The Crown Prince pointed at a spot on the map. "I will take my legion to defend the first bridge across the Fihulton River. If they are going to travel down the road, they will have to pass that way. The bridge also gives us a defensive position if they’re intending to head toward the old Castle site, or south to Darden."
The King nodded. "That is acceptable. I will send the Natural Sons’ Regiment to reinforce Burton with Princess Alexis. The Second Prince will hold a position to the Northeast, as his Regiment is already in the region.
That will prevent the Dagos force from attempting to bypass the fortresses and come directly for Cygnia City.
The Fourth and Sixth Princes are engaged further up the border, and are needed where they are. The real concern is that the Dagos troops are intending to use their airships to do bombing runs on the cities."
That would complicate things.
However, it wouldn’t be as easy as the King of Dagos might have hoped. Cygnia had their own fleet of combat airships, though they were mostly hastily upgraded from passenger vessels.
The King of Cygnia had not anticipated that the nation would be attacked by a nation that they had considered an ally, so they had not been building their military forces at all in the most recent few years.
Instead, they had been focused on developing new technologies.
None of the others spoke up fast enough for the King, so he started to assign positions.
"Princess Josephine, you will be commanding the Royal Guard and the Palace region.
Everyone else, you are with your usual legions, and you will be deployed as needed for the defence of the cities. Be prepared to leave on short notice."
Princess Alexis motioned for Dominic to follow her out of the meeting room.
"Do you think that the Natural Sons’ Regiment has what it takes to hold the city?" She asked as they walked back toward her quarters.
Dominic thought about the answer for a moment, then nodded.
"If the city is walled, I think that they should do alright. Is there a city guard as well?"
Princess Alexis nodded. "There is. Both a wall and a city guard. Don’t expect miracles from either, though."
"As long as they fill spaces along the wall and can hold a bow, they should be enough. The Natural Sons are all riflemen. While they are intended to be mounted cavalry, and a city setting is not optimal, the rifles will give them a great advantage against infantry."
The Princess ran her fingers through her pale hair, tousling the loose locks.
"I know that this is likely not going to end well, but there is a bolthole in the central Keep in Burton. If things get too bad, I believe that I can get us out before the city falls." She whispered.
Dominic nodded. If the city fell, it wouldn’t end well for anyone else. But Dominic was fairly certain that they could at least hold out for a season if they could find a way to keep Dagos from dropping troops directly into the city.
Breaching a walled city was rarely a fast process.
"What else do you think that we should have for city defence, that you haven’t seen yet?" Princess Alexis asked, defaulting to his role as Advisor.
"I think we need something long range for shooting at airships. Artillery is an option, but standard cannons aren’t made for it. We need something that will really be able to stop their advance." Dominic suggested.
Alexis nodded. "I think that there is something. The inventor is just crazy enough that he might have found something brilliant."
Dominic waited for her to explain.
"He believed that if he put a small steam boiler in a glider, and a propeller, like on the steam ships, he could make a functional, powered glider."
Dominic frowned. That was insane, but in theory it would work. It was just a huge fan pushing air to drag the contraption through the air. They pushed the airships along well enough, though slowly.
As long as it would move fast enough, it was a valid plan.
"If he can get them to someone here in the Capital, to ship out somewhere near us, they might be able to intercept the airships. If not, we can default to airships with cannons and gliders with mages." Dominic suggested instead.
Princess Alexis smiled, and a glint of amusement came to her eyes.
"I have it. I know how to defend the city. Not against the airships, against the soldiers on the ground. What we need isn’t the army, but the Rangers."
Dominic frowned. "The rural police force? I don’t think I’m following."
"Mana Revolvers. How do most sieges end? You run out of supplies. Burton isn’t right on the river, but it has a moat and an underground aquifer. They can block the water flow to the moat easily enough, but Burton can hold out for quite a while with its water supply.
The next thing to run out is ammunition. A portion of arrows can be recovered, but they’re normally recovered by the attackers.
That’s not an issue with guns, but we can only carry so much ammunition. If we had a force with unlimited ammunition, there would be no need to preserve ammunition. It would make it brutally expensive to approach the city."
Dominic patted her on the shoulder. "I have a spell for that. Clay to Steel. If we dredge a large amount of clay from the river, we won’t run out of ammunition any time soon. But if Dagos has the same spell, we should expect them to have a similar level of attack power."
Alexis nodded. "From what we have managed to discern, they’re still twenty years behind in magitech development. But as they’ve managed to obtain a number of our top military craftsmen, that might not be true for long.
It’s only been a few days since the defection, and they shouldn’t have had time to fully rearm their troops yet."
"Alright. What do I need to get? I don’t have much, other than what is in my storage cube." Dominic asked.
"Nothing. The Palace has prepared the supplies. We will leave in the morning. You can use the room on the right, it’s a security risk to leave anyone alone after the briefing."