plumnovel #167 - March Appointment [5k HD Remastered Version]
#167 - March Appointment [5k HD Remastered Version]
"Sir Knight, here’s some fish for you to eat."
Gazing at the charred river fish in his hand, the leading knight with the flat nose didn't eat it. He looked around, only seven or eight surviving knights remained by his side.
Their armor was dusty, and they lay on the muddy ground without any knightly decorum.
They had escaped from Jeanne Fort under the cover of night, running for half the night to reach this place.
Just a few days ago, their daily breakfast was still exquisite cheese bread and steak.
Now, they only had a charred, palm-sized small fish.
He was the Knight Commander of Duke Kush, while those people were just a group of unarmed farmers.
Now that Duke Kush was dead and Jeanne Fort had been captured, they had deserted their posts, losing all honor. They might even have their knighthoods stripped away.
At this thought, the knight couldn't help but wail. His crying triggered a wave of sorrow in the other knights, who also began to cry.
"Alright, stop crying, stop crying." After crying for almost ten minutes, the flat-nosed knight named Drolte propped himself up with his longsword and stuffed the charred fish into his mouth. "Wipe away your tears, what do you look like?"
"Sir Knight Commander, what should we do now?"
Long blades of grass tickled Drolte's waist. He looked towards Jeanne Fort, where eagles were circling in the morning light.
"Let's go and report to Prince Condé. They can revolt if they want, but they dare to kill the esteemed Duke…"
The flat-nosed knight took a deep breath.
"Once the edict arrives, I'll let them know what true cruelty is!"
………………
Inside the Jeanne Fort City Hall, the Savior Army's flag had already been hung on the walls.
Soldiers and wounded were lying all over the valuable corridor carpets, resting their heads on the shrines and dozing off.
Boussac, who had come to deliver documents, had to tiptoe through the bodies and limbs on the ground before he could push open the door to the council hall.
Inside, Jeschke was standing in front of Horn, reporting on the previous handling of the looting.
"…All the hoodlums who took advantage of the chaos have been hanged. I still say, no killing, no looting, and especially no insulting women.
I'll turn a blind eye to their extorting money, gambling, or visiting prostitutes. Don't push your luck."
"Understood." Jeschke nodded, calling out to a few black-clad soldiers outside the door and heading out.
At this moment, Horn had bandages wrapped around his head, a stubbly beard, and bloodshot eyes.
On the velvet seat in the city hall, Jeanne's arm was in a sling, her head resting on the back of the chair, snoring intermittently.
Boussac handed a few sheets of white paper covered in mud to Horn: "We got about 40,000 gold pounds from the city hall and churches. We're currently using them to buy medicine and bandages. Here are the accounts."
Picking up the accounts, Horn glanced at them briefly and put them aside: "Have the granaries been opened?"
"Yes, the first batch of relief grain has been distributed, but the grain merchants are very dissatisfied and are clamoring to see you…"
"What about the citizens?"
"They're also clamoring to see you. They insist that the Duke's tens of thousands of gold pounds belong to them and want them back."
"Dream on. Tell them that the money is the devil's asset. If they say the money is theirs, then they're funding the devil." Horn pulled out a slip of paper and scribbled on it, "If they don't agree, charge them with 'devil assistance' and send them to the ice cellar in the west to sober up!"
Stamping the slip with a radish, Horn took a bite of the crisp, sweet radish: "Anything else?"
"There's also this." Picking up the slip, Boussac pulled out a rough-edged yellow sheet of paper and handed it to Horn. "This is our post-war casualty report."
Although he knew that the battle would result in heavy casualties, Horn couldn't help but feel suffocated when he saw the list Boussac handed over.
Horn and the others had mobilized nearly 12,800 young men, and many laborers had joined later, both men and women, totaling around 15,000 people.
Among these Savior Army refugees, 476 died, 1,127 were seriously injured, 1,453 were slightly injured, 1,644 were missing, and 1,912 had deserted.
In the end, only about 8,300 people could continue to fight, with the veteran soldiers suffering nearly half the casualties. Less than a third of the first batch of trained Holy Gunners died.
To be honest, if Danay had really gritted his teeth and held on, gathering the remaining knights and fighting Horn in a bloody battle on the city streets, Horn might have been the one getting his head chopped off.
But the Duke, having lived for so long, had always been a hedonistic monarch who spent a quarter of the year away.
He claimed to be training a secret army, but according to the current intelligence, he was actually socializing in the royal capital of France. He didn't have the heart for it.
Putting down the list, Horn walked to the window.
Opening the small round window, Horn looked outside. Having not slept all night, he couldn't hide the fatigue in his eyes.
At this time, the bells representing morning had already rung, and the wails of the wounded in the City Hall Square almost drowned out the bells.
Pots of boiling water were used to sterilize linen bandages, and columns of smoke rose in the center of the city.
The veteran army's dedicated medics used splints wrapped in grass ash to set the broken bones of the refugees, or poured the freshly prepared potion into the mouths of the wounded soldiers.
Adults led children through the cries, searching for their relatives and friends among the patients and corpses.
At the entrance of the City Hall, corpses and refugees were lying everywhere. The refugee army, which had fought all night, was so tired that they fell asleep wherever they could find a spot.
In the midst of the bells, the door of the City Hall opened, and not only the elders, but also representatives elected by the Savior Army refugees entered the council hall.
Horn stood by the window, letting the elders and representatives who had entered listen to Boussac's summary report on Barmanda's confession.
Only after Boussac finished speaking did Horn limp to the table and sit down.
"You've all heard Barmanda's confession. Let's discuss it." Horn knocked on the table and said in a deep voice.
The Savior Army's high-ranking members looked at each other, but no one spoke.
If Barmanda wasn't lying, then the news was simply terrifying.
It wasn't 3 or 4 Edict Companies coming from the Empire, but all 9 Edict Companies, along with 5 mercenary regiments of 5,500 men, a total of 8,200 men coming from the east.
In the east, the Church led 900 Transcendent Knights, 2,000 serf soldiers, and 1,800 armed farmers, forming an army of 4,700 men, going upstream along the river.
More than a hundred Transcendent Knights went forward in batches, almost collapsing Horn's army of more than ten thousand refugees. If it weren't for the clockwork guns, those refugee soldiers would have long since scattered.
If Jeanne Fort had city walls, they could defend it, but Jeanne Fort didn't have city walls.
The Duke's castle couldn't be captured in a short time. What if the garrison inside broke out when the enemy attacked?
"Brother, I'll take a few child soldiers to attack again later," Jeanne said with bloodshot eyes.
"We can't get past the moat."
"Or we can dig up the soil and block the moat."
"Have you calculated the amount of earthwork?" An old brother who was a civil engineering worker before cursed, "Three days wouldn't be enough to do it."
"Or we can hide in the houses and fight them."
"We can ride fast horses to the castle ahead and build a defense line first…"
"It's too late."
Looking in the direction of the voice, an old man with white hair was sitting on a small stool by the door.
"Where did this old man come from?" Duvarron immediately walked out and ordered the other guards to step forward. "Fork him out."
"Wait."
Horn stopped the guards. He remembered this person.
He was the one who pulled him away at the bridge, avoiding the knights' charge. Otherwise, he wouldn't have only suffered minor injuries.
"Are you the one who pulled me at the bridge earlier?"
"I'm just a passing member of the Secret Party." The white-haired old man said to Horn, "I told you my name, I'm Chrispa. Carrie was in contact with me."
Everyone suddenly realized, was he a member of the Joan Party?
"Then what's your opinion, Chrispa?" Madelaine asked curiously.
"You think you can defeat Prince Condé's nearly three thousand Transcendent Knights just by relying on luck to defeat those few banner knights and squire knights?"
Disguised as Chrispa, Pasrik sat with his legs crossed: "To be frank, even if you capture that castle, you still won't be able to defeat the Edict Company, or even resist it."
"We can rely on the castle to defend, and we can also set up defense lines along the way," Madelaine replied unconvinced.
"You have less than three days in total, and the enemy has twelve thousand regular troops. What kind of defense lines do you want to set up?"
Pasrik pointed to the closely arranged wooden houses outside: "I won't say anything else, what if they set fire to the city? Don't think about getting water, do you think they'll be waiting for you by the river?"
Jeanne wanted to refute, but when she thought about what the knights had done, she stopped talking.
In the eyes of those foreign knights, the people of Thousand River Valley were just livestock. What wouldn't they dare to do?
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"I find it funny when I hear you say that mortals defeated Transcendent Knights. Two-thirds of the defeated Transcendent Knights were electrocuted by witches. What are you talking about mortals defeating Transcendent Knights?
You gathered more than ten thousand young men, and now they're dead and injured. Only eight thousand or so can really fight, and they're all untrained fools.
You have Transcendent Knights in the field, and you have veteran infantry in the street battles. How many of those alchemical guns do you have? How many people can you hit at once?
Or do you want to learn from the Beastmen and shoot an arrow in the mountains and change places?
I'll say it again, the refugees under your command are all commoners. They haven't received any training or any organization. The Beastmen have been hunting since they were young."
The slightly relieved atmosphere became dull again. The dull atmosphere pressed on the hearts of the elders and representatives, making it difficult for them to breathe.
Only Horn looked at the old man with a thoughtful look.
"Then we can leave in batches," Madelaine suggested. "Although the large river channels are blocked, Jeanne Fort is a water and land transportation center. We can escape in batches through small roads and waterways."
"Hey, that's right. As long as we break through the water and land checkpoints before the Edict Company arrives, wouldn't that be great?"
In the midst of the discussion, Pasrik's cold snort was particularly harsh.
"You ran away, what about the villagers of Jeanne Fort? If they can't catch you, guess who they'll take their anger out on?
Do you know that if it weren't for you, those villagers wouldn't have entered Prince Condé's field of vision at all. They would have only harmed the citizens, craftsmen, and armed small landlords.
What, do you want to put all the villagers of Jeanne Fort, nearly seventy or eighty thousand people nearby, on ships and transport them away?"
The entire council hall fell silent again. Only at this moment did they belatedly realize that they were facing a dead end.
It was impossible to hold on, they would be flattened by the Edict Company.
It was impossible to fight, the villagers would be retaliated against by the nobles.
It was impossible to escape, because all the water and land checkpoints were blocked.
Even though everyone had made such a big determination to save the refugees of Jeanne Fort, had they still failed to do anything?
Even the most steadfast Jeanne fell into a trance. Could it be that everything they had done was meaningless?
But this trance was only for a moment. After Jeanne woke up, she looked at the old man in front of her somewhat angrily.
"That sounds good, then you must have a solution?"
Pasrik smiled mysteriously at Jeanne: "Get paper and pen."
Taken aback for a moment, Jeanne immediately grabbed paper and pen from the table and handed them to Pasrik expectantly.
Pasrik picked up the quill and wrote a line of large characters on the paper, then returned it to Jeanne.
Jeanne took the paper, but saw six simple words written on it: "Haha, I won't say."
"You!" Jeanne instantly turned red with anger. "This is the critical moment for the survival of tens of thousands of refugees in Jeanne Fort. If you have a solution, don't hide it."
"Haha, I won't say."
"Do you have a solution or not? Are you making fun of me!" The veins on Jeanne's forehead twitched.
Horn stepped forward to appease the enraged Jeanne. He bowed to Pasrik and said:
"Chrispa, if you have a solution, don't tease Jeanne. We don't have much time left."
Crossing his legs, Pasrik looked Horn up and down and said casually:
"I have a letter from Duchess Hema Stone."
Pasrik took out a lacquered envelope from his arms: "This letter only has the salutation, closing, and seal, but no matter what I write on it, as long as it is within her power, Duchess Hema Stone will admit it is true.
I don't need to say more, I believe you should also know how valuable this favor is.
As long as I write a plea for the villagers of Jeanne Fort, for the sake of the Duchess, they will not launch a massacre, at most they will provoke the local citizens, wealthy merchants, and armed small landlords.
This does not mean that the refugees who participated in the siege of Jeanne Fort can escape. They and their families, if they remain in Jeanne Fort, will still be implicated by you…"
The eyes of the surrounding Savior Army leaders lit up. Madelaine couldn't wait to say: "Then we'll take the Savior Army on a boat and leave, go to Kasha County to find…"
“Hey, hey, hey, who said you could use it? I'm just telling you, I'm damn awesome.” Pasilick stuffed the letter into his chest. “Besides, why should I let you use it?”
“Grandpa Chrispa, you've said so much, you can't just be teasing us, right?” Cici, who was standing beside him, looked at the white-haired old man in front of her and pleaded.
“Tsk, lacking in spirituality.” Pasilick shook his head. “Do you know that the most important thing for a leader is to be good at drawing big cakes? You still have a lot to learn.”
“Then what do you want?” Horn's originally calm voice finally showed a trace of fluctuation.
“I'll be blunt. First, I'm telling you, this letter protecting the villagers won't last long, at most three months. By then, the knights will still be massacring.
You created this mess, so you have to take responsibility for it yourselves. You are not allowed to run away.
I can tell you a place, near Fort Jeanne. You can train there, and the knights will have a hard time harassing you during this period, but they won't retreat either.
Three months later, you have to leave that place, reoccupy Fort Jeanne, and completely drive the knights out. Do you dare to agree?”
Three months to defeat those knights?
Everyone's eyes were focused on Horn's face, and they were all waiting for Horn's answer.
“I agree.” Horn stared straight into Pasilick's eyes and replied.
Pasilick waved the letter in his hand: “Even if you don't go out, I can't do much to you. After all, you are a rare male witch, and Joan III wouldn't allow us to kill you…
I only hope that the decision you made under the tree last night will also be your decision in the future. Don't let those innocent dead souls look down on you.”
“That's also what I'm most afraid of.”
“Good.” Holding up two fingers, Pasilick continued, “Second, you must join the Joan Party and share the alchemical musket technology, and also recognize me as your entry-level master.”
This was originally what Horn was going to do. He had no foundation and also needed resources to maintain his current team.
“I agree. The initiation ceremony can be held at any time.”
“No need to rush.” Pasilick held up his third finger, “Third…”
Speaking of this, Pasilick suddenly fell silent. He stroked the letter in his hand, glanced at Jeanne, and sighed:
“I have a granddaughter that I watched grow up. You are destined to break her heart. I only ask you not to hurt her, can you promise me?”
A white-haired figure instantly appeared in front of Horn's eyes. He didn't look at Jeanne and said in a deep voice, “I can't guarantee it, but I will do my best.”
“That's enough.” Pasilick stepped forward and gave Horn a heavy fist bump. “Don't disappoint us.”
“The knights will be here in three days. You should think carefully about how to appease the refugees and get them to go with you.” After saying this, Pasilick turned and walked towards the door.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Busak, who had been awakened from a dream by a series of changes, shouted, “You haven't said where that place is on the territory of Fort Jeanne, not far from us, and can resist the knights.”
“Actually, you all know that place.” Pasilick yawned. “Isn't that where you came from?”