Chapter 6

Royal Palace of Tristania (Capital of Tristan): POV (Louise)

About a week ago, Louise Francoise le Blanc de la Valliere, also known as ‘Louise the Elemental’ thanks to Michael’s decree, received a summons from Princess Henrietta De Tristan asking her to appear before her at the Royal palace to discuss a matter of great importance. The date for the appearance was today and so Louise along with her personal maid Siesta, (who was technically Michael’s maid; he was just letting Louise use her because he currently didn’t have need for a maid at this time), were being escorted through the vast halls of the palace to the princess by Agnès Chevalier de Milan whom was in charge of Henrietta’s personal guard known as the musketeer corps.

Normally Louise would be ecstatic to receive an invitation from her longtime friend and childhood playmate, however this time she couldn’t help but wonder what could be so important that the princess would go out of her way to send an official summons instead of a friendly request for a visit. Add to that, when Louise arrived she was able to sense an air of urgency, or perhaps it was unrest, which permeated the whole of the palace and gave Louise a feeling of unease. Agnès especially seemed to be on edge and when Louise inquired as to if anything was wrong she was met with silence and then told to follow quickly; what followed was a slightly awkward walk towards the throne room were Princess Henrietta was no doubt taking care of affairs of state in place of her mother the queen whom was still grieving over the death of the king some time ago.

Upon arrival the trio was greeted by the sight of the Princess’s personal adviser Cardinal Mazarin as he finished reporting one of the no doubt many issues which would either need to be addressed by the princess, or at the very least needed to be informed about. When Louise finally saw her longtime friend, she of course felt a surge of joy, however she knew that despite past history she still needed to maintain decorum and so simply proceeded to approach the throne and the kneel along with Agnès and Siesta and wait to be addressed. While she waited however she couldn’t help but to listen to what the Cardinal was speaking to the princess about.

“…they then proceed to book passage on a large cargo ship headed to Albion and then boarded in an orderly and disciplined manner, after that the ship left.” Finished the Cardinal and Louise could only wonder why some commoners going to Albion should warrant the attention of Her Highness.

“I must admit Cardinal that three hundred uniformly garbed men all armed with strange muskets purchasing tickets to Albion is indeed strange, however the fact that they did so without causing any disturbance means that they were ultimately no threat to the peace, add to that the fact that I was not even informed of their passing until two months later and the whole issue becomes irrelevant.” Replies Henrietta, but this response does not satisfy the Cardinal.

“A fair point your Majesty, however the fact remains that these men simply appeared out of nowhere and from various accounts the muskets that they were armed with looked to be more advanced than even those of your own musketeer corps.” Louise noted that when the Cardinal made that statement Agnès nearly jumped up in denial, but the princess ended up voicing Agnès’ disbelief for her.

“With all due respect Cardinal I find that claim to be unlikely, the muskets used by my guard are the finest in all of Halkeginia, and not even those produced in Germania can match the quality of the ones used by my musketeers.” Several of the other advisers in the room nodded their agreement and even Agnès gave a barely perceptible nod.

“I must agree with Her Highness, it is more than likely that these men had purchased and/or stole muskets from either Germania or Gallia and then altered the appearance of the muskets in an attempt to disguise them, after all based on the report, these men were mainly commoners and lacked any other weapons such as swords or spears.” Spoke one of the advisers earning many nods and murmurs of agreement, even from the princess. “No doubt these commoners were a mercenary force, likely hired by the Albion Royalists since the port that the cargo ship was sailing to was listed as being under Royalist control, but as Her Highness said they came and went without incident and on top of that this event occurred two months ago, not only that but they are currently in Albion and thus their problem, not ours.” There was practically a round of applause for these comments and Henrietta was smiling broadly while the Cardinal had a troubled frown on his face.

“There you have it Cardinal, now if there is nothing else of note I have other business to attend to.” At the unsaid command the advisers and the Cardinal vacated the throne room to do whatever it was they did when not advising, leaving the young ruler with the still kneeling trio. “Well now, Captain Agnès I thank you for your prompt arrival with Louise, you may go now.” With that the Captain rose to her feet and instantly brought her arm across her chest in salute.

“Yes your Highness!” Agnès then did an about-face and marched out. As soon as the doors to the throne room closed Princess Henrietta quickly rose from her throne and nearly ran as she went to embrace her longtime friend.

“Oh my dear Louise how I’ve missed you, you as well Siesta, please both of you rise, there is no need for my friends to kneel to me.” Louise and Siesta both stood up after the princess released her hug with Louise and Siesta gave a kind smile and a polite nod of her head. During the few times that Henrietta visited Louise at the academy after Siesta became Louise’s retainer, both her and the princess had become friends thanks to their mutual acquaintance with the pinkette.

“P-princess, it is good to see you as well, when I received your summons I immediately prepared so as to arrive when instructed. Please tell me what it is that you need of your servant.” Despite being a personal friend of the princess Louise always acted as though she were no more than another subject under Henrietta’s rule, much to the young rulers chagrin and amusement. Normally Henrietta would dissuade such talk from Louise, but this time her friendly smile lowered to a more somber expression.

“Alas… my dear friend I am afraid that I have to ask you to undertake a mission that I cannot entrust to any other, one that I wish I didn’t have to ask.” Seeing the princesses distraught face made Louise take Henrietta’s hand into hers before declaring.

“Your Highness please, I would be honored to take on any mission for your sake, ask and I shall obey.” At hearing that declaration Henrietta smiled lightly.

“You are indeed a good friend Louise Francoise, please follow me.” The trio then exited the throne room and headed to the princesses personal suite, once inside they headed towards her bedroom, but before they entered Henrietta stopped and addressed Siesta. “Siesta if you would please wait in the main room, what I must discuss with Louise is very personal and sensitive.” Siesta immediately bowed her head.

“Of course your Majesty, I shall await here.” With that Louise and Henrietta entered the bedroom. Once inside and the door closed Louise quickly spoke.

“Princess, what is it you need of me?” Henrietta didn’t speak right away but instead went to over to an ornate box and withdrew something, she examined it briefly before smiling and then turned to Louise.

“To put it simply Louise, I need you to go to Albion…”

POV change: (Siesta)

Once the door closed Siesta immediately went to the opposite side of the suite from the bedroom and took out the vid-phone she had gotten from Michael, her master. Ever since she had received it she had made it a point to call him as often as she felt appropriate, which meant nearly every day. This time however she decided it was important to call and notify her master of the current activities of her young charge since a mission from the princess could have some impact on herself, Louise, or possibly even Michael, plus her master had given her instructions to inform him of any noteworthy interactions between Louise and the princess, and this definitely counted as noteworthy. Now while it might be prudent to wait to learn what the mission is before reporting, she felt she couldn’t wait until her next opportunity to contact Michael, or run the risk that Louise my not share the information with her since she was a maid.

She quickly dialed up the number to Michael’s phone and waited anxiously for him to answer, nervous that someone might walk in on her or that the conversation in the next room might abruptly end. Soon enough though the image of her master appeared and her nervousness quickly evaporated into joy at see his smiling face.

“Siesta, good to see you, how’ve you been?” He said cheerfully causing Siesta’s own smile to brighten.

“I’m doing well master; I have actually called to report something that I believe to be important. Princess Henrietta has summoned Miss Louise and has asked her to go on an important mission for her.” Hearing this Michael’s expression became serious.

“A mission, what kind of mission?” Siesta gently shook her head at the question.

“I apologize master but they are currently discussing it behind closed doors, I have called you because I didn’t know if I would get another chance to tell you in time to matter, or if Miss Louise would even tell me what the mission would be.” At this Michael nodded in understanding, it was hard to predict what the pinkette would do, especially for Siesta.

“More than likely it’ll be a mission to Albion, if I’m right then when Louise exits that room she will be in possession of a new ring and a letter from the princess to someone in Albion that you don’t need to know about.” Michael said, much to the confusion of the maid. “Listen closely Siesta, if Louise ends up taking you along then I need you to convince her to get Tabitha’s assistance and to book passage from whatever port you guys end up debarking from to the Albion port of Norwich, which is the city where I’ll be at.” Hearing this Siesta’s eyes lit up, happy at the prospect of seeing her master again and mentally praying that Louise chooses to bring her along.

“Understood master, if she takes me along I’ll ensure she acquires Miss Tabitha’s help and travels to Norwich. But what if I am not allowed to accompany her?” It was a worrying thought, but one that needed to be addressed.

“If that happens then gather what info you can and contact me.” She nods her affirmative.

“Very well master.”

“Anything else Siesta?” She considers the question for a moment and while she would love to talk more, it couldn’t be risked.

“No master.” Michael then smiles gently and says.

“Then I hope to see you soon, goodbye Siesta.” At that he closes the line.

A little while later Louise and the princess exit from the bedroom, both are sporting grim and serious expressions and Louise also has a new ring on her finger, just like Michael had predicted. ‘How dose master do that?’ Siesta thought to herself at seeing the ring. Her thoughts then quickly turned to praying that Louise decided to bring her along so that she could visit her master. After saying their goodbyes Louise and by extension Siesta began their journey out of the palace and eventually out of the city proper. Eventually Siesta thought it the right time to ask what had been discussed and thus if she would need to start packing when they got back to the academy.

“Um… Miss Louise, if I may ask what mission did Her Highness give you?” At that Louise looked at the maid as she seemed to consider something before answering.

“We will be needing to travel to Albion to retrieve something important and return it to the princess. Her Highness has also arranged for an escort to ensure we safely arrive and return.” At the mention of ‘we’ Siesta’s heart soared.

“’We’, Ma’am, does this mean that I will be accompanying you?” She asked hopefully.

“Yes Siesta, you are my retainer and servant, not to mention my friend.” Siesta smiled at that, and then quickly remembered what her master had told her to do.

“Well then, when we get back to the academy I shall begin preparations for our departure. Also Miss Louise if I may I’d like to suggest that you enlist Miss Tabitha’s assistance in this mission.” Louise’s eyebrows furrowed at the sudden suggestion.

“Tabitha, why?”

“Well the journey is going to be a long and possibly dangerous one, and even with the escort sent by the princess some extra protection would be helpful, not to mention Miss Tabitha is a Chevalier and a strong fighter, she would be a great help.” Louise took on a thoughtful expression at Siesta’s reasoning.

“Well, I suppose so; the princess did suggest that I enlist some extra help to make the trip easier, I guess it couldn’t hurt to ask.” Siesta mentally patted herself on the back for succeeding in the first part of her orders, now of the second part.

“Also, I’d like to suggest that we charter passage to the Albion port city of Norwich.” That got Louise’s attention.

“That’s quite specific, why Norwich?” Siesta actually felt slightly panicked on the inside, afraid that she might be caught trying to manipulate Louise on Michael’s orders, luckily she thought fast and disguised her feeling of guilt with embarrassment instead.

“W-well… um… Norwich is the city were master is at and I thought that if we went there we could meet up with him, I-I mean he is a good fighter and he might be able to help us complete the mission.” That surprised Louise a bit.

“You mean Michael; I didn’t even know he was in Albion, that’s where he’s been this whole time?” Siesta nodded her head quickly and explained.

“Yes, master and I have been corresponding with each other and his latest letter said that he was in Norwich.” It wasn’t completely a lie.

“I suppose getting Michael’s help couldn’t hurt and Norwich is fairly close to where we need to go in Albion, plus it would be nice to see him again.” Siesta was feeling ecstatic; not only for succeeding in completing her tasks but also at the fact that she was going to get to see her master again soon.

“Great, I’m sure master would be delighted to see us as well, once we get to the academy I’ll begin packing right away.” That said they continued along the road to the academy with little more in the way of conversation, Siesta doing all she could to keep from humming in happiness at getting to visit Michael.

Reigate Castle (Albion): POV (Michael)

After talking with Siesta Michael had immediately called Tabitha and informed her of what was more than likely going to happen. Once he had instructed her about what to do, which didn’t take long since Tabitha wasn’t much for conversation, he had hung up and was now leaning back in his chair deep in thought. ‘So, the episode with Wardes and Wales was about to begin. Depending on their travel method and when they leave they could arrive in as little as two weeks, or in a month.’ Indeed, the biggest issue was timing; not only did he have to continue with his campaign, but he also needed to be in Norwich when they arrived and a possible two week margin of error for travel time was certainly irritating.

‘Of course, this is all assuming Siesta manages to convince Louise to come to Norwich, if she can’t, or if she isn’t even allowed to tag along then this whole thing becomes much more difficult.’ This particular event is quite the important one, if Michael isn’t there when Wardes and Louise meet up with prince Wales, then some heavy shit will go down. Tristan will essentially be fucked, and Louise will end up either married to Wardes, or much more likely, could be killed since she’s not a void mage anymore. ‘I’m fairly sure that Louise will take Siesta along, after all based on what Siesta has told me they have been getting along pretty well and since she doesn’t have me or Saito with her she’ll want a friendly face around that’s not someone she’s betrothed to, the fact that Siesta is another female should help tremendously with the decision.’

Feeling a bit more confident that things will happen slightly more according to plan, Michael turned his attention to other more immediate issues, ‘After all, if worst comes to worst I could always strong arm the situation by stationing forces at the location where they meet, have them kill Wardes after he assassinates Wales and then capture Louise and lock her up in a holding cell until I can make my appearance, explain and/or make some threats, and then send her back to Henrietta with my condolences. But that’s an absolute last resort kind of plan.’ With those thoughts and plans made he picked up one of the many reports that lay scattered across his desk.

It had been a little over a week since he had moved to Reigate and repairs for the most part had been completed thanks to the large number of earth mages he had brought in; the walls were all repaired as well as any other stone structure. However, now that he had taken up residence here he had decided to do some remodeling. The fortresses of the Castle Quartet are going to be repurposed into large weapon production facilities with Reigate taking up the additional role of experimental weapon producer. There was already several production facilities finished and were currently making ammunition, grenades, and bazookas while awaiting orders to begin manufacturing new weapons that Michael was currently finalizing.

Aside from that however the only other differences to the original fortress design was that the towers are now sporting howitzers while the walls now had pseudo pillboxes interspaced along their tops. Add to that a series of trenches and obstacles and you’ve got yourself a real nightmare of a fortress to assault if you’re medieval infantry. The garrison however was not as large as it should be though, since Michael needed his troops for scouring the countryside for new recruits and nobles while wiping out any Reconquista garrisons in the small towns and villages located beyond the Castle Quartet, thus capturing (read: liberating) them. His forces were also assisting in training his new recruits therefore adding to his army in preparation for his next target city, Anglia.

Anglia, unlike Norwich, was a true major port city; while Norwich was a indeed a port city, it was in truth a small city when compared to Anglia which was one of two major port cities in the south, both of which catered mainly to Gallia, so capturing one of them would seriously hurt the Reconquista and supply a large recruitment pool since Anglia’s population was roughly two hundred fifty thousand, add to that several thousand more in the surrounding countryside and you’ve got yourself a sizable potential army that would allow Michael to deal with any pesky army that the Reconquista could send his way from the western side of the country while he moves the rest of his force up along the eastern coast straight towards the capitol, the largest and most populous city in the country, once he took that city then he’d have all the troops he’d need to finish conquering (read: uniting/freeing) the rest of the island nation.

‘Ah, so much to do, I wonder if I should just conjure up a few robot-girls and send them after Cromwell, it’d certainly take care of the problem.’ His musings were thankfully interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Come!” The door opened to reveal Quinten.

“Quinten, buddy, welcome to Reigate. Did you just get here?” Michael asked in his usual friendly manner causing a smile to appear in Quinten’s face.

“Yes sir I did, I came just as soon as I could wrap up everything in Norwich.” Ever since Michael departed Norwich to go to Reigate in an attempt to stay closer to the frontlines, Quinten had been governing the port city and trying to get the various levels of administration setup that Michael had said he wanted developed. Not only that but Quinten had also been tasked with setting up a special institution dedicated to teaching others how to govern the way that Michael described he wanted his cities and towns governed. These individuals that studied at that institute would become the new governors, mayors, and other officials once Michael’s army started adding new territory to his slowly growing nation.

“I take it that everything is going according to plan then?”

“Indeed sir.” Quinten then took out some files. “At last check all training facilities are full to capacity, factories are at maximum output, and before I left the first of the new 50cal machineguns were completed. I brought thirty of them with me from the production lines in Norwich.” Michael’s face took on a wide smile at that; the 50cals were based on the M2A1 Browning 50cal heavy machine gun and of course would fire AP rounds. Currently they would be used in a more defensive role since 50cal MGs are far too heavy to charge into battle with, so for now until combat vehicles are created to mount the MGs on the use of 50cals are going to be limited.

“Excellent, the MGs will be a perfect addition to the castles pillboxes, not to mention MG nests, especially concealed MG nests, will be a horrendous experience for any attacking force. I’ll also get the facilities here started on producing more 50cals so that we can get the rest of the Castle Quartet equipped with them, once that’s done we’ll start sending them out to the various Regiments we got.” Nodding once more Quinten made some notes before saying.

“Understood sir I’ll get the MGs distributed and in production here as soon as we conclude this meeting. Also the newest batch of recruits will be deploying shortly and Briek has been promoted to Colonel as per your orders.”

“Good, I want him to lead the army that we’ll be sending north once it’s assembled and ready to move, reports say that a large Reconquista army has been seen gathered and recently departed from Carlow, we’ll need to act fast if we hope to intercept it before it reaches the Quartet.” Quinten once more nodded but Michael continued before he could comment. “Also, how goes project reaper?” Quinten grinned at the question before answering.

“The first five teams departed for Anglia shortly before I left Norwich.” Michael chuckled at the fiendish gleam in Quinten’s eyes, after all the ‘reapers’ as Michael calls them were his version of Special Forces, meant to fulfill the roles of infiltration, assassination, sabotage, counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, and black-ops the reapers were to be the forces under Michael’s command that every foreign nation’s leaders were to fear, once they learn about them. The reapers were also labeled as to officially not exist. The first teams of reapers were being sent to Anglia in order to prepare the city for the arrival of the revolutionary forces by sowing as much chaos as possible to make the Reconquista forces holding the city easier to dislodge. “Also sir if Colonel Briek is not going to be leading our forces to take Anglia, then who will be?” Michael just looked at Quinten and said in a manner-of-fact way.

“I will, but I’ll also be taking Majors Jayden and Ruben with me. Once we have secured the territory between there and Norwich, trained the recruits we end up getting, and then consolidating the resulting army near Anglia’s city limits, the infiltrated reapers will be given the order and will soften up the city defenders for us about a day or so before the attack, leaving them demoralized and afraid.” Over all it was a good plan, one even Quinten could understand, however it didn’t mean it was going to be easy, after all Michael’s army was currently only around thirty thousand men, not enough to take a major city like Anglia and despite the newest batch of troops out of Norwich, those men weren’t meant for Anglia.

“Well sir I agree that it is a sound plan in principle, I must ask if it’s really a good idea to attack Anglia so soon since there is a large force heading here from Carlow. We don’t have enough forces to take Anglia and then head off the other army. Wouldn’t it be better to take everything we have and destroy the advancing enemy army first, take Carlow, and then Anglia?” Michael just sighed at that, he had been expecting that question.

“It may seem like that would be the smarter thing to do, however if we do it that way it would present us with an overall harder campaign. Reason being is that currently the nobles think us as nothing more than rebellious peasants that got lucky once and thus whoever is in charge of Carlow is content to basically ignore us. However, if we did do it your way and sent are forces to destroy the approaching Reconquista army and then went on to take Carlow then the entire Reconquista will recognize that we are a legitimate threat and will then begin levying more troops, fortifying their cities, and assembling numerous large armies to crush us. Thus once we take Carlow we’d need to immediately move on to capture the rest of the larger cities between there and the capitol as quickly as possible pausing only in order gather, train, and arm new troops in order to limit the amount of time the Reconquista has to arm-up.

While all that is happening, the other cities in the south and south-west are doing the same thing and therefore we would have to worry about that front as well. That is the reason I want to take Anglia first; it would give us a head start in securing that flank letting us either hold off any armies sent against us from the south-west, or destroying them and slowly and carefully advancing further in that direction. Not to mention that when we take Anglia there would be a much greater delay in the time it would take for the Reconquista catch wind of what happened because at that time Anglia would be almost entirely surrounded, letting us first build up our forces from the resulting recruitment pool, creating a buffer between Anglia and the cities west of it, and then sending even more of our forces towards Carlow and its army.” Quinten’s eyes were wide and his jaw was wide open as he heard Michael’s reasoning and then realized just how far ahead his leader had thought.

“B-but what about the advancing army? We don’t have enough time to take Anglia and train the recruits we’d get from it before it arrives; I know you said that you’d be sending Colonel Briek but even if we sent him with the new recruits from Norwich they’d be heavily outnumbered, there’d be no way they could win.” Michael nodded grimly at this as he further explained his plan.

“That is true; currently we can only send the Colonel with roughly twenty thousand troops, thirty at the most if we’re lucky. For this reason Colonel Briek’s objective is not to defeat the encroaching army but instead to halt its progress.” Understanding shown in Quinten’s eyes as he realized what Michael was saying. “It’s simple; Briek will be given as many howitzers, mortars, bazookas, and the new 50cals as can be spared, then he is to advance as close to Carlow as he can as fast as he can, and then he is to dig in and hold his position until enough forces can be gathered and sent to reinforce his position and destroy the opposing army and then move on to take Carlow.”

“A solid plan sir, but still, is there no other option for dealing with the Reconquista army?” Michael shook his head and explained.

“I’m afraid not Quinten; the only thing we could do would be to destroy it first and then turn around and take Anglia second before Carlow. It would let us secure our flank, but it would be just like taking Carlow before Anglia only this time Carlow would be among the cities that get the extra time to fortify because once we kill that army those in Carlow will hear about it while we move on to Anglia and they will spread the word and then everyone else will get even more time to build their defenses making the overall campaign harder and bloodier for us.” Quinten, at this point could only sigh as he conceded that Michael was in the right. He then took out his notebook.

“Very well sir, I suppose the next order of business is to dispatch the Colonel and his forces after getting them equipped with all the extra weapons from the Castle Quartet?” At Michael’s nod he continued. “What about you sir, when are you going to leave to join up with your army?” This time Michael took out several new files from his desk.

“In a few more days; first I need to wait until the other new weapons I have commissioned here at Reigate begin production, I want my army equipped with them before I attack Anglia. Also I want to wait at least until they finish taking all the territory around Anglia; I’m hoping to get at least another sixty thousand more soldiers before the assault which shouldn’t be a problem, after all the area around Anglia hasn’t been as heavily conscripted as the province that Norwich is in, add to that Anglia is only garrisoned by its normal city garrison and its defense army that it would normally assemble during war time is currently dispersed in the surrounding territory, territory my forces are busy taking. This means that the garrison should only be around twenty five thousand, I want to attack with overwhelming force to make the battle as quick as possible and to suffer as few casualties as possible.” Quinten understood where Michael was going with this train of thought. If he attacks with such a large army then afterwards he’ll be able to send many of them to reinforce Colonel Briek while still having enough forces to secure not only the city but also extra territory for his intended buffer between Anglia and the other Reconquista cities all while the new recruits gathered from the city are trained.

“Understood sir.” Quinten then checks some other notes and then speaks up again. “Something else sir, Axelle reports that progress on most of her projects are proceeding well and hopes to be ready for a visit in a few weeks.” Michael nodded at this and chuckled silently. He had assigned several things for her to work on, not all of them military. She was a very eager worker and had already managed to produce a working lightbulb.

“That’s good to hear, but any visit will have to wait at least until after Anglia is taken.” Quinten nodded as he made several notes. “Also make sure she is ready to relocate her lab, I intend for her to eventually be stationed in the capitol, however I want her to first move to Carlow when we ‘liberate’ it.”

“Yes sir, well that seems to be everything that currently needs to be discussed, unless you have anything else?” Michael just shook his head. “Well then, I will get to work, have a good day sir.” With that Quinten went to leave, however as soon as he went to open the door he paused for a moment as if remembering something, and then considered something before turning around and asked Michael. “Sir… I have been wonder about something, why didn’t you let the Reconquista and the Royalists fight each other during the battle of the Castle Quartet instead of having us fight both at once?” The question caused Michael to stand up and walk to the window that dominated one of the walls in has office, after staring out it and thinking he turned toward and answered Quinten.

“I was wondering when someone was going to question that choice, it makes sense that it would be you.” Quinten just looked confused but Michael continued. “It’s true that normally you’d let to opposing forces fight each other before attacking the surviving and now weaker winner, but I did have a reason to forego that strategy. To put it simply, it was a test, a test to see how we measured up in a real fight.” Quinten’s eyes went wide at that. “Think about it; until that day we had never been in a real battle, and what we ended up fighting was similar to a fortress and defending field army, something that we are more than likely going to be fighting against numerous times during this venture. It was the perfect test for our forces, and we won, but still suffered huge casualties.

We had the element of surprise, was facing two uncoordinated forces, and both of those forces knew nothing about us and constantly underestimated us… and we still suffered such casualties. Now imagine that in future battles we won’t have those advantages, the enemy will know who we are and what we can do. Luckily that battle showed us some of our weaknesses, weaknesses that we can fix thanks to the fact that we didn’t fight a single weakened force, now in those future battles our losses will be less.” Quinten was deep in contemplation as he thought about Michaels reasoning for that battle, but eventually he just nodded in acceptance.

“Thank you sir, for explaining it.” Michael just smiled and waved him goodbye.

“Your welcome Quinten, see you later.” At that Quinten left, leaving Michael alone in his office.

Several days later… Anglia: POV (Lieutenant Brian O’Neill) Remember him?

For the past couple of days LT. Brian and the other four men in his team have been scouting out the port city of Anglia in order to gather intelligence for the approaching revolutionary forces. Brian, like the rest of his team as well as the other teams in the city, were the first trained and deployed ‘reapers’, the new Special Forces of the revolution. Months ago when Brian had heard the call for volunteers for a special new and secret training program, he had instantly signed up and was thrust forth into some of the most hellish training he had ever conceived of. Learning things that he could never imagine all in preparation to do things he would never have believed, and more than once he thought he was going to die, but he had held on, and now he could safely say that he was ready for anything.

The training had started even before the battle for the Castle Quartet, and now here he was, paving the way for the revolution to come to Anglia. Currently he and his team were mapping out the locations of the various garrison buildings, from the headquarters to the barracks. Later they were going to plant specially made explosive devises, ones currently only available to the reapers. These explosives were developed to be able to be detonated by dialing a certain number on their vid-phones, it was an ingenious thing thought up by Michael and when Brian had learned about it he was once again amazed by the shear brilliance of his leader.

It wasn’t just remote explosives (as head had learned they were called) but they also managed to sneak in several bazookas with plenty of rounds each as well as pistols and rifles, including a specially modified version of the rifles they used, a ‘sniper’ variant. It was basically one of their normal rifles but it had a scope mounted on it that was accurate and let them see over three hundred meters up close, and the barrel was specially made to be completely silent thanks to the use of a painstakingly created wind magic enchantment. Brian had heard that it was the first custom made enchantment developed by Michael’s research and development (R&D) department, specifically by the same mage that Michael himself had put in charge.

Truthfully Brian and the others couldn’t wait to start causing havoc and living up to their namesake, after all ever since they had snuck in disguised as merchants they had done nothing but walk around pretending to be tourists from Gallia. Since the port city did most of its business with said country, pretending to be from there was the easiest. But they would all do their jobs and wait patiently, at least they all found good sniping positions, gave them a clear line of sight into the governor’s palace.

Wrotham Forest: POV (Colonel Briek Evron)

Nervous, that’s how one would describe Colonel Briek right now. Why? Because he was leading an army of approx. twenty eight thousand to purposefully get in the way of another army of nearly one hundred eighty thousand. His orders, block them and do not move. Personally Briek thought that Michael had finally lost it. At the moment he and his army had advanced to within nearly 40km of Carlow, he was honestly surprised that he had gotten so close and still hadn’t encountered the enemy army. So far they had been advancing and claiming any town or village that they had come across. Briek was then broken from his musings by the sound of his vid-phone telling him he had a call, opening it up he saw that it was one of the scout teams that he had sent ahead.

“Sergeant, you got something for me?” He asked to which he got a nod.

“Yes sir, we have spotted the enemy army approx. twelve km from your position.” Briek’s eyes widened before turning to one of his Lieutenants.

“Call a halt, have the men start setting up a defense line, get the artillery deployed and ready the MG nests.” The LT nodded and then set out giving orders while the Colonel turned back to the Sergeant. “Sergeant what is the enemy doing right now?”

“Well sir they appear to be setting up camp for the night, I’m seeing a lot of tents.”

“Very good Sergeant, scout out what you can of the enemy camp and then report back in four hours.” The Sergeant nod and hung up. The Colonel sighed; he had located the enemy, now he had to keep them here, luckily he had a plan.

Later that night…

The enemy camp as it turned out was situated in a huge open field surrounded by woodland with a stream nearby. The tents were arranged in proper and long rows, with the mage’s tents located in the center of the camp formation with the supply wagons located in groups that dotted the camp. Since it was just after midnight the majority of the Reconquista army was asleep with only a few hundred sentries on guard duty patrolling the perimeter and amongst the camp itself.

Currently Colonel Briek was observing the enemy camp from a small hill near the camp using another one of the new devices to come out of Michael’s R&D department, binoculars; Briek thought that they were the next logical step from telescopes, these particular binoculars were also enchanted to allow someone to see clearly even in the dead of night, which coined the term ‘night vision’, Briek had heard that eventually there were going to be specially made goggles solely for seeing at night, but that was supposed to be some time from now, he didn’t understand why though.

While he was observing there are also nearly five hundred of his own men down there in the enemy camp sneaking around and carefully slitting the throats of any guard unlucky enough to be seen, not only that but his men were also assassinating as many officers in their sleep as they can find while at the same time taking note of any special targets that they come across. All this was in preparation for a surprise artillery and rocket strike that was to commence in a few more minutes, he was just waiting for the last of the infiltration teams to return and report any extra coordinates to the howitzer crews.

“Sir the last of the teams are back and all coordinates have been given, also all rocket teams report ready.” Said his accompanying Captain. Briek just nodded before giving a shark grin as he gave the order, this was going to be good.

“Commence the attack.” The Captain gave no reply, instead he spoke into the radio; another of the more logical inventions that came out of the R&D department, this one strait from Reigate meaning that its development was personally over seen by Michael. Working on similar principles as the vid-phone, while it doesn’t have picture, it does allow someone to communicate anyone else that also has a radio provided that they are all on the same ‘frequency’, making it so that you only need one radio to talk to multiple sources simultaneously instead of many vid-phones. Something that Briek had also learned was that the radio was so new that when his forces passed through Reigate to get their extra weapons, they were actually given every single radio in existence at the time. Thus the Colonel was very grateful for the prioritization given to his forces, especially for how fast the attack actually started once the word was broadcasted.

Less than a minute; that is how long until the enemy camp was rocked by dozens of howitzer strikes, all of which were targeting the middle of the camp in an effort to kill as many mages as possible. Seconds later the bazooka teams fired and rockets streamed into the camps, some hitting tents thought to be housing mages that had survived the artillery strike, whilst the majority hitting the various supply depots placed throughout the camp. Shortly after that another wave of shells impacted targets all around the camp, by this time the alarm had gone on throughout the camp as surviving officers attempted to organize their troops in an attempt to fight off the attack from an enemy they couldn’t even see. The chaos was intense due to the large number of soldiers who’s commanding officers were currently dead in their beds causing wide spread panic which was further added to when rockets would hit any concentration of troops that could be seen, especially if there was an officer.

After the third artillery barrage, which had targeted the area of the camp in which the cavalry had set up their makeshift stables which resulted in pulverized horse meat being sent everywhere, a planned five minute pause occurred to allow the Reconquista forces to organize troop formations. Once the five minutes were up those same formations were pounded by shells and rockets, further adding to the death toll and panic. After that last strike Briek turned to the Captain.

“That’s that, make sure the assigned scout teams are well hidden and give the order for the rest of our men to head on back to the defense line, we’re done for the night.” The captain gave the affirmative before issuing orders on his radio, the strikes would halt for now, but every five hours another barrage would be hurled at the enemy camp to keep them on edge or until they moved. The Colonel knew he could keep hitting them, and maybe even cripple the enemy army, but his orders were to keep them from advancing, not to attempt to defeat them. He would do just that, but he was still nervous about the next few weeks.

POV change: (Marquis Arthur Huxley) Reconquista

It would take two days before the Marquis would be able to get a full report on his losses from the surprise night attack from the rebels, during that time he had been forced to withdraw his army 10km back towards Carlow in order to escape the range of the rebel artillery which had proceeded to attack in increments of five hours which added to his losses. After he had gotten his army settled the reports had flooded to him, and he became furious at those damn peasants. It had been discovered that dozens of his officers had been killed in their sleep and hundreds of sentry guards were found dead with their throats sliced open, add to that the bombardments had seemed to focus on hitting his supply wagons and the mage’s sleeping area resulting in the deaths of over three thousand of his mages along with the loss of two thirds of his armies provisions, making it so he couldn’t advance his army until resupply caravans could be gathered and sent to him from Carlow and its surrounding territory.

Yet all this was on top of the troop losses he had taken; thanks to the bombardments of clustered formations, the fires that had been started by them that had swept parts of the camp, and the follow up barrages combined with a rash of desertions brought on by the fear and confusion of the attack and seemingly ghostly slaughtering of sentries and officers had brought the total number of casualties to nearly forty thousand men and mages and the near crippling of his cavalry thanks to the hits to his stables.

Because of how long it was going to take for provisions to arrive due to the fact that before he left Arthur had requisitioned all extra available supplies in preparation for his renewed campaign, which as it were the reason that his army had departed as late as it did, it was estimated to be at least a week for the caravans to be gathered and arrive. Thus now all he could do was sit there and send out scouts in an attempt to locate the rebels, problem was that in the days since he had started sending them out barley a fifth had returned, and none of them had managed to find the enemy.

So here he was, still days from being able to move out, he had thought about informing the Duke Louis but had thought better of it; while the night attack had been effective it was still cowardly and an embarrassment for the Marquis since it had stopped him in his tracks. He was angry, but was then broken out of his thoughts by an attendant.

“Milord, one of the scouts has reported back and says that he had located the rebels!” The attendant was breathing hard as he held the scout’s report which the Marquis quickly snatched upon hearing what its contents were. The attendant quickly bowed his head and left as Arthur examined the report. The rebels had established a defensive line just under 25km from the Marquis’s own position. He grinned savagely as he spoke aloud.

“So that’s where you are? Heh, just a few more days, and then I will crush you wretched commoners.” He was seeing red now; soon his humiliation will be avenged.

Near Anglia… POV (Michael)

Sitting inside his command tent Michael was reviewing the past week since he had joined up with the army he was going to use to take Anglia; currently the city was surrounded, meaning that all nearby towns and villages were his. The army had grown as well, thanks to freshly trained recruits arriving from other towns and villages, already troop numbers had reached eighty thousand, and would soon surpass his initial hopes by toping one hundred thousand by the week’s end. The latest reports from his reaper teams indicate that they are ready whenever he is; they had planted explosives all over military targets inside the city and had spread dozens of rumors in an effort to demoralize the city garrison.

“Sir?” Michael looked up from the reports to see Majors Jayden and Ruben entering.

“Majors, welcome, I trust everything is in order?” They both nodded and Jayden spoke.

“Yes sir, our forces are all set for the planned attack, also new estimates put our numbers at one hundred twenty thousand by the time we attack.” Michael smiled.

“Excellent, I’m guessing that some of those towns were larger than we expected then?” This time it was Ruben who answered.

“Indeed, not only that but more signed up than we thought would, it was a pleasant surprise.” Michael chuckled at that.

“I bet… how are the men progressing in their training on the new weapons?”

“The MGLs (Multiple Grenade Launcher), they are coming along nicely.” Answered Ruben. The MGLs were commissioned by Michael at Reigate in order to give his men more explosive potential in urban combat without having to rely on bazookas all the time. The concept was fairly simple, since grenade launchers were fairly easy to make, at least as easy as bazookas, all that was required was to make a six-shooter variant that would rotate after each grenade fired. Now his forces could fire directed grenades during combat, and in greater numbers.

“That’s great; with MGLs taking this city or any other city will be a whole lot easier. Any word from Colonel Briek?”

“The Colonel reports that he’s holding but request that we hurry up.” Answered Jayden with a laugh which caused both Michael and Ruben to laugh too.

“I understand how he feels, he’s trying to hold off a much larger force and isn’t allowed to make any decisive blows, he must be frustrated as all hell at the number of chances that he has been forced to pass up. Thankfully this should be the only time that any of us will need to do something like this.” The Majors both nodded at Michael’s words; they too were frustrated that this one city was preventing one of their own from advancing.

“Well sir, just a few more days and we can begin.”

“True enough Major, true enough.” With that the Majors saluted and exited Michael’s tent, once again leaving him alone with his thoughts. ‘This city is yet another test, let’s see how we do.’

Inside Anglia…The night before the attack… POV change: (LT Brian)

It was time for them to strike; all five of the reaper teams had been given the order to commence their operation of softening up the city defenders in preparation for tomorrow’s assault. Currently two men from each team were located in a position to give them a clear line of sight of the mage barracks to allow them to fire their bazookas at it. The city guard barracks for the commoner soldiers had been rigged with explosives, at least the largest one had been. The city actually had several barracks for its guards and the reaper teams simply didn’t have enough explosives for each one, so they had decided to just hit the largest one, since it would have the most officers in it.

“All reaper teams this is team one, report in.” Ordered Brian on the new radios that had recently been smuggled in for them.

“This is team two, ready.”

“This is team three, in position.”

“This is team four, all set.”

“This is team five, we’re a go.” Brian smiled, this was it.

“All teams, on my mark; three… two… one.” He didn’t say anything else; he didn’t have to for as soon as he said one, five rockets sped out from five different places and impacted the fancy looking barracks were the privileged aristocratic part time city defenders all slept peacefully. After that all the teams reloaded their launchers and fired again; each team was to fire three time before regrouping, however after the first shot the other members of the reaper teams all detonated their remote explosives destroying not only the largest city guard barracks, but also many of the watch towers that surrounded the city which were now flaming ruins. Other explosives went off at the more luxurious inns that catered exclusively to rich nobles, killing many in their sleep. Finally, various explosions went off at the base of the wall towers that protected the governor’s palace causing several to collapse.

Brian smiled in delight at the destruction that was caused and when the last of the rockets hit, he and his teammate quickly moved to where the rest of his team was waiting and when he arrived he immediately picked up the radio.

“Alright reaper teams, time to go to work.” What followed was three hours of pure murder as the five teams of specially trained men called reapers made all efforts to live up to their namesake. They all essentially ran around killing nobles and city guards all the while leaving threats mainly addressed to the aristocracy as well as prophetic messages to the city defenders as to the futility of surviving against the coming attack. By the time they called it a night the city was in a chaotic panic as tens of thousands of people awoke in fright at the sounds of explosions and screams and the guards were all freaking out at the destruction and death that came from seemingly nowhere, by dawn the whole city was in a frightened daze, and when they saw the approaching army a wave of dread swept through the hearts of the defenders.

Back at the inn that Brian’s team was using as a base of operations he reached for the radio and switched to a new frequency before speaking.

“Reaper team one to Angel King, mission complete, they are ready to receive the good word.” He waited a few seconds before he got a reply.

“Copy that reaper… Hallelujah.” Brian’s laughter seemed to echo throughout the panicking city.

Outside the city… POV change: (Michael)

Gazing out upon the lines smoke from last night’s ‘incident’ Michael was marching at the head of one of the many battalions in his largest army to date as it slowly advances towards the city. One hundred twenty thousand men of the Albion revolutionary movement against Anglia’s poultry city guard force of severely demoralized twenty five thousand, however it gets better, thanks to the attack last night that force is actually been reduced to less than twenty thousand due to the largest barracks being destroyed, the mages barracks, and the various towers destroyed, the reapers rampage, and the deserters that resulted from the fear campaign. Now seeing the force arrayed against them their flimsy courage was quickly breaking causing hundreds to abandon their posts.

Michael used his binoculars to observe the city wall he was marching towards and noticed that many of the city defenders had assembled on it and he couldn’t help but chuckle, ‘This is going to be a slaughter.’ He then turned to address the two Majors who were flanking him on horses.

“This is it gentlemen, take your positions.” They both nodded and rode off.

As the army came to within 600m of the wall it suddenly came under heavy bombardment by the dozens of howitzers at his army’s rear as the wall was hammered and soon whole section were reduced to rubble. At 400m the bombardment ceased and as it did Michael drew a sword he had acquired for this battle and thrust it into the air while he pulled out the Samaritan.

“TO OUR DESTINY, CHARGE!!!” At that he and thousands of others in his army raced towards the blasted ruins that were once the city’s wall. As they reached it one could see that it wasn’t only rubble that littered the ground but also blood and gore as it would later be learned that nearly half of the remaining garrison had gathered at the wall only to be obliterated by the artillery strike along with it. Thus once past the wall only stunned token resistance was encountered allowing the revolutionaries to pour into the city unchallenged.

The first thing that Michael did when he got past the ruins of the wall was point his weapon at a man in fancy clothes holding a sword-wand and blow his head off, and then fired two more rounds at the mages bodyguards killing two and causing the rest to flee only to be gunned down by the battalion of men behind Michael. Advancing through the city was painfully easy for Michael as he simple followed one of the main roads towards the governor’s palace; it seemed that once Michael’s forces began filtering though the city nearly all resistance broke as reports from other front line units are constantly saying that the city guards are literally throwing down their weapons and scattering, only in rare cases were they had mages with them did they try to fight back, but thanks to the reaper teams, there weren’t many mages left.

About three fourths of the way to the palace was when Michael finally encountered something that actually impeded his progress. Several squads of men looked to be pinned down in some buildings and were taking some serious spell fire. Working his way to one of them he asked.

“What’s the hold up here Sergeant?” Said NCO turned to look at him before answering.

“Sir, a group of mages and guards have erected an earthen wall and are keeping us pinned with lots of spells, we can’t attack without getting cut to pieces or burned alive, those guards also seem to have muskets.” Michael peaked around the cover he and the Sergeant were hiding behind and saw a rock wall made of the very street they were walking on. He also saw at least a dozen men in gaudy clothes with various foci at the ready and other men in armor with muskets ready to fire.

“Have you tried calling in artillery?” He asked only to receive a shake of the head.

“Can’t do that sir, too many civvies around and in the buildings, we also can’t use bazookas because they can’t get a clear shot without getting hit by the enemy.” Michael just looked over the area before smiling.

“Just leave this to me and my boys, ready your guy’s bazookas to fire when I give the command.” The Sergeant just nodded before Michael addressed a few of the officers he brought with him. “Okay ready, alright COVERING FIRE!” At the order everyone started mass firing at the enemy position and as soon as they took cover behind the wall Michael shouted. “MGLs, NOW!” Several of his men that had the grenade launchers fired several rounds each at or over the wall and as soon as they went off he gave another order. “NOW SERGEANT” The Sergeant gave a shout and four bazooka wielding soldiers burst from cover and fired, blowing huge holes in the rock wall. Seeing this, the Sergeant gave another shout.

“ATTACK!” Dozens of formally pinned down men suddenly bum rushed the former enemy position and quickly over took it, capturing or killing what few surviving Reconquista troops that were left.

After that little delay Michael had reached the palace wall with no other issue; when he arrived he saw that hundreds of his men had gathered and were taking pot shots at the defenders.

“Captain, what’s the hold up, why haven’t we beached yet?” The Captain turned to see who had addressed him before answering as soon as he saw who it was.

“Just waiting for more troops to arrive before we storm it sir.” Michael nodded but also said.

“Well we have enough now, call in a strike, it’s time to finish this.” The Captain nodded smartly before signaling his radioman, seconds later a barrage of howitzer shells slammed into the wall, blowing holes and blasting defenders. When it was over Michael then shouted another order. “Bazooka teams blast the gate!” At his command several rockets demolished the wood and metal gate. “Alright boys lets end this!” With that hundreds of troops charged through the wrecked gate and any holes in the wall. As Michael reached the gate he addressed one of his men. “Lieutenant, take some men and secure the gatehouse!” Said officer nodded and got to work, then the same Captain from before reported to Michael.

“Sir… just heard that Major Jayden has also breached the palace and is already nearing the throne room.” Michael just laughed before saying.

“Well then, we had better get moving before we miss out on all the fun.” The resulting journey towards the throne room was surprisingly dull, while there was evidence of fighting along the way; they encountered no resistance by the time they arrived. When Michael entered the throne room he was treated to the sight of several pompously dress men and their heavily armored guards on their knees with their hands on their heads all with looks of fear, shame, and in the case of one porky fellow, outrage. Standing over these individuals was Major Jayden and a company worth of men, Jayden also had a cocky grin on his face.

“Looks like I one won sir.” Michael just laughed at that.

“I guess so Major you lucky bastard you.” They both had a good laugh, and then Michael turned to look at the one Reconquista goon with the angry look on his face. “I’m guessing you are the governor person?” The stupidly dress piglet somehow turned plum purple as he began to rage at Michael.

“YOU INGNORANT, UNGREATFUL, WORTHLESS PEASANT, WHEN THE REST OF THE RECONQUISTA HEARS ABOUT THIS YOU WILL BE SKINNED ALIVE, I WILL…” He never finished as Michael pistol-whipped the loud mouthed grease ball. Then he whispered to one of his Lieutenants.

“Take this asshole outside, force him to dig a deep hole, and then shoot him and bury him in said hole.” The LT grinned fiendishly and then carried out his orders with glee. Then he gestured for the rest to be taken away before speaking to those left. “I must say good job everyone, now let’s wrap this up.” Everyone then saluted and dispersed to do their jobs. Michael then walked over to lookout one of the windows; the fighting was pretty much over and as he watched the various Reconquista standards and banners get torn down he suddenly had a thought.

‘We really need a flag.’

Several days later… Wrotham Forest: POV (Marquis Arthur Huxley) Reconquista

To say that Marquis Arthur was frustrated would be like saying that nobles liked gold; it just doesn’t grasp the intensity of the emotion. Several reasons can be attributed to his current state of unrest, and it all relates to those rebels in the woods. When the Marquis finally got his resupply caravan the first thing he did was to send a small vanguard force of about twenty thousand to determine the effective range of then enemy’s accursed artillery, after getting themselves blasted all to hell and thus losing nearly eight thousand men, Arthur was able to relocate his forces to just outside the enemy artillery range at 15km from the rebel defense line. Further scouting efforts also gave him a rough estimate of enemy troop strength at nearly forty thousand, which resulted in him ordering seventy five thousand of soldiers to launch what he hoped to be a rapid but decisive battle as his forces more or less rushed the enemy line hoping that if they could move fast enough they could minimize the losses they’d suffer due to the artillery.

It was a disaster; barely thirty six thousand demoralized troops managed to make it back. Battle reports indicated that despite their rapid advance they still suffered intense casualties, however the true devastation came when they got to the enemy line; the bombardments only intensified and the troops ended up taking insane levels of incoming musket fire that wiped out whole companies in seconds, over all the battle lasted about fifteen minutes before the commanders were sounding the retreat.

That was a week ago, since that mockery of a battle the Marquis had suffered even more losses in the form of mass desertions by soldiers desperately trying to get away before they are forced to face that demonic army again. As a result he was left with just over eighty thousand men, less than five thousand are mages. Over the last few days he has had the camp converted into a pseudo fortress by having his mages summon up stone walls while his troops build wooden palisades and towers in preparation for a counter attack that he knows should have happened days ago.

“Damn it!” The Marquis shouted as he slammed his fists on the table. “Just what are those bastards waiting for!?” As if in response to is question the camp was suddenly rocked by earth shaking explosions. Running outside he saw tents and what few structures that they had erected get blown apart along with sections of the wall and palisades. Towers too erupted in flames as they were hit from the sides rather than above and parts of the wall blew inward. The attack lasted for only a few minutes and thankfully wasn’t as damaging as it was last time due to extra spacing between tents and structures, but it still cost them. When it was over Arthur just looked around at the damage and couldn’t help but feel a combination of both anger and confusion.

‘They moved their founder-accursed artillery forward, but then why this sudden random attack, they have been silent all this time.’ His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden shout.

“ENEMY ATTACK!” Before it was silenced by renewed shelling. Comprehension finally came to the Marquis, ‘This is it!’

“Everyone ready yourselves it’s the main rebel attack!” He then looked towards one of the openings in the wall and saw just how big the attack was; thousands of blue uniformed men were charging out of the forest just like at Reigate. As he saw the numbers he realized what the rebels had been waiting for all this time, reinforcements. As he observed the enemy he noticed several get immolated and saw that some of his mages had taken to manning the walls and were launching spells, then with horror he noticed a few of the rebel soldiers hefting those tube-rods on to their shoulders. “GET OFF THE WALLS!” He yelled but it was too late and those same mages were consumed in fire.

All around him his camp was being obliterated by explosions as the rebels’ advanced from all sides and soon they began pouring through the breached wall and began shooting his men. He moved to draw his sword-wand to start firing spells but as he did his command lodge, one of the few wooden structures built, suddenly exploded sending him flying. When he regained his wits about himself and attempted to get up he felt a horrendous pain in his chest, looking down he saw a large chunk of wood in his chest. Looking around he saw as his vision darkened his men get shot down and blown up with little effort; as his sight left him his last thoughts were, ‘Who are these men?’ Thus Marquis Arthur Huxley passes.

POV change: (Colonel Briek Evron)

Staring down at the body of the now deceased Reconquista commander, thoughts of what had transpired to lead him here to this ruined and corpse littered former enemy camp. For weeks Colonel Briek had held his position in the Wrotham forest prepared to weather any attack with only thirty thousand troops. But as the days past all that happened after that first night attack conducted by his forces was numerous scouting parties, one probing force which he easily dealt with, and one other actual attack that he managed to repel with heavy use of artillery and machinegun fire. By the time of that attack his forces had grown to just over forty thousand from newly trained recruits from the various towns and villages that had been taken weeks before hand. After that attack the Reconquista forces just sat where they were and just fortified themselves.

Then just the other day the long awaited reinforcements from Anglia had finally arrived after traveling strait from their overwhelming victory. By the time they had arrived Briek’s army had grown to sixty thousand, Michael had generously sent him ninety thousand, so his new army had increased to one hundred fifty thousand troops, more than enough to finish off the estimated eighty thousand left in the encampment. So the next morning his forces had picked up everything and then advanced the 15km distance to finally attack the enemy. The first thing they did was position the howitzers, then the mortars, and finally maneuvered to surround the Reconquista camp.

After an opening barrage to soften them up and blow holes in their fortifications Briek then gave the order for a full on attack under the cover of bombardment. With the enemy defenses in shambles, their moral low from past losses and shelling, and any attempt at organizing themselves constantly disrupted the whole battle lasted less than an hour before all Reconquista forces were either dead or had surrendered. Speaking of surrendering enemies, they had taken over thirty thousand prisoners from this later battle, once their leaders and mages were seen as dead the commoner soldiers began losing heart and throwing down their weapons by the hundreds. In the end they had only lost around twenty five thousand men. Add to that another five thousand to escort their thousands of prisoners and Colonel Briek was left with one hundred twenty thousand soldiers to take Carlow, coincidently the same number of troops used to take Anglia, what are the odds?

“Sir?” Briek looked over at one of his Lieutenants. “Sir the regiment assigned to escort the prisoners has just departed.” Briek nodded at this and then said.

“Alright then, have the rest of our forces form up and start moving on out to Carlow, we have nearly 30km to march and I want to get as far as we can today before we need to stop for the night.” The Lieutenant gave an affirmative before saluting smartly and heading off to complete his orders. The Colonel watched as his men formed up and thought to himself. ‘This little ordeal is almost over with, time to wrap things up.’

Two days later… City of Carlow: POV (Duke Louis Lefroy) Reconquista

He couldn’t believe what was happening, it shouldn’t be happening, it couldn’t, but it was. His city, his beautiful, his wonderful city was being invaded nay, sacked, plundered, by… by… rabble, peasants, commoners. These strangely garbed plebeians armed with odd looking muskets were rampaging all throughout his glorious city and Duke Louis just didn’t want to believe it. It happened so fast too; they appeared suddenly at dawn on the hills overlooking Carlow and then proceeded to surround the city. Within a few hours they had completed their encirclement, and that’s when it began; powerful artillery started raining destruction upon the city, hitting the defense walls, the garrison buildings, some even hitting his beautiful palace.

They had begun their advance on the city even while their bombardment continued and by noon they were inside the now ruined city walls and started clashing with and routing his city guards. Even the cities defending mages couldn’t stop them and as the battle continued the Duke began to more and more regret giving the Marquis Arthur so many of his troops. Because of that blasted fool his cities defenders were down to a mere sixty thousand, less than half of what it should be, all thanks to him foolishly lending his forces to the Marquis.

More explosions rocked the palace and dozens of his guards and numerous noble underlings had congregated here in his throne room with him. Another one of his men, this one a Captain, ran into the room and had several of his accompanying men close and seal the large double doors.

“Milord the enemy have breached the palace walls and are quickly advancing, they will be here within moments.” The Duke’s men had formed a defensive wall in front of their lord and were readying themselves. At hearing they were almost upon him the Duke raged.

“Brimir damn them commoners, who are these men?!” The Captain could only guess.

“I do not know Milord, but based on what has been seen they appear to be the rebels that the Marquis Arthur described.” The Duke’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“Impossible, I gave him over one hundred thousand men to crush that rabble, how can they be here attacking me in my OWN HOME!” The Duke yelled in frustration, the Captain tried to say something to calm his lord but before he could the doors to the throne room exploded inwards knocking several guards off their feet. Before the fire from the blast even receded shots from the enemy’s strange muskets were already impacting the defenders killing many of the guards. Return fire came in the form of spells and from the screams it sounded like some of the invaders were hit, but it didn’t deter them as they rush in still firing their weapons and ducking behind pillars for cover.

Now slightly fearful for his life the Duke used his ornate staff foci and fired off some ice spears and actually killed one of the barbarians, however his victory was short lived as his staff wielding arm was blown off. He fell to the floor screaming and clutching his bloody stump of a shoulder. Looking around the Duke saw the Captain he talked to on the ground missing most of his head, the vast majority of his guard were dead or face down on the ground with their hands on their heads. There were others like himself that were wounded, but he then noticed the fighting had stopped.

“Alright, all surviving mages drop your foci and surrender, NOW!” The Duke looked towards the door where the commanding voice had come from to see another of the uniformed plebeians walk in holding nothing but some kind of pistol flanked by two others, he walked right up to the Duke and spoke further. “I’m guessing that you are Duke Louis?” He asked with heavy impudence, much to the ire of the Duke. Gritting against the pain he was feeling he answered.

“Yes I am you ungrateful commoner, and you will show respect to your betters!” The Duke’s yelling did nothing to the strange commoner, instead he calmly spoke.

“I will, when I am in the presence of any that meet that description.” A small smirk formed on the man’s face as he said that, further enraging the Duke, but continued before he could berate the commoner. “My name is Colonel Briek Evron of the Albion revolutionary movement, and as of now the city of Carlow now belongs to us, do you surrender?” That set the Duke off.

“I WOULD NEVER SURRENDER TO A FOUNDER DAMNED PEASANT, I WOULD SOONER DIE THAN DO SUCH A DISHONORABLE THING!” The infuriating plebian just smirked and brought up his pistol and aimed it at the Duke’s head.

“Wish granted.” The second to last thing that went through the Duke’s head was of just how much he would make this commoner suffer, the last thing that went through his head was the bullet.

City of Norwich: POV (Michael)

“So that’s what happened?” Asked Michael as he talked to Colonel Briek over his vid-phone. For the past few minutes he was getting the preliminary report about the battle of Carlow.

“Yes sir, the city is ours and the ruling lords are all either dead or captured. Estimates put our losses at nearly forty thousand casualties.” Michael nodded grimly at the numbers, unlike Anglia, Carlow had most of their mage garrison plus their city guardsmen were far better trained, numerous, and their moral wasn’t in the gutter.

“Well in any case good work taking the city, I’ve currently some important business to take care of in and around Norwich that’ll take several days, so I’m going to leave the consolidation of the city to you as well as the recruiting. If you need anything just give Quinten a call, he’ll help you out.” Briek nodded and replied back.

“Understood sir, if there’s nothing else I’d like to get to work.” Michael just shook his head.

“No that’s all, I’ll contact you later.” With that he hung up.

Reason being that Michael is in Norwich is that shortly after the capture (again read: liberation) of Anglia he got a call from Tabitha informing him that they were at the port city of Dunkerque, the same city that he and his forces had used during their crossing to Albion three months ago. Apparently they too were going to use that same port to come to Norwich. So upon hearing that Michael had high-tailed it back to Norwich leaving Major Jayden in charge of Anglia and sending most of his forces over to Colonel Briek. Now here Michael was, sitting in his old office in the former governor’s palace waiting for Louise and friends to show up.

‘Oh well, at least once I finish up with the Wales and Wardes story arc I’ll finally be able focus all my attention on the revolution… just a little longer.’

Chapter End