Chapter 71: Northern Debut (3)
Chapter 71: Northern Debut (3)
"Support Sir Eugene!"
Haind charged fiercely at the head of the heavy cavalry after bringing up the main force.
In the chaos, half the pirates turned their backs while the other half hesitated, unsure whether to drop their weapons or swing them.
At that point, fighting and fleeing only got in each other's way. They were all trampled down like rotten bundles of straw.
"Charge!"
"Cut them all down!"
The mercenaries fought savagely, as if they had been possessed by knights.
Since being stationed at North Fork, they had seen no real battle apart from hunting with Eugene or clearing out small monster dens. Even during the golem rampage, they had arrived only after it was over.
An ordinary mercenary would have been happy enough earning easy coin. But these were men who followed Eugene out of admiration and ambition.
Every one of them had been plagued by the same gnawing anxiety.
-At this rate, what if they don't renew our contracts?
-N-no way. Our knight's loyal as they come.
-Loyalty? To lowborn trash like us? We're not even knights. Now that he's made proper friends with those Black Hand bastards, he might not even spare us a glance.
-Those pointy-ears do nothing but shoot arrows. We're the ones who charge shoulder to shoulder with the knight!
-So when was the last time we charged together?
-Th-that's...
Because of what had been weighing on them, they fought so bravely that even Haind, charging alongside them, wondered, 'What's gotten into them?'
The tribal warriors, seeing Eugene's overwhelming prowess in a real battle for the first time, could not hide their admiration either.
It looked as though he had seized a black storm and was swinging it around to crush the enemy ranks.
'So that's how he smashed the golem?'
'I thought the mercenaries were joking when they said they'd dyed a bugbear. Shame I missed it!'
The presence Eugene displayed on the battlefield far transcended that of a single knight.
It was as if the legends the tribal elders had told them as children had taken on flesh and bone and been shaped into human form.
"As expected, the sub-chieftain has a good eye."
The warriors looked at their military leader with respect.
Nomadism, assassination, mercenary work. They had lived lives distilled from the roughest and most dangerous work in the world. The ability to choose powerful allies and battles they could win was more important than anything else.
"Damn it! This is what we get for teaming up with mere pirates!"
Bruce, the Emperor's knight, spat curses at his own grim predicament.
The pirates had been able to move so nimbly on land thanks to cooperation from the Emperor Faction, whose retainers knew the interior well.
The Emperor was hard-pressed for both coin and troops. The warriors of the inland sea were a force he could not afford to abandon. They were strategically vital, particularly in their capacity for rear-area disruption.
"Where the hell did those bastards come from?"
Just a little more and he could have captured the Noble Faction lord and delivered him to the capital. To think an operation he had poured so much effort into had fallen apart in an instant.
The pirate chief, who had lost all his men, was twice as furious.
"Easy prey, my ass! I'm the idiot who trusted Roman nobles!"
The pirate chief cursed his past self for falling for their sweet talk. But what was done was done; for now, he had to run.
"We're leaving first."
"You're going to run after taking His Majesty's gold and even a title?"
"You're making a big deal out of a paltry knighthood. It's not even a lordship."
"What? A paltry knighthood?!"
Bruce's murderous rage surged when the honor he had earned with blood and sweat was mocked.
"Chief! There's no time for this!"
"I'd love to tear you apart and grind you up to drink, but count yourself lucky."
The pirate chief gave the raging Bruce the middle finger, then spurred his horse and fled.
A pouch of gold, paid in advance as his fee, hung from the saddle and swung wildly.
'If I can only reach the inland sea and hide on an island, I can live in idle luxury for the rest of my days!'
The pirates spurred their horses on, filled with a last sliver of hope.
The problem was that Eugene had been watching them from the very beginning.
"The commander is running. Catch them."
"Leave it to us. We can't match you for bravery, Sir Knight, but we're good at taking valuable men alive."
Rex grinned and led the horse archers out in pursuit.
They carried arrows coated with paralytic poison—a tool of the trade that had contributed enormously to their tribe's finances since ancient times.
"Idiots. Did they really think they could escape the Black Hand Mercenary Company?"
Bruce sneered at the screaming pirate chief as he fled and spat.
It wasn't as though Bruce stayed because he wanted to. Being captured while involved in such a dishonorable scheme would be the ultimate humiliation.
But trying to flee the continent's finest horse archers would obviously end with him being hunted down miserably.
He would rather fight like a knight than take an arrow in the leg or ass and be lassoed around the neck like an animal.
"Bruce of House Urban is here! Enemy commander! If you're no coward, come out and settle this with me as a knight!"
Only a squire and a handful of guards remained around him. Seeking an honorable death, Bruce boldly leveled his sword at the enemy ranks.
But all he got back were looks reserved for an idiot.
"Is he an idiot?"
"Looks like he didn't see our knight fight while he was with the pirates."
Bruce's face went scarlet at the insults of mercenaries who ordinarily wouldn't have dared meet his eyes.
Then a huge knight riding a Barsian warhorse emerged from among the mercenaries.
"I'm Commander Eugene Meyer. Are you the leader of these pirates?"
"I am no ringleader! I am an honorable knight of His Majesty the Emperor!"
"What about the ones who just ran away?"
Eugene jerked his chin in the direction the pirate chief had fled.
"I don't even want to speak of scum like them!"
"You were eating from the same pot and raiding alongside that trash. You're in no position to say that."
"Shut up! I'm nothing like them!"
Eugene shrugged.
"I suppose. How do you convince a man who rolls around with a prostitute and still thinks he's clean?"
"..."
Knights of this era were terrible at verbal sparring.
The mercenaries snickered at their employer's sharp tongue. Bruce refused to be a laughingstock any longer.
"Let's see if your skill is as impressive as your tongue! Don't get full of yourself just because you killed a few pirates!"
Bruce charged with spear and shield, and Eugene spurred Might forward to meet him head-on.
'What a monster.'
Bruce shouted bravely, but the sight of Eugene's weapon sent a chill through him.
The huge black flail inspired fear at a glance. It was an inescapable spell of steel to any living creature.
CRUNCH!
"Aaaagh!"
Sure enough, Eugene's flail struck before Bruce's spear could reach him, shattering his shield and wrist.
Eugene grabbed the knight by the collar as he tried to resist one-handed and hurled him toward the mercenaries behind him.
"I can still fight... Aaaagh!"
"Stomp him! Stomp him!"
"Hahahaha!"
The excited mercenaries forced the knight to the ground, stomped on him dozens of times, then tied him up tight.
"Sir Bruce!"
"Damn it."
The remaining squire and guards had no value as prisoners. Realizing what awaited them, they prepared for a final stand.
"We'll take care of them."
Eugene stepped back to see what the two dark elf knights could do.
"May fortune favor you in battle."
"Thank you!"
"We will not disappoint you!"
Fired up by Eugene's praise, the knights charged.
The spear-wielding knight opened by driving his weapon through a guard's chest with a two-handed grip.
CRUNCH!
When the spear snapped, he hurled a dagger into the throat of another guard rushing in beside the corpse.
"Gghk!"
Even Eugene was impressed by the sight of the man collapsing with bloody foam bubbling from his throat.
'They certainly have an unusual way of fighting.'
Throwing spears was one thing, but throwing daggers was rare among knights. Killing someone with one on the fly in mounted combat suggested considerable training.
Meanwhile, the knight wielding the greatsword sent a squire's head flying within three exchanges, then seized the spear of a guard trying to stab him in the side and unhorsed him.
CRUNCH!
The greatsword came down on the guard's head as he struggled to rise, splitting him through the helmet all the way to the collarbone.
"Is aiming for someone's flank or back all you trash know how to do?!"
The tribal knight snapped around and swung his greatsword behind him.
SLASH!
Another guard, who had been about to stab him in the back, stared blankly as both his severed arms flew through the air.
THUD!
The tribal knight drew a second lance and hit him with a charge that sent him flying to his death.
At the festival, Eugene had handled them like raw recruits. On an ordinary battlefield, they were slaughterers incarnate.
Reduced to a wretched state and forced to his knees, Bruce glared at Eugene with venom.
"If you're going to kill me, then kill me! I'd rather die honorably than beg for my life—Mmph!"
"Judging by the way he speaks, he must come from a decent house. We should get a good price for him."
Rex spoke as he personally shoved a gag into the man's mouth.
"I-I am a noble appointed by His Majesty the Emperor. S-so... I have the right to a guaranteed ransom..."
The pirate chief, captured just like Bruce, trembled as he desperately tried to remember the lines he had memorized.
One look at Bruce staring at him in disbelief was enough for Eugene to understand what was going on.
"You're a pirate, aren't you? And you don't have a family that'll pay your ransom."
"...!"
"Is it because you've always lived however you pleased? You're terrible at hiding what you're thinking."
At a glance from Rex, the tribal warriors dragged the pirate captain away by the hair.
"You don't need to interrogate him yourself. Sorting the ones worth money from the ones who aren't is our specialty."
"Wow, these pirate bastards were carrying a lot of stuff."
The tribal warriors grinned broadly at the spoils scattered everywhere.
Even as they fled, the pirates had clung not only to their plundered goods but also to the payment Bruce had received from the Emperor and passed on to them.
Then a messenger rode over from the noble army on the other side.
"Sir Knight, Baron Yones requests to see you."
Yones was a neighboring domain bordering North Fork.
"Sir, normally the people we rescued should come to us, but the situation isn't good right now."
"I am aware."
As Haind had said, the battle had been so desperate that not a single one of Yones's knights was unscathed. Even the baron's own horse had an arrow lodged in its hindquarters.
"Thank you for your help. I am Baron Yones."
As Eugene approached, a young man with a boyish face greeted him first.
"Eugene of House Meyer. I also came in haste after hearing House Est's request for aid."
"Sir Eugene?! The All-Conquering Knight!"
Baron Yones shouted, looking ready to jump out of his skin.
"I knew it when I saw you fight. There can't be another knight with such valor!"
The baron dismounted and approached. Eugene followed suit; he could hardly remain on horseback looking down at a fellow lord.
"It is an honor to meet you. I'm sorry I could not send a gift when you took up your post. My house was in no position to do so at the time."
"It was a chaotic time with the war breaking out so suddenly. Don't worry about it."
Baron Yones was strangely friendly.
"No. When such an honorable knight was appointed as a lord, I should have made room for a gift even if I had none to spare."
'What's with this guy?'
Eugene was bewildered. The baron's attitude toward him went beyond friendliness or respect and bordered on outright deference.
But to a young lord who had barely survived his first real battle, Eugene seemed less like a rescuer than a guardian angel.
"Are you looking for a new liege as well, Sir Eugene?"
"A new liege?"
"There are many lords in the north without a liege right now. I'm one of them."
The lord Baron Yones had served had apparently been promised something under the table and declared for the Emperor Faction after the civil war began.
"My domain is surrounded by the Noble Faction, so I had no choice but to dissolve my vassal contract."
"A wise decision. Otherwise, you would have been attacked and plundered from every direction."
After explaining his circumstances, the baron nodded bitterly at Eugene's response.
Minor lords did not care about the Emperor Faction or the Noble Faction. They only wanted to play king in their own domains and live comfortably.
Being dragged into the interests of their betters and made to suffer for it was nothing but a nuisance.
"So you've been looking for a great lord to enter a new vassal contract with."
"Yes. I've already asked Duke Ismar to accept me as his vassal."
As the hegemon of the north, the duke was always the most popular first choice.
"Did he say he would accept?"
"He said he would consider it favorably, but he gave me no firm answer. I suppose he has reason to be suspicious."
"If you help Baron Est, the duke will be pleased as well."
"That's right."
Baron Est was Duke Ismar's vassal. Baron Yones seemed to be using this opportunity to prove his sincerity and loyalty.
"Let's move first. This isn't a place for a long conversation."
The sun was beginning to set. Monsters drawn by the smell of blood could descend on them at any time.
Riding alongside Eugene, Baron Yones looked enraptured.
His gaze settled on the strong, beautiful tribal warrior women.
"This is my first time seeing dark elves."
Countless demi-human races lived across the continent. Of them all, forest elves were by far the ones people romanticized most. Their beauty was only part of it; epics, fairy tales, plays, and bards' songs featured and glorified them constantly.
Even the Black Hand Mercenary Company's notorious reputation could not hide their martial prowess, achievements, or beauty.
Nobles captivated by them were endless, especially hot-blooded young men. Baron Yones's eyes were full of envy.
"Have you ever hired them?"
"My house could never afford them!"
The baron waved both hands as though the idea were absurd.
"They are certainly expensive company—in both price and temperament."
Their pride and skill were both at the highest level, and so was their price. A house needed to be at least viscountly rank before it could even consider hiring them.
'He'd fall over if he heard what I'm paying to employ them. It might only make him jealous.'
Eugene had finally formed a good relationship with the man, so he kept quiet rather than risk making things awkward.