“Sire, the King has started moving again.” A knight reported to Duke Ryder. After the change in circumstances, he had ordered that all of his scouts be used to see what their enemies were doing and where. Hence that it was one of his knights that was reporting a message that had been sent back by the scout captain rather than the person himself reporting. His odds of winning had suddenly gone from overwhelming to very dire in the span of about a week, he had to get the most value possible out of all of his men.

“Tch. He does not mess around.” Duke Ryder knew that the King’s army would not be chained down by their new additions for long but he had hoped that they would have waited a bit longer. Any extra time was welcome for him, lest he be caught in between his foes before dealing with one of them. Especially when the King, now with the aid of Duke Tetland, boasted a larger force than his own.

“The scouts say that they have a slower marching speed than we do, but the distance between us is still within two days' march.” The knight saluted before returning to his duties after a wave of the hand from the Duke. There was not going to be anything else to report until news came from the scouts that were keeping an eye on Duke Burn.

*sigh*

“That bastard really pulled a fast one on us all.” Ryder muttered to himself once he was alone with his thoughts. As alone as he could be whilst leading an army on the move. They were already on the march because he knew that they could not waste time by lounging around. Even if it did mean moving at the crack of dawn, he was certain that his men could handle it. They had to handle it. He did not have any other options.

At the start of the whole mess, his plan had been to end it all with one swift strike from behind. Of course, things didn't go as smoothly as he had hoped but that was to be expected. Rarely did plans go exactly the way they were meant to. But he had at least hoped to take out more than just Duke Oakley. Such an outcome could only have been topped if he had been actively trying to fail. And even then it was unknown if Duke Oakley was alive.

“Not to mention Earl Blake was as useless as his son.” Going through all of the unfortunate circumstances that had led him to his present predicament, Duke Ryder turned to his ‘back up plan’. He had hoped that, had he been somehow put in a pinch, he could activate his secret card. Earl Blake had already promised to help him achieve his aims. All he needed to do was to use him at the right time. But somehow, Duke Burn had caught wind of not only his initial plan but his backup as well. And he trampled it with ferocity.

The once fairly prosperous city of Brasbury lay basically in ruins. Duke Burn had decided that he would rather destroy everything than wait for a protracted siege to play out. All he had to do was convince some of the less loyal of Blake’s allies to poke holes in the defences of the city and that was it. The once powerful Earl’s fate was decided.

From the reports that he had received, Duke Ryder had learnt that Earl Blake’s corpse had not been left intact once Duke Burn had gotten his hands on him. The man’s son suffered a similarly gruesome death, Duke Burn was nothing if not thorough when he decided to remove an enemy. Not that Ryder pitied either of the men; on a personal level he could not care less. But it meant that another one of his plans was foiled whilst he was trying to gather the remains of Duke Oakley’s faction under his banner.

He could only be glad that there were not many of Blake’s supporters left for Burn to try to gather them on his side. Though Duke Burn didn’t even try. After how horribly he had treated Earl Blake it would be a wonder if any of them did follow him. Instead they all swore not to take part in the conflict.

*siiiigh*

“And then there was whatever the past months have been.” He took an even longer sigh than his first one when he thought of the months that he had spent watching the King gather forces on the other side of the Harmony without much ability to do anything about it. It had been an oversight on his part to think that the confused idiots from the northeast would stay neutral after he sided with people in Casburland to start his coup. They were as vindictive as they were independent minded. Enough that they would side with the royal authority that they had been actively shunning for generations to teach him a lesson for siding with anybody from Casburland.

Once he had been able to find a way to cross the river and had been about to rain on the King’s parade, Duke Ryder made possibly the greatest mistake that he could have. If the rest of the unfortunate events of the war had been out of his control, this was entirely his own fault. He had decided that instead of following through and getting rid of the King once and for all, he should turn around and stop Duke Burn from getting the aid of the Twin Duchies.

It would have been a decent move for him had he been able to pull it off. Instead the King had managed to pull some kind of genius move from under his sleeve, gaining not only Duke Rotleach’s army after the man’s death but also the aid of the other of the two Twin Dukes. Had he known that the King would do that, he would never have turned around in the first place. It was not like he did not know of the hostility between Duke Rotleach and Duke Tetland.

“If I had to guess, Duke Rotleach died at the King’s hands.” He had nothing to base it on but for Duke Rotleach to be poisoned to death just as he crossed into Fiverian lands was too much of a coincidence. There were only three men who wanted him dead and possibly had the means to do it, himself, the King and Duke Tetland.

He knew that he had not done it, he would have been in a much better position if it had been himself. Not to mention that he doubted that Duke Tetland had managed to finally find a way to off his rival after failing to do so for all of these years. Not to mention that he would have no reason to make an agreement with the Fiverian King if he had. He could have simply killed Rotleach in his own lands and not have to deal with the Fiverians at all.

“And now I am here.” He almost whispered to himself. Regardless of who had been the one to order the death of Duke Rotleach, it had put him in the tightest spot he had ever been in. And had he known of the agreement between the King and Duke Tetland, he would have tried his hardest to make sure that they would never meet. But he only leant of it when they met and did not start killing each other.

“Can things even get much worse?”