I Only Love My Greatest Enemy

For a common person, seeing an army was terrifying. Ever since they were first created, soldiers would get supplies at least partially by looting. This was true whether they were ancient legions, noble knights, peasant foot soldiers, or modern armies of mercenaries. The further they got from their home base, the more there was a need to just take food from whoever they could.

And those were friendly armies.

Hostile forces often committed all manner of atrocities. While not universal, burning down crops, raping women, carrying children off into slavery, and theft of things far more valuable than food were not uncommon.

Yes, as bad as your own side could hurt you, the enemy was most often even worse.

Lord Armand Concord knew this. He also knew that Count Nassau's lands were far enough from his and Eris' that his foot soldiers would have to start pillaging to supply themselves if he did not do something.

As such, Armand sent a rider ahead of the other hussars. And another one to go behind. They would inform the villages of the upcoming arrival of the infantry and tell them to have food supplies prepared, as well as telling them to have gunpowder supplies ready. These horsemen were the most trusted of the mercenaries in his service, as they would also bring payment for the food with them. It would cover the costs. Hopefully, this would alleviate the burden on the common people.

For her part, Eris did not care whether her mercenaries pillaged as they went. But she did not interfere when Armand spent money to buy food ahead of time for their forces.

Eventually, the Concords got closer to Count Nassau's lands with their heavy cavalry. A few of the hussar screening force rode back to them as they got closer. An aura of fear flowed over them. Panic flashed the formation's head's eyes.

"My...my Lord and Lady," he stuttered out. "Monsters. An army. Count Nassau is under siege."

"Where are the rest of the hussars?" Armand asked.

"Most are alive. A few are injured. We...we've been skirmishing with the monsters. Trying to keep them from getting supplies of their own. The Nassau farms are all burned. The ground's been torn up and replaced with stone. No one'll be able to farm there in the future. If any commoners are alive, they're hiding somewhere, maybe in the castle."

Armand's heart was pounding. His mind flashed back to the war in his last life.

"Humans can be negotiated with. They have goals, wants, and desires that can be appealed to. You can't bargain with something that only wants your destruction. It's either we wipe out the monsters entirely, or they kill every last one of us," he thought.

Eris glanced at her husband. Armand was clenching his reins. Though she couldn't see it under his helmet, Eris was certain he had a scowl on his face.

"Follow us. We're breaking this siege," Armand declared.

He pulled out a trumpet and blew into it. The entire force moved forward. Inside, the boy was already planning how exactly they'll do this. Armand had told his men how to fight monsters, but knowing what to do and actually doing it were two different things. Especially when facing a new enemy.

Eris and Armand rode slightly ahead of the others, the cavalry being in a v-shaped formation. As they moved through the countryside at a greater speed, but not one that would tire out the horses, she turned to her husband.

"Armand, are you going to be okay?" Eris asked.

"I have never been okay. Not since I was a child the last time around," he answered. "But I have to push forward anyway."

Looking down, Eris took a deep breath.

"If only I knew how to help you with this," she said.

Eris' expression was filled with vulnerability under her helmet.

"You already are, just by being here," Armand replied.

Yet, the girl's mind turned inward.

"I hope I am, Armand. But I still feel foolish. No matter what, I'm struggling to understand you. Even if we're married, I don't relate to how you think. How can you care about common people? I don't even see them as human," Eris thought. "I want you to be happy, I want you to be safe, and I'm starting to really want to understand you."

Stolen story; please report.

The column made it to Count Nassau's lands, just to be met with a horrifying sight.

Scorched ruins of villages were all over the place. Piles of bone had been placed outside the gates of every one of them. Each individual bone had its own pile. A mercenary turned pale at the sight of a pile of skulls.

It wasn't just the bones themselves. But the fact that they all had bite marks on them, as if something chewed off every last bit of flesh.

The farmland was replaced with a layer of rock that stretched into the distance. It was flat, smooth. Someone could slip on it if they weren't careful.

"There's dirt just below it," Armand instructed. "The harvest will need to be replanted, but we can still salvage this if the rocks are broken up. Sadly, this type of stone is useless for building. We'll have to dump it in a pile somewhere."

As he spoke, the cavalry kept moving. The houses in the villages they passed through were all empty. Save for a few articles of human life. A piece of cloth here, a child's toy there, and maybe a kettle elsewhere. Fear flickered through the horsemen.

"Don't let it get to you. This is warfare on your mind. These monsters might be fearsome, but they are mortal. If you shoot or stab them enough, they will die," Armand said.

Those words assured the men. However, it didn't help much. There was no doubt in their minds now that they were facing something inhuman.

As the cavalry got closer to Castle Nassau, they started hearing noises in the distance. Screams, shrieks, cannon fire, unearthly wails, and any number of horrors. Even now, they could feel the hair standing up on their backs. They had yet to even see a single monster.

"I need to raise our morale, and fast!" Armand thought. "Maybe if I use the trumpet not to give orders but as an instrument..."

The Concord lord blew into his trumpet in a mimic of what he'd seen musicians do. It sounded absolutely horrible. Eris almost took her hands off her reins to put them on her helmet. While it didn't make them more encouraged, this awful noise kept the mercenaries' minds off the upcoming battle.

Yet their hearts almost stopped when they got a look at Castle Nassau.

It was surrounded by a horde of horrors. Giant wolves, headless coachmen, reptilian creatures, walking rotting corpses, and all manner of other monsters came at the walls with siege towers.

The gate was being battered by a walking rib cage with a goat's head. Cannons fired from the castle walls, shattering the creature. But monsters just climbed up its corpse. Arquebusiers fired as fast as they could to kill as many of them as possible.

Stopping dead in their tracks, the horsemen turned deathly pale. They trembled in their saddles. While mercenaries who had experienced battle, they hadn't seen anything like this.

"Is that a...a human centipede?" one soldier cringed.

"Monsters...they're real..." another muttered. "We should just run. What can we do against them?"

"By the gods, we're dead, aren't we? We should just run! Run as far as we can!" a third shouted.

Eris turned to them. Despite knowing the three couldn't see her face under her helmet, she had a hard scowl.

"Keep calm! Remember, I pay you more than your usual employers do!" Eris said.

"Forgive me, My Lady," a mercenary spoke up. "But you pay us to fight humans, not monsters. We're all for risking our lives for money. But facing certain death for it? That is foolishness."

Gritting her teeth, Eris forced herself to stay calm.

"My husband fought monsters before. Many times. He knows how to kill them. Under his guidance, we will triumph! And then, you can charge future employers even more! Think about how good killing monsters will look on your resume!" she encouraged.

Some of the mercenaries were convinced by this argument. However, most were still hesitant. Then, Armand pointed an arm.

"Look," he commanded. "Some of our hussars are still alive and fighting."

Their gaze turned to the distance. There, a group of light cavalry was raiding the outskirts of the monsters' camp. A group of giant wolves came after them, and the hussars used their horses to keep their distance while firing with carbines.

"Your armor is better than theirs. If a monster's claws rake you, you have more of a chance to survive. And we are not here to wipe out the monsters," Armand's voice was stern. "We just need to hold out until the infantry arrives. Then, we can truly break the siege."

He drew a gun from his chest.

"Mercenaries, I understand that you are vultures, feasting on the wars of Foldzar. If these monsters destroy our kingdom, those wars will end. And you will have to resort to banditry if you can't get another job. That could lead you to jail or to the noose. My wife is right that you have a lot to gain. But you have even more to lose," Armand pointed out.

The soldiers' feelings turned. Encouraged by the hussars' survival and realizing that Armand was right, they rallied.

"We can't let those monsters steal our pay!"

"I'm gonna kill a dozen of them! The infantry better hurry up, or they'll all be dead before they get here!"

"Let's take some heads!"

Eris' feelings turned to pride.

"Armand is truly a great commander. He has much more experience fighting monsters than I do. It's almost enough to make me jealous. It might have if we were still enemies. Seeing him rally our mercenaries alone was worth the trip."

Satisfied with morale, Armand blew into the trumpet to signal the men to enter formation. They did as such. Then, the boy sounded the call to charge.

That day, 500 heavy cavalry rode down a hill towards an army of monsters. How many would be left when night came remained to be seen.