Chapter Summaries

Li Ang learned from Madam Philina that his father, Leonardo, had been the last true Lion Knight and that his mother was Helen Pendragon, the last princess of Pendor. After hearing Philina’s account of the past, Li Ang returned with Amy to Wheat Fragrance Territory, determined to strengthen his army.

• King Ulrich approved Li Ang’s land transaction with the Countess after benefiting from the political fallout surrounding Eldred’s death and Andrew’s removal.
• Li Ang and Amy visited the ill Madam Philina, who recognized Li Ang’s resemblance to his father and began recounting their history.
• Philina recalled how Leonardo led the Lion Knights against nobles who had massacred villagers, then later fought to rescue his fiancée from the Mad King’s men.
• Philina revealed that Li Ang’s father was Leonardo, his mother was Helen Pendragon, and she and Helen had once been as close as sisters.
• Philina explained that Godric had returned to White Deer Fortress to command the troops and help protect Andrew and their family.
• Li Ang declined to call Philina Aunt, then left with Amy for Wheat Fragrance Territory to build up his army.

Li Ang taught Amy why keeping his promise could earn trust, then turned the two governors’ lack of travel supplies into a profitable carriage sale. He began a month of punishing military training that transformed Wheat Fragrance Territory’s recruits, while stock dividends and other benefits kept them committed.

• Li Ang released Justus and Livius as promised, then sold them a carriage and rations for 12,000 denars after they returned from the cold road without supplies.
• Li Ang explained to Amy how creating demand could make customers pay willingly, and encouraged Sarah to lead cavalry training.
• Li Ang reorganized the returning mercenaries into a security force and divided ninety recruits among cavalry, infantry, and archery training.
• Sarah, Li Ang, and the Meitengheim Charge Squad put the recruits through harsh daily drills, while Ansen formed a medical team to treat their injuries.
• After a month, the recruits had improved substantially, and Li Ang taught Amy that benefits and resources could integrate commerce with military service.

Li Ang held a surprise literacy examination to select Wheat Fragrance Territory’s first Senior Non-Commissioned Officers, and Eric soon passed the knight examination as well. As merchants brought the territory’s population to five hundred, Amy warned Li Ang that White Deer Fortress could not supply grain, leaving Wheat Fragrance Territory facing a food crisis.

• Li Ang ended the recruits’ training with a surprise examination, making literacy a requirement for promotion to Senior Non-Commissioned Officer.
• Only five people passed the examination, with Eric earning the highest score; Li Ang awarded them bronze Griffin Badges and leadership roles, while several dozen low-scoring men lost their non-commissioned officer status and wages.
• Kloze and other veteran, semi-literate Meitengheim men became Li Ang’s personal guards, and Eric passed Li Ang’s knight examination the following morning.
• Merchants arrived with people to sell, bringing Wheat Fragrance Territory’s population to five hundred and prompting more residents to begin farming.
• Amy warned Li Ang that White Deer Fortress had lost much of its harvest in the siege and could not provide grain, while Wheat Fragrance Territory’s stores and fields could not support its growing population.

Li Ang investigated the grain shortages affecting Wheat Fragrance Territory, Fletcher Village, and Ralph’s territory, then claimed the abandoned village of Trublen in hopes of harvesting its wheat. After finding a massacre and too little grain to solve the crisis, he headed to Kewen Village to negotiate for supplies.

• Ralph and Charles reported that their territories lacked grain, and Li Ang calculated a combined shortfall of about three hundred thousand pounds.
• Li Ang realized Trublen might be unmanaged and traveled there with his troops to claim the land and harvest its crops.
• Li Ang found Trublen deserted and filled with unburied corpses, ordered the bodies cleared, and planted his banner at the village entrance.
• Li Ang discovered Trublen’s neglected fields could yield only fifty or sixty thousand pounds of grain, leaving a large shortage.
• Li Ang sent Amy toward Long River Town to seek grain while he rode to Kewen Village to ask the Countess to sell Brave Shield Fortress’s grain.

Li Ang sought grain in Kewen Village, where the countess explained that most farmland belonged to tax-exempt noble manors and the available harvest was limited. In Long River Town, Amy’s grain negotiations with Forster turned threatening, and she led Kloze and his men toward the main castle to take a hostage.

• The countess told Li Ang that Alma had already bought her expected thirty thousand pounds of grain and explained how noble estates made Kewen’s taxes and grain supply difficult to manage.
• The countess agreed to ask the surrounding manor owners about selling grain and invited Li Ang to wait at her manor.
• Forster ignored Amy’s questions about grain and offered her three hundred thousand catties in exchange for responding to his pursuit.
• After Amy’s curse made Forster suspect she knew his family secret, he blocked the door and drew his sword, but then let her leave.
• Amy saw Forster’s cavalry waiting outside and decided not to risk escaping through the wilderness, so she ordered Kloze to follow her toward the main castle to take a hostage.
• Forster watched Amy ride through Long River Town with her guards and followed her toward the castle with his squires.

Amy forced her way into Long River Castle to reach Madam Bella, where she discovered that Bella and her guards were involved in a blood-soaked religious ritual. After the tall warrior escaped through a hidden exit into the Tongtian River, Bella stabbed herself in the chest, leaving Amy and Kloze to restrain her.

• Amy slapped the old butler, entered the inner district with Kloze and the Meitengheim Great Swordsmen, and Forster shut the castle gates behind them.
• Amy's group broke into the main building, where a tall woman poisoned them and fought Kloze until crosswort blunted the poison and the Meitengheim warriors defeated her female soldiers.
• Amy's group found Madam Bella carving blood-stained sculptures and learned that the tall woman sought a vessel for Goddess Eredar to bring forth Pendor's hero.
• The tall woman escaped through a hidden door and leaped into the Tongtian River, while Kloze and the others could not pursue her.
• Madam Bella recognized Amy, laughed wildly, and stabbed herself in the chest, prompting Amy to order the others to restrain her.

Amy and her companions captured the deranged Madam Bella but remained trapped in Long River Town, while Li Ang struggled to buy grain in Kewen Village. When a huge, drunken force arrived at a bridge near the village, Li Ang led his thirty cavalrymen against them and tried to stop them crossing.

• Amy knocked Madam Bella unconscious after the woman fought her captors with unnatural strength and clawed at her wounds.
• Li Ang secured only fifty thousand pounds of grain from estates in Kewen Village and prepared to leave for other sources.
• A knight warned Li Ang and the Countess that hundreds of disorderly soldiers and deserters bearing a Bull Flag had gathered north of the village.
• Li Ang saw the crowd attempting to cross a swaying suspension bridge and recognized their leader as a man strong enough to lift a horse.
• The Countess asked Li Ang to defend the village in exchange for grain, and he ordered his thirty cavalrymen to block the bridge.
• Li Ang and his cavalry charged along the riverbank, knocking several drunken men into the river as the Bull Flag force continued crossing.

Li Ang confronted Alaric the Noisy One and stopped his Drunkards' Brigade from crossing into Kewen Village. After Alaric surrendered and explained how a mysterious potion had made him powerful but dangerously unstable, Li Ang learned that he used alcohol to keep himself from harming people.

• Li Ang recognized Alaric and tried to negotiate, but Alaric charged him at the bridge.
• Li Ang broke his lance against Alaric's shield, then used mounted archery to wound him until he stopped fighting.
• Li Ang gave Alaric wine and promised more if his troops waited across the bridge, so Alaric ordered them to retreat.
• Alaric told Li Ang that he had lost his family, been betrayed by nobles, and eventually killed Chief Bjorn the Far-Reacher.
• Alaric revealed that a mysterious man had given him a potion he called the Elixir of Immortality, which caused violent urges and left him relying on drunkenness to control himself.

Li Ang traded Dragon Tear for Alaric’s wine and secured a promise of grain, but found Long River Town under martial law and Amy trapped in its inner keep. Forster’s cavalry ambushed Li Ang near the town, and Forster accused Amy and Godric of colluding with heretics, leaving Li Ang to confront him.

• Alaric discovered his money was gone and offered Li Ang Dragon Tear in exchange for wine, then agreed to leave with his Drunkards' Brigade.
• Li Ang ordered the reinforcements to stand down, bought Countess's entire wine stock for five thousand denars, and received the nobles’ promise of surplus grain after the harvest.
• Li Ang found Long River Town sealed and under martial law, then camped by the Aier River while suspecting Amy was in danger.
• Amy and Kloze remained trapped in the inner keep as Forster accused them of heresy and demanded Madam Bella; on the fourth day, Grand Duke Alma’s troops surrounded the keep.
• Forster’s cavalry attacked Li Ang’s camp at dawn, and Forster accused Amy and Godric of conspiring with heretics before Li Ang challenged him to observe knightly etiquette.

Li Ang uncovered Forster’s plan to frame Godric and Amy for heresy and seize the Wheat Fragrance Company, then captured Forster to stop him. He forced Forster to stand down in Long River Town and bring Amy to him, while considering how to handle the threat of Forster’s cavalry and Duke Alma.

• Forster threatened Li Ang into falsely testifying against Godric and Amy, offering White Deer Fortress in exchange for Godric’s execution and the Wheat Fragrance Company.
• Li Ang realized Forster lacked control over Godric’s family and was trying to secure a witness before moving against them.
• When Forster ordered his cavalry to surround Li Ang’s group, Li Ang charged him on Alice, knocked him from his horse, and took him hostage.
• Li Ang forced Forster to order his cavalry to stand down and learned that Amy was in the inner castle with Madam Bella.
• Li Ang brought Forster to the administrative hall and ordered him to withdraw the town garrison, bring Amy, and keep his cavalry apart from the garrison.

Li Ang rescued Amy, uncovered Madam Bella’s ties to the Prophet Legion and her murder of Duke Elfwan, and learned that Forster had concealed her heresy while seeking to reclaim Long River Town. He coerced Forster into going to Lion City to turn himself in and accuse Duke Alma of sheltering a heretic, leaving the Horton family’s claim to the town in jeopardy.

• Amy reached Li Ang after the cavalry brought her to the administrative hall, and she warned him to inspect the keep.
• Li Ang questioned the wounded, unconscious Madam Bella, who woke and revealed that the Prophet Legion planned to arrive and offer Long River Town to Goddess Eredar.
• Forster told Li Ang that Madam Bella had poisoned Duke Elfwan and that Elfwan had wanted Duke Alma to reclaim Long River Town through Bella’s posthumous child.
• Li Ang realized Madam Bella had purchased grain for the Prophet Legion and proposed that Forster expose her heresy and accuse Duke Alma of sheltering her.
• After Li Ang threatened to expose his affair with his sister and hand him to Lord Godric, Forster agreed to go to Lion City and turn himself in.

After exposing Madam Bella as a heretic, Li Ang maneuvered Forster into accusing Duke Alma while preparing for the Prophet Legion’s advance on Long River Town. Li Ang returned to Wheat Fragrance Territory intending to gather troops and seize control of the town, but found an armed group in black confronting his soldiers at Trublen.

• Li Ang reasoned that Forster would accuse Duke Alma of harboring heretics, leaving Forster to pursue power in Lion Lake City while Alma faced legal trouble.
• Scouts reported that armed groups with many women were moving north, and Li Ang ordered warnings sent to Long River Town and troops summoned to Wheat Fragrance Territory.
• Li Ang and Amy traveled back by river, where he admitted that he sought power for his own security and planned to take control of Long River Town.
• At Wheat Fragrance Territory, Li Ang learned that riders had previously asked for him, then took farmers toward Trublen to retrieve soldiers and grain.
• At Trublen, Li Ang found his sixty soldiers confronting another group of about sixty armed men led by knights dressed in black.

Li Ang learned that the Three Prophets’ heretic force had massacred Trublen’s villagers and recruited the Owl Knight Order to scout its movements. He persuaded Godric to lead an eastern alliance against the Prophet Legion, which soon arrived near Long River Town.

• Ols von Clancy warned Li Ang that a large force of women was nearby, and Li Ang recognized it as the Prophet Legion.
• After hearing about Trublen’s dead villagers, Ols said the Three Prophets used witchcraft, child sacrifices, and abducted children to create soldiers.
• Li Ang offered the Owl Knight Order supplies and a place in his territory in exchange for scouting the Prophet Legion, and Ols accepted.
• Li Ang convinced Godric that Long River Town’s military command needed a trustworthy leader, and Godric sent letters calling the eastern lords to form an allied army.
• Three days later, scouts reported that the Prophet Legion had reached Long River Town under goat-horn banners and that its three leaders were witches.

Li Ang joined the Owl Knight Order on a night reconnaissance of the Prophet Legion’s sprawling camp outside Long River Town. After discovering that the arriving knights seemed disorganized and unfamiliar with one another, he disguised his party as newcomers and approached a small camp beside the Legion’s central enclosure.

• Baron Leofric delivered nearly three hundred wagons of grain, and Godric assembled an allied force of about seventeen hundred soldiers.
• The Owl Knight Order reported that the Prophet Legion had grown to more than three thousand troops, including three leaders in red armor, female soldiers, and hundreds of knights with their own forces.
• Godric and Leofric described the Three Prophets as mysterious diviners whose successful clients had suffered terrible misfortunes.
• Li Ang decided to scout the enemy camp with the Owl Knight Order, then led a group of Meitengheim men toward it while Ols stayed behind to keep watch and alert Godric.
• Li Ang’s party entered the camp complex without being challenged and approached a small camp near the curtained central camp, where Kloze recognized a tall armored woman as resembling one he had seen at Madam Bella’s place.
• Li Ang walked up to the camp and asked its occupants if he could set up beside them.

Li Ang discovered that the Prophet Legion's beautiful guides wore surgically altered faces and that the Three Prophets' guidance was a scheme built on drugs, manipulation, and stolen skin. After capturing Morgan's Luck Bringer, Li Ang prepared to flee the camp, but Morgan's search threatened to expose them.

• Li Ang gained permission to camp near the Prophet Legion after letting a Misfortune Bringer interpret his gesture as a sign he sought the prophets' guidance.
• Li Ang spied on the camp and saw patrols of skinless women in armor, then watched knights deliver sacks near the Misfortune Bringers.
• The Misfortune Bringer tested Li Ang's tent with a Snake Heart Stone and entered, where Kloze and Sammer captured her while Li Ang evaded a nearby patrol.
• Li Ang pinched the woman's face and discovered her skin was altered, leading him to conclude that the Three Prophets used skin grafts, drugs, and manipulation to control followers and exploit nobles.
• Morgan searched for his missing Luck Bringer and barged into Li Ang's tent, so Li Ang knocked him unconscious before the patrol arrived.

Li Ang led a night raid on the Prophet Legion’s camp, rescued his companions from pursuing Misfortune Bringers, and captured Morgan. Back at the allied camp, Morgan revealed how he had been seduced into joining the prophets and that they had recently been collecting grain from knights.

• Li Ang sent Kloze and Sammer ahead with the captives while he covered their retreat, but mounted Misfortune Bringers caught the group near the rocky beach.
• Li Ang and the Meitengheim fighters charged the pursuers and cut down their horses, then escaped when the Owl Knight Order arrived with crossbows and Alice carried Li Ang away.
• Li Ang returned to the allied camp with Morgan and a captured Misfortune Bringer, then exposed that her face was a false skin.
• Morgan confessed that the Misfortune Bringer had seduced him and persuaded him to donate money and grain before joining the Prophet Legion.
• Morgan’s account revealed that the Three Prophets had recently been making knights recruited by the Misfortune Bringers supply grain.

Li Ang devised a plan to infiltrate the Prophet Legion’s camp with Baron Leofric’s grain wagons, set their supplies ablaze, and launch a coordinated attack. Leofric led the disguised wagons toward the camp while Li Ang and Godric followed with the coalition army, which halted nearby before dawn.

• Li Ang explained how the Three Prophets recruited nobles and knights with promises of guidance, youth, and power, and the leaders agreed that the Prophet Legion had to be stopped quickly.
• Li Ang persuaded Baron Leofric to pose as a grain supplier, with Morgan helping him gain the Prophet Legion’s trust.
• Li Ang revealed that most of Leofric’s wagons would carry firewood and oil so his men could ignite the camp’s supplies and flee as the coalition army charged.
• Leofric agreed to the dangerous mission and led his men and wagons out at midnight; Godric praised his honorable character and urged Li Ang to follow his example.
• The coalition army followed at a distance while the Owl Knight Order’s scouts tracked and picked off the Prophet Legion’s scouts, then halted about five miles from the camp at three in the morning.

Baron Leofric infiltrated the Prophet Legion's camp with a grain convoy and set its supplies ablaze before escaping. The allied army advanced as the Three Prophets fled the burning camp and struggled to rally their forces for battle.

• Leofric used wormwood and Morgan's cover story to persuade the Misfortune Bringer to escort his grain convoy into the Prophet Legion's camp.
• The tall Misfortune Bringer exposed Leofric's Snake Heart Stone, so he ordered his soldiers to ignite the wagons and flee south on the draft horses.
• The burning wagons set the Prophet Legion's tents, granary, stables, and nearby camps ablaze as Leofric's men escaped under arrow fire.
• Godric led the allied army toward the Prophet Legion, while the Three Prophets abandoned their burning camp and recalled the Misfortune Bringers.
• A witch and her female soldiers slaughtered disobedient men to restore order, frightening the knights as the allied army approached.

Li Ang’s allied army attacked the Prophet Legion, but the Legion’s prayers turned the slain fanatics into Fallen Ones by making them tear off their own skin. As the creatures rose across the battlefield, Li Ang recognized the danger and ordered his troops to fall back.

• Baron Godric led the allied army forward while the Three Prophets sent hundreds of unarmored men charging as the Prophet Legion formed a strange prayer formation.
• Li Ang warned Godric that the charging men were dangerous and ordered the archers to kill them, though Godric first tried to capture them.
• Two wounded men rose from the dead and began ripping at their skin, prompting Li Ang to have the recruits cut them down.
• Ansen and Sarah recognized the Legion’s hymn as a prayer to Astaria, the Goddess of Justice, and Sarah revealed that the Three Prophets might once have served her.
• The fallen men rose again, tore off their skin, and became Fallen Ones; Li Ang ordered everyone to retreat and led his men to rescue the recruits.

The Three Prophets turned the allied army’s disordered retreat into a chaotic melee with their resurrected Fallen Ones and charging Prophet Legion. As Godric attacked the Blood Oath Witches, Li Ang tried to hold off the Three Prophets, then saw one of them effortlessly kill a charging knight.

• Godric ordered the allied army to attack after seeing the Three Prophets raise the dead, but the resurrected Fallen Ones lost control and slaughtered friend and foe alike.
• Li Ang and Godric ordered their troops to retreat from the Fallen Ones, but the Prophet Legion then charged the disorganized army and split the battlefield into scattered melees.
• Li Ang kept his troops together and returned to guard Godric while the Misfortune Bringers engaged the allied knight formations and the Blood Oath Witches fought the heavy infantry.
• Godric decided to lead his guards against the Blood Oath Witches, while Li Ang agreed to keep the Three Prophets’ forces from joining the fight.
• Li Ang sent Amy to seek support from Long River Town and led his troops to block the Three Prophets, drawing their charge with arrows before retreating.
• A knight charged one of the Three Prophets, who knocked him several meters away with a single blow, leaving Li Ang convinced he could not match her.