By the sixth day, the pressure on Head Wolf Enrique had become crushing.

Doubts about his ability had spread from the main camp to his subordinate chiefs and even the common soldiers.

Ironwall City had resisted for a long time too, but it was a great city, more than ten times the size of this little town.

Enrique keenly sensed the change in the army's mood. For a force assembled only temporarily, it was a sign of impending collapse.

"We cannot wait any longer!"

He knew his performance was being judged. Excellence was already beyond reach, but he could still avoid outright failure.

If a thousand lives were not enough, he would spend two thousand; if two thousand failed, he would spend three. He would sacrifice all ten thousand men if that was what it took to complete his mission.

The barbarians began their most brutal assault, with no regard for human life.

The title Head Wolf demanded more than leadership. It demanded cold-blooded cruelty, even toward one's own people.

When a small group of barbarians shouted that they did not want to join the battlefield's meat grinder, Enrique had his guards seize them and drag them to the front.

"Kill them all."

Realizing that Enrique meant it, the lesser chief leading the protest panicked and struggled to rise.

"I am the young chief of the Bomir Tribe! Who dares kill me? My father will not spare you!

"Enrique, this is an unlawful order. You have no right to kill me. I will report you to the Grand Commander. I will have you killed!"

Enrique's face darkened further. This time, he had paid dearly.

But his guards did not care who the man was. The order had not changed, so they carried it out.

The sight of a highborn tribesman being beheaded silenced every protest.

The wall before them was clearly on the verge of breaking. There was no need to throw their lives away.

Watching the farce outside the walls, Derek quietly withdrew with Baron Palmer.

Derek replaced the soldiers on the wall with militia, deliberately weakening the resistance.

But the barbarians believed it was entirely their own achievement.

"These Locke men cannot hold on."

A barbarian lesser chief rushed onto the wall and cut open a gap with a few swings. More barbarians followed.

Watching from afar, Enrique finally breathed a sigh of relief. The casualties looked immense, but they had succeeded at last.

"Have everyone prepare. This time... take no prisoners."

Enrique gave the cold order.

After such heavy losses, if he could not use the opportunity to vent the soldiers' resentment, the trouble after the battle would be even greater.

The command quickly spread across the field. Every soldier squeezed forward desperately.

The town was about to fall, and anyone who arrived late would miss the plunder.

The barbarians quickly seized the wall and threw open the gates.

"Kill! Loot the bastards!"

They surged through the gate, each man fighting to be first. Those in front saw the barbican, but they did not understand its purpose. More importantly, the mass behind them made retreat impossible and drove them onward.

The hastily built barbican was far less formidable than it appeared.

But Derek had never intended to defend it in a second battle.

Within a quarter of an hour, three or four thousand barbarian soldiers had poured inside and filled the small open space.

Some were already climbing the inner walls of the barbican.

Enrique relaxed. He could not see inside the town, but experience told him that once thousands of soldiers had poured through the gate, the outcome was decided.

"Locke's reinforcements are very close. The main camp needs me to pull out this nail and join them quickly, then look for a battle that will break Locke's relief force."

Enrique was already thinking of how to redeem himself.

If he earned great merit in the next battle, today's losses would naturally be forgotten.

At the same time, Derek gave a cold wave of his hand.

"Light it."

Countless grease-soaked torches rained down.

The packed barbarian soldiers had not noticed the firewood and other flammables piled around them. Only those squeezed beside the great stacks of wood began to imagine the consequences.

"Stop pushing! It is a Locke trap! This place is full of firewood!"

Their terrified warnings vanished beneath the roar of the crowd.

Some even dragged stacked firewood over to use as ladders.

They could already see the Locke men close at hand, even the pity on their faces.

Pity?

Boom!

Flames erupted on every side. The oil-soaked firewood caught with explosive speed.

Within seconds, the entire barbican was full of fire and smoke.

The Locke soldiers had already withdrawn. A few escaping barbarians no longer mattered; avoiding the flames was the greater concern.

A broad empty area had been cleared inside the barbican for precisely that reason.

When the smell of grease drifted over, Derek put on his helmet and lowered the visor.

Baron Palmer's face was pale. He seemed able to hear the distant cries.

"Knight Derek, we need not take another risk, do we?"

Their victory already warranted a baron's title, perhaps even a landed barony.

There was no need to risk another attack.

"This is the chance of a lifetime. If we let it pass, it will never come again."

Derek swung into the saddle and opened the eastern gate.

Every knight was excited. War's cruelty inspired fear, but the honor and rewards of victory inspired longing.

With merit lying right before their eyes, how could they not be eager?

The cavalry charged out first, the infantry following close behind.

The fresh troops they had preserved through these days were finally put to use.

War was decided by men, not numbers alone.

Break ten thousand with one thousand. Defeat many with few.

Today, he would forge a legend.

He would carve his name into the history of the Kingdom of Locke.

The world would learn that Derek von Ferreira had arrived.

When the Locke men burst out, the few barbarians blocking the eastern gate had not yet reacted. Most of their forces had crowded toward the southern gate; no one knew whether they had made it inside.

At first, the barbarians rejoiced at enemies delivering themselves to their blades. Then rank after rank of Locke soldiers poured through the gate, and delight turned to shock.

Where had this army come from?

Kill!

The enemy formation was pierced with ease.

By the time Derek circled to the southern gate, Lone Wolf Enrique had spotted the flames.

The pillar of fire could be seen plainly even in daylight.

The barbarians had never experienced anything like this and could not understand what had happened.

Then a few survivors came running out, wailing desperately. Some living torches stumbled forward before collapsing to the ground.

Enrique reacted quickly enough.

It was over.

Including the losses from the previous days, four-fifths of Enrique's provisional force had been destroyed.

...

The survivors were no longer an effective fighting force.

A third of the entire southern invasion force had vanished with it. The operation was now a failure.

All their earlier gains had been wiped out. Countless people would want him dead.

So he was finished too.

When Derek led his army charging forward, the remaining barbarian soldiers broke. Lone Wolf Enrique could no longer control them and was swept away in the rout.

The Locke men pursued relentlessly.

Ironwall City lay close by. After a day of intermittent pursuit, the southern gate rose into view.

As dusk settled, the first routed soldiers arrived.

Before the barbarians stationed there could react, Derek, coming from behind, charged straight into the camp.

After a full day, even with brief rests, his soldiers were exhausted. The barbarians were no better: they had faced each other all day and even launched several probing attacks, draining much of their strength.

Most importantly, they had no warning at all.

That morning, the news had been that the reckless Locke force was surrounded. Lone Wolf Enrique had suffered losses, but he still had them firmly trapped. Everyone had believed he would take the town that day.

Locke's main relief force was still two or three days away. It was no threat.

No one expected enemies to burst into the camp.

The attack caught them completely unprepared. With both armies exhausted, that moment of surprise proved decisive.

The difference between elite and ordinary troops now became stark. Derek's relentless training had given his soldiers far greater discipline and resolve.

"Push through! Push through!"

The junior officers shouted wildly. Signal-flag command had collapsed completely.

Darkness swallowed the chaotic battlefield, limiting every man's vision to the few yards ahead and beside him.

Fear magnified. Confusion spread.

That made junior officers vastly more important.

Daily training, reinforced by the Panel, had forged the junior officers' resolve into steel.

Even knowing they were deep in enemy territory, surrounded by enemies as far as they could see, they did not waver in the slightest.

They knew only to carry out their orders. Lord Derek would handle everything else.

Push through!

Kill the enemy!

Everything else could wait.

Like arrowheads, they punched through the barbarians' weak resistance.

Across the camp, squads of Locke soldiers advanced in compact formations and struck again and again.

Whenever the enemy rallied, banner captains and commanders of a hundred took control of nearby troops and shattered the gathering resistance.

Every officer had been taught that kind of tactical awareness. It had sunk into their bones.

No single intervention decided the battle. Together, they broke every attempt to rally until the barbarians could no longer organize any resistance.

Each success fed the next, and the advance soon became unstoppable.

Finally, the cavalry scattered through the camp, setting tents and stores ablaze.

The burning camp deepened the chaos.

The barbarian rout who had just escaped to the camp no longer had the strength to keep running. But the soldiers in the southern camp wished they could grow two more legs.

The barbarian commander naturally discovered the chaos in the southern camp.

But the rout came so fast that before the messenger he sent to investigate had even departed, fleeing soldiers had reached the gate.

Derek rallied part of his force and drove the fugitives ahead of him. Though exhausted, his soldiers maintained an aggressive formation.

If Derek relaxed the pressure now, the barbarian main camp might seize the initiative.

In the darkness and confusion, an aggressive posture made his force appear far more dangerous than it was.

Sure enough, with darkness fallen and no clear understanding of the enemy, the barbarians did not dare to attack rashly.

"Send the routed troops around the back of the camp," the barbarian commander ordered from a watchtower. In the dark, scattered torches could not reveal the enemy force. But the enemy could fight at night and still held neat ranks; they were clearly elites among elites.

Seeing the routed soldiers below, shouting and cursing in chaos, he gave a hard wave of his hand. "Shoot arrows. Make them go around, or kill them all."

At a time like this, caution was necessary.

If they let the rout enter freely, the enemy might ride their momentum into the camp. That would be a far greater disaster.

He would rather shoot some of his own routed troops as a warning than take that risk.

As arrows from their own side fell, the barbarian soldiers could only go around, whether they cursed or cried.

Cruel as it was, the decision denied Derek an opening.

Derek tilted his head and saw Simon looking eager, as though he knew no fatigue.

"Simon, take a ride around the barbarian camp and show them our strength. Do you dare?"

"I do. I will go now."

Simon raised his visor; lowering it at night would have left him nearly blind.

"A squad with me!"

The knights rode off with a howl, charging toward the camp in a show of force. It looked as if they meant to attack it.

Everyone knew that was impossible, yet in the current situation, Simon's momentum made people imagine it anyway.

Simon tore down a triangular banner and held it high as he galloped.

He raced toward the camp, then turned sharply when he drew near.

His true target was the rout. Men who had discarded their weapons and lost all morale were easy prey.

Within bow range of the camp, Simon and his cavalry thundered back and forth, trampling and cutting down fugitives with brazen contempt.

Even the barbarians were stunned into forgetting to shoot.

"Loose arrows! Shoot them dead!"

The barbarian commander's roar woke them. He leaned forward, gripping the railing hard, his face pale even in the firelight.

It was too arrogant. Too humiliating.

The archers finally loosed a ragged volley. Simon's plate deflected several arrows, while others lodged trembling between its joints.

Seeing that it was enough, he laughed loudly and turned his horse.

"Barbarians! Darkness saved you tonight. Tomorrow, your lord will return!"

When Simon returned, every man was exhausted yet feverishly exhilarated.

How many times in a lifetime could one feel such joy?

Derek took a deep breath. He knew that after today, what he wanted would be his.

The age demanded heroes. This time, Derek would be one of them.

If he meant to make his name known throughout the realm, there would never be a better moment.

"Move!"

With barbarian heads raised on their lances, they rode beneath Ironwall City and held up their triangular banners.

"The Tenth Thousand of the Second Legion of the Northern Province has arrived. Do not be alarmed. Tomorrow, watch us trample the barbarian camp beneath our horses' hooves!"

Derek and his men shouted together. The walls of Ironwall City, already drawn by the commotion outside, erupted with movement.

The Governor of the Northern Province stood upon the wall. Flames towered in the distance; the barbarian southern camp was finished.

The remaining barbarian camps had barred their gates, while the governor's officers spoke excitedly of Simon's brazen ride beneath the enemy walls.

"The Northern Province has knights like this?"

He had long heard that northern knights were unmatched in the kingdom, but had dismissed the claim as praise born from comparison with the capital's mediocre knights.

Count Jeffries had been beheaded by barbarians before, yet no northern knight had stepped forward to turn the tide.

Now he realized how badly he had underestimated them. If this warrior did not deserve the North's fearsome reputation, who did?