“In the name of my lord, I ask you to lay down your arms and we will let you go freely.” Roan announced to the garrison of the castle that Braydon had sent him to take. He still had to meet back up with Braydon to take on more challenging targets so he wanted to end it as quickly as possible.

“Does your lord not know of the consequences that will befall him if he betrays the agreement that was made?” The man that spoke for the garrison asked in credulity. Though Roan did not know what the agreement stated, he could take a good guess that it was an agreement that the rebel lords had come to to face the Duchess Regent’s forces.

“That would be a great shame for my lord if he was a part of the agreement in the first place. And it is a great shame for you that he is not.” Roan was quick to burst the man’s bubble. There was no point in continuing on if the other side thought there was a reasonable chance that they would back down due to some agreement. Braydon had gone into this knowing full well that almost all of the rebels would have something to say about him taking land from under their noses.

“You do not mean to say that you are Fiverians?” Roan could almost hear the shock coming from the walls, and not just the man speaking. Almost all of the garrison made some kind of expression of shock. They were nominally there to protect against Fiverian aggression but the truth was that they were there in case some lord decided to get plans and go back on the agreement. They would never have expected that any Fiverian men would cross the border so soon after they just came out of their own civil strife.

“Would it ease your mind if I said some were foreign mercenaries?” Roan continued to pile on the pressure.

“And you say you will let us leave in peace?” That was all he wanted to hear.

“But of course, we are not all Barakhil barbarians.” Roan doubted that the Barakhs were actually that barbaric but considering that they had just assassinated the former Grand Duke of Shuluk, it was an apt name to use.

*sigh*

“Then we will take you up on your offer.” Once he said that the garrison on the walls started moving away from them as the castle gates were reopened.

“This should save us some time.” Roan commented to himself as he watched the former castle garrison leave the castle that they had been defending behind. It had not been lost on him that they had mixed up the fact that his lord was Fiverian to mean that the entire of Fiveria had invaded rather than just Braydon, but that had only helped him to convince them to leave.

“I thank you for honouring your words.” The guard captain approached Roan and thanked him. It would not have been the first time that the promise of being left untouched was reneged on.

“I would not go back on my honour. Though I think you misunderstood when we said we were Fiverian, it is solely my lord that is attacking. Our King still honours his peace deal.” Roan did not want to have all of the rebel lords in Shuluk scramble back to defend against Fiveria because of that kind of misunderstanding. Even if they would know that Braydon was there, there was no need to get them to overreact.

“You really got me there.” The guard captain looked a bit upset that he had fallen for something so simple but he knew that he would have accepted surrendering either way even if it had taken more convincing. There was just no way that less than 20 men could defend a siege of several hundred. They could at best defend the gates but not the whole of the castle walls.

“Do we lay siege to the town now or after Sir Harvey gets here?” The mercenary captain asked Braydon. They had sent some men to scout the town out whilst the rest of the army stayed a safe distance away. From what the scout had reported the town was indeed the best defended place they had come across so far. Whilst the town was not big it still had a garrison over 100 strong.

“Roan should arrive tomorrow if nothing went wrong with the siege. From what I can tell the neighbouring castle does not have more than 15 men but if we were to properly siege the town we would not be able to stop them from getting word out.” Braydon had given Roan 300 men to take the castle. Including the men that they had left in the one they had already taken, they had just under 800 men with them to siege the town until Roan arrived with the rest of the army.

“If nothing has gone wrong with his siege then they will know we are here soon enough.” He had a point. It would not be long before some kind of response came from the various lords that they were relieving of their land.

“Then we should start the siege now. I trust that Roan has everything handled on his end.” Braydon had not been given a reason to believe that Roan could not handle himself. It would at least save them time if they started now. And the moral advantage when their enemies saw that they had reinforcements.

“Will you be joining us on the walls this time?” As was pointed out, Braydon had not taken part in a battle so far in his own invasion.

“Well we will have to give Roan a rest after he has been running around for me, I might as well take his place on the battlefield.” As much as Braydon tried to act like a lord that commanded from the back that was just not him, he would always enjoy a good fight.