a hill and saw on the other side once they came down again, smoke in the distance, rising up in the air. “Prince Allan, it is Zanten, we are not far” said the advisor. “We can rest soon men, Zanten is just up ahead!” shouted Allan immediately after, to alert his troops in their near arrival to Zanten. The soldiers now naturally increased their speed as they were excited to get there in the hopes of new, warm clothing, shelter from the elements and fresh hot food. They marched faster and faster however once Allan came close enough, he had gotten the shock of his life. The village of Zanten was on fire, buildings were torn open and wooden frames were alight and burning furiously. He, his advisor, and the king’s guard sped up on their horses to investigate the scene. They halted once they had reached the entrance to the village, seeing that no one was in sight, they dismounted before drawing their swords. “Search the village for any signs of who or what did this and if possible rescue anyone who is left” said Allan.
He ran to a house, noticing its porch was burning but it itself as it was the only house made of stone and not wood. He slowly opened the door and rushed in. He scoured the house with his eyes, trying to see if he could spot anything of use to him or anyone he could help. He saw a hatch on the ground and he bent down to try and open it. It creaked open as he pulled it up, to his surprise he saw an old man and a young woman hidden in there. “Oh, thank goodness you are here” said the old man. “Let’s get you out of there, first” said Allan as he reached over with his hand. The old man wilfully grabbed his hand and was helped out of the entrance of the chamber. Followed by the young woman who was scared, she and the old man had obviously been traumatised badly by what they had seen. “Who are you?” asked the old man. “Prince Allan, son of Hetheil, please tell me what happened here” said Allan. “Prince Allan?! My goodness are we glad you came. It’s those ghastly Trolls, they burned our village, took all our food and goodness knows what they’ve done with our friends and family” said the old man, his voice going up and down and his speech showed that he was recovering from a fearful accident. “Friends and family?” asked Allan. “Yes, they took them away, we were the last to remain as we hid here and those who put up a fight to stop them, were killed by them, they came in a large group and killed the defenders. They then took some people away, our governor and some of the other villagers fortunately managed to escape with the horses in the village stable” said the young woman. “You must stop them” said the old man. “I will, I will stop them from getting any deeper into your kingdom and save those they have taken” said Allan as he put his arms on the shoulder of the old man and the shoulder of the woman. “In the meantime, I will get you both an escort and have you brought to Maredos” said Allan. He then walked out of the house and onto the path that led from the village entrance through the village and ending at the masers headquarters. The soldiers lined the streets and the body of a killed Human was pulled out from one of the corners. Allan was disgusted and angered heavily by the sight, he vowed to, in his heart, get revenge on the Trolls for such a cruel act.
The body count was a dozen dead and the soldiers proceeded to give them proper burials, particularly the Unodite troops as these were their people, and the pain was far greater for them. Allan furious and his advisor walked up to him and asked “what is your next course of action, sir”. “We are going to chase this army in whichever direction it went in” said Allan as he tightened his jaw. The woman came out of the building and said “they were here, just hours ago, you can still catch them, they were a small of Trolls with light weaponry”. “Never mind their numbers, in which direction did they go?” asked Allan. “I do not know why but they headed back in the direction they came” said the woman. “If that is so, they have must be on a reconnaissance mission, scouting ahead for a much larger force to march through in this direction, now they know there are no armed troops, they can just march through the area and head for, gathering supplies as they go” said the advisor. “Then we shall march towards the wall and enforce the positions there, if we meet this army along the way, we destroy it” said Allan strongly, impressing himself with his own unexpected aggressive decisions. “Very good prince Allan, we shall do just that and do it now” said the advisor. Allan walked back to the column where he was greeted by copper, his horse. He mounted it and continued their march, several men would accompany the old man and the woman to Maredos by chariot, to ensure they have a safe journey. The soldiers marched around the village and saw for themselves the desperation of the Trolls.
They had expected to refresh and stay the night at the village but that was no longer a possibility, they would have to continue to tough it out until who knows when, probably till the whole problem is resolved or till they are dead. Allan is furious but still is fearful of the Trolls, he decides to dispense with a marching column, to be forever ready for ambush or battle, he would march his army in battle formation, only it would be facing sideways, this would make it easier for his forces to deploy should the time arise. “Good job lining them’ up, Prince Allan, we are ready, we know they are out there” said the advisor. “So what lies ahead of us? What can we expect?” asked Allan. “Unfortunately, we must content with more unpleasant weather and terrain, wet ground, swamps and marshes lie in the direction we are heading in” said the advisor with great discomfort. “The men won’t have any morale, we will be in no condition to fight. There has to be another way” said Allan. “No, not unless we temporarily head in your brother’s direction, but it would take us days to reach the wall as we would have to scale a mountain” said the advisor. “Then I guess we have no choice but to head through this way” said Allan, disappointedly as he shrugged his soldiers and sighed. After an hour of rapid marching, Allan decided to stop and give his men a breather. The soldiers started sitting down, lying back and feeding themselves and their horses. The son had already gone down and the men were exhausted from all the marching they had done that day.
“Prince Allan, the men have had a long day, we should let them rest and continue at dawn, even if they sleep now they would have just a few hours of sleep” said the advisor. “You’re absolutely right, we shall rest and continue first thing in the morning” said Allan as he dismounted his horse, which was followed by his advisor dismounting his. Allan then rolled out his sleeping bag, seeing this other soldiers knew they would have some time to sleep and immediately began unrolling sleeping bag, erecting portable shelters and some just fell flat on the ground and began snoring away. As Allan was just about to lie down, something caught his eye, far in the distance he could see smoke, it was very slight and unobvious from his position but Allan could see it, he immediately said “look up, can you see it, to the south”. The advisor had just finished a yawn and turned his head to where Allan was pointing to and referring to. His face turned pale and he said “it is them, that group is right there, the Trolls, it seems we have caught up with them. We shouldn’t let this opportunity slide, what shall we do now Prince Allan” said the advisor, his hand moving towards the grip of his stabbing sword. “I say we get the best men, a small group and rush over there and rescue the Zantenians they have captured and possibly kill all those Trolls” said Allan, his voice starting to get abnormally fast. Other soldiers began noticing the smoke and the conversation Allan was having with his advisor. An officer walked up to Allan and said “let us use our archers and rain arrows down upon their camp”. “No, we would kill the people they have captured and I do not wish to do that, rally the kings guard and some archers we are going to the camp itself to round them up” said Allan, trying to put aside his fear of battle. Allan was strong, in heart and he wanted revenge on the Trolls. His advisor went off with the officer to get the appropriate troops to come forth, the other soldier stood by, just in case they required reinforcements.
Allan did not want to use cavalry to attack, or a large force, it would make too much noise as he wanted to launch a surprise attack on the Trolls. He had no experience whatsoever in this tactic yet he wanted to carry it out. Within a minute
the troops were assembled and Allan began quietly sprinting with his advisor, followed by the troops behind him. They ran fast but as stealthily as they could. Once they had gotten to ten meters away from the camp they quickly lied down on their stomachs, trying to stay out of sight from the Trolls. Allan had brought with him thirty men for this to ensure quick and quiet movement. All his troops stopped and lied on the ground in the darkness. Allan squinted his eyes and considered the camp, there were no more than twenty Trolls and they were all gathered around a fire, heartily drinking, and eating food they had stolen from Zanten. Not surprising as where they had come from there was hardly any food, they were literally gorging themselves and making a lot of noise. They were celebrating this find and glad to know there was no Human force present in the area. In the corner of one of the tents, there were sixteen Humans sitting on the ground, their hands and legs were tied together and their mouths were stuffed with cloth. Allan knew immediately why