Thorsten and Cyril
At the tip of the Southwest Peninsula Winters Harbor, once the jewel of the kingdom's Northern Territory, now reduced to a shocking, charred ruin.
The towering lighthouse has collapsed more than halfway, and most of the wooden piers at the dock have been burned and broken, sinking into the shallow bay, leaving only charred wooden piles pointing to the sky like tombstones.
The once bustling warehouse district and streets teeming with merchants are now reduced to ruins and thick layers of ashes.
The air still seemed to faintly carry the smoky smell of that desperate fire from many years ago.
This place was once the kingdom's most prosperous port in the Northern Territory, facing the mainland's Field Territory across the sea, with frequent shipping traffic and a constant stream of merchant ships.
However, as the kingdom's strategic focus shifted and it eventually abandoned the entire Northern Territory, Winters Harbor became an abandoned orphan.
In the final moments before the Sauron army besieged the city, the defending commander, a noble officer from the Field family, issued the cruelest order in despair.
We must not allow the barbarians to remain intact with the port and its reserves, even if we set the city ablaze.
The towering fire burned for several days, turning this magnificent port into a wasteland.
But life's resilience is beyond imagination. On the edge of this vast ruin, on a gentle slope near the inland river valley, a small human settlement has stubbornly grown.
The people who opened up this new home were the very slaves who had been brought to the Northern Territory by Baron Cyril to explore the land, but were ambushed by the Sauron at Icewater Creek.
Relying on the meager supplies salvaged from the Icewater Creek and their survival instincts, they migrated south, eventually discovering this desolate corner—a place with an excellent geographical location, relatively fertile land, and temporarily overlooked by the Sauron due to the destruction of their port.
Cyril's initial Northern Territory were located at the tip of the Southwest Peninsula, a region that was indeed one of the few in the Northern Territory that was relatively warm and humid due to its maritime climate.
The military staff officer who chose this location for him did indeed demonstrate excellent strategic vision, but unfortunately, he had already perished in Icewater Creek.
The surviving slaves struggled to survive here.
The first winter was exceptionally difficult; countless people died from cold and hunger.
But those who survived, relying on the diligence and resilience inherent in the Goldspur, managed to pull through.
They cleared the ruins, used the remaining stones to build makeshift shelters, cultivated the land, planted hardy crops, fished at sea, hunted in the mountains, and even cautiously explored the port ruins for anything usable that might remain...
Six months later, this settlement, known as "Remnant Slope," slowly recovered and formed a small, orderly, and self-sufficient community of several hundred people.
Their former master, Baron Cyril, although he did not play a significant role in the reconstruction of the territory, relied on his status as Baron.
He naturally became the ruler of the area again and moved into the best stone house built for him by the former inhabitants.
Here he remained unchanged, indulging in a decadent life of wine, women, and pampering his maids, leaving the mundane management tasks to a few former slave leaders who were barely literate.
Out of habitual fear and a lingering sense of hierarchy, the remaining inhabitants reluctantly tolerated his presence, but resentment had already begun to fester in their hearts.
However, Cyril's brief and illusory "good days" came to a complete end a few days ago.
Thorsten, commander of the Sauron Vanguard Camp, whose vanguard was utterly defeated by Lyon's Goldfinch Cavalry at Ashbourne, knew he could not explain to the Harald chieftain the responsibility for the defeat, which resulted in heavy losses of men and livestock, and that returning would mean certain death.
In desperation, he gathered his remaining sixty cavalrymen and, instead of returning north to Frosgard to apologize, fled south, where he stumbled upon "Remnant Slope," hidden in a corner of the bay.
For Thorsten's defeated army, this place was a godsend!
Cyril's few dozen poorly equipped and untrained so-called "guards" were no match for Thorsten's battle-hardened Sauron Cavalry. Several were cut down in a single encounter, and the rest immediately knelt down and surrendered.
Cyril himself was roughly dragged from the maid's warm bed and thrown onto the cold ground, disheveled, watching in horror as the ferocious Sauron commander took his maid for himself.
He himself was thrown into a cold, dark storage room, shivering, thankful that at least he had survived.
To the surprise of all the survivors, Thorsten did not engage in the massacres and plundering that were typical of the Sauron conquerors.
He was a pragmatist who knew he was now a homeless dog and that if he wanted to establish himself here, survive, or even make a comeback, he had to rely on these hardworking and capable remnants of the Broomflower tribe.
Instead, he enacted a more lenient policy of governance than during Cyril's reign, reducing corvée labor and tribute, and even allowing the remnants to retain most of their harvest, requiring only that they provide his army with the necessary food and supplies.
In comparison, the survivors actually felt that this Sauron Barbarians commander seemed more "merciful" than their greedy and cowardly former master, Baron Cyril?
But Thorsten never forgot his ambition for revenge and to return to his tribe, and he kept a close eye on the war in the north.
When his scouts reported that Harald had sent a large army to besiege Carnford, he was immediately excited, believing that his chance to redeem himself had arrived!
He immediately reorganized his troops, dispatched a large number of scouts to keep a close watch on Carnford's movements, and prepared to lead all his cavalry north at any time to "support" his allies at a critical moment, hoping to turn the tide of the battle and gain forgiveness to return to the tribe.
On this day, he was in his warm bedroom, embracing Cyril's maid, eating grilled fish and Black Bread, dreaming of a comeback.
Suddenly, hurried, frantic footsteps and the shouts of guards came from outside the door.
Immediately afterward, several scouts, covered in dust and pale-faced, rushed in, collapsed to the ground, their voices hoarse and distorted with fear and exhaustion, shouting incoherently:
"We've lost! We've lost! My lord! We've lost!"
Upon hearing this, Thorsten abruptly pushed away the maid in his arms, stood up excitedly, and his eyes gleamed with a bloodthirsty light. "Defeated? Excellent! Have those damned Broomflower bastards from Carnford finally been crushed by our army? Quick! Assemble the troops! We must set off immediately... to..."
His words came to an abrupt end.
Because he saw the scout lying on the ground raise his head in terror, his face devoid of any joy, only filled with boundless fear and despair, crying out with all his might:
"No, my lord! Our men have been defeated! Our army... the Sparrow Corps... and Invag's warband... are all wiped out! Almost all of them are dead! Corpses lie everywhere, my lord!"