“Roan, send our scouts towards the second castle. If there are any movements from there I want to know about it as soon as possible.” Braydon, Roan and the captain of the mercenaries stood in his tent planning their actions now that they had made camp and had started the siege of the first castle they would need to secure control of the region.

“Already done.” Roan had gained an appreciation for not missing any details after spending so long overseeing the border, especially when there were floods of peasants seeking refuge and bandits looking to make some quick money.

“Good, there is nobody else close enough to realistically come to their aid in the area so we should be relatively unmolested for now. Let’s call for a parley. I want to see if this guard captain has balls.” Braydon sincerely doubted that the castle guard would give up without a fight or being starved out but it was worth a shot to preserve his man power for other sieges.

“Do we have an estimate of their numbers?” The mercenary captain asked. This was the most important question in a siege. If they vastly outnumbered the opponent then it would be easy to just attack the walls but if they did not, then it would be a very costly thing to do.

“I cannot imagine that they have more than 50 men on those walls.” Braydon would actually be really surprised if there were that many men. Considering that most men that could be trusted with a pointy stick were fighting a civil war rather than protecting the castles that were far in the back line.

“Then we should be able to easily win.” Not that the mercenaries would care much for Braydon’s concerns for keeping his casualties to a minimum. So long as those casualties did not include themselves. Then they cared very much about casualties.

“As true as that may be, I would prefer not to throw away my men when I do not need to.” With Braydon’s word it was decided, they would at least offer to let the garrison go without a fight.

“Do not think that you can hide your affiliation from me by using mercenaries!” The first words from the guard captain told Braydon about as much as he needed to know about their willingness to surrender. That and the man was shouting down at them from the walls rather than coming down to talk in person. It would be a stain on his honour to attack someone that had come to parley, and apparently the man did not think that much of Braydon.

“I never meant to hide it, good sir. I am merely tracking down bandits from your country that have stolen from my lands. I have reason to believe that they may be hiding out in a nearby castle under the protection of some lord or other.” If he was going to use the excuse then he might as well use it properly.

“And you would dare claim that my liege harbours bandits?! I spit in your general direction.” Of course he would be offended, Braydon was insinuating that his liege was colluding with bandits. That and Braydon’s claims were obviously a completely bullshit excuse to attack the castle.

“You may spit wherever you like, but will you let me and my men search this castle to know where my stolen goods are or not?” Braydon said it straight. He doubted that after the responses he got that it would be a yes but he had seen the number of men that were accompanying the captain on the wall. There were not many.

“You can stick your stolen goods up your ass!” A final shout from the guard captain before he stepped back, evidently not interested in slinging any more insults at Braydon.

“Very well, then. A siege you want and a siege you shall have.” Braydon muttered as he turned around to look at the smirking mercenary captain.

“I did not think that you had such skill in aggravating people.” The man was more than amused at the way Braydon had gone about ‘parley’ with the guard captain of the castle.

“It is not like he came out with the friendliest of attitudes. Just because I want to minimise casualties does not mean that I will compromise on my honour and self respect.” Braydon said in spite of the fact that the very act of attacking a castle without a casus belli was dishonourable. The semantics meant nothing to him anyway.

“Sure, Sure. So prepare the ladders?” Obviously not believing Braydon’s spiel about honour for one second, the mercenary changed topics to the siege at hand.

“Prepare the ladders indeed.” Braydon nodded. He had already noticed that Roan had gone to organise something whilst he was doing his very best to convince a very receptive guard captain to surrender. His guess was that it was those very ladders that they would need.

“First to the walls?” That took him by surprise. Braydon did not expect such a serious mercenary to be the kind to play that kind of childish game.

“You know I will not personally be part of the attack, right?” Braydon had to stay back to oversee the running of the siege camp. Roan would be attacking in his stead. Partly so that he would have someone to reign in the mercenaries once they had won and party to see how good Roan was in battle. Braydon had still not seen that yet as he had been on a different part of the battlefield to Roan when he besieged Mapjess. Now would be the first time that he would see.

“Shame.” A slightly disappointed shake of the head later and the mercenary had already moved on once again to being serious. Braydon really wondered if all mercenaries were as special as the man before him or if it was something reserved for captains of large companies.