I was expecting it to be difficult to navigate my way to the roof but it’s actually rather easy.

I just have to follow the sounds of screaming and shouting to get to my objective.

Eventually, after taking a short series of sharp turns and doubling back twice because I went the wrong way, I arrive at my destination.

It’s a giant gaping hole leading outside, created either by some trebuchet or skilled mage, it’s not exactly the correct way to get onto the roof but it’s still an opening to get out there and enter the fray.

Grabbing onto the tops of the hole I begin to slither my way outside, half expecting the Arthian soldiers to already be engaged in melee just based on the aggressive shouting and crying that I can hear.

Thankfully once I make it onto the roof I don’t see any chaotic melee battles going on, just the archers letting out war cries and being directed by loud knight squires, the crying comes from a couple of unlucky soldiers who’ve been hit by a bolt or two.

Slowly striding towards the battlements I take stock of our situation, there are some two hundred archers up here as well as a small cohort of five mages and three knight squires, there’s also around thirty infantry dispersed around the roof too.

There’s a fair few dead soldiers as well, maybe twenty of them, I can’t see that many wounded troops though, I don’t know if that’s good or not, since it implies that the Rovers have some incredible aim.

I still feel fairly optimistic about our situation, we’ve got around a quarter thousand troops up here and two hundred of them can pelt our opponents with arrows, not to mention the other hundreds of archers who’ll be positioned at arrow slits all around the keep.

And I think there’s a couple of small catapults on top of the keep water towers as well, so all in all this is a very defensible situation we’re in, we should prove capable of fending off the Rover offensive without suffering too greatly.

Even if those five mages aren’t battlemages it should all still be fine, the Rover battlemages must have expended a great deal of power to take the walls, I doubt they have it in them to attack our keep as well.

But the moment I reach the battlements and actually look out over the battlefield my optimism completely fades.

Thanks to the elevated position of the keep I’m able to look down at the tops of the watchtowers and pretty much everything else with little issue and what I see isn’t very motivating.

The walls have been completely taken over, there’s not even a single pocket of resistance still holding out.

The watchtower artillery crews have sabotaged their own catapults to stop them from falling into enemy hands.

There’s literally small piles of corpses at random spots below the walls where the Arthian soldiers have been herded together and pushed off.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

There are dark streams of blood running down the wall from butchered bodies, making it look like red vines are growing everywhere.

It’s just an absolute massacre.

There is a bright side I suppose since there are basically no buildings constructed within the fortress, it’s just the walls and then within them lies the keep.

So there’s practically zero cover for the Rovers to use apart from a few small structures here and there.

And the only way to get down from the wall is by using the ladders, leaving the users incredibly vulnerable to missile fire.

Truly this place is a fortress first and foremost.

Most of the ladders have also been destroyed by the Empire forces once the walls fell, so now the Rovers have had to use their own.

It would be hilarious if it wasn’t for the sheer level of carnage that litters every area I can see.

And also the fact that slowly the Rovers are pushing up, they’re still working on bashing open the gate but a few brave infantry lines have started to form a series of shield walls in plain view of our archers.

And we can’t really hit any of the Rovers coming down the ladders since they have these thick shields on their backs.

It looks like my creator preemptively summoned me since there’s no sign of any Rover summons yet, nor has the second stage of this conflict truly begun.

All I can do is just stand here and watch as the preparation stages of the next battle continue and the interlude unfolds.

It’s a weird feeling, everyone but me is doing something.

The archers are firing away at the Rovers and the Rover crossbowmen and occasional archers are returning fire.

The Arthian infantry is grabbing arrows and moving small boulders around and acting in a general support role, while their counterparts, the Rover infantry, are scurrying around like ants and forming up to initiate a push.

The mages are conversing amongst one another with the knight squires bobbing their heads along to the conversation, probably planning out what tactics and strategies they should employ to better counter this Rover offensive.

And then there’s just me, standing here and watching everything go down.

I think this prolonged state of inactivity means I use less mana but I have nothing to back this assumption up with.

Still, it’s not that bad even if I am burning mana at the same rate as when I’m actively engaged in combat, it’s better to be summoned early than late.

Plus it means I get to just take a break, I’m still alert and keeping an eye out for any other summons but for the most part, I’m relaxed.

While observing these Rovers I can’t help but feel like they’re off, they just don’t act like any of the Rovers I’ve encountered back in my initial summonings.

I guess it could just be that this is a different coalition of tribes, maybe one specialised in sieging down fortresses?

Or perhaps an exceptionally large mercenary company has been added to this army and that’s why these Rovers are so varied in how they act?

Maybe this is actually the first real Rover force I’ve faced and all the others have been weak tribes and conscripted bandits?

In any case, it doesn’t really matter, I doubt knowing the answer won’t help me in defeating them, I’m just idly pondering these things while waiting for them to make their move.

And finally, after what feels like an hour but is probably closer to five minutes worth of waiting, the Rovers at last do exactly that and make their move.