A trail of spider drones zigzagged across a narrow dirt path, holding up large stone slabs like ants with food. In front of them were the slightly more advanced worker drones which had a spider-like body but with a human-like torso to accommodate robotics limbs.

Down the road were layers of thick stone walls, a series of defensive traps, and groups of large, overbearing towers looking over the fortifications. While Castle Marcoir was already stripped bare of the non-essential structures, it was slowly becoming into a husk of its former self now that the drones were moving out of the castle.

While previously there were three rings of defenses, the drones were in the process of deconstructing each wall one by one. Overseeing the project was the daedelus Smith.

He had originally planned for a smooth deconstruction, transportation, and reconstruction of the castle, but he didn't expect to receive disturbing news just as his project had started.

[Alert: Large human force moving. Estimated destination: Castle Marcoir.]

'What is the meaning of this?' Custodian said with an annoyed tone. With the help of aerial scouting drones, the A.I. could see a huge Rhankish army moving from the north, coming mostly from the Rhankish-held castles.

'Perhaps they are coming to pay a visit?' Red suggested.

'The humans are armed and are bringing siege weapons. They will visit us, alright… as invaders!' Weaver exclaimed.

Custodian hummed then asked, 'But what about the agreement with the Rhankish princess?'

'Perhaps these humans have gone rogue from their master processing unit,' Red said.

'Interrogate Princess Imma immediately,' Custodian ordered.

Red and Weaver, who were mostly stationed inside the embassy quickly got into a Steadfaster drone-carriage and rode to the City of Sea'ax. Inside, they navigated along the richer parts of the city until they reached an unassuming house.

The guards outside of the house looked Vyssian, and they even shouted in Vyssian, "Northmen! Do you have business with our company?"

Weaver nodded and replied, "I have important things to settle with your leader. Now."

The guards sent someone inside the house upon hearing the drone's demand. After a short moment, a hooded lady came out to greet them.

Alleigh, Princess Imma's personal bodyguard and sword-oath, ushered Weaver and Red inside the house, though they had to leave the warrior drones inside. The sword-oath led them to a large room where a young woman was patiently waiting for them.

"Greetings to you, Princess Imma," Red, the drone who was well-versed in etiquettes, spoke up first.

"Weaver, Red. Always nice to see you two. May I inquire as to why you arrived without warning me beforehand?" Imma asked.

Weaver walked forward then asked harshly, "Why is there a Rhankish army marching to Castle Marcoir?"

"What?"

"You are not aware?"

"No, wait! This doesn't make sense! Are you sure they're Rhankish?!" Imma asked with disbelief and shock slowly filling her face.

"Unless Castle Kilothar was taken by an unknown force and is now marching against us, then yes."

"I… ehm…" Imma looked around, confused. After a moment of pondering, she said, "Could it be that it's just an army going back to Central Rhankia? The roads would coincide, you know."

Weaver remained silent for a while before saying, “Perhaps you should consult with your fellow Rhanks. But I must warn you, if they set foot anywhere close to Castle Marcoir, there would be dire consequences.”

Back at Castle Marcoir, there were Rhankish scouts already looking over the defenses of Castle Marcoir. With them was Duke Villbrod and his retinue of horsemen.

“The defenses are something we’ve never seen before, but I could see that they haven’t finished the construction of the outer walls,” Villbrod muttered as he scanned the castle. After riding around the forest to find another spot, he concluded, “Despite their fortifications, they don’t have enough men to defend the entire place. Knights, how many soldiers do we have again?”

“Your Highness, we have about about seventeen thousand men under your command. The northmen number less than a thousand… but what are those things?” Villbrod’s aide pointed at the worker drones swarming around the castle.

“I don’t know. They might be some kind of tamed animals from the forests, but we need to be careful. We’ll need to send some men to prod their defenses. I’ll return to the main army, but I need some men to stay here.”

“Yes, Your Highness!”

The Rhankish had been marching for days and it won’t be long until they reach their intended target - Castle Marcoir. Columns of soldiers marched along a dirt path, seemingly in high spirits. At first, the soldiers were doubtful that they would be able to assault the castle head-on, but when rumors had spread that the castle was seemingly undefended, the Rhanks were excited for the possibility of a quick victory.

“We should’ve attacked those northmen a long time ago,” a Rhankish warrior grumbled as he marched.

“We’ve beaten them back at Castle Kilothar, we can beat them here!” another one cheered.

“I heard their weapons are fine steel, able to cut through a full chainmail. If I get my hands on one, I could sell it for a big farmland!”

“Save some weapons for us, you greedy frogface!”

The warriors laughed and cheered, though the nobles kept their composure. However, even they would feel happy at the prospect of having the glory of taking the castle back in the name of Rhankia. In fact, there might even be a chance one of them could be awarded the castle instead of that cowardly Count Marcoir.

“Even the weather smiles upon us,” a bearded warrior said as he looked up to the sky. “Wait… what is that?”

Without warning, several soldiers were immediately crushed by a large boulder. Fragmented rocks flew in every direction and shards pierced through the nearby soldiers. Panic ensued as more rocks thundered down upon the Rhankish army.

“What in the name of Purgatory is going on?!” a horseman screamed moments before a boulder flattened him.

The answer was just on the opposite side of the forest. Catapults hurled rock after rock from a distance, and when Rhankish horsemen headed towards their directions, the drones would act.

‘Group of humans heading towards us,’ a Thane drone reported as it watched the video feed from one of the aerial drones. ‘Siege Unit Sigma-Sigma-One and Sigma-Sigma-Two, we move!’

The warrior drones flanked the catapult, but they did not go near it. Instead, the catapult deployed its spider legs from the sides and hoisted themselves upwards. Within seconds, the drones were out of clear danger as they all ran deeper into drone territory before unpacking to launch more boulders at the Rhanks.

When the catapult teams had ran out of boulders, they all retreated back towards Castle Marcoir.

‘Defender Team Alpha retreating.’

‘Defender Team Bravo retreating.’

‘Defender Team Iota out of ammo. Retreating.’

‘Affirmative, teams. Now, let’s wait for Phase Two,’ the daedalus watching over the defensive operation, Smith, responded. Compared to his security-focused brethren, Smith and his forces were less combat-oriented. However, he was cunning and didn’t hesitate on converting his mostly construction-based drones into killing machines; weapons were added to the construction drones, and transportation Steadfaster drones were hastily turned into siege drones.

Of course, Smith wasn’t just standing around waiting for the Rhanks to come. Despite the fairly large amount of warrior drones which were already garrisoned at Castle Marcoir, Smith’s forces were still outnumbered by the Rhankish invaders. Even the Thane drones he was assigned with were specialized in mostly manufacturing and construction. Amongst the garrison force, there were only two combat thanes.

‘Reinforcements are coming in two days,’ Custodian reported. ‘Can you hold out?’

‘Affirmative. Not a problem. They will die,’ Smith responded. As soon as the Rhankish Army reformed, aerial drones launched themselves from Castle Marcoir. Unlike the previous aerial drones, these were bulkier and larger to the point that the Rhanks could easily see them in the skies.

“What are those birds?!” a Rhankish serjent shouted.

“They’re dropping something!”

The aerial drones released their clamps, dropping round glass balls which exploded upon hitting the ground. Though the explosions were small and the damage wasn’t spectacular, they still caused chaos and disarray among the human formations.

The small fanfare of explosions were followed up by a rain of steel bolts. Because Apoth was largely busy chopping up organics and stitching them back up, he didn’t have time to prepare enough explosives. Thus, majority of the aerial drones were the usual bolt bombers.

Rhankish soldiers raised their shields, but the combination of steel bolts and great height created a deadly effect on the human army. Arrows from the Rhanks were shot upwards, but they couldn’t reach the aerial drones. When the aerial drones had ran out of ammunition, they went straight back to Castle Marcoir.

“Your Highness, the enemy are obviously using some kind of… witchcraft against us! We should retreat!” a Rhankish knight begged.

Villbrod scoffed at that knight then shouted, “Idiot! They’ve barely scratched the might of our force!”

True enough, despite the ferocity of the drone attacks, they only inflicted small amounts of damage to the seventeen thousand strong force. Though Smith could resort to dismantling the entire castle and throwing it at the Rhankish force, that meant sacrificing his defensive advantage and negating any chance the Varangians would keep the castle. He needed to hold Castle Marcoir because their main negotiating power against Princess Imma was the fact that they held the castle.

“Should we muster out?” one of the thanes asked.

“No, we must hold. If we make contact, I am not sure if we could hold out against their numbers,” Smith pointed out.

“We have a few steadfasters and crossbows. We could skirmish against them,” the thane replied.

After some deliberation, Smith decided to agree with the plan. “You two, take a few units with you and take out as many humans as you can from afar. You are forbidden from engaging in melee.”

“Affirmative,” the two thanes responded then left.

Smith turned to the rest of his thanes then ordered, “For the rest of you, we need to make a killzone.”

After days of skirmishes and dealing with aerial attacks, the Rhanks finally had Castle Marcoir in their sights. Much of the front outer layer was open and crumbling, probably from the fact that they had not finished constructing the wall… or that was what the Rhankish nobles thought.

The drones had stopped attacking the Rhankish army now that they had no more room to maneuver, so the Rhankish army finally had time to set up camp. Scouts from the surrounding areas started to trickle back as well, bringing valuable information with them.

“Your Highness, we still outnumber the northmen, but I’ve heard from spies at Castle Norwind that there is a sizeable army coming,” a scout reported to Villbrod.

“Have you heard from the other scouts?” Villbrod asked.

“No, Your Highness. How many scouts returned?”

“Nevermind that. Go rest up,” Villbrod dismissed. While it was expected that a few scouts would die, the duke was concerned that most of the scouts never returned. He couldn’t shrug off the possibility that the northmen had eyes everywhere at any time.

As night approached, the Rhankish soldiers were still wary about any northmen attack. After all, these past few days, they were also harassed during night time. Watching the castle from afar, Villbrod and his fellow lords were surprised that there were no torches being lit in Castle Marcoir. It was pitch black, and they were feeling a bit suspicious.

“Did they leave?” one of the knights asked.

“No, they just don’t want to reveal their numbers.”

“Maybe they’re confident we won’t attack at night. We should show those bastards and take revenge for their cowardly actions!”

“Hear, hear!” the knights cheered.

“Fools! Don’t do anything rash and follow my orders! Watch the perimeters carefully. We’ve already lost plenty of men on the way here, and I don’t feel like losing any more because of your hasty decisions!”

“Yes, Your Highness!” the knights responded as one.

“Northmen reinforcements are coming from Castle Norwind so I expect them to arrive in a few weeks. Within the next few days, I want Castle Marcoir back in Rhankish hands, do you all understand?”

“We do, Your Highness!”

“Good! Tomorrow morning, we’ll begin our siege in earnest.”