At the end of the line, walking behind the mercenaries were the freedmen who had been pressured into service be the Lord, dragging a single wheel cart behind them which was loaded with food and tents. Due to the difference in the movement speed of the 1,500 people which resulted in a very slow moving retinue, the knights riding at the front would have to stop from time to time and wait for the troops behind them to keep up.
“Sir,” Count Elk, Holger Medde pulled the reins of his horse so that he could directly ride side by side with the Duke, “We are half a day away from the border town, if we continue at this pace we should arrive there by 4 p.m. At that time, it would be the best if we let our troops rest for the night, then tomorrow morning we will start the attack, or do you perhaps want to attack the Prince’s castle immediately?”
“It seems you want to sleep in the wild, too,” the Duke laughed, “I myself would prefer to sleep in the castle’s bed rather than the wet mud. Of course, we still have to give the Royal Family a little respect. So, when we arrive at Border Town, I will send messengers to persuade the Prince to surrender.”
Count Honeysuckle riding slightly in front of them, turned around and said, “The cavalry has already spent a whole day out in the field, the people and the horses are tired, so starting a direct attack wouldn’t be very appropriate, right? After all, even though he only has miners and hunters, it is still a fact that Roland Wimbledon was able to spend the all of the Months of the Demons inside Border Town. I think it would be for the best if we remain a bit cautious.”
“Haha, I can understand that others don’t know it, but that even you don’t know the truth about the demonic beasts? My old friends. They are really scary when met in the wild, they move fast and nimble and have astonishingly strength, in other words they are deadly opponents. But if you’re standing behind a wall, then they are just stupid beasts” The Count of the elk family shrugged, “I was more surprised with that he could build a wall so quickly. But with that alone he cannot resist the might of our knights, correct? They aren’t mindless idiots.”
“That is exactly the case, and I have also received a message from the North,” Duke Ryan casually said, “This year in Hermes they’d had to deal with an unusually large force of demonic beasts, almost resulting in the fall of the New Holy City. So thinking about this logically, it seems that this year’s demonic beasts were mostly directed in their direction, and here at the West Border we’d only had to deal with the few that have slipped through the net.”
As the Lord of the whole western territory of the kingdom, his eyes were not only concentrated in this remote place. Through these years he had placed many eyes in all of the major cities who continually passed him all the newest information. But at the moment, the tragic war in the North wasn’t the place where his main focus laid. A few days ago he had received a secret letter from Steep Cliff City, which informed him that the new King Timothy Wimbledon and the Queen of Clearwater have held a fierce fight within the southern territory of Eagle City. According to the news, Timothy’s team should need a month to return from Eagle City.
The letter hadn’t mentioned the result of the fight, in it had only stood that after Timothy had come back to Steep Cliff City, he had lost thousands of troops, which had made it impossible for him to keep up the blockade against his sister. It also seemed that Eagle City had become a victim of the fire, the black clouds of smoke had almost covered the whole sky, this spectacle had all been witnessed by the residents of the surrounding towns.
Without a doubt, regardless of whether the Queen of Clearwater had died to the hands of Timothy or not, such a painful loss of soldiers was a serious blow to the new King. The content of the letter had made Duke Ryan so restless that he had on that very night sent out many trusted aides to King’s City and also into the Eastern territory, hoping to learn more about Timothy’s circumstances. Perhaps this large battle between the two Monarchs would give him the opportunity to destroy the still unstable regime of the new King, he absolutely did not mind throwing a torch on an already prepared bonfire.
