"Around 500..." I murmured as I walked to the guardhouse.

After going through the files I had and spending most of the day in the town's square, I knew that the number of able-bodied men and women we had that could fight was around 500 individuals. Adding to that the trained soldiers and guards who amounted to around 300 at best, we were looking at an army 800 strong at most, which was still much lower than the 2500 soldiers the demons had. We were in defence so we had that to our advantage, but even that didn't make me feel any better.

Once I entered the guardhouse I came face to face with Lambert who seemed as if he had just returned from the outside too. Lambert smiled as he saw me before heading my way as he said:

"Dorian, how are you doing today? Do you feel any better?"

It seemed that it was quite clear that I wasn't in my best state yesterday, which led to Lambert worrying about me. His concerns made me smile as I felt even more reassured that what I was doing was the right thing, just running away without looking back would have been unthinkable.

"I'm alright, tired but alright," I said as I sighed. Then I looked at his dusty clothes and asked, "what about you? How was today?"

"I spent it out there scouting," he answered while spreading his hands, as if showing the state his clothes were in, "the captain had been pushing us relentlessly. Even though the army already has their own scouts out there, he still had us scout the close by areas."

"So, how was it? Did you notice anything?" I asked as we walked deeper into the guardhouse.

"Nothing till now," answered Lambert, "it's the same as before."

We talked as we made our way to the captain's office. I wasn't surprised by what Lambert had said, the demons were still quite a distance away, from how fast they were moving and how far they were, they would only make it to the village two days from then. Earlier than the previous time frame by one day, but still late enough for us not to worry about the army for now. Lambert entered first to tell the captain about what they had faced and whatever the captain asked of him. He stayed there for quite a bit, and only after a few long moments did he leave.

After he left, I knocked on the door and waited for captain Dunn to answer, once he did I pushed the door open and went in. He was sitting there with his head buried in files, and a map of the surrounding areas spread wide on a close-by table. He lifted his head and looked at me as I made my way to the desk.

"So, is that all?" he nodded to the papers I was holding as I took my place in front of him.

"Yes, it took all day but I was able to register all those who can join the army. All their Inheritances are there too," I answered as I handed the papers to him.

He accepted them and started going through them. He remained like that for a bit and I started wondering if I should leave or stay, just as I was about to stand up and excuse myself, he lifted his head and gave me a deep look then said:

"Dorian..." His voice was different than usual, not the commending and strong voice he always had, it had a hint of uncertainty as if even he couldn't believe what he was about to say, "that friend of yours, the one who told you about the invasion, are you sure that they are trustworthy?"

I didn't react as drastically this time to this unexpected question, I took what he had said slowly and tried my best to understand why would he say what he just did. In a sense, I had already answered his question that morning, so the reason he was saying that was most likely just to affirm my answer and gauge how sure I was. It Somehow seemed that he was trying to give himself the push he needed to go on with something.

"Yeah, they are trustworthy," I nodded strongly.

"Then... Is there a way for you to get any more information from them?" He finally asked what had been in his mind all this time.

This time I did freeze, I simply didn't expect that this would be what he wanted to say, it was so out of the blue that I had to take a few seconds to consider things. Getting more information was easy as most, if not all, of what the demons were going to do was going to go through me, and knowing the demons' plans was going to be of great help in the coming siege, so I was going to do that anyway. With all that considered, having someone I could pass that information to without any questions asked would save me a lot of time and headache so I was more than happy when my mind finally registered what I had just heard.

"Yes, I can try," I said before adding hesitantly, "but... I won't be able to tell you from whom I got it, nor will I be able to explain how they got it... Would that be alright with you? What about the other leaders, how will they act?"

Captain Dunn let out a relieved sigh once he heard my confirmation, but then he listened seriously to what I had to say as he put his hands under his chin. After making sure that I had nothing else to say, he finally began.

"Don't worry about any of that, I will deal with the others, protecting spies' identities is a normal thing, just make sure that what we are getting is true."

"I will only pass the things that I'm sure are true," I nodded with a newfound sense of excitement, things went much better than I thought they would.

"Okay, just make sure to only tell me about those things from now on," he said seriously, "and whenever you get your information, make sure to come to me straight away, no matter the time of day or what you are doing. If you think it's important enough, you need to tell me."

After that, I talked for a bit more with captain Dunn about the coming invasion before I was able to leave. I didn't head home though. Few, if any, of the guards were able to head home that night. So much needed to be done on quite a short notice, so the town's streets were lively, with people going from one place to the other, with the majority of them positioned next to the outer wall or the clearing in front of the castle. I was told by some of the guards who had been there that they were working on some things in those two locations.

We spent most of the night making sure that everything was alright and in order. We also didn't know if there were any more demons hidden in the town so we didn't let our guards down and kept an eye open for that.

On Zagmuz's side, only hours after the sun had set and it was quite close to midnight, and after a lot of harassment from Zagmuz, did Kildor finally have the army stop moving for the night. This time, only my tent and a small tent that Kildor and the other captains used got built, everyone else had to sleep under the stars or inside the carriages. Ordering Gorduf to tell me once everyone got together in the tent, I went to my own to rest for a bit and prepare myself mentally for what was coming.

It seemed that Kildor was just as impatient to fix things as I was to collect some information, so it didn't take long for Gorduf to come and tell me that all the captains were already in the tent. I told my Butler to lead the way as I calmed my nerves down.

"So," I said as I sat down and glanced at everyone in the tent, with my eyes lingering on Kildor longer than the others, "with how our great general messed things up, how are we going on with this?"

"Your Highness-" Started Kildor, but I didn't let him finish as I cut him with a deep angry frown:

"I don't want to hear your voice, I want to hear things from them, so you can shut it for now." 

Watching Kildor's expressionless face almost break after hearing my words almost had me explode into another fit of laughing, but I held myself and turned to the eriny Aduna, the head of the army's intel and spying division too:

"How we're things today? With the humans knowing about our movements and all."

The eriny showed a conflicted expression for a bit as her eyes jumped to Kildor for a split second, as if asking for permission to speak.

Bang!

I smacked my fist at the table, making the eriny jump in place and return her wide and frightened eyes to me again:

"When I ask a question, you are supposed to answer it," I hissed as I looked at her venomously, "don't look at that waste of a demon and answer what I had just asked or this army will have a new intelligence master before the sun rises."

I watched as Aduna bleached and gulped difficultly before she started to speak:

"We- we are facing more and more humans as the time passes," she stuttered, "more and more human scouts are watching us, And even our own scouts are being discovered when they are out there, some of them didn't return."

"Useless pieces of shit," I grumbled as I tried to act as Zagmuz usually did, "well, it's not their problem seeing how our great General destroyed the Demon King's whole plan."

I knew that Kildor didn't have much to do with what happened in Border Town, but Zagmuz wouldn't have cared, and I didn't care either, I only saw a chance to make life harder for the bastard and I took it.

"So what are we going to do in this invasion? What's our plan? I take it we have one, right," feeling that I could start with this important subject, I asked the question.

Everyone in the room acted weirdly once I said that, none of them said anything, but they also lowered their heads or froze in place, as if unsure what to do. Looking at their reaction for a bit, I finally understood what was happening, so I glanced at Kildor and said mockingly:

"What? Only you know what the war plan is?" 

Kildor seemed as if he was going to ignore me, but then thought best of that and said:

"Yes, I still haven't shared what we have prepared for the coming fight with the others here."

"Then you better start doing so, we don't want you to ruin any more of this expedition," I grumbled impatiently.

Kildor released a long breath at my words, as if he was barely able to control himself then started talking slowly:

"Even though the kalla in Border Town was discovered by the humans," He gave me a long and hard look here, " We still got a lot of important information through it. Intel which we used to prepare for the coming invasion, and of which the most important is, the humans' course of action in the case of an invasion. The army's composition and our plans are made especially to face against their plans."

Even though outwardly I was showing a big sneer at what Kildor was saying, inwardly, I was sweating and I almost lost it, things were really turning bad for us.