Western Front
After Destroying The Rebellion, Arden Ordered His Troop To Do Recruitment.
His Previous Troops Were Only A Quarter Than From The Start. He Knew, He Must Have A Bigger Army To Take Care Of More Enemy.
First, He THought No People Want To Join The Army Since More People Thought Of It As Slaughter Place.
Surprisingly, Many People Wanted To Join The Military, After Asking Several Question WithThe New Recruits.
Arden Found Out 4 Things
1. Since The Rebellion, They Have Benn Treated Like Nothing By Ambrosious And the Other Noble
2. Many People Wanted To Help Their Old Liege At War
3. Many Nobles Were Threatened By Ambrosious
4. Enemy Side Have Been Using Propaganda As Such "We Destroyed Enemy..."
They Ended Up Getting Many Nobles And People Joining Them.
Many Even Came From Various Town, Village And City To Join The Troops. Training Field Was Getting Filled And Fast!!
It Has Been A Week Since The Rebellion Have Is Destroyed And The Word Has Gotten To The King.
The King Called For Arden To Come To The Capital City As Fast As Possible To Assign Him His Next Task He Needed To Complete.
He Left Right Away To Answer The Call Of The King And Reached The Capital 5 Days.
Arden Thought, The Marching Speed Were Reduced Since There Are Much More People Than Before. Otherwise, They Could Have Reached The Capital In 4 Days.
After Reaching The Capital And Cleaned Theirself.
Arden And The Other Nobles Goes Right Away To The Thrones Room, Where The King Greeted Him With A Big Smile Over His Face.
"Arden, I'm Happy To Hear Your Victory In The North, I Believe You Can Now Go And Help Sir Aswick In The West And Then Sir Rakham And Sir Valencio On The South"
"Thank You, Your Majesty"
"A Loyal Subordinate Would Get Something In Return Wouldn't He? I Heard There Is A Noble That Die Without Any Heir And Owns The Land Near Your Land Called Kenselwey, If It Would Be Mixed With your Land's Name, It Would Be... Aselwey Is A Good Name. You Would Be Baron Of Aselwey From Now On"
"Thank You, Your Majesty"
"For The Other Will surely Get Something As Well!"
King Astria Began Listing All The Item They Would Get.
"And Now, 2 Days Later, You Will Reinforce The Western Front!"
All Nobles Left Their Room With Happy Face And Are Going To A Direction.
Arden Asked Them.
"Where Are You Guys Going?"
One Of Them Said.
"Where Else? The Sun Is Still High, We Gotta Train New Recruits. Let's Buy Beer At The Afternoon!"
They All Left For The Training Yard To The Troops, After That, They All Goes To The Pub Together And Drink Until They Are Drunk.
2 Days Later, They Are Starting Their Journey To Reinforce The Western Front.
After 3 Days Of Walking, They Have Reached The Appointed Position But Something Is Not Right.
Where Are Sir Aswick's Troops?
All The Other Nobles Is As Same As Arden, Confused.
They Decided To Continue, Maybe They Are Ahead? Maybe They Are Late? Maybe They Forgot About It?
Many Came Up With A Theory.
After Walking For A Day, They All Saw It.
Their Face Are Turning In Horror As Like They Have Seen Ghost.
Trail Of Battle, Many People Are Dead, The Troops Vomitted Because they Saw This Scene.
People Slashed In Half, Their Head Are Chopped Off Their Body.
Many Asked, Is This The War? Why Must This Happen And Such Thing?
But Arden Stay Strong. He Is Sure that Sir Aswick's Troop Still Exist, They Probably Running Away From Now.
So They Marched Forward, Imagining The Never Seen This Scene Before.
Arden Are Pretty Familiar With This Road, The Road To Castro, The Fortress In The Mountain, Fortified With Defensive Stuff.
They Arrived And What They Seen Made Their Jaw Dropped, It's Worse Than Before.
There Is People Hanging At The Poles With A Rope, And The Fortress It Self Is Mostly In Fire.
They Have No Place To Go Now, All Is Lost. Thought Arden.
But He Makes Sure To Go Inside Fortress, Avoiding Fire And Searching For A Clue.
He Remembered The Pub, He Stolen Once From The Pub And Discovered By Sir Aswick Himself.
Sir Aswick Bought Arden A Drink For That And Teach Him Why He Shouldn't Do That Again.
Arden Decided To Check The Pub And Saw Something In The Counter.
"Code Red... Code Red, We Are Now In The Cave At The West Of This Settlement. Please Go There As Fast As Possible"
Code Red Usually Meant Emergency In The Code Of The Knights. Arden Start Worrying About His Old Liege That Has Trained Him From A Squire To A Knight.
Meanwhile, Knowing That The West Of The Settlement Is Purely Forest. He Knew All 3000 Infantryman, 500 Cavalry, 600 Archers And 50 Knights, Which 39 Of Them Is Noble.
He Knew That They All Can't Fit Into The Forest, So He Took The Best Of The Best To The Forest And Walking Slowly.
Based On His Knowledge, Forest Is The Best Place To Do Ambushes And Making Noises Wasn't Going To Help Not Alarming The Enemy And Also Wild animals.
They Marched Slowly And Carefully And Then, They Saw The Cave. Somewhat Looked Like Not Having Any Fortification.
They Started Walking To The Cave, Near The Cave Is A Big Clearings That Looked Like Used To Built Tents, But Not Too Big.
Then An Arrow Came Out Of Nowhere, Fortunately, One Of The Soldier Which Is A Men At Arms Blocked The Arrow With His Shield.
All Of Them Are Now Aware And Then... Another Arrow Came Out, Followed By Another And Then Another.
It's Almost Like Raining But Fortunately, They Have Made A Formation That Can Defend Them From All The Arrows. It's Called the Turtle Formation.
And Then Someone Shouted Stop In A Loud Voice.
Almost Immediately, The Arrow Rains Stopped. But Wait, Arden Recognize That Man Voice.
He Told His Troops To Break The Turtle Formation And Then Saw Him.
Sir Aswick.
Both Of Them Looked To Each Other In Shock And Walked To Each Other.
Sir Aswick Took Arden To The Cave And Arden Something Amazing.
The Inside Of the Cave Has Been Turned Into A Small Office, Lighted By Some Sort Of Crystal That Produces Light.
Sir Aswick Explained To Arden What Happened.
"You Probably Passed The Battlefield. Both Side Has Lost Many Casualties But Their Army Is Too Big For Me To Fight. We Fought To The Bitter End And They Lost Their Morale And Routed. After That, We Captured Castro And Then, The Biggest Army I've Ever Seen Laid Siege To Us. In The End, They Almost Captured The Fortress But Need To Retreat, The Messages I Told My Soldier To Left Is A Trap."
Arden Told Aswick His Situation And That Reinforcement Have Came!