Cadin marched forward in front of the soldiers on top of his horse, reaching the outside camp's entrance.
Joken exited outside, Cadin dismounted his horse to greet him.
"Joken, I managed to get more soldiers. For now they will be stationed here to join on our next march towards the forest. I'll return to the river camp to plan in peace. Make sure this camp holds, regardless of what happens." After talking, Cadin got up on his horse, preparing to leave.
"Soldiers, and cavalrymen. You shall all rest here for today, tomorrow we will begin our march and return to the forest." After speaking, Joken signaled the soldiers to enter inside the camp's open doors. People walked around going about with their daily tasks.
Cadin turned to leave, seeing his men enter in lines to the populated camp, all remaining quiet.
'Hopefully they can't reach us here. They certainly couldn't, especially that…Candidate, or whoever attacked me.
He sped through the path, quickly feeling the heat hitting his body quickly shift to only feeling cold from the forest upon entering back inside.
Cadin quickly arrived back to his camp, immediately bringing his horse to the pen.
Walking back to the camp, the people were resting, the smell of fish lingered in the open hot air until Cadin reached his house's door, shutting it immediately behind him.
Partially exhausted and with the sun at the middle of the sky, rendering any form of working more tiresome, Cadin walked upstairs and into his bed, removing his cloak and armor while resting his weapon on the racks next to it before laying down fully.
'This war and management schtick has barely gotten any less stressful.' He complained to himself.
In a short time, Cadin slowly drifted to sleep, feeling a comforting rest once more.
A loud knock shook him awake, quickly getting his attention from the bed. The knocks continued, Cadin jumped out of his bed, grabbing his sword and he went downstairs.
Outside the door was a bloodied soldier, his face illuminated by a torch he held in his hand as the sky had turned twilight.
"My lord," He spoke in heavy breaths, tired as blood dripped down from the blade on his waist. "There was an attack!" He shouted out.
"Where, which camp?" Cadin became more serious, holding onto the sword handle tighter.
"The outside camp my lord….Enemies….They're attacking everything…." After speaking, he knelt to the ground, pushing himself to the wall next to the door. Cadin knelt down checking on the man.
A portion of his face was covered in blood, his mouth was open, trying to catch as much breath as possible. His metal and leather armor, pierced in different areas, a few drawing blood.
'We need all the soldiers for the front.' Cadin stood back up. A group of patrolling guards stopped near him.
"You four, tend to this man, get him treatment for his wounds, find a healer if there is." Cadin ran back inside, quickly ripping his armor and cloak from their racks.
Cadin rushed to the outside, pushing open the gate to get to his horse.
After pulling his horse out of the stables, he mounted it and began speeding off into the night. Only guided by the faint moonlight of the path. Fear rushed through his veins after every passing minute, thinking of what had become of his camps, only bringing his sword and nothing else.
He dashed through the path and into the open plains, continuing his run towards the camp, even from a distance he could see a bright light from one of them, fire.
'Oh no…' A shiver ran up his spine, was it already destroyed? Briefly stopping to look at the fire and the rising cloud of smoke above it, he tugged on the lead again, rushing onward to his camp as fast as possible.
The fires grew larger as he got nearer, faint shouts and screams could be heard from the camp, making Cadin move faster. He removed the sword from his waist, preparing to fight what has caused the attack.
Upon reaching the camp, he pulled hard on the horse's lead, bringing it to a complete stop before dismounting it.
On the ground he could see fighters already rushing from all sides into the burning camp, the screams and shouts were now accompanied with the sporadic sound of metal smashing against each other. The walls were catching on fire as well with other sections already destroyed.
A few fighters noticed Cadin standing, quickly turning their attention to him.
'Is that candidate behind this?' He stood still for a few seconds, before reading his sword to face the oncoming fighters. He ran forward, raising his sword up and slamming it down at the first fighter, quickly taking out the rest in successive strikes. Their armor was more green in color, leather with a few bits of wood on the shoulder and chest.
'Similar to those soldiers I killed in the forest….It must be the candidate.'
His sword was now stained with blood, but the battle was still going on. The cries from the inside continued on, from the gaps of the walls Cadin could see his soldiers fighting against the attackers.
He ran inside, the heat of the flames hit every part of his body, ash and pieces of wood rained down from above like rain and every corner of the camp was lit up by raging flames.
Immediately attackers engaged Cadin, turning their attention to him and away from the defenders.
He swung his sword at every fighter, getting slashed and stabbed by a few but continued to fight.
The ground was littered with the bodies of defenders and attackers alike along with dead villagers, killed without a fight.
'These wretched dogs.' Anger rose in Cadin, seeing every corpse that lay in front of him, his people.'
He began running forward, taking down as many fighters as possible in strong but rapid strikes, relentlessly hunting each one down. Making his way down the camp to other sections.