By the time the mid-captain stepped out of the young widow's cottage, the sky was full of stars. He had spent the afternoon napping with the widow, then enjoyed the loving dinner she had carefully prepared before being coaxed back into bed. It had taken considerable effort to tame the wildcat of a woman until she was completely docile, but the exhaustion had overtaken him and he had passed out again.
He stretched luxuriously, body and mind both pleasantly satisfied, and looked around. The guards who usually stood watch outside the door had vanished. It took him a moment to recall that he had probably told the fellow to scram that afternoon, and the lazy bastard had actually scrammed.
"Don't let me find you, or I'll give you a good whipping..." the mid-captain muttered, glancing around. He noticed that the little mountain village was unusually quiet tonight. The villagers always turned in early, so that was nothing strange, but the camp was normally still noisy well past midnight. Why was it so silent here too?
However, when he spotted the shadowy figures of sentries pacing back and forth in the distance, he relaxed. Everything was normal — he had probably just overslept. It must be around three or four in the morning.
There was a faint scent of blood in the air. The mid-captain sniffed and wanted to curse. No need to guess — those bastards had probably beheaded those smuggler mercenaries in the village square again after interrogation. That explained the heavy smell of blood. Damn it, couldn't they walk a few more steps to that big tree outside the village before doing the killing?
A dozen or so tents had sprung up in one corner of the village square. The mid-captain remembered — that was the viscount's escort team camped in the village after the fall from his horse. The large central tent was brightly lit with candles, and people were moving in and out. They must have fetched an apothecary from Vanades for treatment. He might as well go take a look...
Before he even reached the camp, an attendant emerged and said respectfully, "Captain, the viscount requests that you come in..."
The mid-captain was nonchalant about it. Walking toward the large tent, he asked, "The viscount is awake? Nothing seriously wrong with him, I hope? If he's mobile, I think you should head back to Vanades. It's far better suited for the viscount's recovery than this wretched little village..."
The attendant merely grunted in response and followed the mid-captain to the entrance of the large tent.
Lifting the tent flap and stepping inside the large command tent, the mid-captain froze. He had expected to find the viscount lying in bed, groaning in pain, but instead His Lordship was sitting bolt upright on the far side of the tent, grinning at him like a fox.
His gaze shifted downward, and he spotted two men dressed as mercenaries seated below the viscount, shoveling meat and wine into their mouths with ravenous abandon. The one on the left was even tearing off his leather armor between bites, letting a guard behind him tend to his wounds and bandage them up.
These two looked oddly familiar... A flash of recognition shot through the mid-captain's mind — weren't these the two mercenaries they had captured at noon for crossing the border illegally?
*Shing.* The mid-captain drew his sword, its white blade flashing. "You... who are you people—"
"Shut your mouth and stay right where you are. We'll have questions for you soon enough." A sharp gleam passed through
"Go on with your story, Reddy," Lorist said, turning toward Reddy, who was feasting away.
"My lord," Reddy swallowed the mouthful of meat, "
"Count yourselves lucky you ran into us instead. Otherwise your heads would already be hanging from that big tree over there." Lorist glanced at the mid-captain and beckoned. "You. Come here."
The mid-captain gripped his sword, his entire body trembling. "You — aren't you afraid I'll raise the alarm and wake the soldiers in the camp? W-when they come, you won't be able to escape either..."
"Go ahead, shout your little alarm. As for the soldiers in this camp — four hundred and twenty-seven of them, one mid-company, isn't that right? They've all had their throats slit. If you can manage to wake them back up, I'll make you my boss." Lorist said.
"Pfft" — Reddy and Jim both burst out laughing. Jim in particular, spraying a mouthful of wine everywhere.
"No... that's impossible..." The mid-captain recalled the faint metallic scent of blood in the air, and his heart sank. The men he'd thought were decapitated were sitting right here drinking and eating meat. So who were the ones who had died? As for the sentries and patrols he'd seen — they were nothing but shadows. When he thought about the Viscount's escort of nearly a hundred men...
"Clang." The sword slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground. The mid-captain asked in despair, "Can I still survive?"
"That depends on how you perform." Lorist looked at the mid-captain and said, "I'll be straight with you. That convoy your Grand Duke has blockaded at the border belongs to my family. My objective is to rendezvous with the convoy, so I want to take the small path at the fork ahead to reach the shores of White Egret Lake. If you help me reach my destination, I'll let you go — on my family's honor."
The mid-captain shook his head. "It's no use. Even if you let me go, I can't escape death. Losing an entire mid-company — that's a capital offense. The Grand Duke won't spare me, and he won't spare my family either..."
"If they can't find you here, they'll assume you went missing or were killed in action. That way, Duke Madras won't move against your family," Lorist urged.
The mid-captain thought for a long while before finally nodding. "I want to take one person with me."
Lorist smiled. "Your little widow?"
The mid-captain nodded again.
"I agree. I didn't expect that a big rough man like you would turn out to be such a romantic — it's admirable, really. I swear on the name of the
...
At first light, Lorist and the others, dressed in the brown leather armor of the Madras Duchy's garrison troops, arrived at the checkpoint at the crossroads. They dismounted and formed up in neat rows.
The small squad leader of the checkpoint garrison soldiers hurried over.
"Huh? Mid-Captain Bosse, what are you doing here too? And isn't this shift change awfully early — aren't there still two days left?" the squad leader asked in surprise.
"Don't ask. These bastards violated two women in the mountain village last night, and now the whole place is in an uproar. I used a patrol as an excuse to sneak them out and dump them here before the villagers could find the culprits. Hurry up and assemble your men, and make sure your soldiers don't slip up when you get back — tell them you came out on patrol, not for a shift change," the mid-captain said, exasperated.
"Understood." The squad leader ran back excitedly to assemble his squad. Who would willingly stay in this godforsaken place? There was nowhere to eat, drink, or find any entertainment. Those bastards had their way with the women and fled here to escape retribution — other poor souls had to do their seven days, and God only knew how long they'd be stuck here. They deserved it!
Soon, a full squad of garrison soldiers at the checkpoint was assembled. After they were lined up and counted, the squad leader ran back over: "Report, Mid-Captain — the Seventh Garrison Squad is assembled. All one hundred and four men are present and accounted for."
But the mid-captain simply said, "My business here is done."
What did that mean? Before the squad leader could make sense of it, he heard a single command: "Loose!"
Arrows rained down like a deadly storm. The unsuspecting garrison squad became living targets, and screams of agony rose without end.
"You—" The squad leader was stunned, feeling a sudden chill in his gut as his body trembled from the searing pain.
"I'm sorry. I'm just trying to survive. I had no choice…" The mid-captain's twisted face became the last image that burned into the squad leader's mind…
"Check them all. Finish each one with a sword. Drag the bodies over there and throw them into the trench so we don't get discovered too early." Lorist gave the order.
"The next patrol from the front won't pass by here until eight o'clock. Even if they find something, they'd have to go to the small mountain village to report to me first, and then from there it'd take another hour or two to get word back up the chain. So we have the whole morning to travel. The problem is that a garrison company is camped at the intersection of the two small trails up ahead—they're the ones in charge of patrolling the lakeside. I can get them to open the gate for you, but after that, it's all on you. And remember, you promised not to let anyone discover what happened to me." The mid-captain held up the map and spoke to Lorist.
Lorist nodded. "Don't worry. I'll make sure every garrison soldier who's seen you is silenced."
Taking the map the mid-captain handed over, Lorist turned to Pete and Pat. "Once the gate is open, hit the enemy before they can react. After seizing the camp, use the wooden palisades to build rafts and float them to the lakeside. Also, set up a defensive position on the small hill between the camp and the lake to guard against any pursuing forces. All right, let's move out."
…
By the time they reached the garrison company's encampment, it was already afternoon. The four soldiers guarding the gate recognized the mid-captain and, seeing the five large wagons trailing behind him, assumed he was delivering supplies and provisions. Without raising any alarm, they swung the gate open—only to have their throats slit by
Pete and Pat led nearly a hundred mounted archers swarming through the gate, seizing the open ground at the center of the camp and raining arrows in every direction. One by one, the garrison soldiers who rushed over upon hearing the commotion were cut down. Screams and the clash of battle echoed throughout the camp.
For this garrison company stationed here, their only job had been to patrol the lakeside and the small trail leading to the Lichita fortress castle. The only threats they ever expected to face were smugglers trying to cross Lake Egret in violation of the Grand Duke's transit ban. They never dreamed they'd be subjected to a full-scale assault—some of the garrison soldiers died without even understanding what had happened.
Lorist charged through the camp with Jim and Redi, lance in hand, his horse galloping wildly as he used his spear to flip open each tent, making sure no hiding garrison soldiers were left behind.
As for the garrison mid-captain responsible for this camp and several squad leaders, they had barely stepped out of their tents when they were pinned to the ground by javelins thrown by Lorist, dying with their eyes wide open.
The camp was small, so the search and cleanup was finished quickly.
Pat walked over with a grim expression and reported, "My lord, we've only counted three hundred and eight garrison soldier corpses in the camp. One squad is missing."
Lorist raised an eyebrow and looked at Mid-Captain Bors beside him.
The mid-captain thought for a moment and said, "They might have gone on patrol. It's just unclear whether they headed to the lakeside or down the trail toward the fortress over there..."
Before he finished speaking, Jim beside them called out, "Over there..."
Lorist turned his head to look and saw a squad of garrison soldiers appearing on a distant hill, heading in their direction. Having spotted the bodies strewn about the camp from their elevated vantage point, they had grown suspicious and halted in their tracks.
"Pete, take the mounted archers and eliminate them quickly. Don't let any escape," Lorist ordered immediately.
Pete let out a sharp whistle, and half the mounted archers surged after him toward the hill.
"I'm coming too." Jim saddled up with several guards and gave chase.
"Up, we need to speed things up." Lorist directed the remaining mounted archers to tie their lassoes to the wooden palisade and then to the backs of several horses. He urged the horses forward to uproot the palisade by force.
"Wait, my Lord." Centurion Bosse stepped forward, blocking Lorist.
"Hmm, what is it?" Lorist asked.
"My Lord, the lower section of the palisade that's buried in the ground isn't necessary. The top is already semi-seasoned, but the wood still in the earth is wet. If you have a log like that floating in water, one end will be heavy and the other light, making it very difficult to balance. It would be better to cut off the buried portion. Only then will the raft be able to bear a greater weight..." the centurion explained hastily.
Lorist understood immediately and followed the good advice: "Do as he says. Cut off the lower part."
"My Lord, lend me a sword, and I'll help. Also, that wooden storehouse over there can be torn down to build the raft..." the centurion said.
"Return his sword to him," Lorist ordered Redi.
Centurion Bosse drew his blade, channeling his
"Not bad. Cutting wood with Combat Force is indeed faster," Lorist remarked. "Pat, have all the Silver ranks come over to cut the wood. Redi, take some men and tear down that storehouse."
By the time the dismantling was nearly complete, Jim and Pete returned.
"Sir, over a dozen escaped. They fled into the jungle and we couldn't pursue," Pete reported.
"How many casualties?"
"None on our side. They ran the moment they saw us. They were all by the lake with nowhere to go — those who jumped in and tried to swim across were all shot down. About half of them headed for the swamp, and most sank into it. We picked off several, but the remaining dozen or so got lucky and made it into the jungle. We couldn't cross the swamp, so we had no choice but to watch them escape..."
"Sir," Centurion Bosse came over, wiping the sweat from his brow. "It's about an hour's ride from here to the fortress castle at Lechida. Even accounting for the fleeing garrison soldiers running on foot, it would take them about two hours. Then another hour for them to mobilize and march back here. That gives us roughly three hours."
"Good. Everyone, move quickly. Bind the cut logs behind the horses and have them drag them to the lakeside. We'll build rafts there. Redi and Jim, take men and search the camp — don't leave behind any materials we can use for raft construction," Lorist clapped his hands a few times and called out.
A total of five large rafts were built, each just large enough to carry one cart. All the mounts were stripped of their saddles and bridles, and together with the dozen or so horses seized from the garrison battalion's camp, they were driven into the water to swim across.
Over a hundred men divided onto the five rafts and pushed off from the lakeshore with long poles, slowly making their way toward the opposite bank.
The sky had gradually dimmed, and in the twilight, a faint white mist rose over the lake's surface. Occasionally, the occasional whinny of a horse carried through the air, and the quiet lake echoed with the sound of paddles cutting through the water.
At this point along Egret Lake, the distance between the two banks was roughly four to five hundred meters — one of the narrower stretches. It was not until they had crossed the midpoint that faint shouts and the sounds of horses drifted in from behind them.
The reaction was truly sluggish, and Lorist laughed out loud. They would reach the opposite shore soon, and he would be seeing his companions from the caravan shortly. The next step was figuring out how to lead them all back home.
...