Chapter 426: 421: Escalated

This piece of crucifixion is first notified to the priest of a local monastery by a passing by merchant. The priest is a veteran that retired after losing his ability to fight in a naval engagement with the pirates, and so he got allocated here to be a priest and he instantly realised the importance of this message. He went to the spot and check for himself, upon reaching the piece of crucifixion he instantly realised one thing, that is the corpse being hang upside down is donning the standard inner cloth of the Thessaloniki Army.
At first the veteran priest did not know that this crucifixion is a thing done by a bunch of rogues, he thought that it must be a bunch of hidden rebels belonging to a heretic, most likely a sign of revival of the Bogomilist cult. Thus, instead of reporting it to his direct superior, the patriarch in Thessaloniki, the veteran priest reported it directly to his old superior Helio, who is now holding the post as the commander of the central defence force, stationed in the fortress of KIlikis.
As a native Gree… Roman, Helio too knows the damage can a group of heretics bring to this piece of land if they start spreading their false believes. He has an absolute trust over his fellow comrades, and thus he filed a report directly to Antonius himself in Drama, requesting for an immediate approval to start an operation to clear out these heresies before it snow balls in to a real rebellion.
Antonius approved, and Helio appointed a commanding officer called Halfdan to lead four hundred men in to the mountains in an attempt to root out any possible threat, under the guidance of the veteran priest. Antonius did not give many thoughts about it, ever since the Ottoman sphere of influence leave this area, it left a power vacuum which is quickly filled up by random people that seems to come from no where; cults, heretic believes, local land lords and others.
The troopers led by Halfdan left their camp the next day, they reached the narrow corridor under the guidance of the veteran and saw the supposed 'cross of hell'. Seeing the cross of heresy the Orthodox troopers quickly kneeled down towards the sky drawing crosses before their chest, seeking pardon for seeing such a sign of blasphemy. Their commander Halfdan approached the carcass, frowning and observed the body closely. The corpse has already been half decay with some parts of the bones already exposed, and some spooky greenish juice being dripped on to the ground from the body which no one knows what the hell it is, producing a strong scent that would make even the toughest guy vomit.
Halfdan double checked the cloths on the man, yes indeed it is the standard clothing that are only issued to the scouts and cavalries of the army, which proves that the veteran's words about the identity of this man is indeed correct. Now this just adds another crime on to the old ones, spreading heretics, killing a servant of the nation, just one of these crime is enough to get all of them slain under the legitimate judicial laws of Thessaloniki.
The hundreds of men sipped in to the mountains in the search, and it did not take long before they spotted a wooden entrenchment, built on a slanted slope with several huge boulders as its foundation. Halfdan came to check the ground, and he found out that indeed the builder of this camp is a nature talent in designing military defensive camps. The camp only has one entrance to the outside, with a narrow passage of no longer than three meters in length making it impossible for battalion sized army groups to move through and carry out combat tasks.
There are two wooden walls, with the first being around one and half meters in height and the second one being two meter plus in height. Sounds laughable, but it still comes in handy when defending a hot spot against the enemies providing a safe shelter for the defenders. Attacking from the other three sides is not an option, with one being just beneath a dangerously steep slope, and the other two being at least three to four meters in height from the ground. But makes the camp the most intriguing is the five heads hanging on top of the camp head.
It is a norm for bandit camps to be dressed like this as a way of showing off to their counterparts on how gruesome they are, giving a clear warning signal to any one approaching thinking of exploiting them. Halfdan has seen way many of these kind of things before in his career meaning that these skulls definitely did not strike any fear in to him as intended. But still, Halfdan sent out a messenger to the gates as a routine order, asking them diplomatically to surrender themselves, throwing down their weapons and go back to a farm stead's life.

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The messenger approached the walls carrying a white flag, but it is apparent that these rogues have not the smallest intention of making an negotiation. They flung another round of bolts towards the messenger, who is already prepared for this kind of stuff as he quickly turned his body the moment he saw these men standing up behind the wall towards the ground. The bolts penetrated through the flesh of his horse, which gave a shrieking neigh and collapsed on the ground, but the messenger is still alright as he went back to Halfdan trudging difficultly.
Halfdan is surprised, not because of the bandits' actions, but because of the appearance of cross bows. If they are carrying only basic weaponries like blades, axes, and bows, things can still be solved easily and much of the problem can be swept under the carpet. However once a bunch of rogues carrying crossbows and wearing armours is being found out things are going to turn in to a troubled state pretty quickly, as these two things are national strategic weapons that can only be kept inside military storage under top security at all times. Halfdan bet that there shall be a massive scaled internal investigation after he writes a report, and some one's head is going to row.
Halfdan lost all patience to negotiate with the rogues and ordered his shields men to march forward. The warriors roared as they progressed, covering their vital parts with round shields against the enemy projectiles. It is obvious that these rogues, despite being well equipped, are still no match for the elite soldiers of Antonius. After a few charges and coordinated attacks, the dozens of enemies behind the first wall soon scattered an went back to their second wall continuing their struggle.
Now Halfdan and his men have to drag down the first wall and the gate in order to create more space for his men to gather and charge to besiege the second wall. The enemies tried sneaking upon Halfdan's troops attempting to set fire in their encampment but got caught and beheaded right in front of their pals as a warning. Halfdan then sent out another messenger with the aim of reducing casualties, but it is to no avail too.
The demolition process lasted for the entire night, with every thing from the first wall being carried away and dumped in one side, including those five heads being hang on the gate. During the post dinner chattering time, a fellow junior commander who was in charge of the operation raised this topic unintentionally to his superior, saying that the 'four creepy heads' that have just been disposed all have a facial feature resembling that of the Varangians, and the last one resembles a teenager who has just grew up in to a young adult.
Halfdan did not really think that deep at first as his head is filled with other stuff. However later that night as he is digging through the pile of paper works and messages, he suddenly recalled a piece of information his direct superior Helio told him previously, that is the creator of the Varangians Yuri, together with four other people have went missing among these mountains a month again and are never to be found again.
Upon realising this Halfdan ordered his guard to drag the commander up from the bed and wake him form his deep sleeps, giving him a clear instruction to bring the five heads to the central camp at once. The poor commander does not know why is his superior suddenly becoming so interested in a row of decaying skulls, but in army a rank higher means that he is the authority over here. The commander had no choice but to climb up from his bed, go down to the dump himself and get these five heads lying out orderly before the eyes of Halfdan.
The moment Halfdan saw these five heads before him, he knows that things are going to get serious this time.

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