How to Raise a Dumb Wolf - Chapter 16

Others might not understand why the darkfolk had suddenly revived bride raiding after a thousand years of silence.

Tina Killott could not fail to understand.

It was retaliation.

Her army had gained tremendous momentum of late. The darkfolk population was too small. After more than twenty years of combined pressure from beastfolk and humans, they were already a spent force, unable to sustain the war much longer. The great battle half a month ago weakened them further. Twenty-five years of accumulated strength erupted at once as the human army pressed its advantage.

Their advance was swift. Each day, they drove the front forward by more than ten kilometers (over 6.2 miles). In sparsely populated regions with inadequate garrisons, magical support sometimes allowed them to cover dozens of kilometers (roughly tens of miles) in a single day.

They had already drawn close to Dimska, the capital of Duke.

When the darkfolk launched the bride raids, Tina Killott and her aide were discussing the proper moment to attack Dimska.

Vitas and Philray.

The instant she heard those two locations, Tina knew whom the darkfolk were targeting.

It was far harder for a woman to secure a place in the army than for a man. Women were widely believed to be ruled by emotion and constrained by family. Their smaller average frames and lower proportion of muscle also placed them at a natural disadvantage in combat. To reach her goals, Tina had been forced to become braver, more savage, and more ferocious than men.

And she had been forced to blur every sign of gender.

She could have no weakness.

She could never lose.

That was why Tina never made her marriage public. Only the King of Ryan and a handful of senior officials in the federation knew that she and Hock were married.

Aisha had come into the world through an extraordinary convergence of good fortune. Once the baby was old enough to live apart from her mother, they hid her with the utmost care in Philray. The town was Hock’s childhood home. His mother was Aisha’s only relative in the world besides her parents, and she had always refused to follow her son to a great city because she cherished the quiet life of her little town.

Their original plan had been to reveal the marriage and bring Aisha home once the war ended and peace began.

But the war against the darkfolk lasted far longer than they imagined. Years passed with the arrangement unchanged. Fortunately, Aisha’s existence remained hidden…

Until several days ago.

In what seemed the blink of an eye, Aisha had reached the age for higher education. Hock told Tina that their daughter had grown into a gentle young woman with no desire to follow them into the army. Tina therefore went out of her way to question the officers serving under her who had not been born to warrior families. She investigated several fields of study deemed suitable for a refined young lady and quietly assembled recommendations for courses that would help Aisha inherit the family title in the future.

She and Hock wrote everything into a letter and sent it to their daughter.

Then the letter disappeared.

Driven into desperation, the darkfolk learned that the invincible woman general who had forced them to the brink was not without a weakness. She had a daughter.

An only daughter.

Since Tina Killott was already past forty, the girl was very likely the only child she would ever have.

If the darkfolk found her, they could use the girl to force Killott to withdraw or resign. Even if Tina refused, holding the daughter of a celebrated enemy commander would be enough to severely damage the human army’s morale.

And so the retaliation began.

The darkfolk probably did not believe Tina would hide her daughter in so remote a border town. They suspected Philray was merely a waypoint. That was why they attacked Vitas as well. As Ryan’s capital, Vitas was a city of nobles, where the children of almost every aristocrat and senior official gathered. If Philray was a deception, the darkfolk believed Vitas could not be wrong.

The principal purpose of this bride raid, then, had probably never been the girls themselves.

It was to acquire a weapon against Tina Killott.

And honestly…

The strategy might have worked.

Tina could not stop her arms from trembling around the sixteen-year-old girl. It was not that she had been unaware Aisha must be among the abducted women. She simply could not show it. Even with her heart and mind near explosion, she had to remain the fearless, flawless, undefeated General Killott.

If she wavered, her soldiers would waver. They would lose confidence. Her army bore the weight of the entire Helman Federation and had to remain at its best at every moment.

She was not allowed to fall.

“General? This girl…”

The soldier who came with Tina had now seen Aisha’s face. He was startled by the resemblance to General Killott, but even more astonished by the expression on his commander’s face.

She looked almost ready to cry.

General Killott had never cried. Her hardness made people forget that she was a woman at all. In fact… only when he saw that expression did the soldier abruptly remember her sex.

But in the end, Tina’s eyes merely reddened. No tears fell.

“Take her back. She should be the girl left behind in the castle. According to the other captives, she was chiefly responsible for their escape. When we return to the federation, the council may award her the Federation Medal.”

Tina’s face and voice were as calm as ever. Yet the soldier somehow heard a tremor in her words.

He took the girl’s limp body from Tina, still dazed.

“General, what about you?”

“Commanding from the rear is tedious.”

Tina rose with her spear. She smiled at the soldier, looking plainly happier than before—positively radiant.

“For everything that follows, obey my aide and the deputy general. I’ll bring the battle at the front to an end as quickly as possible. And notify the deputy commander at once that this girl has been found. Tell me the moment she wakes.”

The soldier blinked. “You mean Colonel Byrd?”

“Yes,” Tina said without hesitation.

But caring for rescued captives was the responsibility of the accompanying officers and army physicians. What did it have to do with the deputy commander?

The final instruction made more sense. The girl did resemble General Killott, after all…

Before the soldier could ask, Tina whistled. Her beloved horse Argenou came at once from nearby. She swung into the saddle and galloped away with her spear, leaving the soldier staring after her.

Only once General Killott had disappeared did he look at the girl’s face again. Perhaps because his mind was full of the question *why the deputy commander?*, for one moment, he genuinely saw a trace of Colonel Hock Byrd in the pretty young woman’s features…

The soldier shuddered violently.

Either he had discovered a secret worth killing him over, or he had gone mad.

He did not dare examine her further. He hurriedly lifted the unconscious Aisha, walked several paces, and settled her upon his horse. Then, leading the animal, he returned to camp as quickly as he could.