Night Raid on the Seventh Legion (2)

Ricardo lay prone in the grass, his warhorse also lying down beside him, and behind him, in the grass nests, lay all the Cavalry and warhorses he had brought with him.

Fortunately, the temperature had just started to rise, and there weren't many insects in the grass. If it were summer, lying in the grass, not to mention a person, even a warhorse would suffer from insect bites.

Ricardo, with a blade of grass in his mouth, silently counted the numbers in his mind to keep track of time. "...1472, 1473, 1474."

An officer ran over, bowing low. "Sir, the reconnaissance team is back!"

"Take me there." Ricardo stood up. He was indeed not tall; the officer had to bend over to keep his head from peeking out of the bushes, but Ricardo only needed to lower his head.

Arriving at a clearing hidden by a small mound, Ricardo and the officer finally stood up straight.

A small squad of soldiers was already sitting and resting in the open space, with many of them taking out their rations and water bags to eat and drink.

An officer saw Ricardo approaching and immediately stood up to salute. Ricardo walked over and tried to put his hand on the officer's shoulder, but finding he couldn't reach it, he grabbed the officer's arm instead.

"Sit down and talk."

The three sat down together, and the officer from the reconnaissance team drew a simple map on the ground, explaining the intelligence they had gathered to Ricardo.

"My lord, you see, the two enemy legions are not close together, but rather at a certain distance."

The Seventh Legion set up camp about 100 meters west of the Fifth Legion, which was further away from Sextus City.

Our Cavalry unit was ambushed because the Fifth Legion's camp blocked our view.

It's possible that the Fifth Legion had already prepared some materials, which is why the Seventh Legion's camp was established so quickly.

The outer walls have been built, all about two meters high, and are simply enclosed by tree trunks.

The campsite inside appears to be quite rudimentary; we saw mostly tents with no permanent structures.

In addition, the camp has three main gates and several smaller gates. Except for the main south and north gates, which have large areas of deer antlers, the other gates are blocked by simple low wooden walls.

There should be six patrol teams outside the camp. Basically, except for the east side, there should be two patrol teams on each of the other sides at all times.

There was a watchtower at each of the four corners of the camp, with guards always on duty, so we dared not approach to investigate.

The reconnaissance officer used a wooden stick to mark out the details he described on the map.

Ricardo frowned as he looked at the simple map on the ground. After listening to the reconnaissance team's report, he realized that the situation was indeed very troublesome. The Seventh Legion's defenses were very tight, and it would be difficult to escape unscathed if they launched a night raid.

"Sir, how about we call it quits? We came here looking for an opportunity anyway."

Another officer stated bluntly.

Ricardo knew he had a point, but Hawk trusted him so much, entrusting him with most of his Cavalry force, that he couldn't just run away without doing anything.

Finally, after hesitating for a long time, he slammed his hand on the ground and said, "Call the troops, let's do it like this..."

Around 2 a. m., a sentry on a watchtower in the Fifth Legion camp suddenly yawned.

"Don't you dare fall asleep again. Last time, our whole team got punished because of you. If this happens again, I'll show you how hard it is to be punished."

"Another sentry said menacingly."

The yawning soldier quickly apologized, "Boss, it won't happen again this time, I wouldn't dare to sleep..."

Suddenly the sentry froze, staring westward.

The other sentry, seeing his expression, was wondering what was wrong.

Suddenly he pointed to the west and said, "Boss, what do you think that is?"

"What's going on? What is this? If you dare to lie to me, I won't let you get away with it!"

Another sentry turned his head and cursed as he looked over. A fire had broken out in the camp that the Seventh Legion had just built to the west. The fire quickly spread and set the entire wall ablaze.

"Oh no, it's an enemy night attack!"

The older sentry quickly rang the alarm bell on the watchtower. At this point, several other watchtowers also noticed the situation and rang their alarm bells as well.

Soon Kimberley, the Legion Commander of the Fifth Legion, received the news and led his officers to the watchtower.

The Seventh Legion's camp was still burning, and through the thick smoke he could see the Seventh Legion soldiers still putting out the fire.

Kimberley hesitated. He couldn't assess the situation inside the Seventh Legion camp, so the best course of action was to stay indoors.

He was also worried that if the Seventh Legion suffered heavy losses in an enemy attack as soon as it arrived as reinforcements, he would surely be punished by the Grand Duke.

Just then, a young officer beside him said, "Legion Commander, let me lead the team to take a look. The enemy has probably only sent a small number of troops to harass us. Their forces are not as many as ours, so they certainly won't dare to fight recklessly."

I'll just go and disperse these enemy troops; it won't take too long.

"It would be bad if the Legion Commander Rabia of the Seventh Legion, Rabia, thought we weren't going to help and reported it to His Majesty the Grand Duke."

Kimberley looked at the young officer who had volunteered and nodded with satisfaction. "You have a point, Rasul, but your Cavalry Regiment has just been rebuilt and is not yet well-trained. Are you sure you can handle it?"

"No problem, sir. I borrowed some veterans and officers from the First Regiment of the Imperial Guard Legion. The scaffolding has been set up, and there are no problems with normal assault formations."

It's not like we're going to fight them; we're just driving them away.

"Alright, I'll leave it to you. Be careful and stay safe, otherwise I won't be able to explain it to Bo Leiqing."

Rasul saluted, then descended from the watchtower and headed towards his regiment.

He quickly assembled a Cavalry unit and they left the camp through the other side gate, as the west gate was too close to the Seventh Legion camp, leaving little room for maneuver and hindering the deployment of Cavalry formations.