72 - Trapped Part Four

Brandon looks up with a shock when there is a loud knock on the door of his office.

"Come in!" He shouts surly.

A soldier comes in and immediately stands at attention and looks straight ahead.

"Captain, I come to report to you that the roof of the arsenal has collapsed."

Brandon has to blink for a moment before he has processed that information.

"The roof has collapsed? How did that happen? These buildings have been standing for centuries."

"We don't know yet, Captain. There was a squad busy greasing and sharpening the older weapons. My sergeant is now looking to see if they noticed anything, at least before they got the ceiling on their heads." For a moment, the soldier seems to be unable to hold his tight posture, and especially his facial expression. He is clearly having a lot of fun in the incident. "The sergeant thought you should be informed immediately, Captain."

"Yeah right, we didn't expect the whole thing to collapse. Did your sergeant also send someone to engineer Duncan? Maybe he can help with what exactly happened here."

"Yes, Captain. Soldier Boris was sent to the engineer at the same time as me."

"Well, then he will come soon. I'll walk with you, then we'll see what your sergeant found."

Moments later, both Brandon and Duncan are looking at what’s left of the arsenal. Broken weapons are everywhere among the debris.

"Well, this is a nice mess." Brandon says.

"You can say that again. I think the roof support beams have not stood the test of time as well as we thought."

"How is that possible? Otherwise, everything is in perfect condition. Even the boats we found are still in good condition."

"That may be the case, but I think time has not necessarily stood still within the protection of Mithras. Gareth is probably more the person to ask, but my opinion is that that Mithras has put a kind of shield over the entire base, with everything within it remaining pretty much the same. The roof of the arsenal would have already been damaged before that, and that damage has not gone away. I will have to investigate exactly what it was, but it can be anything from water damage to pests."

"So it's a good plan to check every building we use."

"It's certainly a good idea. However, it is not feasible at the moment."

"Why not? This seems rather important to me."

"Well, I still have a lot to do that is also important. So far, this is the only building where anything has happened, so I think there is little chance that more will collapse right away. So this will be at the back of my to-do list."

"When will you get around to it?"

"That may take a while. In a few weeks?"

"That's way too long! It's time you started training a few new people. To start with, it seems to me that you should form two squads. I suggest that you check with the sergeants and squad leaders, who probably know a few handy guys within the legion. If you still don't have enough after that, we can probably miss you for a week so that you can look around in Aran or Arana."

"Then everything will takes a lot longer before I have them ready. I have to find recruits first, and then train them. That slows everything down enormously."

"Maybe, but it's clear that you can't handle it on your own. What would we do if you get sick? So now look for those recruits first, then we will see what you can do during their training."

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"Captain, squad leader John has returned and asks to speak with you immediately." With these words Raidon is startled when he is just busy at the hole that serves as a latrine.

"Let him come to my tent, Kevin. I'll get there in a minute." he replies, after which he puts his pants back on as quick as possible.

When he arrives at the tent, John is already waiting impatiently for him.

"Raidon! I hope your defenses are almost ready, because the Chakras will be here in a few days."

"Already? I expected us to have at least another week to prepare," answers Raidon calmly.

"If this were the army of Fort Shi, I would think it would take almost twice as long. However, this is a smaller army. I'm guessing this is the garrison of the town of Von. It's on the other side of the bay, and they could have seen our cooking fires on a clear night."

"That could indeed be the case. Even then, it is a coincidence that they immediately go out in large numbers to investigate those fires. After all, it could have been a bunch of hunters. How big is that army you've seen?"

From what we have seen it is a mixed army of about two regiments, so about two thousand warriors. A third of them were on horseback, the rest were infantry."

"All right, have they seen you and your men?"

"Some have seen us. To spy on that army, we had to take out a group of scouts. With the help of a number of traps that we were still making, we defeated a group of twenty warriors on horseback. Muras has been battered a bit, but with a few days of rest he should be back in action. We were able to capture twelve horses, two of which we used as pack horses for the weapons of the Chakras. Then I and two men carefully had a look at that army."

"How long will it be before they are here? If most of them are infantry, and they don't know who’s waiting for them here, then I hope we still have a few days?"

"In my opinion, they’ll take it easy. Although I don't know how they reacted when they saw their dead scouts. I've left half of my men behind to prepare a few more traps in their path, so I hope they have to be very careful not to lose more men. I think they could be here in two or three days."

"Let's just assume two days. Then we will not be faced with an unpleasant surprise. You quickly go back to your men, and try to cause more delay. I’ll put everyone to work right away to finish the first line of defense. If they besiege us, we won't have time improve the defenses."

After John leaves, Raidon summons his three sergeants. Within moments, sergeants Owen and Mark are with him, with Liam arriving a few minutes later.

"Sorry, Captain. I was doing my rounds at the guard posts, and your messenger only just found me."

"No problem, Liam. Fortunately, we still have some time. John has just reported that we can expect an attack in a few days. I know everyone is already working on the defensive lines, but I want you to push everyone over the next two days to get the first line ready."

"An attack? So soon?"

"John thinks this is Von's garrison. The Chakran armed forces consist of two mixed regiments, minus the twenty scouts that John already took care of. With a bit of luck, he'll get a few more, but even then those are difficult odds."

"You could say that, that's what, thirteen or fourteen enemies for each of our soldiers?"

"You're right about that, Mark. But we have our defenses. We were prepared to fight off a lot more Chakras, now we have to deal with a little less a little earlier."

"Even then, those are huge odds. Especially since the defenses are not yet finished."

At this point, Liam rejoins the conversation. "According to the manuals, it is quite normal to be able to defend a well-defended position against odds of ten to one, and that is against similar opponents. If we all work hard and get that first line of defense in order, then it should be doable if you ask me. After all, we have a big advantage because of our harnesses."

"You have to take into account that our lines are very long. That ten to one only counts if we have enough soldiers to man those defenses. We have almost a kilometer to defend. This means that one soldier can be deployed every seven meters. That's not enough."

"Indeed," Raidon replies, "we don't have enough soldiers to man every section equally well. But you have to remember that of that kilometer, almost seven hundred meters is protected by the gorge and the plateau. Then we only have three hundred meters left, with the river also flowing along two hundred meters. That is not one soldier per seven meters, but rather ten soldiers per seven meters. Then we have twenty soldiers left to guard the river."

"Sorry captain, but that's not going to work either. The gorge and plateau are difficult to cross, but certainly not impossible. There too, we need people to keep an eye on things. I think you need two squads for the gorge and the same number to guard the plateau. I would still use two squads with a gap of ten meters per soldier, so that you know if someone is trying to pass by, and then also a unit that can respond to it. That would then result in four squads for the river. That leaves us with seven squads to man our defenses. Then we can put someone down every two meters, with two squads as a reserve."

"Our original plan is clearly not going to work. We simply don't have enough men to protect our flanks. What I propose is to man the main defenses more strongly."

"The middle? Then they’ll start looking for other ways to get past the defenses. Then we are completely in the shit."

"Not if we make it seem like there's a lot more of us. I want all three of you to use one of your five squads to make fake soldiers. Have them make dolls and spears from branches, and give them a bunch of banners. If we put enough of those dolls along the flanks, with a few soldiers to keep things moving, then it’ll seems as if we have deployed a large part of our men there. Then they might think the best place to attack is right through the middle."

When the three sergeants don't come up with a better idea, Raidon has them go to work. There is still plenty to do in the next two days.