Days passed as the mercenaries continued their journey to the eastern border of the kingdom. On the way they passed by many small towns and villages with forgettable names and the occasional traveler whether it be a merchant or a lone wayfarer travelling across the lands. Several times throughout the journey Arthur was able to forget that they were going to fight in a war with how peaceful and beautiful the scenery was.

But eventually they reached their destination and it was nothing like what they had seen throughout the rest of their travels. A small and hastily constructed fort with a simple central building and a set of short walls was on the edge of a stretch of flat land that was nothing but stone and snow. Over in the distance Arthur could see what looked to be a massive hole where the snow was pouring out from, the edges of the hole looked almost smooth from where he stood, like it was done with a precise machine. But he wasn’t here to look upon the Niveis Pass so instead he followed the rest of the Flock into the fort.

To the credit of whoever designed the fort it wasn’t quite as Arthur thought it was on the outside. The wall that surrounded the central building had two actual buildings on the north and southern sides that stretched out to somewhat block the advance. From what Arthur could tell these buildings were used as quarters for the soldiers stationed.

Lyra and Citro led the group into the central building and into what appeared to be a mess hall of sorts. The room was lined with tables and chairs along with a few but sparse decorative pieces throughout in the form of mounted animals, the tables and chairs were also a little unique with a style unknown to Arthur.

Someone dressed in a thick brown animal pelt like a cloak approached the group flanked by two soldiers wearing studded leather armor with a bit of chainmail as shown around their neck and head and a metal helmet that covered the top and sides of the head while leaving the face open enough to easily breath and see. They both were wielding halberds and Arthur spied a dagger strapped to each of their hips.

“Ah, Lady Vettonius, welcome to my humble fort. I believe we have some details we need to work out before we can get to work.” As the man got close Arthur noticed his unusually pale complexion and his unique accent unlike anyone else.

“Very well lead the way.” Lyra didn’t appear to be surprised by the man's complexion or accent and simply followed him to a stairway off to the side that led upwards to a second floor. Citro stayed behind, likely to keep everyone in line so nothing bad happens.

Around ten minutes later of waiting Lyra returned with the man. “I assure neither you nor your subordinates will have any difficulty finding your quarters.” The man handed Lyra a small slip of paper as she said which Lyra quickly looked over.

“No, I see no reason why we would. I will take them and show them right now if you don’t mind.” Lyra replied with a hint of smugness in her voice like she was proving something or avoiding something. The man showed no sign of this however and simply smiled and wished Lyra good luck with her duties.

Almost ignoring his words Lyra spun around and exited the building with each of her mercenaries behind her. They followed her to the southern building where they found that the quarters were actually located underground and were accessed by a central stairway that was guarded by around ten or so soldiers that also acted as a training room.

The quarters were more accurately described as small dormitories that were able to accommodate four people at a time with four beds and four small chests to store things inside of. The underground portion of the building was full of these dormitories and Lyra quickly began assigning people into them by name, thankfully each dorm had its own number curved into the stone that made up the underground.

Arthur, Calavia, Theo, and the woman Arthur was speaking with about the emperor before the journey who’s name was Maria were all assigned to dormitory number seventy six. Everyone aside from Arthur quickly put as much of their belongings into their chest as possible before waiting outside for Lyra’s commands.

This didn’t take long as most people didn’t bring anything more than just what they needed, so within a few minutes Lyra was able to give a quick briefing on the situation.

“Alright everyone, we have been ordered to take part in guarding the fort alongside the soldiers stationed here. You will all be participating alongside your dorm mates in groups of four and we will be rotating groups every eight hours so be sure that you get enough sleep before your shifts start. To start, those in dorms 70 to 72 will have the first shift, those in dorms 73 to 75 will take the next and 76 to 78 after that. Are there any questions?”

Lyra waited a moment but no one asked anything. “Very well. 70 to 72 follow Citro, he will explain what stations are available and what you will need to do for each.”

********

Over the course of a week Arthur slowly adapted to the new schedule but not without some difficulty. Spending the night which he was used to sleeping through awake and on guard was something that required several days to adapt to and even then it wasn't something that he enjoyed doing. Though he had to admit the view from atop the small two story tower that he was stationed at was quite nice, he was able to see well across the empty terrain and anything that might be sneaking across, but so far he hadn't seen anything.

The only other thing of interest was a fort belonging to the empire on the opposite side of the clearing. It looked to be around the same size with a similar layout, but past that he couldn’t make out anything else as the distance was far too vast.

But suddenly during his free time that he was using to practice his evocations Lyra suddenly called a group drill in the middle of the courtyard without any explanation. The drill consisted of marching and a layout for the group for it. The mages and archers were placed in the back while those with spears were placed in the very front, those with shorter melee weapons were placed just behind the spears. Then the drill moved onto tactics and those with short melee weapons practiced flanking an enemy group.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Arthur thought it was sudden and strange and he wasn’t the only one to think so as Calavia came to him around an hour after and a few hours before their shift. “What do you think that was about? Sounds like we should be expecting fighting to break out soon, I think it will be a siege. Though I'm not sure if it will be us or them doing it.”

“Maybe, though that will probably take a bit longer than just a week to happen. I would expect several smaller scrimmages to happen before anything like a siege happens.”

“Well obviously, but it feels like we are slowly moving towards that. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if we took part in an actual scrimmage within the week with how the overall atmosphere is and view of the war.” Calavia gestured to the various soldiers and mercenaries that were standing around talking like they were in a bar instead of a war.

“Then I guess we can just hope that things get settled before things get too serious.”

Moments after Arthur said that a loud bell could be heard from above ground, it was only ever rung in the event of an emergency. Everyone quickly grabbed their weapons and rushed up the stairs in a half organized fashion, Arthur and Calavia being two of those who were doing so. Outside the wall and in the field was a group of soldiers from the empire marching across the clearing that numbered around fifty, another group could also be seen exiting the fort and following their advance.

Quickly several groups organized containing all melee fighters with those with tower shields in the front and those with spears in the second row. The rest mostly contained shorter ranged melee weapons and were put in the back rows. All those that used either ranged weapons or magic were quickly ordered to the walls where they would provide cover fire.

Everyone watched in fear and worry as five groups of empire soldiers exited the fort all containing around fifty soldiers each. Slowly they all marched towards their wall and stopped just outside the range of both magic and archery. This gave everyone with decent eyesight an opportunity to look at the soldiers of the empire.

Each one wore identical studded leather armor with a layer of chainmail underneath specifically to cover the neck and other joints just like the kingdom's uniform. But there were two major differences, the first was the studded leather was dyed black like the flag of the empire, and the second was that each soldier wore a helmet that covered the face concealing it from the onlookers that created an uneasy atmosphere.

Something deep within Arthur stirred, a feeling of unease and worry squirmed around in his stomach like he ate something spoiled just by looking at these soldiers, these identical and unmoving empire soldiers. ‘Gods, there is absolutely nothing about any of them that could be used to differentiate them. They have the same armor and even look to be around the same height, even dwarves have more height variation then these soldiers do.’

Everyone watched with growing worry as the uniform empire soldiers slowly amassed themselves just out of range. As this happened a few notable individuals became more noticeable, specifically the archers that were armed with longbows in the back rows of a few of the formations, and the mages which were dressed in robes and hoods that covered their heads and faces who carried identical wooden staves. It was like the army was made up of copies of three or so people with just how alike each soldier was, it was almost sickening.

Then as sudden as the mobilization the empire’s forces began their march towards the kingdom's fort. All those with ranged weapons whether it be magic or arrows unleashed their attacks almost simultaneously. The empire’s forces just raised their shields and blocked whatever they could, the few that were wounded just shrugged off their injuries and the fewer that were downed by their wounds were just trampled over by their comrades.

Quickly a messy melee broke out as the quickly assembled kingdom soldiers and mercenaries tried their best to push the empire back, but all they achieved was a stalemate with the only advantage of their allies on the wall and towers providing cover fire.

Things were slowly starting to look as if the kingdom would slowly come out on top, at least until the mages of the empire started taking part in the fighting. The ten or so mages that could be seen amassed into a lone group in the middle of all the other formations and began casting spells, the ones in the front row casted defensive alteration spells that block both physical and magic attacks. Those in the second row casted offensive spells that they used to open fire upon the kingdom's forces standing on the walls and towers.

The massive balls of fire and icicle shards that impacted the fortifications of the fort were sudden and powerful causing everyone who survived the impact of any of the spells to be knocked off their feet and be severely wounded. Arthur and his dorm mates would have also shared this fate if Arthur didn’t bring his mage staff with him and casted the force wall spell that it contained. The massive fireball that impacted the force wall caused it to shatter like glass, but thankfully it absorbed most of the impact leaving just a few burns.

“That is tier 5 magic! We don’t stand a chance if we stay here!” Calavia shouted, her voice almost drowned out by all the noise that surrounded them.

“What can we do? That last attack used up half of the energy from my staff, I don’t think it will survive another!” Arthur shouted back, small parts of his hair singed as well as his facial hair making him look like he picked a fight with a dragon and lost terribly.

“If we stay here we will die! Anywhere is better than right here, and we can tell the rest of the kingdom what has happened if we escape now instead of dying with everyone else.” Just as Calavia finished speaking the top of the closest tower to their left was suddenly engulfed in flames and broke off falling backwards. The several archers screaming as they fell with the tower to what was likely their deaths.

“We have to leave now!” Calavia shouted one last time, and just as Arthur was about to agree lightning suddenly struck at the ten mages huddled together breaking apart their own alteration shield like it was glass. Several soldiers and mercenaries including Arthur and Calavia looked up to the top of the central building where the lightning originated from.

Up on the very top they could see the strange man who first greeted Lyra when they first arrived at the fort. He still wore his animal pelt like a cloak and in his hands was an ancient looking wooden staff, from a distance nobody could make out any details but all of the mages in the area could feel the power the staff had.

The man raised the staff up and began chanting something unintelligible while the empire’s mages began to quickly try and recast their alteration shield, but within thirty second the man was dome while they were only around a third of the way. Another bolt of lightning from the very tip of the ancient staff struck the very center of the mages killing several and launching their bodies from sheer impact alone.

With this breathing room the kingdom’s mages and archers were able to focus on assisting their allies in the messy melee and slowly turn the tables.