Kingdom Building Game: Starting Out With A Million Upgrade Points! - Chapter 216

Chapter 216: The Crossings Must Hold
Corvane smiled faintly, a humorless curve of lips. “The currents shift. Storms gather where none should be. Something presses on the weave of the land.” His eyes flicked toward Selara. “The lady is not wrong. Bloodbane’s shadow lengthens.”

The murmurs grew louder until Rhonar raised a hand. The room stilled. His gaze swept the lords — old men, proud men, frightened men — and then settled on the map.

“We can’t chase phantoms,” he said. “We must decide how to meet them, not argue what they are. So listen well. This is how Heraldran will stand.”

The map stretched across the table, its rivers and grain fields lit by torchlight. Duke Rhonar’s finger tapped the western crossings.

He pointed to the western edge of the parchment where rivers forked like veins.

“First — the crossings. If Bloodbane enters our lands, it will be through here. Captain Jornas, you will station five hundred riders at the ford. No army marches past those rivers unchallenged.”

“Aye, my lord,” Jornas answered, his voice steady.

“Five hundred?” scoffed Lord Veydran, leaning forward, his rings catching the light. “You’d strip them from the north and leave my villages exposed? If they strike there, my lands burn first, not yours.”

“They’ll burn either way if the crossings fall,” Rhonar shot back.

“Easy words when it isn’t your kin at risk,” Veydran muttered, though not so softly that the others missed it.

Another lord, stout and red-faced, slammed his palm against the table. “You speak of holding rivers as though they matter when the DeLambre walls crumbled overnight! Rivers didn’t stop them. Walls didn’t stop them. If they can appear where they please, what use are our crossings at all?”

“Use?” Captain Jornas barked. His weathered face twisted with scorn. “Use is to bleed them, you fat coward. Better men die on the riverbanks than in their beds.”

“Mind your tongue, knight!” the lord snapped, but his voice wavered.

Selara’s gaze cut across the chamber. “Argue all you like, but he isn’t wrong. If they use teleportation sorcery, they could appear in the heart of these lands by sunrise. The only chance is to ward the leylines, to bind the soil itself against intrusion.”

A murmur rose, sharp and uneasy.

“That’s witchcraft,” one of the barons said, making a warding sign. “My peasants won’t march behind banners stained with it. Nor will I.”

“And what will you march behind?” Selara demanded, her voice carrying sharper than her father’s. “Empty barns? Blackened fields? You think Bloodbane’s sorcery spares your faith?”

Rhonar cut her off with a growl. “Enough. Heraldran does not stand on blood rites. We stand on men, steel, and the soil beneath us. Each of you will muster your levies. Peasants, freemen, squires — every man with a sword or spear. Keep them close to your lands until the horn is sounded. When it calls, you march here, to Castle Heraldran. Our strength is unity. Scattered, we are nothing.”

Rhonar continued, his voice low but hard, “The harvest. No grain leaves Heraldran. Not to the capital, not to the markets. We feed our soldiers first. Better the Empire go hungry than the men who must hold this land.”

“Are you saying we should starve?” Lord Herrek muttered. All eyes turned to him. He dabbed sweat from his brow but went on. “You order the harvest kept for soldiers. That leaves the markets dry. If grain doesn’t reach the capital, the Emperor himself will come asking why Heraldran withholds bread. Will you fight two wars, Duke? Bloodbane at the front and Akeria at our back?”

The hall erupted — some lords shouting in agreement, others spitting curses.

Rhonar slammed his fist into the table, the crack silencing them. “Better our Empire gnaws stale crusts than our soldiers march hungry!”

But doubt already coiled through the room.

Magister Corvane, silent until now, leaned in with a smile that never reached his eyes. “If I may. You cannot guard every ford. You cannot feed every mouth. But perhaps… if the Duke allows me, I could weave storm barriers along the leylines. They won’t hold forever, but they’ll buy us time. Time is worth more than pride.”

Some nodded eagerly, others recoiled, muttering about sorcery. Rhonar’s jaw clenched.

Selara met his gaze, her voice low but firm. “Father, you asked for a plan. This is the truth: without wards, without new weapons, Heraldran falls.”

Rhonar looked from her to the lords, their faces pale, greedy, fearful, divided. His hand tightened on the map’s edge until the parchment crinkled.

At last, he said, voice low, heavy:

“Then we do what we must. Muster the levies. Man the towers. Hold the rivers. And if Corvane insists on his storms, so be it — but let no drop of blood be spilled for them.”

It was a plan, but it felt more like a truce.

…

…

The council chamber was empty now, but the air still carried the heat of their argument. The torches hissed against stone, and the great map lay wrinkled where Rhonar’s fist had struck it. He hadn’t moved from his chair. His knuckles were still white on the armrest.

Selara stood across the table, arms folded tight, jaw set. She had held her tongue through the last of it, but now the silence pressed like a weight.

“That wasn’t a plan,” she said flatly.

Rhonar’s eyes lifted, bloodshot from strain. “It kept those fools from tearing each other’s throats out. That’s worth more than any plan on parchment.”

“It won’t keep Bloodbane out of our fields.” Her voice rose before she could stop it. “You gave them words, Father. Promises. Do you think promises stop fire? Do you think they’ll matter when sorcerers step through gates into the heart of Heraldran?”

Rhonar pushed himself up from the chair, his bulk looming, though his shoulders sagged. “And what would you have me do? Speak as you did? Call for rites that would turn our soil black and bind spirits better left sleeping? The lords already fear shadows. You’d have them fear their own duchess as well?”

Selara’s fists trembled at her sides. “I would have them live, Father. Even if it means fear.”

His voice broke into a shout. “Fear is not life, Selara! Fear is chains. I will not bind this land in them!”

The words echoed hard in the stone. For a long breath they only stared at one another. Then Selara tore her eyes away, her throat tight.

“You’ll cling to honor until it strangles us all,” she whispered.

She turned sharply, cloak sweeping behind her as she strode for the doors. Rhonar’s hand twitched as though to call her back, but no words came. When the doors slammed shut, he sagged against the map table, suddenly looking older, smaller, as if the weight of five centuries sat on his back alone.