Bad News

Now nearly every serf believed what Alfred was saying. Those very little that still held a shred of doubt, did not want to come forward and challenge the lord's word. After all, for the people of this era, nobles' word was same as god's gospel. Which no one can refute.

That applies even more so to serfs. They are not even free people and challenging their master's words was crime punishable by death. No one wants to take that risk. In the end everyone decided to shut their mouths and believe in what Alfred said.

Alfred was happy that the serfs at least looked like they bought his story. Well at last they looked like they do. But the next group of people gave him headache. And they were none other than his own vessels.

In the end Alfred decided make up some lame excuses and end the matter for now. He still had many things to deal right now. One of the important one was the post battle clean up. After the wake of the battle a large number of dead beast corpse lay scattered in front of the wall.

Because this was winter and decommission of those bodies will slow and stronger beast like the level three giant python might be attracted because of the smell of blood, hence Alfred decided to deal with them swiftly.

He ordered the serfs to collect all the beast corpses littering outside the wall, and skin them for their furs and the meat. While rewarding one fourth of the meat to the serfs for their part in the battle, Alfred decided to store three fourth of the meat as provisions for the future. As for the beast fur, it was sent back to the castle town to be tanned and turned into leather.

As for the python carcass, he ordered to store it in some cold place for now. He had no idea for now what to do currently. After all it was a corpse of level three beast. It surely had some value.

...

Days passed, and the winter months got colder. Nearly a month passed without Alfred noticing it. Alfred had been busy managing the whole fortress with his knights.

"How is the situation outside?' Alfred asked standing on the wall in a cold winter morning. Next to him stood his bodyguard Nathen Lockwood.

"Pretty good if I have to say, my lord." Nathen replied. "Due to the training we have provided to those serfs, they have improved by leaps and bounds. I mean not just in fighting the winter beasts, as a group they are now formidable enough to fight against troops that are half their number and hold their ground for a short time. While its thanks to the ease use of sling shots, the hands on experience of fighting against winter beasts had played its part."

"Good, what about casualties among serfs? I can see that the time interval between each best wave are getting is getting shorter. How are serfs coping with it?"

"Serfs are coping well with the shorter beast waves. That mainly because of the storm eagle has taken over half their job. So, there is not much pressure on them for now. Also, as a side precaution we have divided all the combat serfs into three large groups and keep rotating them in three shifts every day. As for your pervious orders, we have made sure that a fresh serf group is always ready to reinforce if one group is unable to hold the wall.

As for the casualties, there is none yet. Which is a great news and a huge moral booster this winter. Till now we have zero deaths and five injured recorded in our official count. And the five accidents are training related. Some retards could not handle such light training and injured themselves. Most of them have recovered with one or two still laying in the make shift infirmary that lord had created."

"What about the eagles? Are being fed regularly?"

"Yes. There is no problem feeding the eagles for now. We have more than enough beast meant as reserve too feed the eagles for the whole winter. The only problem that might occur is if they keep increasing their numbers at this pace. My lord you have to talk to Clive and stop it from accepting more of its kind. Last another two joined that damned eagle and increased their total number to 26. They have even taken over the fortress roofs and have started building nests on them. Lord if more join there is surely going to be meat shortage soon."

Listening to Nathen's explanation, Alfred was intrigued. Looks like his Level three eagle pet, which he named Clive is increasing his numbers just as he told him. It was a system's suggestion actually. When Alfred was worried that one eagle would not be enough to cope with ever increasing number of beast attacks, system suggested Alfred to have Clive form its own flock.

After Alfred asked the benefits of such action, system said that it could directly tame the eagles that will join Clive's flock, the system will be able to directly tame them and turn them into his new pets, without spending a single MP. Alfred was static and informed Clive about this. Clive agreed readily and from then on eagles started to join Alfred's camp.

"How is the new eagle's strength? Is there another level three among them?"

"No, there isn't. While a two third of the newly arrived eagles are still level one, there are still 8 level two eagles among them. Luckily there no other level three has appeared to challenge the Clive yet. Which is a very good thing."

"How do the serfs react to this? Do they still fear the eagles?"

"The serf's reaction was disbelief at first when Clive was introduced. For the next few days, they mostly feared the giant creature and made sure to keep appropriate distance from it. In fact many even thought that eagles were just pretending and were here to kill them at night. But little by little, after coming with the regularly many started changing their mind. In fact, now many serfs started believing what lord had said.

It was mostly because of the Autarch family insignia. The two headed eagle holding a sword in one claw and olive branch in another. The serfs are now regarding the eagles as an omen and a sign that Autarch family is going to usher in a prosperous age in future."

Alfred was happy that the eagles are starting to be accepted. And aside from superstition, it is good that the eagles are also not harming the serfs. It for the common good that both of them find a way to co exist in fortress.

"What about our own food supplies? Has the second half of the supplies arrived yet?"

"No, I have to disappoint the lord this time. The other half of the supplies that was supposed to arrive a week ago has been delayed again. In fact, it might not even come anymore. As for our own food reserves, we are running out of everything."

Alfred suddenly had a bad feeling.

"Why has no body informed me about this? Have you received any news from the Newt and Graham? Are they Ok?" Alfred asked anxiously.

"Yes. Sensing that something was wrong I sent few men to investigate. It took a while for them to find out things but they have returned last night. It turns out that, Newt, Graham and the whole convoy was attacked by bandits." Nathen replied.

"Bandits? What are bandits doing this far north? Shouldn't they be camping out in the Monroe and Campbell family territory where winter is less harsh? I thought our territory was mostly bandit free." Alfred asked in confusion.

"My lord, you are right and it is as you said. There are not many bandits in the north and in winter there are nearly non excitant in numbers. And the scouts thought so too. So, he investigated further and found the bandits hideout. They soon started to collect information about this new bandit group.

Soon they found the most shocking thing about those bandits. That is, they are not bandit at all. This new group that kidnapped the Newt and Graham and claim to be bandits are actually a small team of thugs sent by Monroe and Campbell family in retaliation of lord refusing to pay them more money."

"Those two families are plotting against us again?" Alfred asked with a bit of hostility in his voice.

"It seems so my lord. According to the scouts, thinking that we are occupied by the beast waves, they plan to ransom the convoy alongside Newt and Graham at a very steep price, at least twice as much they were demanding previously. They even think that we do not have enough man to deal with them while we are busy in the fortress, so they are blatantly demanding the ridicules amount of money from us." Nathen said anger clear in his voice.