Chapter 256: Allied Forces Falling Short of Expectations

News that the Lord would lead a knight squadron out to war had long since spread through the Northern Crow Domain.

Many smallholders, especially those living in Swamp Town, worried whether they would be dragged off to the battlefield.

After all, Baron Rayson had done just that in the past; as a vassal of Crow Mountain Keep, he would answer the call to arms, but that did not mean he would field his finest troops for the campaign.

Whenever Rayson sensed profit, he would send a few more knights; conversely, he would send fewer, and on his most tight-fisted occasion, he had seemingly dispatched only three junior knights to lead the expedition.

With fewer knights sent, the carefully trained cavalry, infantry, and archers would naturally be fewer as well. To make the numbers appear grander, Rayson would temporarily press serfs and untrained militia to fill the ranks.

One could not say he failed to answer the summons, for he had indeed sent over a hundred souls into battle;

Yet one could not say he truly answered it either, for his host possessed no combat readiness to speak of.

Given Rayson’s history of such maneuvers, it was only natural for the folk of Swamp Town to harbor these anxieties.

However, their worries were entirely unwarranted.

Freed from the burden of logistics, Ronin had absolutely no intention of padding his numbers with serfs and militia; leaving them to handle the autumn harvest, road repairs, and land reclamation back home, or even to procreate in their leisure time, was far better than letting them waste their lives on a battlefield.

Though such were his thoughts, they were not advertised as such within the domain.

The officials, led by Wilson, told the public that this was the Lord showing mercy to them as ordinary folk, unwilling to let untrained men perish on the battlefield, praising it as the Lord’s benevolence.

At the same time, they campaigned on the righteousness of Ronin’s expedition, painting the enemy as abominable and detailing the dire consequences the Northern Crow Domain would face should they lose.

This not only made the smallholders feel

But with the other side adding up to only three, the force was laughably inadequate.

“Didn’t the Viscount Vittorino come?”

Rou Ning frowned slightly.

The Viscount Vittorino of Jiao Jiao City was a Silver Knight—his absence meant one less elite warrior for the allied army.

“Who else hasn’t arrived?” (End of Chapter)