Mercenaries and Adventurers

But the new generation of young people in Tor Village have basically never seen the skills of knights, because the original knight lords of the local Monster Wind Grassland died many times in the war against the Harpies. These young people, even some I feel that the knights are not as great as the stories say.

As a result, these strong young men rushed towards Knight Rumi desperately, planning to knock down this knight and then knock down another knight riding a tall war horse.

how to say.

Knight Rumi laughed sarcastically. He had already given the warning. Now these young people who were calling him had to repair it.

Without any other means, he opened his palm and hit the young man from the village who was hitting him on the head with the bottom of his palm.

Boom, the nearest young male villager was hit by Knight Rumi. As if he took the initiative to greet him, his eyesight was dazzled and he fell to the ground.

Another one, boom!

A strong girl groaned and was hit in the head, and immediately fell to the ground on all fours.

If you look carefully, you can still see that Knight Rumi tried his best to hold back when dealing with women. As for his method at this time, he relied more on the strength of the person who was rushing towards him, and he used the bottom of his palm to hit the person's head. With an unexpected impact, it was the person who was hit who used his own strength to hit him. He was defeated.

This trick was a method he often used to deal with stubborn and arrogant soldiers in the army. It was harmless but effective.

Dong-dong-dong, several times in a row, the young people in the village who ran over and tried to attack him fell to the ground one after another, which made the scene seem much weirder and more absurd.

People not far and near were watching. Every time one fell, the people around him took a breath of air-conditioning. Naturally, some people shook their heads and thought it was natural. The local villagers really had no common sense and allowed the vast majority of young people to provoke them like this. A knight.

Fortunately, the merchants could see from the orders and the scene that the Kendalls were unwilling to provoke human lives, and had tried to exercise as much restraint as possible.

The young people in other villages were not fools either. Seeing the exaggerated fate of their fellow villagers who were running fast in front of them, they gradually stopped and hesitated to move forward.

Someone uttered a few dirty curses. Knight Rumi glanced over and immediately frightened the speaker into shutting his mouth.

At this time, due to Knight Rumi's brief obstruction, Knight Crow not far behind him had gathered strength. As a faint earthy yellow light visible to the naked eye emerged from the earthen wall under the hooves of the war horse, Knight Crow pulled Holding tightly to the reins of the war horse, the strong war horse, which has won the master's favor, jumps on the spot.

He jumped up to a height of three meters, and then landed heavily on the ground with four hooves.

boom!

A deafening sound rang out, and the section of the earthen wall that was the gate to the underground passage collapsed directly downwards, as if a wild dog had broken its spine.

The original passage gate underneath and the small rooms on the left and right sides of the passage were buried. Dust and sand spewed out from the sloping passages on both sides and spread far away.

The caravans heading towards the inner passage of the village turned their heads and faces away, or covered their mouths and noses with their palms, or lifted up their cloaks to cover their faces.

The constant tremors caused by the collapse of the earthen wall on the ground quickly disappeared, and the frightened horses quickly calmed down under the comfort of the caravan driver.

Because it was spring, it had only rained here a few days ago, so neither the wall nor the ground in the passage was very dry, so the dust and smoke caused by the collapse quickly disappeared.

When the never-ending wind on the Strange Wind Grassland howled and blew away the dust, the only one who appeared in front of everyone was Knight Crow standing on the ruins of this earthen wall.

As if he had done a small thing, Knight Crow shook the reins, and the tall and strong armored war horse took a leisurely step across the collapsed ruins and stepped forward to stand with Knight Rumi.

-

Knight Rumi whistled, and soon, his horse also leapt, jumping lightly over the uncollapsed earth wall.

Looking at that posture, even a war horse wearing horse armor can easily jump over the three-meter-high village wall in one go. All the villagers who saw this scene fell silent.

"How's it going? Do you have anything to say?"

Knight Crow asked directly to the old and middle-aged villagers who came up silently.

Several old men with authority and management in the village looked at each other, and then knelt down according to imperial etiquette. As soon as they knelt down, other middle-aged villagers also knelt down.

Although the young man was unwilling, he reluctantly knelt down under the pull of others.

After these people expressed their surrender according to the etiquette of the empire, Knight Crowe and Knight Rumi looked at each other, and their long-time friends immediately exchanged ideas.

Then Knight Crow said: "Huh! The people of the Kingdom of Saint Holes should not practice the etiquette of the empire. It seems that even though they have migrated here for many years, there are still many people who don't know where they fell?"

After saying that, without giving the villagers a chance to speak, he continued: "Our troops will be stationed in the village tonight. Go and get ready to welcome them! Don't think about anything else, we are just passing through the border."

After speaking, he turned his horse's head and rode out through the first collapsed hole in the wall, leading the troops into the village. Knight Rumi ordered the caravans to be driven away to clear out the scattered carriages inside the village wall, and wait for the army's logistics carriages to be parked.

-

Seeing the return of Knight Crow, Baron Kendall immediately ordered the army to enter the village in batches. At this time, the sky was gradually darkening. Thanks to the flat terrain of the grassland, there were no towering mountains blocking the sun setting in the distance.

Otherwise it would normally be dark at this time.

The soldiers were a little uneasy at first, not knowing how they would survive the night with strong winds and flying monsters. Do you just sleep on the grassland like this?

Maybe in the summer, but not in the windy spring.

The temperature at night will still be much lower than during the day, and with strong winds, the temperature will feel even lower. If they don't stay in a tent overnight, many people may freeze to death in one night.

Kiir walked in front of a group of militiamen who had received the order, and was the first group to enter the village.

When he looked at it from a distance, he felt that the low buildings in the village occupied a very large area. After entering the village, he realized that the buildings built by the villagers themselves were really large, and the amazing thing was that although the villagers They were dejected, but they still guided each caravan one by one to gather their horses, and then led them into the building one by one through the semi-underground passage built on the side of the low building.

Each caravan also packed its carriages next to each other in advance, and then tied them up with ropes.

"What are they doing?"

Keir captured a caravan man and asked.

This guy was a member of the caravan with the army. He didn't know that. He just followed the orders of the caravan steward and followed what other local caravans did.

Kil slapped his head and turned to ask Bloodfangster.

This guy is a veteran on this trade road. He has walked back and forth several times a year, so he is naturally very familiar with this place. He must understand why he does this.

"Why connect the carriages?"

Bloody Fangster was stunned for a moment, then pointed to the sky: "There will also be particularly strong winds at night. If it is not connected, the carriage will be blown away by the wind overnight. Although it will not go far, it will transport goods. If the carriages collide with each other, the goods will still be damaged. And although the carriages of each caravan have marks, once your carriage is mixed with the carriages of other caravans, the other party secretly erases the marks before dawn, completely If you don’t acknowledge the ownership of the carriage and cargo.”

He shrugged, letting the words he didn't say speak for themselves.

"Is it estimated that some shameless caravans with a bad reputation will forcefully occupy other people's carriages and goods?"

Keir guessed.

Bloody Fangster gave a weird smile and added: "When we didn't do this before, there were people who had this idea to run empty on this strange wind grassland. Although the risk is a bit higher, but But I specifically had this idea in mind. It would be best if I could swallow the entire carriage. If not, I would take advantage of the chaos in the morning to move some cargo and occupy it."

While he was talking, groups of soldiers walked in in a tight and neat marching team, followed by logistics carriages. Although the villagers of the local Thor village were unwilling, the soldiers of the Kendall people came in. At this time, they could only put on a smile and reluctantly guide the soldiers and the large number of carriages of the Kendall people.

Like the caravan, the carriages of the logistics team were required to stay close together, and then let go of the horses pulling the carriages, guiding them from the passage into the building. Knight Crow arranged a group of soldiers to watch their horses, and do not Let the horses mingle with other caravan horses.

Although they took advantage of being mixed together, after all, the horse breeds of the local caravans in the Western Province were much better than those used by the Kendal people.

There is also a difference in price.

Therefore, sometimes in the past two days, Baron Kendall would discuss with the two knights whether they should take this opportunity to replace the donkeys pulling the logistics carriages and the horses of his personal guards with local strong horse breeds.

But that was two days ago. This morning they knew about the bad situation of local horse breeds in Qifeng Grassland, so the Baron postponed the matter of changing horses.

After leaving Strange Wind Grassland, the prices of horses in other places in the Western Province are also very cheap.

It won't be too late then.

Keir also jumped off the horse, put away the horse's saddle, reins and other horse equipment into his carriage, and then asked the local villagers to drive both of his horses into the low building.

The horses will be taken care of by local villagers tonight, and outsiders like them can have a good night's rest.

After all the horses and livestock of the Kendal people and caravans were dispersed into various low-rise buildings, Keir still felt that the volume of horses in each low-rise building in this village was so large.

There are still at least half of the buildings in the distance that are not in use. It is obvious that when the villagers were building, they built a lot of redundant ones.

I don’t know how much more energy and time it will take.

Horses enter the building, and indeed the vast majority of people also enter the building for the night. Outside the village, only a few sentries from each family would be left hiding under closely packed carriages.

Kilburn wanted to take Bloodfangster and other militiamen into the building to spend the night, but Bloodfangster waved his hand and said that he knew someone here and they could meet again tomorrow morning.

In this case, Kil did not force himself and followed Knight Crow himself.

-

Knight Crow's war horse only took off half of its vest, and then let one of his personal guards lead him, and followed the Kendall horses into the building alone. The same goes for Rumi Knight and Baron.

After dismounting, Knight Crowe took Kil to join the Baron and Knight Rumi.

"This building is really interesting. Don't rush in. Let me look around first."

Baron Kendall seems to be very interested in all kinds of buildings. No, it should be said that their family is good at architectural construction.

At this moment, he asked Knight Rumi to arrange for the soldiers and support personnel to move into the building, while he led Knight Crow, Kiel and other personal guards to walk around the outer circle of the low, wide, flat building.

"If I guessed correctly, complex underground buildings and villages have been built beneath our feet in this village." The baron looked around and pointed at the surrounding ground casually.

He was quite proud. He first pointed to the entire circle of earthen walls surrounding the village: "Don't think that the earthen wall that Crowe destroyed just now is nothing special. In fact, I guessed this the first time I saw that wall. How does the village deal with monsters flying in the sky?"

"My lord, it's a harpy." Knight Crow added.

"I know it's a harpy. The key point is that there are no excavated mounds and depressions around the village. So how did you get the material for the wall surrounding the village?"

The baron spoke, and everyone around him just listened, looking bored, obviously not interested in the professional knowledge that the baron was good at.

The same is true for Knight Crow. If it is about knowledge about combat and martial arts, the knight is naturally interested, but he is not interested in architecture that has nothing to do with his life.

Only Kiel remained curious and listened intently to the baron.

The Baron also saw that only Kiel, a young man in the group, was interested in what he said, so he specifically said to Kiel: "You know, although this dirt wall is only three meters high, but Because there is no front and rear timber reinforcement, the thickness is about five meters, which is as large as a circle around the village, and the earth volume is very large."

He stamped his feet: "And the dirt on the ground is obviously dug out from the ground of the village. The underground area of ​​​​this village is probably not small. Regarding this, I believe that most of the caravans coming and going do not know. "

The Baron touched his neatly combed beard and judged rather proudly: "If what I think is correct, at most half of this village is open to caravans. The remaining half is for the villagers to live and live. place."

He said this and pondered for a moment: "Well, the remaining area is quite large. It doesn't match the number of villagers."

Knight Crow suddenly said: "Is there a problem?"

The Baron squinted his eyes: "It's hard to say. If the village where we stay tomorrow night is the same as this village, then it's no problem. But if it's different, then it's no problem."

Knight Crowe and Kiel were a little strange. The Baron smiled deeply and explained: "We are just transiting through the border, and we are not local lords. And the owner of the Western Province is not a noble to whom I am loyal. We don't want anything that happens in this land." eventful."

-

Follow Baron Kendall into the low building on the side.

This building is entirely made of mud bricks mixed with plant fiber. In response, Baron Kendall just shook his head and said that this material was already the only choice after the local shortage of stone and wood.

Therefore, the shortcomings of this kind of building are infinitely magnified. It can only build low buildings close to the ground. For ordinary residential buildings, two or three floors is already the limit. Any higher is enough.

But there is no problem if we build it lower.

Just because of this, when Kil walked inside the building, he felt that the surroundings were very cramped, with many walls and a ceiling, leaving very little space for people to move around.

After entering from the building entrance, the first thing you see is the straight slope passage. This flat ground passage is convenient for horses and livestock to move around.

Sure enough, directly facing the passage, there was a wooden fence with a blocking function, and inside was a slightly more spacious stable. It is also a stable built semi-underground.

Although it is in a closed building, the air here is not that bad. Obviously, there is an airflow channel for air circulation in the circular stable. At the same time, there is an opening in the corner that leads to an unknown place. At this time, a villager pushing a cart entered through this opening.

Several piles of bundled hay were stacked on the wheelbarrow.

The lighting inside the stable is provided by a fire pit in the middle. This thing can only provide a little lighting, but apparently the horses have no problem with this because they can't speak.

The horses are not crowded together. Because the space in the building is limited, the stables are mostly partitioned by earthen walls facing each other vertically. The partitions are separated by local precious wood. The horses live in pairs and neigh. There was a lot of chatter.

The two knights and the baron's three horses were separated by a separate partition. At this time, their respective guards were feeding them with fodder, or removing their armor and decorating it with pig hair brushes to brush their bristles.

The baron took a general look at the place and then led them out of the stable.

The stables were on the floor closest to the ground, probably because it was difficult to get the horses to go down the stairs.

At the entrance to the stables, there is a staircase going down. The steps are adjacent to the catwalk for horses. The group of people walked down, following the noise coming from below.

After turning around twice and going down thirty steps, everyone arrived directly below the stables.

At this time, the buildings here are roughly the same as above, all circular. What divides the interior of the building is no longer the earth wall longitudinally facing the center of the circle, but thicker earth brick pillars.

These pillars take up a lot of space, but according to the Baron, they must be built this way.

Because the building on the lower floor must bear the weight of the building on the upper floor, the load-bearing structure on the lower floor must occupy more space than the one above.

If stronger stone bricks were used, the area on this floor would be larger, but obviously this is not possible here.

There is no material.

On the vast grassland, there are only sky, wind, grass and earth.

The land is both fertile and barren, and an extremely large number of livestock can be domesticated here, which can be completely consumed by the country's livestock. The number of horns, skins, meat, and bones can be piled up into a hill.

However, this is also a barren place.

The wood most commonly used by humans must be brought from other provinces. It is okay in places close to other provinces and the cost is not particularly high, but in the middle of the western provinces, wood is extremely expensive.

The same goes for stones. There is only thick soil under the feet, and the stones can only be pulled from distant mountains, and the cost is not low.

Entering the second underground floor, a space slightly smaller than the previous floor, the Kendall soldiers put their swords and shields aside. There were small oil lamps above their heads for lighting, and their respective beddings were spread on the dry ground. , the militiamen sat together in twos and threes and talked, but their eyes were still looking at the center during the conversation.

There, under the blackened ceiling, were several adobe firepits, where the army cooks were busy.

The iron pot was placed on the fire pit, and the food inside was sizzling with aroma. The cooks would pour the easily chopped food into the large iron pot at the right time, allowing the food to be soaked in the soup and cooked.

There were local villagers nearby pushing carts of fuel for the fire pond. These fuels may look the same as the fodder the livestock eat above, but there are few differences.

As the baron walked around here, Kiel discovered that the burning fuel was actually the stems of grass. This thing grew well locally, so it was extremely thick and could not be chewed by livestock with weak chewing power. It was not soft enough. Look It can only be dried and used as fuel.