As they spoke, Urien walked up, appraising the black knight with a puzzled expression. He turned to Jack, and motioned towards Dawson the Daring."Friend of yours?"
"A summoned ally, actually. I got a figurine of power that allowed me to summon him from when we fought the gnolls in the town." Jack said. He turned to the black knight.
"Introduce yourself."
Dawson the Daring bowed elaborately, his plate armor squealing and creaking in a way that made Jack"s teeth hurt.
"Greetings! I am Dawson the Daring, bound bannerman to Lord...." He hesitated for a moment, before awkwardly turning towards Jack.
"Your name, lord? What is it?" He whispered, not nearly quiet enough to avoid being heard by everyone else.
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"Jack." Jack said.
Dawson creaked back into his elaborate bow.
"Bound bannerman to Lord Jack!" He boomed with pride.
"Just call me Jack. I"m not a lord." Jack sighed, rubbing his eyes.
"Of course, Lord Jack!" Dawson boomed happily.
Urien looked from Jack to Dawson and back, raising an eyebrow. Jack shrugged.
"We need all the help we can get." He said.
"We"ll take it." Urien said, then added, "We march in a few minutes time. If you have any final preparations to make, now is the time. it is very likely we will enter battle as soon as we are within range of the gnoll encampment."
Jack nodded.
"We are as ready as we can be, which is a good bit more than we were the last time we fought with you." He said.
"Aye, that"s true. Steel yourself, you two. We very likely have a very long day ahead of us." Urien said, walking past Jack and Rose towards the edge of the camp. As he did so, he gave Dawson the Daring one final look before shaking his head.
Dawson the Daring turned his attention back to Jack.
"A battle is forthcoming? Huzzah! A glorious moment for me to prove my worth as your sworn sword! What are your orders of me, Lo- I mean, Jack?" The armored man asked.
"Keep her and I safe. Our enemies are gnolls. Are you familiar with what a gnoll is?"
Dawson nodded.
"Of course! Fleridden mongrel men with faces like hounds. They"re utterly immistakable!" Dawson said, sounding proud of himself.
"Good. Your job is to kill any gnoll you see attempting to harm either on of us, or any of our friends in this camp. Do you understand?" Jack asked.
Dawson nodded again, more enthusiastically.
"Absolutely! I will make your protection my sole and unyielding responsibility!" Dawson said, slamming his armored fist into his chest again with another loud metallic boom.
Jack snorted.
"Thanks, man."
He turned to Rose.
"How are you feeling?"
"Nervous." Rose said, fidgeting with the pommel of her sword. "This will be the riskiest thing I"ve ever done, and even though I"m with you and all the rest of these adventurers, I still can"t shake the feeling that something bad will happen."
Jack put his hand on her shoulder, and locked his gaze with hers.
"Nothing bad is going to happen. I won"t allow it." He said. "Never again will I fail to keep one of you safe."
Rose searched his eyes for a moment, then smiled.
"I"m going to hold you to that, mister hero. So you better not let me down!" She said, playfully clapping him on the shoulder.
The disa.s.sembly of the last of the camp took less than three minutes, and soon the a.s.sembled ma.s.s was on its way, with Jack taking point to lead the way, accompanied in the front by Rose, Urien, Farlo, Abigail, and the newly summoned Dawson the Daring, who was the focus of a lot of confused and sideward glances as he clanked merrily through the field with the rest of them.
Within the hour, they crested the top of a flat-topped hill, and in the distance, Jack saw the mountain, and at its base, a fortified position in front of a narrow strip of forest, bisected by a wide path that appeared to lead up the mountainside.
There, in the midst of the a.s.sembled barricades and archery towers had to have been at least a hundred gnolls, perhaps even more. Far more than the scouts had indicated the day before, regardless of the actual number. Farlo whistled gently.
"I don"t think they"re very interested in letting us go any further." He said flatly as Jack walked up beside him.
"Doesn"t look that way, does it?" Jack said.
Below them, at the fortifications, there were four archery towers, each of which were probably b igenough to hold three or four archers each, and give them carte blanche for targets across the entire battlefield. Across the front perimeter of the defensive line, a set of spiked bulwarks made of wood sat behind what appeared to be a dug trench, limiting easy approach. There was really only one clear way in, and that was across a wooden bridge set across the trench that led to an opening between the barricades perhaps 18-20 feet wide. And with the way the arrow towers were staggered, with the center two placed further back, it was obvious to him that they existed first and foremost to turn anyone crossing the bridge into a pincushion from four different angles.
It was, to say the least, not a very advantageous position to attack, even if they had far superior numbers. And they didn"t, which just made things worse.
He studied the defenses for a long moment, puzzling over what to do.
The single largest weakness to the defensive line was that everything was made of wood. And he could hurl fire, which the gnolls were probably not expecting. If he could safely get in range, he could light up the archery towers, at the very least. That woud certainly make things a lot easier.
That is, of course, a.s.suming he was ever given a chance to get close enough.
Come to think of it... Had he ever really tested just how far he could project his magic?