Grimacing, Gavin turns away from me and makes his way towards the eastern walls. Uda was spot on with how he described Layton: a snake in the grass who waits for the perfect moment to strike. It hasn’t even been a day yet and he’s already retaliating for the earlier humiliation. The day before I made The Climb, I spent an entire morning and afternoon extracting as much information out of Uda and his boys as I could regarding the Vipers’ history, habits, and what their leader was like.

It turns out the Vipers were always forest bandits but they were originally stationed much closer to the forests around Everview. One day they attacked a traveling carriage carrying what they thought was one of the capital’s many, ordinary nobles and captured them, holding them for a large ransom. Unfortunately for them, that noble was loosely connected to the kingdom’s royalty, a distant cousin of the king related by marriage. Infuriated, King Aethelbrande sent his personal knights to annihilate the Vipers’ encampment. Hundreds of knights fully clad in top notch iron armor riding war steeds bred with the best pedigrees that were also fully covered in iron armor crushed their campsite once the cousin was safe. Only a few dozen managed to escape the slaughter out of their initial 1000 members and they ran northeast until they hit Ocean’s Rest, settling in the Plainheart Woods and renaming themselves from the Everview Vipers to the Plainheart Vipers.

Layton the Snake was one of those survivors and took power in the gang with most of its leadership structure dead. His innate cautious, opportunistic nature helped the gang rebuild itself into at least a shadow of its former self by targeting The Fold’s patrols who were inexperienced with facing armed, organized resistance from their victims. This whole time, The Fold had zero competition during their hunts and were unprepared when a new predator moved into their ecosystem and dominated them. With the Vipers gaining more power, more territory, and more members by copying The Fold’s tricks over the past year, we end up with our current vicious struggle for survival. After making sure Uda’s body count for his gang wasn’t too far off by comparing it with Osbert’s count, I decided to rely on Layton’s opportunistic nature. But neither party can win this fight overwhelmingly and it’s best if both parties can wipe each other out to the last man.

Going back into my shack, I grab my weapons, strap a shield to my left arm, and walk back outside with a small linen sack in hand. My surroundings are deathly silent compared to the chaotic mess just moments ago. It looks like every able bodied resident in the citadel is gathered at the eastern wall to intercept the attack. Not wasting anymore time, I make my way back to the canteen as I notice how empty the walls are.

Once again, I have to commend the Savior for his magic because he’s the only reason this place is still standing. The sheer size and magnitude of this place would need at least 1000 guards on its walls at all times alternating shifts. But The Fold was able to get away with less than 100 guards each responsible for covering long stretches of the wall. Tonight, that system will be put to the test.

When I arrive at the canteen, I don’t see a single soul in sight. The inside looks more jumbled than before with fallen chairs on the ground, food messily left on the tables, and overturned mugs slowly dripping ale into the dirt below. Briskly making my way through the mess, I head into the canteen’s backroom storage where I was minutes before. Lifting the barrel lids to the ones filled with water, I dump a little bit of Doom Shroom ash into every single barrel, emptying the bag before closing the lids. Just this little bag of ash alone could probably be sold for 30 gold coins but as long as it does its job, it’ll be worth it.

Eating a raw stalk of Doom Shroom does nothing by itself but burning it until it turns into ash and then consuming said ash? That’s how to really use Doom Shrooms. As for its effects? Well, I’ll see firsthand tomorrow since I’ve only heard Riane tell me about it. I’m also not too worried about people not drinking this water because it’s the only drinkable water in the entire citadel. The well I was using to wash myself apparently only brings up contaminated groundwater, unfit for drinking but usable for washing clothes and such.

Once I’m done at the canteen, I make my way over to the eastern wall to make sure nothing goes wrong. This is a crucial fight and the rest of my plan hinges on everything going smoothly here. Before I even get close to the wall, I see a great fire blazing where the wall should be. Well, that’s one way to get rid of a wood wall.

There’s still archers on top of the wood wall on either side of the blaze, careful to not get too close as they let off arrows toward the outside of the wall. I can’t see what’s past the wall but judging by how panicked they are, it’s nothing good. Gavin’s nearby and when he sees me arrive, he asks, “Did you do this?”

“C’mon Gavin, do you really think I have the power to force the Vipers into attacking us? Why would I want that? If everyone here dies, I die as well and you know that’s not going to happen.”

Gavin stares into my eyes, looking for any hint that I’m lying but when he can’t find anything, he sighs and asks, “What do we do? If they get in here, we’ll all die.”

Looking around, I ask in return, “Where’s the Savior? He surely won’t sit back as we’re slaughtered, will he?”

Gavin’s face twitches before he replies, “The Savior hasn’t been feeling well lately and can’t help us defend the citadel. We’ll need to do it ourselves.”

“Is that right? Well, do we know how many are out there?”

“A lot. Over 100 at least. Only good thing is most of them don’t have horses. They probably lost most of theirs during the ambush.”

“Hmm, will the wall hold? I’m seeing quite a few cracks on it.”

“Probably not. Plan for it crumbling the moment the fire finishes burning the wood logs on the other side.”

“Why hasn’t the Savior fixed the cracks?”

Gavin’s face twitches again at the mere mention of his god and responds, “Like I said before, the Savior hasn’t been feeling well lately. Just rid yourself of including the Savior into any of your planning.”

Sighing, I take another look at the wall and say, “If that’s the case, we can only turn this into an all out, dirty brawl and hope for the best. The parts where the wall is cracked is still narrow enough that it’ll funnel the Vipers into one 50 yard wide gap before they can fully get past the wall and into the citadel. If we can set up a shieldwall in that gap and hold firm, we can win. Our archers still have the high ground and the more time they have to keep firing, the better.”

“... How long would we need to hold them back for?”

“Can’t say. Could be minutes, could be hours, could be until the sun rises. Whoever’s morale lasts the longest will be the victor tonight. Unless…”

“... Unless what?”

“Unless we can kill their leader. We kill their leader and the rest will probably crumble.”

“How do we do that?”

“Well, if I were him, I wouldn’t even be here at all. It’s too risky. One stray arrow and that’s it. But he has to be here to see things through and give out orders or else his men will run away at the first sign of trouble. If that’s true, then he’ll probably stay outside the wall, far away from the ensuing melee. And then that’s where you’ll come in.”

Gavin completely turns his head away from the burning wall to stare at me in confusion, asking, “Me?”

Smiling at him, I answer, “Yeah you. It can’t be me. I need to stay here to watch over the melee and help out wherever it starts to break apart. You’re the only one I can trust to carry out this mission.”

Gavin looks down at the ground as he contemplates. A moment later, he steels his resolve and asks me, “What do I need to do?”

“This wall isn’t lasting much longer and we’ll need to start fighting in a few minutes. I need you to form a small team, five or six will do, and you guys will leave through the front gate, mount up at the stable, and then swing on the Vipers’ leader from behind. Like I said before, he should have a small detachment around him far away from the wall where the fighting will be happening, watching and giving commands. Kill him and you’ll be the hero of tonight.”

Once again, Gavin stares into my eyes to see if I’m lying. This does sound suspiciously like a suicide mission but not a word of what I said wasn’t true. By the time Gavin gets through the front gate, we’ll have already started fighting. By the time he mounts up, dozens will have already died. By the time he reaches Layton, enough people should have died for me to feel comfortable with the second part of my plan. Him killing Layton at that point shouldn’t matter at all.

When he reaches a decision, Gavin nods to himself and says, “I’ll do it.” He turns around and walks away, grabbing his team’s regulars as he makes his way to the front gate. As for me, I walk up right to the cracked stone wall and place a hand on it, the wall still cool to the touch despite the raging inferno right on the other side.

When I spin around, I see dozens of people staring at me, frightened, unsure of what to do. What would Derriv say right now? Wanting everyone to hear me, I scream at the top of my lungs, “The snakes are knocking at the door and what do I see before me!? A bunch of cowards, shivering in their boots, wishing for the snakes to go away!

“Why!? The enemies are serving themselves right to us! They’re putting our blades right against their slim throats while barking threats at us and we’re cowering in fear!? Does that make a lick of sense to anyone here!? Hell no! Why should we be the ones trembling in terror when we have them at our mercy!?

“Don’t mistake what this,” as I gesture all around me with both arms raised high, “what all of this is! This is a graveyard! A graveyard for a nest of snakes too high on their past victories! Didn’t we already show them today!? Didn’t we lure them like the mindless animals they are into our trap, kill them as we pleased, and then bring their survivors back here and toss them into The Pit!?

“We’ve already done this once before today! Let’s do it again and end this, once and for all! For The Fold and for the glory of the Savior!”

My throat’s a bit hoarse after that but hearing screams of, “For the Savior!” reverberating all around me made it worth it. Seeing the worthless cowards from before, red in the face now from all the screaming they’re doing is much better. I might have left out how I wanted at least half of all of them to die but I don't think that would be helpful per say. After assigning all of them as the bulwark and positioning them a few steps away from the stone wall, they looked ready to die.

When the wood logs finally burned all the way through, I heard a massive thud against the stone wall, the cracks on our side getting bigger and dust exploding from the wall. Our archers can’t seem to get the right angle to take care of whoever’s doing the hammering and can only keep sending arrows elsewhere. Another bang against the wall and huge pieces of the stone wall fall to the ground. The third bang comes and the wall comes crumbling down, opening a 50 yard wide gap in the wall, dust fills the air and obscures our vision of the intruders. A second later, cheers and screams erupt from the other side as a swarm of Vipers start crossing the wall’s threshold. When they see the solid shieldwall in front of them, they pause in surprise for a moment before one of them screams, “Charge!”

And with that, the fight began.