The town of Calenbrenrze was in chains. The residents were declared as Offenders by the Divine Decree for not paying their taxes in full to the Kaminors and Commerros. Due to the holy laws that prevented the [Knights] and the nobility’s levies from being sullied by the muddled details of the kingdom’s laws, mercenary groups like the Inglorious Hands that are given a Writ of Purpose by the Decree deal with their enforcement.
Those who fought the ordained sellswords were splayed on many fences, bales of hay, the furniture of the broken homes, the corpses of their defiled wives and daughters, and ultimately on the muddy ground. The Decreed [Mercenaries] will justify the “unintended deaths and injuries from the population” in the reports as “self-defense” against a rebellious populace.
They will also decline to report those who had escaped their assault. Their losses were simply too significant against the unexpectedly fierce and rebellious defense of the town against the authority of the Decree to see future Serfs in chains, arranged to be exported to the neighboring farmland to caged wagons paid for by their priestly employers. They do not have the energy or will to pursue a few townsfolk, and they know that most of them will die in the wilderness anyway.
When the [Mercenary Captain] Yulvres of Yverreseicni saw the contents of the Message Scroll he was furious. He can’t take another job even with the money they earned from that Bishop. However, he was offered thrice the reward that his band had received. He wiped the sinful thoughts of disdain against the blessed Count, calling the fastest and the ablest of his beaten Inglorious Hands to intercept a criminal caravan and leave the majority of their men to guard the serf-carrying trains of the Decree.
-
The Gildin Trading’s two wagons were speeding between lines of elevated soil and trees. Numisley was now awake but still woozy, reeling in the effects of his Feat. Cultrost was idly looking at Palden’s back. Once again, they were running away. Speeding away in this wagon, with people who wanted to kill them at their backs. For weeks Cultrost thought that they don’t have to run away anymore. Do their business without hiccups.
The earth was raised in front of them and the caravan stopped, as its wheels are now sinking into sudden mud. Bows and a wand at either side emerged between the trees. A dozen people followed suit, armed with spears and axes, led by a bald man holding a heavy axe and a wooden shield on his off-hand, emerging from the west.
“Numisley and Cultrost Gildin. I’ve been ordered to retrieve a black book in your possession. By the Decree. We shall leave you alone if you give it to me, by our reputation. No one will be hurt.” Yulvres offered.
Palden stared at Cultrost. Cultrost looked back as Racieros, who tended to Numisley.
“Don’t. We need the book.” Numisley whispered.
“He’s paid by the Decree. Follow his demands!” Racieros countered. “Don’t be stupid, guys!”
Numisley chuckled. “We already made a lot of enemies before we land on your shores.”
“Being stupid is how we got there in the first place.”
Racieros sighed because he saw Cultrost grip his mace, and Numisley’s magical walking stick glowed. Raudaeiz and the rest readied up for battle.
“I’ll do what I’ll always do.”
Numisley limped outside of the wagon and stood as straight as he can, approaching the leader of the Inglorious Hands.
“I shall offer you a better deal. I’m Numisley Naveirei, son of Marhyiana and Jascias Naveirei. You know what that means. I’m someone important.”
“Pretender. I had seen enough pretenders who falsely use the name of the holy Houses.”
Numisley steeled his gaze. Yulvres had noticed an Aura around Numisley, but he didn’t hesitate to give the order to shoot. Racieros was a second too late to shout his identity so that the fight can be stopped.
“Palden! Buff, now!”
“[Empower Guards-”
The defenders of the wagons were empowered. The conjured rocks propelled by magic were supposed to be enough to destroy the wagons, but they simply bounced off their steel-hard canvases. The three [Mages], with little mana they had left, buffed their leader and his two closest men.
Yulvres was enchanted with [Speed] and barreled towards Numisley. Numisley tapped a rune on the stick, erecting a pillar of earth that the [Mercenary Captain] collided on, his shield absorbing the impact. He reeled back and blocked Cultrost’s mace, before retreating.
His two trusted men blocked Cultrost and started attacking in tandem with their glaives. The Satyr desperately deflected each strike with his mace and [Phantom Bracer], enduring wounds. Conjured webs binding their legs made the two men trip in front of Cultrost. Numisley pointed his walking staff to another enemy.
Racieros saw one of Numisley’s lackeys outright steal a couple of arrows in the air. In the heat of battle, he knew he had to reveal his identity in the chaos. A [Mercenary] charged toward Racieros and he stepped back to dodge the worn sword that he held. The [Mercenary]’s blade extended towards him, but he parried it with his enchanted cutlass.
“I’m Racieros Commero! Stop this at once!”
The [Mercenary]’s ears perked up, hesitating as he saw the gleaming necklace on his neck. An arrow flew towards him, hitting him in the shoulder.
“Wait!”
“He might be pretending!”
“Do you want to sin? I don’t want to be a Serf again!-”
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Racieros heard the argument between the scarred [Mercenary] that attacked him earlier and one of the archers from their elevated position as he was pinned on the ground.
Cultrost saw Racieros fall. His eyes swept towards the leader of the band of [Mercenaries], seeing only him in the mists of rage. He ran past Palden and Arimith fighting to protect Numisley. Before he swung, Yulvres’ shield jabbed Cultrost’s face; his [Shield Jab] hitting him square on his nose. He took the opening by swinging his axe, which cut Cultrost’s abdomen lightly since he stepped back at the moment he shook himself out of his daze.
Yulvres raised his shield as Cultrost hammered on his shield in a fierce assault, without feeling the arrows on his shoulder. Cultrost’s mace banged furiously on the targe, giving Yulvres no opportunity to counter with his axe until he deflected a mace blow down upwards with his shield. The red Satyr stumbled, and he was going to chop his head off, but Yulvres dodged a [Stone Arrow] from Numisley’s staff.
Keenly, Yulvres saw the arrows being slightly deflected away from Cultrost after being hit too much. An Awakening. Instead of making it a duel that could further empower Cultrost, he threw his axe toward Numisley. Despite being heavily injured and a few feet away from Numisley, Cultrost had blocked the axe with his shoulder, by running impossibly quick; a Feat he suddenly gained in the heat of the moment, he guessed.
Cultrost fell on the ground with a thud. Before the leader of the Inglorious Hands can finish Cultrost off, Racieros, lifted by one of the Yulvres’ [Mercenaries], a scarred man with a wispy beard and lengthy tied hair.
“Germio?” Yulvres exclaimed.
“Sir! We’re committing a sin against the Decree! We attacked a scion of the Commero House!”
“What in the Houses are you talking about?” Yulvres was perplexed by his subordinate’s rambling.
One of their [Archers] ran up to them, a young man a few years younger than them.
“I–I hit Lord Racieros Commero! I’m sorry! I didn’t know!”
“I’m Racieros. Scion of the Commero House!”
Racieros announced his identity, intruding upon the quarrel. He knows that commoners that dare to hurt a noble without divine permission are a sin in their religion.
The remaining [Mercenaries] hastily kneeled down in Racieros' presence. Racieros consciously thought of what he would say.
“You will be redeemed. If you tell me who sent you.”
Yulvres weighed the consequences. His lips quivered and his eyes wandered around the forest before Racieros.
“My lord. Your father sent us. He seeks the Gildin’s notebook.”
The [Mercenary] admitted. He decided to tell the truth over following Count Commerro’s conflicting orders since he might hurt his scion.
“My father? Does he plan to assassinate me–no. It’s not me. What book, Numisley?”
Numisley and Cultrost regarded the young nobleman, then stared at each other. As brothers, they often knew what the other was thinking.
“Let’s talk somewhere private,” Cultrost called Racieros.
They were within the trees. Racieros tapped his ring that created a basic dome of silence that disables most amateur attempts of eavesdropping. The very least of privacy protections that even lesser nobility must have. Numisley started explaining, withholding, or downplaying some parts of their story, about the Book of Secrets that the brothers have. He conveniently didn’t mention the equally important brown book that they possess.
“Ah. So…”
Racieros struggled to find words for the almost unbelievable tale that the brothers told him. A Corporation, like the organization’s representatives that his father had met with occasionally, had sought the book that contains a thousand secrets that would bring ruin to [Kings] and [Emperors]. They landed on the shores of his kingdom to amass resources to protect themselves from those who wanted to hurt them; one of them was the then-Duke now-Marquis Dustitoz Gaviolos, who had apparently traveled to Libertalia to kill their father. It all makes sense.
“So, do you two have a plan?”
-
Yulvres had watched the Commerro's scion be led to the grove with his two foreign companions. He thought that he should let the head of the Comerros know. He had unfurled a message scroll from his satchel and wrote to the Count that his son was with the company of Gildin Trading.
An hour later, the Count saw one of his Message Scrolls piled up at the opposite seat of his carriage light up. His eyebrows furrowed as he read the unbelievable message from the [Mercenary Captain] that he hired posthaste. Leaning on the impromptu foldable desk created by an exceptional [Carpenter], he furiously wrote his demands, the magic left in the ink and parchment carrying his words.
-
Racieros and the two brothers had walked out the private grove after they finished their discussion. Yulvres hesitantly approached them, letter in hand.
"Um–Lord Commerro? Your father has been summoning you. He was…displeased that you had gone with them instead of your House. He needs you to wait here."
The [Mercenary Captain] had relayed the Count's message as politely as he could.
"Wait? Here?"
Racieros looked around, and they guessed that the Inglorious Hands would build a camp for them. He knew they were far away from the rest of his House.
This reeks of a plot. However, he heard the whole story from the Gildin Brothers.
"Tell my father that I'm going ahead. I'll wait for him at Naveirei's party."
Yulvres raised his eyebrows.
"Are you sure?"
"Tell my father that your group will be escorting me."
The rest of Yulvres' men had turned their heads toward the Commerro's scion.
"Us? My lord, we had injured you."
"Think…Think of it as redemption. I will vouch for your innocence. Whatever your sins are from the Decree."
A promise from a young lord was not the promise of promises. Not the most profitable of offers. However, his words stirred something within him. He was no Bishop or Earl that flaunted their divine right to rule and judge over the commoners. However, he did not castigate them for injuring him.
He took a risk by kneeling, abandoning his current contract with the Count. He saw an opportunity to cleanse themselves from sin by serving a more worthy lord.
“My lord. Let us serve you to redeem our transgressions. Until you have no need for us.”
The rest of the Inglorious Hands looked at each other and followed their [Mercenary Captain]’s lead. All of them soon kneeled toward Racieros Commerro.
“Of course. Please accompany us to Ascolitica.”
The caravan reformed itself. Palden repaired the minimal damage on the wagons with his instant-repair Feat. Yulvres ordered one of his [Mages] to send a [Message] spell to inform the rest of his men that were left behind in the town of Calenbrenrze about their current employment.
With Palden’s maximum speed, they headed straight to Ascolitica.