While thousands of men were contesting for the fate of a city on the north and east plains, a small unit of purple cloaks travelled across the forest north of Mount Crownback.
For a week, a hundred elite king's guards harassed the Retribution army which came to besiege their homeland. They laid traps in the forest and on mountain tracks and ambushed any enemies who ventured into the forest for war supplies. From firewood to pillars to erect tents, arrows, siege engines, and food; everything about the siege camp was depending the forest. The King's guards' successful harassment stroke pain deep into the hearts of the besiegers. Finally, Templers were sent to take care of the problem. But all they found were remnants of the ambushers.
"Are we there yet?"
"No. But why do you keep asking? It has been twenty times today. You are not the only one. This is tiring for us too."
The team captain shut down Leila who had been constantly complaining the whole day.
After they left their ambush camp on Mount Crownback, the King's guards split into two teams: one headed to 'Centric' a village north of Crown City, and another team headed east.
For three days straight, they had been on the march, crossing through thick bushes and marsh, without stopping for long. They barely got enough sleep or rest to keep on standing on their feet.
They got a piece of secret information from their spies in Gambit that a supply convoy would be leaving the town and would pass through Centric the next day. The spy found out the convoy was deemed 'special' by the military. Before the convoy passed the village, the king's guards needed to take control of the village and set an ambush. Under the tight schedule, everyone was on edge.
Leila flopped down as soon as the captain called a break. She beat her calves which had turned into rocks. The trail was hard enough to travel itself, encountering wild beasts along the path added to the trouble. They even encountered a monster once.
It was a nightless fowl, a kind of monster that looked like a peacock except the colourful tail was a drawing painted by the death. The legend said anyone who encountered a nightless fowl needed to stay awake that night or would be visited by the death. It was torture for the squad who were exhausted by the tiring march. Leila and the group had to alert each other to not fall asleep.
Ernest handed over a pill to Leila. "A medicine. It will take your exhaustion away and bring you energy." It was half the size of her fist. A pungent smell was noticeable when she put it in her mouth. It scared her. There was no way Ernest would give her poison. But she was hesitant. Everything about it, from size to smell, scared her.
"What about you? You need it too. Here." She broke it with her hands and took the smaller portion for herself. She was proud of herself when she saw Ernest smiling ear to ear. She handled it smoothly.
The break was over after a short while. The medicine did show effects, a little bit. Her body felt lighter and the pain was away for a while but they came back soon. She felt wrong for taking only a small portion earlier. She regretted not taking it whole.
The path became smoother as they got out of the deep forest and approached the edge. The siege camp was far behind so they no longer needed to hide their presence. After getting on the road, they covered a lot of distance in one daylight. By the evening, they reached their destination.
Centric was once a bustling village, serving at the crossroads of Midland. When Leila and her group reached there, there was no sign of its once-status left. Most of its residents had taken refuge in Crown City as soon as they heard that the Crown had declared war against Temple. A few dispersed to other regions abandoning the village. It had become a barren land after being scorched by the Temple. The tavern and a few standing houses were being used by soldiers from Rode as a midway point for their supply lines.
A handful of soldiers were patrolling. Another handful were feeding the horses. They were shouting among themselves that they needed the horses to be ready soon. They sounded urgent. They were arguing; blaming each other for not readying the horses earlier.
The king's guards spread out using the abandoned broken houses as covers. They waited for the patrols to pass through them first, then followed them and took them out quietly. The soldiers were no match against the elite warriors of the King's guards. Sneakily, they closed into the tavern at the centre of the village where the enemy commander took it as his base.
Unlike the footsoldiers, the golden-cloaked commander was quite relaxed. He was drinking ale and singing gibberish. He was partying for not being sent to the frontline, enjoying his idle life. His enjoyment could be heard even from afar.
Outside the tavern, the compound had a couple of soldiers ordering the villagers to do chores for them.
The villagers who stayed behind in the village when everyone was leaving were mostly sick and old people yet younger, healthier soldiers were slaving them around. One soldier had a whip in his hand. He lashed strongly at an old man who dropped a box. The others watched it as a show. They belittled the old man's manhood for not being able to carry a box.
"Disgusting pigs. Don't they have parents?"
Leila was disgusted by the sight. If she had spells, she would have them being swallowed whole by the ground.
"We have them surrounded. Let's take them out."
A King's guard suggested to go in force. Leila stopped them. The villagers were near the enemies. If anything went wrong, the hostages would be caught up in the fight. She devised a plan.
A sweet mellow sound enshrouded the desolate village. The melodic voice made the soldiers turn their heads toward the source. They saw a beautiful girl and a young man coming in from afar. The blonde young man was carrying a huge load in his bag, his distorted smile verified how heavy the bag was. The brunette girl was singing a song while playing a fiddle. Her voice tasted like honey. With all the destructions of the dreadful war behind her, her angelic appearance was a complete opposite contrast.
The soldiers' eyes were glued to her. Even the golden cloak stopped his gibberish song and came out. They became sober due to her graceful entrance but fell back into more deeper spell.
Leila stopped in front of the commander and gave a graceful bow. She slightly tilted her head, showing her long slender neck. It drove the soldiers who had not seen a girl for a month mad.
"My brave sirs, I am Felona of Norland. I am a devotee of lord Mordu'. When I heard the brave men of Norg and Rode had marched to Midlake, I also decided to come here to serve my lord with my talent. It is a small role but if my music could relieve your pain and give some comfort to the brave warriors of my Lord in this deranged land, it would be my pleasure," told Leila.
She offered a performance outside the tavern to touch more sentimentality. She told Ernest to go with the villagers and load the cart. Without a hint of suspicion, the soldiers agreed as she said.
Leila hung a wreath on the tavern door and stood against it, blocking the entrance. When every soldier had come out to the front lawn, she started her dazzling performance.
She started it with an upbeat song. She hopped around and hyped them up. She fully entrapped their attention, captivating them with her charm. Meanwhile, not to raise any suspicion, Ernest pretended to be enjoying the song with the villagers while doing work at the same time.
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For the second song, Leila chose something sweeter. The audience felt like they were drowned in nectar. Leila took them to paradise, dissociating them from reality. Ernest took it as a chance and quietly led the villagers away from the tavern.
When Ernest and the villagers reached the safe distance, Leila entered the tavern as quickly as a rabbit and shut the door. She heard complaints mixed with confusion and expectation, but the next thing she heard was the sound of arrows breaking the wind and moans in pain.
With bows and arrows, the encompassing King's guards swiftly took out a good half of the enemies. The leftovers quickly surrendered when they noticed that they were ambushed and fully surrounded.
The king's guard exchanged uniforms with those of the surrendered soldiers. They cleared up the area, washing off blood from grasses and dirt, and hid the bodies. They impersonated the soldiers of Rode. They nervously waited for the supply convoy.
Soon they heard the sound of hoofs kicking the dirt, and the wheel crushing the grass. The convoy came in a rush. The convoy was made up of five carts, each cart was full of tightly sealed barrels. Eleven golden-cloaked horsemen accompanied the convoy as guardians.
"It is such a small supply convoy for an army of ten thousand men." Ernest gave a remark while he and Leila were secretly peeking outside through windows. The rest of the purple cloaks spread across the village and lay low until given a signal.
The head of the convoy asked the host to exchange all the horses in the convoy with the new ones in the village while they were refreshing themselves at the tavern. They were to head out immediately after they had finished.
Purple cloaks ambushed their unsuspecting golden counterparts. They took down golden cloaks quite easily due to their superior number and tactical advantages.
The captain of Golden Cloaks, however, put up a challenge. With a stomp, he turned the ground below the purple cloaks into a swamp. The chasing purple cloaks instantly became prey under one spell.
Before the golden-cloaked captain killed off his victims, Ernest shot him with an arrow. It missed as the enemy but it did disrupt him and stopped the swamp from growing deeper. If Ernest were a bit late, all the victims would have been swallowed whole.
Noticing that he was outnumbered, the golden-cloaked captain ran away instead of fighting. Ernest chased after him toward the outskirts.
"He is coming to you guys. Stop him!!" Ernest alerted his friends who were taking care of the horses. They let go of the horses so that the enemy captain couldn't use the horses to run away. His only escape means was taken away from him so the golden cloak faltered.
Ernest told him to surrender, promising to let him live. Even though there was only one enemy left, defeating a spell caster would not end without causality.
"You are surrounded. You won't escape. But you can still live. Look. We have detained some soldiers earlier and you will see none of them were treated badly. We can end this without bloodshed."
Ernest persuaded the enemy captain to take the easier option but the golden cloak didn't trust Ernest. The captain knew what his men did to the villagers of 'Centric'. He also recalled what he did to any captive he took in the past. Those horrible images haunted him stopping him from trusting Ernest or any of Ernest's words.
"Nonsense. I know you are laughing at me inside your mind, enjoying how you will torture me. I would rather die as a warrior than live as your pleasure toy."
The golden cloak captain reached his extreme decision. He asked for a blessing from Lord Mordu' as he dashed to a cart and broke a cargo barrel.
A swarm of black insects flew out of the broken barrel and attacked their nearest target, the golden cloak captain. They covered him whole til he became a shadow.
All the King's guards including Ernest watched the scene in awe. They were in a daze: why would the army of Rode be carrying insects as their cargo in a supply convoy?
"Get away!" Leila shouted to her friends as soon as she saw the dark figure from afar. "They are black death stingers."
Black dead stingers were a kind of monsters created by Mordu'. They were found only in the forests in the western mountains of Rode dukedom, not anywhere else. The size of a stinger was slightly bigger than the size of a queen bee while their queen was as big as the size of an adult fist. It could lay hundreds of eggs each day. Both the queen and workers possessed gruesome venom. When introduced into the skin, the venom would cause bulbous lesions below the skin which would gradually burst, spraying inky fluid. The inky fluid was a mixture of blood, tissues and fat of the victim dissolved by toxic venom. The victim would feel the immense pain of a burning and ripping sensation before death. Any who survived the toxin would die gradually due to infection. It was one of the most gruesome deaths one could face in Midland.
Leila warned her friends who were staring at the scene like idiots. The King's guards, who had been born and raised only at Midlake, had never heard about rare frightening monsters from Rode so they were shocked when they saw the golden cloak bulged like a balloon in front of them after being bitten.
While the King's guards were bewildered, the bulging body became bigger and bigger till it exploded, splashing dark squishy foul liquids to onlookers.
"What in hell! Get away, everyone! Get away!!" Leila shouted a retreat from the area. She told them to run without looking back. However, the brave mighty King's guards chose to fight instead. They fought the deathly monster bugs with their swords used like bats. Even those who were away from the scene joined in to fight the bugs together with their friends. But they soon noticed their fight was a futile one.
One by one, the king's guards also fell victim to black death stingers just like the golden-cloak captain.
Leila could no longer watch her friends dying in front of her. After months of staying together with the King's guards, she felt comradeship with them. She decided to join the fight. "Die together if that is my fate." She took a torch, and a jar of ale from the tavern and rushed to her friends. When she reached there, she spewed the alcohol over the torch with her mouth. A blast of flame appeared when droplets of alcohol flew across the torch fire, killing the bugs. The fire wasn't strong enough to burn the humans but it was enough to burn the wings of the bugs. Leila ultimately saved her friends.
"What did we just fight," mumbled Ernest bewilderedly. He dropped his sword and hugged Leila. "You saved us. I thought we were going to die. That golden cloak bastard. He knew what he was doing. He wanted us all dead together with him." Ernest and the King's guards finally understood why the enemy captain desperately opened that barrel.
They fell into his trap.
"What are these dangerous bugs doing inside that barrel anyway?" Ernest asked a question which none of them could answer. The captain told them to check the rest of the barrels. As they expected, they heard buzzing sound, clicking sound, and growling sound from the barrels. The Temple had put all kinds of monsters which could be fit into barrels.
"Why are they transporting monsters as war supplies?" One of the King's guards questioned to which the captain replied, "The important question is not why, but...where?"