***Garv***
"Magar?!" Garv said dumbfounded at what he saw.
Magar flinched at his sudden arrival, reaching for the sword that was normally by his side by reflex.
"Boss!" Garv exclaimed, tail wagging, as he pounced forward for a hug.
"A-ah, get off me!!" Magar said, wrestling free of the larger-than-life man with some effort.
"I thought you were…I…I thought you were." Garv mumbled though half-sobs. Tears were beginning to swell in his eyes.
"I'm alright lad," Magar relented with a sigh, patting him on the head, "I know when to cut my losses." he finished, with a twinge of bitterness.
Garv had never seen him this beat up before. This deflated. He didn't seem himself at all.
But at least he was alive!
"I did look for you, after the battle. I saw the pile of bodies in the woods and… I just couldn't bring myself to check." Magar swallowed hard, "I'm sorry."
"It's ok Boss," Garv shook his head, "we're here now! And we have eggs!"
Magar let out a small chuckle, wiping some dried blood from his eye. It looked pretty sore.
'He needs to be more careful with that eye!' Garv thought to himself. He only had one left after all. He must have run into that guy from before, surely there was nobody else who could best him!
"What did you do to your eye? Was it that guy from before?"
Magar went silent for a moment, looking slightly embarrassed, before finally nodding.
"It's nothing to feel shame about Boss, he is a very talented warrior."
"Hm." Magar nodded.
"You are a skilled swordsman Boss! Not just anybody could beat you!"
Magar nodded again, his embarrassment growing.
"It's not like it was somebody with no fighting experience who bested you!"
Magar put his head into his paws. The tips of his ears burning deep red as he dug his fingers into his forehead.
It seemed he was really down about it.
Maybe he should leave him alone?
Garv's attempts to make him feel better were not having the desired result after all.
'Best to drop it.' he concluded to himself.
Sitting comfortably in the grass, by the warmth of the fire, he felt more relaxed than he had done in a long time. But he had something he needed to get off his chest.
"Hey, Boss?"
Magar turned his head towards his companion.
"I don't want to do this anymore." Garv said with a deep sigh.
They sat side by side in the firelight for a while, watching the eggs slowly cook on the stone. Listening to the wind rustling the leaves of distant trees. The sounds of frogs croaking by the stream.
"Hmm." Magar nodded after a while, more to himself than to Garv.
Garv found this surprising, he was expecting more resistance from his senior. Magar had always been a believer in the righteousness of the crown. Yet now he remained silent.
"What do you want to do?" Magar asked, with genuine curiosity.
"I don't know," Garv said shaking his head with a smile, "I just want to be, a good guy, from now on. What we're doing now, well not now, but before. What we did before was bad."
Magar opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it again, returning his attention to the fire. Garv watched him closely, it was unusual for him to remain quiet for so long.
Technically, Garv was talking about deserting, a profoundly serious crime in the military. Punishable by hanging. As his direct superior, Magar would be well within his rights to have Garv punished for even talking of such dissent.
Garv didn't think he would though, they were friends after all. But he had been expecting more of a reaction from him.
"You know," Magar began, in his deep, serious voice, "if you had said that last week, three days ago, or even yesterday, I'd have knocked you flat, you big fat lump."
Magar massaged his temples with his fingers.
"But after yesterday, after seeing all those, hopeless civilians." Magar sighed heavily. "I feel I may have to agree with you."
Garv was positively beaming.
"Garv, please stop hitting me with your tail." Magar said, trying to remain sincere in the face of his companion's childishness.
"Oh, sorry!" Garv said, getting his tail under control.
"What will we do for food and lodging?" Magar asked.
"I was thinking we could help people?" smiled Garv.
"How?"
"I don't know, we're pretty strong, we can do things! People always need things doing Boss!"
"What about the army?"
"They'll think we died. We'll make up aliases! Gagar and Marv!"
"I'm not so sure about that." Magar said with a little chuckle.
"We've got time to think up better ones, its fine." Garv said dismissively, waving a paw.
The wind rustled the grass around them, the mood felt significantly lifted.
"This will cause problems for both of us you know." Magar said seriously.
"Yeah but, won't it be, kind of fun?" Garv said with a big smile.
"Yeah, I suppose it could be."
The quiet sizzling and alluring smells emanating from the fire informed them both that the eggs were finally ready to eat.
"Garv, tail!"
***Roman***
Roman and his group moved swiftly along the battlements unimpeded. They had to reach the main gate, as per Boots's plan. Luckily, the lack of soldiers on the wall allowed them to make good time along the southern wall.
Roman's plan was to run along the wall all the way to the tower by the gate. From there Arthur could access the gate mechanism.
His job was to take control of the gate and give Arthur time to study the mechanism of the portcullis so he could sabotage it beyond repair if required.
Or, if possible, after taking control of the gate and dealing with any sentries, they could disguise themselves as Crusaders. Informing any reinforcements looking to use the gate that the portcullis was broken, and that they'd have to go the long way round.
This would prevent easy access to the camp where the prisoners were held. Any reinforcements from the town would have to head out of the northern gate and follow the road south to get to the camp.
Boots had told Roman to use his best judgement in deciding what to do. Ultimately the responsibility and risk lied with Roman. But Boots admitted that the plan would best be executed if he could manage to pull off disguising himself as a Crusader.
Roman had decided he would try to pull off the deception, sabotaging the gate could spell bad news later on. So, he would use it as a last resort. They had other tasks to achieve later on after all.
They had arrived at the southmost tower; it was now a straight run to their objective.
The town below still carried on as before, nobody noticing the shadowy figures running along the wall. Or, if they did, they were simply too drunk to care.
After running along the wall for some time they finally approached the tower. Roman held up his paw to signal them to stop so he could look over the side of the wall at the gate.
From his vantage point, he could see the ground by the gate entrance, two spearmen were stood chatting to one another at the archway. They had clearly drawn the short straws for sentry duty. They were also, to Roman's surprise, not in the process of drinking themselves senseless.
Roman considered his options. He knew where the gate mechanism was, he had pulled many sentry duties on the gate in his time. It sat inside the tower closest to them.
The door to the tower sat atop the wall so they could get in easily, he doubted the door would be locked.
He would have to lure the guards away from their post, he couldn't risk attacking them out in the open, there weren't many people in the vicinity, most of the other Crusaders had headed into the centre of town to get their drink on. But having a noisy fight in the street could attract unwanted attention. The main road that led to the gate was wide and open and went all the way to the town square.
But he had a relatively simple idea to get them where he wanted them to be. But first he would have to make sure the tower was empty.
"Simeon, come with me, you two, wait out here." he said, beckoning his friend to follow him.
They swiftly jogged the remaining thirty metres to the wall of the tower, stopping just beside the door.
"We'll stay quiet for now; I just want to make sure the tower is clear. If I can get them into the tower, just follow my lead." Roman whispered to Simeon.
Simeon nodded his head in acknowledgement.
Roman slowly tried the handle.
The door was unlocked as he expected, he stealthily opened the door, trying to keep the creaking to a minimum.
And with that, they were inside the tower. Stood on a balcony that led round to another door. Looking down at the floor below.
The space inside was quite open. The stairs to the ground spiralled clockwise down the outer wall. The mechanism, a lever and some rather large cogs sat on the ground floor, illuminated by a lantern resting on a desk.
There were two main parts to the mechanism, a release lever and a four handled pulley that was used to raise the portcullis.
The door on the ground floor was open into the street, they could hear the two talking guards outside.
Roman motioned for Simeon to stay at the top of the stairs and headed down alone.
Simeon nodded quietly and remained at the top.
On the ground floor Roman could clearly see the mechanism, it sat between him and the door outside. Under the stairs was a storage area full of boxes, and a small sword stand that the town guard used to use when resting in the tower and not on sentry duty.
Roman looked around briefly before selecting a suitable hiding place to use in a moment.
There was a reasonably sized box he could get behind quickly.
It was ideal.
Roman edged his way towards the mechanism, the sounds of the guard's conversation growing louder still, they were just on the other side of the wall.
Roman clasped a paw around the handle of the portcullis release. Although he didn't understand much of the inner workings, he did know how to operate the machinery. He also knew, how incredibly loud the mechanism was.
Grasping firmly on the handle, he pulled it out of its locked position.
The portcullis loudly started scraping its way downwards, cogs started moving and the counterweights outside started jostling up the wall!
Roman quickly slammed the handle back in place, stopping the process. He then darted back behind the crate under the stairs that he had eyed up earlier.
"Woah!"
"What on Arca!"
"Quick, the controls!"
Two sets of boots dashed into the room.
"Which handle was it?"
Roman started to slowly slink out from his hiding place. He glanced up making eye contact with Simeon on the balcony above him.
He knew the score.
"Gods if I remember, what do you think caused it?"
"Was it loose?"
"Probably badly designed. Unless someone is mess-" he was cut short by Roman's blade piercing his back from behind.
Roman wrapped his paw around the man's mouth twisting the blade as he did so. He knew he had pierced his heart, he just had to increase the trauma to end his suffering quickly.
His companion reeled round about to yell but was suddenly ploughed into the ground by a free-falling Simeon! Who had plummeted into him from the balcony above!
They quickly dispatched their foes.
They had kept it relatively quiet. Unless someone was directly outside on the street, their attack would go un-noticed.
After a quick pause, it became apparent that no alarms had been raised.
"Go and grab the others, I'll get to work stripping these two."
"I'll be right back." Simeon acknowledged, wiping the blood from his dagger.
True to his word Roman started pulling the men's boots off as Simeon disappeared back up the stairs. His heart was racing in his chest, left-over adrenaline coursing through his veins.
He fumbled with straps and buttons as his hands shook.
He took a deep breath. Taking a moment to calm his body.
The Crusaders wore simple padded armour. It was black with red highlights, the stuff the foot-soldiers wore was relatively plain, cavalrymen and knights had much fancier equipment of course. But thankfully the two men in front of him were in the former category, it wouldn't take long to get into their equipment. Also, it appeared the Crusaders wore red scarves around their necks.
Roman knew he could wrap the scarf across his face to make a more convincing disguise. This was a good development.
The next stage of the plan was almost complete.
After the party was re-united it was a relatively fast turnaround. They stashed the bodies under the stairs and Arthur got to work studying the mechanisms built into the gate. Whilst Roman and Simeon got changed into their disguises.
It didn't take Arthur long to come up with a viable plan.
"Okay, so after looking at it there is a simple way we can break this. In a worst-case scenario, I can remove the handles that connect to the pulley relatively easily. This will prevent them from being able to raise it immediately, they will either need to bastardise something or find a replacement part. It will only take moments to remove. We will have to take it with us, naturally." Arthur said, straightening his glasses.
"That seems good enough to me. Good job Arthur." said Roman.
Arthur smiled and gave him a quick nod.
"Right," Roman sighed, "we are ready for the next stage in the plan, good job so far everyone. We've come a long way. Let's keep our heads on straight and see if Boots can deliver for us."
He fixed his gaze into the eyes of each member of his party. Their determined looks told him all he needed to know.
"Simeon." Roman said, fastening the helmet of the crusader he had vanquished and wrapping a red scarf across his face.
"Close the gate."