Chapter 83: Escaping the Trap
"I hesitate to say that I’ve studied warfare," Isabell said, adjusting the spectacles on her nose. She had her own opinions of the situation and the information that Lady Ashlynn had sent her included a detailed assessment of the reasons that the Lothians had yet to win any of their wars against the demons arrayed against them.
In her opinion, it would take a tremendous effort to come away with victory but she wasn’t trusting enough of these men to go so far as to say that the demons couldn’t be defeated. A whisper of that into the wrong ears and she would quickly find an Inquisitor on her doorstep.
"I’ve studied the construction of fortifications and the methods to demolish them," she said, carefully grounding her statement in her acknowledged area of expertise. "Still, that knowledge gives me some concerns given the information contained in Lady Ashlynn’s letter."
"According to Lady Ashlynn," the gray-haired woman continued. "Any attempt to purge the demons from Airgead Mountain without first eliminating the Demon Lady of the Vale will fail."
"I thought that the Lothians always waged war around the height of summer to keep the vampires from disrupting things," Olver said with a frown. There were special weapons used to fight creatures of the night, but they were expensive to produce and Lord Owain hadn’t made any mention of producing them for this war.
"Isn’t Airgead Mountain too far away from the Vale for the Vampires to reach it during the summer? I don’t see why we would need to worry about them," the weaponsmith said.
"You should worry about them because, according to Lady Ashlynn, the Vale of Mists is protected by several layers of curtain walls and terrain that is impassable to cavalry," Isabell said.
"The advantage that gives their defenders is extraordinary, which means that they can almost send their entire army to trap an invading force between the defenders of Airgead and their own forces," she said. "I don’t think I need to explain to you or Tiernan what happens when you put soft metal between a hammer and an anvil."
"But everything that Lord Owain said in his letters talked of assaulting Airgead Mountain," Ruadhan said with a scowl. "He even asked if I had carts that could move swiftly to transport materials back to Lothian city."