Chapter 312: Pacifying the Mercenaries
This time, Hode generously treated everyone in the Mercenary Tavern to five days of revelry.
On the sixth day, however, the tavern was not filled with mercenaries lying all over the floor like before. Instead, a group of them followed behind Hode as they left the Mercenary Tavern together.
Over those five days, twenty people had joined Hode’s Comrades Group.
Those whom the lord had deliberately arranged to stir up the crowd were not among them.
One could say that most of the mercenaries in this tavern had chosen to follow Hode and join the Comrades Group. After Hode “spent lavishly” to equip each of them with a set of well-crafted leather armor, their howls of excitement nearly drew the attention of the city guards.
Even so, when the guards saw it, they dared not speak a word.
Not only because the lord had given the order, but also because with a Northern Warrior leading more than twenty well-equipped fighters, these guards serving under a viscount would never dare provoke them.
After all, these guards themselves had snuck into the tavern more than once for free food and drink.
And besides, their monthly pay was only three gold coins—Northern Kingdom gold coins at that, which were nearly worthless. For such meager pay, why would they risk their lives?
…
This time, Hode led his Comrades Group members on a mission from the lord:
Suppressing a rebellion.
A village within the territory had revolted. The manor of a local gentry had been stormed by a Northern Warrior leading commoners.
“But they were blinded by wealth and fell into infighting. I reckon there won’t be many of them left,” said the gentry who had escaped, speaking to Hode.
Unlike the knights of Greenwood, Northern Warriors had no fiefs of their own.
These brutes were unfit to govern land. With scarce resources in the North, and without large families to support, no lord would entrust villages to warriors who possessed only admiration but no loyalty.
Thus, the wealth of a single gentry was a great temptation for Northern Warriors, who were little more than wanderers.
“The lord said you are mercenaries, but I think you are even more elite than the city guards,” the gentry remarked with some surprise as he observed Hode’s Comrades Group.
In his youth, this gentry had also been a Northern Warrior. Now older, his strength had faded.
Yet though his body had declined, his eyes were still sharp.
These so-called “drifter mercenaries,” as his fellow gentry called them, stood with a loose posture, but the quality of their equipment rivaled that of the lord’s own elite soldiers.
“We are the Comrades Group. Do not compare us with other mercenaries,” Hode said, deliberately emphasizing the name.
As his words carried, many behind him instinctively straightened their chests.
The gentry narrowed his eyes, then laughed loudly and said, “Yes, you are warriors of the Comrades Group. Once you help me wipe out those rebels, I will reward you with three hundred gold coins. This is not payment but my respect for warriors. And if possible, I would also like to host a banquet in my manor for you brave men.”
Hode stared deeply at the gentry. He almost suspected that this man had already aligned himself with Greenwood, pushing coins and reputation upon him under all sorts of pretenses.
The rebellion itself was, of course, arranged by the lord. Even the rebels’ later infighting had been instigated by the lord’s agents. Otherwise, more than seventy rebels could not have been subdued by Hode’s mere twenty men.
After becoming a mercenary, Hode had been contacted by a merchant. Once he confirmed that the merchant was backed by Greenwood, Hode connected with them—and was shocked to discover that the lord of this territory had already pledged himself to Greenwood.
Thus, the first task with the merchant had been fabricated. The second mission—exterminating bandits—had been arranged by the lord. He had indeed slain the bandits, but they had only been a few starving wretches. Upon returning, the tale was spun into one of bandits led by a Northern Warrior.
He said so, the lord said so, and the tavern middleman acknowledged it. No one bothered to question further. After all, the gold coins Hode spent were real, and the food and drink provided were real.
The third task, about the Snowfield Berserk Bear and Frost Trolls, had been directly handed to him by the lord. In truth, he had only made a circuit outside before dragging back freshly killed corpses.
Now, however, was the first time he had to truly fight.
Hode knew well that as long as it was just him and Cooper, deception was possible. But once a group had been forged into a true company, lies could no longer hold it together.
Thus, when they stormed the village, Hode roared and charged forward with a finely made double-edged battleaxe gleaming with a chilling light, straight toward the enemy warrior.
The opposing Northern Warrior did not retreat in the slightest. In such battles, men of the North would never shrink back.
The Comrades Group fighters and the rebels clashed around them.
Even though his men were at a disadvantage, Hode was not worried.
The tavern’s registry listed only him as a Northern Warrior, but Cooper—marked as a third-tier upper warrior—was a genuine warrior himself.
Before Hode had fully embraced his Northern bloodline, Cooper had been able to beat him down easily.
Hode locked eyes with his foe. The man’s gaze was cruel, with dried blood still caked on his face—evidence that he had been fighting just before Hode stormed in.
The man wielded a chipped, wooden-handled handaxe. Bare-chested, wearing only a deerskin skirt as armor, he was no match for Hode. Soon, Hode hooked the long-hafted axe around his neck, pinned him to the ground, and strangled him to death.
Just before death, the warrior’s eyes flickered with a trace of release. With a vicious glare, he suddenly stopped tugging at the axe shaft and drove a hand straight toward Hode’s eyes.
Hode easily dodged the strike, but not before a fingernail raked a bloody line across his face.
With the leader slain, the Comrades Group’s morale soared, while the rebels’ courage collapsed and they fled in chaos.
It was not only the death of their leader. Most of them wielded only sticks and farm tools, utterly incapable of breaking through the armor of these well-equipped warriors. There had been no chance of victory.
The Comrades Group cheered as they pursued. Hode, meanwhile, stood panting, staring at the fallen warrior.
On the man’s forehead, a circular sigil appeared after death, already fading rapidly from sight.
Hode slowly raised his head, watching his comrades slay the fleeing rebels. Casting away stray thoughts, he lifted his battleaxe high and roared.
“Ahhh!!!”
…
That night, the rebels’ corpses were piled at the manor gate and set aflame. The blaze lit up the night, as if driving away the cold itself.
The gentry’s servants dragged corpses and wood to the fire. As the flames waned, they threw in more bodies with the timber to feed it.
In the manor, beside a roaring bonfire, the Comrades Group sat. With one hand they tore at roasted meat, and with the other they clutched mugs of wheat beer, loudly boasting of their exploits.
How many they had cut down, how many heads they had taken. When the excitement peaked, they stripped off their armor to reveal still-bleeding wounds, flaunting them like trophies. If a wound was healing too quickly, they would even tear it open themselves to make the blood flow anew.
The gentry had somehow gathered a group of women, clad only in thin garments that barely concealed their full figures. Even with bonfires blazing, they shivered in the Northern cold.
They dared not leave. Smiling, they played along with the boasting warriors.
These were Northern fighters—they would never content themselves with being mere spectators to another’s valor. Thus, the women became their audience. And when food, drink, and boasting tired them out, some of the warriors took their pleasure right there in the open, without shame.
Pain, alcohol, and lust together fanned their frenzy, filling the manor with a feral energy.
The gentry gave the seat of honor to Hode, taking a lower seat himself. At Hode’s side, two women served him—his daughters, clearly more beautiful and voluptuous than those mingling with the other fighters.
But Hode only drank and ate, never sparing them a glance, nor joining the boasting.
The gentry glanced at the chaos among the rest of the Comrades Group, then chuckled twice and said, “Truly worthy of the lord’s praise. With just over twenty men, you crushed forty or fifty, and lost only three. Such strength is remarkable.”
Hode set down his barrel of ale without replying, simply watching the gentry.
The gentry went on, “But for a group this strong to still rely on missions and pay—it seems beneath you. If you are willing, you could be a village administrator. Of course, every village already has one, but if you work with me, I think we could see a position opened for you.”
“For example, that nearby village.”
“And between my manor and yours runs a trade route extending from Greenwood. Greenwood’s merchants are overflowing with gold.”
Hode silently dismissed his earlier suspicion of Greenwood ties.
Anyone truly aligned with Greenwood would never speak of taxing Greenwood merchants.
Raising his voice, Hode declared, “The Comrades Group is the Comrades Group of the North. Our name is to be sung throughout the land, so that when all Northerners speak of the Comrades Group, they will cry out together: every comrade is a true warrior!”
His booming words drew the attention of the rowdy fighters below.
At once they sprang to their feet, howling their cheers.
The gentry quietly abandoned the idea of cooperation with Hode.
Though Northerners were known for their belligerence, such zeal bordered on the feral.
And he had no wish to let a beast slumber at his side—lest one day it wake hungry, and take its first bite from him.