I Will Be the Greatest Knight
Chapter 190: Sieged

Chapter 190: Sieged

The moment the knight got into the hallway, the door slammed shut behind him, and he heard the shuffling of goblins determined to catch him, but they were slower with their weapons too heavy for their lanky frames.

Even though these goblins seemed more intelligent, a few things that were still very much the same.

Phillip held the door handle as tightly as he could. One of the other maids slid a thin board into the door handle and across the door frame so that the doors couldn’t be opened, at least for now.

Surprisingly, Rosalind pulled nails from her apron, and she began nailing the board to the wall. It was a bit shabby of a job, but she was doing her best considering she was no handyman.

In the meantime, Phillip merely stood there with his hands on his knees as he caught his breath.

"What is there for us to do now?" the knight wondered. "How many of us are left?"

"I’m not quite sure, sir," Rosalind admitted quietly as she finished up her job.

She quickly sank to the floor as well, and only then did the knight realize her hands were trembling.

After the Duchess vanished, Rosalind had tried to get out of there, fearing that everyone hated her because she was chosen to be one of Her Grace’s secretive maids. If she escaped, perhaps she wouldn’t have been in that situation at all.

Soon, the other maids rushed to where Phillip and Rosalind were.

"We blocked off the other end," one explained.

"Forgive us for not thinking of it sooner, sir," the other one apologized. "Oh! Let me fix the scratch on your face."

While a mere scratch during such a time as that was insignificant, Phillip merely sat there as a young woman fixed up his face. What else was there to do?

The five of them left over inside the tower looked out the windows of each room, begging to see Gunnar and the others arriving. They prayed that anyone left outside at the Duke’s Tower had found someplace to hide.

It seemed that they would be barricading themselves for a while. Getting food might be complicated, but survival was worth the trouble.

+

It was late morning by the time Irene and the others arrived at the Duke’s Tower.

What should have been a beautiful late summer morning filled them with dread as they finally realized the full breadth of the situation.

The bodies of people they worked alongside were strewn across the property carelessly. How did they wind up entangled with so many goblins?

The back entrance of the Duke’s Tower was busted open, and Gunnar considered going in that direction. Before he could be decisive, the shouting of his name caused him to turn towards the barracks.

At first, he didn’t see anything, but as he focused, he saw a squire peering out one of the second-story windows.

"This way, everyone!" Gunnar shouted to his traveling party.

However, the squire widened his eyes and pulled his head back in the window, which he promptly shut.

Irene dutifully followed her knight. She wondered what their behavior was about, but she soon realized, as they entered the lowest floor of the barracks and saw goblins were already camped out and making themselves comfortable.

The scream of goblins filled the hallways, and the apprentices and knights sprinted forward.

Gunnar was the first to dirty his sword on goblin blood. Irene was a close second.

As one of the barracks opened, she was sent into a coughing fit with black smoke filling the place. She was gasping for air at the same time as she was slashing down a goblin. First, she kicked them in the stomach, then she jumped on top of them with her knee pinning them down while she messily sawed off their head as if there wasn’t a bone in there at all. Her sword’s sharpness was a testament to the late blacksmith and the fine metal he used in his weapons.

However, she succumbed to the coughing for a moment and wound up on her hands and knees on top of a beheaded goblin. As awful as the stench and sight were, she couldn’t get herself together. It felt like her lungs were on fire for a moment.

An arm was soon around her waist, lifting her up and forcing her to her feet.

"We must go," Sir Gunnar ordered.

Irene knew he was right as she followed him up the stairs and they sought the room where the squires were in the first place.

As soon as they made it to the center room, they were all let inside, and the door was firmly shut behind them.

Three knights, five apprentices, two squires; all in a room that was barely big enough to fit a bed and a table. Although it was obvious the furniture had been removed for a reason, so they could fit.

The apprentices and squires who were left behind as the survivors in the tower receded into the higher levels. They looked up at the knights, reminding them of dogs left behind by their owners. They slightly trembled and wore expressions of being completely and totally lost. It reminded Gunnar why he had only brought Leif, Felix, and Irene with him on the more important duties across the duchy.

It had been a long time since he had seen any of the three of them take anything quite as hard. They were all hardened. As much as he hated what it took to get them there, they were the toughest near-knights he had. It seemed that near-knights would have to be as good as knights because the place was devoid of them besides those he brought with him.

Gunnar crouched, hoping that it would feel like he took up less of the squires’ and apprentices’ safe space. He patted the smallest squire, William, on the head.

"Calm down, child," he said. "Explain to me what happened here. Why don’t I see anybody?"

The child began with Sir Phillip being nearly trampled by a stampede of goblins coming from the basement after the clanking noise that the knight was so paranoid about got worse. He explained that there had to have been at least one hundred goblins coming from the lower level. None of it made sense, but Gunnar still listened.

There was another wave early in the morning, which was when the kids lost the knight and the rest of the maids as they ran outside and went to the barracks for cover.

They weren’t sure of the state of the indoors because they were still hearing noises from the goblins and couldn’t handle them by themselves.

As the child explained this to the knight, they heard commotion from outside, and Gunnar was the first at the window.

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