I had declared emergency following the encounter with the Nanoans, to appropriate more labor to excavate more iron ore and produce more charcoal to increase our steel yields. I also expedited the construction of simple fortifications at East Gate and West Point, and a wagon worthy path to Bog Watch. With the extra steel, we were able to equip each soldier with a magazine fed crossbow of his own, while they were taught how to make their own bolts.
Fearing the enemy would just sail around Bog Watch, we built a few boats and had the Frogmen practice how to fight from them and scout the coast. In the process, we also found out why this valley wasn't inhabited. The mountain range at West Point had at one point extended further into the ocean, but had been eroded away by time, forming a spit and smaller outcroppings, a barrier of land barely peeking above the ocean, turning the region into an invisible minefield. Only highly maneuverable boats with a shallow draft could get inside the natural harbor that was our coastline.
The craftsmen finished two more trebuchets, the first one sent to the front lines, while the second one was installed at West Point.
While the soldiers and reservists prepared for war, the rest of the people handled the bountiful harvest we were blessed with, enough that we had to build an extra silo to hold all the grain. The happiness at our good fortune was marred by the uncertain future. Aprilia and my couplings became more frantic and aggressive, in attempts to squeeze pleasure out of every moment.
One day, she was lying on top of me as we were basking in the afterglow of our lovemaking, when she asked me a question out of the blue.
"Why didn't you select Mia?"
"Who?"
"Come on, you know." She said, miming big breasts. "The only girl who was more fetching than me at the interviews."
"Oh, that one." I said, swallowing the spit that rose in me.
"I wouldn't say she was more fetching than you. Sure, she had a very nice set of knockers, but her personality was lacking, to put it very mildly. I wanted someone who would make my life better, not worse."
"Hmm," she said, nonchalantly, but her expression darkened a bit.
"She has nothing on you! Are you... insecure about something?" I asked, fearing the answer.
"Of course I'm insecure! I know you like them big! I've noticed you looking at girls with big ones." She said, with irritation in her voice.
I realized that maybe I shouldn't have been so honest about my appreciation of those melons, even though I didn't care much for the woman they were attached to. Sometimes intellect just couldn't triumph over emotions.
"You have a perfectly nice set of titties, dear. Remember how I'm stuck to them almost every night? It's not because I'm craving milk."
That softened her gaze.
"Also, I know a magic spell that can increase their size."
She looked at me, confused, then her pupils dilated, with realization dawning.
"You mean it?"
"Not right now, but once Chadom's future is secure, maybe we can embark on a new personal project. I will ride you all day long and you can ride me all night long, until we've put a bun in your oven, so to say. What do you think?"
"Yes! I want to have your babies!" She squealed and began peppering me with kisses.
---
The moment we were waiting for eventually arrived, when one day I was informed the Frogmen had spied a large force of soldiers crossing the Bog.
"Everyone, get inside the castle!" A soldier screamed for the laggard civilians to get behind the walls, as our military prepared to deploy.
"I will pray for your victory. Come back alive." Aprilia whispered in my ear, as she gave me a kiss and left for the safety of our castle.
I saluted the men station atop the palisade, which was beginning to look like a proper castle, with a skirt of limestone wall surrounding it, and went to face the Nanoans.
"Hey Lothar, why are you still single? I've noticed you staring at our attractive girls, and many of them are not exactly shy about showing their interest in return." I asked him on the way to keep up our spirits.
"I can't. Not right now. I also don't want to talk about it." He said, in a tone that made it clear that things would get tense between us if I pursued it any further. It was a rather odd hill to die upon, but his secrets were his to keep. I was getting a little frustrated with how many secrets he kept though.
"All right. Keep your secrets." I said, shelving the topic for the moment.
If they were smart, the Nanoans would have arrived on boats in the middle of the night and landed close to us, for which I had crude searchlights built from a brass reflector, but none of that turned out to be necessary, as a force of almost six hundred soldiers came trundling toward us from the Bog.
When the head of their column reached within the range of our crossbows, Lothar addressed the force.
"Halt! You are approaching the border of the Republic of Chadom. Stop right there and state your business or you will be treated as trespassers." He bellowed.
A stocky man, wearing high quality plate armor, came forward on his warhorse. A perpetual sneered graced his face, as if we were some servants who had displeased him. My eyes almost popped out of their sockets when I realized he was none other than Count Zock Nobara, Jack's father.
"Some criminals stole something very important from us and we want it back! I was told that you people killed them and took it!" He bellowed back in his gruff voice.
My General just stared back at him in shock.
"General?" I tried to rouse him.
He shook out of his shock and addressed the Count,"We guarantee safe conduct to a delegation of five people."
Count Zock came forward with four escorts and was presented the scroll, placed within a wooden box.
"We could not make heads or tails of this document, so your secrets are safe." Lothar told him amiably, which did not change the Count's sour expression.
I was in so much shock that Lord Ox was none other than Jack's father, I didn't hide myself in time and he seem to recognize me just by looking at my eyes, even though I had kept the lower half of my face covered.
"Boy! Is that you?" He bellowed. Shit. This one blunder could cost us everything.
"Come out you coward. Do you plan on running away from everything in your life? I know it is you!"
I didn't know how, but he somehow knew it was me. I could tell it from his voice. Seeing no other path available, I took a long breath and stepped forward. "Yes, father?"
"I thought you died. There were reports of a single man fighting off the soldiers, helping that scum Cha escape, before he crumpled."
"Sorry to disappoint you, but I survived."
"So this is where you and those Cha ran off to, and joined this Republic of Chadom?"
"Yes."
We stared at each other for a while, but then he turned and went back to his army. He discussed something with some of the men and turned back to me.
"Tell me boy, there is no Republic of Chadom, is there?" He bellowed. "It's just you and your Cha friends, and some weapons you got your hands on." He said as a statement, rather than a question. "I'm guessing the brigands had a hidden cache here, eh?"
This was dangerous. Jack was fairly smart himself, so his father could safely presume he had figured out the contents of the letter. The Nanoan soldiers began fanning out, assuming battle formations.
"This is not a wise course of action, father. I don't want to commit patricide." I warned him.
"You are no son of mine." He sneered. "Siding with this scum and working against our realm's interests."
That riled me up.
"Yes. I'm the real traitor here, aren't I, Lord Ox?"
This was it, then. He would not change his mind. My heart sank as I accepted that we were truly at war with the Nanon Kingdom.
His face went red with rage. "What do you know about our interests? Foolish boy!" He growled, as he signaled his soldiers to attack.
Looking him straight in the eyes, I blew two long notes on my signal whistle. Fifty meters behind me, the crew manning three trebuchets lit their payloads of dried peat and stones, and launched them at the enemy. The iron reinforced trebuchets, whose crew had been trained to the point of exhaustion, worked splendidly, as the sky was filled with whooshing of flying burning peat and rocks. They landed right on top of the unsuspecting Nanoan soldiers, causing havoc.
Before the enemy soldiers could reorganize, our crossbowmen began their barrage of flying bolts, taking the poor sods out by dozens each second. The thwip thwip thwip of bow strings losing bolts and arrows filled the air. Meanwhile, the Frogmen, hidden in the Bog, began taking out the enemy archers from behind. The Nanoan soldiers lucky enough to escape the arrows, tried to rush us, only to fall upon the traps hidden all throughout the border. Feet were punctured by punji sticks and men fell into pitfall traps.
Their cavalry, amassed at the center, tried to charge us, but the Hunters with their rapid fire Legolas bows took out the easy targets that their horses were, and then the fallen knights themselves. The few armored knights that survived ran toward us and were taken care of by me and few other especially strong soldiers, with our large draw crossbows. One of them managed to get quite close to me while I was still reloading my crossbow. I was about to ditch it and draw my sword, when two soldiers hit him with their goedendags. He tried to grab one of them, but slipped and fell face down. The two men didn't let the opportunity escape and bludgeoned him to death.
"Good work, lads." I congratulated the soldiers, while the battle raged all around us.
The second volley of burning peat and rocks from trebuchets destroyed whatever morale the Nanoans had left, who began fleeing. Not that I was looking around, as I saw Jack's father die to a rock from the trebuchets, as it blew his head apart like a pumpkin. I just stared in shock as the air shook with the screams of Nanoan soldiers and conscripts suffering, dying and burning alive.