The thunderous rumble of hooves shattered the stillness of the dark night.
Nearly a hundred light cavalry charged forward at full gallop, only halting when they reached the gap between two hills. The burly man at the front raised a hand, and a squad of a dozen or so riders broke off to spread out and stand guard around the perimeter. The remaining knights dismounted and began feeding and watering their horses, taking a brief rest. An hour later, the hundred-plus light cavalry remounted and galloped off toward the royal city plains…
No one realized that when the hundred-odd light cavalry set off again, two of their number had gone missing.
If one followed the main road from Nubit Harbor to the Hamidas royal city, a carriage could make the trip from morning to night, needing only fourteen or fifteen hours. A messenger on horseback could arrive in ten hours. But on foot, it would take at least a day and a half, usually two full days.
Lorist and Tagel could not take the main road to the Hamidas royal city. After all, the road leading to the capital was now under the control of the
They walked for over two hours, resting twice. The sky had begun to lighten to a faint gray.
Lorist, who was in the lead, stopped in his tracks and pointed ahead, then he and Tagel flanked left and right to encircle forward.
It was a sparse grove of small trees. Not far off stood a low rocky hillock, and from just beyond it came the sound of rushing water and the noise of voices arguing…
At the foot of the rocky hillock ran a swift-flowing stream. By the rocky banks of the stream, several people were resting — nobles who, by the look of them, had fled from Nubit Harbor.
Standing in the middle of the stream was a tall, dark-skinned man, his bare back covered in rows of old whip scars. At this moment he was bent over, trying to catch fish from the thigh-deep current, but he seemed to have no experience at it — though his hands were as large as palm-leaf fans, he was always a step too slow, and despite being soaked to the bone, he hadn't caught a single fish.
Sitting on a large rock at the water's edge was a gorgeously dressed nobleman, around thirty years of age, his face pale, his eyes vacant, his entire body slumped against the rock. His bare feet were being massaged by an old man in grey clothing, and all the while he hurled a relentless stream of curses at the big man in the stream, calling him useless, good-for-nothing, and worse.
Beside this nobleman, a middle-aged man in his forties crouched low, wearing a brown leather cuirass and resting his weight on a long sword. His eyes were fixed on the stream, and from time to time he chimed in with a curse or two of his own.
Behind this middle-aged man, three or four metres away, a broad-shouldered fellow in gleaming silver chainmail lay sprawled on a flat slab of rock, hands folded behind his head, watching the spectacle before him with total indifference, looking for all the world like someone with no stake in the matter.
Tagel made a series of hand signals to Lorist. When Lorist nodded, Tagel calmly stepped out from behind the tree that had been hiding him and walked toward the riverbank.
"Who's there?" The chainmail-clad man lying on the stone slab was the most alert — he sprang to his feet in a single fluid motion, drawing his sword and dropping into a guard stance. A flash of gold flickered along the blade, revealing a golden-tier swordsman. Yet despite his rank, his guard stance was almost comical: one foot hovering forward, weight shifting back — a posture that said he would bolt the instant things looked bad.
The crouching middle-aged man and the nobleman leaning against the rock both fell silent at once. The middle-aged man drew his sword and held it up with trembling hands in a feeble attempt at a guard. The nobleman kicked the old man who had been massaging his feet and snapped, "Get my shoes on me, now!"
The big man in the stream straightened up as well, eyes wary, staring toward the trees where the noise had come from.
"There's no need to be alarmed, Khalik. It's me." Tagel appeared at the edge of the stream.
The middle-aged man holding the long sword recognized Tagel and froze for a moment. "It's you, Tagel?"
"Damn it all, you idiots nearly got me killed. Forcing me into the inner city, blabbering about how it could be held — and then before the enemy even attacked, you lot gave up the inner city and tried to break out, leaving me at the back of the column where I nearly got captured. If I hadn't been damn lucky, I'd be dead because of you..." Tagel cursed and swore as he stepped across several large boulders to cross the stream, heading toward the middle-aged man.
Recognizing Tagel, the middle-aged man let out a sigh of relief. "It's you, Tagel. I thought Clement and the others were with you..."
"Clement? He's dead. He was with us when we left the city, but an iron crossbow bolt flew out of nowhere not far from the gate and pinned him straight to the wall — scared us half to death. Then we kept running, and by dawn I'd gotten separated from Bailop, Filinde, and the rest. After that, the enemy cavalry caught up again..." Tagel spouted his nonsense as he walked up to the middle-aged man.
"You made it here alone?" The question didn't come from the middle-aged man named Khalik, but from the gold-tier swordsman, whose expression was still sharp with vigilance.
"Give me a break — since when have I ever had that kind of ability?" Tagel slumped down with an exhausted look, scooped up a few handfuls of water from the stream and gulped them down before answering. "If our merchant guild hadn't secretly sent three guards to shadow us, I'd have been captured or killed by those cavalrymen long ago."
"Locke, come out. It's all friendlies — no danger." Tagel called toward the woods twice. Lorist slipped out from the trees and walked over slowly, maintaining his guard.
"He's a guard from your merchant guild? Why haven't I seen him before?" the middle-aged man named Khalik asked curiously.
"They were shadowing us in secret — first, to protect Al and me, and second, to report back to the guild on our conduct during this journey. If things hadn't gotten so dire, they wouldn't have shown themselves." Tagel explained.
Oh, everyone understood now. This was a tradition among many noble houses in Galentea — when a young member of the family set out to travel, agents would be secretly dispatched to follow and protect them, reporting back in detail on their journey and behavior along the way. This allowed the family to gauge the young person's character, assess whether they had the talent to inherit the family legacy, or whether they were worth investing heavily in. No one had expected Tagel to enjoy such treatment as well.
"But didn't you say there were three of them?" Khalik glanced at Lorist and asked.
Tagel cursed loudly: "I don't know what goddamn luck I had to end up traveling to your piece-of-shit archipelago, only to run smack into this damned war! Didn't you people say you had no enemies? You've got enemies beating down your front door! If I had stayed in the outer city and revealed my identity right away, with the name of the Peterson Trading Company behind me, I might not have been treated like a VIP, but at least my life would have been safe.
Instead, you lot dragged me into the inner city, then charged out through the enemy lines with you. I ran half the night and ran into cavalry, and those bastards didn't even listen to my explanations — they just drew their swords and hacked. If those three guards hadn't saved me, I'd have been done for long ago. And now look — three cavalrymen are dead, we've lost two of our own, and those horsemen are still hot on our tails. If Lock hadn't known the mountains and led me to escape, would I have had to cross ridges and climb peaks and suffer all this hardship?"
Khalik rubbed his nose sheepishly. "Tagel, we brought you to the inner city because we wanted to protect you. That was just a friend looking out for you. We simply didn't expect the enemy to be that strong..."
Tagel flicked his hands, shaking the water droplets off. "How the hell did you end up with such powerful enemies in the first place? I think I heard someone at the trading company mention this family with the bear on their banner — I just can't recall the name off the top of my head."
Khalik squatted back down. "I'm not entirely sure either. I heard that two or three months ago, the nobles and slave traders of the kingdom banded together and sent tens of thousands of men to Shilovas Island in the Andinak Kingdom for a big hunt — captured tens of thousands of refugees and turned them into slaves. But that operation cost them dearly; a lot of men died. Shilovas Island seems to be the territory of a family called the Nortons..."
"The Nortons?" Tagel jumped to his feet as if he'd been stung. "Damn it all — you actually dared to provoke the Norton Family? No wonder they came knocking at your door..."
"Oh? You've heard of the Norton Family?" Khalik asked.
"Of course I have. They're known as the Roaring Bears of the North — a military noble house from the old Krisen Empire, tasked with guarding the empire's northern frontier. Before I set out on my travels, I heard at the trading company that the Nortons single-handedly crushed the Iberian Kingdom's army of a hundred thousand. Have you lot completely lost your minds, going after enemies like that? A military noble family with that kind of record — once you make enemies of them, they'll never stop until one side is destroyed. You're in deep trouble. But what I can't figure out is — aren't the Nortons' territories up in the Northland? How did Shilovas Island become their domain too?"
"Honestly, I don't know that either. I heard Shilovas Island is one of the Nortons' new territories. The family recruited fifty or sixty thousand able-bodied refugees to develop and build up the island, and that's when the higher-ups started eyeing those refugees. At our last gathering, people were saying our Haniebadan Kingdom has been short on slaves these past few years, so when word got out about so many prime refugees, everyone was drooling..." Khalik explained.
"Are the nobles of your Haniebadan Kingdom all idiots? Before making a move, shouldn't you at least figure out who you're dealing with? Use your heads for once — what kind of noble family can recruit fifty or sixty thousand young refugees to develop territory on their own holdings? Ordinary nobles can't even feed fifty or sixty thousand of their own subjects! And your kingdom's slave shortage is your own damn fault — who told you to treat slaves like they aren't human and work them to death? When they die off, of course you don't have enough. Why can't you understand that slaves aren't disposable goods? They create wealth for their masters. Treat them a little better, is that so hard? The more slaves die, the more the slave owners lose — it's such simple logic, how do you people not get it?" Tagel scolded.
"Khalik, where is this friend from? He sounds like he's got quite the grudge against the nobles of our Haniebadan Kingdom. Why don't we ask him to demonstrate how to discipline slaves into proper work?" The pale-faced noble who was leaning against the large boulder spoke up.
"Uh, my Lord Viscount, I apologize — I forgot to make introductions. This is young master Tagel, eldest son of Vice President Peterson of the Peterson Trading Company, one of the Seven Titans of the Mercantile Alliance. He and another young master, Erribok, are traveling through our Kingdom to broaden their horizons. And that's his bodyguard, named... named..." Khalik had forgotten what Lorist's name was.
"His name is Locke. He's a bodyguard of our Peterson Trading Company. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, most honored Lord Viscount. Tagel of the Peterson Trading Company pays his respects." Tagel bowed with exaggerated respect toward the pale-faced noble who was half-reclining on the rock. However, the noble put on airs worthy of his station and simply let out two snorts from his nose — which was apparently meant as his reply.
"Who is he?" Tagel didn't seem to mind at all. He tugged Khalik a couple of steps away and whispered by the stream.
"With his rank, it's very likely he could be elevated back to Count..." Khalik replied in an equally low voice.
The Seventeen Founding Dukes were, in reality, the leaders of seventeen of the larger pirate gangs that had founded the Haniebadan Kingdom. They were granted the title of Duke, of course, but the Pirate King who established the Kingdom wasn't one to be trifled with. He laid down a rule: if a Duke's heir refused to pay a rather substantial inheritance fee for the title, the title would be inherited one rank lower. Naturally, the territories and holdings wouldn't change — it was just that the nominal title being lower sounded rather unsavory. So it would seem that this Viscount's ancestors were all misers who refused to pay the inheritance fee, and so the title had been downgraded to Viscount.
"And that one?" Tagel glanced with his eyes at the golden swordsman lying on the large stone slab behind them.
"That's a Golden Knight of Duke Guffman. I think his name is Aus or something — I don't know him personally. But we ran into him yesterday afternoon, and Viscount Timba paid a hefty sum to hire him to escort us to the Hamidas royal capital," Khalik said.
This Khalik was one of the fair-weather friends Tagel had picked up in Nubite City, serving as a minor steward in the city lord's manor, responsible for auditing and overseeing the warehouse accounts. After Tagel treated him to drinks a few times and sent him a couple of gifts, the two had become fast friends — and Khalik had practically spilled everything about how many material reserves were stored in Nubite Port's warehouses.
Tagel had promised him that if the Peterson Trading Company set up a trading post in Nubite Port, he would receive a ten percent share with no investment required. So, out of concern for his major patron's safety, after the Norton Family's armed forces made landfall and crushed the three-thousand-odd ragtag soldiers made up of slave-hunting squads who had been sent out to meet them, he had desperately dragged Tagel into the inner city...
As a regular visitor to the city lord's mansion, Viscount Timba naturally knew Khalik, the minor steward. After breaking out of Nubite Port the day before, the viscount had fled rapidly in his carriage, but his luck had run out — he was the first to reach this stretch of hilly terrain and became a priority target for the scout battalion led by Josc and
In his desperation, Timba had spotted Khalik, and promptly dragooned him into serving as his bodyguard. Later, when Duke Guffman and the others arrived, Timba — stripped bare of guards and servants — had become an afterthought. Terrified that his group would be designated as the ones sent to the front lines to die, Khalik had suggested the viscount take the back trails, avoid the main roads, cross over the hills, and make for the royal city that way.
Khalik suspected the golden knight named Aus had deserted in the middle of the battle, which was why he was heading in the same direction. But since Viscount Timba knew him and had hired him for the escort, there was nothing Khalik could do about it. After all, the man was a golden knight while he was merely black iron — his opinion carried no weight.
Khalik had whispered privately to Tagel: the golden knight called Aus could not be trusted. If he was willing to betray Duke Guffman, the head of the family, and flee the battlefield, then to him they were all nothing more than a swarm of ants. If not for the fact that Timba had lost all his luggage and valuables — and had promised a hefty sum upon their return to the royal city — Khalik suspected Aus might simply murder them right there for whatever they had.
Which was exactly why seeing Tagel made Khalik the happiest man alive. At the very least, Tagel was a silver swordsman — if something went wrong, he could hold off an attacker for a few crucial blows, buying Khalik just enough time to run for his life.
"So what are you doing now?" Tagel asked, full of curiosity.
...(To be continued.)