I drop him with one strike.
“Hope nobody saw that,” I mutter.
“He did,” says Nathaniel. Further down the wall, towards the arch above the courtyard, a soldier runs at us weapon drawn, visible only by the torches along the crenellations. “Intruder!” he yells. “In-” but Nathaniel’s arrow cuts him short. The guard falls and we lose sight of him.
“Not good,” I say. We hear running.
Nathaniel draws his bow and points it at the archway of the opposite tower. I heft the broadsword and prepare to charge.
It’s Percival and Jericho.
We effectively scare the daylights out of each other and have to take a couple of deep breaths before continuing.
“You guys get caught?” asks Percival. “We thought we heard something.”
“Yeah, but we took care of them pretty quick,” Nathaniel says. “Nobody has heard that we know of.”
“Good. Time for us to give the signal,” I direct. As a group we run down the wall on the side of the courtyard area, to the arch that serves as its entrance. Above it, we remove our helms and wave our torches in the air, in sync with each other.
Our friends are watching. I see a similar movement in response to mine, and our army begins coming out of the trees.
We run back up the wall and to the gate. Now we must keep it open. Kill anybody that threatens us.
There’s nobody. Everybody that was supposed to be on guard is unconscious in some way or another. In silence we watch our army sneak in the front gate.
“What the-” I hear from the opposite tower. Before he can finish his sentence, an arrow from the invading army pierces him and he falls. I wave to the army below. They know not to attack us because we do not wear helmets; our faces may be obscured by the dark, but we have worked past that.
It takes only a matter of minutes. Our entire army is within the city and ready to attack.
Jarl Hralfar and Commander Magnus emerge from the stairs of the nearest tower. They eye the carnage within, and then step out to greet us.
“Well done,” says the Jarl, holding out my hammer.
“Thank you,” I say, setting down the sword quietly and taking the hammer. The entire army is completely silent, waiting for orders.
Genevieve is mystified. “You did it…” she murmurs, looking around at the city.
The Jarl looks out over the army and raises his hand in the air, spread. Suddenly he closes it into a fist, and the army disperses.
“What’s the plan from here?” I ask.
“Every squad has their own place to take over in the city,” he explains. “Every guardhouse, tower, and barracks will be ours within the hour. Assuming your plan worked this well all over the city.”
I hear the gate boom shut rather loudly. One of the guards starts, but rolls over and smacks his lips. Genevieve makes a face.
The bars roll into place and lock our army inside Amgid.
“What of the Acropolis?” I say, knowing the answer.
“We have over one thousand men at our disposal, Kadmus,” he says. “If all goes well, we will hardly have to use any of them.” I look down and find that only part of the army has dispersed into the city. Most of it remains.
“When does it ever go well?”
“So far it has,” he responds. “And now we storm the Acropolis.”
The Battle for Amgid
We march. Though there are four entrances on top of the first tier of the Acropolis, there are none down below. To enter, we must come from the walls, over the enormous bridges.
Any conscious guards we see are slaughtered. Most of the men carry bows just for that reason. As soon as we are detected, the detector must be killed.
Some of our biggest men carry ladders over their heads in long lines. Those at the head of the line walk all the way to the wall, and then plant the feet of the ladders firmly on the ground, anchoring them with large blocks of stone.
Men push and pull from the base of the ladder, but what does most of the work are the men pulling on ropes that descend from the middle of the ladder. The ladders make contact with the wall. Then we start to climb.
Not all men will climb, of course. We only need a few soldiers to get in to open at least one portcullis, and then we will be able to flood the Acropolis and take it with ease.
Then the warhorn blows. The Jarl only nods. “About time,”