The first formations didn't appear until the next day, only to retreat right away.
They returned an hour later, advancing a few more yards.
Only a few dozen nomads, their sturdy mounts taking up the entire road.
It once was a mountain trail along a cliffside. People carved it deeper into hard stone over centuries. Now it was around thirty yards wide at the checkpoint.
One side overlooked a chasm, a vertical stone wall outlining the other.
What people had carved away, they used to build a sturdy barrack.
No gates or walls—a few angry men could block the entire pass for days.
They'd fall back inch by inch on the switchbacks, while the attackers paid for each turn with blood. Building walls would only have hindered them, limiting their options.
Konrad also had many ways to slow down the nomads—but he did nothing.
His men pulled back as much as possible and remained passive.
They'd let the enemy approach without moving a finger.
When the third wave arrived, they released a hail of arrows before turning to run. They were becoming bolder, but this still couldn't qualify as an attack.
Their bows were harmless against the garrison's shields.
Most arrows didn't even hit the mark, falling short despite the close range.
They were probing the defences, a tentative strike here and there—but that was enough.
"I was starting to worry they'd never show up," Konrad grunted, watching them disappear again.
"Are you that eager to fight these slippery bastards?" Bor asked, spitting on the ground.
He held a small axe ready to throw, but he never had the chance at this distance.
"Better to fight them than to wait," Konrad smirked. "I have to feed my men either way, and trade already dried up. I'd rather have something to show for the debt I'll have to take on soon."
"Why aren't we attacking, then?" the man complained, but he only waved him off.
He was running the numbers.
His covert trading company, the Kitsune, bought up all the food, subsidizing merchants. But there was only so much it could do, with or without Eyna's diplomatic talents.
Once the nomads blocked the Halaima Pass, even the most loyal peddlers avoided his duchy.
He didn't have the capital to start importing goods.
The longer they waited, the worse the situation got.
More soldiers were on their way. Thousands he had to feed—and winter was on the doorstep.
Others might've celebrated the quick reinforcements. But he knew that even all the levies of Kasserlane would have been too few to make a real difference.
Not against hundreds of thousands of nomads, should they cross the Halaima Pass.
And not against a powerful mage with the right spells, if they all fought here.
The first snow had already arrived in the mountains, though the winds swept it away for now.
But he couldn't afford a long, drawn-out war of attrition. He wanted the enemy to commit everything they had. All at once. And the easiest way to encourage them was to do nothing.
Or hurt them. Bad.
"How are our archers doing?" Konrad asked. "Did they reach those peaks yet?"
'They're still climbing,' Maple replied before the tribesman could. 'The nomads are preparing another sortie. Why not ambush them on the switchbacks?'
'There's no point,' he shook his head. "Have our men hold their fire during the next attack."
"So are we fighting them or not?" Bor scoffed, losing his patience.
"They've hundreds of thousands waiting to cross," Konrad shrugged. "If we picked off a few here and there, they'd only slow down and be more careful. I want to urge them to hurry."
"Might as well let them through, then," the tribesman grumbled, clutching his axe tighter.
Konrad couldn't help but laugh.
"I don't want them to win," he clarified. "Besides, they might think it's a trap, and advance even slower. A cautious enemy makes fewer mistakes. We need a confident, or a desperate one."
The next wave of nomads already arrived.
It was the largest group yet, though still only fifty riders, forced into a tight formation on the road. A coordination mistake, and they'd trample each other or fall into the depths.
Almost too tempting a target, but Konrad still didn't give the order to fire.
The horsemen did instead. They peppered the shieldwall from a mere twenty yards before pulling back. This finally wounded a spearman in the leg, but the nomads retreated anyway.
"Are the archers in place yet?" he gritted his teeth, watching the enemy disappear again.
"All twenty-five of them," Bor nodded. "Should they give chase?"
"No," Konrad said. "When the next wave comes and lets loose, so will we. Aim at the horses close to the cliff wall, and then we chase the rest. Have some hunters ready at the switchbacks."
"Fucking finally," the tribesman grunted, disappearing to forward his words.
The next wave should've come even sooner, but the waiting was starting to get to him.
He let the nomads get away with the probing with impunity, but now he was ready to strike.
When the horses showed up ten minutes later, he was close to jumping out of his skin.
"Nobody moves until I give the sign," he gritted out one last time, willing the enemy to come closer. Fifty horsemen again—they also knew that this road hit its limit.
They stopped a mere ten yards from the shield wall that started to resemble a porcupine, and—
"Fire," Konrad shouted, and his archers fired off a meagre wave from the peak up above.
The nomads did too, twice as many arrows hitting the wooden shields.
But their attack was meaningless, while his men hit the mark.
The mounts went wild, trying to retreat, but they only got in each other's way.
"Shield wall, charge," Konrad added to the chaos.
The men condemned to wait all this time could finally stand up and fight.
The enemy had fast horses, excellent bows—but no discipline. They got too cocky.
Konrad left them no room to maneuver. As predicted, horses trampled each other. Soon, they pushed themselves into the abyss. The enemy's panicked screams were music to his ears.
"Block their escape," he barked new orders, and the men Bor had hiding ran out into the open.
The nomads had nowhere to go, but their horses wouldn't stop.
If they didn't dismount in time, they'd ride straight into the chasm, and if they did—
'I wouldn't want to stand in the middle of that, even in my dragon form,' Maple noted. Through her thoughts, Konrad could feel her shiver. 'Want my pets to stop the rest?'
In all that chaos, two of the horsemen somehow got away.
A shame, especially for a maximalist like him—but they were still within his range.
'They'll come right back,' Konrad claimed, conjuring an illusion with picture and sound.
His soldiers would only see the escapees stop for no reason and jump off their saddles.
Then, they crawled back on all fours, pushing themselves flat against the ground.
"Two men's not worth blowing up the trail, but they don't need to know that," he said with a grin. And with a flick of his finger, his soldiers rushed out to capture the last of their enemies.