‘Smith, your reinforcements will be delayed by approximately one day,’ Custodian reported in hivespeak.

‘For what reason?’ Smith asked.

‘The reinforcements found a large human army on the way, and they are intercepting it,’ Custodian responded.

‘Understood,’ Smith said as he watched the horizon from the highest tower in Castle Marcoir before returning to a dark metal room filled with busy Thane drones. The battle report from yesterday had concluded that Smith’s forces simply weren’t capable of taking on the humans head-on as evident by the fact that the drones lost the walls almost immediately after contact.

So, the defenses were focused around Smith’s specialty instead. Mines were placed overnight, and more pieces of the castle were torn apart to be used for the catapults. Chokepoints were hastily built and manned by what little warrior drones Smith had in his command.

“How long until the aerial drones return from Castle Norwind for resupply?” Smith asked the thanes.

“Calculating…They shall arrive in five hours,” one of the thanes responded.

“That’s a problem since the humans are attacking now…” Smith commented as he looked at the screen projections in his mind.

Unlike yesterday, the humans were much more cautious. Instead of charging directly at the castle, they sent in less men with more equipment. It seemed that the previous assault was just there to probe the capabilities of the drones.

Men with extremely long sticks slapped the ground as hard as they could. Whenever they didn’t trigger a mine, they took a step forward. The minesweepers were also accompanied by light infantry in order to defend them from any potential attacks. Although some mines remained undetected and a few minesweeper teams were lost, the Rhanks pierced through the minefield from several points nonetheless.

Smith crossed his arms and said, “Clever organics. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only thing I prepared at night.”

When the Rhanks were halfway across the minefield, the ground started to shake. Spider drones emerged from the ground, some spewing yellow smoke from their backs. The defeated remnants that tried to attack the fourth Rhankish group were placed all over the minefields overnight in order to supplement the minefields.

Smith had originally planned to use them to attack the Rhanks from behind once they started swarming the walls, but it seemed that he had no choice but to use them now.

Though normally a non-threat, some spider drones were modified to have a canister of poisonous smoke attached to their back so fighting them became incredibly dangerous. The Rhankish infantries wore scarves and cloth over their faces to no avail, and most minesweeper teams were forced to retreat.

“These northmen always have a surprise under their sleeves!” Villbrod cursed as he signalled for his soldiers to engage the spider drones. The Rhanks waited for the yellow clouds to disappear before moving in to crush the weak drones. But once again, they were stopped just halfway towards the wall.

Unlike yesterday, the warrior drones responded against the approaching Rhanks with a rain of bolts. Several men were turned into porcupines by the sudden attack, but the Rhanks still proceeded slowly, after all, they had expected archers to be on the wall from the beginning. However, the drone catapults had turned their attention to the flanks, effectively stopping the Rhankish assaults from the sides… at least for a while until they ran out of ammo.

At the forefront of the battlefield, the Rhanks had prepared several counters to the large ballista towers. Several wooden machines rolled closer to the castle manned by a crew of dozens, loaded with large boulders - the mighty onager! The engineers needed a full day to prepare everything so they weren’t able to participate in the probing attack the day before.

“Humanos’ fists! Let loose!” the commander yelled. A flock of boulders migrated towards the castle defenses, either smashing into pieces or smashing things into pieces. Fortunately for the drones, their architectural skills allowed the walls and the towers to remain mostly in-tact. Still, the ballistas and drones weren’t safe from a direct attack, so it was still a one-sided affair.

“We need a response to the human artillery,” a Thane drone pointed out.

“Our estimations report that our catapults won’t reach them. They’ve moved their safety lines further back,” another drone said. True enough, because Castle Marcoir was in the process of deconstruction, a lot of the advanced equipment were transferred out. But what wasn’t transferred out of the castle were personnel.

“I guess we have no choice again. Send in Team Alpha-Omnicron-Eight,” Smith ordered.

Duke Villbrod was watching the battle rage on and he was somewhat glad that his investments in the siege weapons were worth it. After all, siege engineers were expensive, and siege weapons were much more expensive. The duke wasn’t just a blind fool that marched into Castle Marcoir without making realistic plans. If he didn’t know that the enemy numbered less than a thousand, he probably wouldn’t have marched all the way here.

“Your Highness, after checking the amount of prepared ammunition, we should be able to keep attacking the enemy with the onagers until noon,” an engineer reported.

“That is good. It won’t be long until-”

Villbrod cut his words off, knitted his brows, and squinted towards the sky. A trio of large balls of flames flew upwards into the sky before crashing down onto the ground with a thunderous entrance. Though by divine intervention or by luck, none of the onagers were destroyed.

“What in the name of Humanos?!” Villbrod shouted. “Nobody told me they had mages?!”

Few minutes later, another trio of fireballs were launched from the castle. This time, they had precisely smashed into three onagers with almost inhuman precision, and the unlucky siege crews manning the onagers were burnt to a crisp. As soon as the other siege teams saw that, they immediately panicked and left their onagers.

Though his face was flushed with anger, Villbrod still had a clear thought. With a raise of his hand, he shouted, “Mages! Forward!”

Several men draped in chain armor moved forward before unsheathing their swords. They stuck their blades against the grounds and gripped their decorated sword hilts. They started chanting in Rhankish before slowly transitioning into Greatian.

As soon as the next wave of fireball were able to hit the Rhanks, dozens of transparent blue hands swarmed and punched the flaming balls as if they were trying to box it away. The fire dissipated before they could do any further harm.

Smith pulled his head back in surprise and muttered, “This is unexpected. The humans are not using barriers?”

“How should we respond?” a thane asked.

“We will check if the humans can keep this up,” Smith replied, well aware that human mages weren’t strong in prolonged engagements.

“Unit Smith, scouts have reported that the humans have finally circled around the castle,” another thane reported.

“All of them?”

“Just a few on the quadrupedal organics.”

“They must be scouts. Get the two combat drones moving out now,” Smith ordered.

The back gates of Castle Marcoir opened, and a horde of tank-like horsemen rode out. The violent steps of the riders’ mounts were accompanied by the clanking of the metal armors worn by both the rider and the mount; the sound was so loud, it almost caused the attacking Rhanks a pause to wonder what was going on.

‘Combat thanes, remember that your objectives are to deal as much damage as possible before returning. Do not fight them directly,’ Smith reminded in hivespeak.

‘Affirmative. Executing slaughter protocols,’ both thanes responded.

The Rhankish horsemen were riding around the forests north of Castle Marcoir when suddenly they heard the earth rumble. They had heard this noise before, so they stopped on their tracks and scanned the forest.

“It’s northmen cavalry!” a knight shouted.

“The bastards that defeated us in Castle Kilothar!” another knight yelled.

“Over there! Form up! Line on me!” a commander ordered loudly.

What surprised the Rhanks was that not only was the ground shaking, but the trees were also breaking down. From a distance, they saw the Varangian cavalry plough through the trees as if they were nothing but mere haystacks in their way.

“We can’t fight them like this! Retreat! Live to fight another day!” the commander shouted and the Rhankish horsemen turned to flee.

The bulky and loud drone cavalry couldn’t keep up with the lighter and more agile Rhankish horses, and in the end, they were forced to stop and return to the castle. When Smith saw the outcome, he shook his head and started writing up a new blueprint for a lighter cavalry model. However, before he could finish the outline, a new report rang up in his head.

“Unit Smith, tunnel sensors are pinging,” a thane reported.

“The humans are tunneling then. Begin underground defense operations,” Smith commanded.

Around Castle Marcoir, Rhankish soldiers made several underground tunnels heading straight for the castle, opening a new front in the already chaotic battlefield. Men with shovels and pickaxes broke through the ground, accompanied by torchbearers. One particular tunnel were digging dangerously close to Castle Marcoir until they felt something strange.

“Hmm? The dirt seems soft here…” a miner commented as he whacked the ground with his shovel.

“What do you mean? It must be mud or something,” his fellow miner said before he realized that something was burrowing out of the wall. The soft dirt wall fell apart as warrior drones swarmed in. “Counter-tunnel! Prepare arms!”

As the first underground fight began, several other tunnels encountered various obstacles as well. Most unfortunate tunnelers dug right into a tunnel trap and were buried alive, while some breached into manned counter-tunnels.

"Smith. The aerial drones have returned," a thane exclaimed.

"Attack the human artillery immediately!" Smith commanded loudly.

The aerial drones started dropping bolts on the Rhankish mages, but the humans were able to repel most of the attacks with their magic as well. Fortunately, this distracted the mages from trying to take out the barrage of fireballs coming from Castle Marcoir.

It didn't take long for all of the onagers to be destroyed by a rain of steel and fire. In their anger, the mages tried to attack the aerial drones with their spells, but the drones were too far from any real danger.

The two leaders on each side watched the battlefield unfold, unsure whether victory would come their way. Minutes passed by, and the battle did not quiet down. Instead, it intensified greatly as more drones and men poured themselves into the pot of chaos.

Smith had to slowly roll his forces back as his already-small force was being grinded down. It would have been fine if the enemy were mindless undead, unfortunately, Smith was fighting against a force of trained warriors. Even the Rhankish levies were used to their highest potential; they served as cannon fodder for the better trained and better equipped knights and serjents.

Luckily for Smith, the sun had began setting, and the Rhankish assault had to be called off for a second time. It was hard to tell which side had the upper hand as neither side could deal the killing blow to the other.

On one hand, Smith managed to control the castle; the Rhankish onagers were destroyed, the invaders were repelled, and all three lines of defenses were still held by the drones. But on the other hand, the Rhanks had completed their encirclement around the castle and the humans were getting closer each day. Now all Smith could do was wait.

At the main Rhankish siege camp, the noblemen gathered around Duke Villbrod to plan their next move. After some back and forths between the noblemen, Villbrod closed his eyes, contemplating deeply about his situation. After a brief moment of silence, he proclaimed, "We shall starve the defenders out!"