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loginMeanwhile in the village of Jamiche, a meeting took place about the future ownership...Emissaries from both Rice Eaters and the band of Foxes met in a dark room behind a mostly deserted inn. The faces here were secretive and closed. The atmosphere was damp with suspicion and greediness.
The leader of the village sit and talked with the chinese envoy, but it was not him that spoke, but the shadow behind him.
Kinngrimm, chief of the Wolves, had the say in everything, and he was not inclined to sell the land to a faction not close to him.
Only a few hours in the negotiation were enough to get around that fact, so expensive was the price they asked for such a puny fief, dozens of kilometers away from their center of influence.
Dont they fear the forces around the village?
The chinese envoy went back in the castle to request further instructions. By the time he had them and was preparing for another meeting, a messenger brough forward a most strange information...
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login"Jamiche has a new lord? Advisors, tell me what happened at once!"It was not that they did not fear to lose the village in an impending siege, if all negotiation had failed.
They had the certainty that they could outmanoeuver the Rice Eaters by playing for time, while they prepared to withdraw their chip from the game.
They furtively sold out the castle at a modest price to the Knights who says Ni, a faction most friendly to the Rice Eaters. It sparked tension between them, but not more. Thus the claim to Jamiche was half-buried.
Kinky of the Foxes, previous owner of the place, had left the village, in the darkest of night, with as much goods as she could carry, and was too far away to be stopped now.
"Wolves and Foxes... Damned beasts will not be forgotten!" Butan exclaimed.
One Ni, by the name of Cum, concerned about Rice Eaters stance about the fief ownership, sent a considerable army to protect his new property and was already selling out everything that the Foxes left behind.
Unwilling to wage war on a good friend that would weaken both and play right in the hands of his enemies, the protector of Jamiche castle let them do as they wished, even if it made him appear weak to all.
This was, like in all important decisions, the lesser of all evils.
Negotiation began again with the new owner of the village of Jamiche, but it would be a long lasting negotiation, that would end in the most surprising manner...
Concurrently to all this, the operation to raid and capture Almerra castle, began.
Fearing a ruse, they sent a very large group of men strongly armed, in two groups, against the dozen of soldiers that were still manning the fief.
One would sabotage it by night, plundering everything of value for a military force, and the other would join in the following day to subdue the fortress.
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loginTheir intent on completely crushing all resistance and adding a new important fief to their control, they sallied out by the thousandsThey marched through the forest, hidden from view of the possible hostile parties around.
They deployed a heavy screen of skirmishers, so thick that it could be mistaken for the real host!
Spies inside Almerra were sent to the surrounding hills instead, looking for any suspicious movement in a twenty kilometers radius around the looming fortress.
At the edge of their view, the castle of Weyyah, one of the innumerable fiefs of the Druzhinas, had enough troops inside to completely wipe out this undersized attempt for conquest.
Not to add that the western part of the Kingdom of the Druzhinas had ten times more troops than that.
If they ever wanted to, they would be on the Rice Eaters in a day, two maximum.
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loginWhat does the enemy think? What are they planning? What are they doing at this very moment, far away?...Those interrogations never gets old... Rumors, secrets, plots: motors of the universe in this game of thrones, they make the world spin.
Sometimes a bit too fast for the least prepared or unlucky ones...
Thus intrigued, soldiers and generals alike plowed through the tree ladden fields. Ever vigilant, they assumed pre-deployed battle positions, in the event of an ambush by a foreign force.
Weapons unsheathed, bows at the ready, horses dressed with shiny armors, shields surrounding the mass of men. They intended to not let a single shadow go through their perimeter.
Many foreheads glistened with sweat that sunlit afternoon, and at the end of day, some soldiers were sick with apprehension.
They would still have to march the following twenty four hours, as exhausting as it will be.
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loginExcept some strange and mysterious sighting, nothing of notice was reported up the path to Almerra castle...At the same time as the army was advancing in the forest between Jamiche and Almerra castle, news from the Shu Han faction were arriving in bursts to the capital.
They had tasted only one fight in the weeks that spanned their apparition and today...
As epic as that fight was, they had a taste for more and were beginning preparations for a forthcoming war.
Time will tell who will be the victims of their sharpened curved swords; at the moment they were merely requesting the Rice Eaters to be prepared to join them in glorious warfare.
They were not men to refuse such a proposition, and they guaranteed them that they would take the required steps to forge every soldiers they had in reserve into a deadly weapon.
A prolonged campaign of recruitment was already ongoing...
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loginThe main army general, Shen, had already reached the farthest battlement of Almerra and was being decked out for the erelong night raidWhen the sun was behind the horizon, the first army division went out as quietly as they could, from their camp to the extended walls of the castle.
They took no chances and quickly pierced with arrows from afar the sentries posted at the front walls, near the gate of the fief.
As strange as it may seem, it was the weakest point of the castle and so they sent their commando through there. They threw ropes and chains where the cooling corpses were and quickly tested and climbed them.
The small and crafty group took out the guards playing cards in the gatehouse and opened the portcullis. Letting only a tenth of the total army enter and pillage, the remaining stayed in the nearby trees and bushes.
The plunder was swift and brutal. The destruction, complete. They came back with so much as a scratch and let their enthusiasm get the better of them and sounded a victory cheer.
The general had something to complain about at least.
They spent the night not more than a stone throw from the walls of the castle. It was brimming with fire and fumes, and most of the population was busy trying to put out this raging inferno.
They relaxed their guards this night, and most of the soldiers were drunk with ale and excitement for the upcoming day.
It is a good thing noone was there to exploit it, or their destiny could have been a very cruel one.
But since the very first failed skirmish with the Barabes, the Rice Eaters had had their share of luck, and without them knowing, they were exploiting it to the last drop.
As soon as the sky brightened, the army began to move to the castle, donned with all their gear.
Coming out from the gate, a lone fighter faced the closest cavalryman in a dream duel, while the rest of the army charged behind.
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login"You killed all my men! Face me if you dare! Strike hard and fast, because I will not do otherwise."In a second, the duel ended. Both fighters laid face first, dead, on the ground.
The sole survivor of Almerra castle raid imbued his heroic spirit in all the remaining men of the Rice Eaters force.
All those men, put together in the strongest force possible, ever watchful of all the events that could have downed on them, and they had only to kill one man to seize one of the strongest castle in all Calradia.
There must be a star looking over them. Or at least a most generous person aware that he will receive nothing back for this gesture of goodwill...
Thus thinking, the army general assumed control and manned the newly conquered fief with all the men he had.
Which means almost everyone that departed from Jamiche castle...
For the next few days, nothing happened.
The armies tightened their control of both castles, soldiers were recruited and new weapons forged; in the later case, the foundry of Almerra castle was quite useful.
The already impregnable fortress was now manned with five thousand men, including the population: noone could wretch it from the hands of the Rice Eaters, without days or even weeks of siege.
The capital was moved there and all the staff came and installed their base of operations.
Jamiche castle was still the place where trade flourished, and many caravans were sent in those days.
Not for long however...
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login"Ain't this look like an easy village to take? The late nordmen will feel my fist on their throne of sand!"Out of nowhere, a man bearing the banner of the Templars, Rajiska, led an army of robbers and brigands in the deep of Shu Han territory, pillaged the village of Ruldi and murdered most of their inhabitants.
Noone glimpsed that robber baron come through the frontier between Shu Han and Rice Eaters: the land was still mostly savage and unattended.
After his deed was done, he tried to flee but was quickly surrounded and captured.
As the future would prove, the man was acting on his own, and his motives were only one of lex talionis, for insults made far in the past. Men take revenge for light injuries, from more serious ones they cannot.
Nevertheless, this action could not go unpunished.
Wherever the truth really stands, this was indeed a good opportunity to wage war on the neightbouring faction of the Templars, and so it was used without mercy.
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login"You breath your last, scum. Know before you die that your folly will be the end of many of your comrades. Perish with that though engraved in your heart, for your crimes deserves eternal suffering."This was Casus Belli. The dice was set. The Chinese Empire, formed around the Shu Han and the Rice Eaters, prepared their push into their first great war...
To be continued...