Somehow we managed to settle things properly. The guards were being treated for any injuries they may have sustained, thankfully it was nothing more than a few concussions and scrapes, which might have been the most impressive part about the whole thing.
“I get what you’re trying to say, but we really don’t have the manpower to add another guard at the gate during all times of the day. Not to mention that it still only solves one problem. You managed to take down all of the guards in the castle at once.”
We were all in the war room, where the officers were meeting, discussing how to improve the castle's defenses with Lu, who honestly looked more annoyed than anything. “If they weren’t all such lousy fighters this wouldn’t be a problem.” She grumbled.
“Right… But getting better at fighting isn’t that easy… We drill them every day, but that’s going to take some time.”
‘I feel that…’
Lu leaned over, resting her head on the table like a whiny kid. “This is so boring, can’t we just fight already, sure the guards suck but you guys can probably deal with everything they can’t right?”
I had been staying quiet, but I was curious, so I jumped up from the barrel I was sitting on and walked over, looking at the map that laid out the castle defenses. “No wonder it was so easy for her,” I muttered. ‘This layout is awful, and the positioning doesn’t make any sense either. I mean, I guess I can at least see the thinking behind it, but…’
“Lady Siyasavide, did you have something to add?”
‘Ok, that’s got to go, how was I supposed to say it again?’ “I give you permission to shorten my name, and don’t bother calling me a lady either.”
“As you wish.”
‘So this is that formal junk mom talked about… I hate it, it’s inefficient…’ I let out a small groan, trying not to dwell on it. “Right, well, let's start with the obvious problems first.”
I took another look at the map. “The archer, can you explain why he was stationed here? Or why there was only one…”
One of the other knights stepped forward and drew a line with his finger. “Going on foot he’s the farthest away from any intruder, that way he has the most time to get his shots off, it’s common practice to position that way.”
“That’s not the only reason though… Right?”
“Establishing consistent rules to follow makes it easier to react in different situations.”
‘I guess that’s not wrong… But, the rule has to be a bit more thought out than just that...’ I sighed, “Move him here, over the gate, this will add a third person on watch at the gate without requiring more manpower, it also drastically increases his field of view, you have to think of the area outside the castle as well. The reaction time would have been a lot faster if someone had seen Lu knock out the guards before we entered. And if they saw us approaching that might have made a difference as well.”
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I looked around the table, they seemed to be giving it some thought at least… But it was just a bunch of words coming from a child, even if I was a noble. “Well, honestly that’s not the most important thing, if we’re talking about mobilization, it was too unorganized, and a part of that problem was the layout of the castle. If the guards were able to respond at the same time and respond quickly, they would have at least been more effective.”
I looked back at the map and timed it with my memory of the battle. “From the way it went, I’d guess that there were three guards here in this room, 2 here, 2 in the armory, and another 3 in the bunk room. There isn’t a problem with them being in those rooms necessarily… But look, if they all try to cram through these corridors at the same time it’s just going to delay things further, this layout has too many turns as well, but again… There is a much larger problem, that being that all of the rooms are linear… What I mean is, if a guard is here in the armory, they have to walk through literally every other room before they get outside. Who designed this?”
They paused for a moment. “So… we should regulate which rooms the guards are allowed to be in?”
“No, Just break down this wall here, turn this window into a door here, and another exit to the outside here in this room.”
“That would take some serious renovations…”
“But she isn’t wrong…”
“Ok… do you have any other ideas?”
‘Well, I might as well tell them everything…’
“This staircase, keep a heavy barrel at the top of it that you can roll down if you need to stop someone from coming up it, or at least instruct the soldiers to wait at the top and surround the enemy from there, rather than funneling themselves into a series of one on one fights.”
‘What else was there…’ “Oh right, and this building here, why were there so many guards that came out of it behind us?”
“That’s the mess hall.”
‘Ah… It must be around lunchtime then.’ “Don’t have all the guards eat at once, I’m assuming the others that weren’t there finished eating and left early? Right now it’s probably just go and eat whenever right?”
“Yes, that’s most likely the case.”
“Stagger the meals so that they eat in two separate groups at designated times, that way half of them are ready right away if anything happens. There were plenty of guards just kind of hanging out, so take those guards and station them here and here on the walls with bows. Then have a group of two guards patrolling around the outside walls, being watched over by the new archers.”
They started to look a bit overwhelmed… “Anything else?...”
“Oh, just one more thing…”
They perked up. “Yes? What is it?”
“The guards tried to kill me, even after I dropped my weapon… Maybe… Address how to handle people surrendering in training. And if the current motto is to just execute them that’s stupid, taking prisoners is almost always better, that way you can extract information…“ ‘My personal feelings aside
Everyone in the room started to turn pale, but before things got too awkward a sudden loud crash echoed like a rumbling stone. I looked around and Sure enough, Lu was already gone. ‘What’s she doing now…’
We rushed downstairs to see Lu standing on a pile of rubble cracking her knuckles. “Oh Hey. These were the walls you wanted to get rid of, right sis?”
I slowly lifted a hand to my face and closed my eyes. ‘What on earth has gotten into her? I get that she probably misses mom… But I don’t get how that would correlate… Actually, you know, she’s probably always been like this…’ “Lu… Come here for a moment…”
She walked over, happy as could be until I flicked her in the forehead and her face suddenly went blank.
“Can you chill out, please? If you go around breaking stuff like that you could destabilize the whole building and it could fall on top of you! And what about all the guards you hurt breaking in here instead of just telling them who we were from the start!”
“I-I just…” Her sentence trailed off.
‘I guess she doesn’t have anything to say after all…’ My chest started to ache… ‘Did she even do anything wrong though… With how crazy everything is here… This might be the normal way of testing a castle's defenses…’ I sighed. “You were somehow careful enough not to seriously hurt anyone… But what if they were better fighters?”
She relaxed a bit, but I could still tell she was tense. “I’m confused, are you mad or not?”
I just rolled my eyes. “I’m done talking with the knights, you can spar with them now.”
Her face perked up again, and for a moment I could have sworn I saw her eyes literally sparkle, my vision once again continually adjusting like a twitchy muscle until it felt strained and my head started to heat up. ‘There’s no way this is just stress is it?’