Time rewound to yesterday afternoon.
Upon returning from a hunt, Art decided to raid Southern Manor in Bilton one last time before leaving Talburg. Several idle officers immediately agreed to Art's decision, and amidst their chatter, an even more insidious plan was concocted.
Yesterday afternoon, twelve fully armed elite Soldiers from Talburg, personally led by Art, galloped along the hunter's path towards Southern Manor.
Before nightfall, thirteen shadows appeared at the edge of the mountains behind Southern Manor.
After waiting quietly in the cold darkness for most of the night, the two guards on duty at the manor's stockade wall finally couldn't hold on. Shivering in the cold wind, wrapped in winter coats and fur-lined jackets, they curled up behind the battlements and fell asleep. After confirming that the guards on duty on the stockade wall were asleep, Art led a dozen Soldiers to the base of the manor wall.
Ever since Southern Manor was threatened by mountain bandits, Master Chares had continuously reinforced and heightened the manor's stockade wall. This stockade wall was nearly thirty feet high, with sharpened wooden stakes resembling barbs extending outwards from the top. Ladders and climbing hooks were difficult to attach to the wall, and it was even harder for enemies to climb over the barbs to reach the top of the wall.
Since wooden ladders and climbing hooks were useless, Art and his group simply didn't prepare those things. Instead, they prepared several sets of tattered commoner clothes.
Before dawn, thirteen people approached the manor's stockade gate. In hushed silence, eleven of them disappeared into the thick snow on either side of the gate.
Just as dawn broke, with a rooster's crow, two individuals in tattered clothes took a large gulp of strong ale and then fell straight into the snow, motionless…
Shortly after the two tattered figures fell, several terrified shouts rang out from the stockade wall.
After the two men on the wall mumbled for a while, Keliduo, the fourth squad's combat leader, who was lying in the snow, almost frozen stiff, finally heard the clinking and clanking of a ladder being lowered.
This wasn't the first time Keliduo had done such a thing. Months ago, when he turned the tables at an enemy outpost, he had pretended to be a drunken enemy sentry to deceive the Swabia supply convoy.
This time, Keliduo repeated his old trick with ease. After he and Art "ambushed" eleven Soldiers with snow on both sides of the stockade gate and cleared away their footprints, Keliduo took the strong liquor Art handed him, took a big gulp, then drew a short knife and held it in his hand, before falling into the snowdrift at the gate with Art.
Inside the manor's stockade gate, the fat guard led the thin guard into the gate tunnel. Through the crack in the gate, he once again observed the surroundings outside, and after confirming there was no one else, the fat guard instructed the thin guard to slowly remove the heavy gate bar together. Then, they pulled open a one-foot-wide gap and poked their heads out to look around. Outside, apart from thicker snow and taller dung heaps, there was nothing unusual.
"The snow is really heavy!" The fat guard pushed open the stockade gate forcefully; the snow outside was almost up to their calves.
"Go, go, quickly drag them away." The thin guard pushed the fat man and stepped into the snow.
The fat and thin men exited the stockade gate and walked three or five steps, arriving in front of the two motionless commoner "corpses" lying in the snow. The thin man lightly kicked one of the bodies and cursed, "Bastard, you can't even pick a place to die. You have to trouble Master me to bury your body. These two poor devils are really not good for anything."
"Alright, let's get to work. Otherwise, when Master wakes up later and sees them, he'll scold us for being lazy and sleeping, letting strangers get close to the manor." The fat guard said, bending down to pick up a thinner one, preparing to drag it away.
But as soon as he grabbed the "corpse," the fat guard felt something was off. "Huh~ It seems to be still soft~ And quite warm~ Is it~"
Before he could finish his deduction, a single-edged short knife had already stabbed up from beneath the "corpse." The fat guard's words were choked back along with the pained and surprised expression on his face. Looking at the "corpse" beneath him, whose eyes were open as wide as ox bells, the fat guard couldn't believe that a sharp blade had been thrust into his heart~
Beside him, the thin guard was also tightly pinned down by the suddenly erupting "corpse," his mouth covered, and blood gushing from his neck.
"Never mind them, move!" Art whispered to Keliduo, who was still stabbing a second and third time beside him.
Keliduo pulled out his short knife and inserted it into the sheath at his waist. He ran to the side of the stockade gate and kicked away a snowdrift, revealing Colin, who was covered by straw underneath—"Colin! Time to move!"
Colin flipped up from the snowdrift, picked up the broadsword and shield that were beneath him and threw them to Keliduo, then charged into the manor's stockade gate.
The dozen or so "dung-grass" snowdrifts of varying heights on both sides of the stockade gate suddenly transformed into a dozen black-robed Soldiers in light armor and iron helmets, wielding sharp blades and round shields, rushing into the gate.
When Art led a dozen elite Soldiers into Southern Manor, inside the manor's residence, Master Chares, the manor lord, had just opened his eyes and glanced at the plump, curvaceous Persian maid sleeping beside him. He had purchased this Persian maid at a high price through an intermediary from a southern slave trader this autumn. Chares almost every night would toil on the belly of this extremely enchanting maid until midnight.
The more Chares looked at the maid, the more a fiery sensation grew within him. He couldn't help but reach his plump hand into the covers and grope around.
The sleeping maid let out a few soft moans due to Master Chares's actions. These moans completely aroused Master Chares. He abruptly threw off the bearskin blanket and pressed the maid beneath him, intending to toil a bit more before dawn fully broke.
Suddenly, a commotion erupted in the manor's front yard.
"Which Bastard is making such a racket outside!!!" Chares's mood was disturbed, and he was furious.
No sooner had Master Chares's angry roar fallen than the manor steward rushed into the room, saying in extreme terror, "Master, it's—it's—it's bad! The bandits have broken in!"
In the front of the manor, five or six recently awakened manor guards took up their weapons and resisted for less than the time it takes to drink half a bowl of soup before being cut down in the manor by Art and his group, who had suddenly charged in.
"Bas, take two men to close the stockade gate and stand guard. Don't let the farmers outside the stockade enter!"
"Odo, take three men to round up everyone in the manor and confine them to one room. If anyone dares to resist with weapons, kill them without exception."
"The rest of you, occupy all passages in the manor. Sergeant, Roen, follow me to find our Master Chares."
Art gave instructions one by one to the elite Soldiers who had finished slaughtering the manor guards beside him. Then, he grabbed a manor servant, asked for the location of the Master's bedroom, and then, with Angus and Roen, headed straight for Master Chares, the manor lord.
As soon as Art and his two companions passed through the courtyard and burst into a beautifully decorated two-story building, they ran into a man wrapped in a large bearskin coat, holding a fine iron longsword, accompanied by an elderly man who looked like a steward, angrily descending the stairs.
The two groups suddenly came face to face and had no time to react. The scene paused for a moment, and then the crisp metallic sounds of swords clashing rang out.
With Angus and Roen present, Art did not personally engage in combat with Chares, who wielded a longsword. In a short while, Chares was pinned to the ground by Angus, who held a short-handled battle-axe, unable to move. As for the fat steward, he had already become a twitching corpse beneath Roen's sword.
"Ah~" A woman wrapped in a blanket on the stairs screamed when she saw everything downstairs and ran back upstairs in terror.
Roen pursued her, holding his dripping longsword. A moment later, Roen ran back down, still holding his sword, looking panicked.
"Master, Master, that woman is a monster." Roen's face was filled with fear.
"Someone! Take Master Chares away and guard him well!" Art roared towards outside the house. A Soldier ran in, picked up Master Chares, who was bound with a belt, and took him out the door.
"Come on, let's go up and see." Art said, gripping his knight's sword and raising his shield, leading the two men cautiously up the stairs.
After a while, silence fell upstairs.
Looking at the Persian maid curled up trembling by the bed, Angus closed his mouth, which was almost drooling, and stared fixedly at the woman on the bed. He said to Roen, who was nervously on guard beside him, "This is the monster you spoke of?"
"Yes!" Roen pointed his sword at the woman on the bed.
"You're from Provence, haven't you seen a Persian?" Angus asked curiously.
"What is a Persian~"
"..." Art and Angus both had lines of black on their foreheads.
"This monster is yours, Sergeant. Let's go." Art pulled Angus, whose eyes were almost popping out, down the stairs, leaving Roen and the Persian woman he called a "monster" in the bedroom...
"Master Chares, didn't you expect us to come after all this time?" Art said, holding a short sword, to the manor lord Chares, who was tied to a pillar.
Chares asked in terror, "Who are you?"
Art twirled the short sword in his hand, constantly waving it in front of Master Chares's eyes. "Master Chares, you truly are forgetful. Have you forgotten? Last autumn harvest, you received a letter from a fellow calling himself Krull, King of the Mountain. The letter asked you to raise one hundred thousand fenny in provisions for the mountain army, but several months have passed, and by the looks of you, you've forgotten about it, haven't you?"
Chares's face was filled with terror. "That—that wasn't a trap, was it? Are you really from the mountain..." Chares didn't continue.
Art nodded, shaking the short sword. "Right, right, I am Krull, King of the Mountain. Master Chares, to preserve your life, shouldn't you pay the one hundred thousand fenny you owe us?"
Chares fainted upon hearing this.
"Sergeant, wake this fellow up and interrogate him about the location of the treasury." Saying this, Art left the room to direct the Soldiers in selecting the most valuable weapons, equipment, and precious goods...
In the manor's armory, Keliduo and Colin were directing several Soldiers to move a crossbow, six longbows, five fine iron broadswords, one set of riveted coat chainmail, one set of plate chainmail with a gorget, five sets of double-layered iron-plated leather armor, and one barrel helmet and four or five nasal helmets out of the storeroom. As for other weapons and equipment such as short swords, battle-axes, spears, war hammers, and shields, they were all moved and piled up in the courtyard. In the manor's front yard, several Soldiers were also collecting weapons and equipment from the bodies of the deceased guards.
Ever since the manor was threatened last time, Master Chares had successively purchased a considerable amount of weapons and equipment from various places. Originally, these weapons and armor were intended to equip a mercenary guard force stationed at the manor, but as time passed, no bandits came to raid the manor. The stingy Master Chares, feeling the pinch of money, therefore disbanded the mercenary guards and retrieved the weapons allotted to them, storing them in the armory.
Chares could never have imagined that the weapons and equipment he had spent a large amount of money to purchase would ultimately become spoils of war in the hands of his enemies.