Fighting in the Compound

"Be careful when climbing the walls!" Orders came from down below. Soldiers were slowly climbing up on the makeshift ladders as they were ascending the walls.

Soon after the first soldiers climbed over the walls, the gate slowly started to open. Francis slowly rode his horse towards the door that just opened up. Numbers of soldiers passed him and rushed into the compound of the mansion. Entering through the gates, Francis saw that several guards lay dead on the floor. As the focus was on the main gate, the other gates were less heavily guarded.

If Francis would not have received the order from Edward, he would not have thought of attacking the walls. However, now they were able to breach the door and enter the compound, without much resistance.

"Form into formations!" The lieutenants started to order once they entered the compound. After reorganizing, they would slowly make their way towards the main gate to help and assist James' front.

As the soldiers slowly started to reorganize to move out in an orderly manner, heavy footsteps were heard. A large group of Herewealth soldiers made their way towards their location. It looked as if they came reinforcing the previously guarding soldiers. As they did not expect that the guards would gall so easily, the reinforcements did not number a high amount. The rough estimation was that close to thirty soldiers come as reinforcements.

"Don't falter! We outnumber them. We can easily push forward." The higher ranked soldiers in the army tried to increase the morale of the soldiers.

On the other side, the soldiers of the Herewealth family seemed less eager to engage. Instead they were more willing to stay and defend until the reinforcements arrived. Therefore, they sent out a few men to request some reinforcements.

"Well if they are willing to wait, let's give them something to do." Francis said in a cold voice. "Sent out the archers. Let them have some target practice. As for the rest, let them slowly form a line, we might have to defend as well." Francis ordered to one of his close retainers.

"Archers!" the order echoed throughout the field. Quickly the remaining archers took position and aimed their arrows towards the group that was defending the mansion. "Fire!" the order rang out. Directly followed, tens of arrows filled the skies as they were flying towards the Herewealth soldiers. Before the arrows even hit, the archers already loaded a second volley. "Keep on firing, until your arrows are no more." The final order was given to the archers.

The arrows hit the defending soldiers. As the shields were raised, the effect it had was not astonishing. However, there was still a handful that dropped down with the first volley. Fear slowly started to be seen in their eyes, as they frantically were looking at the lieutenants for a new order.

After the third volley had hit, around one third of the soldiers that came as reinforcements were no more. Not willing to wait anymore, they started slowly to march forward. Hitting a moving target would have a higher difficulty. At least that was the reason and idea behind the slow march towards Francis' men.

However, this did not stop the incoming arrow fires. Instead, the arrows even started to gain more accuracy as the distance started to close down.

Before long, another handful of soldiers dropped down. Not being able to hold out anymore, the Herewealth lieutenant gave the order to charge.

Seeing the soldiers run towards them, Francis gave the order to counter charge. Also the archers were ordered to stop firing.

As the two sides were rushing towards each other, it was clear that the side of Francis had a clear advantage. They outnumbered the enemies by a huge margin. Especially after the archers had skimmed a few of the soldiers.

The echoing sound of medaling clashing could be heard, as swords hit each other. Occasionally the metallic sparks could be notice. Before long, the Herewealth soldiers were starting to get surrounded.

The numbers of the defending soldiers were dropping faster with every second. To make it easier, the soldiers started to surround to group to attack from multiple flanks.

Before the defending soldiers were annihilated, loud footsteps could be heard from multiple locations.

'This does not look good.' Francis said to himself as he forced a smile. The incoming troops outnumbered the soldiers that they had. Moreover, as the positioning of his soldiers was not optimal, it would become a difficult task to defend.

Both from the back of the defending soldiers, as well as the flank of the Francis' army, new groups of soldiers started to pour in. There were the reinforcements that they received from the soldiers that had left in a hurry.

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