While the Barbarian Cavalry tried to cross the wall at the camp's northwest corner, others used every means they could to break through the Temporary Camp's defenses.
Some looped masses of ropes around the camp fence and had their horses pull it down together, then charged into the camp.
Others dismounted, ready to breach the fence on foot. Still others took a simpler, cruder approach: they rode straight up to the wall and hacked at it with their weapons.
The Guard Corps commander was at a loss in the face of these bizarre tactics. Several groups of Barbarian Cavalry had chosen different points to attack, and his thinly stretched defenders could not cover them all.
Fortunately, Marquis had accounted for the camp's shortage of troops. He had kept only two hundred guards at his side and placed all the remaining forces under the commander's control.
That gave the commander a thousand militia troops in addition to his eighteen hundred Guard Corps elites. The militia were second-tier troops, but they were properly equipped. He could assign them to less important defensive positions and free up a good number of his elite soldiers.
He could then station the Guard Corps at the most critical points and hold five or six hundred men in the Reserve Force, ready to reinforce any gap that appeared.
The battle became a desperate struggle from the outset as the Barbarian Cavalry launched their attack without hesitation.
With pit traps, barricades, and walls, the defenders held off the Barbarians' first charge. Arrows from the Guard Corps also inflicted heavy casualties on the horsemen stopped outside the fence.
But as the Barbarian Cavalry pressed harder, they broke through the low wall at the northwest corner. A sizable force rode inside and clashed with the Guard Corps Heavy Infantry stationed