chapter 25

Evergreen army camp, commander tent.

"My lord, I suggest that we take initiative to start a counter-invasion against the Rosen scum!" a hot head commanding officer spoke out to the other members of the meeting.

"I second to his suggestion." another officer agreed with the first.

"Fool, how are we going to keep the region political stability after the invasion without any proper preparation?!" Ralph voiced out in disagreement.

"We need to send the news to the duke as quickly as possible unless he gives us the go and invades signal, we will not go anywhere." he then added.

******

Rosen army camp, now mostly burned to a crisp.

Gilbert and the other commanding officers of their army were currently sitting out in the open while holding a meeting.

"Who the hell can tell me, what the hell is going on?!" Gilbert roared as he slammed his fist into the makeshift wooden table made using boxes, needless to say, the force of his fist made a hole on that box.

"General, it seen like the enemy has somehow successfully infiltrated our camp, laced our supplies and the "stone punishers" with flammable liquids and set them all ablaze, then somehow the fire manage spread onto the nearby tent- which set off a chain reaction." an officer stood up and reported.

Gilbert then looked at the ruins of which was formerly their camp.

"What the hell am I supposed to do now…" he lamented deep within his heart.

Then the next words of an officer brought him back to reality.

"General, do we still carry on with the invasion?" he asked Gilbert.

Gilbert just shook his head.

"No, the supplies that we carried ourselves have all been burned, and the "stone punishers" too were destroyed, to carry on with the invasion against the Evergreen is just pure suicidal," Gilbert explained.

"But we can send a messenger back to the nearest town or city and request more rations to be sent to us." the same officer suggested to Gilbert.

"How much time do you that it's going to take for the supply to reach us? With the enemy just ahead of us, do you think that they will allow that to happen? Also, the same group that was responsible for torching our camp can still come back and attack our supplier." Gilbert told him.

The officer stays silent after hearing Gilbert retort.

Gilbert couldn't help but let out a long sigh.

"How much supplies do we have left? How long can it last us?" Gilbert asked his logistic officers about their supplies issue.

"General, we roughly only had enough to feed our troops for the next three days, unless something could be done, such as scavenging and foraging what we could find nearby or send for an immediate request for more to send to us." the logistic officer answered him.

"There's no other option?" another man asked the logistics officer.

However, the logistic officer just remained silent.

"There is another option…" Gilbert suddenly spoke up, now it had gathered all their attention.

"But general!" the logistic officer sudden shouted out at him.

"We can always reduce the number of mouths we have to feed, while at the same time send the request for emergency rations," Gilbert told them.

"Such as...starting our assault now, while at the same time send out a courier to the nearest populations to request for emergency rations to be sent." Gilbert then added.

Soon, all the officers were enlightened by Gilbert idea.

"General, that is indeed a very wise decision! If we start our invasion now, we can kill our enemy and at the same time reduce our rations consumption due to the troops that die during the invasion!" they all seen to have agreed to Gilbert plan.

"Alright then, immediately send out the courier- and inform the army that we will start our attack now!" Gilbert shouted the order.

*****

Michael, a logistics officer of the Rosen army, has just witnessed his general, Gilbert casually sends their soldiers to their death.

He could not stand it, however, he had to follow along with the order since it was given directly by his superior, the general himself.

"Damn…." he curses as he walked along the path to find the courier, along the way Michael did not pay much attention and accidentally bumped into a knight and knocked him down- no this one look like a squire instead, who was carrying heavy boxes somewhere.

"My apology squire." Michael apologized to the squire because he knocked him down when he wasn't paying attention.

"Let me help you." Michael offered his help.

"Oh thank you!" the squire thanked him.

As Michael was helping the squire, he couldn't help but notice that this peculiar squire was quite young looking.

"So...what's your name squire and who do you serve?" Michael asked him.

"My name is Leonard...sadly the knight that I was assigned to...perished in the fire last night...the man name was Lombard," Leonard told Michael.

"Well, that's unfortunate...I hope the higher up will assign you another knight soon, and hopefully, it won't be one that would participate in the upcoming invasion." Michael told him.

"Why do you say that?" Leonard asked out of curiosity.

"Well, the one that will be sent out will likely be a sacrifice so that the rest could live for a while longer," Michael told him absentmindedly

"Huh? That's quite a ruthless move….reducing the number of mouths they have to feed, while at the same time reducing our army number." Leonard thought.

"You might be wondering what is going on right?" Michael asked Leonard.

"Yes, I'm quite curious sir, Is our rations run that low since the attack from last night?" Leonard continued on with questioning the man name Michael.

"Yes, last night attack was quite devastating indeed, almost everything was burned- but do not spread any rumor, the general order will likely fix our problem, do not try to lower our troop morales," Michael told him.

"Alright, this is all that was dropped, I'm going to head off to find a courier now, good luck kid." he patted Leonard on the shoulder and then headed down the path.

"Heh….like hell would I let all your plans come to pass…." Leonard grinned menacingly while continued on carrying off the box and headed in the opposite direction of Michael.