Chapter 230 — Aftermath and Turmoil

"I have indeed received these reports. The actions of that pioneering hero match the historical accounts perfectly... It is only that the whole affair is still too fantastical."

"Fantastical or not, we must count it among the variables," the Count of Winterhold said earnestly. "Cultists run rampant in Ansul now, and their nobles are hard-pressed to resolve these internal troubles. This is precisely why our Emperor has resolved to seize the moment and start a war. He has already ordered the Winterwolf Legion on the border to begin a new round of infiltration into Ansul—and some of those infiltration routes... pass very close to the Dark Mountains."

The old Duke knew at once what the Count of Winterhold meant. "An Luo is there."

An Luo Wendel, heir of the Wendel family, daughter of Bard Wendel, the youngest Wolf General in history. After her father Bard Wendel vanished on the battlefield, this young girl of outstanding talent had grown swiftly into her role. As though to wash away the family's disgrace from the border defeat and avenge her father, she had gone to the battlefield and taken her stand upon the very frontier line where her father had once been stationed—a line in the southeastern corner of Ansul, close to the domain of Silas Loren, Guardian of the Eastern March, and close as well to the Dark Mountains.

If His Majesty's infiltration orders reached the front, An Luo would unquestionably choose the Dark Mountains as her route. To most ordinary folk it was a dangerous, tainted waste, but to elite Imperial warriors it was a road of advance—and it would neatly bypass the main defensive lines of Ansul's eastern legions. Pei Yi Wendel reckoned that, were he still commander of the Winterwolf Legion, he would choose that route himself.

"If fortune runs against them, they will run headlong into this Duke Gao Yang Cecil. In such a case, we had best believe every legend about that duke—including that his resurrection is real," the Count of Winterhold said sincerely. "An Luo is a brave and powerful warrior; I have watched her grow to this day with my own eyes. But against a legendary hero of seven hundred years ago..."

"She will know her limits. As a commander, she will not act in person..." The old Duke frowned. Though he said so, he thought of his granddaughter's stubborn nature, and of the hatred for Ansul that had grown in her after her father's disappearance, and so he added at last, "I will warn her not to act rashly. She has powerful elven rangers under her command; I will remind her to send those better suited to carry out the task."

The two talked long—of the Empire's situation, of the state of the border, of Ansul, of the revived pioneering hero. Both understood that this was likely their last meeting in the Imperial Capital of Aldernan.

After this, the Count of Winterhold would return to his Winterhold, while Duke Pei Yi could not leave Aldernan at will. The two old comrades-in-arms, no longer young, knew well the preciousness of time—but time, in the end, is finite.

The sun went down.

The lamps of the capital kindled one by one. Gazing at the city lit by those lamps, Grand Duke Pei Yi, standing before his carriage, could not help but think of that legendary age—the age when human civilization had fallen into darkness, and the descendants of the Gondor Empire carved out survival upon the savage wastes.

In those days, the night was dark, but the hearts of men were bright.

"Tell me—what do you suppose that resurrected Duke Cecil would think, seeing this age of ours?" He paused before the carriage and turned his head to glance at his old friend. "Cults running rampant, society rotting, the frontier laid waste—and the human kingdoms, once close as brothers... preparing for war."

"...He would probably be disappointed in all of us."