Chapter 315: Demonic Cruelty (Part One)
To the north of the River Luath, the Dunn Barony sprawled over a vast stretch of land that butted up against the western forests to the north of the Vale of Mists. Villages that had grown large enough to be called small towns dotted the landscape along with many other small villages and hamlets. All along the western border, dirt roads worn down by constant patrolling of soldiers on horseback connected the network of tiny settlements to Castle Dunn and its surrounding town.
What made the hamlets and villages of the Dunn Barrony unique, even in Lothian March, is that every single one of them, even if it was home to less than a hundred people, was surrounded by strong wooden walls and a wide, dry moat. Some had filled their moats with wooden stakes, while others had lined them with stacked stones but every single settlement was prepared to be attacked by demons at any moment.
When Liam Dunn put out the call for men to join his banner, it wasn’t just the glory of fighting demons or the riches a person could obtain by presenting a trophy taken from a slain demon that he used to entice people with. These small communities, tiny as they were, formed a vital part of his recruiting strategy.
A village should be overseen by a knight and this had been the custom in the Kingdom of Gaal and even in the old countries for hundreds of years. However, a baron was limited in how many knights could serve under his banner. For over a century, countless barons had chafed at their inability to expand their domains with the limited number of knights at their disposal. Many had watched vast areas within their domains remain wild, unable to be settled and tamed because they had exhausted their supply of minor lords to administer to new domains.
The Dunns had followed a different path. Instead of constructing one village and installing a knight to lord over it, they constructed a string of smaller hamlets and connected them with primitive roads. These hamlets were overseen, not by knights, but by Guard Captains and a small contingent of armed men who could defend the hamlet if it was ever attacked.
There was an unspoken promise between the Dunn family and these guard captains. One day, the shackles that held the Dunns back would fall away and they would assume a higher position. When that happened, many more knights would be needed and many of these hamlets would be allowed to grow into proper villages.
Of course, the Dunn family wasn’t investing in all of those hamlets and guardsmen for nothing. Now that Liam Dunn had raised his banner in the name of conquering new land, offering men the chance to carve out a parcel of land for themselves and maybe, one day, a title, the trained soldiers of the Dunn family were able to form a strong core of a fighting force, supplemented with twice their number in irregular recruits.
Some of those irregulars were excellent fighters with good equipment who worked as mercenaries or merchant guards most of the time. Others were young men with hand-me-down weapons and armor and heads stuffed with tales of glory and valor that served them as well as cotton stuffed into their ears.
It was the latter type of irregular soldier that Guard Captain Jorg cursed as he limped through Liam Dunn’s command camp in the wilderness. Bandages wrapped around his right thigh and knee, holding the arrow in place that had pierced his gambeson and breeches alike.
It had to be a miracle of some sort that it hadn’t cut one of the large arteries in his leg or he would surely have bled out before he managed to make it back to camp. As is, the wound might still end his career as a soldier but as long as he reached the care of Lord Loman Lothian at least he would likely survive.
"Almost there, Captain," A soldier at his right side said as he helped his captain struggle through the bustling camp. "Lucky for us, Lord Loman is here. He’ll patch you right up, good as new in no time."