Long ago, a small fief was ruled by a terrible despot. Several witnesses testified to the lord’s oppressive methods, but all attempts to negotiate with him met with failure. In response to several admonitions and threats to depose him, he barred himself up in his hold, which was situated high up in the mountains.
Eventually, a stalwart heroine vowed to capture the fortress, and put an end to the lord’s tyrannical rule. Rallying the support of several neighboring lords, she amassed a force large enough and strong enough to lay siege to the fortress. She knew that an attack by her entire army would capture the hold.
As mentioned, the lord’s fortress was high in the mountains. However, the villages and farms under his control rested in the foothills and valleys. These villages and farms were connected to the fortress by roads and bridges snaking up the mountain. These roads allowed the despot to move his own troops.
The heroine gathered her army at the head of one of the roads, ready to launch a full-scale direct attack. However, she learned that the lord had trapped each of the bridges. The traps were set so that small bodies of men could pass over them safely, since the despot needed to move his troops and workers to and from the fortress. However, any large force sent across would collapse the bridges and spring the traps. Not only would this destroy the road, but it had been so deviously wrought that it would send piles of rubble down toward the villages below, obliterating them. It therefore seemed impossible to capture the fortress.
However, the heroine devised a simple plan. She divided her army into small groups and dispatched each group to the head of a different road. When all was ready, she gave the signal and each group marched down a different road. Each group continued down its road to the fortress, so that the entire army arrived together at the same time. In this way, the fighter captured the hold and overthrew the dictator.