Well then! Now I will explain the conditions on which you will work. After I offer you a choice - you can give up your intention. So - you are candidates for city guards. Your tasks will include round-the-clock patrolling of streets, suppression of riots, such as fights or looting. Also, acting as the hands of the city council, you will be engaged in collection of arrears on taxes from non-payers and other actions related to the maintenance of order and security in the city. To put on and equip you will be the city treasury. Eat - in the common dining room, live in the barracks. In addition to the service, you will be charged with physical training. Later, when your loyalty is verified, warriors will begin to teach you to effectively resist any gangsters, even well-trained ones. It's about your responsibilities. If you are caught on a bribe - you are publicly whipped with rods until unconscious, for the third time they are executed through public hanging. For disobeying the commander's order for the first time public flogging, for the second time - execution. Every week you will be paid silver denomination. After the end of the shift, put a jug of wine. The commanders will pay two denarii a week and ask, respectively, for the whole detachment. That is, he is responsible for breaking the subordinate with him. Is everyone clear? Any questions? - He looked around all those present, waiting, but there were no questions. - If there are no questions, then I suggest that everyone who is not satisfied with the conditions should retire.

Twenty people left. Very well done! " The remaining baron was divided into ten equal groups, appointing the commander immediately, and afterwards, handed them over to the comrade of the head of the city council, who was in charge of the city guard. On primary equipment Eric singled out three marks. On this money everyone should be dressed in clean, decent clothes and equipped with aketons. They were promptly sewed by local artisans on the same day. From the weapons they decided to issue old short spears that were available in the operationally equipped city Arsenal. They were found in a warehouse in one of the towers, but decided to leave, since it was not very profitable to transport for sale. Here also were useful. At the same time, he demanded that all the personnel be measured so that they could sew stitched cottages on them. For ordinary militia men, cottages of the same pattern as soldiers were introduced, only the red color was replaced with green. With the same method of organizing patches. The only organizational difference - the size of the group was increased to ten people. Collect those platoon of city guards in the company did not, putting the three sergeants in direct submission to the comrade of the city head.

On the fourth day, the Templars and the Morrigan arrived. This fidgeting could not sit in Constantinople, she could not abandon the child either. So she appeared with a two-month-old baby in her arms. A part of the servants arrived with her. The whole company was housed in a small, cozy estate, which once belonged to the late head of the city magistrate. Cleanliness, order and silence. The Templars were also very well placed - in a spacious manor, also recently deserted, near the port. True, there were few of them, five knights and three dozen servants. The head appointed the younger brother of Pierre de Chamond - Alexander. In general - everything was quiet enough. In the morning of the fifth day, a courier arrived from the observers - to the north of the city were seen a horse group in metal armor and with weapons. Well, - the Polovtsians came. Of his wounded warriors, five returned to service, the rest of them will join in a week or two. So, he can count on 180 people. We need reconnaissance data on enemy forces, preferably accurate. For these purposes, he directed Theodore to process the city's children, so that she combed all the neighborhoods of the city. By the evening it became not only known the number of Polovtsian forces, but also visible, as they arrived under the walls of the city and began to build manjanyk - a primitive throwing machine for shelling the gates of the city. In this traditional eastern gravitational machine, the projectile was shot at the expense of the general pull of people, which are pulled at the other end of the lever. Simply, effectively and very primitively. It is not even necessary to talk about sighting and long-range firing with the help of such units. The total strength of the troops was about five and a half hundred. And it was precisely the army, since it consisted of soldiers, not armed people. The throwing machine was built very slowly - it was immediately evident that the business for them was new, undeveloped. So, slowly, and waited for the evening. Camp Polovtsy smashed simply superb, also pleased with a completely sane military escort, which instead of sleeping honestly on duty. So - the guys experienced, beaten more than once. Of course, Eric did not waste time either. Over the past day, the street that adjoined the attacked gate was turned into a long tunnel. All the side passages and door barricaded, the windows were boarded, and the roofs were strengthened so that they could stand on their feet. At the end of a straight section of the street, a barricade of logs was erected, which was assembled neatly into a broad but shallow log structure that blocked the street. Landed in the frame, and on top made a flooring of the boards and installed massive shields. It was a platform for the ballista, who had to firing cores along the street. To the left and to the right of the gate there were standing logs, which should collapse when cutting off the fasteners and block the retreat. The length of the prepared street was about two hundred meters, so due to inertia, most of the troops must have time to break into. By lunchtime the sixth day the manjanik was ready and the Polovtsi immediately began shelling. Of the twelve shots that were fired, only two hit the gate, slightly injuring them. Decency was sustained, but because Eric ordered that between the shots replaced the locking girder of the doors to something symbolic. It took our snipers five more shots to get into the door for the third time. That, as expected, flung open - creating the effect of a broken shut-off beam. The Polovtsians, who were ready for such a turn, rushed quite vigorously toward the gates, but, to their credit, they were quite organized. Outside the gates there were criminals armed with shields and spears. These were suicide bombers, to whom the baron promised forgiveness, if they manifest themselves in defending the city. So they lasted a few minutes. The enemy was on foot, as riding on a city is very inconvenient. Having crumpled the duck, the Polovtsy rushed forward, with joyful cries, to the place where the second barrier from the criminals was waiting for them. It took less than a minute for all five-odd hundred people to get into the shot-chamber prepared for them. Eric signaled - immediately collapsed the passage at the gate, blocking it somehow with fallen logs. The obstruction turned out to be higher than human growth. After that, ballisticists and crossbows earned, and the second line of the screen went to the barricade. In general, everything was finished in half an hour. A dozen killed and thirty-two people wounded in the baron's army, against the completely overthrown army of Polovtsians. Without hesitation, he commanded all his able-bodied soldiers. It was necessary to immediately attack the convoy and the servicemen of the broken army. Charges took ten minutes, through which his squad of fifteen hundred trotted out in a column of three through the neighboring gates of the city wall. His standard was worn by Ostroneg, the sergeant of the first platoon of the first company, who accepted the Polovtsi blow when they rushed to break through the hastily dismantled barricade of the side passage, and in the melee, working halberds, stopped the enemy. It was he who managed to notice the demolition of the blockade before everyone, he led his people to close the breakthrough, it was he who stood in the front row and stood the onslaught. In the platoon - seventeen wounded and three killed, and he - the last remaining in the ranks, was awarded the honor to carry the banner of his master in the next attack. The detachment took it to the right and began to walk around the hill, in order to break into the camp's location from the rear, in case they were expected. And indeed, when they, having developed a broad front, flew to a position, they were expected by about two hundred servants, although they were in only quilts and almost without weapons. However, a barrage was made from the camps, which would seriously hamper their destruction. This time there was no loss, since, without waiting for a collision, the Polovtsians flinched and rushed to run. In general, it turned out an attraction - catch up and hack. We had to run a lot, we did not manage until an hour later. So - victory is achieved, you can send a pigeon to Ryurik to consolidate this victory. Those few Polovtsy that survive his raid, are unlikely to pose any threat in the region, and their neighbors and their problems are up to their necks.