Old Barbarian King

On the walls of Tyrol City, Bragi seemed to have had his spine pulled out. He slumped helplessly behind the cold battlements.

He no longer tried to cow the soldiers, whose morale had already collapsed, with impassioned speeches or stern military orders. He knew that would only backfire, and might even trigger a mutiny immediately.

At this moment, he could do only two things. First, he had to strictly order the soldiers who still barely obeyed commands to keep a close eye on the slaves inside the fortress, whose gazes had grown increasingly strange and who were itching to act, preventing them from stabbing their allies in the back at the most critical moment.

Second, he had to lead the several dozen men of his most trusted personal guard to the southern wall himself—the shortest and thinnest section, directly targeted by the Cannons of the Carnford People, and the defensive line certain to bear the brunt of the attack.

There, he would make his final stand, knowing full well that death awaited him.

Perhaps this was the only thing he could still do as Sauron's Regiment Commander for Great Chieftain Harald and Sauron's honor: die fighting atop the walls of this fortress that was about to fall.

Outside the city, in front of the Carnford Army's formation, Karl slowly walked beneath the shield protection of a squad of elite heavy infantry, personally inspecting the southern wall where the final assault was about to begin.

Through the telescope in his hand, he carefully surveyed that low stretch of so-called "city wall," barely piled together from rammed earth and rough stones. This "fortress" of Tyrol was less a military stronghold than a noble estate with slightly more land and slightly higher walls.

Its defenses were pitifully crude, utterly incomparable to Carnford's stone