“What does he mean he might be late!? He knows full well that without his men we are at a disadvantage in numbers! This is not the time to be playing politics.” Duke Oakley slammed his fist on the table, completely enraged with the antics of Duke Ryder. Though, he conveniently forgot that he was also playing politics when he decided to show off his new weapons.

“We cannot do anything about that now, Oakley, instead we have to figure out what to do without him.” Aled sat watching the raging duke before him appearing far more composed than his counterpart. At least he did not feel more composed, they had just received word from Duke Ryder saying that he would be late to arrive and that he could not guarantee that anyone from his faction would arrive on time. What the delay was, however, he did not specify.

He didn’t need to.

They both knew that this was as much a power play as Duke Oakley trying to show off his military prowess by winning a glorious battle with his new crossbows. Aled was just thankful that Duke Burn had not decided to pull a similar trick, not that he was the kind of person to be so blatant in his schemes. If that had happened, they would have no hope of victory. Without the support of half of the nobles in the country, no number of crossbows could have saved them. Even so, with so few men, partly of Duke Oakley’s own doing, it was going to be a hard fought battle regardless of outcome.

“Harvest is almost over, and those bastards are not so blind that they will not notice how few men we have! They are going to take full advantage of our situation!” Duke Oakley was getting himself worked up, it would be both of them that would be the hardest hit if Casburland won. The other factions might take some losses but it would be nothing compared to what the King and the hegemon of the north would lose.

“And I am saying that we trick them into thinking it is a trap. Either we buy ourselves time or we fight the hardest battle of our lives.” Aled was dealing with the pressure better than Duke Oakley but that would only be temporary. There was no way that he would be leader of the second strongest faction in the kingdom if he didn’t have the ability to deal with the unexpected. His status as duke would only take him so far.

“That’s a ballsy stopgap, right there. We both know that Marek has spies in our midst, you should know that better than me.” When he heard the method that the King proposed, Duke Oakley calmed down from his rage, as if he had never been angry in the first place. Keeping secrets was hard, especially keeping secrets from your enemies. Aled might have the ability to stop the dukes from spying on him too closely, but that was because the dukes didn't have the ability. It was by no means impossible.

“And that is why nobody is to know what this letter said.” Aled responded as he started to burn it on a candle. So what if Marek gets the new? By the time he does Ryder should already be here or the battle will have already started anyway.” He was not going to take any half measures, only the two of them knew the contents of the letter, and if Duke Oakley had any sense of self preservation, he would not tell anyone.

“Any other great ideas? We will need a few more if we are going to give ourselves the best odds of winning.” Duke Oakley probed to see if he could get the King to share more of what he was thinking.

“You are the one who is leading the armies against our foes. Shouldn't it be you who is coming up with our strategies?” Aled truly didn’t know what else they could do in preparation but he was not going to admit that. Instead he chose to turn the question around to Duke Oakley, who was the marshal for this war.

“Well if we are going to make your strategy convincing, we may need to go even further. We will need to place some of our men in the nearby castles, show them that we are not so short on men as to not cover our defences properly.” Duke Oakley’s countermeasure was even more ballsy than Aled’s original proposal. Instead of just trying to make a weakness look like a strength, he was trying to lean into their weakness.

“Are you sure? If they attacked, it would leave us in an even worse position than if we did nothing.” Somehow after proposing a daring strategy, Aled had come out the conservative of the two.

“If we are going to convince them, we have to act as if we believe it too. If we don’t even act convinced that we are laying a trap, how can we fool them into believing it too?” Duke Oakley was going for broke with this.

Even if they ended up winning the battle in a straight fight, his faction’s strength would be almost entirely depleted. And with him out of the count, there would be almost nobody to act as a counterweight to Duke Ryder in Fiveria. Duke Burn was strong but he was not proactive enough. Earl Blake was not in the best of shape as it was, let alone that he would also be badly hit if they lost this war. By that point, Aled might as well name Duke Ryder his successor and be done with it.

“Fine, let’s do it.” And this was one of the reasons that the King was inclined to accept such a risky strategy. Duke Ryder had backed them into a corner in one move, losing was not an option for either of them.

“Do we tell Burn?” This was Duke Oakley’s only question. Duke Burn was a wild card, if he knew what was going on there was an even chance that he sided with them or with Duke Ryder. If he decided to hightail it back down south, it would be game over for them. But equally, having him on side in future confrontations with Duke Ryder would be very helpful.

“It is too risky. Just assume that he wants chaos. and act accordingly.” The king had long accepted that he would never know what was going through Duke Burn’s mind. He was not going to try now.