The next morning, the Peslir Kingdom’s camp seemed like a ghost town compared to the previous day - complete with corpses strung all about.
They’d suffered greatly through the night - aside from the deaths of nearly six thousand soldiers, the remaining nine thousand lucky souls who’d survived had been forced to watch their comrades and friends painfully die in front of their eyes.
The various commanders’ eyes were bloodshot - just how the hell had something like this happened?
At this rate, even if they were able to take back the city, at least one or two of them would likely be executed by the King for losing so many soldiers in what should have been a very simple operation.
But… who would be the scapegoats?
Even as many of their minds were still reeling, the more cunning amongst them were already racking their brains.
The king would call for at least a few heads. With their ineptitude, it was safe to assume that at least three of the officers would be losing their heads.
It was time to set up the scapegoats.
...
After the corpses had been moved to the edges of the camp, the soldiers consolidated themselves to the northern side of the camp, closer to the city.
The HQ remained at the same place, meaning that it was now closer to the southern edge of the camp.
It was in this command tent that several of the commanders were arguing with each other - who was at fault for what had happened the previous night?
As the various officers squabbled, Commander Fahler, the leader of the expedition, finally had enough.
“Silence!”
At his shout, a majority of the officers in the tent paused their squabbles, but one frowned, snorted, and responded.
“Do you really think you still have the ability to silence us after your mishaps? Don’t forget, you are the one in charge of this expedition - at the end of the day, any honors this army earns go to you, but you are the one who will be held responsible in times of failure.
“Do you really expect to hold your position when we return to the king? If I were you, I’d be preparing to live out my last days in peace. Let those of us who have-”
“Guards!” Commander Fahler looked absolutely livid, but there was a tint of mockery in his eyes.
He’d just been having trouble in deciding who he should throw under the bus - who knew one of his officers would be so stupid as to volunteer himself?
Two guards marched into the tent and looked to Commander Fahler, awaiting his orders.
The latter pointed toward the officer who’d had the previous outburst. “He is a traitor to the Peslir Kingdom, responsible for last night’s calamity! Take him away and execute him in the square!”
“Yes, sir!” The two guards marched toward the officer and roughly forced his arms behind his back.
“I- what? You! Do you really think that the soldiers are so stupid as to believe your lies?? You’re the traitor, you’-”
“And gag him, please.” Commander Fahler didn’t spare the officer a second look.
And with that, the officer was gagged and pulled out of the tent.
With that, the atmosphere in the tent had turned extremely tense - even worse than it had been previously. Many of the officers had been planning to slowly force out a few scapegoats to “turn in” to the king when they returned, but Commander Fahler had instantly changed the pace of the game.
Execute first, then explain to the king later! After all, corpses could not defend themselves.
With murderous intent in his eyes, Commander Fahler cast an eye over his officers.
“You now understand the situation we are in, yes? So, this will be how we proceed. Today, send out your soldiers to pillage any nearby homes and villages for food. Throw out any rations we currently have - they may be poisoned.
“...The two officers whose troops bring back the least amount of food will be executed. Understand?”
An officer cautiously addressed him. “Er, commander. My battalion was hit particularly hard by last night’s poison attack… I have barely a third of my soldiers left. Could we change it so that its determined by the amount of food brought back per soldier?”
“Your battalion was hit particularly hard, hm? That just shows your inadequacy as an officer. Your request is denied. Now, if there are no further questions, move out!”
“Yes, sir!”
Exiting from the tent, the various officers couldn’t help but exhale heavily. Then, they immediately rushed to mass their troops and set out.
Still inside the tent, Commander Fahler fumed. No commander liked to have to use his officers’ fear of death to keep them in line. Furthermore, he still wasn’t sure how his soldiers had been poisoned.
It was clear that their food had been poisoned, but who exactly had poisoned the food? Was it someone in the camp? Or had the bandits in Venite City somehow infiltrated their camp?
He scratched his head. Something about this expedition...just didn’t feel quite right.
…
“Well, they’re moving as we thought they would.” Wren nodded, then glanced at Rojan, who was next to him.
“Mmm… well, we did what we could for the families and villages in the area. Hopefully the soldiers won’t get too violent and burn their houses down.”
“Hopefully.”
Rojan had completely predicted the Peslir Kingdom’s actions - after all, it was the basic thought process for anyone in Commander Fahler’s situation.
Soldiers ate food > Soldiers were poisoned > Soldiers died = Food was poisoned > Throw out food, find new food.
So, the day before, they had sent scouts to the neighboring villages, warning them that Peslir Kingdom forces were likely to raid them for provisions. But that was all they could do. They didn’t have the forces to defend the villages from pillaging soldiers, and it wouldn’t be the smartest use of their soldiers even if they could.
They’d done what they could for the villagers - It would be up to them to help themselves.
It actually didn’t matter to Rojan whether or not the Peslir soldiers succeeded in securing new rations for themselves - the damage had been done. Their fighting force had been cut by a third, their leaders were in disarray, and their morale had to be nothing short of terrible.
The first part of their three-part plan had been an absolute success.
The two walked down from the wall, and made their way to the barracks, which their soldiers had recently moved into. Close to the barracks were several training fields.
It was at one of these training fields that several hundred archers were practicing “rotations”.
In this scenario, a hundred archers stood in front, while another hundred stood behind them, at an off-angle.
The first hundred archers would fire their shots, then turn tail and run. They would reform the line at a further point while the second line of archers covered their retreat.
And so on. Ideally, the opponents would take heavy losses, and would never catch up to the archers.
Tomorrow, they would have a distance of slightly less than a mile to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible.