Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 26 Close combat
Jumping from the brightly lit open deck into the dimly lit cabin, Winters couldn't see anything for a moment. Fortunately, no one took the opportunity to ambush him.

Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized that the Lucky Star seemed to have divided the lower deck into several sections.

Winters was accustomed to using a two-handed sword, but the sailor's knife could only be held with one hand, leaving his other hand feeling empty and somewhat insecure. He drew his dagger again and, imitating the major general, used both blades to explore the darkness.

Another heavy thud came from behind. Winters' heart tightened and he turned to strike with his sword, but the man who jumped down said, "Wait, it's me."

Only a sliver of light peeked through the hatch, obscuring who it was, but Winters recognized the voice all too well—it was Bard.

“Let’s go, let’s all go together.” Bard followed and said in a deep voice.

Winters nodded and continued exploring; having someone to shelter him from the elements was always reassuring.

After entering the cabin from the stern entrance, several compartments were divided on the left and right, seemingly for the use of higher-ranking people on board. A narrow passage was left in the middle, allowing only one person to pass at a time.

Winters smelled blood and found a corpse in a compartment, indicating that the Major General and Andrei had already broken through.

Further on, we kicked open a hatch, and suddenly the view opened up.

There were no more wooden partitions ahead; the entire cabin was one large room, with large holes in the walls. The floor was filled with people dressed in rags, looking like beggars, and a nauseating stench of sourness and decay filled the air.

The Major General and Andrei were in the middle of the ship's cabin. The Major General's moves were not fancy, even somewhat simple: a left-arm slash and a right-arm thrust.

But with the major general's extraordinary strength, this simple move was the most efficient way to kill. The major general used his left-hand sword to deflect the oncoming curved blade, and with a thrust and twist of his right hand, a pirate was brought down with a scream.

No one on the ship could withstand a single blow from the Major General. The pirates had no spears and did not know how to launch a combined attack, so they were forced to retreat repeatedly by the Major General.

Andrei had no chance to make a move while standing next to the major general. He tried his best to keep up with the major general and protect him from being attacked by multiple pirates at the same time.

However, several pirates were still using the width of the ship to try to get behind the major general and Andrei and flank them.

Winters and Bard arrived just in time. If they had truly been attacked from both sides, even the Major General and Andrei's superb swordsmanship would have been useless. The two were able to reach this point because the pirates were intimidated by the Major General's fierce aura, and also because the two had driven the pirates here all the way, so they didn't have to worry about what was behind them.

Winters roared, drawing the pirates' attention and simultaneously signaling to the two men ahead that reinforcements had arrived. Several pirates who had been circling behind the Major General and Andrei, upon hearing the shout, abandoned the two and charged straight at Winters.

One-handed swords are usually paired with a small shield or a parrying dagger, but Winters' dagger has no handguard and cannot serve any parrying purpose; holding it only provides a little psychological comfort.

However, the pirates charging towards Winters felt uneasy seeing his imposing stance with two curved daggers, but they still braced themselves and met Winters head-on.

The pirate's sword came from a simple method: slashing and hacking from the upper left to the lower right.

For Winters, the sailor's knife was both his weapon and his shield. The deck was teeming with emaciated oarsmen, leaving no room to dodge, so Winters countered with his single knife.

Only then did he understand Instructor Nar's teachings: on the battlefield, immense strength is more useful than anything else.

As the two scimitars clashed, how could the pirate possibly be a match for a well-fed, well-drinked, and highly trained officer? Winters easily deflected the blade.

Winters instinctively used his longsword skills to cut into the pirate's center line. The cabin was full of oarsmen, leaving no room for Winters to move forward, so Winters slashed at the pirate's right arm.

The weapons on the Skua were not well maintained, and Winters's sailor's scimitar wasn't particularly sharp, but that made it all the more biting. After striking the pirate, Winters hardened his heart and dragged the blade along, leaving a deep, bone-revealing gash on the pirate's arm.

The pirate screamed, his sword slipping from his hand, and he scrambled backward, clutching his wound. If this were a swordsmanship competition, Winters would have won two points beautifully this round. But the ship's cabin was a battlefield; losing a pirate's hand wouldn't necessarily kill him.

"Capture them! We'll make you crew members!" a voice with a thick Tannrian accent shouted. "Or I'll kill you all!"

Winters didn't understand who he was talking to, but then he realized the pirates were coercing the oarsmen. He glanced at the poor oarsmen; some lowered their heads, avoiding his gaze, while others looked on with longing and greed.

There were at least thirty oarsmen in the cabin, and even if only a third of them were mobilized, the four officers in the cabin would be in danger.

Every oarsman in this cabin was now a potential enemy. Winters roared back, "The pirates are finished! Non-pirates, sit still! Anyone who moves will be killed!" He and Bud stepped over the oarsmen sitting on the ground and strode toward the Major General and Andrei, trying to get away from the area.

"Why aren't you doing anything yet! You bunch of scum? Do you want to die?" the voice with a Tanilian accent shouted again.

As soon as he finished speaking, Winters felt someone grab his left leg, and Bud was tackled to the ground by three oarsmen. At that moment, another pirate came running towards them from the front.

Winters' last shred of pity for the rowers was crushed by rage. He too became ferocious, switching his left hand from overhand to underhand, and plunged the dagger into the neck of the rower who was clinging to his left leg.

He reminded himself that this was a battlefield. This time, he didn't simply stab, but instead imitated Major General Layton's movements, thrusting and then twisting hard.

The paddler immediately had an unsuturing, gruesome wound on his neck, the artery and ligaments pierced and torn apart. The paddler clutched the wound in pain and released Winters' left leg.

Winters regained his freedom, shifting his body slightly to dodge the pirate's thrust. His next move was driven by swordsmanship instinct; he first parried with the blade, deflecting his opponent's curved sword.

This time, however, he didn't sever the man's arm; instead, he plunged the blade into his soft abdomen. It was another thrust, a twist. As he withdrew the scimitar, its curved edge created an even larger wound. This single strike rendered the attacking pirate immobile.

He ignored the disemboweled pirate and turned to help Bud. Bud had already been tackled to the ground by three oarsmen. One of the oarsmen tried desperately to pry open Bud's fingers and take his knife, but Bud gripped it tightly. Unable to pry open Bud's fingers, the oarsman tried to bite him.

Winters took two strides to Bard's side and plunged a knife into the neck of the rower who was trying to bite him, killing him instantly.

The other two rowers wrestled with Bud. Winters, fearing that he might accidentally hurt Bud with his longsword, plunged his dagger into the back of a rower's neck, punched him, and the dagger pierced through the neck, cleanly and efficiently killing the two rowers.

He pulled Bud to his feet, and none of the oarsmen dared to meet the gaze of the officer who had killed three men; they all lowered their heads. No oarsmen, incited by the pirates, dared to attack the two men again.

Seeing that reinforcements had arrived, the major general stopped leading Andrei in the charge. Both men had several wounds and had only managed to get this far thanks to sheer willpower. Since reinforcements were available, there was no need to continue the offensive; instead, the major general led Andrei in a fighting retreat.

Winters and Bud moved forward, while the Major General and Andrei leaned back, and the four finally reunited to confront the pirates.

At this moment, the sound of clashing weapons came from behind the pirates. Clearly, the pirates on the deck had also been defeated. The four major generals fought their way into the cabin from the stern entrance, while the warrant officers on the deck were attacking the cabin from the bow entrance. Now, the pirates were caught in a pincer attack.

"Surrender! Or I'll kill you all!" Major General Layton, who seemed possessed by the Grim Reaper and showed no mercy or compassion, suddenly launched into a propaganda campaign. However, his two blood-dripping blades and his blood-stained uniform seemed rather unconvincing.

"Surrender! Will surrendering save us from death?" The pirate leader who had been urging the oarsmen to surrender shouted desperately, "Surrendering to this butcher will only kill us all! This butcher is the leader; we must capture him and take him hostage to survive!"

By the end, the leader was sobbing, kicking and hitting the other pirates like a shrew: "Attack! Attack! Only by capturing him can we live! Only by capturing him can we live..." "Useless! Disgusting!" The major general looked at the pirate leader throwing a tantrum with disgust, pointing the tip of his knife at the man: "Even if you surrender, I'll kill you! Listen to me, I'm only killing him. If you don't want to die, lay down your sword and surrender!"

On one side, Winters, Bud, and Andrei stood silently facing the pirates. On the other side, more and more army warrant officers jumped from the hatches. The pirates were trapped inside the ship, with no way to advance or retreat, and were in dire straits.

Winters watched as the pirates looked at each other blankly, seemingly wanting to surrender, but none of them dared to be the first to drop their weapons.

"Put down your weapons!" the major general shouted again.

One, two, three—the pirates discarded their weapons one after another, signaling the end of this brief but bloody melee.

……

On the deck of the Lucky Star, the surrendered pirates had their hands tightly bound and were kneeling in a neat row.

The pirates were surrounded by a group of fledgling warrant officers who had just seen blood for the first time, who were eyeing them menacingly with their knives drawn.

Pirate corpses and dying pirates were dragged from the deck and cabins and neatly laid out in front of the surrendering pirates.

Major General Layton sat imposingly on a wooden tub that had been casually dragged over, while Major Moritz, fueled by alcohol, stitched up his wounds.

No one on the boat was thick-skinned enough to sew up a human body with a fishhook, so this was the only one who could do it, since he was a drunkard and didn't recognize anyone.

Although Instructor Nar said that longsword fighting was a sport, the sword lessons were somewhat useful in the end; at least the warrant officers knew how to avoid being stabbed in the chest and abdomen.

Most of the wounded warrant officers were injured in their limbs. If they didn't develop severe inflammation and fever in the following days, they would survive. Otherwise, they would die. It all depended on the severity of their injuries, their physical condition, and luck.

Major General Layton was clearly getting impatient. Seeing that all the dead and dying pirates had been dragged out, he picked up his sword and walked up to the captured pirates.

"I'm not going to waste words with you. You go first." The major general stopped in front of the pirate leader he had said he would kill no matter what during the standoff in the cabin.

The pirate who seemed to be the leader kept his head down, not daring to meet the major general's gaze. The major general held his sword to the pirate's neck: "Speak, which one is the captain?"

Hearing the major general's question, the pirate felt he had found a glimmer of hope and mustered his courage to ask, "I'll talk, I'll talk. If I reveal the captain's identity, will you spare my life, General?"

Before he could finish speaking, the major general's sword pierced his left ribs. He looked at the major general in shock, then at his own chest; the sword had sliced ​​open his heart.

After his sword was drawn, the pirate collapsed forward as if his soul had been drained. Blood gushed from beneath him.

Even though Winters had already seen blood today, he still felt a pang of pity seeing the pirate killed, and the major general's ruthlessness shocked him even more. Battlefield combat was one thing, killing a bound prisoner was quite another.

But he didn't say a word, nor did his classmates. Only the sound of the sea could be heard on deck as the young warrant officers silently observed and learned from the senior officer's manner of conduct.

"Enough with the nonsense." The major general flicked the blood off his sword with disgust and turned to another pirate beside the recently deceased pirate, asking, "Tell me, which one is the captain?"

Beside him lay a still-bleeding corpse. The second pirate to be named felt a chill in his groin and lost control of his bladder. He hurriedly agreed to help identify the body while begging for mercy.

Major General Layton did not rush to have the pirate identify himself. He simply grabbed the pirate by the collar with one hand and lifted him up as if he were a chicken.

After letting the pirate see the face of his still-living comrade, Major General Layton smiled and said to all the pirates, "I'll have you turn around and let this piece of trash in my hand point to one of you and these corpses. Then I'll pick out another person, and if you don't point to the same one, you'll all die together."

Winters quickly figured out why the admiral had used such a strange method; it was probably to make the pirates betray each other and prevent them from casually pointing out a corpse as the captain.

“General, kill us if you want, why toy with us? My men aren’t so loyal that we need to resort to such methods.” An indignant voice rang out, and Gold couldn’t help but step forward: “But you promised us that surrender would spare our lives!”

"Hahaha," the major general laughed even more heartily, appearing extremely out of place in this bloody scene: "When did I promise you that you could surrender and be spared death? I only promised not to kill you, but it has nothing to do with me if my officers do it."

The pirates stirred, and Gold stood up angrily, spewing out all sorts of sailor swear words that Winters couldn't understand.

The major general slammed the pirate in his hand to the ground, strode over, grabbed Gold's hair with one hand, and slammed the weighted ball from the hilt of his sword into Gold's mouth with the other.

Once, twice, three times.

Everyone on deck could clearly hear the sound of iron balls hammering flesh and teeth breaking; even Winters was somewhat frightened by the sound.

Winters and Bud exchanged a glance. Winters felt his stomach churn, and he saw a hint of fear in Bud's eyes as well. No one is unafraid of such a ruthless person, even if he is one of their own.

The crew of the Skua had already found quiet places to hide, avoiding the bloody scene.

The major general gritted his teeth and said, "Who do you think you are? You dare to negotiate with me?"

Three blows were far from enough to vent the major general's anger, so he slammed the hammer a fourth time, yelling, "I'll ask you what you want to answer!"

Gold could barely speak clearly now, and could only nod frantically.

Why didn't you back down when you saw the naval ensign?

As soon as Gold opened his mouth, blood mixed with saliva flowed out incessantly. Having been brutally struck four times by Major General Layton, his teeth and tongue were broken, making it impossible to understand what he was saying.

Major Moritz, who was standing to the side, couldn't stand it any longer. He sighed and offered a solution: "When the general asks you a question, just nod or shake your head. Do you understand?"

Gold nodded vigorously again.

"Listen carefully." Rear Admiral Layton paused, then asked the question that had been lingering in the minds of everyone on the Skuas: "Did you come here specifically for us?"

Gold listened to the question and nodded heavily.

I forget which book I read it in, but I remember it was about the war between Britain and Afghans in the 19th century. It described a small-scale battle where a British officer was a master swordsman, unstoppable in close combat. He even created a no-man's-land around himself, as no enemy dared approach him. However, the Afghans at that time were also quite formidable. After noticing this flamboyant officer, four or five spearmen launched a coordinated attack, and the skilled swordsman was killed.

Without armor, there would probably be no more generals on the battlefield.

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(End of this chapter)