By the time Josck and Wassima returned with the main force, it was already the sixth day since the expedition set out.
"My Lord, have my ears deceived me, or did you misspeak? I simply cannot fathom that a Gold Knight's ransom is set at only a hundred Imperial gold coins. That is not a ransom—that is an insult to a Gold Knight, and a deliberate affront and humiliation toward the
Lorist was genuinely shocked. Even though he had come prepared to haggle, this absurdly low ransom price was beyond anything he could have dreamed of. If such a ransom were accepted and word got out, the Gold Knight Henned would have no path left but to take his own life.
Take knight tournaments as an example. When a knight lost a challenge, he had to surrender his mount, armor, weapons—his entire set of combat equipment—as spoils to the victor, or pay a ransom equivalent to that equipment. Typically that ran to thirty or forty gold Fordes, roughly one hundred to a hundred and fifty Imperial gold coins. And that was at a knight tournament—a competition, not a battlefield.
On the battlefield, when a Silver Knight was captured, all of his weapons and equipment, along with the man himself, became the victor's spoils. If he wished to regain his freedom, he first had to ransom his equipment, his mount, and even his squires and servants. If the ransom for those was fifty gold Fordes, then doubling it to a hundred gold Fordes—that hundred gold Fordes was the Silver Knight's own ransom.
In other words, if the Silver Knight paid a hundred and fifty gold Fordes, he could reclaim his equipment and mount, and walk out with his squires and servants in grand fashion. The victor might even throw a banquet to see him off—a friendship born from battle, so to speak.
If the Silver Knight also held a noble title, he had to pay an additional ransom befitting that title—after all, nobles were worth considerably more than mere quasi-nobles. These were the universally accepted rules of the battlefield, and no noble would dream of defying such long-standing customs. But it should be noted that all of this referred only to Silver Knights.
On the battlefield, it was exceedingly rare for a Gold Knight to be taken prisoner. This was mainly because a Gold Knight's combat strength far surpassed that of a Silver Knight. In terms of
The best countermeasure against a Gold Knight was another Gold Knight. When two Gold Knights clashed on the battlefield, their duel invariably became the most spectacular highlight of the entire engagement. Unless the gap in their abilities was overwhelming, the loser would almost always fall in a shower of blood upon the sand.
It was not unheard of for a Gold Knights to be captured. The most recent example was Bisaya, a Gold Knight of the Follando Duchy, who had been gravely wounded and knocked unconscious during a fierce battle against the forces of the Ridleys Kingdom. The First Prince took him prisoner, and it was only when the Grand Duke of Follando offered three thousand gold Fordes along with a priceless sword worth a thousand gold that the prince's heart was softened and Bisaya was freed—an affair that became quite the celebrated tale.
Lukins Duke's ransom for his own Gold Knight was a mere one hundred Imperial gold coins—the old man's head coins—which converted to just over thirty gold Fordes. This left Lorist absolutely dumbfounded. Granted, Hennid had not been captured on the battlefield but had been seized while drunk and off guard. Lorist hadn't expected Lukins Duke to offer a thousand gold Fordes, but five or six hundred seemed like a reasonable minimum, didn't it? After all, the ransom also represented a Gold Knight's worth and dignity.
Was this bizarre Grand Duke of the Northland completely devoid of brains? Setting such a price was practically digging his own grave. Once word got out, who would ever agree to serve him? What on earth was going on? Lorist found it exceedingly strange.
"Lord Kamora, please don't joke about this. This concerns the honor of a Gold Knight—it is no laughing matter. I refuse to believe that Duke Lukins is so ignorant as to set such a laughable ransom..." Lorist said to Baron Kamora with a grave expression.
Baron Kamora could only manage a bitter smile, unable to muster a proper reply.
Ten days prior, Viscount Kenmais had returned to the ducal capital of Gildusk City, bringing with him the body of Knight Chevani, along with the news that Gold Knight Hennid had been captured and that the two Northland legions—four thousand men dispatched to crush the Norton Family—had been utterly annihilated. The shockwave rocked the entire ducal territory and began spreading across the Northland. Upon hearing this catastrophic news, Duke Lukins once again demolished his newly furnished study, raging madly through the ducal manor as he screamed for vengeance, cursing the Norton Family, and swearing to slaughter every last person connected to them.
Baron Kamora and another Gold Knight—Bitson, deputy commander of the Northland Legion—had a devil of a time calming the duke down before they could begin planning their retaliatory campaign against the Norton Family.
When the duke finally composed himself and prepared to mobilize the expeditionary force, all three of them were stunned into silence: the ducal territory had no troops left to deploy. It was simply devastating. The Northland Legion, which should have boasted twenty thousand soldiers—though now it was down to only sixteen or seventeen thousand—could barely scrape together five thousand men, a mere two brigades. The absurdity of it all was staggering. Four thousand had already been lost, and now they were supposed to send another five thousand to their doom?
The primary task was to maintain local security. The capital, the Hendelifoss Bridge checkpoint, and the adjacent Fressed Fortress Castle in particular—these three locations were the critical chokepoints guarding against any encroachment of the
The primary reason was that Duke Lukins, in order to save money, had disbanded the local garrison forces after the Northland Legion was formed. At the time, His Grace had believed that with the Northland Legion in place, the garrison forces were entirely redundant. Stationing the Northland Legion across various towns, manors, and castles could fully replace the garrison's functions while also saving on garrison military expenditures—a perfect two-for-one deal. Besides, His Grace did not believe any noble in the Northland required the full might of the Northland Legion to be deployed against them. Sending a thousand or two soldiers would be more than enough to sweep through any opposition.
Now, with the four-thousand-strong expeditionary force completely annihilated, it was as if he had been slapped hard across the face—and he realized he couldn't even strike back. This drove His Grace into a towering rage. On top of that, there was yet another problem: among His Grace's subordinates, only five Gold Knights were capable of holding their own. Tabac had been beaten half to death by Lorist and would need to spend a full year bedridden. Chewani, who had accumulated the greatest merits, was already dead in battle, and Henneid had been captured. Now only Odema—guarding the Hendelifoss Bridge checkpoint and Fressed Fortress Castle—and Bitson, who was responsible for the capital's defense, remained as Gold Knights. Even if the expeditionary force materialized, there was no one to lead it.
Duke Lukins pinched his nose and ordered Baron Kamora to find a way to get Knight Henneid back first, painfully offering a price of four hundred gold Fordi. As for those Silver Knights and the common Northland Legion soldiers, they could wait—it would not be too late to rescue them after the Norton Family was destroyed.
Knight Bitson argued that four hundred gold Fordi was far too little to secure Henneid's freedom from the Norton Family. He hoped His Grace would put up more leverage so they could bring Knight Henneid back sooner and learn the full details of the battle. Once they knew the Norton Family's true combat strength, they could devise a plan to deal with them.
His Grace insisted that four hundred gold Fordi was already the absolute maximum he could offer. The three of them were still haggling when the butler suddenly appeared to report that a squire belonging to Knight Chewani had escaped and returned, carrying a military report that Knight Chewani had written to His Grace.
The squire looked utterly wretched. He and another companion had endured tremendous hardship crossing the Morgen Hills, and to make matters worse, they had encountered a magical beast—a black-backed iron-toothed leopard. After his companion was wounded, he had grappled with the beast and fallen together with it into a deep gorge, both perishing. The squire had fought his way through countless dangers to finally emerge from the Morgen Hills region, traveling day and night until he reached Gildusk City. Though wounded and exhausted, his loyalty to his mission burned strong. He still remembered Knight Chewani's instructions and had rushed straight to the ducal estate, presenting the silver cylinder Knight Chewani had entrusted to him.
His Grace withdrew the animal-hide paper from the silver cylinder and began to read. Knight Bitson and Baron Kamora were intensely curious, dying to know what Knight Chewani had actually written, but the letter was in His Grace's hands and the two could only wait. As for the squire who had delivered the letter, he had by now learned of Knight Chewani's death and was sitting there sobbing, tears streaming down his face and snot dripping from his nose.
What happened next remained seared into Baron Kamora's memory for the rest of his life. He watched as His Grace's face suddenly flushed crimson, his eyes bulging from their sockets, nostrils flaring with ragged breath, the man going completely berserk—truly berserk this time, not his usual tantrum. His Grace was in a thundering fury. Heedless of everything, he seized a small side table and began smashing up the reception room, all the while screaming curses—curses aimed squarely at both Chewani and Henneid: "Two worthless bastards! I'll kill you! I'll tear you to shreds! How could you possibly bungle this so badly—you actually lost my gold coins! My three hundred thousand gold Fordi! My money! Chewani, look what you've done! Why didn't you ship my gold back first! Henneid, how could you possibly protect my wealth? My money! My money!..."
Baron Kamora stared in bewilderment. Seeing several sheets of animal-hide paper fall to the ground, he hastily snatched them up and retreated to a corner out of the way of flying debris to start reading. Knight Bitson crowded over as well, and the two of them squeezed together to look.
Soon they understood exactly why His Grace had lost his mind. It was all Chewani's fault. Couldn't he have simply written a straightforward account of the unfavorable battle and why the entire force was annihilated? Why on earth did he have to go and describe the slaughter of the townsfolk of Northwild Town and then itemize how much wealth had been seized, even noting that the total value of the plunder was approximately two to three hundred thousand gold Fordi? Such a staggering sum, placed right before His Grace's eyes—and what made it worse, it was wealth gained and then lost again. Given His Grace's miserly nature of loving money above all else, how could he possibly not go mad?
Perhaps the Duke's cursing had been too distressing, because that dutiful attendant timidly offered a reminder: "Your Grace, Lord Chewani died heroically in battle..."
The Duke, his mind addled by visions of gold coins, turned his bloodshot eyes toward the attendant. The words that tumbled from his mouth were like midwinter frost, making everyone present feel chilled to the bone...
"Dead? He thinks dying settles the score? I won't let him off even in death! He lost my money—three hundred thousand gold Fordi! His crimes are unforgivable! He has to pay me back! Someone! Someone!" The Duke's thunderous roar shook the entire ducal estate.
"Go and ransack Chewani's home—confiscate everything! Throw his family out on the street and dump his corpse in the mass grave to feed the stray dogs! How dare he lose my money! My three hundred thousand gold Fordi!"
"Your Grace, you can't do this—" Knight Bitson and Baron Kamora were horrified and hurried forward to stop the Duke's orders.
"He attacked Northwild Town once, still had seventeen hundred soldiers in hand, yet abandoned the siege and thought only of retreating—ending with the annihilation of the entire army! And he just stood by and watched my gold coins get snatched away—what was he thinking? Tell me, if he's not guilty, then who is?" The Duke's barrage of rhetorical questions left Knight Bitson and Baron Kamora utterly dumbfounded.
"And you—" The Duke turned his bloodshot gaze toward that pitiful attendant once more. "You shameless deserter! You and your lord are both despicable cowards—you betrayed my trust, you threw away my gold coins! Someone! Hang him this instant! Now! Drag him out!"
The attendant, who had struggled through untold hardships to complete his mission, was stunned mute by the Duke's fury and dragged away without a word by the ducal estate guards. Baron Kamora felt his heart go cold, his whole body trembling. He suddenly realized how utterly foreign the Duke before him seemed...
It was only after the guards returned to report that the poor attendant had been hanged on the flagpole outside the ducal estate that the Duke appeared to regain his composure.
"Kamora, go to the Norton Family tomorrow. Tell them I'm willing to pay ransom for Henneid and those Silver Knights. Remember—Henneid's ransom is one hundred imperial gold coins, and each of those Silver Knights is ten..." The Duke's eyes were still bloodshot red...
Baron Kamora's face changed drastically: "My—my lord, th-this is impossible..."
The Duke's voice was eerily calm, so calm that Knight Pitson and Baron Kamora couldn't help but tremble: "Tell the Norton Family exactly this—I won't spend a single copper more for those criminals. I'm ransoming them not to set them free—I intend to punish them. They had no right to lose my gold..."
Baron Kamora stumbled out of the ducal estate in a daze, his steps unsteady. The moment he stood outside the main gate, his eyes fell upon the attendant's corpse, hanging high on the flagpole. He turned to look at Knight Pitson, and Knight Pitson looked back at him. The two stood there, staring at each other in silence...
At last, Knight Pitson murmured softly: "The Duke has truly lost his mind... Look out for yourself... You might want to tell Henneid that being a captive of the Norton Family is far better than coming back here..."
…