The Kingdom of Liticea: The Sorcerer Prince

Chapter Forty: Sticking Together

The routing of the Morcar besiegers was the first taste of a real battle that the knights from the school of chivalry had ever experienced. Each of them, besides Jergan was part of the charge. despite there being fifteen thousand Morcars, the battle was over quickly and it was not as much fighting for them as it was cutting down men as they ran away. Parendir's night attack had them rolling over the Morcars before they were even out of their beds.

Jergan managed to find them after dealing with troop movements with his father. Though he was only a baron, Rengle commanded respect from all who sat on the council. Even Killian Ryden could hardly look the man in the eye for more than a few seconds before turning away. The Prince's council was busily planning a front for which to confront the Morcars. They had sent garrisons to abandoned keeps and have reinforced Ryd castle. Had Raingaurd fallen, Lord Oliver Ryd would have found the Morcars at his door next. But there was still a whole string of unoccupied fortifications that would take thousands to garrison. If the Morcars were to gain any of these they could use it to launch another siege of Rainguard. This string of keeps went for about twenty miles before it ended with another fifty miles of empty road. That road was where the Morcars would have to come and they had to make sure that there were no empty keeps between there and the Westland's Capital.

There was heated debate about who should be given command of all those keeps. At the moment, Ryd was under the command of its owner and Clayton controlled a series of smaller keeps. Since he was already there and the majority of those were his vassals, it was decided that Clayton Blackwell would command the front. In a letter, he asked for a strong willed soldier to command the very tip of his line. The man Tauron decided to send was Rengle "Ironwall" Fallaner. Rengle, his son and the five hundred Ruska men would occupy Talonwood keep. It was the seat of House Talonwood, but the last of the male line died defending it. Gwendoline Talonwood would receive it once the war was won.

Since they were moving out the next day, Jergan got permission from his father to go see his friends before they left. They had briefly passed and greeted each other several times over the last ten days since they have arrived, but they did not have time to speak. The first thing Jergan asked about was the battle.

"It was unbelievable," Eliza said. Just the memory of the charge widened Eliza's eyes and made her surge with energy.

"Heh, you should have seen her afterwards. She was swinging her sword at the air for nearly an hour. We were all afraid to get to close," Bart's description got him a glare from Eliza.

"I mean it!" she exclaimed, "I was so scared yet so exhilarated! I felt so alive! That's how I would put it."

Locke laughed to himself, "She's got fighter's blood, that one does."

"I can't remember anything," Bart explained. it was all a blur, all he recalled from the fight was the sound of hoof beats and the screams of men being cut down and trampled.

"Maybe you got knocked out by a blunt arrow. Happened before when we were on that run with Bog," Locke reminded him of when they were assaulted by highwaymen when they were out for a punishment run for starting a fight in the mess hall at the school of Chivalry.

"Maybe you fell off your horse, like that jousting match where you fell on your head," out of the whole group, Locke was the worst rider. Back in school, even Bart could consistently knock him off his horse with a lance. It was made up for, however, with his ferocity in swordplay.

Locke had no reply other than a smack in the back of the head, "I'm just sad that they all ran away before I got to the fighting."

"You don't call routing an army of fifteen thousand fighting?"