Wife of The Demon Prince
Chapter 254: Invading

Chapter 254: Invading

After Ara’s display of skills, none of the soldiers dared to protest again. Not even Henry could bring himself to stop her from fighting tonight. Thus their meeting began.

"With the Felstead’s army, we can easily invade the palace and release the crown Prince’s soldiers first before attacking the enemies." Said one of the men. Since Thomas had only agreed to give them just a few of his men, they’d need to release Hamon’s men to support them.

If Hamon attempted to lead the soldiers straight forward to attack all the enemies at the same time, they were sure there’d be too many casualties. The crown Prince’s soldiers might not be attacking for the fear of acting without his command, they had no authority to decide what moves to make first until they received an order from their superiors, however if he showed up, they would take up arms and act upon his command once again, then, fighting against the queen and her allies would be a breeze.

Before coming to the meeting place today, Hamon and Ara had numerous conversations and planning on how to invade the palace, and they’d finally decided on a full proof plan with a solid chance of success. Seeing that it was time, Hamon glanced at Ara, and she immediately handed him a long folded sheet of paper.

The paper was long enough to reach the ground when it was fully unfolded. Hamon turned to address the room, "This is the map of every single building inside the palace, including all the secret entries and exits." With a smooth gesture, he hung the map on a pole and spoke to the soldiers in a commanding voice,

"The part with the black marks are the underground tunnels that run into the palace grounds."

The palace had water tunnels that flowed into several rivers, and some were deep enough for humans to dive in. The tunnels were the perfect passages to sneak inside without being noticed. It would be difficult to go unnoticed, but if about a hundred men could infiltrate the tunnels, while the other soldiers would be sufficient enough to distance the battles, they could avoid losing too much lives.

Hamon continued to explain, "While the main troops fight at the entrance of the palace, a selected few soldiers will infiltrate the palace through the water tunnels. Their aim will be to release the soldiers inside my residence."

With the approval of the majority, it was decided that they would infiltrate the crown Prince’s residence. Hamon exchanged glances with his wife, signaling her to come and take over as it was her turn to explain further on their plans.

Ara stepped forward while Hamon stepped back giving her space to take over, she began to lay out details of the mission, "Let’s start with how to separate the troops into three parts, we have..."

And so, Ara began leading the strategic planning with the high ranked soldiers. She did not realize it, but she had slipped easily into the same role as a soldier in her last life. Despite her slight, intimidating appearance, the soldiers watched in respectable awe of her presence, she was the first woman to ever be part of the army in Findara.

In the history of Findara, no woman was ever allowed to take part In the military. But the crown Princess had slowly made a change in history. Even Henry couldn’t hide the proud look on his face as he watched his sister plan their mission.

Soon they finished their strategic planning and it was time to take action. The troops were divided into three parts, Hamon commanded the largest groups, while Henry took the second, and Ara commanded the third small groups, who were the ones to invade the palace through the water tunnels. However, the grand general and his son hadn’t come to fight alongside them, but to lend their army. Therefore they left after the meeting.

Currently, Ara commanded her troops to the river that would lead them into the tunnels connected to the palace. There was no time to hesitate, when they reached the river, she gave her command, "Dive in." At her words, the soldiers raised themselves from the ground and dove into the river.

Ara followed behind, with a splash, swimming deep into the river bottom, and there she saw the the dark hidden tunnel that a full grown man could barely squeeze himself through, but as she had a smaller size body compared to the men, she easily made her way in and pushed through with strong strokes.

After swimming in the dark for some time, Ara quietly and carefully broke through the surface of the water, she blinked her green eyes to clear her vision, as she lifted her head up, she took in the scene. Ara noticed hundreds of soldiers guarding the palace ground. Just then, the alarm drums rang in the air to alert the soldiers,

"Intruders!"

"Intruders! Move!"

"Close the gates!" The air rang with alarming shouts and the enemy soldiers began to urgently rush to the entrance to stop the intruders, the intruders were none other than Hamon and his troops, who were attacking.

As the soldiers attention were on the intruders, Ara and her groups silently emerged from the water, and she made hand gestures for them to move. Only soldiers who were good at sneaking tactics were chosen for the task, and their movements were deadly silent and agile. Ara moved forward, and the rest of the soldiers followed her like a shadow.

Now that they had made it inside as planned, they had to release Hamon’s forces as soon as possible, while avoiding detection, if they were sighted by the queen’s men, a fight could break through, and it would waste their time and lives. Ara signalled the soldiers to hide behind the walls. Despite her soaked clothes, she ignored the cold breeze biting on her skin and forced on her mission.

The queen’s men assigned to guard the crown Prince’s residence were in a state of confusion hearing the clashing of swords from the distance. Relatively few of Dumbarton soldiers had been stationed at the palace entrance and grounds; while most of them surrounded the crown Prince’s residence in order to contain Hamon’s soldiers inside, until they get to set the building on fire in the middle of the night as the queen had instructed them to.

Those at the palace entrance were caught off guard by the sudden assault, and one of them ran to inform the soldiers at the crown Prince residence,

"Commander George! We need more forces at the entrance, we are under attack!"

George was one of the palace soldiers, but was now the commander currently in charge of monitoring the crown Prince’s residence. He looked at the soldier with an expression of disbelief and displeasure, "Aren’t there already enough troops at the entrance? How many enemy troops are there you can’t bring down?"

"Commander George, there are too many of them! And they are killing our men ruthlessly at the moment...It will be a matter of minutes before they break through if we don’t add more troops."

"Alright, I’ll send over more troops immediately."

The soldier, who had came to report, looked on with a worried expression, "Commander, we can’t send all the troops to the entrance, we also need more men here to to guard the crown Prince’s residence, or else the soldiers inside might break out."

After a moment of thoughts, George gave a nod, "I’ll send half of the troops. It’s important to keep those soldiers locked in."

"Aye, Commander!"

George turned towards his troops and immediately divided them into half. Meanwhile inside the crown Prince’s residence, Hamon’s soldiers trapped inside could sense something strange happening. They had no knowledge of Hamon’s whereabouts or situation, and since they couldn’t attack the queen’s soldiers without Hamon’s orders, they simply stayed inside.

But that did not mean they did nothing, they were vigilantly watching for news of what was happening outside. At the moment, they could hear the sounds of swords clashing against each from the distance, but since they couldn’t step out to see what was happening, the soldiers simply gathered at a parapet walls to watch.

Oliver, who had immediately went to keep Emma safe in his room after hearing the alarm drums, soon returned to meet the rest of the soldiers. Most of them gathered at the highest parapet walls, while some stood on the blocks to see who were attacking the palace, but it was futile, they could only see the torches and hear sounds of swords clashing from afar.

Oliver swiftly climbed up to join them.

"What should we do now, Sir Oliver?" Asked one of the men as Oliver crouched down on the blocks of the parapet wall.

Oliver watched with shrewd eyes as the soldiers who were supposed to be guarding them peeled away from the crown Prince residence’s premises. "I don’t know, we are not sure who the attackers were, we can’t join in a fight that’s not ours."

Merek, who stood quietly on the other side of the parapet wall with his hands crossed against his chest, carefully walked towards Oliver, he sat on his heels on the wall blocks, his black orbs looked around, "There’s no harm in being cautious, we don’t know if it’s a trap laid for us. We can’t just step out."

The queen’s soldiers had threatened to kill them if they left the building, unless they wanted to fight a battle against them. It was safe to stay inside for now, they couldn’t afford to start any battle without their commander, Hamon. However, they couldn’t just stay here and do nothing while there was a fight going on in the palace.

Oliver’s expression hardened, "Let’s see who the attackers are first before we take action."