After the entertaining show, all commanders agreed to besiege Sainte Denise. The less than 10.000 Marauders would attack a fortified city containing at least 100.000 people of which as much as a third could be considered armed opponents.
They did not care. A single Marauder might not be a match for 10 Southern peasants, but 100 Marauders would not have difficulty dealing with 1.000 of them. It’s all about fronts and flanks. One man cannot guard in all directions, but more men can so the disparity between Marauder and Southerner was self-explanatory.
It was decided that as soon as the other raiding party returned and had a day to rest, the entire army would march on the final prize (with the sole exception of those unlucky enough to draw for guard duty).
That night, Erik purchased an array of different potions from the newly opened store. The potions, elixirs and drugs differed vastly in price but the ones her bought now were some of the cheaper ones.
Expensive ones included direct stat upgrades, temporary stat boosts and exp-boosters. Stuff that were directly beneficial to Erik as the ‘Player’.
Cheaper ones on the other hand were mostly stuff he could use on other people. Sleeping drugs, aphrodisiacs, poisons, regular medicines and, oddly enough, straight up alcoholic beverages were among these.
For his current needs, Erik exchanged some of his Favour to get his hands on sleeping drugs and watered down aphrodisiacs with mild hallucinogenic effects. Just a little something to keep Isabeau tuckered out and manageable.
With the imminent assault on Sainte Denise, Erik sadly had to postpone the end of his ‘game’ with the proud knightly lady. In the evenings he would accompany her while she was mostly conscious and work on eroding her mental defences while for most of the time Isabeau would be sleeping soundly.
This made it possible for Erik to focus on other things without the danger of Isabeau potentially escaping or trying to do something stupid, like killing herself.
And it had become very important to Erik see the game through to the end, so the few measly points of Favour he exchanged for the completion of his plan were definitely worth it in his eyes.
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It took a surprising amount of time for the other group of Marauders to return and when they did, they carried a lot of dead and wounded with them. They had encountered a column of Knights from another stronghold and managed to annihilate them.
Prisoners, loot and stubborn horses combined with the wounded warriors forced this column to a crawl as they returned to the raiding camp.
Still, it made the decision on who had to babysit the ships a lot easier. The warbands with the most wounded would be undermanned in the assault and were thus left behind along with the rest of the wounded.
Shortly after, the Marauder army marched on Sainte Denise and arrived before its walls a little less than two days later.
Carts pulled by strong Brettonian horses and filled with food followed along and would arrive over the course of another two days by which time a proper siege camp would have been constructed.
Jarl Ingolf, Vikti Scaldar and Erik had led the rest of the Norscan commanders to create a carefully crafted plan on how to approach this important siege. They wanted to succeed as quickly as possible but also with as few losses as possible.
It would take some time to find the sewer outlets the strikeforce would use to get inside the fortress while the defenders also needed to be lured into a false sense of safety.
To this end the decision was made to send probing attacks at the walls and gates on all sides. It was inevitable some warriors would die during these half-hearted assaults, but it was a risk they all shared when they first embarked on the raid.
Three days later all pieces were in place. The siege camp faced the weaker south gate specified by the now-dead knights and a final feint was ready to draw defenders to the recently reinforced west gate.
Erik’s warband along with Scaldar’s unit had moved to the sewer outlet on the north side of the city in the cover of night and were ready to begin their infiltration.
The competition was fierce to be allowed to participate in this infiltration and many arguments came infinitely close to bloodshed until Jarl Ingolf resolved it in an acceptable manner.
“It was Erik that collected this information, so he has a right to the most glorious task. And because his new-blooded warband may not be sufficient and I cannot leave the rest of our warriors leaderless, Vikti Scaldar will lead his men to go along with Erik.
Scaldar’s warriors are as capable and dangerous as my own while the Vikti’s magic might prove very helpful in the restricted space of the city.”
Grudgingly, no one objected to the Jarl when he stated things objectively like this. They could argue over the spots as much as they did, but when Erik’s claim and the Vikti’s power were put forward, only the dishonourable could argue against it.
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Erik absentmindedly stroked the steel of his Glaive’s blade and shaft, marvelling at the weight and sharpness of it that allowed him to carve through armour like splitting logs. He waited for the din of battle to erupt from the west, the signal for the strikeforce to move into the sewers.
The sewers crisscrossed everywhere underneath the city, but the labyrinth was also difficult to navigate without obvious landmarks or the sun for guidance. The Marauders would have to find a sewer grate opening up into the streets of Sainte Denise, make their way to the south gate and blow it open from the inside so the main Frost Wolf army could charge out of the camp and begin the slaughter and pillage.
So many things could go wrong. The streets could be filled with armed enemies ready to strike down the Norscans as they emerged from below. The Norscans could accidentally emerge on the west side amidst the thousands of defenders. It was even possible for there to be so few entrances into the sewer that even getting onto the streets could prove difficult and time consuming.
But Erik did not think of these as he performed a final check on the rest of his equipment.
Instead, he thought about women. Some of the men around him were talking in hushed voices about their preferences. Tall or short, well-endowed or petite, hair colour, eye colour and some of Scaldar’s more experienced men who had raided all over the world even mentioned the different complexions and skintones of the people of the Far South and Eastern countries.
One of them even claimed to have bedded an Elf, but this was most likely an empty boast since the High Elves of Ulthuan were notoriously difficult to raid. Their powerful navy patrolled the mist-shrouded island while incredibly powerful magic could easily lead a vessel astray onto hidden rocks. And even if a Norscan raiding party safely arrived on the shores of the mystical island, yet more magic would almost instantly report their presence to the nearest fortress.
And as the men talked, Erik thought about his own women. Sometimes he would contemplate whether or not he truly loved them or was just lusting after them? He was fairly sure he loves Sigrun, but the others?
Kitten was wholly dependent on him which filled Erik with a strong sense of possession and Tykira was absolutely smitten with him while he also enjoyed the large, docile woman’s character and demeanor. But is that really love?
Not to mention that Erik essentially owns Skadi as well and their relationship would be best described as a contractual master-slave relationship. It just so happens that Skadi is an insatiably lustful Daemoness and Erik fulfils her needs (both for safety and intimacy). Erik definitely likes Skadi’s lustful nature, the tricks she did every time they fucked were incredible! Still, Erik couldn’t get over a barrier with her.
Erik and Sigrun had shared close to everything about each other while Kitten and Tykira simply weren’t complicated characters that simply adored him. Only Skadi gave him still held mysteries to him.
‘She might answer my questions if I asked her, but she also might not. Most likely, she won’t make the first move either. Would this barrier disappear if I simply go for it? It would at least remove this uneasiness I feel now…’
As for the recently joined twins, Ri and Ra? While it’s true Erik knocked them up during the feast since Norscans wouldn’t dare lie about a serious matter like that, Erik hadn’t really had a chance to get to know them. The two mostly kept to themselves and nurtured their foetuses, making Erik question where they got the courage from to act so forward during the feast.
‘Perhaps they were just very drunk? I know I was…’
Overall, Erik felt he was definitely in love with Sigrun, was strongly attracted to Skadi & Tykira, felt possessive over Kitten and wanted to learn more about the twins. Especially since those last three also carried his children, Erik wanted to create a stronger bond with them. And the thing about Skadi, well… only time can tell.
Then Erik’s thoughts turned to Isabeau and the unique difficulties she posed. He wasn’t in love with her and was mostly attracted to her because of her demeanour and uniqueness as a female Brettonian knights. He definitely wanted to sleep with her and as he postponed the end of his game, Erik’s libido threatened to overwhelm him whenever he talked to her in the evenings.
Isabeau had been exhibiting some changes and oddities recently. The dream-like state she was kept in most of the time had had an influence on her perception on the world. Her trust in her countrymen had been completely eroded but she retained her hatred for the followers of Chaos.
Paradoxically however, her near permanent state of arousal combined with lust-filled dreams had been slowly but surely influencing her prayers. She still prayed zealously to The Lady, but her prayers had changed from “Deliver me from Evil and grant me mercy for my failure” to “Grant me release from this longing and aid me in smiting my foes”. These foes however were intermittently changed between Norscans and ‘treacherous knights’.
Meanwhile the gaze she looked at Erik with was increasingly filled with both longing and fear, but not hatred. Her body seemed to scream at her to want this man while wisps of repressed memories told her Erik was also dangerous and scary.
Isabeau also let loose her sharp tongue and often verbally vented her frustrations to Erik, in confidence and privacy of course. Not that the other Norscans could understand her words anyway.
Erik was pulled from his thoughts by the distant but distinct sound of battle as the signal they had been waiting for came at last.
‘When this fight is over, I guess I’ll take her. Willingly or otherwise won’t matter at that point, battle ignites a man’s lust and I refuse to waste over a week’s worth of abstinence on some random Brettonian peasant woman if I can use Isabeau instead…’
And with his thoughts finished, Erik and Scaldar quietly rallied their warriors and headed into the Sainte Denise sewers.
