The heavy wooden doors of the council chamber were slammed open. Lauchlan rushed in frantically, interrupting the brief silence in the hall.
"Lord Solomon!" His chest heaved violently, his face a mix of anxiety and haste. "My Lord!"
"Speak!" Solomon moved his gaze away from Evelyn's face. Why are Lauchlan and Lushen always so dramatic?
"Lushen! Lushen!" Lauchlan panted heavily, his face flushed. "A bandit leader named Huck captured some people who wanted to go down the mountain to surrender."
"That is Lushen's area of responsibility. Lushen... he... in a fit of rage, he charged up the mountain with only the three soldiers beside him!"
Solomon held his forehead with his hand. A reckless man is truly reckless. Truly brave.
Solomon looked at Lauchlan: "Lauchlan!"
"Mobilize fifty soldiers at the Lion's Den, bring weapons and equipment, and follow me at the fastest speed."
"I will go ahead with the riders."
Solomon strode toward the door as he spoke, his voice devoid of any panic, remaining calm.
Soon, the sound of hoofbeats rang out outside the Lion's Den. Solomon galloped in front, twelve riders following closely behind, kicking up dust as they sped toward the mountains in the north.
At night, in the northern mountain forest, Lushen was not as reckless as Lauchlan had described.
The mountain wind howled through the trees, making a whistling sound.
Lushen and three soldiers were squatting behind a concealed rock, taking off their heavy cotton armor piece by piece, then burying them with leaves and branches.
"Sir, are we really going up like this?" a soldier asked in a low voice. It was too dangerous. He smeared damp, cold mud on his face and body.
"Think about it!" Lushen said calmly, grabbing a handful of mud and unceremoniously smearing it on his messy hair. "What would Lord Solomon do if he were here!"
Lushen also understood that this method had a slim chance of survival. He couldn't show a bit of timidity or weakness; otherwise, the soldiers' courage would also be completely lost.
"We only have four people. If it were Lord Solomon, he would definitely not charge up foolishly shouting 'kill'."
Lushen stroked his chin with his mud-covered hand, imitating Solomon's serious look when thinking, and said in a deep voice:
"The opponent has a dozen people, superior in numbers. Fighting head-on is something a fool would do. If we want to win, we have to use tricks."
Soon, four soldiers wearing cotton armor turned into the appearance of ragged, down-and-out bandits.
Their only weapons were tattered longswords disguised with mud and daggers hidden in their bosoms.
"Follow me!" Lushen lowered his voice, like a wolf about to hunt, leading the soldiers toward the bandit camp.
Bonfires burned in the camp. A dozen bandits were drinking and bragging around the fire, looking quite relaxed. Huck sat on a big rock, with a man who looked like a deputy sitting beside him.
Lushen and the other three pretended to be desperate scattered bandits coming to join them, walking into the camp cursing.
"Hey! Who is Boss Huck!" a soldier shouted with a rough voice, acting fearless.
"I am. What's up?" Huck, who was discussing something with the person beside him, raised his eyelids to look at the four, sized them up a few times, and grinned.
"Hearing that Boss Huck is unwilling to surrender, we came," Lushen said in a gruff voice, walking toward him carelessly, followed closely by the other three.
This sentence had two meanings. To Huck, it sounded like they came to join him because he was unwilling to surrender. He stood up to say something, but seeing the four walking quickly toward him, he felt something was wrong and was about to scold them.
Sure enough, when they were less than a few steps apart, a sudden change occurred.
Lushen's face, which had a weird smile a second ago, instantly became ferocious. His body, like a fully drawn bow, suddenly sprang forward.
Huck only felt a blur before his eyes. A huge force hit him, knocking him backward. The next moment, a cold touch was already pressed against his throat.
At the same time, Lushen's three soldiers also attacked instantly.
One pounced directly on Huck's deputy, pinning him to the ground, arm locking his throat like iron pincers, dagger against his waist.
The other two, one left and one right, suddenly kicked over the table the bandits were sitting around and the brazier used for cooking food on the bonfire, drawing their longswords.
With several crashes, the wooden table flew, wine spilled, food and soup in the brazier splashed, instantly forming a brief barrier between Lushen, Huck, and the other shocked bandits.
The whole process was lightning fast. In the blink of an eye, the situation reversed instantly.
Lushen's blood surged, chest heaving violently. This is the feeling. I like this feeling. With the dagger pressed firmly against Huck's neck, he felt like a warrior in the legendary stories of bards, not shaming Lord Solomon.
He used all his strength to let out a roar, shocking the birds in the forest into flight: "Don't fucking move!!!"
"Your boss!! Is in my hands!!!"
The remaining bandits were frightened out of their wits by this sudden scene, turning pale with fright. They grabbed the weapons beside them one after another, but hesitated to act for fear of hitting their own man, daring not step forward, confronting them from a distance.
Lushen drew a light line on Huck's neck with the dagger, blood seeping out.
"Ah!!!" Huck let out a long scream of pain.
Lushen looked down at those panic-stricken faces and roared again: "You think you are majestic!!"
"Lord Solomon is merciful! Gave you a chance for stability! Gave you land!"
"You don't cherish it! Yet you dare to detain people who want to surrender! The army is arriving!!! I think you are all looking for death!!!"
"This is the last chance!! Live or die!!!"
The three soldiers following Lushen gripped their weapons tightly. If this couldn't be resolved peacefully, they could only fight to the death.
Lushen thought these words would bring fear and wavering. However, the expected silence did not appear.
Instead of being afraid, those bandits exploded like a boiling pot, shouting all at once.
"My Lord! Misunderstanding! This is a misunderstanding!"
"We didn't take hostages! We were just preparing to go down the mountain to surrender!"
"Yeah, yeah! It's not us who refused to surrender!"
Lushen was stunned: "..." He frowned, thinking this was the opponent's delaying tactic.
Lushen cast a suspicious look at the other three soldiers; they were also puzzled.
"My Lord! What we said is true! Huck caught us! Not to be hostages!"
"But to take us down the mountain together! The ones who truly unwilling to surrender are others!"
"Huck was afraid we would run around! And get detained by another gang in the mountains!"
The bandits spoke all at once. Lushen finally heard the key sentences and understood the meaning.
Lushen: "..."
He felt like he had punched cotton. His boiling blood and heroic spirit instantly deflated by half. His dagger loosened a bit. He turned his head to look at the pale-faced Huck beneath him, frowning deeply:
"What exactly is going on!!"
"Who is unwilling to surrender!!!"
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