Free Web NovelBlackiron Hold before dawn was as somber as cold iron.
Only the patrol knights' footsteps remained on the wall; chill air crept through every chink in the armor and burrowed into their bones.
Count Doron, wrapped in a thick cloak, stood behind the parapet, gazing down at the plain swallowed by night.
He felt nothing would happen tonight; even with the empire in turmoil, he treated every nightly round as routine—almost enjoyment.
Especially when the townsfolk instinctively lowered their heads at the sight of him; those frightened eyes gave him a certain satisfaction.
Because of the recent imperial succession struggle, Lord Remont had ordered the whole province on alert, yet to Doron the distant Grey Rock Province might as well have been on another world.
He had five thousand knights; let anyone dare come, he believed any foe would die on this black soil.
But real danger never arrives the way one imagines.
At first, only the sound of the wind changed.
Doron frowned and was about to call for a scout—then a blinding white light struck the southeastern corner of the wall, a spot the knights usually skipped.
The next instant, an explosion tore the silence apart.
“Boom—! Boom—!”
“What?” Doron's heart lurched.
When the fire fell, Doron assumed it was a mere probe, but the blast struck with vicious precision, like a nail hammered into the weakest joint.
The rampart that had protected Blackiron Hold for centuries, the black-iron-stone bulwark that had never bowed to fate through countless storms, now shook violently under some unknown force.
The tremor erupted from deep within the masonry and surged outward, as if a giant were smashing the wall with massive fists.
The roar raised clouds of dust; in the darkness the black-iron stone split into three gaps.
“Attack! Attack!” The knights snatched up their weapons and rushed toward the breaches, but halfway there they froze in unison.
Because something terrifying was surging out of the dark.
The shadows moved in perfect ranks and files, a black tide, then split into three orderly columns that poured into the city.
Doron's throat tightened as he stared at the gap, trying to make out what they were.
Heavy cavalry!
Their iron armor gave no reflection in the night, and no torches lit them; their origin was impossible to tell.
“What... what force is this? Where did it come from? Who dares march into Grey Rock Province?” Doron gripped his sword hilt, palms sweating.
At last he saw the vanguard's armor: jet-black, unadorned, bearing only a thin red slash across the breastplate—still no clue to their identity.
“Get up there and stop them!” Doron roared, then drew his blade and charged down the wall.
He leapt to the ground, battle-aura flaring, gray light blooming along his blade.
A mighty swing forced two oncoming riders back half a step.
The rider opposite lifted his head; their eyes met—cold, indifferent.
Through a split in the man's armor, ice-blue light pulsed.
That glow seeped through the crack, frigid and pure, stabbing straight into Doron's sight.
A sledgehammer seemed to strike his mind; a buzz filled his skull, thoughts wiped blank.
Blue battle-aura!
Northern Winter battle-aura!
For an instant he even forgot to breathe.
It couldn't be here—couldn't possibly be here!
When the blades clashed again, the ice-blue surged up the metal like a winter tide wrapping his arm.
The cold numbed his knuckles; he could barely hold his sword.
“No... impossible...” Doron's throat tightened, voice strangled. “Northern knights? Three thousand kilometers away... how did they get here?”
And no beacon had been lit, no scout had reported—no warning at all that an army was near.
It was as though the entire host had spawned from the dark itself.
A fear that started in his spine crept upward: was he facing some armored ghost?
The thought lasted only moments.
The mysterious riders smashed into his lines, and he watched his personal guard split like kindling beneath a heavy axe.
Their formation was ripped apart cleanly, without hesitation.
Battle-aura meant nothing to them; their momentum crushed men and armor into the mud.
“Fall back! Fall back to the keep!” Doron screamed, but his voice was drowned by the clash of iron.
He could feel it clearly: the front line had not been broken—it had been erased.
The enemy cavalry pressed on through the dark, no shouts, no gasps, none of the chaos found in any normal battle.
It was as though a ghost legion of deep winter rode the night itself.
Thirty minutes later.
In just thirty minutes, the thousand knights he had proudly stationed in the city had been utterly annihilated.
Even now Doron could not stop asking: how dared they?
And how had they reached the walls in complete silence?
It felt as though some power had deliberately hidden their coming—the more he thought, the greater his dread.
With his knights in full rout, Doron ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) had to spur his horse and flee pell-mell back to the castle with his last guards, enemy footsteps at his heels.
He cast one final glance at the city behind him.
The silent ghosts of the far north were swallowing the whole place; sporadic screams drifted up, indistinguishable from wails of men or demons.
Old Hans cowered in his little bakery, body rigid as if frozen.
Age had stiffened his legs; he could neither hide nor run.
All he could do was stuff his youngest daughter into the vat in the cellar, clamp the lid, and sit on top.
“Stay quiet, little one... stay quiet.”
The girl sobbed softly inside; Hans trembled as he pressed the lid, terrified outside noises would scare her witless.
Lord Remont's warnings echoed in his ears: northerners are beasts, child-eaters who break in at night, snatch infants from cradles, drink blood like wine.
He had never believed—until tonight.
After the last screams outside died away, the street sank into a deathly hush.
Hans's heart plummeted.
“It's over... demons in the city. Dragon-ancestors, when you kill me... let my girl stay silent.”
He clutched a rolling pin, trying to squeeze courage from the useless weapon.
He knew it couldn't dent a fully armored knight, but the desperate always cling to something—anything.
“Creak.”
The bakery door swung open.
Hans froze, stopped breathing, shut his eyes, and waited for the blade to fall.
But no brutal roar or clanking boots followed.
Only a young, clear voice: “Anyone here, boss?”
Hans blinked, opened his eyes.
In the doorway stood a woman knight, dried blood on her armor, yet nothing like the savage beast he had imagined.
She stood straight, eyes clear, breathing steady.
The female knight swept her gaze across the shop and finally settled it on him: "We're requisitioning your oven."
Old Hans almost dropped to his knees on the spot: "M-Milady, I... I haven't anything of value here..."
"We are knights of Red Tide." The woman strode straight to the table and set down the heavy sack she carried.
A solid, weighty lump. freёwebnoѵel.com
Old Hans flinched back, terrified it was some battle trophy meant to intimidate him.
But the mouth of the bag fell open, revealing flour so fine it gleamed.
Refined flour? In an ordinary year he was lucky to even touch the stuff once.
"This is the ingredient and the deposit." She pulled five silver coins from her belt and tossed them onto the table as if closing a deal. "By dawn we need two hundred loaves. When they're done you'll get the rest of your fee."
Old Hans was dumbstruck. He scooped up the coins, hands trembling; the deposit alone matched half a year's income.
City knights always took what they wanted and walked off; if they left without a beating you thanked your luck.
These demons from the North weren't plundering—they were paying?
His lips quivered for several breaths before he forced out, "Y-you really are... from the North?"
The knight nodded. "Red Tide Legion, North territory. It's chaos outside; stay indoors tonight. We'll secure the quarter."
She said nothing more, turned, and her cloak brushed the doorframe as she vanished into the night wind.
Old Hans stared at the sack of white flour for a long moment, throat bobbing.
"These... these are the man-eating demons from the stories?"
From the cellar came a soft knock and his daughter's voice: "Papa..."
Hans drew a deep breath, lifted the hatch, and lifted her out. "It's all right, little one."
He looked at the flour and the silver, and something cold inside him cracked just a hair.
"Maybe... what came isn't demons at all."
...When the great hall of Blackiron Keep blazed with torchlight, it no longer belonged to Count Doron.
The banners on the walls had been torn down and replaced with the Red Tide standard.
The air still carried the metallic tang of battle, but a hushed sense of order was quickly overlaying it.
Louis Calvin sat in the high seat, armour still on, slowly wiping blood from his sword.
Unhurried, as though this were an ordinary council chamber back in Red Tide Main City instead of a freshly seized enemy stronghold.
Gray stepped into the hall, armour scorched from the inner keep's burning.
He knelt before Louis and murmured, "My lord, I failed. We breached the inner keep a heartbeat too late... the old fox loosed a gale-bird. News of the raid is likely winging outward."
Louis didn't look up; he merely gave a soft grunt of acknowledgment.
Sweat beaded on Gray's brow: "I accept whatever punishment you decree."
Before he could say more, a figure with bound hands and a bloodied mouth was dragged in by knights—Count Doron.
Stripped of his armour, he staggered yet kept his head high like an old wolf deprived of fangs but still trying to snarl.
"Louis!" he rasped. "Do you even grasp what you've done? This is invasion! Grey Rock Province will not let this stand! Duke Remont's host is only—"
Louis's hand paused in its polishing.
"Relax, Gray," Louis said, still without raising his eyes, as calmly as remarking on the weather. "What are you fretting over? Grey Rock Province is vast; we never expected to stay hidden forever."
He sheathed the longsword and finally glanced at Gray. "The first quarter of the silent nibbling is complete—sufficient."
Gray froze, realising Louis was deliberately schooling him.
His battle-qi potential was lower than the monsters Sako and Weil.
But the intelligence arm had once given a rare assessment: "Strong general aptitude."
So, before the campaign, Louis summoned him, pinned the deputy's badge to his shoulder, intending to groom a successor to Lambert.
From that instant Gray had been strung taut, terrified of betraying that trust.
He remained ramrod straight, memorising every word, order, habit of Louis.
His talent was not dazzling, yet Louis had handed him the deputy's post—setting him on an altogether different path.
Gray's palms sweated; his voice was steady: "Understood."
Doron's face shifted from fury to bewilderment as he listened. "W-what nibbling are you talking about...?"
Louis lifted a hand and flicked a finger. "Too noisy. Take him out and behead him."
Doron's eyes bulged as if struck by lightning. "No! I'm noble! By law I can pay ransom—mmph!" ƒreewebɳovel.com
A knight gagged him and hauled him away; boots scraped the floor, leaving a trail of chaotic footprints.
Louis never spared him a glance.
Noble blood? Ransom? Meaningless to Red Tide on the eve of a blitz.
Fear was worth more than a prisoner.
Louis walked to the larger map of Grey Rock Province on the wall.
Candle-flame quivered, stretching his shadow to a great length.
The broad expanse of Grayrock looked like a cold iron slab in the firelight, yet in Louis's eyes it was already a hunting ground carved into squares by red lines.
He raised a hand and brushed the map's edge.
According to the original plan he should first stabilise the North, stock grain, expand the army, build harbours, roads, let Red Tide grow into the northern titan of the empire.
But the intelligence system rewrote everything.
That dawn, several lines on the light-screen hurled him straight into war: Duke Remont had been dragged into a succession maelstrom, pulling seventy percent of his main force and every Dragon-Blood death-knight toward the imperial capital.
Grey Rock Province had become an empty shell; this might be his only chance to possess it.
And if he waited for Remont to entrench himself in the capital and turn back, the North would likely be his first target.
Waiting meant death; strike the foe while he lay sick.
Louis's fingertip slid along the map and stopped where three thin red lines converged.
Those were the three "ghost marches" of Red Tide's army.
Guided by intelligence, they avoided patrols and watch-posts, slipping through branch roads, forest trails, river seams, silently swallowing a quarter of the territory.
He exhaled softly.
"Stealth has carried us far enough."
Now Gray understood: the lord never cared whether they were discovered—he was simply calculating the optimal turning point.
Louis turned back, gaze calm and resolute.
"Since the news is out," he said, pressing a hand over a city at the map's centre, "we drop the stealth."
He peeled off his glove and slowly closed it round his sword-hilt.
Candlelight flared in his eyes, drawn into a thin line of killing intent: "From this moment—full assault."}
