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A massive military container covered in snow trudged along on top of a specially fitted truck, which drove the best it could over the uneven tracks covered by a thin layer of snow. The black haired driver with mono-lids and narrow eyes wore an Opalian green uniform. Her co-driver was a bald middle aged man who was snoring in the passenger seat. He had been sleeping since the last changeover an hour ago.
The driver followed the tracks which she assumed was leading to a recently damaged Opalian watch post, she had been there before, it was the only track from Howlite Castle to said watch post. Ahead of her was a squad of soldiers in the back of another truck, reinforcements for said post and behind was another such squad. They doubled as guards for the massive supplies truck with double containers that was sandwiched in between.
A wooden temporary watch post rose up ahead, surrounded by a gathering of green military tents that were standard for Opalian. The flags of Opalian flew lightly in the cold winter breeze, perhaps a little too light. The driver did not think much of it, clearly neither did her peers, they assumed that anything out of place, such as strange positioning of the tents and the tattered uniforms of the soldiers were merely aftermath of the recent attack.
The driver parked her truck along side the two other vehicles, she reached across and hit her partner in the arms to wake him. “We’re here.”
The co-driver groaned and stirred in his sleep, he opened his eyes seeing the time, “14.46? We’re nearly ten minutes late!”
The driver frowned, “I noticed, but I drove at 40 kilometres per hour like we’ve always done,” she told him. “Even if I was slow, the guys in front would not be, the speedometers must be off.”
The co-driver grunted, “We’ll tell mechanics to get it checked out.”
In front of them, the soldiers from the other trucks have already began unloading. The two drivers got out to join their peers, oblivious of anything truly out of place..
Then, someone yelled out. “HANDS IN THE AIR AND FREEZE!” The soldiers of the watch post had turned their guns on the new arrivals.
The newcomers, completely unsuspecting, had dropped their own weapons to help unload the trucks. Now they pay the price. The driver cursed the idiocy of herself and her peers as she dropped to her knees, powerless to do anything but watch as the soldiers of the watch post ripped off their tattered green uniforms to reveal pristine white ones underneath. The green banners with blue crests also came down, replaced by the white banners of Parisora. The Parisoran soldiers arrested them, all twenty eight of them and took them as prisoners of war.
*
Ace punched the air in excitement as he heard the news, seven truckloads of supplies, all ending up in their hands instead of at the intended destination. Approximately two hundred hostages in total. Now he would have something to report to his father.
“Nyal, prepare a private feast in my living quarters and have Claude join us,” Ace called up his trusty subordinate.
Nyal frowned. “Your Highness, should he still remain in shackles and handcuffs?”
Ace scoffed in response. “of course not, he is to be my esteemed guest! After all, his plans produced spectacular results!”
Nyal did not look convinced. “A background check revealed nothing, Your Highness. It is as if Claude Van Dysher never existed until he turned up in the snow.”
Ace waved it off. “He said he was a wanderer, chances are he probably just slipped through the cracks of society, its not like our technology are actually good at tracking every thing.”
“But our facial recognition software has never failed us when the target it searches for has a face,” Nyal argued. “It cannot find Mr Van Dysher anywhere, in or out of Parisora.”
“You worry too much,” Ace assured him, “Claude would not be leading us to victory if he was a spy, now would he?”
“You are too trusting, Your Highness,” Nyal warned.
Ace merely shrugged it off, “not everyone is a scheming traitor, Nyal.”
A feast of roasted meat and well spiced vegetables was laid out in the long banquet table in Ace’s personal dinning room. As acting Commander of the Fort, he had a private living area that somewhat resembled the size of his own living quarters back in the palace. It was massive, lavishly furnished and uselessly extravagant, as Ace would call it, a grand waste of space.
He waited impatiently at the head of the table for his guest to arrive. Fortunately, he did not have to wait long.
The doors opened and Claude was shoved in by a guard. He was dressed in a set of white Private’s uniform, his messy brown hair patted down and styled in place.
“You look good,” Ace commented as Claude stumbled in. The mysterious young man immediately began unbuttoning his uniform blazer in disgust.
“I am not your soldier, for me to wear such a uniform is ridiculous,” he said as he threw the blazer onto an empty chair. He undid the top two buttons of the matching white uniform shirt too, but decided against discarding it as he would have nothing to wear, not that Ace minded. Ace blushed slightly at that thought.
Ace sat him down and said: “It’s better than your tattered black gown.”
“That uniform holds a special meaning,” Claude replied taking a sip of red wine from the chalice. “I imagine you’ve successfully stolen a round of supplies?”
Ace nodded in excitement, joy sparkled in his sapphire eyes. “But why did it work? Why did they not realise they had gone off path?”
Claude filled his cup again. “Human nature is lazy and too self-assured, they trust in familiarity too much that even the most glaring differences could be subconsciously ignored at first glance, so there was no need to ensure that the watch post was an exact replica, something familiar and similar was illusory enough.”
“Is that why they did not realise that their paths had changed?”
“They have too much trust that there was only one path, so that one path they followed blindly with complete trust in their memories. That was why despite your men blocking off their intended path and changing in drastically, they did not notice. The trees helped confuse their senses, though their poor sense of direction is also appalling given that this is a military we’re talking about. Apparently good cyber defence is also not a thing.” For the plan to work, Ace had the lead truck driver’s GPS hacked. That job was entrusted to the Cyber Welfare officers who did it with ease, much to everyone’s surprise, as one of the mechanics repairing the trucks had a tendency to click on random ads that popped up on their social media. Given that mechanics were in close range to the vehicles, the Parisoran military grade hacker was able to connect onto the vehicles and into the secure intranet setup specifically for the GPS. From there, all the maps were redrawn to fit the paths that Ace wanted his enemies to take.
Ace grinned happily. “Your plan was truly incredible, creating a fork in the road, blocking off the actual path and creating an artificial one that led them right into our laps.”
Claude gulped down the wine and reached for the jug to refill it. “I copied the idea from a great tactician.”
“Who?”
“You wouldn’t know her.”
“Her?”
“She taught me everything I know about war.”
“Where is she now?”
“Not in this world,” Claude answered shortly as he downed another cup of alcohol.
“Ah, my condolences.”
Claude chuckled, Ace had misunderstood, but he could not be bothered to correct the young mortal prince. “Congratulations, but you have also enraged Opalian.”
Ace shrugged, not really thinking much of it. “It’s a war.”
“And people die in war, young prince,” Claude told him.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Ace asked as he saw Claude’s plate of steak remain untouched.
Claude laughed, he never imagined that he would constantly be pestered by a young mortal prince to eat. He eventually gave in and picked up the fork and knife. “Happy now?”
Ace nodded, “yes.”
They ate in silence for a few moments before Ace’s voice started again. “So, what do I now?”
Claude sighed, “you are a prince who leads an army, why are you asking me?”
“Well, you have ideas.”
“Because I took pity on you,” Claude muttered, “you remind of someone I used to know.”
“What do I have to do to get you to help me again?” Ace got straight to the point this time.
Claude merely smiled, his usual smile of amusement. “Have you seen the war?”
Ace frowned in confusion. “Isn’t this war?”
“No, you’ve only seen the numbers, you’ve never being on the frontlines,” Claude said as he downed a lethal volume of alcohol.
“Slow down, you’ll die of alcohol poisoning!”
“I wish,” Claude muttered. As if Shadows could die of alcohol poisoning. The dead cannot die again else they would not be dead. He raised his freshly filled cup to drink again, but Ace had reached out to stop him. Claude glared at him.
“I will do anything to win the war,” Ace told him. “Please, help me.”
Claude twirled his knife and stabbed it violently into his steak. “Anything?”
“Anything!”
Claude chuckled, he suddenly reached out and grabbed Ace’s wrist tightly. “Back in the day, commanders would lead their armies into battle,” he said. “Do you dare pilot the lead fighter jet, my prince?” He leaned in and stared into Ace’s shining blue eyes, they were determined and innocent. A prince who had never truly seen blood, Claude was amused by such concepts.
Ace swallowed, “if I said yes, will you advise me on how to win the war?”
Claude’s deep abyssal black eyes twinkles. “Yes,” he replied. He pulled Ace’s hand away from his cup. “Now will you let me drink in peace?”
Ace raised his own cup and took a sip, the strange mix of bitterness and grapes in the red wine caused him to pull a face. “Why do you like wine so much?”
“I like alcohol, not wine,” Claude said.
Ace slowly placed his cup back onto the table. “So what is your plan now?” he asked.
“A meeting with your high ranking officials would be a good place to start.”
Ace grinned getting up from his seat in excitement. “Of course! Let’s go now!”
Claude shook his head and laughed. “You invited me to a feast so you can talk your head off for ten minutes and rope me into a meeting, is that it?”
Ace looked at the grand set up of the table and awkwardly sat back down. “After dinner, I suppose.” Especially since he hadn’t finished his meal either.
*
That evening, Ace strode into the meeting room where the high ranking officers are already seated. Claude followed in his black robes, which he had insisted on wearing. Ace could not talk him out of it.
The officers around the table frowned as they saw an unfamiliar face.
Ace stood up straighter, his sapphire eyes shone with joy and pride. “allow me to introduce Claude Van Dysher, my new military adviser.”
Claude frowned and raised an eyebrow. “I am?”
“You are,” Ace assured him. “Claude came up with the idea for the watch post attacks and for the supply line raids.” He pulled up an extra chair aside his own and signalled for Claude to sit.
“Your Highness,” Nyal began, “is this…”
“Relax Nyal, I know what I am doing,” Ace reassured him, though Nyal did not look pleased, in fact, none of the officers looked pleased.
Claude scoffed and folded his arms across his chest. “I would not be here if that was actually the case.” He turned to the officers and asked: “What has Opalian done in response to the attacks?”
“Well,” Ace began, “not much, they’ve invaded a couple of towns and raided what is left, blown up a couple of our watch posts, attempted to attack our warehouse, but other than that, nothing.”
Claude stared at him, “you call that nothing? How many casualties?”
Ace looked to Colonel Wrenyssa Holler who was the head of the medical department, “Wren?”
Wren looked down at her notes, “uh, about five hundred, three hundred of which are civilians, Your Highness.”
“Five hundred casualties and you call that nothing?” Claude repeated.
Wren shrugged, “casualties are common in war.”
“As are ignorant military leaders,” Claude scoffed. The high ranking officers were clearly not amused by his harsh comment though, in fact, they had that look of ‘what would you know’ on their faces. Claude was tempted to throw water in their faces, he sure knew a lot more about fighting in wars than they did, after all, he had fought in countless wars.
“Do you have a plan or not?” Wren’s cousin, Major Ambrose Holler lost his patience.
Claude tapped his long bonny fingers on the table. “Shut up Holler, your position would be much more advantages had you not lost so many soldiers in the past three months, honestly, who thought it was smart to attack watch towers with pilot jets? They have only have basic artillery weaponry, you could’ve saved a lot of men.”
“Claude,” Ace stepped in before an argument could break out, “how about we look to the future?”
“Opalian just suffered an embarrassment, their looking to fight back in every way possible,” Claude stated. “Preferably something grand to cover up the fact that seven truckloads of supplies and soldiers drove themselves into the enemy’s territory. More importantly, they’ve lost a lot of supplies.”
“What will they do?”
“They’ll try steal ours of course,” Claude rolled his eyes. “Have you never played chess? If you take a piece, your opponent will try take one of yours to even out the playing field. It’s like squabbling children really.”
“Claude, I don’t war is squabbling children.”
“It’s kings who act like squabbling children,” Claude snapped. “Have you got spies inside of the Opalian army?”
“Of course,” Ace replied. “They’re on the outside though, nothing concrete.”
“Good, have them leak a particular supply line,” Claude said. “You said there were towns raided, then one of the supplies lines to help the townsfolk, tell them we’re sending reinforcements and a lot of supply to calm the nerves of civilians.”
Ace immediately saw what he was getting to, “when they go to attack that supply line, then we ambush them!”
Claude nodded. “And set up base in the town whilst we’re at it, if it succeeds, Opalian will go after the town because such a move would hurt their pride.”
Slowly Ace began to clap, then one by one, the other military officials joined him.
Claude scoffed. “This is war, not a performance.” He paused, “Ace will also be piloting during the ambush, preferably a fighter jet.”
“What? He can’t!” Nyal exclaimed.
Ace looked at him strangely, “why not?”
“You’re the Third Prince! Your Highness!”
“Which is precisely why he should not be getting special treatment,” Claude snapped. “Anyways, I’ll co-pilot.”
“I’m not sure I trust you to,” Nyal said bluntly.
“Nyal,” Ace cuts, “that is my decision to make.”
Claude tilted his head. “What he said.”
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