Road to the Crown

19th march 1574 (barely after midnight)

The night at the camp was nowhere as close as living in my castle chambers, not even comparable to living in a damned stable or even resting in the tent during the Governor's hunting camp. With my tent located right in the middle of the entire camp, with six other temporary housing for the nobles and officers that accompanied me on the campaign, we were already quite secure from any outside attack, yet just to be safe, the entire middle part of the camp was additionally surrounded by the carriages, with two of them carrying the reaper guns in case of a night attack. With both of their crews sleeping in the direct proximity of their weapons, there were over fifty people in my immediate surrounding, making it impossible to relax.

"So, what will you do to bait him outside?"

With how we could expect a night raid at any given time, even in the most secure place in the entire camp, I still didn't dare to take off my armour. As people say, it's better to be safe than sorry, yet in this particular case, I was already feeling pity for myself.

After trying to improve my mood through the entire evening and ultimately failing at this task, Elia attempted to shift my attention from the problems of my campaign by ignoring the safety issue and baring her skin in front of me in the dim light of the few candles that helped us move around the sizeable tent, yet rather than allowing me to forget about the current problems plaguing my head, it only added the unnecessary pressure with how my body was tightly bound by the confines of my light armour.

"I was thinking that simply calling him out for a fight would suffice. While he might be dumb enough to go against me, he is still a Pole. Seeing his own unit of cavalry against my immobile and smaller unit of footmen… Not even the number of carriages should stop him from charging right against us. Worst case scenario, I hoped you will help me to bait him out."

Pulling Elia closer, I had to satisfy myself with her smell and her lips alone. Despite how in any other situation we could go right down to the business, my own caution stood firmly in between our bodies, baring me from enjoying this moment any bit more than I currently could.

"Help you? What do you mean with this?"

With her curiosity piqued by my words, Elia stopped her attempts at reaching for my lower body through the layers of cloth, and cupped her hands on top of my breastplate, placing her chin right on top of them and looking deeply into my eyes.

"Do I really need to spell it out loud? From what I heard, he doesn't really care about the Pilzno, but he just wants to get you. As long as he will be hesitant to leave the walls of the city, all we need to do is ride on the same horse to the front, and ridicule him."

No matter the age, a man's pride was both the greatest tool and the greatest vulnerability of a man. Knowing this rule I didn't really care about people's opinion about me unless it would directly affect my plans on my dominion, yet I was sure that the same thing didn't apply for Peter! Being a noble already served as a great bonus to his pride statistic if he had a system for himself, and his theoretically upper hand in the conflict with numerical and mobility advantage should make him all the more careless. But in the end, all I could do was guess, and hope that my ideas would prove effective in the real encounter.

"Oh? And what would you like me to do, while on the horse with you?"

With Elia's hand escaping from under her head and travelling down on my armour, it didn't take long for her to reach the knot that brought my pants together, this time proving her feminine skill at unravelling this kind of obstacles effective. With the cloth of my lower suit coming loose, her hand was unbothered by any other obstacles on its journey towards my manhood.

"Maybe… like that?"

Using the fact that instead of sleeping and recovering our strength for the next day of boring march we continued to talk long past the time when all the candles gave up to the natural process of burning out, talk while she continued to do her best to affect my mood despite my armour denying all her attempts, her delicate fingers tightened around my shaft, pulling the foreskin down from my head as she started to slowly jerk me off.

"Don't be stupid. No matter the stakes, I would never allow you to…"

Before I could finish, my lips were blocked by Elia's mouth with her hand finally pulling my dick outside the confines of my loose pants. Just a single jerk of her hips was enough to move her on top of my body, locking my manhood between her hand and her sweet place.

"So? What would you never all me to?"

With Elia raising her head slightly above mine in order to free my lips, as soon as I opened my mouth to answer her inquiry while doing my best to remain calm, she used the opening I gave her, invading my jaw with her tongue.

Once again muted with her delicate flesh, my barriers was slowly starting to erode, when the unexpected sound broke me from immersing myself in the pleasure that she was offering me.

"ATTACK!"

Just as this shout managed to reach the ears of everyone still awake in the camp, a desperate ringing of the bell located in the inner outposts of the camp jerked everyone up from their beds. While I wanted to follow the proper example of my own men, I had to first push Elia aside, push my own erect penis back into my pants, tie the knot that would ensure I wouldn't end up commanding my troops bare-assed and only then I was finally able to move out from the tent!

Sea of flames.

I never knew that such a thing could really happen, yet when the reality once again face slapped my modern beliefs, it did it in the worst way possible.

Just a single look at the camp told me what a disaster it was.

With a huge group of mounted men running freely through the tight rows of the tents, unbothered by the pitiful resistance put up by the servants and serfs located on the outer ring of my camp, most of their housing was already set ablaze, with the fire swiftly jumping onto the nearby tents, swiftly spreading the chaos and disorder.

"My Lord! Peter is attacking!"

With one of the nobles that decided to join my cause running up to me and reporting, I had the feeling that it was the first time he ever saw the real bloodshed on his own eyes. Despite how tragic the situation looked like, something deep in myself forced me to calm down, slowing down the flow of my blood and casting all the worries aside.

"East group, retreat towards the centre! We will hold them off at the line of the carriages!"

Hearing my order, yet another sound of bell broke through the hell of the ongoing onslaught, almost instantly swaying the troops from the affected area towards my own position.

There was no way to save the people that were already behind the enemy line. There was no way to stop the enemies from ravaging almost a fourth of the entire camp. There was no damn way to stop the chaos and disorder from spreading in all directions, swiftly affecting the morale of the troops that had enough time to cast their sleepiness away and actually prepare for the fight.

Yet there wasn't even a single sign of panic in the lines of my soldiers, hidden behind the backs of the poor servants. They calmly continued to retreat towards the circle of carriages, swiftly forming two triangles near the sides of the central point, leaving the front completely unattended, with their ranks forming only where both reaper carriages were located, with their crews already ready for order.

In a war, there was no way to prevent any casualties from happening. The role of a general, my role, was to make the best use of the sacrifices made, in order to hit the enemy way harder than he could ever expect!