"Hard aport twenty-six, lower half the sails..."
"Aye, hard aport twenty-six, lowering half the sails!" Old Coder, the helmsman, bellowed in response as he strained to turn the helm. The bow slowly swung to port. On the mast, several agile sailors skillfully rolled up the fully-billowing sails halfway...
A fine rain fell over the sea. On the distant horizon, the Haneabada Islands finally came into view. Schumacher let out a long breath of relief, ordered the helmsman to adjust course, and led the fleet through the cold drizzle toward Numabit Port at full speed.
It was a quarter past six in the morning. It didn't look like the sun would make an appearance today. He could only hope the drizzling rain would let up by the time they reached Numabit Port — otherwise they'd be delayed another day before unloading. It wasn't a matter of whether the gangplanks would be slippery in the rain or whether the slaves doing the unloading would have trouble. The real problem was that most of the cargo and merchandise aboard hadn't been waterproofed, making unloading in the rain impossible.
Raindrops dripped steadily off gray-black animal-hide rain ponchos. Schumacher looked up at the sky, estimating they should reach Numabit Port around noon. Having spent the better part of his life at sea, Schumacher's experience-based estimates were remarkably accurate. He glanced back at the fleet under his command, and a flicker of pride rose in his heart. This was the Chikde Commerce Northern Fleet — the most powerful fleet in the northern seas. To have become its commander in his lifetime made it all worthwhile.
The voyage from Hidden Gold Bay to the Shaissya Kingdom took twenty-two to twenty-six days, because the archipelago where the Shaissya Kingdom was located sat further to the south. Chikde Commerce had studied the matter thoroughly: if sailors went fifteen days without sighting land, they grew irritable. By around twenty days, they became desperate and violent, making accidents almost inevitable. A single disagreement could escalate to bloodshed, and loss of life was no uncommon occurrence.
That was why the Chikde Northern Fleet always made the Shaissya Kingdom their first port of call for spice trading — sailors and crew fresh from departure had more patience and were more obedient, making them easier to control. The sea route to the Shaissya Kingdom was long but close enough to reach before things turned ugly. A ten-day rest in the Shaissya Kingdom would then calm the sailors' restless nerves, and the remaining ten-day voyage to the Haneabada Islands could be completed safely.
The return journey from the Haneabada Kingdom to Hidden Gold Bay also took over twenty days, but the voyage from the archipelago to the Galentea Continent's coastline was only about ten days. The remaining stretch would be spent sailing along the coast toward Hidden Gold Bay. By then, having spent two months at sea, the sailors would be aching to get home and far less likely to cause trouble. This was one of the clever, practical maritime tricks that Chikde Commerce had honed as the dominant power on the seas.
The Chikde Northern Fleet that arrived at the Haneabada Islands this time consisted of sixty-seven ships. Before departure, Chikde Commerce had specifically dispatched twenty-two large ocean-going merchant vessels to join the fleet. The reason lay in a letter sitting in Commander Schumacher's cabin.
The Glass War with the Trinbo Kingdom had severely weakened Chikde Commerce. While the armed regiment they'd assembled from sailors hadn't suffered major losses, the Commerce's elite combat forces had taken a devastating blow — two first-grade Great Swordmasters and seven Gold Swordsmen had perished, which was tantamount to roasting the Commerce over an open flame. Fortunately, the Commerce's young master Selihem had devised a string of brilliant stratagems that turned the tide of the Commercial Alliance's military campaign. He earned the deep trust of Komberleit, president of the Twin Dragon Commerce and commander of the Alliance forces, and after the war pushed hard to have the Ulubaha Duchy transferred to Chikde Commerce as its territory, ensuring the Commerce hadn't acted in vain.
However, while Chikde Commerce had obtained the Ulubaha Duchy, it faced a dire situation. Everyone knew Ulubaha was a poor, mountainous country. Its greatest difficulty was insufficient arable land — the grain produced was nowhere near enough to feed the population. That was why the Grand Duke of Ulubaha had organized two mercenary legions: first to earn some gold coins, and second to ease the burden on grain supplies.
As for the duchy's subjects, the previous Grand Duke couldn't have cared less whether they turned to piracy or banditry. He had no interest in collecting taxes from penniless subjects — far better to spend that time finding more employers for his two mercenary legions. That was where the real money was.
Now that the two mercenary legions had switched sides, they had become the Commerce's greatest burden. The Crimson Legion and the Three-Sword Legion were both small in scale, with only twenty-four thousand men each, but the combined force of nearly fifty thousand soldiers, along with their families and relatives, came to roughly two hundred thousand people — nearly a quarter of the duchy's total population. The previous Grand Duke could afford to disregard the families of these legion soldiers. In his eyes, they were cannon fodder who earned him money, and providing them with meager salaries that kept them alive was already an act of supreme generosity.
Now that Chikde Commerce was in charge, they had no intention of being treated with the same loyalty the soldiers had shown the previous Grand Duke. Not only did they need to reorganize both legions into proper military units, they needed the soldiers' loyalty. That meant enforcing strict military discipline while also looking after the soldiers' families. But the Glass War had sent the Commercial Alliance's grain prices skyrocketing — they had multiplied several times over. Especially after the war, when various nations' attitudes toward the Commercial Alliance shifted from friendly to guarded, cutting off more than half the trade routes. Staple goods like grain and iron ore were even placed under embargo, keeping the Alliance's grain prices stubbornly high.
If the plan could be carried out and the situation in mountainous Ulubaha turned around, within just two or three years, the Commerce's territory would be self-sufficient and might even generate considerable revenue.
But the problem was that Chikde Commerce, even with money in hand, couldn't buy grain from surrounding nations. What little could be obtained came at exorbitant prices, and even a wealthy outfit like Chikde Commerce couldn't sustain that. That was why twenty-plus large ocean-going merchant vessels had been added to the Northern Fleet — in hopes of purchasing one million Pu'er of grain from the Haneabada Kingdom. (One Pu'er equaled one hundred jin, a unit of measurement on the Galentea Continent, derived from the Pu'er hemp sacks that held one hundred jin.)
The letter in Commander Schumacher's cabin was a personal missive from the president of Chikde Commerce to King Luder III of the Haneabada Kingdom. In it, the president requested that King Luder III, out of the long-standing friendly relations between Chikde Commerce and the Haneabada Kingdom, agree to sell grain to the Commerce. There was no alternative — a grain transaction of such magnitude required the king's personal approval. For this purpose, Chikde Commerce had also prepared a large consignment of precious gifts to present to Luder III.
The fleet sailed slowly along the waterway leading to Numabit Port. Standing on the deck platform, Schumacher gazed at the islands shrouded in misty rain nearby and felt a twinge of puzzlement. Strange — at this hour, he couldn't see any slaves working on the islands. Had those slave-owning nobles developed a conscience, keeping the slaves indoors lest they catch cold in this weather? After a moment's thought, Schumacher couldn't help but scoff at himself. What did he care? Whether the slaves worked or not was none of his damn business...
The merchant ships' decks were packed with sailors and crew. Compared to the Shaissya Kingdom, these seafaring men preferred visiting this slave-holding kingdom. Setting everything else aside, just the quality of the women in the brothels — the Haneabada Kingdom was leagues ahead of the Shaissya Kingdom. The women who solicited customers at Shaissya's docks were mostly the wives and daughters of fishermen and farmers, every last one of them tanned dark as pitch, reeking of fish and earth.
But the women in the Haneabada Kingdom's brothels were female slaves brought in from all across the Galentea Continent. They were not only cheap but plentiful — more than enough for the fleet's sailors and crew to drink themselves into oblivion on their bodies for days and nights on end, washing away the fatigue and tedium of the long voyage.
When they passed Feather Fall Island, Schumacher finally spotted some slaves. It appeared to be a family of three, standing in front of a dilapidated stone house on the island, watching the fleet pass with expressionless faces...
"That's strange — the slave owners are letting slaves live as families now?" Kuchud, the first-grade Great Swordmaster on the deck platform, muttered.
Chikde Commerce had originally patronized five Great Swordmasters. One had been killed when they intercepted
Great Swordmaster Kuchud had been stationed with the Northern Fleet precisely because Chikde Commerce took this grain-purchasing expedition to the Haneabada Kingdom very seriously. Not wanting any mishaps, they had specifically transferred him from the Southern Armed Fleet to the Northern Fleet.
"Heh heh, Great Swordmaster, you may not know this, but the Haneabada Kingdom does allow slaves to marry and start families," old Coder the helmsman said with a chuckle. "When female slaves get old and past their prime, the great nobles will sometimes bestow them as wives to their own slaves. But only after they've had their fill of them. And when a female slave gets pregnant by one of them, they just grab some random slave to play the cheap father. That way, whenever they feel like it, they can go back for more, and the poor sap of a 'father' has to stand guard outside for them..."
"Haha! Looks like being a noble in the Haneabada Kingdom is pretty comfortable after all — keeping a bunch of slaves, running an estate, living the good life. Every slave's life and death is in your hands. You can have whatever you want..." Great Swordmaster Kuchud laughed along.
Schumacher shook his head dismissively. They were all picturing themselves in the slave owners' shoes without ever considering what it would be like if they were the slaves — how humiliating and miserable that existence would be. But as commander of the Chikde Commerce Northern Fleet, what Schumacher cared about was whether he could complete his mission and secure the grain trade with the Haneabada Kingdom, not sympathizing with a bunch of lowly slaves.
Past Feather Fall Island, Gold Shark Island and Duck Island lay ahead, and in the distance Numabit Port was already visible. Perhaps because of the cold rain, there was hardly a soul on the docks, and the several mooring piers along the coast stood empty and desolate on both sides — nothing like the usual bustle of ships large and small packed in port.
"What's going on? Numabit Port is completely deserted — what happened?" Old Coder the helmsman was stunned.
"Isn't it good to have so many open berths?" Schumacher rolled his eyes. "Didn't we get word before we set sail? All the slave-owning nobles of the Haneabada Kingdom have banded together and sent their forces to strike Silowas Island in the Andinak Kingdom — that count's territory that's hostile to our Commerce. The reason there are no ships and hardly anyone here is probably that they've gone out for another round after their previous success."
The explanation was perfectly reasonable, and no one could refute it.
But the closer they got to Numabit Port, the more sailors and crew crowded onto the decks, everyone impatient to get off the ships and find some entertainment.
Wait — what was that? The slave-owning nobles had built such a massive, mountain-like pyramid on the dock — what were they up to?
As the distance closed, Great Swordmaster Kuchud, who had been staring at the pyramid, suddenly sucked in a sharp breath and began to tremble all over.
"What's wrong?" Schumacher asked.
"That — that's made of heads... all — all of them are heads — human heads — heads built — built into a pyr — pyramid..." Great Swordmaster Kuchud finally managed to stammer out a complete sentence through his trembling.
"What did you say?" Schumacher lunged to the right and looked up. A wave of icy dread cascaded over him as though someone had doused him with freezing water — his entire body went rigid with cold, as if he had plunged into an ice pit...
The fleet was barely a hundred meters from Numabit Port's docks and still closing. And there, towering over the beach to the right of the docks, rose a pyramid over thirty meters tall. Pyramids themselves were nothing unusual — the ruins excavated across the Galentea Continent included no shortage of pyramid-shaped structures, though most were tombs. But this pyramid, erected right beside Numabit Port's docks, was constructed entirely from human heads, from top to bottom...
These heads had clearly been preserved. On their pale faces lingered the expressions they had worn in their final moments — despair, agony, madness. Every single head bore the same. And between them, a transparent vine resin had been poured in, so the whole structure looked like an enormous pyramid-shaped crystal containing countless human heads...
Every sailor and crew member on the fleet's decks fell deathly silent. They felt their hands and feet going cold, refusing to obey. An indescribable terror surged up from the depths of their hearts — teeth chattered, limbs trembled, their entire bodies shook...
Many of the fleet's fiercest, most battle-hardened sailors had witnessed hundreds or even thousands of deaths. Some had crawled out of piles of corpses with their own hands. But facing this colossal pyramid of heads, not a single one could maintain his nerve. They stared blankly at the pyramid of heads, forgetting their duties, forgetting what they were supposed to do and what they needed to do...
A dozen or so ships collided as their handlers stood in a daze and made critical errors. The entire fleet became tangled together.
Schumacher snapped back to his senses and was about to order the fleet to reorganize when he heard a blaring horn echoing over Numabit Port.
Countless well-equipped soldiers surged onto the docks, forming battle ranks. Among them, numerous scorpion ballistae were wheeled to the front lines, their massive, gleaming bolts aimed at the fleet, ready to fire.
Schumacher and Great Swordmaster Kuchud's faces drained of color. Immediately after, horn blasts sounded from Gold Shark Island and Duck Island on both sides — long columns of soldiers appeared on the islands along with rows of oddly shaped war vehicles. Then more horn blasts came from behind the fleet — seven or eight large ships had sealed off the fleet's sea passage into the port. The Chikde Commerce Northern Fleet was now boxed in on all sides, with no way to escape even if it sprouted wings.
Lorist strode onto the dock flanked by the two Great Swordmasters Yingjieliek and Hughes. Facing the chaotic fleet, his voice boomed like thunder: "Lay down your weapons and you shall be spared! Come ashore and surrender!"
All the
The Northern Fleet answered with silence...
Lorist raised his hand, and the horn sounded once more.
From Gold Shark Island and Duck Island, the stone-throwing catapults in the front ranks launched their first volley of incendiary fire bombs toward the open waters behind the fleet. The projectiles arced across more than four hundred meters and smashed into the sea, sending plumes of water several meters high into the air.
Schumacher's face turned ashen. "What do we do?"
Great Swordmaster Kuchud clenched his teeth. "There's nothing we can do. At least one of them on the dock is a Great Swordmaster, and his killing intent is overwhelming. I — I'm afraid I'm no match for him..."
Schumacher turned to look at the sailors and crew on the decks. Not one of them dared meet his gaze. In the face of that enormous pyramid of heads, almost everyone had lost the courage to resist. Now, caught in a trap and surrounded on all sides, resistance meant only death.
Schumacher hung his head in heavy silence and issued the final order of his command as fleet commander: "Lower the sails. Raise the white flag. Bring us to shore. We surrender..."
...
(To be continued.)