Falama Village sat atop a small hill with a stream running along its base. By the time
Pate rode forward on a mule they had found in Whitebird Town and called out, "Open the gates! The lord of Hilovas Island, Count
Nobody inside the village paid him any attention. Pate shouted three times before a burly man's head finally appeared atop the village's palisade wall. The man held up a longbow and yelled, "This is Falama Village! We serve the Second Highness! This is not your lord's territory. Get lost, or you'll learn firsthand what our longbows can do..."
Pate was fuming with rage. He certainly couldn't charge the closed gates single-handedly while riding a mule. Gritting his teeth, he rode back and reported Falama Village's reply to Lorist, who was waiting at the base of the hill.
Lorist was sitting in an ornately decorated carriage — one of the war spoils from the capture of Wanghai Manor the day before. Wanghai Manor had only had three carriages and six horses in total: one for passengers and two for cargo. Now, besides the two draft horses pulling Lorist's carriage, the remaining four horses had been temporarily assigned as mounts for Farey, Jasko, and the others.
"My lord, should we just storm in?" Farey asked.
Lorist shook his head. This Falama Village was no Wanghai Manor. Hick had given him a detailed briefing the day before — the original small settlement here had been called Little River Village, situated beside the stream at the foot of the hill. After the
Most of those who had followed the Second Prince to Hilovas Island back then were his trusted confidants. They had brought their families along, totaling over four thousand people. Many of them had fought in campaigns alongside the Second Prince, but they were getting on in years or bore serious wounds, and they wanted to settle down. So the Second Prince had relocated the original Little River Village residents elsewhere and ordered a staff advisor named Falama — who happened to be an expert in architecture — to build a proper settlement for these meritorious veterans.
As it turned out, entrusting this task to an advisor named Falama was a case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Falama still had castle-building stuck in his head. He first abandoned the original site of Little River Village, deeming it unsafe and inadequately defended. He then moved the new settlement up onto the hill, modeling it after the scale of a fortified castle.
If the Second Prince hadn't impulsively gone to check on the construction site one day, he never would have discovered that Falama intended to build a small fortress castle. By the calculations, it would take four years to complete. The Second Prince was furious, grabbing Falama by the collar and demanding to know who exactly they needed a fortress castle to defend against here. He immediately struck Falama from his roster of staff advisors.
Falama left Hilovas Island, but the construction was already underway. Out of a principle of not wasting resources, the Second Prince gritted his teeth and approved the original fortress castle design, only making extensive cuts during construction — for instance, the village's stone walls were replaced with palisades of raw logs and mud bricks. Eventually the village was completed, and everyone asked the Second Prince to bestow a name. The Second Prince said, since it was Falama's design, they might as well call it Falama Village.
And so Falama Village became the place where the Second Prince settled his subordinates. The surrounding plains were incorporated into the village's territory and fully developed. This was the most arable land on Hilovas Island, with a total of over six thousand mu of farmland. After the Second Prince left Hilovas Island to return to the royal capital and reclaim power, over four hundred households — more than thirteen hundred people — remained in Falama Village, unwilling to leave. They continued to occupy the farmland and refused to pay taxes.
Hick told Lorist that Falama Village currently had over three hundred veterans, most of whom had seen battle, tasted blood, and killed men. They were seasoned battlefield veterans who had survived life and death during the imperial civil war, and virtually all of them had awakened combat aura. Among them, roughly a hundred possessed
Lorist surveyed the people he had brought along. Josk and Pharea, two Gold Knights; El, Pat,
Also following him to Falama Village were a hundred garrison troops from White Bird Town led by the lame Victor, dressed in cloth and carrying spears. They had come along to watch the excitement and serve as background — they weren't even qualified to be cannon fodder. Taking them to attack Falama Village would be a pipe dream.
Lorist had no doubt whatsoever that charging in with Josk and the others alone would bring victory, but it certainly wouldn't be a pleasant one. Setting aside the massacre and rivers of blood, he feared his guards and sailors would suffer heavy casualties. Lorist had no interest in spending his people recklessly in such a fight. There was plenty of time anyway — he might as well play along with these rebellious Falama villagers and treat it as a tactical lesson for Schwad.
He waved Victor over, and the lame garrison captain hobbled toward him.
"Victor, does Falama Village rely entirely on this small stream down below for its water supply?" Lorist asked.
"That's correct, my lord," Victor replied.
"Tell me the specifics."
"First, there's water within the village. Second, they also dug a well that connects to the river channel below, and there's a reservoir nearby. So it's simply impossible to stop them from drawing water from the stream." When Lorist asked about Falama Village's water supply, Victor immediately knew what the lord had in mind. After all, he had been an officer in the Gale Legion, one of the three main legions of the former empire, and he did have that much insight.
Lorist smiled. "Schwade, ride back to White Bird Town and have Shrade issue a notice. Recruit a thousand young men with digging tools. One small silver coin per day, three meals included."
Victor was aghast. "My lord, you're not planning to trick a thousand young men into becoming cannon fodder for attacking the village, are you?"
Lorist pursed his lips. "I don't have the cruel heart you think I do. The Norton Family never stoops to such things. Order your garrison troops to prepare camp. When the men arrive tomorrow, you'll know what I'm planning."
Schwade spurred his horse and rode off.
The next day around noon, a long column of young men arrived under the lead of
"My lord, what do you plan to do?" Fatty Shi asked.
"Just watch. I'm going to redirect the small stream below that hillock over there. Start digging from that end, then dig a trench three hundred meters around with the hillock at the center. Let's see what those fools up top do when they lose their water."
Lorist spoke casually, but Victor's head was spinning. In the end, the lord's plan was still to cut off Falama Village's water supply — but unlike what he had imagined, it wasn't about braving arrows to block the stream below. Instead, they would divert the river from far away. This was a massive undertaking: a thousand laborers, a thousand coins per day, plus meals totaling at least twenty gold Forde daily. Five days would be a hundred gold Forde; ten days, two hundred. It was simply bullying — crushing the enemy with gold Forde...
For the sake of freedom, the villagers of Falama Village stubbornly clung to their pride even after their water was cut off, refusing to bow to the wicked lord who wanted to climb atop them and oppress them. But ten days later, another thousand soldiers arrived, their armor gleaming, outfitted with the Norton Family's standard equipment. They finally fell into despair.
"My lord, Nors is here reporting as ordered with one thousand soldiers from the Guard Battalion." Nors stood at attention and saluted Lorist.
Two whaler ships, each carrying five hundred soldiers, had finally reached the Shilowas Island. They had departed only two days after Lorist, but were ten days slower than Dawn's Flying Fish. The leader, Nors, was an old acquaintance. During the first magical beast tide, he had been the Garrison Knight of Beast Taming City, assisting Lorist in turning the central town of the Sixth District into an ice fortress by flooding it with water.
This time, Lorist planned to establish the Third Guard Battalion and the Second Sailor Battalion on Shilowas Island. The one thousand Guard Battalion soldiers Nors brought were all veterans pulled from the Second Guard Battalion. In two months, the Family would send another thousand recruits, and then a thousand more local young men would be conscripted from Shilowas Island itself. That would bring the Third Guard Battalion to full strength.
"How was the journey?" Lorist asked.
Nors smiled. "Many were seasick at first, but after about ten days they got used to it. Though, when we finally disembarked this morning, a whole bunch of them collapsed. It took a couple of hours of rest before they recovered."
"A normal phenomenon," Lorist said. "After being on a ship for a long time, everyone feels like the ground is swaying when they reach land. Heh."
"My lord, are you going to attack that village? Do you want us to go up there?" Nors asked.
"It's nothing. Look at the grass below the hillock—it's yellowed and withered. Without water, they won't last a few more days. The only reason I've been playing along is to avoid any casualties among the Family's forces. It will be over soon. You all rest for a few days. The security of Shilowas Island will be in your hands from now on."
"Understood. Please rest assured, my lord. The Third Guard Battalion will not fail your expectations." Nors saluted.
Just as Lorist breathed a sigh of relief at Nors's arrival with a thousand close-guard soldiers, a grim, death-defying atmosphere pervaded Falama Village. One hundred and twenty-eight old veterans in their forties and fifties donned their ancient leather armor, picked up their blades and spears once more, solemnly drained the last jar of homebrew liquor, and filed toward the village gate. Among them were old men missing hands or feet, still hobbling forward on crutches. Lining both sides of the village road stood their families, silently weeping as they watched the old warriors depart.
These one hundred and twenty-eight veterans were every last Silver-rank warrior Falama Village possessed. They intended to charge to their deaths against the Norton Family's forces while screaming the name of the Second Prince, Agostero. They believed their deaths would bring terror and shock to that Lord Count Norton, and would ignite the Second Prince's fury—thereby buying a path to survival for their families.
The gate opened. One hundred and twenty-eight veterans charged out with the heroic resolve to die on the battlefield. Uh—the distance was a bit much. Lorist had ordered the moat dug three hundred meters out, which meant these brave old warriors first had to run three hundred meters and then leap across a moat before they could crash into the Norton Family's formations and fulfill their wish to die in combat. This seemed rather unfair to those old men at the rear who were propped up on crutches.
"He'll go level mountains!"
Everyone burst out laughing. When the family had developed the black mud swamp, they'd leveled two peaks off the Blade Edge Mountains. Which Silver-rank warrior hadn't been put to manual labor? Using sword energy to carve through rock was far more efficient than chiseling by hand.
They were advanced in years, after all. First they'd sprinted three hundred meters, then jumped across a moat two to three meters wide—their momentum was thoroughly spent. All one hundred and twenty-eight veterans collapsed. Lorist alone had knocked out nearly half of them. He'd even grown impatient enough to leap across the moat and advance several dozen meters to disarm those old men on crutches who were still gasping for breath.
There was no heroic scene of dying on the battlefield. Every last old man was bound like a zongzi dumpling and packed together in a heap. Lorist even impatiently ordered the Family soldiers to bring these old men clean water to quench their thirst—in his eyes, these veterans were worth their weight in gold.
Falama Village surrendered, hoisting the universal white flag. All the villagers filed out, the old supported and the young carried. The very first thing they did was find water and drink their fill.
Once they'd had their fill of water, Lorist announced his sentence to these villagers—faces etched with despair, grief, and bitter helplessness: hard labor. Since they had refused to pay taxes for five years, every last one of them—men, women, old, and young—would serve five years of compulsory labor as punishment. After five years, they would be free to go wherever they pleased.
One astonished old man couldn't help but ask, "My lord, you're not going to hang us? You're not going to tear our homes apart? You're not going to sell our families into slavery?"
Lorist's face darkened as he said, "The Norton Family does not keep slaves, nor does it deal in the slave trade. The punishment for wrongdoing is compulsory labor. Only if your crimes are severe enough or if you've taken a life will you be hanged. As long as you serve your labor sentences in peace, we won't break up your families. But you must remember—if you resist or slack off, your families will be implicated and suffer alongside you."
With Falama Village settled, the journey to the imperial capital was drawing near. Lorist decided to bring five hundred soldiers from his personal guard battalion. Fatty was left behind on Silowas Island, in charge of population registration, establishing the camp for the soon-to-be-formed Third Personal Guard Battalion, the naval outpost for the future Second Naval Battalion, and the preliminary development plans for the island.
Lorist had originally intended to have Jim take command of the Third Personal Guard Battalion, which was being formed. After all, Jim had been at his side long enough—it was time to let him go out on his own. Norths, steady and dependable, would be reassigned to lead the Second Naval Battalion, recruiting suitable sailors on Silowas Island. But as it turned out, Pat had fallen in love. He was pursuing Martha, the beauty from the White Bird Restaurant whom he had once scared to tears, and had no desire to go to the capital.
Lorist could only wish him well, hoping his wishes would come true and he would bring home his beloved before long. So he swapped the assignments of Jim and Pat, making Pat the commander of the Third Personal Guard Battalion that was being assembled.
…(To be continued.)