Herald of Steel

"Stop it! Stop it I tell you! Halt this madness! What do you think are you doing? Cease!"

At the initial breakout of hostilities, Lord Bernard tried to cool the men using his words, ordering them to restore order amongst the ranks at once.

He had hoped his sole status as a nobleman would be enough to make them yield.

Needless to say, that did not pan out at all the way he thought it would.

In the heated moment of battle, it was found that Lord Bernard's noble peerage mattered little to the rest of the crew, with the enraged soldiers feeling disinclined to follow this civilian who commanded so little prestige amongst them.

They completely ignored him, instead turning their attention to the much more important matter on hand, filling the decks with as many corpses from the other side as possible.

Thus the bloodshed continued, the melee being extremely bloody and macabre.

The decks were packed, letting both sides be spoiled for choices when it came to targets, but to kill these targets, the soldiers only had short swords with them.

So each man had to get up really close and personal to get the job done, and unlike when fighting with a sword where one good hit would be usually enough to get the job done, here, one skank with the dagger was never quite adequate.

So like in all the other instances, here too the entire thing turned into an extremely brutal affair, with bodies being lacerated and gutted in the most sanguinary manner possible, the dead succumbing to not just one, but many, many gruesome wounds.

It was a very painful way to go.

And if this was allowed to continue for much longer, the entire deck would get drowned in blood.

Lord Bernard who was observing all this knew could not let this continue, even if for nothing but to lay credence to his military leadership.

Thus unable to stand by and watch, the man decided to fearlessly charge in, hoping his actual presence would snap the enraged sides back to their senses.

He was a noble after all, who would dare not give him face?

That sort of absolute arrogance was instantly challenged as immediately upon joining the fray, Lord Bernard caught the eye of an especially hot blooded Heeat soldier, who, looking at the man's especially flashy armor, grinned.

The man's get up made it clearly apparent to anyone with even one eye that this was a big fish and of course, this Heeat soldier wanted to hook it.

Now this man did not know exactly who this was despite Lord Bernard having stood in front of the crowd and giving a long speech. Which was actually normal given most soldiers standing at the rear echelons could get no sight of the man, their vision being fully obscured by the enormous rows of metal helmets that lay in front of them.

And even if the man did recognize Lord Bernard, so what?

He was just as likely to stop in respect for the man as he was likely to try and kill him even faster.

Because all Heeat soldiers till now felt that they would not have lost so many men if only the Margraves had acted with greater haste and been more generous with their aid.

And as the head of their forces, naturally, the greatest of the blame was put on Lord Bernard.

Thus killing the main culprit for the disaster as revenge for so many of their dead brother appeared as a fully just course of action to many among the Heeat forces.

But whichever his choice might have been then, right now that did not matter.

Right now, that Heeat soldier had already decided to strike.

In preparation for that, he initially fished his head around, trying to spot any bodyguard that might be protecting his target like all high value targets.

But luckily for him, that troublesome little inconvenience had been already taken care of by his target due to several extenuating circumstances.

The attacker thus quickly found Lord Bernard completely alone, with all the men around him engrossed in fighting their own battle, while the man himself whipped his head around and shouted like a madman to mostly deaf ears.

He did not have the even barest modicum of vigilance, making the Heeat soldier feel like he was a fox finding a stray sheep in the field, one that was braying and prancing about without a care in the world.

It was an opportunity so sweet that it would be a crime for him not to strike.

And so he did, with great gusto and a great big grin, jumping towards him and driving his dagger into the distracted man with deadly speed and deathly precision, until the blade dug itself to the hilt.

"Arghhhhh!"

Lord Bernard could not even get his first solid sentence in when he felt an unimaginable pain coursing through his guts, and initially, even as the man let off his ear piercing cry, he had trouble simply understanding what had just happened.

The man saw himself was a bone a fide noble, tall, and absolutely unvoilable to all these peasant masses. And then add the fact that he was technically the highest ranking military commander currently here, the man figured he practically had full immunity to all physical damage.

Even the thought that he could be attacked seemed too ludicrous to consider until this point.

Which was perhaps why the sight of the silver blade sticking into him and dying his lower torso in that warm, crimson liquid came as such a shock to the man.

Lord Bernard even wetted his hand with the overflowing liquid and then brought it up to his face to stare at it with absolute incredulation, as if asking the people around if it was really his own blood, or if it was just him imagining things.

'This can't be… the way how I di…*thud*'

The soft man fell from that single wound, and as he lost consciousness due to the bleeding, his last thoughts were neither of hatred for the man who attacked him nor of concerns about what was going to happen to his forces, but of the fear that all his ambitions were going to come to naught.

That was the man's greatest fear.

The nobleman's heavy armor collided with the wooden deck with a large dull clank, so loud in fact that it rang the ears of all those around.

"My lord! Lord Bernard! Ho… how?"

And it was only then that the Margrave's soldiers turned to spot the source, and they of course instantly recognized the body as their commander's.

Henceforth they let off this great cry of alarm, before dropping everything and running towards him. Losing Lord Bernard here would be too great a loss for them, both in terms of morale and in terms of keeping their head.

"Quick! Get me some clothes! Stop the bleeding! Press on the wound and stop the bleeding! Hurry!"

So, as they gathered around the fallen lord, they tried to stabilize his condition as best as they could.

The very first 'responders' quickly checked his pulse, and upon confirming he was indeed still alive, started administering whatever first aid they knew, even if it was the most basic of the basics, all in an effort to keep the man alive.

It was certainly a touching sight, just too bad that it was only after the man had been stabbed and gutted that these troops decided to get their bearing back.

But as they say, better late than never.

As the Margraves suddenly disengaged from the fight to attend to their lord, the Heeat men too suddenly appeared a bit stunned by the abrupt revelation, as killing any noble, regardless of his allegiance, was a big taboo.

If he belonged to the opposing side, it was usually much more worthwhile to ransom him.

If he was neutral, then killing him could result in anything from pay cuts to hanging depending on the man's status and allegiance.

While if he was an allied lord or one of their own, well, the punishments were as creative as they were cruel for the offending soldier.

Thus, upon learning of what had transpired, the Heeat soldiers in a rare moment of clarity chose to restrain themselves and stopped taking advantage of the Margraves.

Not all the fighting men were as bellicose as that one who attacked Lord Bernard after all.

"What's going on here? Why are you fighting?"

It was also quite fortunate that the Heeat men stopped themselves when they did because while they were too distracted with killing and gutting each other, the relief force sent out by Lord Parker had finally managed to cross the distance and the leading flagship was in the midst of mooring itself next to the disabled vessel.

And from this close distance, they of course all could see the unfolding kerfuffle, even though the other side remained completely oblivious to their arrival.

Which was precisely why that loud, commanding voice was uttered from the port side of that vessel- to try and bring some sort of sense into the deranged men over there.

And as this imperious voice floated down, military order was magically restored almost instantly.

Let us say no to piracy! Don't take part in a crime! Don't patronize thieves!

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