“How many reinforcements are we looking at,” Thomas asked.

“About 1500 so far, but I can’t get details from cities further east, so presume 2000+” Dominic answered,

“Do we know how many men they had after the battle,” Thomas asked.

“About less than 3000 estimates tell us, however, that’s presuming all that fled met up at the fort, we also reckon at least 500 are injured,” Mendes answered.

“Well, we caught a little over 500 in the south region,” George mentioned.

“So do we move out now or wait till they are reinforced?” Daniel asked.

“We move out now, but we will only set up on the west side, allowing the reinforcement to enter the city,” Fred answered.

“This will put us at a disadvantage, we can only send 2000 people at the moment,” Mendes argued.

“We are not looking for a pitched battle, hopefully, the Dynamite will give enough shock and awe to cause them to flee,” Fred responded.

“How many cannons are we taking?” Henry asked.

“For this battle, none,” Fred said.

“What?” Henry and the rest were confused, “They are our best weapon,”

“They will try and capture such weapons, hopefully, they will wait for us to set up until they see the target.”

“What about the marines, I’ve noticed they’ve grown again,”

“Yes, 30 more recruits were added, they were recruited a week before the siege and were not ready to be put into battle yet, but they have had an extra two weeks now.” It wasn’t ideal, a huge benefit of muskets was the ease of training recruits, but even then, he should have had 13 weeks of training for them. “They will be going, as well as all ranged units we have for this battle.”

___

The next morning, everybody was ready to move out.

“I thought we weren’t taking the cannons?” Mendes asked, the artillery regiment was also ready to move out.

“They are not coming for this battle, they are going south to Summerset, they will be used in the next battle.”

“I see.”

It took them until the afternoon to reach the outskirts of Oxford, where they set up camp west of the town. Fred could see reinforcements trickling in from the east.

The next day after camp. “Are you ready?” Fred asked.

“What’s the plan?” Henry asked.

“We are going to wrap our troops around the north, west and south, of the town,” Fred commented.

“This would thin out our ranks too much,” Mendes said.

“We need them to fill the wall with as many men as possible, plus, they will be entertained by our ‘stupidity’ to do anything before we execute our plans,” Fred said.

“Then we rush in the range units to firing range when the wall comes down. Most of their ranged infantry, if not all, would be on the wall.” Thomas commented,

“Precisely, and once they have had a shot we can send in the cavalry,” Daniel added.

They issued out their commands down the chain, and the army started mobilising.

___

A scout came to the study-cum-war room, “Sire, the enemy is moving into a weird formation.”

“Any signs of their weapons?” Derek asked.

“Not the ones are seen on the wall sire, no.”

“Ok,” Derek walked out of the castle with the scout to have a look. the castle was built on a hill, this allowed one to stand on the gravel section of the bailey and look over the wall for 2/3rds of the surroundings. “What on earth are they doing.”

“Should we sally out milord?” Corinth said.

“I don’t know, where are the rest of the nobility?”

They both looked around and spotted them, “They are dotted around the top of the walls, looking at the spectacle, with the troops.” Corinth confirmed for both of them.

“I have a bad feeling about this. And those goons just want to be entertained.” Derek was talking about the nobility.

*Bang, Bangbangbang, bang* the ground shook as if a huge earthquake, Derek, and his entourage were flung forward onto their faces. Derek’s hearing had gone and was replaced with constant white noise in his ear, he felt disorientated and dizzy as he tried to stand up.

He tried to call Corinth who was next to him and was bleeding out of his ear next to him, but Derek’s voice sounded muffled. He saw a few meters to the side in front of him what looked like the castle door. He looked back to see the entrance in ruins.

He felt a grab on his arm, it was his other advisor, he was trying to shout at Derek while dragging him away towards the east side. Corinth had gotten up and was following, while they retreated, he looked towards the walls, all of them was turned to rubble and dust clouds was everywhere, and he could see the enemy marching forwards.

“What happened?” Derek asked, as he said this his hearing came back.

“We don’t know, milord, the walls just came down.” Derek was looking at a unit of the enemy that looked odd, at least their weapons looked odd. All of the enemy’s infantry suddenly stopped where they were, and as his men were getting up the enemy aimed their ranged weapons.

Derek was looking at the marines, who were the first to fire, they were suddenly covered in smoke, and 30-40 infantry in front of them fell down. As he heard the sounds of the guns, Derek recognised that they were aiming at the position that had the highest concentration of nobles. Then the rest of the archers and crossbowmen opened up.

Now he understood the formation of the enemy, they were like farmers scything away at the remaining men like wheat. “Blow the horn for retreat, we are leaving for Ludnus,” Derek commanded.

They reached the stables on the east side as the horn went off. As they rode the horses over the rubble of the eastern wall, Derek saw the enemy cavalry enter the town, mowing down the stragglers.

“Damn it, damn it all,” Derek screamed.

___

“That… was surprisingly easy,” Thomas said,

“Yes,” they agreed.

They had killed about 700-800 people in the initial blast with another 400 dead from the ranged units, the cavalry killed another 100 and forced 500 more to surrender, however a good third of the enemy managed to flee east.

Daniel rode back to the camp with the knights, “What now, do we chase.”

“Not quite, you will take the heaviest knights to chase them down but make sure you lose sight of them when you reach the border, I don’t want them to see you stop at the border,” Fred said

“Ok,” Daniel was a little confused. “Are we not pushing eastwards?”

“Nooo, the enemy has ports in the south, they would be able to flank us. Once you completed your mission head here,” Fred pointed to a position on the map near the south town. “This is closet you will get without their town seeing you come. When we figure out what we are doing down there we will be sent a messenger with instructions.”

“Got it.”

“I will expect you there by evening.”

“Ok.” At this Daniel rode off with the knights.

“Is this why you sent the cannons south to Summerset, is Thomas bringing them along the coast,” Mendes asked.

“Yes. According to Dominic, most of their garrison was sent to Oxford, hopefully, we can get an easy siege out of them and then head to the next port town, once we have them two, Ludnus is the next port.” Fred explained.

“What if they get wind of the battle?” Mendes asked again.

“That’s why we circled this town in three directions including south, the enemy should only flee east, and Daniel can pick off any that change their mind.”

“I See,” Mendes said.

“Alright ladies, we are moving out,” Fred called out to the men, and they prepared to go south. Fred had sent a messenger home to inform them of the result and to send a garrison over to oxford with labourers to build a wooden palisade around the town for now, until they can properly start repairs.

He also sent a message to the admiral telling him to move out to the channel. Fred might have told him a lie about performing when they were ready, Fred was going to send a command telling them to beeline the port and blockade it, they would only have a few hours for this, but hopefully, the main family can give a distraction, this was communicated with Henry last week.

___

Fred and Mendes rode ahead of the troops so they could scout out the area before the battle.

“Looks like they haven’t got wind yet,” Fred commented seeing regular merchants travelling to and from the town, even the two gates he could see were wide open. They were positioned on a hill with a few trees for cover.

“They don’t seem to have that many men on the garrison,” Mendes exclaimed.

“Looks like Dominic was right about most of them being sent to Oxford,” Fred said.

“But they are not sending any messengers or scouts north to look.” Mendes pointed out; they had been here for over an hour observing. One more and the army would be here.

“They wouldn’t be thinking of waiting a while, I know sieges take a while, but I’d send someone out to keep an eye on the situation?” Fred asked.

“I would do the same,” Mendes agreed.

“Then do we have the element of surprise? It seems a bit odd.”

At this time a scout came from around the hill from the north, he came from the west but was taking the long route to stay hidden from the town. “Report.”

“Go ahead.” Fred permitted to speak.

“The cannons are ready beyond that hill,” The scout pointed to the hill in the distance by the coast and west of the town.

“Scout, have you had any trouble with people coming and going from the town to the west.”

“No sire, since the war started trade between our two factions stopped. And we haven’t seen any scouts.”

“Do you think that’s odd?”

“No sire, scouts are a limited resource and are managed from a central position, usually the main force of an army or major city, the main army should have had the bulk of the scouts assigned to them.”

“That seems like a huge flaw, do we not have scouts checking the border.”

“Only in peacetime sire, and if we don’t know where the enemy is, if it wasn’t for the artillery regiment in the west, we wouldn’t have scouts patrolling around there as the fighting was up north in Oxford.”

Fred did not like the sound of that one bit. “How would we know if an enemy army is sneaking around our lands?”

“Armies are huge sire and leave a huge footprint. We would be notified by the locals.”

“We have an army to the west of this town, an army to the north marching down, and soon an army from the northeast, does this town look notified.”

“Erm, no sire.” The scout was starting to sweat. He could see Fred’s point.

“Fred, you are using unorthodox methods of war. Even if the cannons reveal themselves now, that town would have enough time to close the gates, even if the cannons were actually cavalry and started charging.” Mendes explained.

“Since about 100 years ago the wood elves don’t come down this far, this land has been very peaceful till now.” Mendes continued.

“I see, maybe I’m overthinking things. Scout go report to the Artillery unit, tell them to position the cannons below the hill and load them, I want them to be able to be pushed up the hill and fire on the town at a moment’s notice.”

“Yes, Sire.” The scout rode off.

“So where are we going to set up camp?” Mendes asked.

“Two-thirds of them will set up camp about a mile north of us and a third will swing round to the west side, we will set up camp at a distance to reduce the chances of the town spotting the light of the campfire.”

“What about you?” said Mendes

“I’ll take the marines to the west camp. Henry can take the north camp. He will need to send a team over to the knights so they can set up camp.

___

During the night Fred sent the messenger to the admiral telling him of the ‘change of plans.’ Early in the morning, the ships will rush to blockade the town and let off a few bombardments at the port. If they can’t take the city fast enough, they need to cause trouble for the mainland to land troops here.

The next morning, Fred had gathered the men into formation.

He got word that Henry and Daniel were in position.

At what would roughly be 9 am, Fred, saw his fleet sailing past, heading for the port, it looked like they were able to slip past the enemy fleet.

*Dong, dong, dong, dong*

Fred heard the town bells and looked over the hill, he could just about see the port springing into action.

But the first ship was sailing past the port, then Fred heard the salvo go off, and a minute later a second salvo went off from the next ship in the line.

“Alright men, move these cannons up the hill.”

The artillerymen moved the cannons to the top of the hill just as the fourth ship opened fire.

The first ship had circled back and was getting into a blockade formation. It was in a position to fire its other salvo at the same time as the last ship.

At this, the artillery battery of 30 cannons opened fire on the walls. And the regiments on the west emerged in full view of the town.

After half an hour of bombardments from the artillery and ships, the north and east army emerged. At this, the city raised the white flag.

“Ooo, look, the French flag.”

“Excuse me? commander?”

“I meant the surrender flag.”

The guns fell silent to the raising of the flag. Most of the western wall was destroyed and Fred could only imagine the port.

The knights came round to Fred’s side, Daniel, Mendes, and the knights were going to enter with Fred while Henry and Thomas stayed outside with most of the army.

“That’s a lot of damage, I mean not as much as Oxford, but we literally planted the explosives in the walls,” Daniel commented,

“I think the port is going to be worse,” Fred responded. They rode up to the wall to meet what they presumed was the guy in charge of the town.

“Are you in charge!” Fred shouted up.

“How dare you attack a town of Normandy.” The man shouted.

“Is this guy an idiot?” Fred said to his companions, “Being that you’ve been living under a rock, I would like to inform you that Normandy declared war on us about a month ago!” Fred shouted up.

“Prince Derek of Albion did not declare war; you are mere rebels that he is quelling.”

“Who the fuck is Prince Derek of Albion!” Fred shouted up, then looked at his companions who all shook their heads.

“You dare,”

“Look mate, enough of your stupid games, give up the city or we will continue to bombard it!”

The guy on the wall hesitated for a bit.

“Alright men back to your positions, we will continue the bombardment.” Fred started turning around.

“Wait, wait, I surrender.”

Fred looked at him. “I’m asking for double your ransom for annoying me. Now open the gate and come out.”

“What,” The garrison commander was shocked and was about to refute, but one look at the person he was dealing with squashed any protest. “Yes, yes, I will come out now.”