The Duranabad Campaign(1)

Year 1563

A few days back, Inside Badrak close to Duranabad border

Once the war supplies and rations finally reached the prince position. With his army fully stocked and ready he broke camp to march towards the Count Durani's border garrison. The scouts has reported that news had already reached the garrison about the defeat of their commander at the hand of the prince and seeing a retaliation from the prince, they have decided to retreat deeper into the fiefdom to a more fortified position.

Prince Viraja has opted to give chase to the retreating army and ordered colonel Virendra to increase the march speed at double time. As the prince close in on the retreating enemy , his vanguard which colonel Virendra took personal command came in contact with the rearguard of the retreating Duranabad forces.The 4 musketeer companies arranged one after another in columns, which form the vanguard started firing in rows, once all rows of one company has finished firing their musket they slowed to reload their musket while the company behind move forward swiftly to fire their volleys, this became even more devastating since one of the company has 4 shot matchlock musket.This chase of cat and mouse continued for hours which resulted in the enemy army being almost whittled down to half of its original strength. Soon the rest of the enemy infantry soldier start surrendering out of fear of their lives and as for the enemy cavalry which consisted only 500 men have just fled at winded speed leaving behind the infantry to fend for itself. It was a resounding Victory for the prince forces, The surrendered enemy forces where disarmed and put under guard. 

After sometime within a established army camp command tent the prince was having a discussion with colonel Virendra. The colonel reported that he has once again deployed scouts both in rear and forward positon to keep an eye on any forces whether ally or enemy approaching their position. The prince nodded and said "The prisoners we have taken will be both a strain on our ration and will slow us down and we also will need to expend manpower to guard them. We need a solution to fix this situation. What are your suggestion colonel ?". Thinking about this for sometime colonel Virendra said "Your highness as far as I remember the count's army which consist of mostly slamic following men who has a very bad reputation of looting, raping and pillage of innocent indu population in the name of their faith so in my eye they are nothing but criminals and should be executed".When the prince heard this a smile appeared on his face, truly he has lucked out on getting a man like him as his second in command, the prince has already planned to execute the prisoner as they were a liability in his eyes and now that the colonel has brought it up himself he ordered him to execute the prisoners.

Present day, At the army camp within Duranabad

After almost one and half days of waiting finally a messenger arrived with the news that the Count's son has been captured successfully and will reach here by tonight and the news of count's son abduction has already been send to Count Durani himself. By nightfall agent Vasuki along with the squad of elite guard who looked exhausted and bloodied and half their initial numbers has arrived with the count's son in tow who is tied up, gagged and blindfolded sitting before him in his command tent. The count's son Rayan Durani seems to be close to 20 yrs of age and quite tall though a little bulky. 

As the blindfold and gag was removed by his men from Rayan's face the first thing he started doing is yelling at them and threatening them that when his father finds out about this none of them will be spared if they do not let him go free immediately. Finally once Rayan was done threatening and screaming he heard a boy's voice sitting on a chair across the table from him dressed in black saying "Don't worry I want your father to know about it, infact I want him to get angry at me for doing this so that he comes out from his castle and met me in battle on open field as you see it is very difficult for me to get to him while he is sitting within the castle walls as I don't have any siege cannon.". With this prince Viraja ordered his men to take Rayan away and put him under guard as he waited impatiently to see whether the Count takes the bait and attack him with the full force of his army or not.