Chapter 41 : Chapter 41
Chapter 41. Lucerne Changes Hands
After a night of rest and a lavish “victory banquet,” the Black Territory army had become even sharper.
The bloody battle on Windrest Plain had not only been a victory. It had also been a brutal baptism.
It had transformed this force of farmers, slaves, exiles, and Wolf-kin into a true army, one with a will forged of iron and blood.
After two days of forced marching along the same route the Grumm rebels had taken on their way here, Eli quietly led his army to the outskirts of Lucerne City.
When the outline of that war-scarred Western Frontier town, built from gray-brown stone, appeared on the horizon, the column came to a halt.
Eli reined in his horse, his deep blue eyes coolly surveying the target before him.
Lucerne City was not grand, but its walls were sturdy, built against the slope of a low hill.
Its only gate was shut tight, and vague silhouettes of patrolling soldiers could be seen atop the gate tower.
Storm the city by force?
Eli dismissed the idea at once.
The soldiers of the Black Territory had only just come through a bloody battle. Their exhaustion had not yet fully faded, and now they faced an enemy defending from behind city walls.
Even if the enemy’s forces were depleted, a direct assault would still demand a terrible price. It was the worst possible choice.
The key lay in the gate.
A bold plan quickly took shape in Eli’s mind.
He turned his gaze to Buck, who stood beside him as steady as bedrock.
“Captain Buck, I need you to put on a little show.”
......
Half an hour later, a tiny merchant caravan appeared before Lucerne City’s tightly sealed gates.
At its head was Buck, having changed out of his black light armor into a worn merchant’s leather coat.
Behind him followed ten Black Crow Knights dressed in coarse cloth, pushing three flatbed carts covered with thick oilcloth, each one looking heavily laden.
The wheels left deep ruts in the packed dirt road.
“Sirs on the wall! Have mercy!” Buck shouted at the top of his lungs.
“We’re merchants from the east! The roads haven’t been safe!
It’ll be dark soon, and spending the night out in this wilderness is terrifying!
Please, show us some kindness and let us into the city to rest for the night!
We’ll pay the entry tax! Double! No, triple if we must!”
As he shouted, he pulled out a small purse from his robe and deliberately shook it, letting the coins inside ring together in a crisp, tempting jingle.
The guards on the wall were alarmed.
Several heads poked out from behind the battlements and warily looked down at the small group below.
“Get lost!” a young soldier shouted impatiently.
“The gates are closed! No one gets in! Get the hell out of here! Keep yelling and I’ll put an arrow through you!”
“Oh, sir, please calm down! Calm down!” Buck’s face filled with panic.
“We’re just humble merchants. It really hasn’t been easy for us! Look, if you would just—”
Before he could finish, an officer in a squad captain’s leather armor slapped the young soldier hard across the back of the head and cursed under his breath.
“Idiot! Shut your mouth!”
His eyes were fixed on the purse swaying in Buck’s hand.
Then his gaze swept across the three carts that clearly carried no small weight, and naked greed flashed in his eyes.
“No merchants have come here in ages. Are you really going to turn down business that’s fallen straight from the heavens?
They’re just a dozen unarmed merchants. What are you scared of?
Let them in. We’ll split the tax money among ourselves, and as for the goods on those carts... heh...”
The officer licked his lips.
“Once they’re inside the city, won’t they be ours to squeeze however we like?”
The young soldier clutched the back of his head and did not dare make another sound.
The officer cleared his throat, then shouted down below, “Listen up, down there!
Since trade is hard enough as it is, and since you’re willing to pay the tax, this captain will make an exception and show you mercy just this once!
But let me make one thing clear first. Once you enter the city, you obey the rules! Have the tax money ready!”
“Thank you, sir! Thank you, sir! We know the rules! We’ll obey them for sure!”
Relief and joy flooded Buck’s face as he lifted the coin purse high.
Creak—creak—.
The heavy ironwood gates slowly opened inward under the turning of the winch, leaving only a gap wide enough for a single cart to pass through.
Behind the gate stood seven or eight soldiers with spears in hand, led by that rat-mustached officer.
The servile smile vanished from Buck’s face in an instant.
He barked in a low voice, “Move!”
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The ten Black Crow Knights disguised as caravan hands tore the oilcloth from the carts, revealing their fine weapons and armor beneath.
“What...?!”
The greed on the rat-mustached officer’s face turned to sheer horror in an instant.
Slash!
Buck’s sword flicked like a striking viper, cutting cleanly across the officer’s throat.
Blood sprayed out like a fountain.
The officer clutched at his neck, making a wet gurgling sound as he stared at Buck in utter disbelief, then his body collapsed limply to the ground.
At almost the same moment, the ten Black Crow Knights pounced like tigers into a flock of sheep.
These ordinary gate guards were like lambs awaiting slaughter before the Silver Tier backbone of the Black Crow Knights. They could not even form a proper resistance.
Within only a few breaths, all seven or eight soldiers in the gate passage had fallen into pools of blood.
“Take the winch. Open the gates.”
Buck kicked aside the rat-mustached officer’s corpse, his voice as cold as iron.
Two Black Crow Knights immediately rushed to the massive winch and heaved at it with all their strength.
Creak—creak—!
With a grating shriek of metal and wood, the heavy gates were thrown fully open.
“The signal!” Buck roared toward the wall above.
A signal arrow wrapped with an oil-soaked strip of cloth shot into the sky with a shrill whistle and a glaring red flare.
“Kill—!!!”
Eli, who had been lying in wait all along, suddenly drew the knight’s sword at his waist and pointed it straight at the wide-open gates of Lucerne City!
“Charge! Take Lucerne City!”
“For the Black Territory! Kill!” Bol roared, swinging his heavy warhammer as he surged to the front.
More than a hundred Black Territory infantrymen followed behind the knights like a breached flood, roaring as they charged toward the open gates!
The sudden upheaval left the guards atop the wall completely stunned.
A signal arrow? The gates... how had they opened?!
“Enemy attack! Enemy attack!!” The shrill alarm bell and the soldiers’ screams finally rang out, but it was already too late.
The Black Territory’s main force poured in like a flood.
“Bol is here! Anyone who stands in my way dies!”
Bol was like a human battering ram.
His warhammer carried a dull, crushing howl through the air as it smashed two spearmen who were trying to form ranks and sent them flying!
“Form up! Spears forward!” Aika shouted sharply as he directed the infantry rushing in.
They quickly formed a crude spear wall on the open ground inside the gate, blocking the defenders surging in from the streets on both sides.
A brutal close-quarters fight exploded across the streets near the gate.
At the height of the melee, Bol suddenly tore a round object wrapped in oilcloth from his waist and hooked it viciously onto the head of his blood-smeared warhammer.
He drew a deep breath, and then a thunderous roar rolled across the chaotic battlefield.
“Grumm is dead!!!”
He raised the warhammer high with all his strength.
The oilcloth fell away, revealing a severed head, its expression frozen forever in shock and unwilling fury.
It was Grumm.
“Your Baron Grumm!! And all his men! We slaughtered every last one of them!”
“Look carefully! This is your lord!”
“Drop your weapons! Surrender and you will be spared!”
Grumm was dead?! Their six hundred main troops had been wiped out?!
That news struck like a bolt from a clear sky and became the final straw that broke them.
Their morale had already begun to crumble when the gate fell and the enemy burst into the city. Now, in an instant, it collapsed completely.
Clang!
A spear fell from one soldier’s hand.
Bang!
Another threw away his shield.
“I... I surrender! Don’t kill me!”
“We surrender! We surrender!”
Like a plague spreading, despair and fear swiftly replaced the will to resist.
Less than a quarter of an hour after Grumm’s head was displayed to the defenders, the fighting near the city gate was over.
Large numbers of defenders dropped to their knees in surrender, like wheat laid low after harvest.
“Aika!” Eli’s voice rang out through the smoke and chaos.
“Take a squad at once and seize the granary and the armory!
Move fast! Don’t let anyone get desperate enough to set fires or destroy anything! Kill anyone who resists!”
“Yes, my lord!” Aika acknowledged the order and immediately gathered twenty elite soldiers before charging toward the city’s granaries.
Meanwhile, Eli, flanked by Bol and several guards, strode toward the lord’s manor in the center of the city.
The manor gates stood wide open, and the inside was in utter disarray. Clearly, the remaining defenders had either fled or surrendered long ago.
The moment he stepped into the front hall, Bol emerged from an inner room, dragging a woman along with him.
She looked to be barely in her early twenties, and she truly was beautiful, but at the moment her face was drained of color and streaked with tears.
“My lord! My lord, spare me!” The moment she saw Eli, surrounded by the others,
she dropped to her knees with a thud, as though she had seized the last straw that could save her life.
“I’m Grumm’s daughter! My name is Lina! I know many things!
I can help you! Help you take control of Lucerne City!
I know where the warehouses are, the treasury, and even the names of the lesser nobles in the city who still secretly remained loyal to my father!
Please! Don’t kill me! I can do anything for you...”
She lifted her tearful face and forced out a pitiful, delicate smile, trying to reach for the hem of Eli’s robe.
The surrounding soldiers, Bol included, froze for a moment.
Eli lowered his head and looked at the woman kneeling at his feet, the one claiming to be Grumm’s daughter.
His eyes were deep and cold as a winter pool, without the slightest ripple.
Slowly, he crouched down, his voice calm in a way that made it all the more frightening.
“Help me? But I... only just cut off your father’s head with my own hands.”
Lina’s body stiffened, and a flash of naked fear and venom passed through her eyes.
“No! My lord! You did well! You did well to kill him!” she shrieked, her voice twisting with agitation.
“I hated him! I had long hated him to the core! By killing him, you avenged me! My lord! You are my benefactor! I am willing to serve you for the rest of my life...”
Her words cut off abruptly.
Because Eli had already risen to his feet.
He slowly drew the knight’s sword at his waist.
The pleading smile on Lina’s face froze at once and turned into boundless terror.
“N-no... please... my lord... You said those who surrendered would be spared... I can help you... I...”
“Uproot the weeds.”
The moment the words fell, the blade flashed.
Slash!
A soft, sickening sound rang out.
The terror and disbelief in Lina’s eyes froze there forever.
The front hall fell utterly silent.
Every soldier present, including Bol, who was long used to life and death, drew in a sharp breath in shock and did not dare utter a single word.
Eli’s face remained expressionless, as though he had merely done something utterly trivial.
He flicked the blood from the blade, then smoothly slid the knight’s sword back into its sheath.
“Clean this up,” he said flatly.
Then, without another glance at the corpse on the floor, he walked alone into the shadowed depths of the lord’s manor.