3 The Siege of Harroway

We left at noon the next day. All 350 men, we were also transporting 500 prisoners and extra food and resources due to taking the Roote Army resources. Sadly all these extra treasures and prisoners slowed us down a lot.

I had spent my days preaching to the prisoners about how they should join us, I offered positions, money and land and in the end about 300 joined. We had also spent some time drilling the men as we took our time, I was confident in our men at least being able to hold out, most battles usually didn't just take 4 hours but instead could be weeks of fighting, however due to it being a small army from both sides the casualties wouldn't be major and the battle might just end quick, or they would just have a stand off.

Turning back to our current situation, we couldn't handle a long siege as we had little food and I didn't wanna raid the land of the House I'm taking over and essentially my land soon.

It took us a total of 30 hours to arrive. Once we were closed we stopped, we needed to take the garrison by surprise. Due to us being a relatively small army we didn't kick a lot of dust into the air nor did we make much sound. I also decided to avoid the roads.

As I was sitting on my horse I turned to the Commander.

"Your men have 2 hours to rest, once that time is up then you have exactly 50 minutes to place our prisoners and disguises people at the front and sides. Also prepare the banners."

"Yes, sir!" He said as he ordered his horse to run up.

That's when Jon came to me.

"Ser, a letter from Commander Tytos."

"Thank you." I said as I took the letter.

I quickly took it out and began reading it, it was a report.

"My Lord, we arrived at our position about 3 days ago, we created a defensive position on the hill with tree spikes and walls. The enemy forces arrived about 15 hours after us, they didn't immediately charge and instead set up a camp. When they were done they didn't attack but instead rested. The battle began little over 2 days ago and it lasted for about 5 hours before they retreated down the hill, they had suffered about 400 losses while we suffered 220. They didn't attack again until 16 hours later, where they came back with torches and small rams to break our gate, they failed to burn the camp down but they managed to break down the door, however we were prepared and we managed to keep them outside the gate for about 8 hours until they retreated again. They suffered 600 losses and we suffered 400. We are now at equal manpower. They have also situated for a prolonged siege as they have brought catapults from Lychester. They began launching stones at us 6 hours after the battle at the start of the night, none of my men can sleep and we won't last long.

We need help soon."

It seemed that the Lychester Commander was indeed quite skilled and managed to adapt, we needed to hurry things up.

3 hours later we formed up, all the prisoners were kept close to our elite units as a safe measure and we left our banners at our camp and instead used the Roote banners, we also had about 700 men act as prisoners and a total of 800 was guards, meanwhile the cavalry was hiding nearby.

When we reached the gate I signalled from one of the surrendered knights to move forward to talk to them. I couldn't hear it personally but I knew we had multiple loyal men waiting for any signs of betrayal.

Our cover was that of a prisoner escort, the 800 men would be reasonable due to the large amount of prisoners, it is unusual indeed but there were some cases where the escort was larger than the prisoners, even when there was more modern weapons.

It didn't take long until we were arrived in. They had a garrison of 300 men and 200 House Guards, after being let in the Commander commanded a charge. The Phalanx was useless inside the gates with all the chaos, we outnumbered them heavily and we didn't need to over complicate things. They deployed into teams of 50 who worked together to kill large amount of enemies.

The garrison did not stand a chance at all, most of them immediately surrendered, they weren't trained to fight against armies, even less when they were outnumbered by a factor of 4. Another scary factor is the cavalry running wild inside the city, running down the roads and killing all Roote forces.

While the main force was running wild, I took a large amount of our original force who had changed into Roote Gear towards the keep, we were around 300 men. I also had 100 cavalry follow behind us. It took us 15 minutes to arrive at the keep, it had a small wall around it.

I was on my horse in the back of the forces on my horse, I had the same helmet as my guards so they wouldn't notice me. Even though I was in the back I could still hear the same Captain speaking.

"Please! Let us in! They have cavalry running wild in the city and we are sitting ducks out here!"

"Sorry, Captain, our lord told us not to let anyone in."

"We can only hold out until our army comes back if you have us inside, we number 500 and we can hold a force thrice our size if we have walls!"

"Sorry, I can't, you need to go back to the wall and push them out." The guard said

"Please! We don't wanna die, we all have family's and if I go out they will just desert! Don't you wanna save your Lord? He will surely congratulate you if you make a decision that saves him and the entire house?"

After thinking a bit he eventually ordered to open the door. Once he opened the door the men charged through the door like a wave, even though the guards was suspicious they wasn't prepared and everyone close to the gate was quickly annihilated. It didn't take more than a few seconds before the cavalry arrived and annoyed outside the keep itself was deemed dead, the infantry quickly pushed through the tick keep door as they hadn't closed it in time.

The siege was won. I joined the men charging into the keep alongside Jon and Jorgen, my pure skill with the spear, the thing I focused on. Alongside the towering figures of Jon and Jorgen we quickly made work of the House Guards in the small corridors.

We quickly arrived at the Great Keep where the Lord was, Lord Richard Roote, he was an old man. Over 50 years old, however he still had his experience.

"Ah, greetings Lord Bracken. It seems you have finally graced me with your presence." He said

"A pleasure to meet you, although it is indeed under worse circumstances than I hoped for."

"Hahahaha, indeed, seems my house will end with my bad choices, and I who thought we finally had a choice against the weaked Bracken, well too bad. Either way, I demand a trial by combat, shall I win House Roote shall not loose any lands to you, and shall I loose I will transfer all my lands." He offered.

"Very well, I accept. May the gods witness our dual." I said as I took out my spear and went towards him.

Usually people would say sword is a much better weapon for 1v1, but in fact sword is almost never the best choice.

He stepped towards me and took out his bastard sword. We circled around each other a few times until he slash his sword downwards on my spear, he would attempt to get close.

I quickly jumped back, once I landed on my foot I did the unexpected and jumped forward while stabbing, after jumping back he thought he had a breathing room, and he put his guard down, it was the perfect strike.

However due to his experience he managed to get his sword up in a position to block, however he wasn't fast enough and only managed to direct my spear towards his lower right abdomen, where it managed to make an ugly mark, while not large it was deep enough that he needed to get it fixed up soon.

He grunted in pain and attempted to move back to calm himself, however I wouldn't let that happen. I continued after him, stabbing right, left, towards his legs, shoulders and repeat, always a new target, I never gave him breathing room and his earlier injury caused him pain and restricted his movements and control, I quickly began getting in more and more slashes all around his body. Nothing as large as the first one, but the sheer amount quickly began handicapping him, and after 8 minutes of battle he fell to his knees and I speared him though the head, I didn't require any long speech now.

The house guards around me quickly bowed before me. However 10 of the House Guards charged, as my own men was about to intercept them I stopped them. Jon and Jorgen charged Infront of me and began killing them.

Jorgen reached the battle first, he was equipped with a shield and a longsword. His first opponent had no shield and only a sword, he did a sideways slash. As he was about to hit Jorgen he stabbed back, and the sword swinged Infront of him. However Jorgen used his longsword to swing at his sword, and when the sword came back to him with 4x power, he lost control and swung around. Beheading one of his own men. All of the men freezed up and Jorgen used this chance to stab his spear through his back and out his chest from behind. The others quickly woke up and began attacking again. This time he faced 3 people.

The 2 on the sides did a sideways slash at the same time and the one in the middle did a upwards slash, however it was obvious that they hadn't worked much together as they had some spacing. Jorgen used this opportunity by bashing the sword of the guy of the right. The sword flew off mark and above, Jorgen was about to slash his head off but the guy in the middle managed to stab towards Jorgen, and had to use his sword to parry the strike. However he used his shield to throw the sword out of the first guys hand.

He then turned his head towards the 2nd guy and sent the pointy part of the shield towards his head and it got stopped by the 2nd guys shield, however the force was greater than he expected and he was throwing off balance. Jorgen used this chance to kick him in the balls. ( one guy out of play, nobody is ever recovering for that )

Every man in the room took one of their hands Infront of their balls, including the guy just now having found his sword and Jon who had 2 hands Infront of his balls.

Jorgen then turned towards the 3rd guy and launched a fury of slashes and strikes, the poor guy couldn't hold on and got pushed on the ground. The 1st guy arrived just in time to stab towards Jorgen, but he sidestepped it and went over the 3rd guys body. A quick kick to the head sent him to the stars. Jorgen then turned towards the 1st guy only for him to put his weapons down.

Jon, had done as well as Jorgen. He first guy was courageous and charged alone, only to be met by a quick parry with a sword and a elbow to the face. Jon did not have a shield as he had given it to one of the men who lost theirs during the battle in the keep. The guy got thrown of balance with the elbow to his head and a graceful slash through is neck ended his life. The 4 other guys instead surrounded him. Jon picked up the first guys sword and proceeded to go all Sword of the Morning on them, he was swinging around blocking stabs and slashes left and right.

The 4 guys had in their stupor allowed him to create distance between each of them. And that was enough for him to throw his shoulder into one of their shields, surprisingly pushing him to the ground. Jon then kicked his shield away and a quick and precise sword through his armor put him out of his misery.

He then turned towards the last guys swinging his swords like Arthur Dayne and continued to demolish the three guys in combat, they were so intimidated they began to retreat on instinct which allowed Jon to pick them off. However he was too slow. In the end Jorgen came and beheaded the last guy after Jon had slided his sword smoothly around the 3rd guys shield.

And with my guards single handily slaughtering 10 men, the siege of Harroway's ended.