The Traitor's Command IV

“I know that things don't look too good but I'm here to help us win,” Micheal announced, as he threw down his pack. It was hardly an inspiring speech, but it did seem to work for a time, if only because the men knew that there was now someone in charge of them. They did their rounds, stood of straighter, and talked about what they would do to the enemy. The enemy never came to them however, and soon the men sank back into their former habits of sloth. Micheal couldn't blame them since he felt the same way, he had been excited for the chance to be in charge but now that he was, he could do nothing so long as the enemy ignored their corner.
Micheal would never know what tactician on the enemy side finally did point out his corner as a place that they could attack but he would forever be grateful. His men were thrown into disarray the first time ladders actually showed over their segment of wall, but the battlements were tall enough that they had time to collect themselves and repel the men from the top. Once they had been attacked once, everything changed. Micheal's men were now careful while they walked, and the enemy attacked more often. It was as if they hadn't existed before, but now they had been highlights as a focal point of the war. Micheal kept expecting the commander to remove him from his command since the spot had become so important but the commander either decided that he had deserved it or simply decided he had too much to do to worry about such a little picture task.
Micheal put all of his ideas into use, oil was boiled, saws were made to cut the rope so swords weren't dulled. Big rocks were found that could be dropped on any invader stupid enough to stand beneath the wall for long enough that the rocks could be aimed. Then Micheal turned to machinery and every siege engine his father had ever thought of lined his tiny section of wall, pointing both south and west. Some of them proved to work better in theory than in real life but those were taken apart and turned into something else. Micheal even started to make his own ideas for what new ways he could throw things on his former countrymen.
It was late at night when the arrow shot through the sky and landed on the stones of the south west corner. Most of the men were sleeping, it was a lull in the fight, Micheal was still up on the other hand. After the arrow landed Micheal realized how stupid he had been, had the enemy wanted to kill him it would have been easy, he had a torch burning right above his head. The enemy clearly did not want to kill him however, they had blunted the arrow. Instead of it being a weapon it was now a messenger and Micheal quickly tore the paper from the arrow before anyone woke up and questioned him about it. He didn't have to worry about any of the others reading it, he was the only literate, but it still might cause awkward questions.
It took Micheal some time to get past the flattery in the letter and get to the true content, he knew better than to think that the enemy thought that he was a great general. In any case it was all of the frills of the court, which Micheal had skipped in letters for as long as he could remember, even though it was considered bad manners. The point of the letter was that they were offering him a title and a portion of the land that they would take from his current lord, under the condition that he betrayed the lord's castle. The wording of the letter made it very clear that they had no idea who Micheal was and thought he was just another commander in the lord's hire.
To be continued...