“You have returned quickly.” The mercenary captain met Braydon at the gates of Damaz. It had not even been two days since he had gone to Serchi to try and get the Marquess’s assistance and he had already made it back.

“His devotion to denars is as true as the rumours is all I can say. Even after negotiating him down, that was a painful price.” Braydon shuddered at the thought of the original price the man had suggested before he convinced him otherwise. 10,000 denars was more than Cliforge brought him in six months. Even if he had amassed more than that by now, it had taken far longer than six months due to his other expenses.

“But you still paid him anyway. Perhaps I should have been harsher on you.” The mercenary captain was the wrong person to look for sympathy from since Braydon was paying him to be there as well.

“Do not joke with me on this, my chamberlain is going to keel over when he learns how much money I am giving out.” Braydon almost felt sorry for the poor man. He did not often spend money but when he did it was never a small amount.

“And here I thought you did not care about how much you spent.” It was not hard to tell how sorry Braydon actually felt for spending his money. So long as he was not in danger of actually running out then Braydon did not care if he spent a lot. And the mercenary captain was a mercenary; denars came as quickly as they went in his profession.

“So when are we expecting our reinforcements?” The captain changed the subject from Braydon’s spending habits to something a bit more pertinent to their situation.

“They should be coming in the next day or two. Marquess Serchi had his men mostly on the ready in case anyone got any funny ideas. That works in our favour now.” Braydon was glad that he didn’t have to wait for another week to get the reinforcements that he needed any day now.

“If this Marquess is truly as grubby as you have made him out to be I would only send him a part of the denars before the situation stabilises lest he decides that you are suddenly no longer worth his time.” That spoke to how trustworthy he thought a greedy man to be.

“Bad experience with people like him before?” Braydon had to ask.

“There have been those that have tried. Let me just say that they ended up losing far more than they would have gained by trying to underpay.” He smiled quite sinisterly as if he enjoyed it more when his employers did not pay him so that he could loot them too.

“Lucky me that I never intended to do that to you then.” Braydon would rather not have a mercenary company trying to relieve him of his wealth due to a dispute that could be avoided. Especially not a company as experienced as the one that he had hired.

“Sir Harvey, there is an army approaching from the east!” A scout that Roan had sent out a couple of days before finally returned with news of the expected enemy.

“It seems that we will have a chance to show these men what an actual siege defence is. How many men did you see? Was there more than one banner?” Roan could not help but mock the rebels a little even if he knew why the castles that they had taken had so few men guarding them. It still stood that they had taken all but one castle without bloodshed and that was only because Braydon was actively provoking the garrison there.

“They had about 250 men with them, Sir. As far as I could tell only one banner.” The scout brought some slightly underwhelming news for Roan. He could probably easily win a battle against them in the open with the amount of men Braydon had left with him, let alone behind castle walls.

“Are you certain that there were no other armies nearby? Roan quite clearly remembered that there was meant to be two armies that would be returning before the others. He was not about to move out to finish one off without being able to confirm that the other would show up unexpectedly.

“If they have come together then the other army has not been following the main road.” The scout reported as much but that did not mean that they were not on their way. There was more than one road that led to the castles that they had taken.

“Could they have taken the other road then?” Roan muttered to himself. The other road would circumvent the castle that Roan was stationed in but took a much smaller road and passed through a different castle that Braydon had not enough interest in to take. That would lead the other lord to the southernmost castle that they had taken without going by the main road that Braydon’s men would obviously be monitoring.

“It is possible, Sir. It would take them longer to arrive than if they took the main road though.” The scout pointed out.

“Then I have a new job for you. Go monitor the other road for any attempts at being sneaky. Now that we know this army is here we can prepare with plenty of time.” Roan needed to know where the other army was before he could confidently attack, otherwise he could find himself suffering much greater losses than was acceptable even if he did win.

“Yes, Sir!” The scout stood straight and put his arm in front of his chest before he set off to prepare for his next assignment.