Boundless Family Upgrades For The Deadbeat Lord

Raymond stood in front of the northern map long after the lamps inside the administrative hall had been lit, his arms folded tightly across his chest as he studied the tangled web of colored markings covering the parchment.

Only a few days earlier, the map had been simple enough to understand. The Blackridge Mountains sat to the north, Althoff occupied the southern approach, and several known migration corridors curved across the wasteland in predictable directions.

Now almost every one of those old routes had been buried beneath new information. Red markers showing predator sightings spread across areas where no predator should have been at this point in winter.

Black marks covered destroyed or abandoned settlements. Blue lines traced the movement of refugee groups heading south.

White markings that had once represented orderly herbivore herds now split repeatedly, scattering in completely different directions as though every instinct that normally governed the migration had collapsed.

Raymond stared at the mess for several minutes before slowly reaching out and tracing one finger across the map. Marden had fallen. Greymill had been abandoned. Darlow was gone.

Fellcross had emptied. Reth remained surrounded. And every report from every surviving hunter repeated the same disturbing detail: the beasts were no longer following routes.

They were simply running.

A soft knock sounded against the door behind him, but before Raymond could answer, it opened and Boris stepped inside.

The captain’s armor was covered in a thin layer of frost, and the dark expression on his face immediately told Raymond that the man had not come with good news.

Boris crossed the room without wasting time, stopping beside the table and looking down at the map. ”The western reconnaissance team returned an hour ago. They found another abandoned hamlet near the Reth road. No bodies inside the houses, so the residents probably evacuated before the beasts reached them, but the tracks around the settlement were everywhere. Wolves, bison, elk, several large feline prints, and something the hunters couldn’t identify.”

He paused before adding, ”The animals are overlapping now, my Lord. Predator and prey tracks running across the same ground within hours of each other.”

Raymond kept his eyes on the map. ”Which makes no sense if they’re moving normally.”

”It doesn’t,” Boris agreed. ”Predators should be following the weaker herds, not running through the same corridors without stopping to hunt. The hunters are beginning to think the animals aren’t even behaving territorially anymore.”

Raymond exhaled slowly through his nose. ”Then something inside Blackridge has scared enough of them that food, territory, and instinct have all become secondary. Wonderful. Exactly what I wanted to hear before bed.”

Boris’s expression didn’t change. ”There is another concern. The eastern scouting teams haven’t reported back yet.”

That finally made Raymond look up. ”How late?”

”Six hours.”

The room became quieter.

Raymond’s face lost the faint trace of sarcasm it had carried a moment earlier.

The Bronze Knight teams he had dispatched were fast enough to cover far more ground than ordinary soldiers, and they had strict orders to return before nightfall unless something physically prevented them from doing so.

They weren’t reckless local hunters who might underestimate a storm or become distracted by tracks. They were summoned Knights with absolute obedience to his orders. Six hours late meant something had happened.

”Which team?”

”The northeastern pair. Two Bronze Knights, Edran’s nephew Corvin, and another hunter from Greymill.”

Raymond’s fingers tightened slightly against the edge of the table. ”Send a Silver pair after them.”

”I already did.” Boris answered quickly.

Raymond looked at Boris for a moment, then gave a slow nod. ”Good.”

Neither man spoke for several seconds. Outside the administrative hall, the muted sounds of the growing town continued as though nothing had changed.

Wagons creaked through the streets. Refugees were being assigned sleeping spaces. Somewhere in the distance, a blacksmith’s hammer struck metal in a steady rhythm. Althoff was crowded, noisy, and alive.

Nearly two thousand people were now relying on those walls, those granaries, and Raymond’s decisions to survive the winter.

A month ago, that thought would have produced mostly irritation and frantic calculations. Now it carried a different weight.

Raymond finally straightened. ”Wake me the moment the Silver team returns. I don’t care what time it is.”

Boris nodded. ”Understood, my Lord.”

By the time the first grey light of morning entered through the castle windows, he was still sitting inside the administrative hall with a cold cup of coffee beside him and the map spread open across the table.

Lily had appeared sometime before dawn wrapped in a blanket over her nightclothes, stubbornly insisting she wasn’t tired before falling asleep in a chair less than twenty minutes later.

Marianne eventually carried the girl away after giving Raymond a look that clearly suggested he should follow the same advice, but Raymond remained where he was. Every hour that passed without word from the reconnaissance team tightened the knot in his stomach.

The northern alarm horn sounded shortly after sunrise.

Raymond was out of his chair before the second blast.

He reached the castle courtyard as Boris came running through the lower gate, but the captain wasn’t alone.

Behind him, several guards were helping support a man between them. Raymond initially thought it was one of the local hunters until he caught sight of the damaged armor.

Bronze armor. It was a summon Knight.

The Knight’s left arm hung uselessly beside his body, the metal plating torn open from shoulder to elbow by three deep gashes. Half of his chest piece had been crushed inward, and dark blood had frozen across the damaged sections in thick streaks.

One side of his face was covered in blood from a cut running above his eyebrow, yet the Knight was still conscious, still trying to walk under his own strength despite the men supporting him.

Raymond stopped dead in the courtyard.

For a moment, the cold seemed to disappear.

He had seen his Knights injured before in small ways. Scratched armor. Bruises. Minor wounds from hunting. But until now, some part of him had unconsciously treated the summoned warriors as nearly untouchable within the context of Zulor.

Bronze Knights tore through ordinary beasts. Silver Knights killed Bronze creatures like livestock.

They hauled wagons, lifted stone beams, crushed mercenaries and handled every dangerous task Raymond threw at them with an almost insulting amount of ease.

Seeing one barely capable of standing changed something instantly.

Raymond crossed the courtyard quickly. ”Get him inside. Marianne! Find the herbalists and anyone who can treat wounds right now.”

The Bronze Knight tried to straighten when Raymond approached. ”My Lord...”

”Don’t salute me. Sit down before you collapse.”

The Knight obeyed.

Boris stepped closer, his own face grim. ”The Silver team found them about twelve kilometers northeast. One hunter is dead. Corvin survived but has a broken leg and several bite wounds. The second Bronze Knight is still escortinghim back with the Silver pair.”

Raymond’s jaw tightened. ”What did this?”

The wounded Knight answered before Boris could. His voice was hoarse but steady. ”A mixed pack, my Lord. Frostfang Wolves at first. Then two Silver-class Razorback Bears entered from the east. We attempted to retreat, but the animals weren’t hunting normally. They attacked everything in their path.”

Raymond frowned. ”Two Silver beasts did this?”

The Knight looked down at his ruined armor. ”No, my Lord. One of the bears struck me once. The rest happened while we were escaping from the larger concentration.”

Raymond’s expression hardened. ”What concentration?”

The courtyard seemed to become still aroundthem.

The Knight lifted his eyes and said in a grave tone. ”Thousands.”

Raymond stared at him.

For a second, he genuinely wondered whether he had misheard.

”Say that again.” Raymond swallowed hard.

The Knight swallowed. ”Thousands of Magic Beasts, my Lord. We reached the eastern ridge overlooking the old Greymill basin shortly before sunset. The entire valley below was filled with them.”

Boris moved closer. ”How many exactly?”

”We couldn’t count. Several thousand at minimum. Possibly more. Ironhorn Elk, Snowback Bison, mountain goats, Frostfang Wolves, boars, large cats, andother species we couldn’t identify from the ridge. Bronze-class beasts were everywhere. We saw multiple Silver-class predators among them.”

Raymond felt the cold return. ”Together?”

”Yes.” The Knight nodded solemnly.

That answer was worse than everything else.

Herbivores, predators,pack hunters, territorial beasts. Species that should have attacked one anotherwere moving in the same direction.

Raymond slowly turned toward Boris. ”How far?”

The captain’s expression had become completely serious. ”If the injured Knight’s description is accurate, we need to calculate from their current pace. But if they’re still moving steadily...”

The wounded Knight finished quietly. ”Three days, my Lord. Perhaps less.”

Raymond looked toward the northern wall.

Three days.

Thousands of Magic Beasts. The migration route hadn’t merely broken, it had collapsed into a tide.