What Was Found

** Bonus Chapter **

Thanks all of you continuing to drop stones on this body of work greatly appreciated.

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* * General Bellac POV * *

The supreme general having been given his orders by the king had marshalled the majority of his men and led them in hot pursuit of the enemy that had dared mock their kingdom so as to rob them in the middle of the night and secret away their nation's wealth to foreign lands.

Almost all his men were infantry but it mattered not their commanders ordered the men in armour to run and whipped those who tried to walk.

Few among them were mounted and those that were were nobles riding their own personal mounts, not combat veterans by any stretch merely just men seeking to reclaim their own wealth that was stolen, and get in the good graces of his majesty by recovering the nation's treasury as well.

Their combined armed forces raced across the land the cavalry was the first to arrive of course but due to limited numbers could not properly assault the large convoy but after having been spotted the convoy itself took defensive action circling their wagons to create a temporary fort like structure preventing possible cavalry charges or raiding.

But this of course worked in the general's favour for his slower-moving infantry now had the chance to catch up and with vastly superior numbers they could storm this caravan fort recover the loot and return as conquering heroes.

The general's mind was racing with tales of victory and as night fell and the infantry arrived he and the other nobles had little to do beyond running down a few stragglers who attempted to escape their entrapment.

With night falling the men were weary and so a brief respite was given where they could rest recovering ever so slightly from their mounting exhaustion before the general once more called them to action.

His own men had been resting most of the day and his patience had run thin.

And so in the dead of night with only the little light provided by the moons high up in the sky, the infantry assembled and charged toward the defenders.

Who were vastly outnumbered?

If the typical strategy stated you needed to have 3 times the number of attackers to succeed at a siege they had long since passed that point.

The caravan meanwhile had seen in the distance the moving of the army's torchlight and taken up defensive positions.

and so by the time that the general's men had begun their charge, all defenders had become active.

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The battle itself didn't exactly last all night in fact the battle itself was over in just over an hour.

The march-weary men were assailed by arrows and stones hurled by the defenders, and by the battles end the defenders had certainly put up a more than pyrrhic defence even as the last of their numbers fell.

The night was filled with cheers and revelry at least until the thrill of victory had passed, it was at this point a different soaring sound was heard radiating out into the night's air.

But this soaring cry was not jovial and the loudest voice sounding out to the sky was that of the General himself, for once the reverie of victory had passed the soldiers began tearing into the carriages only to find that the spoils they'd raced so hard to capture and suffered so much for were merely wagons filled with rock, simple honest rock.

The horror of this waste was unbearable to the men who took their frustrations out on one another and the night was once more filled with bloodshed as the fields were painted with more blood than the original battle brought against the fleeing men.

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When morning finally dawned only about half his men were still in prime condition, another 1/4 were wounded or crippled while the remaining quarter lay dead slain mostly by their own comrade's hands.

The General who once thought to return in heroic triumph was now crushed, not only was the treasure not found but he'd lost a good portion of his army chasing after a small company of men, beyond that even his own men then turned on one another creating a meat grinder.

His return now would only come in the forms of scorn, ridicule and shame.

The commoners already were a hairs breadth away from turning on them and now after having found out that they'd gone chasing after a hundred or so men and in their battle with these 100, they lost thousands in return.

This proved how weak the army actually was and if 100 fleeing men could cause such damage to them just how much could they the citizens cause if they rose up, and how much could they suffer once again if an outside power was to decide their little slice of the world was worth taking over, there was rough security in that both their land and coast were shared and defended by a theoretical ally but that was tenuous at best, their kings worries that Julius wanted their lands and people were not unfounded, having a none allied potentially hostile force sitting in your backyard could not be tolerated.

Roserun could have become diplomatic and approached Julius before Lunan fell but the nobility were opposed this young lord who was beneath them now had risen up to a position towering high above them, above even the lord they had sworn an oath to serve.

The general had no real choice in the matter however, he couldn't stay away from the capital forever his army they were needed to control the populace and keep them from doing anything the king didn't want.

And so as frustrating as it was General Bellac commanded his men to burn the carriages and cart the fallen defenders back to the capital to be displayed on the castle walls as traitors.