Middle ages madness:
At tale of many brave knights, crazy castles, beautiful maidens, and of great EVIL!
The not so long awaited sequel to chapter 2.
He had been walking for two weeks, and the entry walls lay in front of him. The man who had slain the dragon came back to his home land. His birth city. His war-torn home. As he looked up at the guards, who would not react unless a platoon of armed soldiers not carrying the flag of quinze marched up to the gate, he uttered a small apology to his father for what he was doing, and a prayer to his god for forgiveness.
The kingdom of Maxwell grew and grew. Until they had trouble keeping it growing. It would have grown some more, if there were enough soldiers in the army. So the second year of existence was the year of routs.
At the Fostermire River there was a rout, soldiers retreating 8 miles before reaching a defensible position. At the barehill plateau there was another rout. This time 20 miles were lost. Fortunately 8 were taken back in the following year, but that's another story. In total 238 square miles were lost that year. Three gained. The army thinned greatly. Finally at June of the second "year of Maxwell" Duo lost his temper.
It was the third messenger that week to bear bad news, and it was only Tuesday. The king, who had been getting closer and closer to proving spontaneous combustion, was all too real, exploded. Fortunately only in anger, not spontaneously, and the thing is when the king looked mad, black fire swept across the battlefields. A demon arose from his form. And most everyone in the court looked away. Not the bodyguards however, they were used to that sort of thing. The unnerved guards watched every shadowy corner as Hilde, the second in command, Howard, and the horse, Adelphi, stepped out of one of them.
"Yes milord?" Was Howard's comment. "Honey, what's wrong now?" Was Hilde's response. The horse whined, but that is what horses do, yes?
"Why are we losing so much land! It is driving me crazy."
A brave tactician stepped up from a corner, "well sir if you ask me…" "SHUT UP! I didn't ask you that was a rhetorical question."
Hilde walked up to Duo and slapped him. "Please continue, this blowhard (pointing her finger at Duo) won't interrupt you any more." Duo muttered various words under his breath and got another slap. "Ow, why you hit so hard."
"Well sir, like I was saying, the reason we are loosing so much land is because we do not have enough men. And that the area our men are assigned to defend are not easily defendable. If we were to move all our army to more defensible areas, then I believe we would stop loosing so much land."
A pause Hilde looked at Duo, "Well, Mr. big demon king was it so hard to listen?" Duo muttered something that no-one but Hilde could hear and she glared at him. Said, "Louder," and kept on glaring. "Yes dear", was the response as the tactician let out a prolonged inhale. That year was followed up by Duo learning tactics and statistics. Which was, in part, a reason the kingdom of Maxwell lasted three years. (The fact that they had hell on their side didn't hurt much either)
Relena awoke with king Heero at her bedside. She gasped at that sight. But then quickly recovered her wits as Heero explained what had happened since the dragon and two ogres and said that there would be a feast in her honor and all the people who had been in the cinq kingdom were invited.
The feast was held the day after Relena revived. Relena was given a tour of the enormous capitol city. Which was nearly as big as the kingdom of Duo, but held twice as many people. Relena received the royal treatment, until two weeks after her revival. At which point she became a palace servant.
Chang Wufei had an unusual ancestry. He was Chinese. Not that it was impossible, half his kingdom shared the same ancestry, but in this era, in Europe. Well that just wasn't normal. His family had first arrived in the early days of the Mongols. The Mongols had opened up the Silk Road and the Chang great-something or another's had set up permanent residence in a town in the Peacecraft kingdom. The town had a large Asian population. The third king before the fall of the Peacecraft kingdom had liked the Changs so he had given them a special castle. In that castle the Chang family trained soldiers in the way of the spearmen and the way of the samurai, an ancestor having been an escaped samurai from Japan. The castle became the strongest castle in the land. All its soldiers highly trained in combat. It was also one of the few military installments left in the Cinq kingdom at the outbreak of war. The Changs did their best to keep the kingdom together. But when the capitol fell the oldest male attempted to commit Hara-kiri. He was stopped when he was reminded of the duty he swore to the king. To uphold the ideas of cinq as long as he lived. So with that in mind the elder Chang spread his kingdom out as far as he could. When he died his son took over that role, Wufei. For a while his armies were pushed back, the borders of his kingdom shrank. Wufei was good but he had big shoes to fill. His father had been fighting battles for 10 years. Wufei had been fighting for three. However his father's finest advisors helped him and eventually Wufei managed to hold the line's he had originally and prepare for expansion. On the east Wufei made his first combat appearance as king. His kingdom was isolated in the middle of the old cinq. Wufei was advancing his borders to the capitol of cinq. When Wufei arrived the army he had gone to reinforce was in the middle of a siege. Unfortunately Wufei's army could only surround half the castle.
"What! Only half the castle, pathetic." Was his first response. When he discovered that a massive army surrounded the rest of the castle he said, "Half the castle, not half bad." Someone groaned at that one but the terrible almost half joke was ignored by most (subliminal message). Then the plan surfaced. "Ok, you're plan is simple. The siege weapons keep the people on the left flank busy. While my army attacks the right flank. Wow that is really simple." It was simple. The general in charge of the defending army saw it when is began. The defending army massed up at the point of impact. And the impact was tremendous. Both armies clashed in masse. And the clash of samurai and knight is a sight to see. The two armies battled for an hour or two neither gaining ground in any direction for an extended period. Finally Wufei became tired of this extended stalemate. He led the minor second wave into battle and gave a chance to his army. About 30 minutes into the battle Wufei discovered that he was very far ahead of the rest of his soldiers. His horse was killed. He was alone. Not that it mattered, "I am strong. I can survive."
Three knights saw a loose warrior. They were going to kill him. "You three want to kill me?" They rushed him, "I guess so." Wufei deflected the first two swings with his katana. And countered the third going after the mans throat. Death came quickly. The next two took longer but fell quickly. Another 10 or 11 came after him. They too fell to his blade. Another 15 came. These actually did something, they almost killed him. The first 14 fell to his blade in quick time. But number 15 was elite. And he knew the man who had slain those other 14 was at least a field general. Top class too. He drew his sword. Wufei sheathed his. An upward swing missed completely. Downwards had the same result. Across came too close. The fourth time Wufei drew his sword to counter and lost it. A peasant soldier saw what was going on, as the line had gotten much closer to Wufei. The man ran up to Wufei as he was praying for his forgiveness. The knight stabbed the unfortunate peasant. Just a Wufei looked up to meet his death; he thought he saw his father. For an instant he was entranced. Then he realized that it was not his father, because his father would not wear peasants clothing, but it was a soldier of his. The soldier had the blade removed from his gut. And asked Wufei, "My lord are you all right."
He was in shock. He took out his short sword. And dis-armed the knight grabbed the sword the knight held and ran it through his gut. Then out of the sword burst a dragon. A grand dragon. Wufei recognized it immediately, "The family guardian spirit. Amazing" the dragon started slowly and then sped up. And slowed down. It was all white. With loose scales that popped out of its sides that were rainbow. The dragon was shaped in the traditional Chinese dragon shape. The dragon destroyed the castle and took out a good portion of the knights. Those that weren't killed ran away. Really far away. Really, really, really, far away. So far that some reached the border of Heero's kingdom. Where they were slaughtered. Except for one who went into the capitol walked up to the inner sanctum. And pulled a knife on the king. That man was taken to the dungeon. Left to rot.
The castle had fallen but there was still much land to cover before taking the capitol. And the capitol was not going to be easy to take. So the army of chang has been sitting for a year. Preparing to go onto the next city on the long road to the revival of the kingdom.