Coming with the horrors of war were the opportunities to rise in the ranks. Confirmed kills allowed you to advance in unit tier. The higher the tier of unit, the better quality weapons and armor you were given and the more fame in the army you were given. Fame was important for promotions. A commander could be impressed with you and raise you to a higher position in the army. That was if you survived the savage fighting. These were demons on the field of battle after all. The six of us were taken by the messenger to the manor. The knight addressed us and gave us his spiel. Another knight was trying to muscle in on his territory and he was going to make them back off with a show of force. That was fine with me. We still had our clubs and some scythes form the fields. The regular soldiers had armor and swords and axes. I guess that it would be better to focus on the peasants on the battlefield rather than the soldiers. If we could run through them or take up dropped arms from dead demons. It would be nice to have the weapons. As a very small 58 strong force, we walked to battle the rival knight.
I was ready for action. They had 87 people on their side. We were lined up on either side of a large and empty plain. We were in the infantry of the force. The peasants of the land were the first up to fight for their betters. There were 20 of us on our side. We were told to go and we charged a good 29 of them. The 3 of us ran to the side to try and flank them. We used our scythes to cut them down. I was able to take down 4 of them by using both Phirlax and Helelin to my advantage. Phirlax got to kill 2 of them. Helelin killed 1 enemy. Thalox was very aggressive and got a great 5 enemies to fall to his blade. It was no wonder that Thalox was able to rise a tier. He chose to be a levy crossbowman. He was given a linen tunic that was black with hunter green accents. it was tied at the waist by a small, thin rope. He was given a bag of simple crossbow bolts in a bag to sling over his shoulder and a crossbow on his back. He still had his cloth boots and trousers. If 5 was the amount of killed enemies needed to move up to the next tier, I was just one kill away. We were able to get their peasants to route.
Doing this, the rest of the enemies knights force engaged. I had Phirlax and Helelin join me at the back. We flitted around the battle while they fought. At some point, we found a couple of bows and a quiver. We used them to pick off a few enemies. I was not the best, but I got one before passing it off to Helelin. She was really good with a bow and got 5 more kills. Phirlax got 3 more. Overall, we got the victory that day. We cheered and reveled on the field. Phirlax and I choose to be levy footmen in the army and Helelin chose to be a levy crossbowman like Thalox. After that, we were told that we were going to march onto the enemy knight's territory. That was more than fine with me. It just meant more chances to advance in the army hierarchy. As we moved onto their territory, we met another battle. Since we were no longer among the simple peasants, we could wait for the other peasants to finish the first skirmishes. Once that was done, we went in. As footmen, Phirlax and I had an upgrade and more weapons. His bow was commandeered by the army. We were nowhere near great though.
Even with an iron arming sword, simple spear and leather bound kite shield, there was nothing special or mighty about our equipment. It was just tier 2 stuff after all. On our heads, we had a lightly padded, thick leather cap. Our tunics were not as long as the crossbowmen's were. A pair of buttoned leather bracers were on our wrists and forearms. We had the same cloth boots as the levy crossbowmen as well. We obviously got rid of our old, dull scythes. I drew my sword and went on the attack. We crossed blades with the enemy and fought them to a draw. At the end, both sides called off the fighting. Too many loses would be bad for business after all. The conflict with the enemy knight ended with a white peace as the lord they both swore fealty to told them to stop and join him in his war. That, of course, meant that we were going along with our knight. When we were assimilated into the lord's army, I made sure the 3 of us were together. The lord was fighting an offensive war for more territory. I liked it. It was good because there was no upper limit to how many battles we could have.
