The villagers stumbled out of their broken homes, staring at the plumes of black smoke rising from the ruins. There was no grief on their faces—only a numb, hollow despair.
Old Hans knelt in the dirt, tears streaming down his face, weakly pounding the hard earth with his fists. Everything he owned had been taken.
A villager sat paralyzed in his doorway, eyes empty, muttering over and over, "Gone... all gone... nothing left."
"They said..." A young man's voice broke the silence, trembling uncontrollably. "They said they would come back..."
People looked at him, but no one spoke. Fear gripped everyone's heart, but despair was faster. They had nothing left to steal. They probably wouldn't survive until the next raid.
"They took all my food!"
"What do we do? We'll starve!"
"We can go to Lord Solomon! He is merciful, he will help us!"
Arguments, weeping, and the sniffling of despair mixed together. These poor souls saw no way out.
Clop! Clop! Clop!
The sound of hooves echoed from outside the village.
The crowd jolted awake, terror washing over their faces. Every hoofbeat felt like a stomp on their suspended hearts.
But when the riders came into view, the fear vanished. They had found their backbone. People wept as they ran forward—it was the Lord's army!
Leading them was a sturdy middle-aged man on a tall warhorse. He wore leather armor and a leather helm. His weathered face was set in a mask of grim determination. It was Luchen.
Luchen reined in his horse, looking at the weeping villagers rushing toward him. Remembering Lord Solomon's instructions, his facial muscles tightened. His eyes swept over the smoking, ruined village, and he let his eyes redden with emotion.
"We are too late!!!" A roar burst from Luchen's throat, filled with undisguised rage. "Fuck those bastards!"
"When I catch them! I will bury them all alive!!!"
Luchen dismounted with a clean, sharp motion. His boots hit the ground with a reassuring thud as he strode toward the villagers.
"Cough... cough... I... I am Luchen, an officer under Lord Solomon." Luchen's voice was loud, though slightly stilted. "Tell me!!! Was it the bandits? Did they come here?!"
Though the villagers found the officer's intense reaction a bit strange, they still fell to their knees before the dozen riders, wailing in grief.
Their lips trembled, their speech chaotic. They couldn't form a complete sentence, just pointed at the smashed doors, the burnt thatch, the empty pens, and cried.
Luchen walked up to a charred wooden beam. He reached out with a gloved hand and touched it gently. He turned back to face the suffering villagers.
THUD!
Luchen's fist hammered the charred wood. Sparks flew, and the ruined structure collapsed with a crash.
Luchen took a deep breath, steeling himself to add more emotion to his performance. The previous outburst felt a bit stiff.
"We were one step too late!!!" He lowered his head in remorse, growling like a wounded beast. "Damn it!!! Damn it all!!!"
That punch seemed to strike the hearts of every villager. Their doubts, anxiety, fear, and despair vanished in the echo of that crash and the arrival of these riders.
The Lord's officer was angry. He was angry for them. He was angry at the bandits.
"Dismount! All of you!" Luchen ordered the soldiers behind him. "Help the villagers! Check the wounded! Put out these damn fires!"
The fear suppressed all night finally found a release. People wailed, finally finding someone who could help, someone they could cry to.
"My Lord! The bandits took all our grain! All our livestock!"
"We have nothing left! We will starve! Please! Tell Lord Solomon! Help us!"
"My Lord! They said they would come back!"
"Save us! We can't just wait to die!"
"Please, my Lord!"
"Save us!"
The cries and pleas rose and fell like a tide.
Luchen stood silently, listening patiently to every complaint. His brow furrowed tighter and tighter.
When the weeping subsided slightly, he let out a heavy sigh. "Sigh... This wandering band of bandits didn't just raid your village."
"Rest assured. The other villages have already received relief supplies from Lord Solomon!"
"The merciful Lord Solomon will not abandon you. Seeds, grain, livestock—he will give you even more than you had before!"
The villagers were stunned. Shocked, even. Tears flowed freely as they babbled thanks, praying to the Old Gods and the New. They had never seen such a benevolent Lord.
"However..."
Luchen's "however" brought everyone's hearts back into their throats.
Old Hans asked tremblingly, "However what, my Lord?"
Luchen's gaze swept over their desperate faces. He began to recite the lines he had memorized for days. He pointed toward the distant castle of Lord Solomon, then at the ground beneath his feet.
"Lord Solomon's territory is too vast. And your village is too far, too scattered." His voice was filled with deep helplessness. "Those damn bandits are like wolves in the wild—cunning, always attacking the isolated prey."
"We defended this place today, but tomorrow they will attack another village."
"We simply don't have enough men."
Luchen seemed to be talking to himself, yet explaining to everyone:
"I could leave five men here. Maybe ten."
"But the enemy has over twenty! I cannot let my brothers die here with you for nothing!"
Luchen's words were a bucket of ice water, extinguishing the hope that had just ignited in the villagers' hearts.
He was right. Lord Solomon's land was huge, with so many villages. Their tiny hamlet was like a grain of sand in the desert—valueless. How could Lord Solomon protect them every moment? The hope turned instantly into a deeper despair.
"Then... then what do we do?" A villager's voice cracked with tears. "Is there really no way to live? Must we just wait for those bandits, those animals, to slaughter us like pigs?"
His sobbing, his despair, infected everyone. In the dead silence, people began to weep again.
Luchen looked at the villagers. He remained silent for a long time, letting the despair sink in. Just as their hearts hit rock bottom, he finally spoke:
"There might be one way."
"Lord Solomon... he actually foresaw all of this."
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