Night still lay deep over Clearfeather Ridge. Lingering flames flickered among the mountains, illuminating the bloodstained snow.
The battle was over.
The Red Tide forces' divide-and-conquer tactics had worked perfectly. The Snow Oath troops had been forcibly split into several isolated groups, stripped of their ability to coordinate, and destroyed one by one.
This was a massacre, not a battle.
Although the knights Joern had brought lacked combat experience, the Red Tide Knights had guided them into positions along the perimeter, assigning them to finish off enemies attempting to flee.
They patrolled the edges of the battlefield in staggered formations, intercepting every fleeing enemy and cutting them down with a single stroke.
But the Snow Oath were no ordinary soldiers.
Roaring, they ignited the battle aura within their bodies and forced themselves into a state of "boiling blood frenzy," still inflicting considerable casualties.
A few managed to escape, racing north with news of the bloody battle.
But that could no longer change the outcome.
Clearfeather Ridge had fallen.
Louis's side had suffered minimal casualties, losing only eighteen knights, while the Snow Oath had been virtually annihilated.
The entire battle had been precise and efficient, a textbook nighttime assault of annihilation.
Of course, without that narrow trail and the cover of darkness, the Snow Oath would have bogged Louis down even if he had possessed three times as many troops.
Bond stood in a battered tent, gazing at the now-subdued Clearfeather Ridge, disbelief written all over his face.
He lowered his head to look at the scattered bloodstains on the battlefield, then looked up at the Red Tide Knights assembling and reorganizing their ranks.
"We... just took it?" he murmured.
Duke Edmund had spent years trying and failing to eliminate this stronghold at Clearfeather Ridge, regarding it as a constant thorn