Chapter 808: Facing Reality
"You’re right," Liam said, stopping in the middle of the hallway as he realized the magnitude of what they’d just said. "This whole time, I’ve been thinking about how we’ll crush them once the forces of the Church arrive from across the sea. The Church has been gathering its resources for a hundred years to launch another Crusade, and this Holy war is just the beginning..."
"I know," Hugo said, putting a hand on Liam’s shoulder and giving him a slight tug to continue following their guide. "I thought that the Eldritch were barely holding on and that they were weakening year over year as we advanced. But now, I think they’ve been doing the same thing the Church has."
"Lady Heila knew the Holy War was coming when I mentioned it to her," Carwyn said while unconsciously flexing his shoulder. He’d mistakenly addressed Heila as ’your Worship’ and praised the Holy Lord of Light for allowing her to bestow a Miracle of Healing on him when he arrived in the Vale, losing his duel to Captain Barsali.
Heila had wasted no time in explaining to him that she had nothing to do with his Church, their Holy Lord of Light, or anything that could be called a ’miracle.’ If he wanted to thank her, she told him, then he needed to accept that he owed a debt of gratitude to a witch.
He’d tried countering, suggesting that if she could channel the blessings of the Holy Lord of Light, then the Church would surely welcome her in with open arms despite being a ’demon’ but she not only refused, she openly mocked the Church for its misguided attempts to subjugate all lands leading to the Heavenly Shores in the west.
"I think," Carwyn said reluctantly. "I think that the Eldritch have been preparing for the upcoming Holy War even longer than we have. They’ve let us grow complacent with our small victories in pocket wars that are little more than skirmishes in their eyes. Now, they’re baring their fangs for the first time since the Second Crusade... and I don’t know if we have a chance of winning."
"You’re saying that we should just surrender now?" Liam asked cautiously. "You know what the Church would do to you if they heard such a statement?"
"I’m sure they’d turn me over to the Inquisition faster than I could blink," Carwyn said with a dark chuckle. "But am I wrong? They attacked my caravan and maybe half a dozen others in Hanrahan Barony at the same time as they were raiding more than a dozen hamlets in Dunn Barony and as near as any of us can tell, they suffered almost no losses for it."
"It’s easy to claim victories in an ambush campaign," Liam countered. "We don’t know how they’ll fare in a real war yet." In fact, from Liam’s perspective, the Eldritch raids against ’soft targets’ like the Dunn hamlets and the Hanrahan convoys spoke of a position of weakness more than one of strength.