Blood Tempered: Book 1 of the Sword Monk Saga

Blood Tempered: Part 31

The Roumnans attacked at dawn.

There was never any real question as to whether they'd capitalize on the breach they'd made the previous day; they had the numbers and enough in the way of crossbows to keep Jaga's own bowmen on the walls from being terribly effective. The Roumnans rushed the breach, and after a very little desultory resistance, Jaga's men, under the direction of Arle, fell back along the base of the wall, leaving half the courtyard open to the charging troops.

The Roumnan foot was well trained and disciplined, but riding high on their easily won skirmish at the breach, and smelling a quick victory and at least a chance at loot, they broke ranks and charged the hastily erected barricade that bisected the straw-strewn courtyard.

Arle had had a dozen men working all night at Thunderhead's measly forge, turning three kegs of long hand-wrought nails into caltrops and strewing them throughout the courtyard where they were hidden in the straw, one nail-sharp point always pointing upwards.

The Roumnan troops were well armored. But the soles of their shoes and boots were just leather, and worn down from a long march at that. Their charge collapsed, literally. And then Jaga's troops brought bows and crossbows and even a few javelins and spears to bear.

Jaga put a hand on Arle's shoulder. "I knew there was a reason I still paid you," he shouted over the screams of they wounded and dying.

Arle grunted. "Any chance I can get an advance on next month's pay?"

"Where would you spend it?"

"Anywhere that would let me."

Jaga believed Arle's cunning had broken the Roumnan advance. He was wrong. The Roumnan captain ordered the next file in through the breach. Shields raised against the arrow storm generated by Jaga's troops, they used the bodies of their dead and dying companions as stepping stones. Every one that fell created safer ground for the one that followed. Soon enough, they were lapping at the barricade that cut the courtyard in half, a tide of swords and pikes, and the skirmish began in earnest.