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East of Pascae? Aubres, perhaps. But for what purpose...a coup? It couldn’t be. He’s heir to the throne anyway for Pit's sake. Why hire foreign mercenaries, and on such a scale, to take something that will one day be his at any rate? Doing so would only turn every right-thinking Cantônian against him. It has been tried before in your nation’s history, with nothing to show for it but a brief puppet-kingship whose authority ended at Aubrey’s walls and suitably gruesome results for the traitors involved in the end.
To Fallavon then, for another try at the ruins? No. Too blunt and obvious a weapon for a purpose both sides were so desperate to keep hidden. The hiring of a few Golden Sun divisions to tip the balance in their secret war was risky enough. And perhaps now the Faction realises that the horror from the Pit unleashed in those deep halls was not the balance-shifting prize they had hoped for. Motte-Fallavon is the crossroads of the realm and an enticing strategic target of its own. But the same argument against a move in Aubres applies here, all that would be achieved would be raising the ire of every Duchy threatened by the move.
Montbrun? Sir Karlaus Rabe was happy at the prospect of cleaning the mountains of Snakemen raiders. But the campaign was going to be over by Mid-Winter, if the zealous Order of the Broken Blade didn’t wrap it up before then. Everyone says that. And even if it is more serious, even if the Scaled Horde is on the rise once again, the Torwatcher Gates have never once fallen to the Foe. Your sisters would have called you something of a slouch when it came to your education in the histories. But you know your battles, the big ones at least, and every time in Cantôn’s history the Horde has broken upon those Gates like water upon a rock.
Lost Ardenne? The combined armies of Romaine have tried time and time again since the Night of Three Sisters to topple the Dread Lords from their throne. Always, they have failed. Kings have led armies into that dark realm and been crushed, the legacy of their reign being their subjects added to the Deadmen ranks. Crusades of the faithful have lost heart and faltered in the face of the horrors of that stalk that place. An assortment of pragmatic mercenaries, an army of them, will not succeed there where so many others of faith and fire have failed. Even a godless sellsword can fear for his immortal soul.
Not Romaine itself, surely? Your gut sinks at the prospect of roving bands of mercenaries let loose in the fields of your home. House Andrei lands plundered, her subjects robbed and brutalised. The shield against the dark cracked beyond repair. But again you ask yourself what could the Crown Prince, or his Langlish allies for that matter, possibly gain from such a venture?
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