"Alert!"

Seeing Judson and the others, Payne's first reaction was to order everyone to be on guard. The left flank was the first to collapse, and with no reinforcements, unfavorable terrain, and the enemy outnumbered them, there was no reason why Judson and his men could hold out. John Fonner was also very "reasonable", and after defeating the Fort of Gloomy troops at the front, he did not continue to attack.

Therefore, Payne does not believe that Judson retreated to his own position after breaking away from the front line of the battlefield. If Judson had retreated, he would have retreated a long time ago, not by now, when the left wing had collapsed and the war was almost over.

Payne motioned for the pikemen to go up and block the front of the formation, and once Judson and the others showed signs of forcing their way into battle, the pikemen could also immediately block them.

Then he himself began to walk forward, ready to test Judson's intentions, and at the same time half-raised his hand and motioned for the archers to prepare.

However, when he passed Arnold and approached the young earl, Arnold suddenly called out to him.

"Payne!"

Payne turned back, but when he turned his head, he suddenly realized that his waist was empty, and the sword hanging there had been drawn.

Immediately afterwards, he saw Arnold slashing at him with his sword.

Penn had never imagined Arnold to have such determination and strength until then, and in his impression, Arnold seemed to have always been a young man in poor health, lacking the physical strength to be a warrior, and usually either stayed in the house with Miss Serena to read, or played with Miss Isabella, and even rarely participated in swordsmanship training.

Now, however, Arnold suddenly drew his sword and slashed at Payne's head with great determination and strength.

There really wasn't much time left for Payne to react, or rather, the unexpected success of the war made him a little lax, although he was immediately wary of Judson and the others, but he never had any wariness of Arnold.

And now, it's time for him to pay the price for his carelessness.

Payne was a trained warrior after all, and he was able to serve as the captain of Arnold's personal guard, not only because of Harper or the Duke's arrangement, but also because of his own ability. After realizing that he couldn't block the sword with anything else, and that even if he dodged, he would be slashed in the shoulder, causing one of his arms to be scrapped, he resolutely raised the hand that had just been raised to his chest and used his own arm to block the sword.

The sharp pain from the blade slashing into his arm immediately reached Payne's brain, and the pain was more severe than anything he had ever tasted before, even though he had tensed his arm muscles to weaken the impact of the blade, but his bones were still slashed, and the act of tensing his arm muscles made his pain even worse.

The blood splattered from Payne's arm poured Arnold's face, making the boy's originally delicate and weak face immediately become hideous, but Arnold didn't care, and twisted the hilt of the sword.

The blade of the sword stuck in Payne's arm was forcibly twisted, and Payne seemed to hear a cracking sound, which was supposed to be the sound of his arm bone breaking.

He finally couldn't bear the pain anymore, and his whole body fell to the ground, screaming. As he fell to the ground, Arnold also let go of the sword in his hand, after all, the sword was stuck in Payne's arm, and he could cut it in, but he couldn't pull it out.

All this happened between the lightning and flint, so that before the surrounding guards could react, they had already watched their captain fall to the ground. For a while, everyone panicked, losing the captain's leader, they didn't know what to do with Arnold, after all, it was their lord, and they should protect the person with their lives.

"Get out of the way!" Arnold shouted with round eyes, and with his blood-stained face, this sentence was particularly shocking, "Before the complete defeat of the war, I am still your lord, and if you resist me, you will all be disloyal warriors, warriors with no honor to speak of!"

The originally turbulent crowd quieted down suddenly, with the empire's rule over the Dragonbone-Dakata Mountains for a long time, the original owners of this land have also become accustomed to the notice of the empire, although they will not consider themselves imperial people, but they are already willing to serve the local lords, so there is a considerable proportion of mountain people in the army of the cold mountain lord, even if they are descendants of the Serodib people, there are also a considerable proportion of people with the blood of mountain people. The mountain people are a group of warriors who attach great importance to honor, and their importance to honor is as great as their good fighting, second only to the white people in the north.

The guards were silent, just looking at Payne on the ground, but Payne was now on the ground and convulsing, his bloodless lips trembling because of blood loss, and he couldn't spit out the words.

Arnold immediately snatched a warhorse, stepped on the whip and hurried out of the cage.

The guards who remained in place silently watched as Arnold and Judson's party converged, and then began to move towards the woods to the south, where the right flank of the Fort of Gloomy Army had been, but since Hankston's army had barely engaged the army of Fort Hotu, the vigilance was also the weakest.

Arnold and the others immediately entered the woods, and then the Guardian lost sight of the Lord.

The silent warriors surrounded Payne, and a knight stepped out of the crowd and grabbed Payne by the shoulder. He looked at the bone spur on Payne's arm that punctured the skin, and then sighed helplessly.

"I can't help it, the bones are broken. ”

"I know!" Payne gritted his teeth and pushed the knight away with his remaining right hand, removing all of his gloves from his hands.

Payne bit his glove, staring at his broken arm, which was almost flesh and skin, and frowned tightly, making up his last decision. He clenched the hilt of his sword, waited for his palm to stop shaking, took a deep breath, and then pressed down on the hilt of his sword fiercely.

Half of his forearm fell off Payne's arm completely, the sharp pain frantically pounded his nerves, and his throat let out a dull growl, if it wasn't for the glove in his mouth, maybe Payne would have bit his tongue off.

The body stiffened for a while, and then the tense body softened, and slumped limply on the ground.

The knight had helped Payne remove the glove from his mouth.

"Prepare for the pursuit. Payne said weakly, "Help me bandage, I let him escape, I have to get him back with my own hands." ”

"But your hand has been broken. The knight said with a pun.

"I have another hand!" Payne immediately roared, because of the pain, the green tendons on his head were hideously bulging, although his face was not much blood because of blood loss, but his eyes were red, "It's just a broken hand, the Davide family man, until the neck is broken, will not fall." ”

As he spoke, he used his remaining right hand to get up.

The knight lifted him up.

"Then please ride my horse. "Because, your horse has been ridden away by the Earl." ”

——————————————

On the other side of the battlefield, in the tent of Duke Tiger Man Figraf of Cold Mountain, the main camp of Cold Mountain's army, a special guest, Harper David, Baron of Hankston, has just arrived.

As soon as he saw Duke Tagman, Harper immediately knelt down on one knee and saluted very respectfully. "Your Excellency, on behalf of the Gloomy Castle and Count Arnold Svan Feglaf, I ask you to surrender. ”

Tegman nodded, his majestic face showing little contempt for the other party's surrender.

"Thank you for your hard work this time, Harper, and I will keep in mind the loyalty of your father and son. ”

The duke's voice was low and magnetic, like the low howl of a mountain tiger, which always shocked the mountains and forests, as well as the hearts of the people.

Harper raised his head and looked at Duke Tegman, half a year ago, he was a direct vassal of the Duke, but at that time, he didn't have much chance to meet the Duke directly.

Tigerman's appearance was very majestic, or rather mighty, unlike his delicate and frail son Arnold, Tigerman's appearance was more like that of a mountain man, with a tiger's beard surrounding his lips, and the thick beard blocked his expression to a certain extent, making it difficult for ordinary people to tell what he was thinking from the duke's face. The Duke's eyes were round, if not intentionally, but in his usual state, his eyes would seem wide, and to be honest, every time Harper saw Tegman's face, he would think of the beast that made the mountain people respect and fear, the Dakata Mountain Tiger.

After looking at it for a while, Harper quickly lowered his head, avoiding looking at the duke's face for too long, making the other party feel rude.

"The loyalty of the Davide family is forever dedicated to you, Your Excellency the Duke. ”

"Good. Tiger Man nodded in satisfaction, "I heard that you sent your second son to the monastery of Friken for this incident?"

"Yes. Harper replied cautiously, pondering the Duke's purpose for asking, "I have commanded him to be a paladin and dedicate the rest of his life to the great cause of eradicating evil from the world for the god of justice. ”

"Faith and justice do matter, but ......" Tegman paused slightly, and Harper looked nervously at the Duke's face, but the thick beard was so thick that he couldn't read the Duke's expression.

"You also only have two sons, after this is over, I am going to hand over the gloomy castle to you, if there is only Payne alone, your family will be a little understaffed, right? ”

Harper breathed a sigh of relief, he was afraid that Tegman would ask him to execute his second son, who was close to Arnold. For this duke, such a thing is not impossible to do, after all, the Davide family's participation in this time is too deep.

"Yes, thank you for your generous reward. After letting go of the stone in his heart, Harper's mood suddenly relaxed, and for him, it can be said that he can be overjoyed to harvest the gloomy castle.

"Lord Duke!" Suddenly, a young knight ran in from outside the tent, and shouted to the Duke with a panicked expression: "Enemy, enemy position...... Sudden change in enemy position!"

Harper was taken aback, and Tegman also frowned, just now Harper swore that everything had been taken care of, but he didn't expect that as soon as the words fell, there was an accident.

"What's there to panic about!" the Duke shouted, calming the young knight, "Our army is three times as strong as the other side, so what if something happens?"

The knight snorted, bowing his head and not daring to speak.

The Duke's face sank, and he stepped forward, pushed the knight away, and walked out of the tent on his own.

Harper looked at the knight who had fallen to the ground, then got up as well and followed Tegman out of the tent.

Outside the tent, Tegman stared at the base of the gloomy fort army a kilometer away, where there was now chaos, men and horses were mobilizing, and it seemed to be gathering south.

"What's going on?" he asked the soldier beside him.

"There seemed to be a commotion in the enemy's main camp just now, as if someone wanted to attack the main formation, but immediately someone rushed out on horseback, joined up with those people, and went to the forest to the south. ”

Duke Tagman's brow tightened, but it was too far away for him to see what was going on there.

"What about the scout's report?

Harper also emerged from the tent, and immediately heard the answer from the scout captain who had been summoned by the duke.

"Lord Duke, according to reports from the front, it seems that the Earl of Gloomy Castle left the camp and fled the battlefield with the Knight Judson and others. ”

Harper's eyes went dark.