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"As I told you few hours ago, I have something interesting to recount about the letter I received. It contains nothing more than a date and a location, both written in a Varcoastan military code; the lack of any further detail confirms for me that my old comrade, as is defines himself, is in serious troubles and feared that his message could have been intercepted. For this reason, since Le Phénix is already ready for the voyage, I'll leave Astrapi with the morning tide and get to Eltina as soon as possible. For this reason, Renè, you have to manage my estate here in Astrapi for a while." "Is there such a rush, monsieur Rimbaud?" "My honour depends on it" replied Tristan seriosly "But you will shortly understand. As you know, I started my career on the Western Border, fighting bandits and marauders coming from Pontilla. Ten years ago, when I was a young lieutenant,I received my first serious task: the armies of the Great Raider got close to Pontillan border during their continuous war aganist The Great Alliance States and for this reason an Oleander and Varcoastan joint force was formed, and I was in charge of our battalion; it was more a symbolic gesture than a real help, since at the time incursions towards East were quite common and Pontilla had never been really endangered, but that time was different..." "The Great Raider declared war on Pontilla, Captain?" "Yes, Sergeant Dubois... in a sense, the Great Raider was already at war with Pontilla, since his kingdom is always at war with his neighbours. I'll be clearer: their society is basically divided in three classes. The first is composed by the knights, who own nothing but their weapons and their horses, but are allowed to take whatever they want whenever they want." "The second class is formed by plunderers and mercenaries, whose fate depends on the warlord they serve and follow during forays." "The third class is made up of farmers, artisans, peasants and so on... they spend their whole life working and wishing not to starve after their village has been plundered by their lords." "You can imagine that this kind of society completely ignores borders and is based upon perennial war." Captain Rimbaud continued: "As I was saying, when we arrived in Pontilla the disaster had just happened: after a couple of little skirmishes, the army of our allies had been directly engaged and totally destroyed by those barbarians... Western Pontilla was already on fire, and the undefended towns of the East would soon have been devastated. Alexander Braun -the commander of Varcoastan forces- and I had to act quickly, without waiting for orders: we decided to move as west as we could and we entrenched ourselves in the ruins of an ancient castle." "But you only had few hundred soldiers..." "Four hundred, to be exact. It was quite a suicidal move, but we had to allow the evacuation of civilians towards Oleander border: every day we had gained would have reduced the massacre; we knew, however, that there was no way out for us." "It was a terrible battle... there were twelve enemies for each of us, but many of them didn't use firearms and their strong cavalry was useless aganist our barricades; our brave soldiers suffered severe losses, but didn't withdraw of a footstep. The enemy commanders were furious: behind us they could almost see the rich Pontillan countyside, but simply could not pass without overwhelming us... and we resisted with nails and teeth for five days, using flintlocks and swords." "And how did you survive, monsieur Rimbaud?" "We were very lucky: on the sixth day we had almost finished our gunpowder and we were waiting for the decisive assault, but it simply didn't come... an army coming from The States of the Great Alleance wedged itself between our enemies and their territories, the oppressed peasants rose up and the front moved hundred miles west. Not to be locked out, the raiders withdrew with haste, abandoning their camp with prisoners and most of the loot... What a great day!" With a half smile, Tristan continued: "After five days of uninterrupted fight, Alexander and I had become brothers rather than simple comrades. We both promised to come without hesitation to assist the other in case of need, but also not to be too proud to forget asking for help. You can understand, my friends, that I have to hurry up... the letter I received is a serious call for help and is at least two weeks old."
