Herald of Steel

Chapter 1298: Lord Parker's Escape

Lord Parker did not object to Lord Macht's insistence that they leave the battlefield and sail as quickly as possible to Caira.

Given the circumstances, this was the only logical thing left to do.

But for the time being, the only thing that seemed to occupy Lord Parker's mind was the humiliation of tucking tail and running once again.

"Alexander! Achillas!" He thus uttered with extreme bitterness, each having a very different meaning.

Towards Alexander, it was bitterness over the loss.

While towards Achillas, it was the bitterness over not being able to save him.

And it was particularly the latter point that hounded the young lord the most as Lord Parker could not help but feel his heartache at the thought of his lover having to spend even more time with the hated enemy.

At this point, he even somewhat hated Lord Kite for he was the mastermind of the entire battle plan. And since the battle had failed, it stood to reason that the fault had to be also borne by him.

'I told Lord Kite that we should meet Alexander with the Margraves. If we had met them together, we would not be in such a mess! I could have even rescued Achillas!'

Suddenly Lord Parker even began to change the tune he had sung, wishing to dump all his fury onto the innocent man.

If Lord Macht could hear his thoughts, he would have certainly gravely disapproved, his opinion of Lord Parker falling to a new nadir.

He and Lord Kite might have had their differences, but as a proud warrior, he would never attack his opponents with such vileness.

But the black, giant did not and was rather far more concerned with escorting Lord Parker out of this death trap.

"My lord, hurry... the boat is ready! Let us set sail before the enemy can catch up!"

His loud and crisp order broke the dejected scion out of his morbid thoughts and caused him to lift his head up to look at the hastily moored large boats.

But to his sinking heart, Lord Parker found that there were only a few boats available for his and his men's escape, causing each to be filled to the brim with panicking men.

Now, Lord Parker had no shortage of ships. He had come here with around 25,000 men after all.

The shortage however came in the form of availability.

Due to the extremely short notice, most of the ships could not utilize the necessary crew to operate the ships.

In fact, given it was nearing dusk, most of the sailors had come offshore to cook their meals and finish their supper before light was lost.

They did not do it in their boats because it was a fire hazard that they always liked to avoid as well as many of their supplies being stored in camp.

Plus, many of them simply wanted a change of scenery, feeling stuffed after having to stay in their rickety wooden dinghies for so long.

This however tragically left the ships woefully undermanned for the time being, thus when Lord Macht called for all ships to report to the foot of the hill upon facing Remus's attack, only a few were able to effectively respond.

The entire ship was simply too jammed packed to in any way make way down.

Lord Parker and his entourage thus made do staying on top.

"Go! Raise the anchors and go! Hurry!"

And that was good enough, as no sooner they got aboard, Lord Macht let out this bark towards the captain.

He could see just as they had finished boarding, all the men that had just been cowered were once again rushing from behind, hoping to get a spot.

These desperadoes might have been willing to give up some space for Lord Parker, but that did not mean they were willing to let even a single piece of plank space go to waste.

Hence they cramped and shoved themselves into every nook and crannies they could fit themselves into, making the vessel dangerously overweight.

"Dammit! These foolish swines. Kill them! Kill them and then throw them aboard!" And seeing this, Lord Macht even angrily roared out this command, since he felt the boat was tilting dangerously to one side.

But as much as he wished to rectify this, Lord Macht and his men could not really massacre their way out of this one.

Even if one did not care about the ethical dilemma or the fact was they were too few and thus risked getting slaughtered themselves, once they bared their weapons, the panic and intense movements would likely capsize the ship even faster.

So Lord Macht could only hope and pray that the ship stayed its course while barking orders to have everybody stay still.

Unfortunately for Lord Macht, the gods would not listen to his prayers, as the sailing boat would be suddenly caught in a rapid current and hit by a heavy gale about a quarter of its way.

The former was a result of the rivers thawing from their winter hibernation, while the latter was due to an approaching storm.

For an over encumbered vessel, this was perhaps the worst of both worlds, and the already perilous journey now began to get deadly.

The whole thing began to dangerously swing back and forth like a pendulum, causing many to go overboard.

"My lord! Hold on to the ropes! Quickly!" While Lord Macht urgently shouted, finding himself also to be desperately clutching onto the riggings.

"Ahhh... Urghhhh... Mmmmm," But unfortunately that was very difficult to do as all the people were being thrown from side to side all at once.

So even if you managed to grab something, holding on to it was near impossible given you were going to be rammed by the weight of a few tonnes.

"No!" And that was exactly what happened as suddenly, during one fateful swing Lord Parker fell!

Let us say no to piracy! Don't take part in a crime! Don't patronize thieves!

Please come Here!

=>Link to the original site:

/book/herald-of-steel_24388579605084705