Chapter X The Planning

It was a one day after, when we arrived on a hill not far away from Whitecent. I chose to build a small fortress there as to plan the continuing attack later on. I had brought almost all my soldiers with me, only 100 2nd and 200 1st Stage Soldiers were left to protect and maintain law inside the town.

The catapults and battering ram had also been transported here. I chose some soldiers to explore the area around us, and the others started to cut some trees down for the walls. I decided to explore the city alone and see if I could find any important information, that could cause the siege to get bad for us.

I put on a long green robe and walked towards the city. As I passed by a caravan, I decided to join and act as if I was a young boy looking for adventures.

The leader of the caravan was a middle aged men, who had quite a belly. You could see the greed in his eyes, when I showed him a gold coin as a thank you. In the caravan were also some other people, a young knight, two old lovers who probably came from a village around here.

Then there was a mysterious guy, I couldn't see his face because it was covered by a grey mask and hoodie.

After only 2 hours, we arrived at Whitecent.

The houses and streets were less full then in StoneHeart, but you couldn't compare these both cities. One was a border city and the other one of the most fluent and largest cities in the kingdom.

But for having to fight against the demons and beasts every year, the city was built quite nicely.

I could see some guards patrolling the streets as I made my way from A to Z. I counted a total of 90 squads wich each having about 20 to 25 guards, wich meant they had increased their defense. Probably because of the demon wave, because no one could possibly know anything about our arrival here.

As I tried to listen to the civilians and merchants talking, I could understand some things. In the royal family, there were 4 sons and 1 daughter.

The old king declared who ever would control most of kingdom until 3 years later, would be crowned king and rule all of the kingdom.

The oldest son, the second son and the youngest son were already competing everywhere. Many factions had already been created and disturbed quite the peace in the country. There was also the daughter of the king, she was 15 years old and had already achieved the second stage, wich even many talented people could only achieve at the age of 20. She was also competing for the crown, although behind her was not the strongest faction, she could still hold on against the first and youngest brother of her.

Naturally this information wasn't really important for me right now, but I might have some confrontation with these factions soon.

After a long day of gathering informations about the city layout and strength, I returned to the fortress, wich had already been built.

I'm the main tent were Zhang Yi and Zhang Yu discussing the ways of attack with some of the captains in the army.

When I entered, everyone kneeled down and greeted me.

"Your Majesty! Welcome back."

After that, I told everyone about the things I could gather in the city and we started to plan our first attack on the city.

"We should first use the ballista to destroy the watchtowers, here and here and then try to blind the archers on top of the wall."

One of the commanding captains explained and pointed at two towers drawn onto the plan.

"If we can block them, we can easily break through the entrance with the battering ham. In a real battle, we have the advantage of numbers and of individual strength. We can easily crush them."

Zhang Yu suggested and said with confidence.

"We just have to mind these archers, they can be fatal for us and bring us many losses."

I also said and the imaginary battle went through my head. Nothing unexpected had seemed to show until now, and everyone knew, now was not the time to suddenly turn around and give up.

As the captains left the tent and only Zhang Yu and Zhang Yi were left, I finally said the words that had made me unsure all day.

"I was being watched again. While I was in the city, I could feel a pair of eyes staring directly at me."

Zhang Yu and Zhang Yi, both trembled a little and kneeled down.

"We are sorry, that we couldn't protect you my lord!"

"Nothing to worry about, I just feel like there is a huge secret hiding somewhere in the kingdom and no one really knows anything about it."

"And it's my job to find out about it sometime!"

I turned around and left the huge tent.

Standing there, looking up towards the starts shining as if nothing was wrong.

"How long have I been here?"

"A month?"

"I don't really care, there was nothing left to live there anymore."

…