or two. Before they could rise to salute, Henrietta fixed them with a sharp glare. It was a silent signal to dispense with unnecessary formalities.
Queen Henrietta took her seat at the head of the tent.
"Report."
"Yes. One of the reconnaissance teams on night patrol spotted the enemy crossing the Marne River. Visibility was too dark to get an accurate count, but they estimate at least thirty thousand."
"Could it be a feint?"
"Almost certainly not. But as a precaution, I've dispatched another team to confirm."
The command tent was brightly lit by demonstones. The queen's bare skin peeked through the gaps in her cloak. But not a single general gave a thought to their sovereign's body. The officers of Bretagne could sense that battle was upon them.
Queen Henrietta scoffed.
"Your queen has made her decision, so there will be no more debate. March out immediately. We must attack before the enemy completes the crossing."
"Yes, sir!"
The generals rose and filed out of the tent. Only Saint Longwy remained at the queen's side, speaking in a worried tone.
"Your Majesty. What do you suppose their aim is?"
"The watchtowers and the palisades—all of it was a feint. It was cover for building pontoon bridges and rafts. Tch. I should have known they wouldn't just face us in a decisive battle."
Attendants scrambled to bring armor and dressed Henrietta in it. She had been frowning the entire time.
"Their goal isn't to fight us. It's to seize Parisiorum. All that lavish preparation as if for a grand pitched battle—it was a deception."
"Parisiorum…"
Saint Longwy spoke with an expression caught between understanding and confusion.
"But what would that accomplish?"
"They intend to free the Empress Dowager and turn her into an ally. There are surely remnants of the Frank Patriotic Front still hiding in Parisiorum. They must have arranged for those loyalists to open the city gates in advance."
Only then did Saint Longwy realize.
"They mean to threaten our forces not through war, but through strategy!"
"Yes. War was nothing more than a means to an end. Though I doubt they ever truly intended to fight from the start."
Henrietta's lips twisted into a bitter grimace.
"Looks like Dantalion is leading the army after all, not the deputy commander. That's exactly the kind of idea he'd come up with. Still, they've underestimated our scouts."
The queen was handed her sword by her attendant. She gripped the hilt tightly.
"Now, while their crossing isn't complete, is when they're at their weakest. I'll crush the enemy forces that haven't crossed the river yet. Longueville, we ride out! Follow me!"