12 The Defense of Verafgelegen

"They don't seem to have any siege equipment. My knights have spotted at least 350 of them through the trees, but the possibility remains that there could be more lizard-people that my knights aren't able to spot through the thick foliage. It seems that the lizard people are armed with only with clubs and spears. They have cloth armor covering their torsos, but no other armor." Pieter Von Verafgelegen said to Mia as the two of them walked away from the alchemist's abandoned shop, where Ethan was still busy working on the primitive gunpowder weapons, and toward the village gates.

[This old man is smart. In my advanced knight training we learned that Lizard-people often use the cover of trees to conceal their number. I suppose that he has lived his whole life protecting a small village in the Ancient Forest, so he's probably dealt with countless monsters in the past.] Mia thought.

"How tough are these village walls?" Mia asked as they got up to the village gates.

"They are 45 centimeters thick and made of solid oak. They were last replaced with new wood five years ago. The wood is covered in a protective varnish and the individual pieces are held together by hardened steel brackets. The pieces of wood are driven a meter and a half into the ground. A determined enemy with siege equipment or magic may be able to breach the walls, but without either, as the lizard-people seem to be, it doesn't seem likely that these walls will be breached with brute force. The real problem is that we are low on supplies and if this siege doesn't end quickly, we will be forced to either capitulate or open the gates and fight for fear of running out of food water and mana." Said Pieter.

"We will never capitulate, that much is certain. The Sun Knights of the Vorbei Kingdom have never surrendered and have never been routed. In the last war, the Western Empire sent over a thousand regular troops to besiege the town of Rand, and the we, the Sun Knights, successfully defended it single-handedly. If need be, we will open the gates to fight, but we will not surrender Verafgelegen nor will we abandon even a single citizen of Vorbei to these monsters." Mia said proudly.

"Fine then. Surrender is off the table. Let us hope that that 'gunpowder' substance that your man has come up with is all that he claims that it is. Anyway, how is the training of the villagers going?" Said Pieter as they approached the area where some of the Sun Knights, the knights of Lord Verafgelegen, the C-ranked adventurers, and the twenty villagers with pitchforks were assembled near the gates, with the rest of the sun knights scattered around the various sections of the walls ready to defend those sections if need be.

"Hans, Friedrich, how is the training of villagers going?" asked Mia of her two subordinates who had been handling the training of the twenty young male villagers with pitchforks.

"We taught them some basic thrusting motions with pitchforks, but..." Hans started to say.

"... Their movements are awkward at best. They are not prepared to fight on the front lines, and they certainly don't have any muscle-memory developed after just one training session." Friedrich finished.

"That's to be expected, I suppose. I never really intended to use them to battle head on against the lizard-people anyway. At least they might have some ability to defend their homes and families if our other plan fails."

"Other plan?" asked Hans.

"It's Ethan. He's making a weapon from his homeland." Said Mia.

"Are you sure that that will work? No offence to Ethan, but he never struck me as the military type." Said Friedrich.

"It'll work. He may not be the military type, but he is smart and he wouldn't have brought this idea forward if he weren't certain about it." Said Mia with more confidence than she felt.

"Ok, so how does this weapon work?" asked Friedrich.

"Will we be able to wield it without having experience with it?" Asked Hans.

"It is a small device that you throw at large concentrations of the enemy. It has an explosive powder from Earth called 'gunpowder' which uses some form of alchemy. It is confined inside a box which is enchanted with a 'delayed spark' spell to go off as it gets close to lizard men. Once the gunpowder is ignited, it creates a big explosion with no further magic needed." Said Mia.

"Sounds good, but how are we going to get large concentrations of the enemy?" Asked Hans. "Last I checked, they are dispersed through the trees surrounding the village. And not gathered up at any one point." said Friedrich.

"I have a plan. Lizard-people are monsters that have some level of intelligence. They are capable of finding an enticing enemy to target and knowing to concentrate their forces there. Once they do so, my knights will throw the gunpowder devices at them dealing devastating damage. Pieter's knights plus my knights plus the adventurers will then rush out of the village gates and kill capture or rout what remains of the enemy force."

"What will be the enticing bait then to get them to swarm? They are somewhat intelligent Monsters, so they will be hard to deceive." Said Pieter.

"We will be the enticing bait. The four of us: You, Hans, and Friedrich, and I will exit the gates together. The lizard-people will recognize you and me as the leaders of the forces inside, and will see this as a good opportunity to end the siege early by killing the enemy leadership. Hans will cast a 'bronze protective barrier' spell to protect us from the lizard people as they start to swarm. As Hans' 'bronze protective barrier' spell is about to disappear, Friedrich will cast one to protect us as they are swarming and protect us from the gunpowder explosions. If everything goes according to plan, the lizard-people who are swarming us will die in the explosions, and we will all be safe inside of the barriers." Mia said.

"If everything goes according to your plan that is, which is relying on a lot of things not going wrong. I suppose that it is the best plan that we have to protect the village though, so I'll go along with it despite the risks." Said the old lord of Verafgelegen.

"I will follow my Captain to the ends of the world if need be!" Said Hans.

"We all believe in you!" Said Friedrich.

"Alright. Once Ethan finishes those devices, it will be time to begin the counter-attacking phase of the defense of Verafgelegen." Said Mia.