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>
> ‘The best and prettier attend the tourneys.
>
> The bold follow the Raven up the mountain and grab Luthos by the balls.
>
> Then rip everything right off.’
>
> -
>
> Sir Walter Roon.
>
> A knight in the order of Tyeus.
>
> Born 151 NC in Forestfort, fell in 189 NC during the battle of the ‘Endless Dunes’ blocking Hi Yil’s reinforcing guards from relieving Kuntur Tsuparin.
>
>
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Sir Gust De Weer,
Raven of Dawn
Sheep, Dogs & Tyeusfort
Part IV
-Second shot-
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> Gallant Dogs
>
> (Banner -an ‘aroused’ black Molossus war dog)
>
> (Dictums – ‘Call the dogs’, ‘Do it for me Pretty’, ‘Pull it Rick’, ‘Bite their ankles off’ ‘Send for Liko’ amongst others)
>
> *Command structure (192 NC)
>
>
>
> Gold Badge (the commitee)
>
> (Company’s Staff members – by seniority)
>
> Captain Dante Blackwood (KIA 189 Hellfort)
>
> Captain Ottis (KIA 190 Eikenport)
>
> Captain Whisper ‘Pretty’ Jinx (not with unit after 190)
>
> ‘Mighty’ Soren (not with unit after 190)
>
> Victor ‘Pale’ Hook (KIA 189 Teid River)
>
> Zola (KIA 190 aboard the Marquette)
>
> Kirk and Cassara (The twins- KIA 188 in Oakenfalls)
>
> (Commandant) Captain Rollon Martel
>
> ‘Purse Officer’ Crafton
>
> ‘The Kid’ Liko (later sergeant of First Office)
>
> Arguen Garth Aniculo (Rumored)
>
> -
>
>
>
> Old Dogs –
>
> 350 soldiers (veteran armoured fighters)
>
> First Sergeant Flavius Super
>
> Second Sergeant Lu Douc-Re
>
>
>
> Gold Contract –
>
> 220 soldiers (ex-300 company members)
>
> Captain Nathaniel Wyncall
>
> Sergeant Bardo Masin
>
>
>
> + The Grunts (Spear infantry)
>
> Around 400 (newly recruited soldiers)
>
>
>
> Engineers
>
> (With the supply train)
>
> Around a 100 (+ Six Scorpios, 2 Heavy Catapults)
>
> Sergeant (of Engineers) Ricard White
>
> Second (Engineer) Rick Willian
>
> Dottore Dalai-Tue
>
>
>
> *The company was stationed permanently in the Garth District of Eikenport in the ‘Home’, but had business interests in other districts and ports. Later it expanded in several cities and had recruiting agents in most Guild headquarters. According to the ‘ledger’ the Mercenary Guild’s records in Castalor, the Dogs reached the status of being ‘the richest’ company in the realm around 193 (toppling the Iron Fists of Parmaport) and never lost it. Usually numbered around a thousand soldiers.
>
> 2) Rollon Martel was the last member to receive the original golden badge as it was replaced with the now common silver ‘dog pendant’ after 193 NC.
>
> 3) All original members were portrayed in commissioned paintings inside the commander’s office in the headquarters’ building, what Martel later turned into the company’s museum hall to generate revenue, moving the headquarters’ into the Watchtower after the Dogs ‘camp’ expanded outside its walls.
[https://i.postimg.cc/4N0q2Lxs/Tyeusfort.jpg]
“What did Robert say?” Sir Gust asked the approaching Sir Jan Reuten, his eyes on the marching ‘raiders’. The four hundred strong unit remaining unruly three weeks into their training, almost two months after they had agreed to Dawson’s suggestion.
“Eh, didn’t mention the matter of the Princess,” Jan replied coming to stand next to him in front of the Mastaba square. Gust preferred to train Van Fleet’s recruits there, as it was the better administered part of the city, if you didn’t want to conduct your business watched by the Cofols and Gust didn’t.
Allies or not.
“The reason?”
“He’s cornered.”
“What did Captain De Moss write?” Gust asked as they had sent missives to their own troops stationed with Sir Robert’s First Foot as well.
“Read it for yourself,” Jan replied and gave him the small scroll his crows had brought back.
Gust read it quickly and then returned it to the knight.
“Scouts sighted down the Merchant Path from the guards at Devil’s Cove,” Gust murmured. “You think they managed to rebuild Hi Yil?”
“They have to,” Jan replied. “It’s quite the distance to send an army without it. Though I don’t believe they actually restored the castle. More like opened the wells again.”
“Who did? Moss says the Prince Heir is dead,” Gust grunted.
“A Cofol from Rida reported that. The fat bastard could have been lying,” Jan replied. “Or this is Atpa’s doing.”
That was Sahand’s younger brother and commander of Khan’s Desert Army.
“Will Robert retreat?” Gust asked Jan and the knight shrugged his shoulders.
“Your proposal is the one freeing him up. Will he trust you to be there?”
It was a rhetorical query.
“He would,” Gust replied just the same.
“What’s with the statue? The Princess brought a lot of flowers there,” Jan asked a moment later whilst Gust was considering the implications of a second front opening.
“Mayor Marbet commissioned it. It was Clint’s idea, apparently they saved the District and the Princess,” Gust grunted clenching his fists.
“You don’t actually think our Princess had a thing for a pirate? Why, then there’s the dwarf,” Jan probed curious. “Hey, I’ll just take over here,” he said to a marching away Gust’s back.
The fuming knight didn’t even hear him.
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“Sir Gust,” the painted eunuch said getting up from his chair. “The Princess is resting.”
Gust stared at the door to Elsanne’s bedroom, but before he could reply the door swung open and the princess appeared.
“I’ll see him Jasi,” she said regally, wearing a pair of loose Cofol-type pants with a long shirt. Gust just couldn’t accept her clothing experimentations, even if the absence of a royal tailor justified it. Elsanne had taken a liking to Eplas fashion and had created a blend incorporating with it the male garbs the pirates used, ridiculous hats included.
Gust burst inside her bedroom, although apparently it belonged to the Cofol wife of the dude running Goras and paused unsure at the dainty colorful interior.
“Just use that stool,” Elsanne said, squeezing past him and smelling of something flowery.
“I’ll stand,” Gust rustled. It wasn’t pride but caution, the stool was tiny and made of some white wood too thin to support his frame and heavy plate armour.
Elsanne paused and turned around to stare at him. “Then I’ll stand as well,” she taunted.
“Hm.”
“I have the coin gathered,” the princess said. “If that’s what you came to complain about.”
“I didn’t,” Gust started then stopped. Elsanne blinked slowly, her stare hypnotic and not innocent at all. Where was that girl?
What are you doing? He admonished himself. Are you trying to make a fool of yourself?
“Robert will come out of Tirifort and march towards the junction,” Gust rustled.
“Will he bend the knee?” Elsanne probed with a nod and a glance at the large mirror.
“I thought it better not to argue politics amidst a military operation,” Gust replied and glanced at the mirror as well, the princess showing him her tongue mockingly in the polished surface. “Ahm, that… and he avoided mentioning the matter,” Gust stumbled through his words not expecting the teasing grimace.
“Are my raiders trained?” Elsanne asked him pleased.
“The… raiders, are still learning to march in a coherent manner.”
“Is this important? Marching,” Elsanne asked smiling and Gust scrunched his jaw not liking her teasing tone.
“They need to keep up with the rest of us,” he explained and clenched his fists even more.
“Can you relax a bit?” the princess asked him.
“I’m trying to give report to your grace,” Gust croaked. “You’re not making it easy.”
Elsanne stood back with a pout. “We’re not in the palace Gust,” she told him. “I appreciate your love of decorum, but I… don’t you think we’re past all this?”
He never liked innuendos.
“I’m sorry you’re seeing it that way.”
“It’s a good thing,” Elsanne sighed. “I trust your judgement on these matters. Eh, politics I can do a better job I think,” she eyed him knowingly and Gust grimaced unsure.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he reluctantly admitted.
Elsanne chuckled. “Yes princess. You are doing a fantastic job. It’s a jest, you don’t have to say it, if you don’t believe it.”
“I don’t,” Gust confessed a bit relieved he didn’t have to lie and Elsanne started laughing even more, which was infuriating, but also extremely pleasing to witness.
The door opened abruptly, Jasi popped his head in checked everything was fine and then announced in an incredulous voice.
“Leona Vale is here.”
“She’s drunk?” Elsanne probed still chuckling, tears in her eyes.
Gust frowned.
“She isn’t,” Jasi replied. “It’s difficult to fathom. You can come inside,” he told the unseen pirate captain.
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Gust crumpled his face in a grimace of disbelief, the half-breed female twirling her hat on an index finger finishing her lengthy incoherent verbal diarrhea.
“Savvy?” Leona asked with a cat’s grin, waggling her eyebrows.
“What in allgods did she just say?” Gust grunted glaring at the flamboyant pirate captain.
“Why use words repeatedly,” Leona responded with a droll gliding on the floor to stop under his chin, dark-emerald eyes gleaming on the light caramel skin. “When we can indulge ourselves in silent endless pleasure?”
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Put her down,” Elsanne urged him and Gust realized he’d grabbed a strangling Leona by the throat. “I can understand her ramblings.”
Gust let her go and Leona twirled around theatrically, afore replying with a hushed croak.
“I feel sufficiently squeezed good sir—”
“Leona Vale!” Elsanne snapped cutting her off.
“Elsanne, our Ann of the Burrows,” Leona retorted readily in a hoarse voice. “Why leave poor Leo out?”
“You ask us to forget about the treasure,” Elsanne hissed, steering the conversation back on track. Gust admired the princess stubbornness to make sense of their visitor, but the woman was clearly deranged on top of depraved.
“I did and I shall again repeat it,” Leona confessed. “Let not my drunken ramblings steer you astray.”
“Aha!” Gust grunted at her admission.
“She’s lying,” Elsanne said with a snort. “Dawson was liverier than I ever remembered him. He’d a reason for it right Leona?”
“Dawson is an old prick—”
“Who’s Eight?” Elsanne asked, not allowing her to finish. Leona sighed deeply and looked about the bedroom. Walked at the edge of the bed and jumped on it. Bounced a couple of times as if to check its sturdiness and then hunched between her legs abruptly to look under it. She came up with a bottle of Flauegran Elsanne had hidden in her previous stay, months in the past.
Leona uncorked the bottle and poured the mixture down her throat, afore Elsanne could warn her. She grimaced at the aftertaste and blinked once flustered.
“Can’t really see what’s so special about it,” Leona croaked gawking, one eye more enlarged than the other. “I mean I had better wine in some pretty shady venues, not all of ‘em taverns.”
“She’s never going to answer,” Gust growled.
“Eight and Garth both know about the treasure,” Leona told them and took another swipe at the bottle just to make sure. “They expect a cut.”
“Who’s—” Elsanne tried to ask but Leona stopped her raising her index finger. Her hand shaking either from nerves or severe blood poisoning. Gust was on the fence about it.
“A big cut. So I need to get everything out of mine. Garth might negotiate, but I wouldn’t count on it,” Leona continued. “So me telling you about it, is potentially… deadly for poor me.”
“Who cares about—?” Gust snapped, but Elsanne stopped him putting a small hand on his chest.
“What if they don’t know?” she asked Leona.
“Oh, they’ll know alright.”
“Would Dawson back away?”
“No. You can’t keep ‘Yellow’ away from gold,” Leona replied sadly. “It will take a miracle, or the gallows.”
“What’s the gold for?” Elsanne asked.
Leona shrugged her shoulders. “Nobody knows, but the armored wagons have been coming for a couple of years at least. The ship is ready though. Fully built.”
“How do you know?”
“I told ye, people are monitoring it for years,” Leona explained and put the bottle down with a shiver. “By the harlot’s tits, those crooks at Flauegran sell vinegar for wine ‘jade eyes’. Abrakas takes them!”
Blood poisoning, Gust decided and watched the captain collapse backwards on the bed.
Which was pretty lucky for her all things considered.
“Jasi!” Elsanne yelled and the eunuch cracked the door open as if he had his ear on it.
“Yes mistress?”
“Call the camp’s Dottore,” Elsanne told him calmly.
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“OLD DOGS MOVE FORWARD!” Sergeant Fuller bellowed two weeks later and the first rows of soldiers rolled down the street towards the west gates. Captain Wyncall giving the same command to his own troops.
Sir Jan approached Gust and Klaas, with Solt the Cofol squire in tow, a couple of knights following behind them. Sir Wim Kramer, of Castalor and Koen Blooten, of Toefort. The latter followed by a hard-faced squire with a shaved head. Gust kept his distance from the knights of Toe peninsula since they were his uncle’s men mostly, but knew all of them by now.
“Who’s the squire?” He asked the veteran knight and Jan raised a brow turning his head to eye Sir Blooten.
“Late Sir Walter’s squire,” the knight replied, long white beard sprouting down his square jaw. “Lost mine in the desert. Goes by the name of Axel Mudriver.”
“You’re a bit long in the tooth to squire still,” Gust said to the sober man. “Are ye good wit weapons and horse?”
“He’s good,” Sir Blooten replied. “His blood isn’t, aye.”
Gust needed more heavy cavalry to replenish his losses and Sir Walter of Forestfort had been a solid knight. His poor horse had carried him through the early morning charge on Kuntur’s camp. “You’re from Forestfort?” he asked the silent man, not much younger than him really.
“By the river,” the Issir rustled through his teeth. “Have whore blood on my mother’s side milord.”
“What of yer father?” Gust asked him with a grimace.
“The river is difficult to visit,” Axel replied looking at him intently. “So he didn’t.”
“That’s enough Axel,” Sir Blooten told him gruffly. “Get back wit the others.”
“So regarding the gold,” Sir Jan said breaking the awkward moment. The Gallant Dogs soldiers marching slowly outside of the City gates. “This might well be Antoon’s war loan,” the knight told him and Gust nodded his eyes following the galloping towards the other riders squire. Sir Evert Pek making the opposite journey to approach them.
“Hmm,” Gust grunted and reached for the reins Klaas held for him. “Let’s talk about things within our reach Sir Jan.”
“Beautifully phrased Sir Gust,” Jan agreed with a punch worthy smile. “Shall we inform the ‘raiders’ of their duties?”
“We shall,” Gust rustled and climbed on his horse. A fresh one, he hadn’t yet named and knowing him, he probably wouldn’t.
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“Harold ‘Doubloon’!” Gust barked at the leader of the raiders. One would’ve been correct to mistake them for part of the crowd that had gathered to watch the mercenaries depart and they were a big ole crowd alright. “GET THEM IN LINE!”
“Right away chief,” Harold replied, clad in new mail and sporting two shields, one on his back and the other hanging from his left arm. “Confident Bolton! Be so kind to get the broth’rs standing pretty as we have talked about for the chief.”
“YOU ARE MARCHING AFTER THE DOGS!” Gust roared besides himself, his horse turning this way and that until he slapped it once upside the head to calm down.
“You heard the man!” Harold barked at the stunned slow moving raiders. “Bolton yer makin’ me look bad here matey!”
“Don’t worry chief,” a confident Bolton replied, the raider's officer carrying a large cleaver, the blade turning hook-like at the tip. “We be marching in due time. Ye just let the lads find their legs first.”
“HAROLD!” Gust boomed hoarsely and spotted the princess coming out of the crowd on Fiend, waving her hands at the crowd that was slow to recognize her because of the large hat covering her head, shading her face. Carter and ‘Bronchitis’ Sam accompanying the small bodied royal brood closely.
“Sir Gust, are we to leave with the supply train?” Elsanne asked smiling at the knights standing behind him on their horses. “Gentlemen, good knights, it is a fine morning yes?”
“It is your grace,” Sir Wim Kramer said.
“Everything ready Sir Gust?” Elsanne asked turning to him. Gust murmured irate, kicked his legs and send his horse near Harold and Bolton.
“Listen up you miserable rascals!” He barked with Bolton nodding him along despite Gust addressing everyone present the officers included. “This here lady is the Princess of Kaltha,” Elsanne raised her arm to greet the men much to their delight.
“That’s Anne?” a pirate said, sole eye gleaming.
“She looks a bit small,” another commented truthfully.
“Nicely proportioned,” added a third equally truthful.
“You’ll stick to her like a bad rash!” Gust growled to cut through their nonsense. “You’re not to let anyone untoward approach her, let alone touch a hair on her head! Your first and foremost duty is to protect her with your life! She moves, you move. She runs, you run. She walks through fire, you run like mad to open the fucking way! IS THIS CLEAR ENOUGH?”
The silence following his words deafening.
“My raiders,” Elsanne started warmly and brought her warhorse near his. “My Eagles. I salute you all!”
What in allgods name is she—?
The raiders roared in unison, some whistling, others yelping in pain, or excitement and a couple at the front sobbing uncontrollably.
“March after the Dogs ‘Fair’ Anne?” Harold asked with a pleased smile and Elsanne nodded.
“Follow after me mister Doubloon,” she said and turned Fiend around clumsily, but raising a taunting brow at the seething Sir Gust when she did. “I’ll need a knight with my group to keep me apprised of the state of affairs,” Elsanne told him with a mysterious smile.
“Ahm,” Gust murmured unsure rubbing his face with a gloved hand.
“I meant you Sir Gust,” Elsanne said. “It’s a big journey, I’d like your company.”
“Of course,” Gust croaked, blood rushing on his face at the chuckles heard around the square. The acoustics of the darn place excellent.
“What was it?” Elsanne whispered a moment later that wicked smile still on her lips. Her jade eyes glowing with excitement. She looked about them, the pirates singing ‘Fair Anne’ of the Scalding Seas behind them drowning all other sounds. “Like a bad rash? Why, you have a dirty mouth Gust. Any more… surprises I wonder?”
Gust frowned unsure where she was going with this and having been burned from her in the past, he decided to solve the problem with a solemn grunt.
“Uhm.”
> In early fall, year of the new calendar 191, the Gallant Dogs left Eikenport and marched up the north banks of the river Felmond avoiding Ninthalor’s Bridge and the caravan road coming down the other side of the river. They picked the straighter, but un-trotted path to avoid getting bogged down on the road and keep the news from spreading.
>
> The Gallant Dogs had been hired from Princess Elsanne to assist Sir Gust’s campaign against prince Radin’s force stationed near or in Tyeusfort. The princess was followed for the first time by Anne’s Raiders, a four hundred strong unit acting as her bodyguards. The raiders and the knights following Sir Gust forming her close inner circle hence be known as Queen’s Own.
>
> Amongst them Sir Evert Pek of Pastelor, Sir Wim Kramer of Castalor, Sir Jan Reuten of Colle and Sir Koen Blooten of Toefort. Taking stock that Sir Gust had lost Sir Mael Bolte and Sir Walter Roon earlier in the campaign one could say the ‘Raven of Dawn’ had taken the best of Scaldingport with him.
>
> He would partially be wrong as those following him on Eplas did it out of guts first and a thirst for adventure a close second. ‘The best and prettier attend the tourneys’, was late Sir Walter’s motto. ‘The bold follow the Raven up the mountain’. The rest of the dictum too vulgar to repeat here.
>
>
Gust had never been so worn out during a march. While the almost two month slog was blessed with fine weather for the season, having to play three roles across their army’s long marching lines was something he hadn’t experienced before.
Guarded and professional with the mercenaries. Relaxed and at ease amongst his knights and a blend of furious bewilderment near the Princess entourage.
“Eh,” Gust grunted staring at the brick walls of Tyeusfort ending where the sprawling city called the South Market started. “These are some tall walls.”
“Can you send your raven to spy for us?” Elsanne asked face flushed, her eyes staring at Bugs eating a raw fish he’d plucked out of the river.
“BEGONE RIPE TITS!” the raven bellowed eyeing her angrily.
“Goodness me!” Elsanne gasped recoiling. “Who taught him such filth Sir Gust?” she asked accusingly, her skin turning a darker shade of chocolate.
Elsanne is stunning to guise from afar, breathtakingly gorgeous from up close, a numb Gust thought and it had nothing to do with sleeping by the river.
Eh.
“It’s a raven. He taught himself,” Gust rustled and teared his gaze away to perceive Klaas eavesdropping on Martel’s engineers discuss the fort’s defenses. “Bugs came to Scaldingport when Ruud was in me grandmother’s belly. He could speak aplenty when I found him.”
“When was that?” Elsanne asked waving her hands manically to keep a buzzing river bug away.
“I was six,” Gust told her reminiscing.
Twenty five years to the day.
“Out looking for ravens?”
“He was stealing chicken,” Gust replied. “Went up there to put a stop to that.”
“Up there? Where?”
“Blackcrow tower. The last floor had no staircase then.”
Treacherous beams to climb on.
Good exercise for the arms.
“Did you? Stop it?” Elsanne queried curious.
Gust showed her a deep scar on this forehead near his hairline.
Bugs had almost cracked his skull with his steel-like beak.
“Ouch,” Elsanne commented and glared back at the big bird.
“I didn’t, but we came to an understanding,” Gust replied simply and the raven half-chuckled half-croaked, bloody beak staying open to keep the call going, coal black eyes flooded with malevolence, which in turn agitated the crows populating the nearby supply train.
The morning filled with angry calls of protestation…
CAW
CAAWW
"ENOUGH!"
Until the huge raven put a stop to it that is.
Bugs was prone to showing off for the pretty ladies.
The last part Gust was sure he’d gotten from his father.
The pretty part he had added himself for the occasion.
The occasion being himself realizing, it wasn’t fear that made him all clumsy around her, since he’d first seen the princess standing next to her brother.
It was love.
A feeling Gust hadn’t really experienced growing up in Ruud’s gloomy court and it took him years to understand it for what it was.
It scared the brave knight shitless.
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Martel slapped his hands to get the circulation going early the next morning. Sleeping near the river could freeze up the muscles.
“Right,” he said and glanced at the mercenary columns taking their places at a safe distance from the walls of Tyeusfort, afore returning his eyes on the maps. The field table’s legs lodged in the soft ground, five meters behind the two large catapults. The engineers had worked all night to reassemble the parts after getting them out of the wagons. The supply train three hundred meters behind the main body. “Let’s give this plan another go, afore our good knights depart.”
Sergeant White, who was responsible for the war machines, stepped forward.
“Everything is ready chief,” he said without hesitation. “The distance calculated with a runner. The catapults can fire right away. The Scorpios will have to approach a bit more.”
“How much?” Martel asked with a worried frown seeing the loaded catapults.
“Well,” the sergeant thought about it, eyes scanning the terrain and the manned walls about two hundred meters from them. “Fifty meters, a bit more I’d reckon.”
“That’s a lot of meters sergeant!”
“True, but we don’t have another runner chief,” White yielded sadly.
“What happened to the first one?” Martel grunted and the sergeant pointed at a bloody corpse pierced by multiple arrows about halfway to the walls.
“Will the catapults reach the walls from here?” Gust asked eager to get going, as the knights and men-at-arms had already assembled to ride towards Radin’s Depot, a week away.
“A demonstration,” White agreed and turned around.
“No, it was a question,” Gust grunted.
“Sergeant,” Martel warned his subordinate.
“The lever Rick!” White roared enthusiastically.
Rick raising his head and looking back unsure.
“Pull it god darn it! NOW!” White barked, Martel bodying the sergeant to stop him.
“Belay that order Rick!” the commandant bellowed taking his subordinate to the ground under him, but it was too late.
The arm snapped and the heavy boulder went flying towards the walls of Tyeusfort catching everyone by surprise. The soldiers still out of position, the knights watching from the road three hundred meters away, the supply train and the raiders watching from behind them and even the defenders looking at them from up on the walls.
The rock flew high, arched sharply and then plunged straight for the ten-meter tall wall next to the east gates striking its base with a heavy thud. It raised a lot of dust and gotten a scared prolonged yelp out of the defending Cofols.
“AAAHH!”
A mostly analogous cry from the attackers.
“AAWWW!”
A moment of numbness following when everyone realized the walls remained unharmed.
“Well,” Gust commented, not impressed and Martel got up slowly from the ground, White standing up from under him covered in mud, but ogling his eyes manically.
“AGAIN! PULL THE OTHER!” The sergeant bellowed afore anyone could stop him and Rick sprinted the small distance, boots gliding on the morning thaw and slapped down the other.
CLANK!
WHAM!
The second shot hitting the brick walls a meter higher and creating a seemingly unassuming crack that crept at start then raced abruptly upwards, all the way to the parapets.
The crack grew, a thunderous rumbling was heard and then a part of the wall facing them crumbled and collapsed with an epic proportions earth-shaking racket, leaving a ten meter wide gap behind a mountain of debris.
And a gigantic dust cloud.
“WATER FUCKIN’ MELON!” Bugs croaked in shock and flew away.
Sergeant White, the only man still having his wits about him, turned to a smirking Rick and his crew and roared like a crazy person at the top of his lungs to snap them out of their joyful trance.
“QUICK YE CUNTS! RELOAD!”
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“Aren’t they going to charge?” Sir Jan asked, when Sir Gust rode near the knights waiting for him twenty minutes later.
“They are mercenaries,” Gust replied gruffly and raised his arm at the tiny princess out in the distance waving her arms at them, whilst standing precariously on top of her saddle. “They’ll flatten the terrain afore risking their necks. That’s our job,” he added and slapped his face cover down.
Risking our necks was his meaning.
“I’ve sent a scout up ahead,” Sir Jan informed him. “The first sign of Cofols he rides back and brings them to us. A good thing, if they are manageable in numbers.”
Not so much if they are not was what the knight from Colle had left unsaid.
While they did find Cofols near Radin’s Depot at the junction, the man himself wasn’t there.