Volume One: The Forest Knight Chapter 58: Provoking the Black Mountain Mercenaries

After listening to Gamgee, Berion had more or less grasped the nature of their relationships: a friend’s friend is one’s own friend. After exchanging courteous greetings with Sir Towle, Berion joined the others in the lord’s hall, where guests and hosts found their seats.

Berion sat beside Gamgee. After a few cups of wine and some crisp, refreshing appetizers, the servants brought out the evening’s main course: roasted lamb. These lambs, less than two months old, weighed barely twenty pounds each, even with the bone. Thus, every guest received a whole lamb before them. Berion couldn’t help but marvel at the generosity of this wealthy lord, whose lands lay along the vital Knight’s Road; the cost of the lambs served tonight likely neared a hundred dinars.

At dusk, having only just witnessed piles of corpses, Berion now had no appetite for meat; instead, the aroma of the roast made him feel slightly nauseous. Gamgee, noticing Berion’s reaction, recalled the slaughtered village and was about to mention it to his brother-in-law, Sir Towle, when the knight, puzzled by Berion’s reluctance to carve his meat, asked, “Sir Berion, is something wrong? Is the roast lamb not to your taste?”

Berion was about to reply when Gamgee interjected, “It’s not that the lamb is unappetizing, but we passed a village this afternoon where everyone had been massacred. Sir Berion went in to see the devastation. How could he possibly stomach meat after that?”

“Oh? Which village?” asked Sir Towle.

“The first one inside Curum County along the Knight’s Road—one of yours. I meant to tell you, but after a drink or two, it slipped my mind,” Gamgee replied with a guilty expression.

Berion then described what he had seen in the village: heads arranged to spell ‘DEBT’, bodies decapitated and left for wild dogs. Sir Towle’s wife and the maids in the hall turned pale with terror, while Towle himself clenched his goblet in fury.

Seeing their distress, Berion refrained from more gruesome details and ended his account quickly.

When Berion finished, Sir Towle slammed his goblet down and stood up, roaring, “Those Blackmountain bastards! I’ll skin them alive!”

His outburst vented some of his anger, and he sat down again, apologetically explaining, “Sir Berion, Gamgee, you may not know—I’ve had a terrible problem fall into my lap these past two months.”

“A terrible problem? How come? You never seek trouble, and you’ve always been on good terms with both the county lord and the treasurer. What could have gone wrong?” Gamgee asked, perplexed.

Sir Towle sighed. “It’s precisely because of my good relations with the county lord and treasurer that I’m in this predicament.

“Earlier this summer, to wipe out several bands of brigands who’d drifted in from the Dunbas Hills, the county lord hired the infamous Blackmountain Company. Their mercenaries are formidable fighters; in less than two months, they wiped out all the roving bandits, and the whole county rejoiced.

“But when it came time to settle accounts, the county lord balked at the cost. He hadn’t realized how expensive hiring the Blackmountains would be. He’d already paid ten thousand dinars as a retainer, and the county provided free food and lodging. Now, they demanded another twenty thousand dinars, and the sum nearly frightened him out of his wits.

“Unwilling to pay, the county lord sent the Blackmountain captain to the treasurer, since the hiring contract bore his signature and the family seal. But the treasurer had no money, burned the contract, shut his doors to the mercenaries, had the county soldiers drive them out of the city, and forbade any locals from selling them food. With nowhere to turn, the Blackmountain Company began raiding villages nearby.

“Then, about half a month ago, the treasurer died under mysterious circumstances. The debt fell to me, as the county lord had tricked me into signing as guarantor on the contract.

“So the Blackmountain captain sent men to Westis Town, demanding payment. I refused to let the county lord weasel out and drove the mercenary envoys away. The next day, they returned with a letter, clearly stating that if they didn’t receive payment within a week, they’d destroy one of my villages. If five days passed after the massacre and no payment came, they’d attack Westis Town and sack it completely.”

“The Curum county lord is outrageous! He has no honor—how such a man holds office is beyond me,” Gamgee fumed.

“Twenty thousand dinars isn’t an impossible sum for you, Sir Towle. Even if you couldn’t pay it all, a few thousand dinars should at least buy peace,” Berion remarked, puzzled. In his experience, mercenaries, though greedy, rarely provoked their main clients unless desperate. Had Sir Towle paid a quarter of the sum, the Blackmountains likely wouldn’t have gone so far as to massacre a village.

Sir Towle answered with a pained expression, “If they’d asked for four or five thousand, I’d have paid—consider it a favor to the county lord and a price for averting disaster. But these mercenaries from Olian demanded sixty thousand dinars—claiming that’s the principal plus interest for two months unpaid. At that, I lost my temper. For such greed, I’d not pay them a single copper.”

Gamgee then asked Berion, “Sir Berion, you’re the only one among us who entered the village. Can you tell when the massacre happened?”

Berion understood his intent and replied, “Judging by the blood on the heads, the massacre happened at least two days ago. So at the latest, the Blackmountains will attack Westis Town the day after tomorrow.”

Sir Towle groaned with regret. “If I’d known, I’d have given them twenty thousand dinars just to avoid this tragedy.”

Seeing him lost in remorse, Berion pressed on, “Sir Towle, how many men does the Blackmountain Company have, and can your forces withstand them if they attack Westis Town?”

Sir Towle hung his head and answered dispiritedly, “The county lord hired two Blackmountain infantry battalions—about two hundred men. They lost some fighting the bandits, but must still field at least a hundred and eighty. All I have are two knights, six light cavalry, and forty armed light infantry. I’ve never led men into battle myself—it’s always been the other two knights commanding expeditions against brigands. My men can handle thieves and robbers, but against the well-armed, battle-hardened Blackmountains, I fear they wouldn’t last long.”

“What will you do then? Pay the sixty thousand dinars, or run?” Gamgee asked, seeing his brother-in-law so despondent.

Sir Towle clenched his fists and ground his teeth. “I don’t have sixty thousand dinars, and now that they’ve already slaughtered a village, even if I paid in full, these men, drunk on plunder, would sack Westis Town regardless. Running isn’t an option either—they won’t let me go until they’re paid. They haven’t the guts to go after the county lord; they’ll bully minor nobles like me. So I’ll stay and fight for Westis Town to the bitter end.”

He then looked to Berion and Gamgee with a wry smile. “I need to strengthen the garrison. Gamgee, can you spare some of your caravan guards?”

Gamgee nodded. “Of course—family always comes first.”

“Sir Berion,” Towle continued, “your fame has spread throughout Brick—defeating Sir Yellen and Sir Soger, reclaiming Maple Manor, crushing the three great bandit gangs. If you and your men stay to help me defend the town, I’ll pay a hundred dinars a day, with food and lodging provided.”

Berion didn’t answer at once. Instead, he asked, “Sir Towle, besides Gamgee’s caravan guards and my men, do you have any other reinforcements?”

Sir Towle nodded. “There are thirty well-armed town militia here in Westis. They’ve fought under my command and are decently equipped. In addition, I can raise fifty light infantry and thirty archers from the villages on my lands—they’ll be here by tomorrow.”

“Very well. I have two conditions: First, I must have full command of all forces. Second, if we win, all spoils of war belong to me. If you agree, I’ll stay,” said Berion.

Sir Towle hesitated, thinking it over. He knew he lacked experience in battle and faced ruthless mercenaries. It made sense to entrust command to a renowned, battle-tested knight like Berion. As for the spoils, if Berion managed to defeat the Blackmountains, he could take whatever he liked—no more than some armor, weapons, and whatever trinkets the mercenaries had stolen from peasants.

“Agreed. Both your terms are acceptable,” Towle replied. He’d braced himself for harsher demands, but these were reasonable.

With his conditions accepted, Berion’s expression grew serious. “Since you agree, I’ll stay. Gather your two knights here shortly—I need to speak with them.”

Soon, Sir Towle’s knights, Sir Tuo and Sir Ander, arrived. Both were stunned to hear Towle was giving Berion command. As captain of the guard and cavalry respectively, Tuo and Ander had little real combat experience and didn’t object to Towle’s decision; Ander, in particular, had witnessed the Blackmountains’ ferocity during the bandit hunts and had no desire to lead his men—who were more accustomed to chasing thieves and bullying peasants—into a slaughter.

With Berion installed as commander for the defense of Westis Town, and both knights in agreement, Gamgee also resolved to join the fight, placing his thirty caravan guards under Berion’s command. These guards, having traveled and camped with Berion’s soldiers, knew each other well and would cooperate smoothly on the battlefield.

With everything settled, Berion took only a few bites of lamb before excusing himself. He needed time to devise a strategy for dealing with nearly two hundred well-armed, battle-hardened, and ruthless Blackmountain mercenaries.

And he was not alone. That night, he summoned Sir Ander, the town mayor, the caravan chief Grima, his own deputy captain Broda, his squire Bran, and others to the council chamber, which now served as his command center.

After a night of discussion, Berion crafted a feasible and, to his mind, reliable plan. Once he’d made preliminary arrangements, he stretched out on a bench in the council hall to sleep, needing to rest his mind for the many decisions still to come.

After the meeting, the town mayor, accompanied by several tax collectors and the militia, roused all merchants lodging in Westis and ordered them to leave within two hours. Not just merchants, but any laborers who had come to town within the past week and were not second-generation locals were expelled as well. With battle imminent, this was both to prevent enemy spies from infiltrating and to keep the town’s defensive preparations secret.

Berion had no choice but to implement these measures, though fortunately the restrictions would be brief, and Sir Towle had set aside funds to compensate both merchants and townsfolk.

In addition, Sir Tuo’s light cavalry were dispatched to the villages to summon the peasant levies to Westis for the defense, and afterward stationed outside the town to warn passing caravans not to enter, explaining that Blackmountain mercenaries were about to attack and detailing the atrocities they had committed.

Berion’s purpose in this was threefold: first, to ensure that word of the Blackmountains’ brutal acts would spread, placing his side on the moral high ground and winning public sympathy; second, to let the mercenaries know that Sir Towle had resolved to fight to the end and would not pay, thus goading them to attack quickly; and third, to put pressure on the county lord and the county’s other nobles. After all, it was the lord’s refusal to pay the mercenaries that had caused this crisis. If he thought he could simply pass the consequences onto others, he was sorely mistaken—the whole county would soon turn against him.