The course of action that needed to be taken by the soldiers in Border Town in the case of an invasion was already set in stone, it was good enough for an initial plan and flexible enough to be changed whenever needed with the specific circumstances kept in mind. It was mostly only known by soldiers and the guards, but it wasn't exactly a secret. Even with that though, the demons knowing about it was a horrible thing for us, especially right at that moment, with us not having much time to change our plans into something else and take our current invaders into account.

"How so?" I said, fishing for more I formation, "what is our plan in dealing with them?"

"The humans' plan is basically to try and take as much of us down as they could in the first collision, before retreating to their castle and playing the defensive game, waiting for reinforcement from the other nobles of the land..." Said Kildor as he looked at everyone in the room. I somehow felt that he was using the chance to brief everyone there on what the plan was instead of answering my question, but I held myself and didn't explode at him, I wanted to hear more about this.

Kildor went on for a bit longer, explaining all that he knew about the town's defensive plan. Finally reaching the part about the demons' own plan, Kildor's eyes turned colder and he had a bloodthirsty air around him as he spat, "... All that means that what we should do is go with one big push, one we put everything we have in. Our aim should be taking the castle down in the first confrontation, we should have enough momentum to crush all of their soldiers without giving them the time to pull themselves together."

I remained silent, throwing everyone in the room a glance. Each of them had different expressions on their faces, some were deep in thoughts, others had enlightened expressions as if they had just realized something, while the rest had unreadable masks on their faces, hiding their true thoughts from everyone.

"And how are you going to do that? By asking nicely?" I snickered as I looked down at Kildor, "or maybe have your spies open the gates for us? Oh wait, they must have been all caught by now."

I once again watched as Kildor did his best to keep his anger and frustration from showing, doing a worse job than before. After a bit of silence, with everyone else in the room acting as if they weren't even there and staying out of our little argument, he calmed himself again and said:

"Our plan is well thought out. Every section in this army is here for a reason. Volath," Kildor looked at a gorilla-like demon. The big demon had been sitting there without a reaction for the most part of this meeting, and the others before it even, that only changed when Kildor mentioned how he was going to try and take the town down, he was one of those who appeared to have just realized something from that. The demon had a strong body that was covered in short black fur, his arms were long and thick, giving a strong impression. The demon, Volath, just nodded when Kildor called him and remained silent. Kildor continued:

"I got your squad to join us because you are going to be a valuable asset in the coming fight. The first part of the humans' plan is a long-ranged attack on us, your squad's defensive abilities will let you walk towards the town as if their attacks aren't even there." As he spoke, I got the sense that Kildor wasn't really that happy with his plan, and as I considered it, I could see why.

The demon he called, Captain Volath, was a Thaginian, a species of demons that as I mentioned earlier, had a resemblance to gorillas in shape, no matter how minor it was. What general Kildor had said might lead one to believe that the Thaginians' special power had something to do with defence, that wasn't actually true. Even though the Thaginians did have a stronger than usual hide, their defences weren't what they were known for, or in other words their special ability, that was their tremendous strength plus the side ability of a shocking roar that could freeze opponents for a while.

The reason Kildor talked about their unit's defensive abilities was because the unit Volath was leading was unique. They were a heavy infantry unit, they were enclosed in so much metal that it was absurd, not to mention the heavy and broad shields they carried with them. The shield walls Volath's unit made were some of the best the demons' army had. Overall though, they weren't that good, and that was due to one simple problem they had; they were extremely slow because of how heavy their armours and shields made them.

They weren't ideal for this specific invasion. The best people for the plan Kildor had in mind should have been some fast unit with strong combat abilities, or at least the ability to protect the people with them from ranged attacks without being as slow as Volath's squad was. And squads like that did exist in the demons' army, I knew that, Zagmuz knew that. Squads that could cover whole armies in blinding mists or others that could use wind currents to knock off arrows and other ranged projectiles from midair, all those would have been much better for what Kildor had in mind. Unfortunately, or fortunately for us, he didn't have access to any of those, and he probably had to make do with what he had.

And the reason why that was so was simple. It was most likely the same reason I was worried we might not get our reinforcement sooner; Border Town was a small town and most likely a minor objective in the demons' operation, they had more important targets to get hold of, and the armies going after those targets needed the squads Kildor would have made use of more than he did, and they probably had the priority when choosing such squads.

I was a bit happy that it was Volath's squad that we were against and not one of the others, but that happiness soon went away. They might have been slow, but they were also steady. With them holding the front, I didn't know how we could stop them, I don't think we had enough power to deal with them.

"Great, your trump card is a bunch of turtles, why am I not surprised," I didn't let the chance to mock Kildor slip by, even though I was already sweating on Dorian's side.

Kildor ignored my dig at him and only continued with his briefing:

"Once Volath's squad forces the enemies away from the first wall and pushes them to the town, normal troops will hide behind the shield bearers and attack the human soldiers from there. With the walls free, Sendra's squad will move," he again looked to one of the captains in the tent, this time a female demon with a tall thin wiry yet tough-looking body, the demon had slender limbs with long yet strong-looking fingers. her face was big in contrast to her thin body and its surface was mostly taken by the two huge eyes the demons had, "you will move as fast as you could and climb the town's buildings, your main targets are going to be the archers and other long-ranged combatants to protect our soldiers on the ground from them. While doing that, you should also work on making your way to the clearing in front of the castle, cutting the way back for the human soldiers in town and attacking them from behind. Of course, you should also make sure not to get targeted by the castle."

The skinny demon Kildor called was a Tinuis, they were a species of demons that were agile and extremely fast, they were usually used as scouts and sometimes as assassins even. Sandra, though, had trained her squad to be a squad of fast hitters, ones who hit in a blink and then retreated, aiming to do the most damage in the shortest of time. The best use for such a squad was having them take part in guerrilla warfare. Again, this squad wasn't the best for what Kildor wanted, but considering that they were probably all he had, he couldn't have been picky.

"The last part of the attack, opening the gate and taking down the castle, is going to be the hardest," Kildor continued ignoring me as he said while showing a deep and thoughtful expression, "because we had to move fast we didn't bring any siege weapons with us, and the other armies got hold of the squads that were even remotely specialised in that..."

Seeing his expression and what he had said, I couldn't help but sneer; Zagmuz's memories and character really had quite an effect on me, seeing my reaction, Kildor also had a similar expression on his face as he said slowly, seeming to be enjoying every word he was saying:

"I mentioned that to his Majesty, we didn't have any siege weapons, nor were there anyone in our army who specialised in taking down castles, so doing just that would be quite hard for us, and so his Majesty had quite an idea..."

His words and mannerisms triggered alarms in my mind and I had a bad premonition in my heart.

"... Your Highness, prince Zagmuz," kildor announced with a happy expression, one that I saw for the first time on his face, "you are expected to help in taking down the gate."

alt41

sorry for being late everyone, been pretty busy these days, as things are quite chaotic here as we prepare for my uncle's weddings, I'll try to write some more but things won't turn to the better till the week after the next most probably, 

In really sorry for that, thanks for the understanding