Iron Powder and Spellcaster

Jumping from the well-lit open deck to the cabin with only a little light exposed, Winters couldn't see anything for a while. Fortunately, no one took this opportunity to attack him.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized that the Good Luck seemed to have divided the lower deck into several areas.

Winters is accustomed to using two-handed swords. The sailor sword can only be held in one hand. The other hand is empty, which makes him feel a little insecure. He pulled out the dagger again and followed the example of a major general holding the sharp blades with both hands to explore the darkness.

There was another heavy landing sound behind him. Winters turned around and was about to swing the knife down, but the man who jumped down said: "Wait, it's me."

Only the light leaking from the hatch made it difficult to see who it was, but the voice was too familiar to Winters. It was Bud.

"Let's go together." Bud followed and said in a deep voice.

Winters nodded and continued to explore forward. It was always a reassuring thing to have someone covering your back.

After entering the cabin from the stern entrance, several cabins are separated on the left and right, which seem to be used by people with higher status on the ship. A narrow path was left in the middle, allowing only one person to pass.

Winters smelled a fishy smell and found a body in a cabin. Apparently Major General and Andre had broken through.

Going further, I kicked open a hatch and suddenly it became clear.

There is no wooden partition in front, the entire cabin is just one big room, with big holes in the bulkhead. The ground was filled with people in ragged clothes who looked like beggars, and the disgusting smell of sourness and rot filled their nostrils.

The major general and Andre were in the middle of the cabin. The major general's moves are not fancy, and are even a bit simple: pick with the left arm and stab with the right arm.

But with the Major General's extraordinary physical strength, this simple move is the most efficient killing technique. I saw the major general using the sword in his left hand to deflect the scimitar coming towards him, stabbing and twisting with his right hand, and a pirate screamed and was knocked down.

No one on this ship was the enemy of Major General Yihe. The pirates had no spears and did not understand the art of joint attack. They were forced to retreat continuously by the Major General.

Andre had no chance to take action next to the major general. He tried his best to keep up with the major general and protect the major general from being attacked by multiple pirates at the same time.

However, there were still several pirates who were using the width of the ship to try to get behind the major general and Andre to outflank them.

Winters and Bard arrived just in time. If they were really attacked from both sides, no matter how good the Major General and Andre's swordsmanship were, they wouldn't be able to do anything. The two of them were able to rush here. On the one hand, the pirates were frightened by the ferocious momentum of the major general. On the other hand, the two of them drove the pirates all the way to this point without worrying about what was behind them.

Winters shouted, attracting the pirate's attention, and at the same time informed the two men in front of him that reinforcements were coming. The pirates who were still circling behind Major General and Andre just now heard the sound, abandoned the two of them and headed towards Winters.

One-handed swords often have to be equipped with a small shield or a blocking dagger, but Winters' dagger has no handguard and cannot play any blocking role. Holding it in the hand has only a little psychological comfort effect.

However, the pirates who rushed towards Winters saw him wielding scimitars and daggers in full swing, and felt a little uneasy, but they still braved Winters.

The origin of the pirate's knife is very simple, which is to hack and slash from the upper left to the lower right.

For Winters, the sailor sword is both his weapon and his shield. The deck was full of scrawny oarsmen, and there was no room to dodge, so Winters also used a single sword to meet the opponent.

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

Two scimitars collided. How could a pirate be a match in terms of strength to a quasi-officer who was well-fed, well-drinked, and had received years of training? Winters directly deflected the blade of the sword.

Winters instinctively used his sword skills and cut into the pirate's midline. The cabin was full of oarsmen and there was no room for Winters to step forward, so Winters slashed the pirate's right arm with his knife.

The weapons on the Skua are not well maintained. The sailor's scimitar in Winters' hand is not very sharp, but it has a stronger bite to the flesh because of this. After hitting the pirate, Winters cut with all his might, leaving a bone-deep wound on the pirate's arm.

The pirate screamed, the knife fell out of his hand, and he rolled back while covering his wound. If this was a sword fight, Winters got two nice points in this round. But the cabin is a battlefield. Losing one of the pirate's hands cannot kill the pirate.

"Catch them! Make you a crew member!" A voice with a strong Tanirian accent shouted: "Otherwise I will kill you all!"

Winters didn't know who was being addressed, but then he realized that the pirate was threatening the oarsman. He glanced at the group of poor oarsmen. Some of them lowered their heads without daring to look at him, while others had longing and greed in their eyes.

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

Every oarsman in this cabin is now a potential enemy. Winters also shouted back: "The pirates are finished! No pirates are sitting still! Anyone who dares to move will be shot to death!" He and Bud stepped over the oarsmen sitting on the ground and strode towards the major general and Andre, trying to escape. this area.

"Don't do anything yet! You bastards? Do you want to die?" The voice with a Tanirian accent shouted again.

As soon as he finished speaking, Winters felt someone dragging his left leg, and Bud was knocked down by three oarsmen. At this time, another pirate came forward.

What little pity Winters had for the oarsmen was crushed by rage. He also became ferocious, his left forehand turned into a backhand, and he stabbed the rower holding his left leg in the neck with a dagger.

He reminded himself that this was a battlefield. This time he no longer simply stabbed, but imitated Major General Leighton's movements, stabbing and then twisting hard.

The oarsman's neck suddenly had a destructive wound that could not be sutured, and the arteries and ligaments were directly pierced and strangled. The oarsman held the wound in pain and released Winters' left leg.

Winters regained his freedom and moved half of his body slightly to dodge the pirate's thrust. The next action is done by instinct of swordsmanship. First block with the blade and deflect the opponent's scimitar.

But this time he no longer chopped the opponent's arm, but stabbed it into the opponent's soft abdomen. Still a poke and a twist. When the scimitar was pulled out, the curved blade of the scimitar opened a larger wound. This sword made the attacking pirates incapacitated.

He ignored the "broken" pirate and turned to help Bud. At this time, Bud had been thrown to the ground by three oarsmen. One of the oarsmen tried desperately to pry open Bud's fingers and take away his knife, but Bud held on tightly. The oarsman who grabbed the knife couldn't pry Bud's fingers off, so he bit him with his mouth.

Winters stepped up to Bud and stabbed the oarsman who wanted to bite someone in the neck with a knife, killing the oarsman on the spot.

The other two oarsmen struggled with Bud. Winters was afraid that he might accidentally injure Bud with his long knife, so he inserted the dagger into the back of the oarsman's neck, smashed his fist, and the dagger broke through the bamboo, killing the two men cleanly. A paddler.

He pulled Bud up from the ground. No one among the rowers dared to look at the officer who had killed three people in a row, and they all lowered their heads. No rower was encouraged by the pirates to dare to attack the two men again.

Seeing that reinforcements were coming, the major general stopped leading Andre and continued to charge forward. The two of them already had several wounds on their bodies, and their ability to rush here was all due to their momentum. Since there were reinforcements, there was no need to attack in place of defense, so the major general led Andre to fight and retreat.

Winters and Bud moved forward, Major General and Andre leaned back, and the four finally joined together to confront the pirates.

At this time, there was also the sound of clashing weapons from behind the pirates. Apparently, 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 entering from the bow entrance. After breaking into the cabin, it was now the pirates' turn to be attacked from two sides.

"Surrender! Otherwise I will kill you all!" Major General Leighton, who was like a god of death and showed no mercy or mercy, suddenly started to play a propaganda war, but his two sharp blades were dripping with blood and stained red. The military uniform seems very unconvincing.

"Submit [organ]! Can you live if you surrender?" The pirate like the leader who just encouraged the rowers shouted in despair: "Surrender, this butcher will kill us all! This butcher is a leader, he will Catch him and hold him hostage so that we can live!"

The leader was crying at the end, kicking and beating the other pirates like a shrew: "Go up! Go up! Only by catching him can we live! Only then can we live..."

"Trash! Disgusting!" The major general looked at the pirate leader who was causing trouble with disgust, and pointed the tip of his knife at the man: "I will kill you even if you surrender! Listen to me, I will only kill him. I don't want to die. , just abandon your sword and surrender!"

On this side, Winters, Bud and Andre were silently confronting the pirates. On the other side, more and more army warrant officers jumped down from the hatch of the ship. This group of pirates was blocked in the cabin and had no way to move or retreat, and was in a desperate situation.

Winters looked at the pirates who were at a loss as they looked at me and me, seemingly wanting to surrender, but no one dared to be the first to drop their weapons.

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

One, two, three, the pirates dropped their weapons one after another, declaring the end of this short but bloody hand-to-hand battle.

…

On the deck of the Good Luck, the surrendered pirates had their hands tightly tied and knelt neatly in a row.

Surrounding the pirates were a group of fledgling warrant officers who had just seen blood for the first time and were looking at them with knives.

One after another, pirate corpses and dying pirates were dragged out from the deck and cabins, and neatly placed in front of the surrendered pirates.

Major General Leighton was sitting on a wooden barrel that was dragged over casually, and Major Moritz was suturing his wounds with the help of alcohol.

No one on the ship was so crazy that he dared to sew up a human body with a fishhook, so this man who couldn't recognize his relatives after drinking had to do it for him.

Although Instructor Narr said that swordsmanship is a sport, the results show that the swordsmanship lessons are somewhat useful. At least the warrant officers all know how to avoid being stabbed in the core area of ​​the chest and abdomen.

Most of the injured warrant officers were injured in their limbs. If they did not suffer severe inflammation and fever in the next few days, they would survive. Otherwise, they will die. It all depends on injury, fitness and luck.

Major General Leighton was obviously a little impatient with waiting. Seeing that all the dead and dying pirates had been dragged out, he picked up his sword and walked to the captured pirates.

"I won't talk nonsense to you, you come first." The major general stopped in front of the pirate leader who he said he would kill no matter what during the confrontation in the cabin.

The pirate who seemed to be the leader buried his head and did not dare to look at the major general. The major general put his sword on his neck: "Tell me, which one is the captain?"

Hearing the major general's question, the pirate felt that he had found a chance of survival, and bravely asked: "I say, I say. If I reveal the captain, can Mr. General spare my life?"

Before he finished speaking, his left rib was pierced by the major general's sword. He looked at the major general and then at his chest in shock. The sword cut directly through his heart.

After the sword was drawn out, the pirate fell forward as if his soul had been drained. Blood gurgled from under him.

Even though Winters had seen blood today, he couldn't bear to see the pirate being killed. The major general's ruthlessness shocked him even more. Fighting in a battle formation is one thing, but killing a tied prisoner is another.

But he said nothing, and neither did his classmates. Only the sound of the sea could be heard on the deck, and the young warrant officers were silently observing and learning from the senior officer's behavior.

"So much nonsense." The major general shook off the blood on his sword in disgust, and asked another pirate next to the pirate who just died: "Tell me, who is the captain?"

There was a bleeding corpse lying next to him. The second named pirate felt a coldness in his crotch and was already incontinent. He hurriedly agreed to help identify it and begged for mercy.

Major General Leighton did not rush to let the pirate identify him. With only one hand, he grabbed the collar of his clothes and lifted the pirate up like a chicken.

After Major General Leighton allowed the pirate to see the faces of his still-living accomplices, he smiled and said to all the pirates: "I will ask you to turn around and let this trash in my hand point to one of you and these corpses. Then. I will mention one more person, and if you are not referring to the same person, we will die together."

Winters quickly figured out why the major general used this strange method. It was probably to let the pirates betray each other and avoid casually pointing out a corpse as the captain.

"The general will kill him if he wants, why bother teasing us. My subordinates are not loyal enough to use such methods." An indignant voice came, and Gold couldn't help but stand up: "But you promised us , Surrender and avoid death!”

"Hahaha" the major general laughed even more happily, looking extremely discordant in this bloody scene: "When did I promise you to surrender and avoid death? I just promised not to kill you, but my officers started fighting with you I don’t care anymore.”

There was a commotion among the pirates, and Gold stood up angrily, mouthing all kinds 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 smashed Gold's mouth with the weighted ball on the hilt of the sword with the other hand.

Once, twice, three times.

Everyone on the deck could clearly hear the sound of the iron ball hammering flesh and the sound of teeth breaking. Even Winters felt a little scared when he heard the sound.

Winters and Bud looked at each other. Winters felt his stomach churn, and he also saw a hint of fear in Bud's eyes. No one is not afraid of such a cruel person, even if he is one of our own.

The crew of the Skua had long ago found a quiet place to hide, avoiding such bloody scenes.

The major general gritted his teeth and said, "Who are you? Are you worthy of negotiating terms with me?"

The three hammer blows were far from being able to relieve the major general's anger, so he hit it hard for the fourth time: "What do you ask me, what do you answer!"

Gold couldn't even speak clearly now and could only nod his head.

"Why don't you retreat when you see the naval flag?"

Gold opened his mouth, and blood mixed with saliva flowed out. After receiving four blows from Major General Leighton, his teeth and tongue were all damaged and it was impossible to hear what he was saying.

Major Moritz couldn't stand it anymore. He sighed and proposed a solution: "When the general asks you a question, you just nod and shake your head. Do you understand?"

Gold nodded again.

"Listen carefully." Major General Leighton paused and asked the question lingering in the minds of everyone on the Skua: "Are you here specifically for us?"

After hearing this question, Gold nodded heavily.

I forgot which book I read it in, but I remember it was about the war between the British and the Afghans in the 19th century. It described a small-scale battle in which a British officer was so strong with a sword that no one could stop him in hand-to-hand combat. He even formed a no man's land around him, because no enemy dared to approach him. However, the Afghans at that time were also very effective in combat. After noticing this high-profile officer, four or five spearmen attacked him at once, and the master died.

Probably without armor, General Zhang will no longer be relevant on the battlefield.