Army Of Darkness - Part 4

This is the fourth part of Army Of Darkness.

## Plot

Lucilla heads to the other end of the banquet hall with two royal guards. She hears the door that she just came through opening again and turns to see Johnny and Gimmiyinn looking back at her.

Lucilla: How did you get here?

I was trapped in some warped world and I closed my eyes and opened them to be here

Royal Guard #1: No time for chit chat, let's go!

You all rush off after the guards. They take you to a recess in the bottom of a tower. It has a lockable metal gate on it. Lucilla hands over the Necronomicon and they lock it in the tower and pocket the key.

As they are doing this, a dwarf runs over.

Dwarf: The King is dead!

Gimmiyinn: Then the bearer of the Hammer must lead us. Johnny, you are now temporarily our King, and Lucilla you are his advisor.

Royal Guard #1: There is much to do if we are to stop the Deadites taking the Necronomicon.

He lists the many things that you could do next.

Royal Guard #1:
- We can send for help from the many villages, tribes, and beings of power in the area.
- We can send scouts to see what we are up against.
- We can give you information on our own forces.
- We can give you a map to plan our defence.
- We can train up some of the local peoples.
- We can place some fortifications around and throughout Stonebridge.

Gimmiyinn: (to both of you) So, what will it be first?

Lucilla: Okay, what forces have we got?

Royal Guard #1: We have 30 swordsmen, 20 archers, and 10 knights. We have 10 warhorses, only the knights can ride them or they get...tetchy. We've also got another 20 normals horse for riding. We could potentially train up local citizens to bulk out our numbers a bit but we haven't got long and they wouldn't be as good as the rest of our troops obviously.

Lucilla: Next let's send some scouts to find out what we are up against.

The guard rings a bell positioned next to the alcove containing the book and a young boy comes running over.

Royal Guard #1: Lad, I need two scouts to head out the misty forest and find out what we are facing. Make sure to tell them not to get too close. This is important information.

Lad: At once, sire.

He scurries off.

Lucilla: Okay, can you get some messages out for help?

Gimmiyinn: I'll do that.

Gimmiyinn heads off with urgency.

Lucilla: I need a map, please.

Royal Guard #1: Follow me.

Lucilla and Johnny follow.
The guard takes you to a room on the second floor of the tower which contains many books and scrolls. He pulls out a scroll and lays it on the table.

Royal Guard #1: Here you go. If you just wait a moment, I will get you a map of the castle too.

The guard shows you a map of the castle grounds.

Lucilla: Okay, i'd like to place some fortifications.

Royal Guard #1: We have 10 wooden barriers in our workshop. Where do you want them?

Lucilla points out where she wants the barriers on the map.

Royal Guard #1: Right, that just leaves the training. We can prepare our citizens by training them. I'm thinking that we can have 1 Knight training a group of 10. With 10 Knights doing that, we can train a hundred. They wouldn't be the best soldiers, but they might help and they may need to defend themselves and their families. Additionally, we can send our Archer Captain to train another 10 in archery. Do you have any preferences for who we train or should it just be the first 110 who we find?

Lucilla: What do you mean by "preferences"?

Royal Guard #1: Well, we have a population of about 180, pretty evenly split between men and women. You may not want the women to fight...Also some of the population are old or very young.

Lucilla: We'll let men and women volunteer but the old and the young mustn't fight. Also if any of the women are pregnant, we can't allow them to volunteer either.

After that there wasn't much to do for the rest of the day. The Royal Guard went to speak to the Knights and the Archer Captain to make arrangements for training. It would be a long wait to find out what the scouts had discovered, and whether or not help was on it's way.

The following morning, the Royal Guard comes rushing into the throne room. He approaches Johnny who is sat on the throne, and Lucilla who is stood beside him.

Royal Guard #1: There's been a small problem with arranging the training. We discounted the elderly, and the young. We also excluded the pregnant women. However, after accounting for the able bodied men and women, who are of a good age but do not wish to fight...we only have 80 people to train. Ideally we need another 30. If we could have some of the elderly, we'd be able to fill the quota...or maybe some children, and then the rest could be the elderly...either way, we need more people.

Lucilla: The elderly can volunteer, but then the best thirty can be picked out for training. Maybe we can train 10 of them as archers, and they should preferably be the last line of defence.

The Royal Guard hurries off to deliver the orders.

A little later he returns with one of the scouts.
The scout looks worried.

Scout: I come baring grave news. The army of darkness are digging up all of the graves in the cemetary. They show no signs of stopping. At an estimate I would say their soldiers, skeletons, number around 200, with another 20 more intact corpses acting as Captains over the rest. There's also 10 other creatures, putrid corpses of rotting flesh. With the amount of graves they still have yet to dig, I would say they could number about 500 by the time they are finished. They are lead by a fearsome haggard bearded man wearing a crown of thorns. At his side day and night (though it's always night in that place) is a winged deadite. My fellow scout...he didn't make it out alive.

He breaks down in tears and one of the castle's maids comes and leads him away.

Royal Guard #1: We should discuss tactics.

Lucilla places 5 of the elderly archers at the barriers at 1 on the stonebridge map, and another 5 at the barriers at 2 on the stonebridge map.

Lucilla places 5 of the elderly swordsmen at each of the castle's catapults.

Lucilla places 20 archers along the north walls of the castle.

Lucilla places her 10 knights, in a line, in front of the north wall of the castle, on warhorses.

Lucilla places 20 swordsmen, on horses, behind the knights in front of the castle.

Finally, behind the 20 swordsmen on horses, Lucilla places 10 swordsman on foot in a line, followed by 4 rows of 20 adult swordsmen each.
Everyone is now accounted for.

Shortly after the plans had been drawn up for the battle, a young dwarf came running over to them.

Boy: We've received a message. It's from the Hill Trolls. They say they will lend us support in the upcoming battle...but only if we destroy the Warhammer.

Royal Guard #1: Hmmm...we could do with extra troops and the Hill Trolls are fearsome warriors...but at the same time, if we destroy the Warhammer we could put ourselves at risk from those same Hill Trolls. This is a choice for the acting King...Johnny, what do you think?

## Navigation

* Previous Part - Lucilla's Path - Part 2
* Previous Part - Johnny's Path - Part 3
* Next Part - Part 5
* Previous Episode - The Trial Of Rusten Bellwick
* Next Episode - Tale As Old As Time