From the afternoon onward, the Barbarians continued their operations, though they were clearly much more cautious this time.
The Barbarian herders advanced in small groups, filling the trenches as scattered skirmish units to minimize the area covered by the rain of arrows and reduce casualties.
The Two Rivers Legion defenders inside the fortress were equally cautious. They had considered launching another surprise attack like the one that morning.
But they found that the Barbarians were extremely well prepared. Large numbers of Cavalry kept moving along the edges of every exit from the walls, each force at least the size of a Thousand-man squad, and all stationed beyond the range of the archers and crossbowmen.
After probing them several times, James and the others gave up on the idea of a surprise attack. The enemy had at least ten thousand cavalrymen roaming on alert. Even if a small force managed to get out, getting back after the raid would be a problem.
As long as one enemy unit managed to entangle the raiding force, the rest of the enemy Cavalry would swiftly swarm in.
Using precious mobile troops over such a matter, merely to eliminate some laborers filling the trenches, would be far too costly for James and the others.
So, faced with the Barbarians' response, James and the others could only ignore it. Their original plan had been to maintain morale and disrupt the Barbarians' trench-filling progress and rhythm.
The morning raid had already fully accomplished that. The Border Fortress defenders had killed nearly ten thousand Barbarian herders in a single attack. Though there had not been many warriors among them, it was enough.
By now, the defenders' morale inside the fortress had risen again. For James and the others, all that remained was to wait quietly for the two