Chapter 286

Maria seems impressed with the variety of cabinets and drawers available in the office and makes a quick outline on a piece of paper on the desk, detailing what she intends to put where. She seems to be under the impression that there will be a transfer of documents when she takes over the post, but Cain suspects that Duke Archibald didn’t keep any at all. 

The map that James was using this morning does end up under a sheet of glass on her desk, though, and she uses a collection of paperweights to detail where the pairs of Supporters are heading to. Summons can easily communicate with each other over any distance. They prefer arguing with each other out loud only because it’s much more satisfying. 

Having gotten off to a late start, they’re now rushing to get to the meeting on time, while being forced to stop every few dozen meters to talk with various Nobles while maintaining the appearance of organization and control.

Most are hoping for a promotion or appointment, but King James intends to reward loyalty and competence over connections and cronyism this time. For the most part anyhow, as the upper nobility absolutely needs connections to keep their businesses running. 

Even with the loss of the Anti-Royal faction decimating the ranks of the Court Nobles and removing a number of the Business Nobles, the throne room is still packed for today’s emergency meeting. Everyone wants to hear the changes firsthand, and if others happen to have nominated them and caught the King’s attention, it simply won’t do to blow their chance by not being here for the first round of announcements.

The meeting starts with the Herald announcing all the Nobles deposed yesterday. Cain doesn’t miss that it includes those arrested inside the Throne Room, so their fate has been mostly decided. 

After that, six commoners are called into the throne room. Among them is the Avian Paladin that Cain fought yesterday, but the others all seem to be life skills classes. 

“The Crown has received an overwhelming number of petitions for these six loyal commoners to replace the treacherous Nobles they used to serve. Today, they will be elevated to fill the first of the vacancies that Plague the land of Skyview. First up, and taking over from Baron Cohen, the Paladin Salkoo. Speak your pledge, and the assets and title of your former Lord are yours.” King James announces. 

It is a bit shocking to Cain that a rebel champion would be chosen for that honor, but the avian Beastkin looks prepared, so he’s been informed, likely also thoroughly interrogated, and had time to prepare for this.

“I, Salkoo, do swear my loyalty to King James and the land of Skyview. My Sword is yours; deploy it as you wish, my liege.”

It must not be a lie, as King James accepts it, and a moment later, the man’s title changes to Baron. 

“Arise, Baron Salkoo. The Crown believes you will be a great asset on the front lines of the border battle. Starting early this morning, a mission departed the capital to begin removing the Gnoll threat from the regions near your home. We hope you find them to your satisfaction.”

“Emmeline of Ferdinand City, step forward.” The Herald calls, and a human woman of the Historian class. Cain guesses that the class name is self-evident and that she has skills related to memory and historical knowledge, but that’s as much as he can tell. 

“Emmeline, as a Military Advisor to the deceased Archduke Ferdinand, we would appoint you to the role of Military Councilor and grant you the rank of Knight, with assets in your hometown commensurate to your rank. Do you accept?”

“It is my honor, Your Majesty. From this day forward, I shall be a loyal Military Councilor to King James.” She declares, with happy tears in her eyes. 

“Rise, Lady Emmeline, and join your peers.”

The new Councilor moves to join the lower Nobles, but the Herald points her towards where Cain, and the other advisors are standing instead. One of the perks of being on a Royal council. 

“The Crown has also appointed Duke Cain as a Military Counselor, a role he will be serving by proxy, with the Councilor Maria taking up the active role.” Maria steps forward and bows to the crowd of Nobles, who give her an enthusiastic round of applause. The councilor is not a noble title, but it’s more politically powerful than most of the lower nobility present and even some of the less favored Upper Nobles. 

The others in the group are announced as Barons, taking over small territories. Still, some are missing, or the King reconsidered some choices at the last moment, as he appears to be looking around for faces he doesn’t see and leaving some of the areas he marked as having new Nobles on the map they reviewed this morning unattended.

After yesterday’s battle, the barriers in the throne room have been left up, a small safety precaution that nobody realizes is causing significant problems until a nervous guard breaks in. 

“Your Majesty, emergency message from the Outer Territories, a force from the Niman Territory has attacked, razing villages and enslaving our people. All nearby forces have moved to intercept, including local militia.”

“Dammit, the barrier blocks messaging functions, they’ve likely been trying to get ahold of us all morning, but every noble they knew is in this room.” Duke Chen whispers to Cain. 

Being an emergency, Cain deploys both of his Primal Echoes off guard duty for the ladies. He instructs them to go through the travel circle at the Manor to the village closest to the Niman Territory or at least the closest one whose name he recalls from the map.

Either way, they’ll be near or at the likely scene of the battle in seconds, with orders to merge for added strength while assisting the local Defense forces and any rescuing any citizens the Nimans have captured as slaves. The easiest way to free a freshly captured slave is to kill their master, since the authority can only be passed to another in close physical proximity.

He then opens his interface to see if he’s missed any new notifications. The scroll on the left side of his interface races through lines of summons being called, dying, killing humans and Gnolls over and over until he finally gets back to yesterday’s messages. 

From the look of it, one pair of Kone clones is in the area of the Niman attack, and it feels to his admittedly vague sense of their location like two more teams aren’t that far away. Cain orders them to find and engage the slavers, a task the Spirit Folk Beast Lord will likely enjoy.

Kone has a strong sense of justice and a love of soft things, so saving Beastkin children should be exactly the sort of thing she enjoys. 

“Duke Cain, as an advisor, how long until the first reinforcements can arrive?” King James asks, formulating a plan. 

“The first of my forces are already engaged, two more wings of Drakes will be in combat within fifteen minutes, and one Summoned Battalion will be at the Bhopal village within the minute to begin looking for the Niman invaders. Beyond that, we should have forces from other territories ready within the hour if necessary, though many are depleted and exhausted from yesterday’s battle.”

That’s a problem every noble here understands. Beyond the battle at the palace, running fights occurred all over the city as loyalists and rebel reinforcements met each other on their way to the main battle after arriving at the various private travel circles throughout the city. 

“How is the state of the Royal Army? What do we have close?”

Cain turns to Maria for that answer. “Two thousand mounted forces on standby, and ten thousand infantry. However, as the Niman forces are a raiding force, they will be too fast for infantry to catch, and we don’t have their location yet to set up an ambush.”

Numerous Nobles who live near the Niman Territory, but not close enough to have been under threat of attack this morning and remain at home now excuse themselves to gather their forces and move outside the room to get messages.

King James lowers the throne room barrier for ease of communication, and within minutes it is determined that five different Baronies are currently under attack or missing citizens. 

The Nimans have sent elite forces, most of them close to level 300, and the locals have stood little chance of preventing them from taking the their non combatants and killing those who resist. 

The Primal Echoes have encountered their first slave caravan, though, one that was headed back East towards the border. It came from the closest town to the river that divides the two nations, so there is hope none of the others have yet left the country. 

The information is passed to King James, and a unit of Cavalry is deployed to each of the surrounding villages with the hope to intercept more of the raiders. 

The government of Niman never takes responsibility for these attacks, calling them the work of lawless bandits. Still, the people they enslaved can be found all over the Territory and even across the nations that are further inland. 

With Skyview and the other nations around them in a perpetual state of turmoil, they have been free to do anything they want to the commoners of their neighbor states. Today, both Cain and King James intend to change that. 

[Send as many groups of summons as you can. I want to eradicate this force and reclaim all our people today as proof we’re serious about helping the border territories.] King James sends as a private message, and Cain gives him a wink and a nod, excusing himself from the room and grabbing Duke Chen to open the door to the locked portal room for him. 

“Care to explain?” The Duke asks as they run through the corridors. 

“We’re sending the Seraphim to every village near the Niman border that doesn’t currently have my Dragons in it. The King wants everyone recovered as soon as possible.” 

A wide grin spread across Chen’s face, before he pulled out a small map. “I’ll send my students to take care of one of the villages further west. If they’re still safe, we can move East along the border until we find them.”