Firstborn: Return of the heir

“Sir, we are almost there!”

Sitting back in his saddle, Saulus shook himself awake when notified by one of the soldiers. Taking a moment to stretch his tense muscles, he looked to the front. Even at this distance, if one knew what to look out for, it was easy to pinpoint the location of the settlement mentioned by the soldier.

“Good. I was getting tired of all this travelling. I can’t wait to stretch my legs properly!”

With the smoke rising from just behind the horizon, it didn’t take long for the general’s entourage to finally arrive at the site. But what Saulus expected to be a small village filled with only serfs and freemen, turned out to be a small city!

Establishing any military presence directly on the outskirts of the city was something that only took enemy offensive into account. As such, with an entire detachment of the second legion making its way over here, the officers that were sent ahead uniformly agreed on one point.

They needed to construct a camp.

“To think that all these different kinds of peddlers found their way here so quickly…”

Still atop his horse, Saulus rode through a simple wooden gate, entering the inner palisade area of the campsite. Given how the entire construction followed a standard set of rules and ideas, the young general could easily navigate through what seemed like a mess of tents and buildings with ease.

“General! It’s a pleasure to welcome you to our humble abode.”

Raising a small commotion, thanks to Saulus’ arrival, the head officer of the camp quickly moved out of one of the few finished constructs. Saluting with his fist to his chest, he looked at the general before moving his sight meaningfully towards the doors of the building.

“I suppose that’s it in terms of my rest. Go and take my horse to the stables, I guess I need to be brought up to speed with the local affairs.”

Jumping down from his mount with a grace belittling his earlier whining about the lack of comforts during the journey, Saulus followed after his officer to the insides of the primitive building. In fact, it would be more precise to call it a loosely insulated shack than a proper construction. Only the presence of massive tables with all sorts of maps decorating their desks could make one aware that this wasn’t some kind of oversized restroom.

“Sir, I’m perfectly aware that we should purge all this scum as soon as they appear… But the sea of information they are bringing to us is just too valuable. While obviously, no one will refuse the order to purge them now, I would like you to consider our motives first…”

Not daring to stop his movements even for the slightest of moments, the officer quickly gathered the papers from all over the shack before piling them all up in front of Saulus.

“What are those? Reports?”

Just a single glance at the pile of paper was enough to cause Saulus’ head to explode with pain. Even thinking about going through all of those brought the general near his limit.

Fighting with himself, Saulus still reached forth with his hand and picked up the first sheet of paper. After quickly scanning through its contents, the expression on his face changed a bit, with his hand moving to get another paper. One by one, what had seemed like an annoying and arduous task turned into a festival of surprises, with each page bringing even more insanely valuable information than the previous one!

“Okay, now I see what you meant. These papers are akin to a treasure trove. But the news from the south? I really don’t want to believe it.”

Throwing the piece of paper on the table, Saulus allowed his subordinate to scan its content. With the younger soldier’s pupils dilating, it seemed that he was finally beginning to understand the true meaning behind this report.

“Sir… Are you really sure you want to take this account seriously? In the end, those pieces of information mostly come from peddlers…”

Moving his eyes between the paper and his general’s face, the camp officer was clearly hesitant to accept the words written on the report as the given truth.

“It’s not only this one. Here, take a look at these as well.”

Taking a moment to sort through the papers that he went through already, Saulus quickly passed them to his soldier as soon as he managed to find the ones he was looking for.

“Oh, Firstborns…”

With his focus now oriented on the things that Saulus brought to his attention, the soldier finally managed to understand why those reports concerned his general so much. Saulus simply stepped away from the desk before sitting heavily on a simple chair.

“With that, there is no doubt. We are no longer capable of taking over Mez.”

The general didn’t even need a map at this point. Even though there was no road that would connect the nearby Galdo with the city of Mez to its south, it would only take a small, mobile unit to cross the plains separating those two locations directly. But with the news of both of his southern enemies rallying their forces directly in Mez’s proximity, it was now clear that any attempts at flanking his southern opponents would only lead to needless and pointless casualties.

“Those damned loyalists… Eh, I guess there is no point whining about it now. They might be stupid to follow that joke of a patriarch, but that doesn’t mean they are bad at their job. Well, at least we can enjoy the wide support of the locals…”

Saulus looked with amusement at the confused face of his subordinate.

“Sir… I don’t understand…”

Only after taking some time to enjoy the slightly awkward situation did Saulus release a deep sigh before pointing at the remaining stack of papers left at the table.

“Outside of the information about the south, there is one thing that you can learn from those reports. As little time has passed since the Royal Trials, people are seeming to take notice of how much better their lives could be under the new regime.”

Standing up from his chair, Saulus moved towards the table before picking up some random reports and scanning through their contents.

“People are turning their tools into weapons.”

Passing the paper down to the younger officer, Saulus looked through another one.

“People had enough of the former regime…”

Passing paper after paper, Saulus quickly grew bored with pointing out the general feeling one could get from the reports.

“To make things easier for you to understand, people saw a gust of freedom and prosperity in the actions of our Queen.”

Dropping all the papers back on the table, the soldier now faced Saul with a serious look.

“Locals are willing to join the fight to make Venna’s promises come true. Not because they love her, but because they believe she will finally allow them to build up their fortunes for the future. And it is this drive that you need to learn how to take advantage of!”