Night Raid on the Pirate Den

More than two hundred paces south of the mill, amid the shrubs on the mountainside, the "warriors" grew increasingly restless.

Once the dead grass around the mill had been set alight, they could clearly see the fighting below the mountain. Yet the planned signal had failed to appear, and none of this had been within Young Master Roger's original plan.

One after another, they began to suspect that Ponytail, sent in as an infiltrator to poison the pirates, had already become a corpse.

"Young Master Roger, something's wrong. The pirates have already seen through your trick. We should run for our lives before those demons spot us. There's still time." Someone in the darkness muttered tremblingly, immediately drawing a chorus of agreement.

Roger could not be certain whether Ponytail's poisoning plan had succeeded, but he had already seen the mill pirates turn on one another. If he did not strike now, Ponytail would certainly be doomed, and the danger hanging over him would remain unrooted.

Besides, his pants were already off. Calling it quits now was not his style.

After a brief hesitation, he drew the Viking battle axe from his waist and shouted to rally them. "The pirates are in chaos. One charge will scatter them. Anyone who wants gold, silver, and treasure, follow me down and kill!"

With that, he sprang up and charged down the shepherd's trail along the edge of the brush toward the brightly burning mill.

"Blackhide Dog, if you want to live, come with me!" Even as he ran, he did not forget to pull along Blackhide Dog, who was trying to redeem himself.

"The pirates are almost all dead already. What's there to fear? Charge in, take their money, take their food!" Blackhide Dog, wielding a homemade spiked club, rushed after him. He spurred Fat Widow, Old Joey, and Black Charcoal, three bold souls, to charge out of the brush with loud cries.

Baldhead had already been thinking of retreating, but seeing Blackhide Dog, Fat Widow, and the others charge out, he could hardly bring himself to shrink back at the critical moment.

"Warriors who aren't afraid of death, charge with me!" He still wanted to egg on a few more men and bolster his courage.

But no one beside him responded.

Baldhead turned around and cursed softly at the people in the brush. "You bastards took the Campbell Lineage's reward money but won't lift a finger. If Young Master Roger gets killed by the pirates, none of you will get to live well afterward."

"Baron John and Sir Colin will be leading troops back soon. When that happens, every last one of you will have your heads chopped off." In his desperation, Baldhead dragged out Baron John and Sir Colin to intimidate them.

Those words truly worked. Several men cowering in the brush immediately remembered that the devilish young master had the Campbell Lineage, rulers of Allen Island, behind him. If he were killed, people like them who had accepted the reward would surely meet no good end either.

"Count me in." Missing Tooth shot to his feet, and his hole-riddled padded armor snagged on thorns, tearing open yet another gap.

"I'm going too." Gambling Addict raised the winged iron spear in his hand.

"Let's risk it all against those bastards and strip them clean of their gold and silver."

"Yeah, kill them!"

At last, three farmers and street thugs had risen.

"Hunters, you two spineless bastards brag every day about killing bears and hunting deer. It was all lies." Missing Tooth fiercely provoked the two hunters crouching beside him, and they rose as well.

With several more men around him, Baldhead's courage swelled considerably. Seeing Roger and the others already more than halfway down, he let out a strange cry, grabbed his crossbow, and gave chase, keeping the bolt aimed at the figures ahead.

After Baldhead and his group charged out, the remaining people sat on the mountain and watched the fire from across the shore. They itched to move, but none dared take the first step.

At the foot of the mountain, guided by several landmarks he had memorized during the day and illuminated by the stars and moon, Roger, Viking axe in hand, had charged to within fifty paces of the mill. He slowed his rush slightly to let the people behind him close the distance.

Twenty paces. The mill's full outline lay before his eyes. Campfires and iron pots were scattered everywhere, and several bodies lay on the road outside the mill leading toward the sea, clearly pirates who had tried to flee.

The dead grass outside the mill had failed to ignite the wooden structure. Only scattered points of flame remained, spreading outward. Two pirates were still wrestling at the mill entrance, utterly unaware that Roger was approaching with an axe in hand.

Ten paces. Roger had reached the campfire. A pirate still writhed on the ground there, and seeing a short sword in his hand, Roger rushed up and stomped hard on his arm. With a crisp crack of breaking hand bones, the short sword flew several paces away.

The pirate on the ground screamed in pain, rolling and struggling to crawl away to one side.

Roger kicked hard at the man's head again, jolting his entire body before he immediately passed out.

Having dealt with the first pirate blocking his path, Roger ignored the body farther away. He raised his Viking axe to one side and charged straight toward the two men fighting at the mill entrance.

Their struggle had already reached the fever pitch of choking throats and gouging eyes. One of them noticed Roger charging over with his axe raised, but another pirate had his head locked in an iron grip, leaving him no way to dodge.

Driven by the momentum of his charge and the immense strength in Roger's arm, the axe swept down with a howling whistle through the air toward the other pirate's back.

Roger felt the axe in his hand suddenly meet resistance. Then the crisp crack of a snapping spine pierced his ears. The Viking battle axe split apart the fierce pirate's shoddy padded armor and lodged in his spinal bones.

His charge was too fierce. As he swung the axe, Roger's body slammed into the pirate whose head had just been gripped, knocking him to the ground.

The collision halted Roger's momentum. The axe followed the pirate whose back it had struck as he fell, pulling Roger's body off balance as well.

He tried to use the motion to wrench the axe free from the pirate's body, but it had sunk too deeply into the spinal bone and would not come out for the moment.

The pirate he had knocked down had already pushed himself to his feet with both hands. Roger simply ignored the axe, pulled the wooden-handled hunting knife from his waist, and dropped into a half-crouched lunge right against the pirate who was preparing to stand.

Carried by the force of his body, the blade slanted through padded armor and plunged into the pirate's abdomen. Roger's left hand clamped tightly around the pirate's throat, leaving him unable to move.

Just as when he had killed Ulf yesterday, these killing moves were all skills Roger had accumulated through more than a decade of fighting in his previous life. They contained not the slightest flourish and possessed no beauty to speak of, but most were fatal in a single blow.

"Ambush! Ambu—" The pirate managed only two cries before his face twisted. Blood welling into his mouth choked off the sound, bloody froth spilling from his nose and mouth as the fishy stink of rotten clams wafted from his body.

The hunting knife had likely pierced the brute's stomach. Roger desperately twisted it several times, and scalding blood ran down the blade into his hand.

This was not his first time killing someone, but the wild, unbalanced feeling that came after intense strain was still overwhelming.

As he stabbed the pirate, he glanced past the man's shoulder into the mill. Quite a few candles had been lit around the interior. It was not packed with pirates as Roger had imagined; many bodies already lay in pools of blood.

Roger's sudden arrival caught the attention of the final two pirates fighting each other behind a wooden table in the mill. They immediately stopped grappling and both looked toward Roger, who was stabbing one of their own at the entrance.

Both pirates held longswords. For the moment, Roger could not tell whether they were arming swords or bastard swords.

Roger kicked the pirate in front of him away, pulled the hunting knife from his chest and belly, and leveled its blood-drenched blade at the two pirates.

The hunting knife was no more than fifteen inches long, yet at this moment it seemed more terrifying than the sharpest weapon. The pirate on the ground curled into a ball, clutching his belly and spraying bloody foam. The two pirates with longswords did not dare come forward.

In that moment of hesitation, Blackhide Dog, Fat Widow, Old Joey, and Black Charcoal charged into the mill. They carried weapons long and short, and led by the burly Fat Widow, they rushed screaming at the two pirates.

The heavy blacksmith's hammer swung as lightly in Fat Widow's hands as a fire poker. It smashed aside one pirate's thrusting longsword, and the tremendous impact snapped the shoddy bastard sword in two.

Right afterward, Old Joey behind Fat Widow thrust a short spear through the opening. Its tip sank into the pirate's inner thigh. The pirate screamed at once, staggered sideways to the ground, and had his chest caved in by a single hammer blow from Fat Widow.

Blackhide Dog's spiked club and Black Charcoal's long-handled hooked sickle joined the melee as well, and for a time the mill once again rang with clanging and banging.

Roger had calmed down. He realized that almost no pirates remained standing in the mill, and the taut string in his heart abruptly loosened. His vision actually went dark for a moment.

He had gotten up too fast.

The crash of Gambling Addict charging into the mill instantly brought the light back before Roger's eyes.

"Let's fight the pirates to the end!" Gambling Addict raised a short spear and stabbed at the corpse whose belly had been pierced and which had only just stopped breathing.

Missing Tooth rushed in after him with an iron hayfork, followed by men wielding long poles.

When battle came, only half of the true warriors had dared charge forward. The carefully arranged groups and zone-breaking tactics Roger had planned beforehand had also been thrown to the wind; they fought and killed in a chaotic brawl like a country village fight.

Turning to see Baldhead behind him stepping on the stirrup and bending over to desperately crank his crossbow, while the hunters nocked arrows and shot at pirates fleeing in frantic leaps and bounds, Roger finally let out a breath. He bent down, wiped the blood-soaked hunting knife several times on the clothes of the corpse before him, and sheathed it at his waist...

By the time the dozen or so "warriors" realized there were no more enemies left to fight and kill, corpses covered the ground inside and outside the mill, while wounded pirates wailed everywhere.

The pirate-clearing battle that had been carefully prepared for a day and two nights ended in just a few brief moments.

The cowards who had been watching the fire from across the shore among the mountainside shrubs also rushed down, punching and kicking corpses on the ground that no longer reacted in the slightest, displaying their bravery to the fullest.

"Baldhead, Blackhide Dog, Old Joey, Black Charcoal, come seize the ship with me." Now that he had confidence, Roger did not forget the pirate ship moored at the headland. He immediately followed the plan and called on several of the boldest people to take it.

"Young Master Roger, Blackhide Dog is dying." Baldhead had already thrown away his crossbow and was now holding Blackhide Dog's limp body in his arms.

"How could he die so easily?" Roger's face filled with alarm as he crossed over in two strides.

By the mill's candlelight, Roger saw that Blackhide Dog's face was deathly pale. A large patch of his cloth-covered iron armor around the abdomen had been soaked through, blood flowing from a tear in it, while his eyes grew more and more unfocused.

"That guy ambushed him." Baldhead raised a hand and pointed at a corpse lying crookedly in the corner of the mill, its head tilted to one side. A crossbow bolt was still embedded in its neck.

Blackhide Dog had just been overcome by greed and gone to search the corpses, only to be stabbed by this fierce pirate, who had not quite died yet.

"Young Master Roger!" A shout came from beneath the long table behind him, and two figures crawled out.

It was Ponytail, disheveled and bruised all over his face, with another fellow beside him.

Roger froze at first, then immediately roared at the people around him, "Don't just stand there like fucking idiots! Search the area and see if any enemies are still hiding. You bastards got stabbed and still haven't learned your lesson."

With that, he drew his knife and strode toward the fellow behind Ponytail.

Ponytail hurriedly shielded the small lackey behind him and pleaded anxiously, "Young Master Roger, don't kill this little bastard."

Roger stopped and examined the terrified lackey beside Ponytail, then glanced at Ponytail, who kept nodding. He sheathed his knife, swiftly turned back, and crouched to inspect Blackhide Dog's condition.

He reached out and lifted Blackhide Dog's clothes and armor. The wound was not too large, and at least no intestines were spilling out. Roger let out half a sigh of relief. "He won't die for the moment."

As he spoke, he started removing Blackhide Dog's cloth-covered iron armor. Ponytail hurried over to help, while two farmers dragged the lackey aside to guard him.

What fucking rotten luck. Roger cursed inwardly. The iron armor stripped from Blackhide Dog had plenty of holes in it, and the ambushing stab had landed precisely through one of those unprotected gaps.

He yanked open Blackhide Dog's filthy cloak, exposing a wound with white flesh turned outward. Blood still seeped from it in streams, and a large pool had already formed on the ground. He shouted, "Find some clean cloth, quickly!"

Roger had taken part in plenty of street brawls in his previous life and had occasionally dealt with wounds involving severe blood loss. But street fights generally involved cleavers, and while the wounds looked horrifying, they did not cut deep enough to damage internal organs. Stopping the bleeding was enough.

But Blackhide Dog had been stabbed in the abdomen with a pointed blade. If it had injured his liver, lungs, intestines, or stomach, he definitely could not be saved.

Everyone searched for cloth in a flurry of hands. Ponytail tore off the outer garment of a fierce pirate's corpse, but it was terribly filthy and torn.

Roger looked at those tattered clothes, then at himself. He lifted the layered skirts of his armor, drew his hunting knife, cut a large piece of cloth from the hem of the long robe underneath, and quickly pressed it over Blackhide Dog's wound.

Then he grabbed a pile of filthy clothes from the ground and padded them beneath Blackhide Dog's knees, raising his legs, relaxing his abdomen, laying him flat on his back, and turning his head to one side.

Drawing on the emergency wound-treatment experience he had accumulated through years of street fighting in his previous life, this was all Roger could do for now. "Fat Widow, hold down the wound. If the cloth gets soaked through, immediately cut another cleaner strip and replace it. Keep him in this position until I return."

"Ponytail, you know this place best. You stay behind at the mill and lead everyone in clearing out the remaining enemies. Don't let your guard down again." Roger still had to hurry and lead people to seize the pirate ship.

"Baldhead, Old Joey, Black Charcoal, Gambling Addict, Missing Tooth." Roger called their names. "Grab your weapons and come with me to take the ship."

With that, he returned to the mill entrance, stepped on a pirate corpse that had long since gone stiff, and forcibly ripped the Viking axe embedded in its spinal bones free.

After raising his eyes and taking a moment to adjust to the cold darkness of the moonlit night, he charged down a country road toward the headland...