The central army consisted of over ten thousand men. The column stretched out for miles. It took over an hour just to send a message from the back to the front. Even stopping or turning around was an ordeal that had to be planned out in advance.

  This is what made scouting around the formation so important. If a group of goblins managed to ambush the supply wagons in the back, the attack might be over before the troops at the front even got to hear about it. It was absolutely vital to give the commanders hours of warning in advance, allowing them to reposition and meet the enemy head on.

  The ironic upside was that during moments of crisis, the leadership had the time to discuss their actions. The men could keep marching, while the officers stopped by the side of the road.

  “How far away is this village?” Varre asked, poring over the latest maps of the duchy laid out on a hastily assembled table.

  “Uh here, your majesty,” the scout said sheepishly, pointing it out on the map, “it’s called Papworth. About a two hour ride away, uh sir.”

  Even after delivering the message in person, it was clear that the man wasn’t used to dealing with the upper echelons of nobility. He was a light cavalryman. While many of his peers were young squires in training with noble titles behind their backs, the majority were trusted servants and bodyguards of their masters. Commoners in short.

  Each knight was expected to contribute a small retinue of soldiers when called to serve their kingdom. This meant several infantrymen, along with a rider or two. The backbone of the levy was made up of brave people like this one.

  Bodyguards were used to interacting with other knights. Sometimes they even got to speak to their masters’ direct liege. Still, direct interactions with higher nobility, like counts, or dukes were rare. Let alone speaking to the monarch. Even the mud of the battlefield could only dim this title’s luster.

  “It was two hours for a scout,” Jan noted, “infantry travels slower. Carts even more so. It will be closer to four or five, I’d say. Assuming we rush.”

  Gregory looked up into the sky. The sun was still above the horizon, but it was afternoon already. “We won’t make it before nightfall.”

  “What about the knights?” Varre asked, “they’re mounted. They should be faster.”

  The duke sighed. “Sure, but not as fast as he was,” he pointed to the scout.

  “We’re still talking about thousands of people, your majesty,” Gregory added, “they can’t gallop for so long. They’ll need to avoid the trees, same as everyone else. At the very least, if we hurry, it will take three hours.”

  “So we can make it before nightfall then,” the king said, looking up.

  “No!” Jan raised his arm, “we cannot advance without our infantry. We need to stick together.”

  “Then we’ll never make it in time!” Varre insisted.

  “We don’t know that,” the duke replied, “maybe the goblins will wait until midnight. We still have a chance. Besides, we cannot go in there unprepared.”

  The king turned to the scout. “How many enemies did you see?”

  “Y-your majesty?” the rider stammered, “I uhh… I don’t know. Hundreds, perhaps?”

  “We’ve just defeated two thousand with no casualties,” Varre announced, “we can take hundreds.”

  “We blew them up with spells from across a river!” Jan replied.

  “We’ll take the mages with us!” the king responded, “they can ride just as well.”

  “We cannot risk our entire army to save a single village!” the duke insisted.

  “We are not letting those people die either!” Varre gestured wildly, “you’ve seen what happened! Last night! Everything was burned to the ground! Not a single survivor anywhere!”

  “It wasn’t the first settlement!” Jan yelled, “and it won’t be the last! This is what war against the goblins is! Don’t be ridiculous!”

  The argument was getting out of hand. Both men were raising their voices. Even though a contingent of Royal Guards surrounded them and kept a safe distance from the rest of the marching army, the soldiers started craning their necks, intrigued by this unusual scene.

  Elvira decided to act.

  “Your majesty! Duke Jan!” she said loudly, getting everyone’s attention before lowering her voice, “please, remain calm gentlemen. This is no time to fight amongst ourselves.”

  Varre sighed. “You’re right. But I won’t abandon them. I swore to my soldiers that things will be different now. The army has arrived and we can finally fight back. We cannot let this first opportunity pass us by.”

  “Isn’t the timing a little strange?” the Court Mage brought a finger to her chin, “you found the ruins just yesterday and then today you have the opportunity to do something about it. It’s almost like they’re trying to provoke you.”

  The group went silent for a moment.

  “It definitely sounds like a trap,” Jan slowly nodded.

  “Then what? You want me to just let them die?” the king looked to each one of his advisors.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “For what it’s worth, I agree with his majesty,” Gregory spoke up, “we’re sitting here, arguing about pointless details while the enemy is slaughtering our people and burning our lands. We cannot sit idly by and let that happen, just because there is a little bit of risk! We’re knights of Logres! We have a duty to defend our kingdom from its enemies. We will crush them like we’ve crushed every other enemy until now!”

  “I’m not saying we have to go in there blindly,” Varre continued, “we can send scouts ahead of the main army. If it turns out there are too many, or they have forces hiding and waiting to stop us, we can always wait or turn back.”

  “It’s still not a good idea to separate the cavalry from our infantry for so long,” Jan protested.

  “The rest of the army will follow a couple hours behind,” the king replied, “it’s not much different from regular traveling. Right now it would still take hours to react if something unexpected happened.”

  “And if the infantry gets attacked from the side while the knights are engaged in battle?” the duke asked.

  “We’ll have scouts all around us. Same as right now,” Varre said as he gestured to the surrounding woods, “it’s impossible for any large force to attack us by surprise. At least it shouldn’t be,” he added, a little cautiously.

  Gregory nodded, more confident in his men’s ability.

  Jan sighed. “We still don’t know if we can even make it on time. We’re assuming that the goblins will wait for nightfall, but they may start their attack during the evening. Especially if they know we’re coming.”

  The king put his arm on the commander’s shoulder. “If that happens, then we can honestly say that we’ve done all we could. We will avenge the fallen and teach those bastards a lesson. But we have to at least try.”

  For a while now, it was clear that the duke’s heart wasn’t in it. He realized that despite the risks, the army couldn’t just ignore this attack. It would be catastrophic for morale. He was grasping at straws and asking rhetorical questions that he already knew the answers too.

  “I suppose we have no choice,” Jan finally admitted, “give the order. Have the formation turn around and advance towards Papworth, or whatever that godforsaken place is called. The knights should gather at our location.”

  “I’m glad you finally agree,” Varre smiled.

  “I do. After all, if we just walked by it, we would be leaving enemy soldiers in our rear. That’s no good,” Jan winked.

  The king chuckled. “Always have to get the last word, huh? What happened to trusting the genius tactician who destroyed Clement’s rebels even after being surrounded?”

  “I have to justify my position,” the duke joked, “otherwise, why keep me around?”

  “I’m glad we’re all finally in agreement,” Gregory rubbed his hands, “I’ve been itching for a chance to fight for weeks now. The goblins will learn that they messed with the wrong kingdom.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want us walking into an ambush,” Jan added, “the whole situation is still fishy. It’s obvious that this whole attack is a set up to draw us in.”

  “It was just a theory,” Elvira protested, raising her hands.

  “I know. But it’s just too convenient,” the duke shook his head, “we were just slightly too late to save one village. In fact, the goblins were trying to ‘slow us down’, as if to make us regret hesitating at that stream crossing. And the very next day we get the perfect opportunity to save another? Just as long as we overstretch our forces? Suspicious.”

  “Even if we crushed those two thousand goblins and kept going, we still wouldn’t have made it,” Varre reminded him, “you’ve said it yourself.”

  “I know. But it seemed perfectly designed to make us wonder about that,” Jan theorized, “what if we were slightly faster? What if we took a different route? And now this. Don’t forget that our riders have never found such large enemy formations before directly. We always theorize where the goblins are operating based on the number and density of their patrols. They never let us get too close. If the scouts find something they shouldn’t, they don’t come back.”

  “We found those stream defenders without problems,” Gregory countered.

  The duke clicked his tongue. “They wanted us to find them. They had a hundred wolf riders who could have chased down our trackers. They just held them back. It’s the same here.”

  “What do you mean?” Varre asked.

  “One of our scouts found hundreds of goblins massing for an attack,” Jan explained, “maybe he got lucky and just managed to spot them. Okay, fair enough. But then when he tried to warn the villagers, he found every route cut off. They were prepared for that. They did their homework and predicted this could happen,” he paused, “and yet they somehow let him leave the area?”

  “They didn’t see him,” Gregory proposed, “how could they have stopped him?”

  The duke shook his head. “This has never happened before. They always have plenty of scouts stationed throughout the area, same as we do. In this war, with the dense forest obscuring everything, neither of the sides can get close to the enemy’s main army. Observers cannot just stand on a distant hill and watch for movement along roads. They need to get within just a couple hundred feet to see anything. And the patrols are way too dense to let that happen. The goblins knew he was there. They let him see what he was meant to see and they let him go to deliver the message.”

  The scout who had gone quiet until this point visibly paled. He could have easily been just another casualty. If the commander’s theories were correct, then the only reason the soldier survived was because the goblins were planning to use him.

  Varre squinted his eyes. “So if everything is going according to their plan, maybe it will be wiser to avoid the bait after all.”

  “No. You were right from the very beginning,” Jan said, “if we let that village burn, our morale will suffer. We have to act now. Just don’t forget to be careful.”

  “I want to save my people. But if rushing in there is exactly what they want us to do…” the king trailed off.

  “We managed to beat them at that stream,” Gregory reminded him, “and that too was part of their plan. We’ll beat them again.”

  “Blindly walking into their traps is no strategy,” Varre countered.

  “It isn’t,” Jan agreed, “we’ll need to be careful. We need to keep plenty of reserves at all times and be ready to react to unexpected maneuvers. But we need to be ready to draw blood too. If they’re offering us thousands of their troops on a golden plate to be devoured,” he shrugged, “we will do so without mercy. Just don’t forget to keep one eye open for the knife coming at your back.”

  “If this is what it takes to save my people, then so be it,” the king decided, “we ride out. They may have got the first move in, but we will outsmart them,” he paused, “don’t forget about those scouts either. We need every advantage we can get. I don’t want any more surprises.”

  With the decision made, the army was split into two groups. The infantry, along with the camp followers and wagon train turned to the side and began trudging through the forest, ready to crush any and all opposition. Additional scouts were dispatched far into the woods, combing it for unexpected threats and giving the commanders as much time to prepare as possible.

  The cavalry on the other hand prepared to ride out. Thanks to the reinforcements that slowly trickled in over the last few days, the center now consisted of roughly fifteen hundred knights. Then another fifteen hundred light cavalry to support them.

  Eighty Royal Guards, along with most of the mage corps would join them. Some of the communicators as well as healers remained with the infantry, but all of the combat and shield wizards, together with the most experienced guild members would be a part of this relief force. They’ve shown off their skills at the stream and now could compare those results to a real battle.

  A force like this, with their heavy armor and incredible power would be capable of crushing thousands of peasant rabble. Time would tell whether it was enough to stop whatever the goblins had prepared.

  Everyone's heard about Stalingrad, Kursk, and the battles of World War 1, that had milions of people fighting, but those numbers aren't quite right. Those battles lasted for months and often raged across entire provinces. They never had this many people standing around in one place at the same time.