Mercenaries and Adventurers

Kiel squinted his eyes and looked at the real owner of the caravan coming at this moment.

The other party was a fat man with a big belly, and the leather armor he put on in a hurry was deformed by his big belly, and what was put on inside the leather armor was not only the exaggerated big belly, but also the luxurious suit that was originally worn on his body. Trader Cloak.

Caught between fat and taut leather armor, the poor cloak was crumpled and distorted in vivid bright blue.

"My lord, my lord, my lord knight. Of course, there is also my lord priest of the Saturnalia Church. Good afternoon, both of you, and may the God of Wealth protect us and meet friendly people in this deserted and dangerous place."

More than ten meters away, still slowing down the horses, the caravan steward looked like he had known each other for a long time, and he exchanged greetings with Kiel, who was still a stranger, and Priest Batar.

Priest Batar frowned. Generally speaking, in front of a church priest, it is unlikely that anyone will mention it, but this middle-aged fat man who is obviously not an immature businessman still said so .

It seemed that not only did he not care about his little priest, but he also didn't care about the things that offended him.

However, the priest quickly saw a gem badge hanging from the other party's neck, and it was a gem badge that was deliberately taken out of the close-fitting state.

When Kiel was chatting with the other party, the young priest took a closer look and recognized that it was the fifth-class prosperous badge issued by the Church of the God of Wealth to contribute to the prosperity of the region.

That thing has the effect of protection and shelter, but its more function is to show the backbone status of the wearer in the Church of the God of Wealth.

The merchants who can have this thing are not ordinary merchants. It not only represents the support and protection of the God of Wealth Church behind it, but also represents a strong strength and background.

"Joe Keir, a knight from Kendall County. As you can see, the hundreds of people in the back are the refugees led by me and priest Lothar Batar of the Saturnalia Church."

When being introduced by the Kiel warrior, Priest Batar raised the amber metal staff in his left hand to signal to the two people in front of him.

The fat middle-aged businessman put a smile on his face, didn't look at Priest Batar, but said to Kiel flatteringly: "Where do I think I am a heroic knight? It turns out that I am a brave Ken from the northern border area." The young knight of Del County! Sure enough, the people in the north of the kingdom are extraordinarily brave. The elite army I saw from a distance in the town a few days ago seems to come from the same place."

Kiel raised his eyebrows, but wearing a visor, no one saw his expression: "Yes, I was appointed from that army. Town? The army led by Lord Baron Kendall has already crossed the town of Dorne ?"

"After a while, the army I saw outside the town of Dorne at that time was really neat and brave. Huh, it's much better than those waste pies in the south. I really don't know how those people lost the battle. Losing so badly last year made the situation in the region so bad that I could sit in the chamber of commerce before, but now I have to lead the team myself."

He suddenly slapped his forehead, and even patted the luxurious hat he was wearing back a little. Everyone can see that the exposed part of the top of his head is not lush, and the grasslands in the western provinces are not so barren even when they are the driest.

"Look at me, I haven't introduced myself yet, it's really rude. Two, I am the vice president of the famous 'Burning Stove' Chamber of Commerce nearby, Nobby Norris, who has to eat some food every day Only good food can satisfy the little gluttonous merchants who are sleeping. Although I am greedy for food, business and trade have always been reliable and accurate, and the praise has been resounding all over the place."

Kiel waved his hand, not wanting to have any more contact with the other party at all: "Leave the introduction aside, let's get back to business. Now there are two waves of people, and there is only one business route. So, whoever gets out of the way will go first?"

The two people on the opposite side looked at each other, and the middle-aged fat businessman named Nobby immediately put on a smile and said: "Look at what you said, you are a knight, and what you do is to take care of those refugees who escaped farming. People with high moral character are of course the priority to cross the road. This is what the world should do!"

Beside, 'Blue Dog' Nus secretly tugged at the corner of the caravan steward's exposed cloak, and reminded in a low voice: "Our carriage has already turned around, and this wild trade road, if the heavy-duty carriage leaves the road, it will get stuck. In the wild."

But the middle-aged businessman ignored the whisper of the captain of the guard at all, and continued to say with a smile on his face: "I will order the carriage to pull over quickly, and you and the refugees under you will go first, first."

Kiel snorted, his sensitive ears heard the other party's private words clearly, but he didn't say anything, just thanked him verbally, and then he turned back and walked towards the team with Priest Batar.

The other two waited for Kiel and the two of them to ride away, and immediately returned to the carriage team with twenty guard riders.

Afterwards, the young refugees who were resting on the ground were commanded and urged by one after another. They got up from the ground one after another, carried the supplies on their backs, carried the wooden sticks that bound the heavy objects on their shoulders, and lined up in a loose formation, waiting to gather together The crowd once again pulled into a long line and set off on the road.

"Batar, please go to the back of the team to watch and command the team there. Haha, you are not still annoyed that the other party ignores you, right?"

Kiel said with a smile.

Priest Batar smiled apologetically, but then a worried expression appeared on his face: "This is not right. It is not that I have not dealt with high-level businessmen from some local chambers of commerce before. They should not be like this. Although the Saturnalia Church and There are not many contacts with caravan merchants, but they are not too few. Many villages have special products that can be purchased by small traveling merchants and sold in distant cities, and villages around the world also rely on small caravans that sell various sundries There are actually a lot of support and connections. Behind these small businessmen and small caravans are the support of big chambers of commerce in various places.”

He pursed his lips: "But this is obviously a slippery and experienced businessman, shouldn't be so obvious that he doesn't talk to me, contact. There must be something wrong!"

But he didn't know exactly what was wrong, and he couldn't guess without guessing, so he rode to the back of the team muttering.

Kiel shook his head, and walked in front of the armed people in the front row, letting them line up in a long and slender queue, trying to make the queue as thin and long as possible, and then quickly and preferentially cross the trade road that the caravan carriage gave way to.

-

On the other side, the middle-aged caravan steward led the caravan guards back to the heavy-duty carriages parked on the trade road.

At this time, he put away the professional smile he had specially performed, and when passing by the carriages waiting for orders with a blank face, he sent abnormal orders to the drivers of each carriage: "Turn the direction of the carriage again, and drive the carriage to the road at the same time." In the wild fields on both sides! Hurry up! Don't argue! I don't want to hear how troublesome it is for the wheels to get out of the ruts. A little bit, be quicker, don't let those guys who don't even dare to plant the land and only know how to run away from the whole village look down upon them."

The caravan drivers include his own driver from the chamber of commerce he belongs to, and there are also hired professional caravan drivers. He dares to say a few words to his own driver who is in charge of a chamber of commerce, but the hired driver dare not even speak back. They do what others say.

No matter how outrageous the order is, it's troublesome.

The long whip was waving, and the sturdy carriage pulled by two strong horses immediately turned the direction of the carriage with great difficulty, and then drove out of the trade road with two rutted grooves, driving the long carriage to the soft road beside the road. In the field.

As soon as the car came in, it sank immediately. Thanks to the heavy-duty carriage of the 'Burning Furnace' Chamber of Commerce, many vulnerable parts of the carriage were reinforced with metal parts, so the sudden sinking of the car was only slightly After shaking, the wide iron-clad wheels stepped steadily into the soft ground.

The middle-aged steward took the staff to check back and forth, and confirmed that the full iron ingots did not fall off, and the reinforced ropes tightly bound the cargo boxes, so he nodded in satisfaction, and personally led the people to the trade road On the side, smiling faces piled up again.

Because the knight was at the forefront, the refugee procession came.

-

Kiel led dozens of armed people in the front of the team and approached the caravan that gave way to the trade route.

Seeing that the other party did give way quickly and without compromise, it was obvious that the carriage was heavy and huge, and those who gave way were usually people on foot, but the other party did it so well, and Kiel also showed a smile.

He lifted his steel mask, revealing his youthful face, showing his smiling face to the fat middle-aged businessman.

Kiel waved his hand, and the other party immediately bowed down on the horse and saluted.

The other party looked at the team led by Kiel intentionally, and Kiel also carefully looked at the other party's carriage parked outside the road.

The carriages of the Burning Furnace Chamber of Commerce are all rare heavy-duty freight carriages with wide wheels, which can reduce the ground pressure on the road when carrying heavy loads, thus bringing better passability.

At the same time, painted metal reinforcements can be seen everywhere in this carriage, not an ordinary carriage made entirely of wood and nails.

It is not a single horse that pulls the cart, but two strong, low-slung professional draft horses are responsible for pulling the cart.

These poor guys are all wearing blindfolds. Except for the horses in the front carriage that can see the road, the other horses wear blindfolds, and they only listen to the small metal bell hanging from the tail of the carriage in front as instructions.

This relieves a lot of the workload of the drivers, who do not need to use long driving whips to command the two horses at all times. Only when turning, the drivers need to flick their whips to make the sound of instructions, or lightly twitch the horse's hips to indicate acceleration when accelerating.

At the same time, the fat middle-aged businessman was also smiling, while carefully looking at the hundreds of young refugees passing by him.

"They are all young people, and a knight, a pastor of the Saturnalia Church, has a mysterious purpose, interesting, very interesting. The parish of the Saturnalia Church in Borisfa City is not doing nothing for nothing."

He whispered to himself, and Nus, the "blue dog" next to him, asked suspiciously, "My lord, what did you say?"

"It's nothing, Nuss, nothing. Hope we get back with this show when we get back this trip. Dismount all your men, get out the ropes, attach the horses to the wagons, and help pull. Look. , the wheels are sunk in the soft soil."

The armed people behind the refugee team also quickly passed the area of ​​the caravan carriage, and the people in the caravan immediately began to complain about trying to redirect the carriage to the solid trade road.

-

Keir's team went on for two more days without incident.

Every day, everyone relies on the plentiful grains "gifted by God" of the Batar priest to fill their stomachs. The vegetable food seized from the bandits is used as an additional material in the porridge, and a small amount is added as a condiment.

The stinky salted fish that Kiel disliked very much, unexpectedly, the refugee youths liked it very much. Because the southern province is mountainous and watery, most of the villages are settled along the river, so they never eat less river fish, but they are used to eating this.

However, food preservation in inland mountainous areas has always been a big problem. Fortunately, there is no shortage of coarse salt, and there is enough salt. Villages from all over the world invariably pickled excess fat river fish with salt, and used it as an extra 'delicious' food when food was scarce in winter, mixed with dried soybean flour, dried wild vegetables and a lot of root plants.

Unlike the fresh wild animals obtained in spring, summer and autumn, which are all chopped and boiled to ensure food safety when cooking, salted fish does not have to worry about the existence of parasites in animal meat.

Therefore, when you eat it, you can fully enjoy the taste of firm meat, even if the taste of salted fish is better than nothing.

Keir doesn't like this stuff, it's salty and hard, and it also has a bitter smell from internal organs that haven't been cleaned during production. Therefore, in addition to eating monster jerky that was hard enough to sharpen steel swords, he drank more wheat porridge with wild honey.

He doesn't eat much honey. Apart from enjoying a little with his two companions every day, he uses it as a reward for the hard-working refugee youth, or the middle-aged businessman Lon Barford who is busy every day.

In addition, the most capable loggers in the wood will also receive a large pitcher of honey water sweetened with honey.

Kiel also baked many honey-eating bee pupae by himself. Although these sweet-smelling bee pupae looked weird, they were especially loved by Priest Batar.

In the past two days, his face is always worried, and it is rare to see him eating happily. He is always muttering that he wants to promote this new delicacy in the church, so as to add more to the beekeepers exclusive to the church. A means of making money and getting rich.

"Those rich and powerful people will like this thing. Although it's a bit weird, I think those ladies and ladies will like this sweet taste?"

Keel always shrugged, thinking that his companion was wishful thinking, and no one would take the initiative to eat this thing. The first bite of roasted bee pupa that the priest ate was only accepted after Keel forced it into the priest's mouth and let him taste it.

In the past two days, Kiel has found more than one peeping eyes from the shadows of the woods under the mountains on the north and south sides of the trade road more than once.

For some bandits with excellent hiding skills, Kiel can only vaguely feel that there is something wrong, and some bandits who have not been working for a few years, Kiel uses the reflection of metal objects on their bodies from a long distance, Accurately found the hiding place.

Then he rode a horse and approached quickly, so that the opponent had no time to run away, and he was killed by throwing the captured javelin or shooting the bow and arrow.

Of course the dead were taken back, the weapons and equipment were unloaded and replaced by their own people, and the corpses of the bandits were dragged behind the carriage, and when the camp was set up in the evening, a separate fire away from the camp was arranged to burn the corpses.

It is estimated that hundreds of people in the refugee team were initially armed, so even though many snooping scout bandits were found and killed by Kiel, those bandit gangs hiding in the deep woods did not come out to avenge their own people.

Of course, it is also possible that the bandit team here is a small team of more than ten people, and there is no bandit gang with dozens of people just after leaving the Baishi city wall checkpoint. Therefore, the leaders of these bandits also lack the reputation and courage to unite other teams.

Not everyone can convince the other brutal bandits who are also the leader of the bandit gang like Barney the mountain wolf, and unite a team of hundreds of people to attack Kiel and the others.

Therefore, the team led by Priest Kiir and Batar finally crossed the trade road between the north and south mountain ranges that took several days to walk, and officially arrived at the ruling boundary of the southern province.

The first stop was Dorne Town, which was built on a small plain where the line of sight suddenly opened up.

Kiel and the others, who had just walked out of the bandit-filled business road, raised their heads and could see less than a kilometer away, the place where black and gray smoke was rising, without the protection of tall and solid walls, or where dilapidated or gorgeous buildings gathered , and around the town, there are large and small agricultural plots of various shapes and sizes, and there is no organized force that organizes and manages it neatly - Dorne Town.

"What is my first impression of the southern province, Lothar, guess what?"

Kiel jokingly joked to the priest Batar who was riding beside him.

The priest looked helpless: "I don't guess, this place is a great shame for the entire province, especially when it is placed in the first place of the province just now. If it can be moved to another remote place, I think the land under our feet, maybe the level of chaos can be permanently lowered by one level."

Xueyasite, who was driving in the carriage, smiled and said, "Priest Batar, you may think so, but I believe that the people in that town don't think so. Kiel, there are nearby Best food and wine! I can't wait to eat tonight, how about you?"

Keir's eyes lit up, nothing to say, birds have faded out of his mouth these two days. Just in need of thick and grainy beer to fill his stomach. Although Knight Crowe had reminded him that a real knight needs to drink as little alcohol as possible.

But Keir had forgotten all about it at this time, and Knight Crowe said so, taught him so, Sir Knight himself usually drinks a lot, at least every night at dinner, Baron Kendall, Crowe The three of them, Knight Law and Knight Rumi, would kill a bottle of high-end wine that the Baron carried with him every time.

Occasionally a bottle of golden cider.

Although most of them were killed by the baron and his close attendants, the two knights also had limited drinking.

Kiel rubbed his hands and immediately announced loudly: "Go ahead, find a place to camp outside Dorne tonight! Merchant Barford! Is the list of goods I asked you to prepare ready?"

The middle-aged businessman quickly ran to the front of the team, raised his hands high above his head, and immediately ran over to deliver a well-prepared sales receipt to Knight Kiel.

-

At the same time, Dorne Town in the afternoon was still a chaotic and noisy afternoon.

Although there is a lack of many large and small caravans here compared to the previous good times, it seems a little less popular, but the gray and black businessmen who are interested know that Dorne Town is not as depressed as it looks on the surface in recent times. On the contrary, the black market Trade volumes surged.

Because with the decrease in the number of transit caravans, the bandit gangs who robbed the caravans for their livelihoods gradually could not maintain their lives in the mountains, so they had to let all the bandits carry all kinds of large and small bags of supplies in the gang, and put the bad things in the past. The looted goods that were sold, or that were reluctant to be sold, were brought out of their lair, and they were exchanged at a low price for the last sum of money they could get in their hands in Dorne Town, a stinking puddle full of blood-stained wealth.

Then find a way out.

Some bandit leaders have a dark heart, relying on words and past trust to trick their bandits into waiting outside the trading place with peace of mind, while they themselves are negotiating to package and sell the goods. Leave a group of stinky and messy animal skins and one or two stupid bandits standing on the streets of Dorne Town.

Most of these guys will wait for a long time before finally confirming that they were tricked by the leader, so they will make a big fuss if they want to kill.

But Dorn Town didn't have many other things. With an iron sword in his hand, there were the most strong men who knew nothing but killing skills.

Which store doesn't have twenty or thirty thugs sitting in the town to watch the store?

Which shop does not have a thick wall and gate to prevent robbery?

Once the door of the shop, which is as thick as a city gate, is closed, if you are inside, don't try to run away; if you are outside, don't even try to break in. UU reading www.uukanshu.com

Therefore, the stupid bandits with hot blood had no choice but to retreat into the stinky ditch of the "smelly ditch", choosing to sell the only valuable weapon in their hands in exchange for a piece of money to leave, or choose to be like everyone else, the first time Think of yourself as a commodity chosen to be purchased, waiting to be picked up by a chamber of commerce to become a new thug, and then die in a certain dispute between the chambers of commerce for trade opportunities one day.

Or, being spotted by the leader of a bandit gang who came to pick people from other places, he fled to another place and started anew in a new bandit gang.

At this time, on the top of a striking wooden slender tower on the west side of the town, a man smelling of alcohol was waking up from the warm spring sunshine. From the cloak, he took out a dirty gray lady's towel, dipped it in the ale without foam in the nearby glass, and then wiped his chin and cheeks covered with stubble with the wet towel.

The cool liquor brought him back to his senses, which reminded him part of his job duties, and the scruffy man put his puffy eye sockets on an expensive wooden binocular glass that stood on the top of the tower. .

The arm swings the long wooden tube, pulling the magnified perspective towards the sky to the lush ground.

Afterwards, the man froze for a moment, and murmured: "No way, an army from the north just passed by a few days ago, and it came again today? Those noble gentlemen in the capital of the province really, really, uh, have a lot of friends. !"

Then, he came back to his senses and quickly rang the copper alarm bell on another wooden post.

Ding ding ding! Ding ding ding! Ding ding ding!

Three consecutive bells rang throughout the town.

Then it was all over again.

Again.