……
Family Chief Knight and Governor of Silowas Island, Shrade — whereabouts unknown…
Family
Family Silver Knights — Benjamin, Raphat, Orisson, and Clinbert, all captains of the Third Guard Battalion — are missing.
Family Silver Knight and Captain of the Guard Battalion, Helritz — whereabouts unknown.
Silowas Island Whitebird Town's constable Christon, accountant Old Mike, and clerk Schicked — all three missing.
In addition, the Garrison Captains of all seven villages on Silowas Island — all of them family veterans who held those posts — have lost contact. By the looks of it, they are likely beyond saving.
Confirmed captured by the enemy are Tok, assault captain of the First Fleet of the Maritime Corps, and Old Hugo, mayor of Whitebird Town.
Killed in action: Victor, captain of the Whitebird Town garrison on Silowas Island, and old Hart the tax collector — they were killed resisting the enemy while organizing the evacuation of Whitebird Town's residents.
Family Silver Knight Joseph, commander of the Third Battalion of the Household Guard, along with two others — Donovan among them — died heroically in combat while reinforcing Whitebird Town.
Family Silver Knight Mord, commander of the Personal Guard Battalion, voluntarily brought up the rear to cover the main force's retreat from the village of Farama to Sailfish Ridge, and died a heroic death.
Family Silver Knight North, deputy commander of the Maritime Corps, was killed in a naval engagement.
Family Silver Knight Rollin, captains of the First and Second Fleets of the Maritime Corps — Bosse, Trog, Walte, Mugge, and seventeen others — were killed at sea.
In addition, roughly thirty-seven hundred captains and sailors were killed, went missing, or were captured, and thirty-eight ships were lost. The Maritime Corps stationed on Silowas Island — over six thousand men and fifty-nine ships — had more than half its strength wiped out. The losses were catastrophic.
Of the five-hundred-strong garrison of Whitebird Town, only four managed to escape — a total rout. Of the three-thousand-man Third Battalion of the Household Guard, only a little over four hundred battered soldiers returned. The word "devastating" hardly did it justice. Only the two Personal Guard battalions of Wanghai Manor — roughly a thousand men — managed to withdraw over four hundred, maintaining some semblance of their unit structure…
…
Forcing himself to stay upright, Lorist slowly sank into his seat. "Tell me — why were the losses so severe? Was the enemy's fighting strength that formidable?"
"My Lord, it was my incompetence..." Jiosk stepped forward.
Lorist waved his hand. "No, this has nothing to do with you all. There are no subordinates more capable than you. What I want to know is, why did our family forces suffer such heavy losses after the ambush? Was the enemy's fighting strength that formidable?"
Jiosk shook his head. "My Lord, the enemy was nothing but a rabble. It's just... they had several Great Swordmasters..."
"Great Swordmasters? How many?" Lorist asked.
"Supposedly seven, but only four or five showed up in front of us..." Jiosk recalled. "After receiving Lord Faleria's message, I was at Lord Shrade's side — we were at Whitebird Town at the time. Lord Shrade simultaneously notified the town garrison to prepare for the enemy's advance and sent word ordering the Third Guard Battalion to rush to Whitebird Town as reinforcements.
The enemy's first few ships ran aground at the dock, and the several hundred who disembarked were intercepted by the garrison. But there were many more ships behind them. As more and more enemies poured off the vessels and swarmed forward, I took down two Golden-rank enemies and a dozen or so Silver-rank ones. Then a Great Swordmaster appeared — he cut down Victor with a single strike, and Victor's head landed right at my feet.
I knew that Great Swordmaster had me marked. As an archer, I couldn't match a Great Swordmaster in close combat, so I could only fight while falling back. Before long, I was separated from Lord Shrade and the others. After I circled around to shake off that Great Swordmaster and made my way back, I found that Whitebird Town had already fallen to the enemy. Left with no choice, I retreated to Sailfish Ridge and organized the remaining sailors to set up defenses along the steep terrain. Later, I linked up with the surviving breakout forces from the Third Guard Battalion and the two Guard Corps who had fought their way out of Falama Village, and in the end Lord Sembawood picked us up by ship..."
Jiosk's account ended there, and Steward Hanske took over.
"Once Knight Jiosk lured that Great Swordmaster away, the Whitebird Town garrison simply couldn't hold back those ferocious enemies. The casualties were enormous. Just when things looked dire, Knight Pat arrived with the Third Guard Battalion and drove the enemy back in one swift push. Right after, Knight Jim led five hundred men from the Guard Corps to reinforce us as well, and we immediately gained the upper hand.
At the time, Lord Shrade was commanding the battle from the town hall, and he thought our reinforcements would be enough to drive the enemy out of Whitebird Town. In truth, the enemy was no match for us at all, and we quickly routed them. We were on the verge of pushing them out of the town entirely, when over a hundred large ocean-going merchant ships appeared from behind. Huge numbers of enemies disembarked and launched a fresh assault on us.
The enemy force that followed was far stronger than the ones we had already defeated. They had numerous Silver-tier and Gold-tier fighters, plus two Great Swordmasters. The Guard Battalion took a devastating hit right away, suffering nearly a thousand casualties. Joseph, the First Captain of the Third Guard Battalion, and Donovan, the Fourth Captain, were killed in action at that point.
They turned out to be slave traders and slave-hunting parties from the Kingdom of Haniabada.
Lord Shrade left in a hurry with Knight Jim and over twenty retainers, and from that moment on we had no word of Lord Shrade or Knight Jim's whereabouts. Just then, several soldiers from the front line brought back Knight Pat, gravely wounded and unconscious. I happened to have a few bottles of healing elixirs on hand and hurriedly poured one down his throat. Then we prepared a carriage and retreated with Pat back to Farama Village.
The soldiers from the Third Guard Battalion who made it to Farama Village numbered just over three hundred, along with more than a hundred retainers, every single one wounded. Together with the Sixth Logistics and Supply Corps left behind to garrison the village, we had fewer than a thousand people available for defense. More than a thousand residents of Whitebird Town had also fled with us to Farama Village — all women and children. It was they who told us that Mayor Old Hugo had been captured by the enemy while covering the retreat.
At that moment, Knight Mod, the Captain of Retainers who had been holding Sea-Gazing Manor, arrived at Farama Village with his five-hundred-strong Retainer Corps, having abandoned the manor. They ran right into the enemy's pursuing force as it launched an assault on the village. After beating back that attack, Knight Mod entered Farama Village, and at last we had enough defensive strength.
However, among the enemies who subsequently arrived was a Great Swordmaster who attempted to charge into Farama Village single-handedly. Fortunately, the hundred steel crossbows equipped by the Third Guard Battalion were all positioned on the ramparts. About forty of them unleashed a devastating volley and riddled that Great Swordmaster with bolts on the spot. This dealt the enemy heavy losses, and they temporarily pulled back to a safe distance to keep us under watch, not daring to attack…"
"You're certain the one you killed was a Great Swordmaster?" Lorist sat up straight, cutting off Steward Hanske's account.
Steward Hanske recalled carefully for a moment: "My lord, I'm quite certain that the one killed by the crossbows was a Great Swordmaster. Because at the very start, several enemies came forward demanding our surrender. All of them were Silver-tier, and one was Gold-tier — his longsword blazed with golden sword-light.
At the time, Knight Orison, commander of the Sixth Logistics and Supply Corps, wanted to deploy the steel crossbows, but Knight Mod stopped him. Knight Mod said to drive those enemies back with longbows first, to make them think we had no long-range weapons. Only when they launched a full-scale assault should we use the steel crossbows, so as to inflict maximum casualties.
Then that Great Swordmaster arrived in a carriage. The enemies over there all cheered, even that Gold-tier knight. The Great Swordmaster was extremely arrogant and overconfident. He exchanged a few words with those enemies, then strode toward the ramparts all alone with his longsword. At a hundred meters, over twenty longbows fired at him, and not a single arrow even grazed him.
As he drew closer, at less than sixty meters, Knight Mod gave the order. The forty-odd steel crossbows that had been repositioned to the front fired in two volleys. Even so, the Great Swordmaster knocked away the first four iron bolts aimed at him head-on, but the second volley pierced straight through his chest and killed him on the spot. Knight Mod, fearing he might be wounded but not dead, ordered the longbows to fire two more rounds, turning the corpse into a pincushion before he was satisfied.
With the Great Swordmaster dead, the enemies over there were completely stunned. They just stood there in dumb silence, unable to utter a word. Knight Mod saw that they were still only a little over two hundred meters from Falama Village and immediately ordered the steel crossbows reloaded and fired at that group. The enemies never dreamed our crossbows could reach so far. After two consecutive volleys, they left behind forty or fifty corpses and fled into the distance, wailing and crying for their mothers.
I finally let out a sigh of relief at that point, thinking we could hold out for a while behind Falama Village's walls. But the moment Knight Mod and Knight Orison heard the reports from the returning guard battalion soldiers and attendants, they were convinced the village couldn't be held. They said the enemy still had at least two more Great Swordmasters. During the day it would be fine, but at night, with poor visibility, the steel crossbows' defensive effectiveness would be drastically reduced. If the enemy managed to sneak in, it would all be over.
Knight Mod believed they had to break out right now while the enemy was in retreat. Only at Marlinridge could they use the steep mountain terrain to hold out until the family sent reinforcements. As long as they used the war chariots and steel crossbows to guard the only path up the mountain, no number of Great Swordmasters would be able to do anything to them.
Knight Orison ordered the Sixth Logistics and Supply Corps to load every steel crossbow onto war chariots to serve as flanking guards. When we set out, there was still a bit of light in the sky, but in less than an hour darkness had fallen. The enemy spotted us and gave chase, calling for reinforcements as they went. It was right then that Knight Orison volunteered to stay behind and cover our retreat. He took over a hundred soldiers from the Third Guard Battalion and their attendants and set up an ambush along the way, hoping to catch the pursuers off guard.
We hadn't gone far when we heard the sounds of fighting erupting behind us, but it was over in less than half an hour. By then, however, we had already reached the foot of Marlinridge. The path up the mountain was treacherous, and the enemy would be upon us soon. We had the women and children start climbing first while arranging the war chariots in a circle to guard the mountain pass.
We held out for about an hour, but the crossbow bolts were being consumed at a staggering rate. Knight Mod ordered twenty crossbows dismantled, with half the remaining bolts carried up the mountain. The rest of the bolts were distributed among thirty crossbows. The fifty crossbows that had been left without ammunition were all destroyed. Knight Mod said the crossbows must never fall into the enemy's hands.
After that, Knight Mod held off the enemy's assaults with just thirty crossbows, destroying each crossbow the moment it ran out of bolts. When I reached the mountainside and looked back, I saw Knight Mod, ignoring the enemy behind him, hacking the very last crossbow in two with his sword. But he was also pierced through the chest by an enemy spear."
Mod... Before Lorist's eyes, two ragged figures seemed to appear — standing there waiting for him, then clutching his legs and weeping bitterly. They were Rur and Mod. As messengers for the northbound caravan, they had endured untold hardships along the way. The attendants who had traveled with them were all dead, and only the two of them had made it across a thousand miles to finally stand before him.
Rur had gone early, and Mod had stayed by his side ever since. He had worked diligently in the guard corps, rising step by step to the Silver tier, and then Lorist had taken him on as a Family Knight before promoting him to commander of the guard battalion. Now he too was gone, and gone so heroically — even in death he had protected the secrets of the family's war chariots and steel crossbows...
Steward Hanske continued his account: "All the soldiers of the close-guard battalion and the attendants had been locked in bitter, desperate fighting. At that critical moment, Knight Jusk arrived from above. One divine arrow after another rained down on the enemy, leaving them dead and wounded in droves until they finally retreated. The survivors made it up to Marlin Crest. With twenty steel crossbows and Lord Jusk's divine arrows guarding the only mountain path up, we were finally able to get a decent night's sleep.
The next day the enemy didn't attack Marlin Crest, but Shilowas Island was ablaze with fire everywhere. Standing on the crest, we could constantly see the enemy herding long columns of villagers toward White Bird Town. The weeping was deafening, and from time to time elderly villagers who couldn't keep up were dragged out of the line and beheaded on the spot. We were furious, but utterly powerless.
Around midnight, Lord Semba Wood arrived at the small cove with his fleet and climbed up to Marlin Crest to meet us. After learning the situation, he ordered us to board the ships immediately. He said the enemy was busy looting and pillaging at the moment and hadn't turned their attention our way yet. Marlin Crest had no fortress or castle — it couldn't be held for long. Once the enemy freed up a fleet to enter through the small cove and attacked us from both sides, we'd have no escape.
So we began the evacuation. Women and children went first, then the wounded, and finally Knight Jusk and his attendants loaded the twenty steel crossbows onto the ships. But the delay had been too long — by the time we were all aboard, dawn was nearly breaking. The enemy spotted us and sounded their horns, and soon they dispatched a fleet in pursuit.
The enemy hadn't prepared properly, though. The first dozen or so ships that caught up were undermanned, and we cut them down quickly. Lord Semba Wood and Knight Jusk even managed to seize two of the enemy's medium-sized armed merchant vessels in a coordinated counterattack. But then over forty more enemy ships closed in. Semba Wood's fleet had already taken damage from earlier engagements, and with the ships packed with people, our speed suffered.
So Lord Semba Wood and Lord Jusk chose the ten best-condition armed merchant vessels, crewed them with sailors still fit for combat along with close-guard battalion soldiers and attendants, and left them behind to fight a rearguard action. They sank the five fastest pursuing enemy ships, then held off the remaining enemy fleet until dusk before the enemy finally withdrew in full.
After Lord Semba Wood and Knight Jusk returned, we interrogated the captured sailors and learned that the force attacking and pillaging Shilowas Island was made up of slave traders and slave-hunting bands from the Hanea Bada Kingdom — not pirates as we had assumed. The prisoners said that nearly all the great slave-owner nobles and slave merchants of the Hanea Bada Kingdom had taken part in this operation. Over four hundred ships and nearly thirty thousand men had been mobilized, with seven Great Swordmasters among them. It was essentially a full-scale mobilization of the entire kingdom..."
Steward Hanske handed over a thick folder of animal-hide documents. "My lord, these are all the interrogation records from the prisoners."
Lorist flipped through the interrogation records. "Someone come!"
Shward came in. "My lord..."
"Order the guards to erect crosses on the beach and nail every last prisoner to them!" Lorist's quiet voice sealed the wretched fate of those captured Hanea Bada Kingdom sailors.
"Uh..." Everyone in the great tent sucked in a sharp breath. Hanging or beheading would have been far more merciful — nailed to a cross, they would be tortured for ages before finally bleeding out and dying...
"My lord..." Steward Hanske stepped forward, intending to persuade him otherwise, "That's enough. Say no more." Lorist waved him off. "They are the lackeys and accomplices of slave owners and slave traders, a hundred times more despicable than pirates. They treat people as merchandise and have never once valued the lives of others. I only regret not having crueller deaths for them to experience! Shward, what are you still standing there for?"
"Yes, my lord! I'll relay the order right away!" Shward hurried out.
Lorist stood and walked over to Semba Wood. "You did very well this time. Extremely well — you exceeded my expectations. Semba Wood, I ask you now: are you willing to become a member of the Furious Bear family?"
Semba Wood was stunned, but he quickly recovered and dropped to one knee before Lorist. "My lord, I am willing."
"Semba Wood, are you willing to charge into battle and fight to the death beneath the horns of the Furious Bear?"
"I am willing!"
"Semba Wood, are you willing to follow the banner of the Furious Bear into battle across the land, pressing ever forward without retreat?"
"I am willing!"
"Semba Wood, are you willing to dedicate your entire life to the honor of the Furious Bear's crest, never wavering unto death?"
"I am willing!" Semba Wood was already shouting by this point.
Lorist drew his longsword and tapped the flat of the blade twice on each of Semba Wood's shoulders before sheathing it. "Rise, my knight. You have earned the trust of our
After Lorist embraced Semba Wood tightly, the knights in the great tent followed one by one to embrace him as well. Bodifinger was the last.
"Welcome to our ranks, my brother." After the embrace, Bodifinger pinned a golden Furious Bear crest onto the left side of Semba Wood's chest.
"Semba Wood, how many ships does your fleet have left?" Once the knighting ceremony was complete, Lorist returned to his seat.
Thirteen. Eight of them only need minor repairs, while five require extensive overhauls."
Semba Wood's second fleet had originally numbered twenty-nine ships. He had lost seven during naval engagements while sailing back to provide reinforcements, but had managed to seize two additional ships afterward, bringing the total to twenty-four.
"Have them repaired as quickly as possible. In three days, Bodofinger will be leading troops to Shilowas Island, and we need transport ships. Also, have your sailors rest up as soon as they can — in three days, every uninjured one must be ready to set sail," Lorist said with a furrowed brow. The family's naval corps had suffered far too heavy losses this time, their naval strength reduced by more than half. The number of available sailors and crew was critically low now, leaving them no choice but to grant these battle-hardened warriors a mere three days of rest before sending them back out to sea.
"My lord, I request permission to fight!" Semba Wood stepped forward.
"We also request permission to fight, My lord..." Every knight in the great tent rose to their feet.
...To be continued...