Standoff and Withdrawal

Alex had never expected the Silver Maple Secret Guard, skilled as they were at assassination and gathering intelligence, to be so good at counterespionage too!

What baffled Alex most, though, was what the grand duke and the Duchy's Direct Legion had done to set the Coalition of Nobles against the Duchy's Regular Legion. The two sides had nearly come to blows.

Alex ran through every possibility he could think of. Perhaps the camp was short on food, and an unequal distribution had sparked a clash between soldiers that had spread from there.

Or perhaps the grand duke had planned for the Duchy's Direct Legion to flee, leaving the Coalition of Nobles to take the blow from the Northern Alliance Army, only for the coalition to find out.

Surely Grand Duke Mora hadn't become so desperate after losing that he meant to seize command of the Coalition of Nobles by force and fight the Northern Frontier Corps head-on!

Alex decided his guesses were getting more ridiculous by the minute. He put it all out of his mind and focused on keeping watch over the Fifth Legion with Hawk.

To his surprise, the Fifth Legion never changed its formation. It remained calmly in place, seemingly unconcerned by the Northern Alliance Army's main force drawing ever closer.

Inside the Fifth Legion's formation, things were nowhere near as calm as they looked to Alex.

The men of the Fifth Legion weren't blind. Many had already seen the billowing dust and knew what it meant.

A number of officers gathered to petition Legion Commander Kimberley, urging him to lead the legion straight back to the Duchy Main Camp.

Kimberley refused. Relying on his authority as Legion Commander, he forced the officers to stand down.

But the officers were all he could control. The common