The Flower Among the Flames

Chapter 11

"Any news on enemy activity?" Guan Liang asked the four men before him. Since the regiment decided to encamp by the river, Guan Liang had suggested to Yul that they send out scouts. One couldn't be too careful when it comes to treading across enemy territory. Discovery would compromise their mission, and that was something unacceptable on all levels. Yul agreed to send out two, but Guan Liang insisted on four– despite the added risk.

"The more eyes, the better," he had told his cousin. "Plus, they can cover and survey more ground that way."

Yul had laughed; not in mockery but in agreement to Guan Liang's military mind. Great minds think alike, he said, slapping his cousin on the back. Guan Liang smiled grimly. Too bad he was currently incapacitated. Yul would have wanted to hear what the scouts were about to report. They all huddled around a small smoldering fire, warming themselves as the sun began to climb the sky. After some quiet muttering amongst themselves, they finally answered the question.

"We saw no activity outside of the fort so we decided to examine the perimeter closely. For one, the walls are made of large blocks of layered stone. I could not tell exactly, but from what we could see, this fort was definitely something else in the past," one of them answered, sharpening his knife deftly with a whetstone.

"Like what?"

"A city perhaps?" the man shrugged. "A fort would not have walls and spires like this one. Plus, there was some rubble that we passed by yesterday. Some of it was clearly the foundations for a larger wall. Now that I think more about it, perhaps the castle belonged to someone important?"

"I wouldn't know," Guan Liang shrugged. "I'm not one keen on history. I prefer looking towards the future."

"I heard a rumor that some royal family used to live there," one of the scouts said, sipping some warm tea. "Why they left is beyond me. It's defensible and is in a very good strategic position against sieges."

"How so?"

"Those walls are thick," the man replied. "You'd need some powerful explosives to bring it down. Catapult and trebuchet projectiles will do nothing against the stone. Scaling them would be near impossible without running the risk of a hail-fire of arrows bearing down on you. Seriously, this castle must have been really important back in the day if people were willing to spend the resources to build up such walls. No castle we've been stationed in has ever been this sophisticated."

"Huh...In any case, what else did you see?"

"Nothing else on the outside that really comes to mind. There is only one entry point and that's a large reinforced iron gate. It's always guarded by at least one hundred soldiers per rotation, and they have two large ballistae covering from above. They have a couple of defensive emplacements, one in each corner atop one of the four spires and one every twenty meters on the ramparts. We counted at least fifty smaller ballistae and mounted crossbows in total."

That's rather unsettling, Guan Liang thought to himself, concerned greatly about what they were up against. Just what does Yul have planned? It did not seem easy to infiltrate the castle– rather it felt impossible. Guan Liang motioned for the man to continue.

"That's the exterior and the walls. Inside, however, appears to be a different story. From what we could tell anyway."

"What?" Guan Liang inquired, eager –or rather, insistent– to hear more. The scout beckoned for someone else to answer in realizing his food was going cold with him talking. Food comes first. Can't operate on an empty stomach no matter how important a task laid out for them may be.

"Seems they've been busy," another chimed in from his crouching position by a nearby fire. "They've seemingly increased their sentry count. They went from twenty-five guards per section to fifty. They change shifts every hour and patrol the ramparts up and down throughout. An attack in broad daylight would be suicide, and a successful surprise attack would require a miracle. Night would be best when visibility is low and the guards less alert. Actually...now that I think about it, they had no sentries yesterday after a certain point."