The Veteran's Choice
Wolfsted Fortress, the northernmost bulwark of the Empire and the frontline of the Winproter Grand Duchy. Under normal circumstances, it was an impregnable stronghold where any enemy would have been forced to their knees before the towering walls of ice and the relentless rain of arrows unleashed by hundreds of archers. Today, however, the massive stone walls of Wolfsted were slick with the blood and flesh of beasts.
"Hold them back! Don't let them scale the walls!"
"Pour the oil! Shoot! Shoot them all!"
The desperate screams of the Winproter garrison commanders echoed through the air, but the barbarian coalition, pouring in through the blizzard, refused to stop. Stepping over the corpses of their comrades and clutching broken spear shafts, they clawed their way up the stone walls like madmen. It was an onslaught of wild beasts that had lost all reason. And at the very forefront of this overwhelming madness stood Khan, the red devil, drenched from head to toe in dark, crimson blood.
Clang! Clash!
"Aaargh!"
Every time Khan's massive double-bladed axe cleaved through the air, armored soldiers of the Grand Ducal army folded in half like sheets of paper and plummeted from the ramparts. Having leaped effortlessly onto the battlements, Khan's martial prowess was nothing short of a calamity. Even as arrows pierced his shoulders and spear tips grazed his thighs, he pressed forward as if entirely numb to pain. The blood of the Great Warrior boiled relentlessly, coldly paralyzing his reason while explosively pushing his physical limits far beyond human bounds.
Moving like a shadow right behind him was a small, agile figure. It was Arina, a female warrior of the Krak tribe and Khan's personal guard.
Slash!
"Gah...!"
Arina's sharp dagger plunged with pinpoint accuracy into the throat of an Imperial spearman attempting to ambush Khan from behind. Even as the spraying blood drenched her face, her eyes remained fixed solely on Khan's broad back as he forged ahead.
...Lord Khan.
Arina's dark eyes wavered with a mixture of worry and awe. Since the death of Great Chieftain Temur, Khan's martial display had bordered on madness. He was entirely consumed by tearing the flesh of his enemies, channeling his grief into pure, unadulterated rage. The Khan who usually forced himself to breathe and maintain his composure whenever his blood boiled was nowhere to be seen.
I cannot even begin to fathom how torn his heart must be, or how immense the despair he is suppressing.
Arina grit her teeth and deflected a stray arrow flying toward them. This was the man who had taken her in and embraced her after she was forced to kill her own father with her own hands. The broad, warm chest that had held her every night, sharing his warmth, had now transformed into the coldest, most brutal weapon of slaughter in the world.
There is nothing I can do. Except silently risk my life to protect that lonely, desperate back.
Swallowing her sorrow, Arina silently slaughtered every Imperial blade that dared to slip into Khan's blind spots.
"Kill them!! Kill them all!!!"
Just then, a roar erupted from Khan, who had completely seized the central watchtower of the ramparts. The massive double-bladed axe in his hands reflected the moonlight with an ominous gleam. The appearance of the axe was grotesque beyond belief. Impaled upon the blunt steel wedge at the base of the axe blade, like a beast on a spit, was a severed head still wearing its helmet.
Recognizing the owner of the helmet, the eyes of the Grand Ducal soldiers widened in sheer horror.
"G-Grand Duke...?"
"It's His Grace's head! On that barbarian's weapon... the White Wolf of Winproter...!"
Khan was intentionally swinging his weapon with Grand Duke Reinhardt's head impaled upon it. With every sweep of the axe, blood sprayed in all directions from the head of Reinhardt, the former ruler of the Winproter Grand Duchy. The desecrated head of their most respected and revered lord had been reduced to a grotesque instrument of slaughter.
"Aaaargh! You demons!!"
"His Grace has fallen! It's over, we're all going to die!"
The final remnants of the will to fight that had sustained Wolfsted Fortress shattered instantly before that single sight. The Grand Ducal soldiers threw down their weapons, backing away or collapsing to the ground, trembling and vomiting in terror. An army whose morale had plummeted to rock bottom could no longer be called an army. They were nothing more than a herd of livestock dragged to the slaughterhouse.
"Do not retreat!! Raise your weapons! Do not lose the pride of Winproter!!"
Amidst the chaotic pandemonium, a single elderly knight stood his ground, swinging a massive greatsword in a desperate bid to hold the line. His white beard was stained with blood as he screamed. He was the commander of Wolfsted and the veteran knight known as the unyielding shield of Winproter—Sir Tungsten.
"You bastard! How dare you desecrate the Grand Duke...! You barbarian, you will never find forgiveness even in death!!"
Tungsten raised his sword toward Khan, his eyes bloodshot. The greatsword of the veteran who had roamed battlefields for decades came crashing down, aiming directly for the crown of Khan's head. However—
Boom!
Khan didn't even bother to raise his axe. Reaching out with a bare hand coursing with boiling blood, he caught Tungsten's greatsword head-on, gripping the blade in his palm.
"...?!"
Blood dripped from Khan's palm, but far from feeling any pain, the corners of his mouth curled into a smirk.
"Good effort, old man."
Crack! Clang!
Khan's axe shattered Tungsten's greatsword. Simultaneously, Khan's boot slammed into Tungsten's abdomen.
"Cough-!"
The veteran's body flew through the air and crashed onto the stone floor of the ramparts. Khan pinned the fallen Tungsten down, pressing his knee against the knight's breastplate, and brought his blood-dripping axe to the old man's throat.
"Commander! Commander Tungsten!!"
With even the fortress commander subdued in a single blow, the remaining defenders of Wolfsted completely lost their will to fight.
Clatter, clatter.
Swords and spears fell powerlessly onto the snow. As the Grand Ducal soldiers fell to their knees in surrender, the barbarian warriors erupted in cheers above them.
The frontline barrier of Wolfsted, once hailed as an iron wall, had been breached in a mere half-day before Khan's overwhelming martial prowess and terror tactics.
The training grounds of Wolfsted Fortress after the battle had swept through. Hundreds of disarmed Grand Ducal prisoners knelt in the snow, trembling. In their midst, Khan sat heavily on a makeshift platform constructed from the debris of the shattered ramparts. At his feet, Tungsten, bound tightly with thick ropes, panted heavily as he was forced to kneel.
"Urgh... You...!"
Tungsten writhed, glaring at Khan with murderous intent. Tears of blood welled in the veteran's eyes from the sheer humiliation of seeing his lord, the Grand Duke, decapitated and his own fortress trampled.
Sitting on the platform, Khan looked down at Tungsten in silence. He was a stark contrast to the man who, just moments ago, had been tearing his enemies apart in a frenzy of madness.
We breached the fortress by force, but the real problem lies ahead.
Khan calmly analyzed the current situation. What remained now was Grenmark, the Grand Ducal Castle and the heart of the Winproter Grand Duchy. However, no matter how disorganized the Imperial reinforcements might be, a swift victory would be impossible if they waged a full-scale siege against the formidable castle. Above all, while the barbarians excelled in open-field warfare on the vast northern plains, they were unfamiliar with the Empire's complex terrain and siege tactics. If they fell into traps or were worn down by guerrilla warfare, cutting off their supply lines, the entire Great Migration risked ending in utter failure.
I absolutely need local elite forces who know the geography of Winproter and the layout of the Grand Ducal Castle. Tungsten and his border guards right here at my feet must become my guides.
This was the reason Khan had spared the enemy commander's life instead of ending it immediately. Terror alone could not bend the will of such a loyal knight. He had to utterly shatter the old man's reality and present him with a new cause—one he would risk his life to protect.
"Kill me!!"
Unable to bear the silence, Tungsten spat bloody saliva onto the ground and raged.
"Kill me right now, you subhuman barbarian bastard! Even if my head rolls, I will never meekly hand Winproter over to you beasts!"
The Krauk warriors lined up around them raised their axes with menacing glares, but Khan raised his hand to stay them. He slowly stood up and approached Tungsten.
"Are you Sir Tungsten, the one they call the Shield of Wolfsted?"
Hearing the surprisingly fluent and calm Imperial tongue coming from the mouth of a barbarian, Tungsten's brow furrowed slightly. Khan stroked his chin with a blood-stained hand and continued casually.
"I heard of you through the letters. When the young Grand Duke first visited Wolfsted, you looked down on him as a mere boy who had lucked into a noble bloodline. But as he willingly bowed his head to the veteran knights to learn military science, you gradually came to regard him as a son and pledged your loyalty."
"...?!"
Tungsten's eyes widened. This was a highly personal story within the duchy, known only to Grand Duke Reinhardt, himself, and a tiny handful of close confidants.
"H-how do you know that...!"
"It was written in the letters of peace exchanged between our Great Chieftain and the Grand Duke. My father praised the Grand Duke as an excellent leader."
A mixture of bitterness and murderous intent flashed through Khan's voice.
"But that excellent Grand Duke became a dog of the Imperial Court and took my father's head. So, I killed the Grand Duke in return."
"You demon...!"
"A demon? Perhaps."
Khan grabbed Tungsten roughly by the collar, pulling him up to eye level.
"Let me ask you one thing, Sir Tungsten. Why are the tens of thousands of troops called the Imperial reinforcements holed up in the rear at Grenmark Castle instead of helping Wolfsted Fortress here on the frontline?"
"T-that is obviously to defend the castle in His Grace's absence and protect the people of the fief!"
"How naive."
Khan sneered, tossing Tungsten's collar aside.
"The Grand Duke's family is being held hostage. The bastards sent by the Imperial Court never had any intention of defending the North from the start. Under the pretext of sending Imperial regulars, they entered the Grand Ducal Castle, took Grand Duke Reinhardt's wife and young daughter hostage, and blackmailed him into marching to his death."
"W-what nonsense are you spewing! How could the Imperial Court commit such an atrocious act...!"
"Open your eyes to reality! If we march alone on Grenmark now that it's empty, those cowardly Imperial soldiers won't bleed fighting us. Instead, they'll flee to the capital, dragging the Grand Duke's widow and his only bloodline, Monica, with them!"
At the mention of Monica's name from Khan's lips, Tungsten's heart sank. Khan began to expose the brutal underbelly of Imperial politics, drawing upon his complete knowledge of the original novel, The Flower That Bloomed in the Cold Snow.
"The Imperial Court's goal isn't peace in the North; it's the absorption of the Winproter Grand Duchy. They plan to drag the young lady to the capital and force her into an arranged marriage with some noble of their choosing to swallow the entire territory whole. It's blindingly obvious what kind of treatment and abuse that child, the Grand Duke's own flesh and blood, will suffer in the process."
"..."
Tungsten's jaw began to tremble. Though he was a veteran who had done nothing but swing a sword on battlefields his entire life, the political motives of the Imperial Court that Khan pointed out fit together perfectly. It explained why the reinforcements never came to the front. It explained why the Grand Duke had departed with such a grim expression, leading only a small band of knights.
Khan drove the wedge in, tightening the noose.
"Can you rest in peace in the afterlife, watching your lord's only child—whom you cherished like a son—reduced to a plaything for Imperial pigs? Are you going to abandon the Grand Duke's bloodline to become a toy for the court just so you can die 'honorably' on your own?"
"S-stop...! Stop it!!"
Tungsten screamed in agony, slamming his head against the ground. Every truth Khan uttered tore the veteran's lifelong loyalty and honor to shreds.
"I will give you a choice."
Khan pressed down heavily on the shoulders of the curled-up Tungsten, whispering softly into his ear.
"I will tear every last one of those Imperial dogs to pieces and plant the banner of the North upon the throne of Winproter. If you strike a deal with me, I swear on my father's blood that I will not harm a single hair on the heads of the Grand Duke's wife and his daughter, Monica."
Tungsten raised his bloodshot eyes to look up at Khan.
"In exchange, survive alongside all the soldiers of Wolfsted and be our guide. Your elite forces, who know this land, must be the key that opens the gates of the Grand Ducal Castle."
"You want us... to become traitors who sell out Winproter..."
"I am telling you to become its protectors, not traitors."
Khan's eyes locked onto Tungsten without a single tremor.
"When we completely occupy Winproter in the future, we will need someone to represent and protect your people who survive under our coalition's rule. Do not run away just because you lost your lord. Live, and protect your people with your own hands. That is the duty of the living."
He had stripped away the cheap escape of death and forcibly loaded the heavy cross of protecting the fief's people and his lord's bloodline onto the veteran's shoulders.
A heavy silence pressed down on the training grounds. Bound tightly, Tungsten panted heavily for a long time, weeping tears of blood.
An honorable death versus a wretched survival. Loyalty to the Empire versus the future of Winproter. Snowflakes fell coldly upon the veteran's veiny forehead as countless conflicting emotions crossed his mind.
Finally.
"...The lives of my men, the safety of the people... and that oath to spare my lord's bloodline."
Tungsten spoke in a hoarse voice.
"Keep that oath, at the very least. O King of Barbarians..."
Slide.
Tungsten lowered his bound body to the ground, prostrating himself completely at Khan's feet. He had bowed his head to the very enemy who had slain his revered lord.
"Commander...!"
"Sob, hic..."
Sorrowful wails erupted from the captured Grand Ducal soldiers watching the scene. Yet, following Tungsten's lead, they all bowed their heads in unison toward the Great Chieftain of the barbarians.