Carrier pigeons brought news to the Duke. Stansbury was in turmoil. Submitters were showing signs of doubt, even demoralization. Rumors spread throughout the city and beyond about the intervention of the "heavenly powers" against Submission.
It was ten days later, the night of the next new moon: dark, cloudy, perfect for movement by those wishing not to be seen. Submitter scouts in the area had been silently dispatched; no one would raise the alarm. The Duke was crossing the Brandy River with a force of one hundred men, five deinonychus, five megaraptors, five spinosaurs and five triceratops. The party accompanied him. Their destination: the village of Kenningthwaite. Their mission: destroy the Submitter garrison and liberate the town.
The village of Kenningthwaite included about thirty homes, an inn and tavern, several barns, a small temple, and various other buildings typically found in small villages. Unlike most small villages, however, this one was occupied by the Submitters. The inn had been converted into a barracks and headquarters for the Submitter garrison. Outside the village was a camp in which a sizeable contingent of Submitter horsemen and musketeers were based. The few remaining residents of the village lived lives of misery and terror.
All that was about to change.
Firiona cast dimension door to the side of the inn, then looked into a window to observe the interior layout of the building. She then teleported a large explosive device, provided by the Duke, into the inn and dimension door’d back to the Duke’s forces. A huge explosion suddenly rocked the area as the explosive device devastated the inn and the Submitter fighters sleeping within it. Only ten out of the hundred within survived and staggered out of the wreckage of the inn. At the same time, the Duke’s forces, horsemen, foot soldiers and ferocious reptiles alike, charged into the village. The party fought valiantly with a formation of the Duke’s men, along with a spinosaur and a triceratops unit. Green Arrow slew many Submitters with his arrows, Mediel with his hands alone. Yet the issue was in doubt, for the Submitter horsemen and musketeers soon rode into the village from their base on the outskirts, eager to do battle. The Duke’s men and the party fell back; the party hid as best they could. But suddenly, from the north, a second contingent of the Duke’s forces appeared in the rear of the Submitters! Encircled, the savages were routed; few survived, even fewer escaped. The Duke ordered his men to let the escapees go. The sun was about to rise, there were fortifications and defenses to prepare, and the fugitives would serve his purpose.
Fortifications and defenses were indeed prepared throughout the next day. The Duke’s men dug ditches, set traps and sowed caltrops. Reinforcements arrived from Castle Wolsfbury: one hundred fresh men. The Duke himself formulated his defensive strategy in consultation with the party. He had a special mission for Firiona. "Take a supply of explosives and weapons. I will provide you with an armed escort, and you may take whoever else you wish, although I would advise against taking too large a party. Use your witchcraft to travel to a distant site where you can observe the road that leads to this village. I expect it will not be long before the Submitters arrive here in force from Stansbury. They will not take the loss of any of their "Abode of Submission" lightly, I assure you. But when you see them approach, use the explosives to kill as many as you can, then return here. We will know they are coming when we hear the explosions, and they will receive a fitting welcome!"
Firiona took Arnold with her and selected a site about two miles from the village to set up the ambush. In the meantime, the rest of the party recuperated from the battle and prepared themselves for the coming struggle. On several occasions Green Arrow observed homing pigeons flying toward the Duke, and saw others dispatched by the Duke to the north, south and west. At dawn the next day, the Duke received another pigeon bearing the news he had been expecting: his agents reported a large force of Submitters, numbering almost one thousand troops, heading for Kenningthwaite!
Firiona, Arnold and their escort watched from hiding as the Submitters’ column approached. On horseback near the front of the column were a number of men who appeared to be leaders of the Submitters’ forces. As they passed by, the trap was sprung! Firiona mass teleported explosive devices at the vanguard of the savages, and at their leaders, then teleported the group to the rear of the column and hurled more explosives at them. The escorts fired on the Submitters as well. After getting off a round of shooting, Firiona teleported the group back to Kenningthwaite, but not before witnessing the effectiveness of her attack. Almost 100 of the savages, including their leader, were killed in the operation!
Firiona reported her success to the Duke, who promptly ordered his dragoons, eighty strong, to charge out of the village and into the oncoming column! They obeyed at once, firing volley after volley at the savages, before falling back toward the village with the enemy in pursuit. As the savages followed the Duke’s men, suddenly on either side of the road huge fires erupted from pits and channels along the roadsides. The Submitters were now constrained: they could only follow the withdrawing dragoons into the village. But they had intended to do just that, and charged screaming toward the Duke’s men.
Battle ensued. The Duke’s dragoons were quickly cut down by massed rifle fire from the savages, but they in turn were attacked from the left flank by the Duke’s units of deinonychus, megaraptors and spinosaurs. More Submitters poured into the village, only to be fired on from units of the Duke’s men hidden within the buildings on either side of the road. Submitters fell by the dozen, the Duke’s men suffering only slightly fewer casualties. It appeared that, once again, the Duke’s men would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
The fighting continued. Now in the distance, the party observed one, then two, then three columns of smoke rising from somewhere to the northwest of the village. The party informed the Duke, who replied enigmatically, "Just as I was counting on."
More and more Submitters continued to flood into the town, many of them were cut down by gunfire from the Duke’s men, but many more replaced the fallen. Mediel suddenly decided to take action. Using his abundant step, he transported himself, and a lighted explosive device, into the midst of a large Submitter unit, threw the bomb and backed away. A huge explosion killed twenty of the savages, but at least as many returned fire at the intrepid monk. Remarkably, not a single shot struck Mediel, and he soon made his escape back to the rest of the party.
Finally, it appeared that the Duke’s men were on the verge of a crushing defeat. The Duke signaled for his forces to withdraw out of the village, toward another set of defenses prepared outside the village. Edward, Chip and Green Arrow fell back with the Duke.
Firiona, Lou, Arnold and Mediel, however, decided it was necessary to investigate the source of the smoke columns, which now numbered at least half a dozen. They teleported to just outside the south gate of Stansbury, the gate through which they had escaped from the city with Marla’s help. There they stood, momentarily nonplussed. The gate was heavily damaged and was hanging open! Even more, the barracks inside the gate, where Marla’s exploiter had been stationed, was now ablaze! Dead Submitters lay scattered about everywhere, gunfire was ringing out from every direction, citizens of Stansbury were attacking everything connected with the Submitters.
It then dawned on Arnold and Firiona that this was what the Duke had planned all along. The attack on Kenningthwaite had been a diversion and a lure to draw out as many of the Submitters as possible. Once the Stansbury garrison was reduced, the Duke’s agents and loyal citizens would rise against their oppressors, using the weaponry that Firiona had helped deliver. The Submitters would be overthrown and Stansbury would be liberated!
The adventurers suddenly heard screams coming from the blazing barracks. The screams were accompanied by what appeared to be the taunting voice of a woman! Arnold thought he recognized that voice, and together with Mediel and Firiona went into the building to investigate.
He found that his recollection was correct, for inside the burning barracks was . . . Marla! She was standing before a captive chained to the far wall of the building. The captive was bleeding from below the belt and gagging on something stuffed into his mouth. Marla berated her prisoner. "I hope you enjoyed your use of my body, you filth! Now you can enjoy the death of a traitor! The death of an apostate!" she screamed. "Go now to your false prophet!" The adventurers quickly turned their heads and left the burning building. As they left, they heard gunshots ring out from behind them.
Meanwhile, things were looking grim for the Duke and his allies. Although they had suffered tremendous casualties, the Submitters still pressed on, driven by blood-lust and religious zealotry. At least five hundred of the savages remained, against no more than one hundred of the Duke’s men. "Stand fast, men! Now is the time to avenge your comrades!" shouted the Duke. The men shouted their battle-cries in response. Then, from the west, came a sound. The sound of trumpets. The sound of hoofbeats on the ground. The sound of shouting warriors of Kingsland!
For the Duke’s forces had not crossed the Brandy River at only one point. A second detachment of the Duke’s finest dragoons and fiercest dinosaurs had crossed the river a mile to the southwest and had waited for the Duke’s orders to engage. When the pigeon arrived from the Duke, the detachment had ridden in to fall on the flank and rear of the Submitters’column. Again caught between two forces against them, the savages were doomed! The battle became a rout. Not a single Submitter survived the engagement.
The Duke returned in triumph to his city, to greet his victorious and newly-liberated subjects. He proceeded to his palace, no longer occupied and defiled by the Submitters’ leadership. The party were invited to accompany him and enjoy the fruits of their victory.
Over the next week the remaining Submitters and collaborators were identified and punished. City defenses were repaired and re-manned. News reached the Duke of rebellion spreading to other nearby towns and villages, motivated by rumors of intervention by the heavenly powers against Submission.
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