Edwin shifted his weight, causing the bone plates of his armor to scrape against each other. It was a muted sound, but in the silent clearing it seemed much louder than usual. After marching for most of the day, the advance force had left the road to hunker down in the cover of the trees. Now, the dim light of the afternoon’s overcast sky matched perfectly the tense atmosphere of the men that stood in the clearing. Everything worth saying had been said, so all that was left was to wait. Clothing rustled. A stick snapped. Somebody coughed quietly. Finally, footsteps approached in the distance.

A short while later, three men in scout leathers stepped into the clearing. Pausing for a moment, the leader spotted General Asher among the gathered officers and headed straight for him. All three newcomers took off their helmets and stood at attention.

“General, Lieutenant Keller and two others reporting!”

“At ease, Lieutenant,” Asher answered, and the scouts relaxed.

“I apologize for my tardiness, General. We were expecting your arrival tomorrow at the earliest.”

“Very good,” Asher said, a wry smile pulling on the corners of his mouth. “That gives me hope that our ruse worked in fooling our enemy as well. Your report, Lieutenant.”

Keller stood up straighter, which was an achievement considering he’d been almost ramrod-straight anyway, and begun his retelling. The beginning was nothing new, as he restated what the messengers had relayed to them anyway, but soon it turned interesting.

“With our attempts at infiltration foiled, we decided our best course of action was to diminish Lindvar’s reconnaissance capabilities. Instead of evading their scouts, we instead sought them out and neutralized them wherever possible. It was at this point we learned that while their deployment of sentries is commendable, the proficiency of their scouts is severely lacking. We had planned for our ambushes to send our quarry fleeing into the arms of a second team, but several times we managed to approach them completely undetected.”

To Edwin’s surprise, the young officer spoke in the overly formal way that only the highest nobles, or those who fancied themselves as such, bothered with. This stilted way of speaking, which Edwin usually associated with self-important people waxing poetically about how great they were, or high nobles using their pretty words to sugarcoat bullcrap while addressing their subjects with benevolent smiles, was at complete odds with the lieutenant’s dirty and disheveled appearance.

“After arriving at Giant’s Head, the enemy established a siege camp out of ballista range and constructed a collection of siege ladders. Today at dawn, they began their attack with a barrage of fireballs targeting the fortress’s shooting floor. Following this, they began their attack. Due to space constraints, only two of the enemy battalions are actually engaging the fortress. One is assaulting the gates while the other is ascending the mountain’s side. The other two have taken defensive positions toward the road, with their scouts retracted to a short distance in front of their line. Incidentally, this is why I can guarantee that Lindvar division remains unaware of your approach, General.”

“How are the defenders doing?” someone asked.

“The gate was breached quickly but judging by the number of men that have entered, they have yet to take much ground in the corridors within. The climbing force made good progress early on until the defenders began dropping heavy objects and burning oil down on their heads. The attackers had to abandon their attack for a short while, until they restarted their efforts a few hours ago, this time with the protection of mages. Through what I assume to be magical means they have already begun ascending the area below the openings, but their pace is slow, as they seem to need to regularly rotate out their mages. Unless they keep going through the night, I expect them to reach the shooting floor around noon tomorrow.”

“You and your men have done outstanding work, Lieutenant,” Asher said with a fatherly smile. “Now it is up to us to make use of it. Ideas, men?”

“Did I understand it correctly that they split their forces, with half of them this side of the camp, defending toward the road in the northeast?” Colonel Harrick asked, and when the scout lieutenant answered in the affirmative, he turned to the general. “We could attack them from the front to bind their forces with half of ours, while the other half attacks their flank from a less well-defended direction. With the new spell, we should easily get the drop on them.”

“Lieutenant,” Colonel Meller said slowly, “you and your men have kept a close eye on their sentries. How close can you get us without being spotted?”

“From the direction of the road, only within a few hundred meters of their defenses,” Keller said after a moment of consideration. “Their coverage of the flanks is less thorough, however. With care, we might be able to quiet a few of their sentries and approach within half a kilometer of their main camp before being spotted.”

“Let’s say we gave each of your scouts a team of adventurers, each made up of seasoned woodsmen and with at least one sharpshooter-qualified marksman,” Bordan jumped in, his mouth twisting into an evil smile, “how close could you get us then?”

Keller opened his mouth, then frowned, closing it again. “Assuming the skills of your men are as you say, we can clear the approach to within two hundred meters of the main camp from the north-west, even less than that from the south where their defenses are weakest.”

Bordan turned to Colonel Meller, and the two shared a nod. The colonel turned to the others. “I propose we use the scouts and adventurers to approach, then attack them from two flanks at once. We can engage their defense force from the rear where they don’t have prepared defenses while striking their camp and their supplies at the same time. This way we can force them to abandon their siege, all without showing our hand and revealing our new spell.”

“This would allow us to keep it in reserve for another day when the circumstances do not favor us quite as much,” Asher said with a nod. “Thoughts, people?” A few offered small adjustments or asked for clarifications, but none objected. With a plan of action decided on, they hashed out the details and split their forces once more, working quickly as they were all too aware that dusk was fast approaching. Half an hour later, the clearing was empty once more, broken twigs and a bootprint in soft dirt the only sign that anyone had been there at all.