Chương 47: You broke my Laws

The massive, splintered hole in the palisade wall was a death sentence. A mountain bear, its thick gray fur still sizzling with sticky pine sap, stepped heavily through the shattered logs. It let out a deafening roar that vibrated in the chests of every human standing in the village square. Behind it, three elite dire wolves and another massive bear were already climbing over the ruins of the wall, eager to pour into the breach. The village militia broke.

The sheer terror of facing an apex predator at close range overrode their discipline. Men dropped their spears and scrambled backward in the snow, slipping and falling over each other to get away from the massive jaws. Up on the castle, Jack watched the line collapse. He knew he could not manually force the undead into a chaotic battle against beasts of that size without frying his own brain. So, he didn't. He relied on his general.

He pushed a concentrated spike of mana down the thin thread connected to the dark figure standing by the gatehouse.

"Kill them." Down in the village, Elias the Wanderer finally moved. He threw off the traveler's cloak Jack had given him, letting it fall into the snow. He did not draw his ancestral steel sword. Instead, he sprinted directly toward the breached wall. His speed was terrifyingly fast. Because his muscles did not feel cold or fatigue, and because his preserved brain retained all the physical instincts of an elite royal guard, Elias moved with a fluid grace that a normal human simply could not match.

He closed the distance in seconds.

"Wanderer, no! You have no spear!" Giles screamed from the firing platform, watching the lone man run entirely unarmed toward a ten-foot-tall bear. Elias ignored him. He leaped directly into the path of the charging beast. The bear raised a massive paw, intending to crush the small human into the dirt. Elias planted his boots firmly in the snow. He raised both of his pale hands. Relying entirely on his own retained magical instincts, Elias pulled the mana Jack was feeding him and converted it instantly.

A brilliant, blinding flash of crimson and orange erupted in the dark village. Elias did not cast a small fireball. He unleashed a sustained torrent of flame directly from his palms. The intense heat instantly vaporized the falling snow around him, turning it into a thick cloud of white steam. The stream of fire slammed directly into the chest and face of the mountain bear. The beast's thick, grizzled fur, which had easily deflected boiling sap, instantly ignited.

The bear let out a horrific shriek that sounded almost human. The fire was not normal; it was fueled by dense, concentrated mana. It clung to the beast, burning straight through the thick layers of winter fat and cooking the flesh beneath in seconds. The massive bear thrashed violently, completely blinded and suffocating on the flames. It collapsed backward, crashing heavily into the splintered logs of the wall. The entire village froze. The terrified militiamen stopped scrambling and stared in absolute shock.

"Magic," Barnaby whispered from the watchtower, his grip slipping on the iron cranks of the ballista.

"He is a Fire Mage." Elias did not stop to admire his work. The breach was still open. One of the elite dire wolves, completely ignoring the burning bear, lunged through the gap. Its jaws snapped toward Elias's throat. Elias casually sidestepped the lethal bite with perfect martial footwork. As the wolf flew past him, Elias grabbed the fur on the back of the beast's neck with his left hand. Without missing a beat, he drove his right palm directly into the wolf's ribs and released a short, violent burst of fire.

The concussive force of the blast shattered the wolf's ribcage and cooked its internal organs instantly. Elias dropped the dead beast into the snow and stepped firmly into the center of the broken wall, acting as a living, fiery shield for the village. Up on the castle, Jack let out a long breath. He felt his Iron Core draining steadily, but it was a smooth, manageable flow. It felt like opening a valve and letting the water run, rather than the chaotic struggle of trying to manually puppet a dozen separate limbs.

Elias's brain was handling all the complex calculations of dodging, aiming, and casting. Jack was merely supplying the fuel. Down below, the sight of the "Wanderer" obliterating a mountain bear with his bare hands acted like a massive surge of adrenaline for the terrified humans.

"He is holding the breach!" Giles roared. He snatched a dropped boar spear from the snow.

"Rally! Support the mage! Do not let them flank him!" The militiamen grabbed their weapons and rushed forward, forming a tight defensive semicircle behind Elias. They thrust their spears through the gaps in the broken logs, keeping the smaller beasts away from the fire mage's back.

"I have the tension!" Barnaby bellowed from the watchtower. The stiff gears of the scrap-iron ballista finally locked into place. The three men helping him quickly stepped back. Barnaby grabbed a thick dire wolf bone that had been sharpened to a lethal point and slapped it into the firing groove. He aimed directly at the second mountain bear, which was currently trying to push its way past Elias. Barnaby yanked the release lever. THWACK.

Because the target was less than forty yards away, the bone bolt hit with devastating, point-blank force. The dense bone shattered the bear's thick skull upon impact, dropping the massive predator instantly.

"Wind it back!" Barnaby yelled, already grabbing the cranks again. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. The defense transformed into a perfectly synchronized slaughter. Up on the gatehouse roof, the older children dragged the last two iron kettles to the edge. They tipped them forward, pouring a massive waterfall of boiling pine sap directly down onto the giant boars that were thrashing wildly in the moat below, unable to climb the slippery, packed bodies.

Up on the castle, Jack turned his personal artillery into a rapid-fire execution line.

"Pull." Grim clamped its jaws and yanked the heavy crank back.

"Load." Bones dropped a fresh bolt into the groove. Jack fired, aiming for the massive boars and wolves that were still trying to cross the flesh-bridge over the trench. The bolts rained down from the sky, pinning the massive beasts to the ground. The horde was caught in a lethal, inescapable crossfire. They were being burned alive at the breach, crushed by artillery from above, and boiled in the trench below.

For forty minutes, the valley echoed with the sounds of snapping wood, roaring fire, and the shrieks of dying monsters. Then, the morale of the horde finally broke. Apex predators were not mindless. They were highly intelligent, and they recognized overwhelming, lethal force when they saw it. Even the starving kings of the mountain feared fire of that magnitude. The surviving dire wolves tucked their tails and bolted.

The remaining giant snow boars turned around, trampling each other in their desperate panic to retreat. They fled back into the dark tree line, disappearing into the blinding snowstorm. The Beast Tide was definitively broken. A ringing silence fell over the village square, broken only by the crackle of the burning bear carcass and the howling wind. Jack leaned heavily against the wooden frame of his ballista. He severed the active combat link to Elias, leaving the dead mage on a simple, low-power standby command.

He quickly pushed a small pulse of mana into Elias's chest, forcing the dead lungs to expand and contract rapidly to simulate heavy exhaustion. Up on the castle, a genuine smile spread across Jack's face. The massive gamble had paid off perfectly.

"Lord Jack?" a tentative voice called out from behind him. Jack turned his head. Karen was standing just behind him. She was wearing her wool shawls, holding a steaming wooden mug carefully in her hands.

"The roaring has stopped," Karen said nervously, looking out at the dark valley.

"Did the wall hold?"

"It held, Karen," Jack said, his voice quiet but filled with real relief.

"The beasts are gone." Karen let out a long breath and walked forward, offering him the mug.

"I brought you hot tea, My Lord. You have been standing out in the freezing wind for hours. You must warm your chest." Jack took the mug with his free hand. The heat seeped through the wood and into his cold fingers. He took a slow sip, feeling the warm liquid soothe his throat. His Iron Core was heavily depleted from fueling Elias's fire magic and operating Grim, leaving him physically drained, but his mind was sharp.

"Thank you, Karen," Jack said.

"Get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be an incredibly busy day." The next morning. Jack walked slowly down the mountain path, leaning on his cane. Bones walked silently two steps behind him, fully clad in his iron armor. The village square and the surrounding snowfields were completely covered in the carcasses. The sheer size of the mountain bears and giant snow boars was staggering in the daylight. Giles and the village men had already set up the wooden skinning racks.

Because the animals were so massive, they were using Barnaby's block-and-tackle pulley system just to hoist the bears off the ground for butchering. Women were rushing back and forth carrying buckets filled with hot water from the bathhouse to thaw the frozen fat. The smoking sheds were already being cleared of older meat to make room for the premium cuts. As Jack approached the center of the village, Giles spotted him. The carpenter dropped his skinning knife, wiped his bloody hands on a rag, and jogged over.

His face was bright red from the cold, but his eyes were wide with intense excitement.

"Lord Jack!" Giles called out, bowing deeply as he stopped in front of him.

"We did it! Not a single villager was lost. But My Lord, you will not believe what happened down here in the dark." Jack stopped, leaning on his cane. He kept his expression perfectly neutral.

"I saw the beasts retreat from the balcony. But the storm was blinding. What happened at the gate?"

"The wall broke, My Lord," Giles said, his voice dropping to a serious, hushed tone.

"A mountain bear smashed right through the pine logs. We were dead men. But the Wanderer… Elias." Giles paused, looking over his shoulder toward the gatehouse where the dark-cloaked figure was standing his usual guard.

"He is a mage, Lord Jack," Giles said, his voice filled with awe.

"A Fire Mage. He didn't even draw his sword. He stepped right into the breach and burned a ten-foot bear to ash with his bare hands. He held the line completely on his own." Jack raised an eyebrow, putting on a mask of surprise.

"A Fire Mage? Are you certain, Giles?"

"I saw it with my own two eyes, My Lord," Barnaby added, walking over from the forge. The blacksmith was holding a massive, bloody bear claw he had just chopped off.

"He unleashed a river of fire. If he hadn't done it, that bear would have eaten half the militia." Jack nodded slowly, his face hardening into a lordly expression.

"I see. He kept a very large secret from us when he asked for shelter. Let us speak with him." Jack walked across the bloody snow, followed closely by Giles and Barnaby. Elias was standing near the repaired gatehouse. He was perfectly still, his hands resting on the pommel of his sword. As Jack approached, Jack carefully gathered a moderate amount of mana in his Iron Core and pushed it down the thin thread, preparing to puppet the dead vocal cords once again.

Jack stopped a few feet away from his own undead creation.

"Giles tells me you are more than just a wandering swordsman, Elias," Jack said loudly, ensuring the nearby villagers could hear the confrontation. Jack forced Elias to turn his head slowly. He pushed the mana into the dead chest, forcing a slow, simulated breath.

"I am what I need to be to survive," Elias stated.

"You hid your magic when you entered my gates," Jack stated, crossing his hands over the top of his cane.

"Why?" Jack burned a little more mana, feeding Elias his lines carefully." This is ridiculous," Jack thought internally, amused by the fact that he was essentially performing a stage play with a corpse for an audience of peasants.

"Magic draws the eyes of many people, Lord Jack," Elias answered slowly, playing the role of the cautious, secretive mercenary perfectly.

"I offered you my blade, not my fire. I only wanted a quiet place to ride out the winter. I only used my magic because your wall failed." Giles shifted uncomfortably, knowing the Wanderer was right. Harboring an unsanctioned mage was a serious crime in the Empire, but the man had just saved all their lives. Jack let the silence hang in the air for a few seconds, acting as though he were deeply weighing the political risks.

"You broke my laws, but you saved my people," Jack finally said, his voice carrying firm authority.

"In the Frost-Grip fief, we care about survival first, and the laws second. You held the breach when my militia broke. For that, you have my thanks, and you have a permanent place by our hearth." Jack made Elias give a single, stiff nod of respect.

"I will guard the gate," Elias rasped, before turning his back to the men and resuming his silent watch over the snowy road. Giles let out a sigh of relief. He looked at Jack with profound gratitude.

"Thank you, Lord Jack. Having a mage of his caliber on the wall… it makes the winter feel a lot less terrifying."

"Get back to the harvesting, Giles," Jack ordered, a small smile breaking through his stern facade.

"We have a fortune in meat and pelts sitting in the snow. Do not let it go to waste." The men hurried back to the skinning racks, their spirits incredibly high. Jack turned and began the slow walk back up the mountain toward the castle. The worst was finally over. The sudden, violent drop in temperature and the massive blizzard had been the peak of the deep winter. It was the event that drove the largest, most dangerous predators down from the highest caves. Jack looked out toward the mountain peaks.

The sky was still grey, and the snow was still deep, but the feeling in the air had changed. The oppressive, freezing weight of the deep winter had broken. There would still be more waves of beasts, Jack knew. Starving hounds and desperate wolves would continue to attack the village for the next few weeks. But they would be smaller packs, easily handled by the trench, the militia, and the ballista.

"One more month," Jack whispered to himself. In roughly one month, the freezing winds would finally stop. The massive snowdrifts blocking the southern mountain pass would turn to slush. The spring thaw would begin, and the long, bitter isolation of the Frost-Grip fief would end.