Volume One: The Forest Knight Chapter 59: The Great Pit Beneath the City

While Berion was busy organizing the defense in Sith Town, thirty leagues away in a dense forest, Cassel, leader of a detachment of the Black Mountain Company, received a report from his informant inside the town. This man, disguised as a hunter, had been expelled at dawn for not being a local. After observing from outside, he returned to the camp to deliver his findings.

The Black Mountain Company was a formidable mercenary force, counted among the most elite on the Weilin Continent. Its history traced back to the Imperial era, and after centuries of growth, its fighting strength hovered around two thousand professional soldiers—mostly hardened infantry, with a smaller cavalry contingent. The supreme commander of the Black Mountain Company, the Grand Captain, was himself a hereditary viscount of the Orlian Duchy. Beneath him served many captains, each responsible for training and leading mercenaries in battle, with every captain commanding three lieutenants tasked with smaller combat missions.

Over the years, the Black Mountain Company had undertaken countless campaigns, seldom suffering defeat, renowned for their ferocity in battle. Yet their ruthlessness earned them infamy across the continent of Weilin. Unless in dire need, few would pay their steep fees to hire such savages, more beast than man.

Yet this very reputation often worked to their advantage. Once one side in a conflict hired the Black Mountain Company, the opposition frequently chose to lay down arms, hoping to avoid needless slaughter. Such outcomes, however, were mostly seen in skirmishes between minor nobles. In wars between great houses or full-scale national conflicts, hiring the Black Mountain Company would only spur the enemy to seek mercenaries of equal ferocity, matching brutality with brutality.

Cassel was one of many lieutenants in the company. When he heard from his subordinate that Sir Taul intended to fight them to the death, a sneer of contempt twisted his lips. He was a veteran who had clawed his way up from the ranks, tempered by twenty years of iron and blood since he first saw battle at fifteen. The military might of petty nobles held no terror for him. In his eyes, one frontal assault would scatter Sir Taul’s rabble like frightened birds—after all, Taul could scarcely muster fifty men worthy of the name.

So when Cassel heard of Taul’s vow to resist, he could only laugh. What hope did this man have against the Black Mountain Company?

Unlike Cassel’s cold amusement, his subordinate—a centurion named Derrick—rose in fury, cursing, “These Brickland swine are fools as well as liars. They break their word and lack all sense. It’s time for a bloodletting! When we storm Sith Town, we should spare no one—man, woman, or child!”

As he spoke, the jagged scar running from his brow to his chin pulsed with the tension in his face, making him look truly menacing.

“Sit down, Derrick,” Cassel commanded. “Our purpose here is to collect our fee and interest, not to indulge in slaughter. Once we’ve sacked Sith Town, we’ll be satisfied with everything of value. We’ve already razed a village; if we massacre a town as well, we’ll make bitter enemies of the Brickland nobles. That would ruin future business. Besides, the lords of Brickland now know our power. Next time they hire us, they’ll think twice before defaulting on payment.”

With Cassel’s decision final, Derrick had nothing more to add. The company would conserve its strength and, on taking Sith Town, plunder all they could—after all, most of a mercenary’s wealth came from spoils.

Two mornings later, the Black Mountain Company arrived outside Sith Town, immaculate in formation and bristling with fine arms. Though they brought only hastily built battering rams and scaling ladders, none doubted that, should they assault in earnest, the outer wooden wall would soon fall.

Cassel sent a rider under a white flag to the gates, summoning Sir Taul. Though loath to meet, Taul consented, hoping to delay the attack and buy more time for Berion’s preparations.

The Black Mountain envoy delivered a simple ultimatum: pay the debt in full and the town would be spared; refuse, and in one hour the Black Mountain Company would storm Sith Town and seize all its wealth.

Having made his decision, Sir Taul told the envoy to wait, claiming he needed to consult his wife and steward. After an hour of such "deliberation," Berion signaled that all preparations were complete. Sir Taul then climbed the battlements and, with righteous indignation, denounced the Black Mountain Company for their massacre of innocents, cursing them as fiends who butchered pregnant women and children, foretelling that their tainted souls would burn in hellfire for eternity.

The envoy listened, unmoved, his expression unchanged, evidently long accustomed to such accusations. He saluted Sir Taul from horseback and replied, “Honorable Sir Taul, you have one hour to prepare. After that, we will attack. Before we descend to hell, we’ll send your followers there first.” With that, he turned his horse and rode away.

Furious beyond words, Sir Taul watched the envoy’s retreating back, trembling with rage. He snatched up a bow, loosed an arrow with a sharp twang—but the distance was too great; the shaft fell harmlessly in the mud before the gate.

The envoy returned to Cassel and reported. Cassel sneered, “I offered him flowers and swords, and he chose swords. Then let us slake our blades with Brickland blood—let their wails echo to the heavens!”

When the hourglass ran dry, the Black Mountain Company launched their assault. Confident in their numbers and prowess, they massed at the gate, preparing for a swift and brutal attack.

Little did they know what Berion had laid in store for them at the gate.

Twenty soldiers strained at the battering ram, shouting in unison as they charged the town gate. On both flanks advanced ten heavily armored infantry, each bearing broad shields and triple-layered composite armor. Behind them marched the company’s elite archers, each wielding a powerful hornbow.

As they entered range, the archers loosed volleys from behind their shields, their arrows deadly and precise. In the very first volley, three peasant militiamen peering over the parapet were slain.

One such peasant, in battered armor and wielding a rusty spear, stood not far from Berion. He had just craned his head above the battlements for a look when an arrow pierced his throat. Clutching his neck, frothing blood, he collapsed in despair.

Such marksmanship astonished Berion. The Black Mountain Company’s reputation was well deserved; their combat skills were formidable indeed. He immediately ordered everyone to keep their heads down behind the parapets. Any who disobeyed would do so at their own peril.

No sooner had they crouched behind the battlements than screams rang out below—mercenaries had stumbled into the traps Berion had prepared. Over the past days, he had led the townsfolk in digging numerous pits around the perimeter, especially near the gate, creating a dense web of traps. Lacking a moat, these served as the first line of defense.

Derrick, the centurion, saw several heavily armored shieldmen at the fore suddenly vanish into the earth. The sight made his blood run cold. The pits were as thick as a grown man’s waist and nine feet deep, cunningly concealed with branches, straw, and earth. A heavy infantryman, armor and weapons included, weighed nearly three hundred pounds, so when one stepped on the covering, it collapsed instantly, impaling the unlucky soul on sharpened stakes below.

After the initial shock, Derrick ordered his men to halt and carefully probe the ground ahead, wary of further traps.

As they focused on the earth, archers on the walls began to fire. Though the defenders’ arrows, mostly loosed by local hunters, lacked the deadly precision of the Black Mountain archers, they still inflicted casualties and disrupted the assault.

The Black Mountain archers answered in kind, killing five more of the defenders—an even exchange, but one that favored the attackers, who continued to close in.

Though the advance slowed, the mercenaries soon cleared most of the traps and pressed the ram to within ten paces of the gate, having thoroughly checked the remaining ground for snares.

At this point, Derrick exhaled in relief. Glaring at the parapet, he swore silently to slaughter every man, woman, and child in Sith Town to avenge his fallen comrades.

He struck his shield with his axe, and the other mercenaries followed suit, their rhythmic pounding creating an intimidating display. A young, inexperienced militia boy on the wall was so unnerved by the din that he nearly dropped his spear.

After a moment, Derrick roared, “Brothers, storm the town and kill them all!” The forty or fifty mercenaries at the fore surged forward, pushing the ram toward the gate, their fearless assault a terrifying sight.

But just as they closed to within four or five paces of the gate, the sound of splintering wood erupted beneath their feet. Derrick and his men, along with the ram, plunged into a massive pit. Berion had anticipated that these battle-hardened mercenaries would take extra precautions after the first traps were sprung. Knowing that simple snares wouldn’t suffice, he had ordered a larger trap dug right before the gate—a pit ten paces long, five wide, and ten feet deep, covered with thick wooden planks hidden beneath more than a foot of earth. Light probing with spears or swords would not reveal it, nor would a few men crossing trigger a collapse.

But when the bulk of the mercenaries gathered, ramming forward, the combined weight of dozens of armored men and the battering ram shattered the planks. The attackers tumbled into the pit, where sharpened stakes killed most outright; others were maimed, impaled through the legs, and left howling in agony, hoping for rescue.

Derrick and two nimble comrades escaped by scrambling up the ram and a fallen ladder. As they emerged, a volley of fire arrows from the battlements rained into the pit. The bottom had been piled with oil-soaked straw and wood, which burst into flames at the first touch of fire. Derrick and his men fled in terror.

The wounded mercenaries left in the pit, unable to move, were consumed by fire, their screams more harrowing than before.

These cries reached Cassel, who clenched his fists and glared at the town walls, eyes nearly spitting fire. Grinding his teeth, he ordered, “Once we take Sith Town, kill everyone inside, no matter their identity. Leave not a single soul alive—let this be retribution for our slain brothers.”

Cassel, who had opposed a massacre at first, was now beside himself with rage. To lose nearly fifty men in a single blow—including twenty heavy infantry and over a dozen elite archers—was a grievous wound. He knew that even if he reclaimed the sixty thousand denars owed, his position as lieutenant might well be forfeit.