Though the sounding of the alarm was muffled due to the Footman’s circumstances, when the nearest sentry heard the sound, she did her duty without 2nd thought.

In this way, 1 by 1 the sentries started blowing their horns and in doing so awakened the entire camp.

Opening his eyes at the sound of the horns, Alayen didn’t question the legitimacy of the warning and quickly rising to his feet, and he grabbed his Nordic Sword and round shield.

Bursting out of the tent only moments after he had awoken, the Mayor of Mazen turned his head to see dozens of people arming themselves and faintly heard the commotion of hundreds of invaders starting their butchery.

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If there was anything unique about the proto-government that Peter had begun to initiate, it was his insistence that the people had the natural ‘Right to Bear Arms’.

Of course, as an American, this was an innate belief.

After all, his was a country which had been founded through the revolution and overthrow of an oppressive distant government, so it was natural that the people valued their rights to defend themselves.

When this point was discussed in [Rivacheg], neither Father Anderson nor Professor Helsing had done anything but shrug and smile – both no doubt thinking that Peter was a true ‘Yankee’ and that it wasn’t worth the effort to try and persuade him otherwise.

But for the Vaegir people that Peter had [Recruited] from Calradia, who’s culture had been modeled as a mix between the Polish and Russians, this was a jaw-dropping grace given to them by their Lord.

Surely the Knights and Sword Sisters – who were already legally allowed to keep arms – found it to be dangerous to allow the peasantry and commoner classes have easy access to weaponry, but for 2 main reasons none had felt so strongly about it as to question Peter’s judgement.

Firstly, all the Knights and Sword Sisters had all fought Trolls on a daily basis and so they knew well that this new world was full of monsters and that dangers could be anywhere.

Secondly, though their consciousness was shallow at the time, all the professional Calvary soldiers had seen Peter fight in the ‘Heroic Victory’ against the Greenskins and, in addition to already feeling the respect for him that the [Mount and Blade] System engendered, his sheer physical capabilities made them believe him to be a true Son of Heaven.

So, with Peter’s inclination that the people should have the Right to Bear Arms, and with nobody in any position to question him, there was no doubt when the horns sounded, dozens and dozens of Footmen and Huntresses were readily able to arm themselves.

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Grabbing Hand Axes, Kite Shields, Hunting Crossbows, and Fighting Picks, one by one the people of Mazen filed out of their tents and turned to where the sounds of battle were coming from and began to move in that direction.

Though the System had warned Peter thank Rank 2 and under [Recruits] could not be counted on during offensive military actions, they had the spirit to defend themselves, and so moving in small groups tried just that.

But unfortunately, no amount of morale or zeal would have been enough to beat back the raid on this green-tinted night.

As more than 250 Aesling raiders shambled up the ladders and into the settlement, they slaughtered scores of Vaegir’s who were either asleep or just waking up to the sound of the horns.

When the first small groups of armed Footmen and Huntresses came into contact with the raiders, they found themselves in the crippling position of facing seasoned and armored warriors – some fully armored head to toe – who were in the midst of battle fury, while they themselves had just woken up after a hard day’s work.

In a battle that could only be described as a ‘lightning attack’ the Aesling raiders cut through the unkempt defenders one by one, only sometimes being stopped or held down by the stray Marksman or Horseman whose tent happened to be nearer that side of the camp.

Located in the center of the settlement, Alayen’s tent naturally became rallying point and after shouting orders for several minutes, the former Noble had gotten together a group of 25 Marksmen, 15 Footmen, and 15 Huntresses around him.

Not wasting a single moment, Alayen looked at his group – which represented the largest group of defenders in the camp by quite a lot – and started marching towards the din of battle and glow of tents which had been set aflame.

Walking in a straight line, as the camps had been naturally designed on a grid-like pattern by Professor Helsing, the first group of raiders came into view, and gripping his sword, Alayen narrowed his eyes and approached without fear.

“Form a line! Shields in the middle! Spears on the edge!” he yelled to the Footmen, all carrying either Hand Axes and Kite Shield or simple Spears.

As he spoke, the Marksmen didn’t need to wait for orders and at once the 25 expert archers began firing a hail of arrows.

About to give his orders to the Huntresses, Alayen didn’t have time, and taking his position in the middle of the line, he blocked a heavy single-handed axe with his shield and slashed a large red headed man across his bare chest with his sword.

‘?!’

Despite Peter having made all of Alayen’s ‘Skills’ geared towards administration; the former Noble was as trained as any normal Vaegir Knight.

He had been trained with all kinds of martial weapons to at least a professional level, and though he couldn’t have claimed to have lived on a battlefield, he had killed enough men to be surprised by the sheer resilience on the barbarians skin.

The slash he had just made should have torn the barbarians pectoral muscle away from his body, but instead of crippling the red-headed fighter, the wild man’s chest only gushed blood and he came back with an even harder swing of his axe.

“Ghu!” grunted Alayen, blocking the axe once again, and moving his body like a machine, he stabbed forwards – sticking the tip of his sword into the red headed man’s throat.

With a ghastly look on his face, the barbarian man spasmed and slumped down, but another quickly took his place.

Hearing shouts and grunts from each side and feeling arrows whiz only feet away from him, Alayen moved rhythmically.

Slashing and parrying, which barbarian he killed was replace by another, and it wasn’t long until the shouts coming from either side of him had dimmed and the arrows stopped flying so close.

There was an occasional bolt flying through the air, but glancing over, Alayen grimaced when he saw that the Footmen had disappeared and been replaced by Marksmen who had thrown down their bows and picked up melee weapons.

Granted, a Marksmen with a Spear would defeat a Footman with a Spear, the archers were not trained front-line infantry, and after barely 10 minutes of fighting, Alayen was almost completely alone and even more outnumbered than before.

Unable to barely think of anything besides what was directly in front of him, in this short battle Alayen found himself cut half a dozen times and both his arms bruised.

Even if he had received the training of a proper Knight, in a battle against overwhelming numbers there was little a single man could do, and after hearing screams of some women off to one side, his attention was drawn away only for a split second, and a giant gauntlet smashed him over his left eye.

Stunned by the blow, as his vision blurred with red, Alayen instinctually lifted his shield and backed away.

Too trained to start madly swinging his sword, he quickly orientated himself only see a massive man, standing perhaps 7ft tall, and covered head to toe in ornate steel plate armor, looking down at him.

Tired from almost 25 minutes of sustained heavy combat, Alayen sucked in a breath, tightened his grip on his chipped sword and aimed for a gap on the giants armored elbow.

But it could never work.

Unknown to Alayen, the man in front of him was the leader of the raiding party.

One favored by [Karnath], he was a berserker who had never lost a battle against a foreign foe. He was a raider who had dozens of Thralls personally gathered from as far afield as [Bretonnia]. He was a warrior who in his youth had even fought against the feared [Druchii] and lived to tell the tale.

Knocking away Alayens sword with a mix of brutality and skill, the armored giant didn’t directly kill the former Noble, but delivered a spike-encrusted knee to his mid-section, felling Alayen in a single blow.

Gasping as he hit the ground, Alayen still barely had the presence of mind to roll backwards, dodging the giant man’s heavy Spiked Mace by an inch.

Using his nearly broken Nordic Sword as a cane to stand up on, the Mayor of Mazen was bleeding heavily from his chest, some of the spikes having penetrated nearly an inch into his abdomen.

“******” growled the red headed man in a language that Alayen couldn’t understand and didn’t try to.

More and more raiders were pouring in on the street in front of him, and a mix of shouts and screams could be heard from all sides of the camp by now.

Gasping for breath, Alayen was about to try to lunge forward one last time when shouts in English broke his concentration, and quickly glancing back he saw a dozen Footmen and a half dozen Huntresses running in his direction.

Covered in cuts and bruises themselves, the group of Vaegir’s looked determined as they carried bloodied weapons.

Unfortunately, before Alayen could get his hopes up, he felt the giant man step forward, and lifting his Kite Shield by instinct to cover himself, the heavy Spiked Mace slammed into it, sending the former Noble flying back and instantly blurring his vision.

The blow landed hard enough that his whole body quivered and seeing through hazy eyes when the 20 or Vaegir’s started fighting the raiders, he wanted to help, but his body had stopped listening.

In total he had been fighting in direct hand-to-hand combat for just over 30 minutes and had killed almost 20 men.

Even for the best trained human Knights, such a feat was remarkable, but it hadn’t come freely.

Alayen lay there bleeding and broken, watching with half an eye as the Vaegir commoners who rushed over were killed one by one.

Thinking it was truly over now, he didn’t feel fear, only indignation.

Who were these people? Mazen was less than a week old, so how did they even know about it? And how had the hunting parties not seen signs of such a force?

Had Rivacheg been attacked too?

Thinking these things, Alayen didn’t hear hooves reach his position until he felt himself being yoked up from the ground, forcibly thrown over a saddle, and spirited away.

For the Marcin the Horseman, the last hour had been hell.

Having his tent somewhat near the infiltration point that the raiders took; he had been one of the first to fight and probably the only one to see how large a force was attacking them.

Briefly looking over the walls he saw what looked like 300 fully armed men.

For the village of Mazen, who only had a population of 246, this was a death sentence, and he knew it.

Thinking fast, he had grabbed his spear and tried to organize a local defense – anything was better than nothing – but despite the Footmen and Huntresses being willing to defend themselves, the marauders attacking them were not only armored and professionals, but Marcin even believed them to have something on their skins which made them harder to cut down.

He had killed 3 before his small resistance force collapsed, and again thinking on his feet, he started rushing to his horse.

Of course, running had entered his mind – as it had entered all the defenders minds – but Marcin told himself that Rivacheg had to be alerted, since to battle this force of several hundred large men, either Lord Ivankov or Father Anderson themselves would need to take charge.

Fighting his way path by path, Marcin saw the Mayor fighting and clinching his fists didn’t help.

A walk that should have taken barely 10 minutes ended up taking him close to 35, as there were so many raiders and sporadic fighting happening everywhere.

He would help when he had to, but mostly Marcin tried to avoid fighting until he reached his horse.

Quickly throwing on the saddle, Marcin mounted his steed in a single jump, and was about to rush away when a pang of guilt hit him.

‘Am I really going to tell Lord Ivankov that I fled with empty hands?’

Marcin was one of the few who knew why Peter had chosen to name the new village Mazen.

And thinking it such an honor and thinking himself to having been so lucky to have been the first to converse with Peter, Marcin had naturally wanted to move to the new settlement and help in any way he could.

But who could have imagined that in merely 4 days the enemies would come?

Had they had an extra month, perhaps the earthen ramparts would have been fortified and perhaps the population would have been doubled.

But that was all a dream now, Marcin thought, and thinking so his eyes shook, and in a single move he bid the horse to fly to where he had seen the Mayor fighting.

Weaving in and out of the reach of the raiders, Marcin pushed his horse to its maximum and was simply astonished by the carnage.

By now many tents had been set on fire, and there were screams of woman here and there, but putting his head down, the Horseman did his best to ignore it all.

Coming on the scene of main battle, Marcin watched as 2 Footmen were killed by a giant of a man, and scanning the ground he saw the Mayor who was attempting – and failing – to stand up.

Without even thinking of anything else, with his target in sight he rushed over, grabbed the Mayor, and turned to flee.

After a lifetime in the Calvary, Marcin was good on a horse, and he was fast.

But not so fast that he got away cleaning.

With Alayen laying over the horses back – practically on Marcin’s lap – he felt a hard blow on his shoulder, a blow that should have knocked him off his horse.

As the pain immediately washed over his body, Marcin bit down on the reins and screamed as he pulled a javelin from his right shoulder.

With shouts coming from all sides in a language that he didn’t understand, the wounded Horseman and Mayor swerved around and around until they finally broke free of the encampment, and doing his best to stay in the saddle, Marcin push his horse to its breaking point.

With Alayen in hand, he had done his best.

Rushing as fast as he could go, he was tired but knew he couldn’t sleep just yet.

He had to bring this news to Lord Ivankov, and no matter what, Marin told himself, he wouldn’t rest until he did so.

UberNuber

Norscan Raiders armor and weapons are highly variable depending on their specific tribe, how successful they were in the past at kidnapping Thralls (slaves), what they were able to steal from the settled people they torment, and most importantly, how favored they are by Karnath (AKA: The Blood God, Korne).

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All 3 of these are people from Norsca.