Book 1. Shifting Winds. Chapter 1. It all began that day. (Part III)

As they left great baths, Laien started wondering if it would be a good idea to try bringing Siana with them. Just as he had a hard time deciding…

“Big brother, will Siana go with us?” Rune managed to ask him just as he was thinking about it.

Usually, Siana was sulking a lot and did not enjoy playing with others, yet lately, Laien noticed that she seemed to be in a better mood. By this line of reasoning, he thought that it might be a good idea to try taking her outside, however, instead of saying just that, he looked at Rune with a playful smirk.

“Hmm? What, you took a liking to my younger sister?” he asked teasingly, looking forward to Rune’s reaction.

Hearing the question, Rune blushed and looked away for a second. “You are wrong, big brother. I don’t like her!” he denied out of embarrassment and looked Laien in the eye, his cheeks still slightly red.

Laien couldn’t help but notice this change in Rune’s behavior. When they first met, Rune never looked up and avoided eye contact altogether. The fact that he was becoming more confident and open to people was definitely a good thing.

“Say, do you really not like Siana? She would be quite sad if she heard that…” Laien inquired in a roundabout way, all the while smiling happily.

“T-That is…” Rune looked quite troubled, not knowing what to say.

Laien laughed and patted his younger friend’s head. “Rune, even if it’s embarrassing, you should be able to say it. Or, at least to not say opposite thing, you know? What if Siana disliked you after that, would you want that to happen?” he asked, giving Rune a meaningful look.

Rune immediately shook his head. Then, as if realizing something, smiled and asked. “Big brother, you said she would dislike me, so, does she like me now?”

Laien chortled, surprised by Rune’s bright line of reasoning. “What an amazing fellow. Really surprising,” he thought silently, then began acting as if he was wondering about the answer really hard, before finally replying with his lips curving strongly upwards. “I don’t know, how about you ask her yourself?” Seeing Rune’s pouting expression, Laien couldn’t help but chuckle. Even though he himself disliked being teased, he enjoyed teasing others. Well… Maybe he could take a little teasing from people he liked, too, but only a bit!

“Eeeh?! Come on, big brother! Tell me!” Rune pulled on Laien’s arm, really wanting to get an answer out of him. After a short while of wresting away, Laien finally gave up and said. “I am quite sure she likes you, so how about asking her to be friends with you, to begin with? She would be happy.”

Satisfied with this answer, Rune nodded strongly and ran up ahead, urging Laien to hurry up. Laien snickered and also started running.

“Last one loses!” Laien yelled, easily passing by Rune. He peeked over his shoulder and after running by a corner of a building, he slowed down a little. Just a second later, Rune also ran past the same spot, trying his best to catch up.

Obviously, the whole competition was just a play for both of them. With regards to speed, Laien was over three times faster than Rune. If he went all out, it would be pointless to compete like that, but it was only game, after all. There was no need to be taking everything so seriously.

Soon, the two of them arrived by Laien and Siana’s room. Rune laughed, breathing heavily. “Big brother, you are too fast. But just look, I will also train! You won’t win so easily next time!”

Laien didn’t say anything, only smiling back at the seven-year-old. To be honest, Rune’s talent for martial arts was pretty average, or maybe even slightly below that. There was little to no chance of Rune becoming stronger than him, but nevertheless, was there really a need to discourage the youth?

“Who knows, maybe he will grow up to be a mighty martial master. There’s always a chance, but for now…” Laien thought about it for just a moment, coming up with an idea as a ‘winner’ of this small race. His smile grew just a little bit evil, and Rune, seeing it, could already guess what his big brother was going to say.

“Soo, Rune, since you lost, inviting Siana to play with us is up to you. How about that? Can you do that?” Laien proposed with a broad smile and although Rune hesitated for a bit, he agreed in the end.

Rune stood at the door, gathering the courage to open it and trying to come up with something sensible to say.

When being with Laien, Rune was quite open and easy going. Yet, when speaking with other people, or even facing them, Rune tended to be rather shy. Before meeting Laien, Rune had trouble even with doing as much as holding a proper conversation. As a result of that, he used to be secluded from the other kids his age.

Rune’s mother had obviously been worried about him, but she couldn’t get through to her son well enough. It was around the time when she was about to give up on trying to change her son and accept that he won’t turn outgoing and cheerful when Laien and Siana appeared in the mansion.

Back then, after coming to Neil City, Laien had felt depressed and heavily burdened by reality. He hadn’t been showing it too much in his behavior, though. He had always been trying to hold everything in as to not upset his little sister. Moreover, he simply had no one he could or wished to talk to. Yet, one day, by pure coincidence, while strolling around the open grounds Laien had met another lone boy who appeared to be as troubled as he had been at the time.

The boy he had met back then was three years younger than him. Looking rather depressed, the four-year-old had been sitting alone, doing nothing but looking down at the ground. By a whim, Laien had approached this boy and sat down at his side.

Although the two of them hadn’t started speaking to each other immediately, they had exchanged a few words on the daily basis, slowly getting to know each other.

After Laien and Rune had chatted with each other for a week or so, they had already become good friends.

In his heart, Laien even now felt very grateful towards Rune. Spending some leisure time with Rune every day helped to improve his mental state by a lot. Finding this little, worriless happiness, he had been able to settle his own feelings towards the past and live on without mourning what had happened to his family all the time

As for what kind of effects the friendship of theirs had on Rune… well. Just looking at him now, one could tell how much the boy has changed.

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The somewhat creaking sound of the door opening woke Siana up just as two boys walked inside the room. She rubbed her eyes and gave Laien a questioning look, still feeling quite sleepy.

“Um, hello,” Rune said quietly. He was more nervous than usual because of Laien’s teasing, but he tried to speak with Siana nevertheless.

“What did you come here for?” Siana rebuked unhappily, apparently angry at the two for waking her up. She could forgive her brother, but why would she need to do the same for a friend of his?

“We are going to play in the forest, do you want to go with us?” Rune asked quickly, in a rather nervous manner.

“I’m tired, just leave me alone,” Siana said with a frown, declining the invitation outright.

As he spectacled the scene, Laien closed his eyes, giving his best to hold a laugh in. He totally expected this kind of reaction from his little sister.

“You can as well rest near the lake, won’t it be better than staying in this hot room?” Rune suggested, not giving up just yet.

This argument seemed to have some effect on Siana, but she still rebuked angrily. “No, I don’t want to. Leave me alone!”

Laien finally laughed, then walked deeper into the room. He grabbed few things and began packing them into a small backpack made of a yellowish leather. “Come on, Siana, he is trying hard to invite you out, don’t go giving him a cold shoulder,” Laien said as he fastened a brown leather belt with a short sword attached to it. After exchanging a short glance with him, Siana sighed and gave up.

“Fine, but if I get bored I will go back first,” she declared and stood up from the bed, then crouched and reached out for her shoes.

As a result of Siana agreeing only after Laien asked, Rune seemed to have become a bit unhappy. After all, how could Rune not be slightly jealous of Laien, even if he was Siana’s older brother? Still, he didn’t complain or anything, satisfied just to have Siana come with them

After a minute or so, the three of them left the room and headed towards the residential area of the Valius mansion.

Valius family, as one of the great powers in the Sarkcente Kingdom, provided a living space for hundreds of servants and their families within grounds they owned. Living in this way was easier for all parties involved, as the servants had a safe place to stay and guaranteed housing and the Valius family itself didn’t need to worry about any problems which otherwise occurred when servants lived in the city.

Amongst those who lived on the grounds of the Valius Family were not only servants, though. For example, the existed separate residences for more prominent people who were closely affiliated with the Valius family. Due to the Valius’ family prestige, even children of some important people from Neil City would often come to hang out in the mansion in order to make friends with other influential youths of their generation.

It was more or less in this manner that Laien and Rune got acquainted with a group of their peers around two years ago. Ever since then, all of them often hanged around together and right now, they were looking to invite the others to come and play with them. Precisely, they were looking for two sisters, Hana and Lina, and a group of three boys, of which one was Rune’s cousin.

Luckily, they didn’t need to search for long as they found all five of them hanging around behind the servant’s houses, in the open courtyard.

“Sup! We are going to take a dip into some lake. Are you going with us, or would you all rather keep sweating here?” Laien asked, grinning cheekily.

“You need to ask? We go! Right?” Dan looked at other four and pretty much immediately got an energetic confirmation.

“Let’s get to the kitchen first, we can get some leftovers from the dinner,” Laien suggested casually and everyone agreed pretty quickly, knowing that they can get some really tasty food for free. Even if their parents did not lack money, why would they say no to a freebie?

Nobles always wanted too much, food was not an exception. After meals, a great amount of food was left over every time. Thankfully, it was rarely wasted as the people who could make use of it were servants working for the Valius family. The Sarkcente Kingdom was by no means perfect, for example, it promoted slavery. Yet, it didn’t lack good traditions making everyone’s lives easier.

Preparing what they wanted to eat took a good half an hour, including packing the food properly and finding something to actually pack it into. When everyone was satisfied with what they took, the eight of them left through the rear gate of the mansion, straight into the great forest.

On the road to the lake, at some point, the usual chit-chat of theirs went into another direction. Dan and Genzie started talking about the ongoing war to the north of Sarkcente Kingdom and of course, the two of them got into an argument. Dan, being angry at Genzie, wanted to convince everyone else to his point of view. Naturally, Genzie was trying to do the same and meanwhile, the two of them were getting more and more annoyed with each other.

However, these two having an argument wasn’t anything unusual, so no one paid too much special attention to it.

“You really are stupid, Dan. I’m telling you that the Jarncare Grand Duchy will crush the Hailen Principality. So what if Hailans have a superior army in a direct clash? They are pushing deep into the territory of the Grand Duchy. Their general must be an idiot. How does he want to survive if the Jarncare light cavalry will keep hitting and running? They will bleed out before reaching their capital. I’m telling you!” Genzie argued and seemed to be quite confident in his words. After all, he was not just a normal kid of commoners.

Genzie’s family was assigned as keepers of Neil City, while Genzie’s father served in the same field of expertise for the main branch of Valius family. They held one of highest positions within non-noble families in the whole province. Thus, from a very young age, Genzie had been trained to follow in his father’s footsteps. He knew a great deal about logistics and realized how hard it was to manage people.

As the discussion between Genzie and Dan was going on, Laien listened closely as he himself was interested in the matters of warfare. As for Rune and his cousin, Talian, they also were looking at Genzie, but they were rather absorbed in imagining a great battle instead of considering it from the viewpoint of tactics. These two, being the youngest ones here, didn’t truly understand much from this talk, so letting their imagination run wild was the obvious outcome. The older three, however, all enjoyed discussing wars and smaller scale conflicts from the perspective of the decisions made by commanders.

Laien being ten, Genzie eleven and Dan twelve, the three of them were all at the age when boys were smitten by the perspective of a war, of great armies fighting each other, of Kings competing for power… and of course, they all thought they were ‘experts’ on the matter and no adults knew better.

At the same time as the boys were engaged in a talk about war, the three girls rather than taking part in this quarrel were whispered on the side, being all secretive about what they were talking about. However, boys weren’t interested in finding out what they were chatting about at all and they simply continued their own argument.

“You are the stupid one, Genzie. Listen, equipment of an army is really important! Do you think that those few arrows will be able to pierce the steel armors and shields of the Hailen Principality’s forces? It’s only two months of march for them, even if they will be really slowed down. Sooner or later the Jarncare Grand Duchy will be forced to stand their ground in Great Battle, and they will lose,” Dan also argued his point confidently, certain that he was the one in the right.

As a son of a blacksmith, Dan naturally knew a lot about weaponry. In his mind, a lightly armed army had virtually no chance of winning versus heavy forces. Despite being only twelve, Dan truly knew pretty much all there was to know about the normal kind of weapons of armors, so his confidence in the matter wasn’t unjustified. Dan’s father was a very famous blacksmith within the Sarkcente Kingdom, to the point that it wouldn’t be strange if he got awarded a nobility title as a reward for his services. Even Laien’s favorite short sword had been forged by Dan’s father and it definitely was a very solid and sharp piece of steel!

“Long time before that they will die of hunger, heh,” Genzie shook his head, wondering how Dan could be so oblivious. “How do you expect to feed two hundred thousand soldiers for two months on the enemy ground? You think they can afford to spread thin to protect their supply lines? Ha! Now that Is a good joke!” Genzie crossed his arms over his chest, confident that Dan won’t be able to refute his point.

“Hmph. And what about the villages and cities they will pass by? It’s obvious that they will pillage everything they can, supplies along with it,” Dan pointed out, quick to catch on the hardships of ordinary people as he had spent most of his life amongst the average citizens of Neil City. He knew a good deal more about the harsh reality compared to Genzie, who was closer to being a pampered young master.

“Would you stay in a city if you knew that enemies are approaching and your forces will not protect you there? The Jarncare Grand Duchy is a country of steppes, the cavalry is their forte! Even commoners own horses. They will take everything they have and run east,” Genzie replied straightforwardly. As a nephew of the Keeper of Neil City, he had been taught a lot about the potential goods that one can trade for throughout the world. The Jarncare Grand Duchy, on that matter, was famous for owning a number of horses equal to its human population. Mobility wasn’t an issue there, even for the poorest of peasants.

“And you think that those hundreds of thousands of people will flee, just like that? You think that all of them will care about the orders of the Grand Duke and leave their houses? They might as well stay and surrender,” Dan brought up another point, but having been driven into a corner by Genzie, he stopped making much sense.

In Laien’s mind, something like that actually was unlikely to happen. People of the Great Plains were used to harsh life and moreover, they shared the feelings of mutual hatred with the people of the Hailen Principality, they also valued their pride above everything else. Laien found it hard to believe that people like those would just surrender to their sworn enemies and be as naïve to hope to be treated well after that.

“I think you are wrong. You will see, the Jarncare Grand Duchy will win this war.” Genzie stated outright and chose to not engage in a pointless discussion where any arguments were lost and everything came to ‘how they felt’ about the whole thing. Dan similarly didn’t pursue the argument and fell silent, albeit he felt somewhat grumpy.

Genzie and Dan were both children. One of them was eleven years old, the other was twelve. However, in two or three years the two of them would be considered to be adults, so they felt the need to show some restraint and not act like unreasonable children… well, at least not too often. They were both well educated in their own field of expertise; they came from good families. Acting at least slightly more mature than their peers was expected of them by their parents, so even when adults weren’t around, they were trying to meet those expectations.

However… Dan simply couldn’t resist prolonging this discussion. “Hmph. Maybe so, maybe no. Laien, what do you think?” Dan looked at Laien, expecting him to solve the dispute between him and Genzie.

“Yeah, tell us what your opinion is,” Genzie nodded, also interested in Laien’s point of view.

Lately, Genzie and Dan found out that most of Laien’s past predictions had come true, so the two of them started relying on Laien to be something akin to a ‘judge’ in their arguments. Although Laien was younger than them, just ten years old, they respected his opinion and usually found it to be logical and reasonable, thus fairly convincing.