Jeremiah and his men on horseback had begun surrounding the city of Oaken Meadow from the northern road. It had taken them nearly four days to get near enough to attack the city. Protector Bridgewater had informed him and his men of the defenses that he had prepared before he and the rest of the city had fled to the capital city. They were cautious that Claremont's forces had repurposed the traps and they approached the city carefully to avoid any new ones that may have been put in place.
He had made contact with Matáo and Jameson Truwood, the only members of the Brotherhood to head into this battle. He used devices that were similar to the ones that J?kob had made, that Wilhelm had crafted for them. The three armies had the city surrounded on three sides. Truwood and Erík divided their forces and sent most of the men on foot upstream of the city to carefully cross the Kilgor river and were ready for an attack on anyone who tried to flee across the river. A small contingent of archers guarded the ferry as well.
Since Matáo had no formal military training, he was sent with K?dú for the purpose of communicating with the other two regiments. At first, K?dú was against Matáo joining his ranks, but Truwood, who had trained him, spoke highly of his skills. Prince K?dú arranged a sparring match with some of his guards so that Matáo could prove himself before they left for battle. Matáo, laughingly agreed to the match, and in only a few minutes, he disarmed his three assailants.
Prince K?dú was moderately impressed by the display, but after both Jeremiah and Truwood explained that Matáo was toying with the guards and could have easily done the same in half the time, he was even more impressed. He then asked Matáo if he would spar against himself. Matáo grudgingly agreed to, as he put it, "play with the prince."
The prince picked one of the practice swords up and met Matáo in the training ring. "I hear you were playing with my guards and your trainer tells me that you could do the same against me. Is that so?" asked K?dú. "I am uncertain of the outcome of this match. I have yet to see you fight, but I am happy to oblige you, My Prince," replied Matáo as he raised his practice sword.
K?dú began with a flurry of attacks. His sword was quick, but Matáo countered each of his blows. The prince advanced, causing Matáo to step back on the defensive. Matáo matched the prince's pace equally. The two swung their swords, neither gaining an advantage. Matáo began to see a pattern in the prince's attacks. Once he discovered the pattern, it became easier for him to discern what was coming next.
He knew he had to time his counter perfectly. He counted to himself, marking the pattern in his head. "One," a strike from overhead. "Two," a downward swing to the mid section from the right. "Three," another swing in the middle but from the left side moving upwards. Finally, "Four," another strike from above. He waited for three before he spun around the prince to the right. The prince's sword nearly struck Matáo in the gut. Matáo stepped in behind the prince and grabbed him with one hand. He brought his sword up to the prince's throat with the other.
K?dú dropped his toy sword. He clapped his hands together and said, "Well done Matáo. That was fun. I haven't been bested like that since my baby brother Ryan tricked me in a match as children." "Thank you, My Prince," said Matáo, as he placed his fist over his chest and nodded his head towards him. He had seen this done and hoped that it would please the prince.
K?dú smiled and nodded in return. "Please, call me K?dú. Out here, and on the field of battle, I see no need for the formalities that palace life entails." "As you wish, My Prince. I mean, K?dú," said Matáo, and the prince turned away and said, "Come, we must prepare for battle." Matáo and the others followed suit.
Away from the palace, Matáo noticed that K?dú wasn't as eager as his brothers for battle. He wanted to make his father proud, but he had no desire to be here. They had followed the western road from the tree and had arrived at their position which was less than a half day's march from Oaken Meadow on the previous day.
Everyone was to be in position for the attack by mid day when the sun was at its highest spot in the sky, leaving little to no shadows for the Luna Stala to hide in. After everyone was in place, the members of the Brotherhood would signal to one another and when all were set, they would blow a horn to signal the advancement.
Matáo sat on his horse, next to K?dú, and waited for the others. He blew his horn, as loud as he could when he received the signal. He and the men began riding towards the city at full gallop. He was part of the mounted assault that led the charge. The men on foot followed as close as they could behind.
As Matáo neared the city, he noticed that something was wrong. He contacted the others through the charm and asked, "Are your gates open as well?" The reply came back, "Do you see anyone in the watchtowers or on the walls?" After a moment Matáo heard the horn blow twice, signaling a halt.
K?dú, who had remained in the rear to oversee the battle, urged his steed to the front, demanding an explanation. Matáo pointed at the gate and the watchtowers and said, "Prince Erík and General Truheart called a halt. The walls and watchtowers are empty and the gates are open."
Matáo had K?dú place his hand on his shoulder so that he could join the conversation with the other leaders. After a few minutes, they decided to send men from each group into the city through their prospective gates. Matáo volunteered as did Jeremiah.
After the small bands had been readied, they rode as hard and as fast as they could towards the gates. The riders entered the city and were perplexed to see that no one was there. They searched the out buildings and makeshift barracks. The city was completely deserted. Matáo noticed strange tracks in the ground leading out of the north and western gates.
They appeared to be wagon tracks, but much larger and heavier than he had seen before. "These must be from the catapults," he said, as he followed the tracks to the edge of the city. Jeremiah sent one of his men to ring the city's bell, to signal the all clear to the others outside of the city. They waited several minutes for the others to arrive.
Matáo, nor Jeremiah, remembered seeing these tracks on the road on their approach to the city. They decided to make camp in the barracks while Matáo and some other trackers followed the tracks left behind by the catapults. A set of tracks were found to the south of the city starting near the ferry station, while the other two led out the main gates. Matáo guessed that it must have rained since they left because there were little to no tracks of men or horses following the tracks.
By morning, it was decided that they would follow the tracks. Truwood and Erík would return to the palace to inform the king and afterward would return to the Sentinel Tree that he had used when he had gone to investigate the armada of refugees. It was near the King's road and they could prepare an ambush before the enemy arrived.
Jeremiah and his group of mounted men would take the northern gate out of the city while Matáo and K?dú would follow the western tracks. All of the men on foot were to accompany Truwood so they wouldn't slow down the riders. By midday the three groups set out. It had only been eight days since Jeremiah and Matáo had escaped, and they knew that moving these massive catapults would make for a slower pace, they hoped that they could reach the enemy before they made it to the capital city.
*****
Jeremiah and his men had been riding hard for three days before his scouts reported seeing the enemy up ahead. He had sent three of his fastest riders ahead of his main force to scout the road before them. It was after nightfall when one of them returned with the news of finding an encampment. The other two scouts stayed behind to keep watch.
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He was nervous to try and attack at night in fear of the Luna Stala, but he and his men, instead of making a camp for themselves, quietly rode nearer the enemy encampment to survey it for themselves. Jeremiah had been curious as to why Claremont would send one of his catapults this far north, away from the others and away from the capital city.
His questions were answered when he arrived at where the two scouts were hiding. From his vantage point, he only saw a few tents and a large wagon that was overloaded with large stones. It looked as though it had a broken axle. Jeremiah began to sense that this group was merely a diversion to divide the forces sent after them. He decided to lead a charge on the camp.
He called for his men to mount up. He commanded over a thousand men on horseback. He asked that all but fifty stay behind and if he and the others were to be overtaken by the enemy, they were to charge in with full force. The road to the encampment was narrow and with only a few tents he felt that fifty men would be too many as it was.
They readied themselves and charged the encampment. They had their swords drawn and when they entered the camp, they began to encircle it. As they rode by the tents, they swung at the ties and after a couple or more passes through it,, the tents fell in on themselves. They could hear men screaming as they tried to exit the fallen tents.
Each tent contained only four men. None of which held a weapon when they emerged from the tents with their hands raised. One of the men, an older man with graying hair yelled, "We's wants no parts 'n t'is wor. Wes jest old farmers." Jeremiah looked at the men. They all were passed the age of fighting men. "We's twas sen' t'is a way so as to makes yous follows us," said another.
Jeremiah dismounted his horse and stood before the man who spoke first. "Where were you going?" he asked. "We's twas told to goes north," replied the old man. "Where are the catapults," asked Jeremiah, with anger building inside of him. The man was silent. Jeremiah stepped forward, grabbed the man's shirt, and asked him again, "Where are the catapults?"
The old man cowarded to his knees and said in a crying, barely audible whisper, "I's, I's don't know, we's left before theys did." Jeremiah began to feel sorry for the old man and his anger left him. He released his shirt and offered him a hand up. The old man cautiously took his hand and stood before him. "He has my family," said the old man, shakily. "Do you know where he is keeping them?" asked Jeremiah. "No one does," replied the old man. "He keeps 'em, the women an chil'ren, somes place else. We don't even knows if they ares stills alive." The old man began to sob.
"Help them pack their camp," ordered Jeremiah, and then he said, "They are coming with us. Find a way to fix that axle and unload those stones," he commanded before returning to the rest of his men. He contacted Matáo and Truwood to inform them of what he had found. He ordered his men to set up a light camp, no tents and few fires, while he found Master Irwin, a member of the Order of Magi that was traveling with them.
"Where is the nearest Sentinel Tree?" he asked him. "Nearly a day's ride from here," replied Master Irwin. "Good," said Jeremiah. "Tomorrow we will make for the tree with as much haste as we can muster." He tied his horse to a tree that was off of the road and unpacked his bedroll. He laid it next to a rock and covered up. He began to stare at the night sky, remembering the events of the past few days, wondering how his beloved Chloé was fairing on her journey.
*****
Matáo and two of K?dú's scouts had been following the tracks left behind by the catapults for several days. They took turns reporting back to K?dú on their progress. Matáo and the other two scouts had come to a part of the road that was hard packed and they had lost the trail entirely. One of the scouts was a tall and very thin man about Matáo’s age that they called Twiggy and the other one was named Thom. He was a little older and very serious. It was nearly another full day before they came upon the tracks again.
Before moving forward with their search on the main road, they decided to search the areas beside the road carefully, just in case a group had left the road. They discovered a small path that had turned off of the main road. It was an animal trail that was newly worn down heavily, leading through a small clearing beside the road. Matáo could see where several men had made their way through it. He and the other scouts feared an ambush. He sent Thom to report what they had found and had Twiggy stay on the road while he dismounted his horse and went to investigate the clearing by himself.
Matáo followed the trail to the treeline on the far side of the clearing. He was crouched low in the tall grasses as he made his way to the trees. The trail through the trees was filled with large rocks and other things that made it difficult to travel. The path was more worn down than it was beside the road. He could see where a group of men had been clearing trees and he also found what he thought to be the remnants of an axle that had broken. After carefully surveying the rest of the area, he found another set of tracks left behind by a catapult leading deeper into the trees.
Matáo began to piece together in his mind what he could only guess as to what had happened. He assumed that one of the axles had broken on the main road, and instead of replacing it and moving onward, they decided to dismantle the catapult. They moved it piece by piece, and reassembled it in the clearing trying to hide it from anyone that could be following them.
He hurried back to Twiggy and told him what he'd found. He sent him to catch up with Thom, so that the prince could be informed of what had been discovered. Matáo waited for Twiggy to return, and then they began following the trail that went beyond the trees. They left markers along the way for the others to follow when they returned. It was nearing nightfall before Thom returned, and he had brought a few more scouts with him.
Thom was to take two of them to where the tracks resurfaced on the main road and follow them, while Sam, one of the new scouts, was to stay with Matáo and Twiggy and follow the new trail. They made camp for the night to rest the horses. After the sun had set and the moon was nearing its peak, in the near distance, they began to see what looked like several small campfires burning in the darkness.
They quickly put their fire out, hoping it hadn’t been seen. Twiggy had climbed a tree and tied himself to a large limb. He preferred to sleep in the trees instead of out in the open. Sam and Matáo left their horses to rest and headed in the direction of the firelight’s glow, leaving the others to keep watch. Matáo could tell, by the way Sam moved through the woods, that he was a hunter. He moved swiftly and silently like a deer.
They began to smell the smoke from the fires as they came upon a tall hill that they climbed. At the top, they found a fallen tree that they crouched behind to look down into the enemy camp. There were no tents set up, but they could see many bedrolls laying beside the fires. It was hard to see everything in the camp from this distance. Matáo counted at least thirty bedrolls around five fires in the camp. In the center of the fires was what they had been following. It was a large catapult made of wood and iron with a harness for six horses attached to it.
Matáo had an idea. He left Sam behind the log with instructions to send out a signal if the men started moving around. He crept his way around the camp. He followed the sounds of the horses and found himself on the far side of the camp. The horses had been tied off to the trees so they wouldn’t stray away. There were twelve in all with one man watching over them that had fallen asleep.
Matáo quietly made his way to where the guard was sleeping. He pulled out his knife and jabbed it into the man’s chest. His mouth opened to scream, but he perished before he could utter a sound. Matáo then untied all of the horses. When they had all been freed from their tethers, Matáo struck them with the sheath of his sword and sent them running away.
He ran after them shouting, “THE HORSES! THE HORSES!” He repeated it several times as loud as he could and then circled back around the camp to find a place to hide. The camp had been nearly emptied by the shouts. There were half naked men without boots blindly chasing horses in the darkness with shouts for help echoing all around the camp.
There were two men left behind to guard the catapult. They were too busy trying to see what was happening in the darkness to notice Matáo come in behind them. He pulled his sword and stuck it between one of the men’s shoulders. He gasped and before the other man could turn around to see what had happened, Matáo brought his sword across and sliced the man’s throat.
He sheathed his sword and quickly began pulling anything that he could from the fires and putting it on the catapult. He pulled logs and sticks that were burning and threw them on it. He used a bucket to scoop coals and embers that he poured onto the catapult. After a long few minutes of sweating from the heat of the fires, he had succeeded in starting another fire. It was a large fire and the catapult had become completely engulfed by flames.
He made his way back to Sam who loosed an arrow as Matáo neared his position. Matáo let out a shout. He stared at Sam who pointed behind him. Matáo turned and saw a man standing behind him clutching his face. The man stumbled and then fell to the ground. “Thanks, I owe you one,” said Matáo. The two of them started running back to their camp to wake Twiggy and the others so they could return to the rest of the regiment for help.
