The tour went well, no ambushes along the way, no other whims of my comrades and no more important things I had to accomplish.... although it might have been better if the trip had failed. What was visible and known always tempted the most.... forbidden fruit.
We arrived at the place, but instead of a small wooden chateau or a small stone castle that I expected and anticipated.... we were presented with a fucking huge stone fortress. Gigantic bastion located on one hill and connected to another hill.... I mean, holy shit.
The fortress was located on two hills, protected on three sides by its own high ground and on the last side connected by a drawbridge to a guard post defending the entrance on the other side. And if it weren't for the fact that I associated larger castles on my former planet, once I spotted this monster.... I wouldn't even hesitate for a second to run away and change plans.... nevertheless, as if to think about it longer.... though, nope. The fortress was not the largest I had witnessed before however, it would still remain on my list of ten.... or maybe even the list of five largest. When something could compete with Malbork Castle it was no longer among the small ones.
Yet even this was not the worst thing about this monster placed on the ground, not even close.... one word... fortification. If we could somehow deal with the size through good concealment or a specific approach, then with the number of people on the walls we certainly could not, people like ants in an anthill shimmered in my eyes as they went from point to point, a huge number of people, almost uncountable. Each guard seemed to be disciplined and alert enough to notice even a slight movement in the area, bow and leather and some even metal and crossbow. I couldn't see how many were there as I was standing in the bad spot, but I wasn't in a hurry to find it out.
Still, those glances and that ambience... whether something is happening that I don't know about?
But in addition to the size and number of guards defending the place, the nail in the coffin for me was the design of the castle itself. Three layers and an extension of the entire castle to one side, probably to adapt confidently to the shape of the hill, so that the attacker, even when he managed to enter, would still have to climb up.... of course, if he managed to get through the entire defense layers. The first layer and probably the easiest was located on another hill, it was the gate connected to a wall that bordered and ended above the precipice. The entrance and at the same time the exit was a combination of four large towers, which together gave something like a square or rectangle shape if looked from above.
Beyond that was a chasm and a drawbridge as the only means of normal access, followed by an outer wall shaped like a star, not a square, circle or even an octagon.... a fucking star. After the bridge was passed, there was a second gate just like the first, a combination of four great towers, but this time the outer fortification did not end there. The wise architect decided to be amusing and add four more towers on each side at a suitable distance from each other, so that the defenders could observe their surroundings from other angles.... just in case someone got a stupid idea.
Well, and in the end, there was still an inner wall, as if someone managed to get through the rest and dominate the long and tedious battle to exhaustion, the inner wall.... the location of the most important buildings, the home of the most prominent guests and the place from which my recent target, a recent target, ruled. Theoretically, when one got under these walls one could already consider oneself victorious for sieges have always been a battle of attrition, without access to new supplies such a place would not hold out for long.... well, unless reinforcements arrived.
So this was a place too big for me, with too many people and too well fortified.... did I mention the moat located at the bottom, the damn lake surrounding this hill or small mountain, whatever you want to call it.
It's not at all that I was trying to find some excuse not to take a risk.... not at all. I completely failed to see any weaknesses that I could exploit to defeat and conquer this thing, after all, who said you have to conquer castles from the front....
Restrain yourself... don't take risks... time will come for that later.
Nevertheless, I did not travel such a long distance for nothing, oh no. After all, if the castle of a baron looks like this.... castle of a count, marquis, duke or whatever title they have there.... will be a downright behemoth. Something so big that it never stood on earth, along with a full fledged army inside, its gargantuan fortifications and so on, an impregnable place.... which means I'll have to postpone conquering larger areas until much, much, much later. Certainly not before my evolution and maybe even a much later stage. Now just to pray that feudalism prevails in these lands as with a disciplined and standing army things will be bad.
Another piece of information gained was the construction of castles themselves, the technological advances of this world. Instead of eleventh or twelfth century wooden castles or thirteenth and fourteenth century stone castles, something else appeared before my eyes. A sixteenth, seventeenth or even eighteenth century great star fortress.... did Napoleon in his time deal with something like this.... I don't remember.... whatever.
Instead of the early medieval I had the late medieval, instead of wood I had stone.... the progress of strengthening defenses must have outstripped the progress of new implements in attack. On my former planet it was all about bows, cavalry, firearms and cannons and over here?
No advanced weapons I saw, I even looked around every corner to see if there was any sign of a bullet magazine somewhere, yet further nothing.... not a sight or a sound. No gunpowder weapons. And that meant only one thing.... something in this world must have replaced it.... just what?
What with the use of this, the walls crumble and the attack is much easier, people will experience panic and lose their morale, something that made someone think to build such monstrosity....
MAGIC
~~~~
The castle was not captured, I didn't even try, I didn't even bother to try. Too much risk for exposure, too much risk for failure.... For one silly map and information about where I was. I was in a hurry but probably not as much.... or maybe I wasn't in a hurry at all.... I only could guess. Send someone to a new world in the middle of nowhere, for no known purpose and under no known conditions.
Are they fucking even going to judge me or maybe I only thought so?
I feel like I'm about to go insane.
“It was... so ... frustrating.” I whispered quietly while methodically hitting my seat with significant force.
A certain wolf, on the other hand, did not like this. He growled several times communicatively letting it be known that such further excesses of mine would not be tolerated and thus he would attempt to throw me off his back. Of course I politely obeyed and began to get my anger out in other ways, as I keep saying, it is always better to ride than to walk, especially when you keep your head busy with other things.
My dog, as strange as it may sound, turned out to be a cat. With Randaloph evolved now and our connection strengthened we could understand each other even without words. I didn't even have to ask for a ride for my beloved, beautiful and sweet dog offered it himself, he sensed my annoyance and anger so he decided to help as much as he could.... sweetheart. That's why he was like a cat.... when you want it you can not find it, but when there was a need.... he immediately appears.... kind of. If our acquaintance is to be like this for the next decades.... then so be it.
But the question remained ... what to do next, for when I abandoned the castle then my quest chain was complete. No further knowledge of the area I had, no further knowledge of where I was.... so again improvisation.
I might have continued wandering in this forest hoping to find another village or maybe headed south towards the mountains.... we were already quite a few so maybe that would work. Or maybe go back a bit and start wandering along the plain....
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of wheels that I heard in the distance, journey near the designated trail proved to be productive. Instead of another next castle at the end of the trail, I received a random event.
Randaloph on my command stood still and then we waited for the rest of the army to arrive, I divided and hid the army at a considerable distance from each other and hastily prepared, ambush was in place.
We didn't have to wait long for them to arrive, a mid sized caravan or retinue, one transport vehicle and a few ordinary infantrymen around, as well as two heavier armed knights, one in front and the other at the back. Not much but nothing to be picky about over a meal.
They won't even know what hit them.
How lucky that I ended up with a punching bag on which I could unload my anger.
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