“One man’s trash might well be another’s treasure.” - Old folk saying.

“Any luck this time?” asked Reinhardt when Elfriede returned from the main base the next day. She had gone with Fatimah to deliver the heads they acquired from the assassination, to be identified by the more cooperative captives in the base. The reason that the two were sent was not just to make sure that the delivery was secure, but because they were both very skilled at noticing people’s reactions.

Fatimah was capable of noticing minute changes of expressions in a person’s face, or an involuntary shift in their body language, which made her particularly good at noticing when people were upset, excited, or otherwise emotional. Those bodily cues, combined with information they already possessed, could often be used to somewhat reliably predict whether a person was telling the truth or a lie.

Elfriede’s sense derived from the wind was even more exaggerated, and where Fatimah noticed visual cues, she directly could tell when someone’s heartbeat accelerated, or when their hairs stood up, and other minor things someone wouldn’t be able to notice easily. When the two were together, they easily caught people lying practically every time, and could even infer many things just from how people reacted to what was being presented to them.

For that reason, Nestor had asked for their services, having them present when he brought the prisoners – both the cooperative ones and the adamantly uncooperative ones – to witness the three heads taken during the assassination. Some of the prisoners almost reacted violently at the sight, and even those that tried to hide their reactions couldn’t hide it from the two experienced women’s senses.

Just from those reactions alone, it pretty much confirmed that the heads of the deceased were famous enough to be known to their captives, and likely of a high enough stature to elicit such reactions. It was especially noticeable because one of the captives who tried to control himself but failed to escape Elfiede’s perception when his heart palpitated abnormally was one of the few captured officers who had always remained mum so far.

It was not the fact that he reacted that made everyone think that the heads were important. It was the fact that he tried to hide his reaction that did so. A person reacting in surprise at the sight of the heads was normal, but a person trying to hide their reaction meant that they were hiding something they didn’t want the other party to notice.

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Since the captives were all kept apart and imprisoned on their own, there was never any chance for them to arrange things between themselves, so Nestor was confident that the reaction was a natural one.

“They aren’t sure on how high in the hierarchy those heads are, but they’re pretty high up there, at least,” said Elfriede to Reinhardt’s question. The main reason the group at the main base was still undecided was once again due to the language barrier. There were limits to what one could communicate with gestures and body language, or drawings for that matter.

The most cooperative captives that communicated with drawings and even started learning some rudimentary common were unable to express themselves clearly enough, but from what they offered, it was clear that the heads belonged to commanders of the enemy army, just that they were unable to specify the rank of said commanders due to the language barrier.

Reinhardt himself didn’t mind getting the bonus for the job later on, when actual proper confirmation could be had, and was just glad that the daring strike at least had some good results. The enemy forces were fighting more conservatively since said strike, and that had given the defenders some time to recuperate, especially the Kolitscheian infantry, who had taken the worst losses out of the allied forces so far.

Given the close distance between the defensive position and Kolitschei city further east, it was trivial for the defenders to send out their injured to the city for rest and recuperation. Similarly, their supply lines were extremely short, and the cavalry forces brought by the defenders regularly patrolled the routes to make sure that no enemy had snuck past them.

The two failed attempts hinted that such a case would likely remain a possibility, after all.

They also received news from Lovia-Hosberg in the north where Nestor’s younger brother Damien led a relief force and from Bostvan in the south where Duchess Andrea Utghwes led forces from Dvergarder to present a united front against the invaders.

Normally it would be difficult to send out timely reports under war situations, as even trained messenger birds were at risk from trained eagles and falcons that each side employed for the specific purpose of hunting them down. It was not like the current battle was an exception, but the Free Lances offered a method for the allied armies’ detachments to contact each other quickly.

He simply assigned two members from Hannah’s platoon to each army, who would take turns delivering messages to the other armies, as needed. Eagles and falcons couldn’t do much against the far larger therians of the platoon, and since they would take off from the safety of the allied encampments, neither could any archer, no matter how good they were.

With the fliers relaying messages as needed in such a way, the allied forces were kept updated over the enemy movements on a regular basis. From the reports, the situation at the north was relatively stable, as Lovia-Hosberg had worse terrain for large armies to pass through compared to Kolitschei, something that meant they only had to deal with a smaller enemy force. Damien and the locals held out well over there and even managed to inflict some damage to the enemies they faced.

The news from the south was less encouraging, as the Bostvan forces had been pressed hard prior to the arrival of reinforcements from Dvergarder, and even with their presence, the fighting mostly devolved into a stalemate. The invasion force that headed to Bostvan was also the largest of them all, estimated to be nearly three hundred thousand soldiers strong.