They gathered in the great hall that evening.

Darion sat at the head of the table. Garren was beside him, which was notable because four days ago Garren had been lying in his room with cracked ribs and a shoulder that barely worked.

Vera’s magical treatments had been pretty effective. Although it wasn’t effective to the point that he was all better, it helped him reduce the pain a great deal and in the slow restoration of his bones.

He had taken really bad hits, one that would take many weeks for him to fully be healed.

Seven senior knights filled the remaining chairs. Seren sat at the far end.

Darion put Vera’s items on the table. The six bundles, the sealed disorientation container and the clay vessel of accelerant. He let everyone look at them for a moment before he spoke.

"These are why we can do this," he said. "Without them, we can’t. With them, fifty people can do what five hundred couldn’t do the conventional way."

He explained each one. The incapacitation bundles, throw into a packed group, fifty soldiers down. The disorientation compound: wind-carried, several minutes of complete spatial confusion, men who can’t coordinate or respond. The fire accelerant on arrows, for archers in trees, makes many of Valdenmoor knights burning row by row.

The senior knights listened. A few exchanged glances. One asked how reliable the compounds were and Darion said Vera had made them, which seemed to be sufficient.

She was a good witch. A mix of a soccrress and a witch for he didn’t know...

Garren was quiet through the explanation, building the tactical picture in his head. Darion recognized the expression.

"Their night watch will be heavy," Garren said when Darion finished. "After what happened with the infiltrations, after catching you in the treeline, they’ll have doubled everything. We can’t go in at night expecting to move quietly."

"We’re not going in quietly," Darion said. "We’re not infiltrating. This is a direct assault." He paused. "Which is why we need the compounds to do the work before we get within sword range."

"Tell us the plan," one of the senior knights said.

Darion laid it out.

He had been thinking about it since Vera had shown him the fire accelerant. The image of archers in trees, rows of knights burning. He had built from that outward.

"We approach Valdenmoor from the western tree line," he said. "There’s dense forest cover on that side, enough to position the archers without being seen from the walls. We send them in first, before the main force shows itself. They get into position in the trees which is elevated, clear sightlines to the barracks exterior and the main approach road."

He looked at the accelerant vessel.

"Once the archers are in position, the main force holds behind the treeline. The archers open with the accelerant arrows. The barracks exterior wall is timber-framed on the upper section, it’ll catch fast. The first volley targets the wall. The second targets any knights who come out of the doors to respond." He paused. "Men coming out of a burning building into the open, not yet organized, moving fast and not in formation, that’s the moment we throw the first incapacitation bundle. One bundle into the group as they’re clustering outside."

Garren nodded slowly. "That concentrates the confusion."

"Yes. And while they’re down or disoriented from the first bundle, we release the disorientation compound upwind of the main barracks entrance. Anyone still inside and trying to form up to come out walks into it. They’ll be useless for several minutes."

"That’s the window," one of the senior knights said.

"That’s the window," Darion confirmed. "That’s when the undeads go in."

He had Fifty undead knights in inventory. They didn’t breathe, which meant the compounds affected them exactly as much as they affected a stone wall, which was not at all.

They would walk through the disorientation cloud without losing anything. They would advance on men who were confused, injured, on fire, or some combination of all three, and they would kill them.

"The living force holds back until the undead have made initial contact," Darion continued. "Two reasons. First, you don’t want to be in there when the compounds are working. Second, I want Valdenmoor’s knights focused on what they’re seeing which is undeads walking through their fire and their confusion toward them, before our people are visible. Let them understand what they’re dealing with before they have to deal with our knights as well."

"What of the wolves?," Garren asked.

"The wolves go with the undead. The Rops too." He had three Rops in inventory, the creatures from the forest road, and he was genuinely curious what two hundred Valdenmoor knights would do when they saw those coming through smoke and fire toward them. Nothing good, he suspected, from Valdenmoor’s perspective.

He had been thinking about the livestock.

He hadn’t said it aloud yet but it was part of the plan. Valdenmoor had farms, pens and the same kind of animals that had been slaughtered on Percvale’s farmland.

After the the fighting was done and the outcome was what he intended it to be, they were taking livestock back. As much as they could move. Compensation...

Not theft!

Compensation!

The difference being that theft was taking what wasn’t owed to you and this was very much owed.

He hadn’t mentioned this to the senior knights yet because the priority was winning the engagement first. Taking livestock was a detail for after.

"What of Aldric?," Garren said.

"Aldric is the objective," Darion said. "Not killing him, capturing him instead. A captured king is leverage. A dead king is a martyr and a successor problem." He looked around the table. "We take the barracks, we take the treasury, we take Aldric. We present him with a document. He signs the debt cancelled in exchange for his release. We take the livestock on the way out and we ride back to Percvale."

The room was quiet for a moment.

"That’s ambitious m’lord," one of the senior knights said.