Chapter 257: Gathered

Caerleon City

The morning was still young, and the cold air presents a temptation for many to fall back into the land of dreams. However, chaos had engulfed the southern gate of the city.

"We are under attack! The orcs are coming!" A rider shouted as he rode his horse as quickly as he could.

Tang! Tang! Tang!

The warning bell was sounded, and the city guards took up their weapons before gathering on top of the gate and walls. They pulled their bowstring taut and gripped their pikes tight, their eyes all focused towards the shades of figures in the distance approaching the city.

Right afterwards, a short, chubby elf ran towards the gate alongside a dark-skinned man and a female orc.

"Don't panic! Don't panic!" The fat elf shouted, authority lacing his voice, but it was clear he was panicking as his voice shuddered a bit. "We are more than prepared for this fight! We are!"

"Sir Uriel, calm down, you should call the scout and ask about what exactly he saw," One of them reminded.

"That's right, uh… Gazef! Call him!"

The female orc who stood next to him shook her head in exasperation. "Don't bother, they are here already."

From the top of the gate, every single soldier stared at the yellow ground in horror, as they saw hundreds, maybe thousands of huge, monstrous figures all snarling and growling as they approached the city of Caerleon. The fat elf quickly panicked again. Although he had served as the mayor of Eranfell for a dozen years, he himself had never seen an attack of this scale.

"That's more than a thousand orcs! Can we win a fight against a thousand orcs?!" The mayor asked. His breathing became even more labored than before, to the point that passing guards thought he was sick.

"Most likely not, mayor, for we only have 500 town guards, as for our orc warrior, they won't came here in time"

The mayor quickly turned around, trying to find reinforcements as soon as he could, but the orc woman stopped him.

"Wait! Those are not orcs, those are Uruk! There is also a group of elves among them."

Thousands of orcs moving together with several hundred elves. That information certainly helped, but also raised a thousand more questions. Why would the Uruk move together with the elves, and what is their purpose?

As they were busy thinking, the Uruk walked closer and closer, their booming footsteps sounding like claps of thunder in quick successions. The three recognized a few people amongst the elves, one of them being their own mayor.

"What…? How?!" Uriel stared at the horde in disbelief.

As they came closer, even those who did not pay much attention knew that the Uruk was led by Tristan, their mayor.

Uriel stared with mouth agape and eyes almost bulging up, unable to believe what he saw before his eyes until they were close enough for there to be no doubt. Right as Tristan reached the gate, the fat elf ordered the guards standing above to open it.

A week has passed since Tristan officially became the ruler of Forlorn. After the throne was passed to him, Tristan decided to go check a few of the mines mentioned before, and he took some time to grab himself a few hundred Uruks on his way towards Caerleon.

"Uriel!" Tristan shouted from outside the gate.

"Yes… Yes… What can I do for you, Sir Tristan?" The fat elf asked with a ragged voice. He seemed to be even more polite than before.

"Tell the people to prepare some food for the Uruks, then meet me in the town hall," Tristan waved his hand, as if trying to make the fat elf go faster.

Still unsure of what is currently going on, Uriel merely nodded and turned away to search for someone who could fulfill Tristan's order.

"Yes, certainly, right away!" He answered.

If Tristan knew about his fear, he gave no indication of it. He entered the city together with two full elven squads, their tidy marching creating a distinctive beating sound thanks to the silver armor covering them from head to toe. There are 100 warriors, 10 nobles, walking behind him, while Serene and Astrid walked next to him.

Everyone was still stunned with shock from the Uruks and the elves following Tristan, but then suddenly they saw something swooping down from the sky. The creature spun around a few times before perching on Tristan's shoulder.

It was a small red dragon with light red underbelly and a line of gleaming silver spikes on its back.

Tristan separated away from the group, jumped down and tied his horse to a tree, and walked inside the town hall before sitting on his designated chair.

Uriel, Gazef, Karra, Serene, and Astrid all gathered before him, while the red dragon hovered around the room, looking at each item inside with unbridled interest.

First, he asked about their progress after the two weeks he left the place. Gazef reported his success in recruiting the new townsguard. As a result, the town became much more lively than before.

After confirming that the existing tasks were done, Tristan started giving out new tasks.

He explained to Gazef that he would leave the 100 elves and nobles under his care, and the reason he brought them here was to reinforce the town's defenses. Each of those 100 elves have the strength equal to ten guards, and with such a small number of soldiers, he had tripled the town's defenses.

The order elicited unbridled gasps of shock from the others. Not only did Tristan just casually ordered high ranking elves around like nothing, he just entrusted them to his underling. Uriel and the others did not know about the Forlorn situation yet, and this order only exacerbated their confusion.

Tristan needed a place for his new forces, and to finish this, he gave Uriel the permission to take charge.

"I need a place enough for 1000 Uruk to stay, and more will come in time," Tristan looked at Uriel and said.

"More…? How many more?" Uriel asked.

He needed a temporary place enough to 3000 Uruks in total, but he had reasons to believe that he will end with more people than he expected after his campaign to subjugate the chaotic plains were finished.

To accommodate this eventuality, he needed enough housing for around 5000 people. That was around the same as the total residents living in Caerleon.

Although he was glad his little territory was expanding, currently Caerleon's infrastructure, especially their port, was not feasible to support that amount yet. Therefore, he requested for the new place to be made right inside the forest closest to the town.

"Ah, I also need 3000 sets of weapons and armor for those Uruks. I hope the blacksmith is ready."

"3000?!" Uriel shrieked. "I am sorry, Sir Tristan, but such an order would require a lot of manpower and coins."

He didn't answer; he merely reached onto his belt and threw a storage ring filled to the brim with coins. It was one of the treasures he grabbed from the Forlorn kingdom, and for a while, he would not need to worry about coins.

The coins inside should be more than enough to arm all 3000 Uruks.

It was unfortunate that Uruk didn't grow ready with weapons and armor, hence he needed to spend some money to arm and prepare them for the campaign through the chaotic plains.

"Oh, I will need all of them ready in two weeks!" Tristan ordered. That time would be right after Elorth would finish bringing all the Uruks working within the mines into the gates of Caerleon city.

Uriel stared at Tristan in utter bewilderment. "No matter how I try to look at it, arming 3000 orcs in two weeks with just the aid of our own workshop is borderline impossible, you know."

Tristan answered calmly. "Well, then it's a good thing the neighboring town will help, right?"

He gave the fat elf a chilling smile, and just like that, Uriel was forced to bring Erantell's workshop to help in the efforts of arming the Uruks. They discussed a bit more, and decided that light armor would be more than enough to protect them in the battlefield.

At first, Tristan did consider to prepare everything in Forlorn, but then he realized that with the kingdom's resources he could prepare other things for the Forlorn instead

Besides, elves' armor and weapons are too costly and would take too much time to be manufactured in large numbers. Previously, Janus planned to prepare the Uruks for a few months before deploying them.

But, Tristan was not that patient. After all, why take the slow road if the easier road would be faster and yield the same results?

Tristan beckoned at Karra teh female high orc. "Go, called out the orcs, let see how great are the Uruks compared to the orcs?"

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Written by Avans, Published exclusively by W.e.b.n.o.v.e.l,