The fighting went on for the entire day. Due to the army being split up, everyone got rest if they needed it as others were fighting, trying to delay the skeletons. When the sun was getting too low, Berk had ordered a retreat as he didn’t want to risk losing his people if they wouldn’t know where they were putting their feet. With most of his troops back at the top, they could see how the humans who had cut down a huge part had used the wood they cut to build buildings for them.

  A lot of people here had never slept in buildings before as they lived in tents all the time. Getting in the buildings was like having luxury to them, able to rest safe and better protected from the wind and such. Berk was sitting outside with his generals, Demmie and the princesses with their generals. The Flying one hadn’t returned yet so they didn’t have information about any possible reinforcements but they weren’t going to be here soon anyway.

  Demmie was the only one here who didn’t know the distance between the human capitol and where they were right now. “What about your dad? He was here rather soon from what I heard to save you and your sister.”

  Emma nodded slowly as she looked at her sister. “That was because he didn’t think we were ready for official negotiations. He just like Lilly found it a bad idea but mother forced us to try. He was next to the border waiting to hear that we made it. When we didn’t send him a message, that’s when he came to try and save us.”

  “So when will the reinforcements arrive?” Demmie was looking at a map of the world given by Berk.

  Lilly didn’t even look up as she had her arms wrapped around herself, being both cold from the breeze going through the camp and warm from the fire. “Seeing as mother on purpose didn’t gather a lot of people, it’ll take weeks to gather everyone from across our gruge. The army we have remaining at the capitol is around two-thousand men. They never get here in time anyway.”

  Jackson intervened, looking at Berk and Barta. “How about the attack? How did it go?”

  Barta had been in the fight the entire day and hadn’t been up to date really, holding up his hands as he lowered his head. He had never been in a war before, not even a small one so seeing his friends die in this battle had him quiet for once.

  Berk put a hand on his shoulder, knowing what he felt as he then answered Jackson. “We lost… around nine-thousand people but sadly enough, the numbers are still rising. We’re not sure how many skeletons we killed as they’re a bit harder to count and since we can’t go to them to count the dead either. Although an estimation we made is that we killed six times the amount that we lost.”

  Demmie looked down in the valley at the lights made by the skeletons. There was still a huge army, making Demmie lose hope. “So many dead and we didn’t even make a dent in their army.”

  “Yeah… Some other bad news, Lehtern hasn’t returned to use yet and even worse news. My other spies have told me that our original estimation of a million enemies was… very generous. We’re getting closer to the two million every time we count again.”

  Medi looked up at this news, playing with the pommel of his sword. “So unless I’m very bad at counting, that means that were outnumbered ten to one?”

  “Unfortunately yes. Not only that, the numbers we killed today won’t happen again. That was an isolated event because they were unorganized. They’ll restructure their troops now so that tomorrow we’ll be fighting against an actual army. Demmie, is the testudo ready for battle?”

  He had to laugh at that question. He had gotten less than a day to train them and he himself had never needed to teach this so he was discovering some flaws as they went. “Not really but do we have other options?”

  “Note really no. Tomorrow I’ll want to deploy them. They need someone to keep them together, someone they know can help them in need. Demmie, will you go with them?” Berk tried to ask it in a nice way but there wasn’t really much that he could say to soften a question like this.

  “Hmmm, sure. I’ll go with them.”

  Lilly shivered once more in the cold breeze, closing her eyes as she felt tired. “Why is there always a cold wind in this land? I thought the trees of the forest were supposed to stop wind but you get more wind that in our gruge.”

  It also didn’t help that they were sitting in a cut down part of the forest. At the edge of the now huge cut down part ware many lights walking up and down the edge. Berk had put guards in place, not wanting to be ambushed and lose his already low amount of people that he had.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  Berk looked at them as he thought about the bunnies. “I’m getting concerned about those little bastards. We haven’t seen them anymore after the day I killed the skeleton king. Mortel or whatever his name was. It’s more concerning that we don’t see them then if we had seen them.”

  Both Lilly and Emma had completely cut out of the conversation now, both shivering in the cold. Jackson noticed this and got a bit closer, letting his horse part rest against Emma to warm her up. She didn’t seem too bothered by this, leaning up against him as she yawned, closing her eyes as she was falling asleep.

  Demmie focused back on the fight for tomorrow, trying to get in the mid of the skeletons. “If we attack with the testudos, they will see an organized machine. If we at a certain point decide to retreat, act like we’re running away then perhaps we can lure them in a sense of safety, lure them out of their lines.”

  Berk tilted his head at this idea. That’s not too bad of a plan. We set the testudos at the front and a fair bit behind them we reinforce them with our standard infantry. If start to run away, they have space to run back and as soon as the skeletons follow, we can have our cavalry hit them in the back while the other testudo’s cut them off from the rest of the army.”

  Medi shook his head as he pointed at the map Demmie was holding. “I don’t think it’ll work. The testudos that we have are… on the small side in terms of troop size. Don’t get me wrong, forty-thousand is a lot of people but remember the amount our enemy has. If we come close in a slow moving fortress then they can just surround our troops and slowly tire us out. We need the cavalry to slow down enemy progress and stop them from flanking us.”

  With those facts put on the table, it was quite for a bit as everyone was trying to come up with something. It took a while but eventually, Demmie came up with something. “We stretch our troops out for as far as we could and not further than the enemies line. As the enemy attacks, they slowly pull back so they don’t have a chance to break through. We reinforce the flanks with the cavalry.”

  It once more got quiet as they thought about it. It seemed like a good plan but something felt off. Unable to figure out what it was, Berk would just nod and sigh. “Sadly enough that sounds like our best option. Now, you all should try and get some sleep for tomorrow. I’ll talk to my commanders and explain to them the plan.” He got up and walked off to find his people, leaving them behind.

  Barta focused on Lilly who was still awake but only barely. “How is the chopping of the woods? How much more before your people can stop?”

  Lilly looked around the open area, yawning as she tried to calculate how much longer. “At least the entire next day.”

  Medi groaned softly before standing up, looking at Jackson who had Emma still against him. “That sucks… No more back-up of the humans either then. You going to stay here or will you be coming to our tent?”

  He looked down at Emma and then at Lilly. Lilly didn’t give him any help, looking away as if to say that he did this to himself. “I’ll stay here for a bit longer, I’ll try to not make it too long.”

  “Hmm, okay. You should not make it too long, tomorrow we’ll probably have to fight harder than today.”

  “I’m aware, don’t worry about me. I’ll make sure to be back in time to play cards.”

  Medi chuckled as he shook his head, leaving him alone. With him being gone, the others left as well, leaving Jackson with Lilly and Emma. Jackson kept it out for as long as he could but he knew that in order to fight he had to be awake.

  “Look Lilly, I have to go. I suggest that you and Emma go to sleep as well.” He tried to push her back to Lilly and not wake her up before slowly standing up, stretching his legs. “See you later.”

  Lilly didn’t answer him, letting him go away as she let her sister sleep against her. Before Jackson went to his tent, he walked to the edge of the now cut down forest and looked down the valley. From where he was standing, he could see a patrol walking past. It wasn’t likely that there would be a night attack but it could still happen.

  He walked to Berk again as he just finished talking to his commanders, trying to pull him aside. “Berk, I want to request extra people on patrol tonight. They have enough people out of the pass now so they could attack. If I were them that’s exactly what I would do.”

  Berk nodded as he walked towards his own tent to sleep. “But that means they need to have something to cover themselves up. Their white bones are easily seen in the darkness. If they attack it won’t be a big group. I’ll send out an extra group to watch the valley.” With that being said, Berk left him as she went to try and find some people to send out.

  Jackson sighed as he rubbed his forehead, going to his own tent. When he walked in, he saw Jackson lying down on the ground. He too lied down but not on his side just yet, being wide awake as everything shot through his head. “Tomorrow another battle… more people to kill.”

  As everyone went to bed, Lucas wasn’t yet, still up with what Keanu had told him to do. For now he didn’t really have any way to effectively deal with the little bastards but he was going to find a way, he had to be useful.

  But even for him things would get too late too continue. He yawned and grabbed his bag, fishing out another mini crossbow that he had been working on. This one should be much sturdier than the last one. That made him think about the freedom fighters. He wondered if he could try and recruit them in this war or maybe even against the bunnies.

  Unfortunately that required him to leave this place and wander off in the woods until he is stopped and with the current threat, that idea wasn’t a good one. Eventually he just went to bed, very sure that he was going to figure this out in the next day.