To the southwest of Lane, a group of refugees were pulling a long queue on the muddy north-south trade road, slowly moving toward the southern border of Burgundy with their families in tow.
Scott Feld walked out of the team and stood on a stone by the roadside, looking ahead of the team. At the end of the road, the outline of the village could be vaguely seen.
"Emma, there is a village not far ahead. If you hold on a little longer, we can drink broth and eat wheat porridge there." Scott ran back to the team, helped his wife from his son's hand, and touched her forehead to encourage him.
"Dad, I'm hungry. When can we stop and have something to eat." The skinny daughter gently tugged at the corner of Scott's clothes and cried.
“Camille, my little baby, we’ll be there in a little while. There will be thick mutton soup and a big plate of pea puree waiting for you.” Scott took out a hand and wiped the tears on Camille’s muddy face.
"Ron, give me the package and put your sister on your back. Let's walk faster and get ahead. If we arrive late, we might not have anything to eat." Scott turned his head and reached out to take the big package from his son Ron's shoulder. The pretended relief on his face disappeared immediately.
Scott is a farmer on the outskirts of Verno, south of Provence. Three months ago, Duke Witote led thousands of troops to surround Wilno. The Scott family followed the lord and fled to Aosta. Soon the bad news came that Wilno had fallen. Thousands of city residents and farmers were either massacred or turned into slaves of the Lombards. Later, news came that the enemy troops were marching north to Aosta. The Scott family had to continue fleeing north before they could take a breath...
Three months later, the Scott family had fled to the north of Provence, and news of the city's fall continued to come from the south. After making a difficult decision, Scott decided to take his family across the vast wilderness of the north and escape to the County of Burgundy. The Count of Burgundy did not go to war with Lombardy, so it might be safer. As a result, the Scott family and a group of refugees who had the same idea began to cross the vast wilderness of the north. Along the way, refugees continued to join in twos and threes. The team fleeing north gradually grew larger. By the time they arrived at the southern border of Burgundy, the team of refugees fleeing north had already numbered hundreds of people. Most of them were like the Scott family. They had eaten all their food, their clothes were torn, and their soles were worn out.
Scott's wife started to feel hot on her forehead three days ago. She ate up the few oats left in the grain bag and her money bag was already empty. However, even if she had money at this time, it was useless. No one would buy life-saving grain to others during the escape. No matter how much money they gave, they could not buy a grain of wheat. The edible wild grasses and vegetables along the way had long been plucked by the people who had passed by before, and the wolves howling all night around them did not have the courage to leave the group and forage alone. The six-year-old daughter and the seventeen-year-old son were starving...
A small village was ahead. Maybe the refugees there could have a sip of thin porridge mixed with wheat bran...
The team sped up. Scott supported his wife, who could no longer walk, and urged his son who was following him through the crowded crowd.
Soon as we were about to reach the head of the team, the front suddenly stopped. Scott put down the package on his back, leaned his wife against the package, told Ron to take care of his mother and sister, then pushed through the crowd and squeezed to the front.
The sight in front of him stunned him.
Three or four riders wearing leather armor and holding short spears stood astride the horse. In front of the rider stood a bearded man sitting upright on horseback, wrapped in iron armor, with a long sword slung at his waist. Behind them stood a row of fierce-looking soldiers holding spears. Behind the spear soldiers there were several archers with bows and arrows.
This group of people blocked the direction of the refugee army.
"You untouchables who have lost your home and country, if you dare to take another step forward, I will make you fall into hell forever." The bearded man roared to the crowd menacingly.
The crowd fell silent for a while.
“Sir, please, we have been walking for almost half a month and finally got out of the wasteland. Please let us pass...” Finally, an old man with a white beard had the courage to step forward and plead with the bearded man in common language.
The bearded man understood what the old man said, kicked the horse's belly, and slowly walked towards the old man. The old man took half a step back, paused, and took another step forward.
The bearded man drove his horse up to the old man, circled around the old man, raised his ugly face covered with scars and glanced at the crowd opposite.
Suddenly his expression changed, he pulled out his long sword, and struck the old man hard. A cloud of blood spurted out from the old man's neck, covering his bearded face...
The crowd burst into panic.
The bearded blood sword swung forward, and the soldiers behind him rushed towards the crowd~
"Ron, quickly carry your sister on your back and run south. Throw everything away, run quickly." When the bearded man drove his horse towards the old man, Scott noticed the killing intent in his eyes. He pushed away the crowd and returned to his family, picked up Emma, called Ron and hurriedly got off the road, escaped from the crowd and ran towards the south.
Just less than thirty steps away from the team, there was a burst of panic in the crowd, followed by screams and cries, and the crowd began to run away...
………
At sunset, there were more than a dozen shivering refugees standing in the open space in front of Lane Manor. They were the survivors of the massacre during the day. A dozen heavily armed soldiers were standing behind them. A fat, bald man was standing on a stone slab and lecturing loudly in common language.
The bald man showed a fierce look and said sternly: "Listen up, you bastards. As long as you work obediently in the manor, my master will spare your life. If anyone dares to escape, the master's sword needs blood and meat!"
In the hall of the manor, Baron Bazel was tearing into a leg of lamb at this time. He was in a good mood today. After killing a large number of old and weak slaves, he got a dozen young and strong slaves. These slaves were very strong. He did not intend to send them to the slave market in Tyniec, but to stay and reclaim the wasteland near Lane Manor for him.
"Sir, all the slaves have signed the deed of sale. Congratulations on getting another batch of good animals." The bald butler walked up to Baron Baron to flatter him.
"Hmm~Kus, your idea is very good. After killing the old and weak, the remaining slaves will be strong slaves. They can double the fertile land of Lane Manor." Baron Bazel drank another large glass of light beer.
"Sir, I think we need to let these bastards starve for a few days, so that they will be obedient." The bald butler offered another sinister "good idea."
"Well, you're right, I'll do as you say. If anyone resists, drag them out and chop them down!" Baron Baron didn't care about the life or death of the slaves.
"By the way, sir, I have chosen one of the women I caught during the day and sent it to your room." The bald man added with a lewd smile.
Listening to the sound of a woman crying from the bedroom, Bazel drank another glass of beer, touched his big belly, and laughed...
…………
Seventy miles southeast of Lane, a wooden house in an unnamed valley.
"Master, you really don't need to go, I can do it by myself." Cooper tried to dissuade Art, who wanted to plant winter wheat with him.
"Okay, I've told you not to continue to open up wasteland and expand the land. You have to go. Now that you have opened up such a large piece of land, why don't you just leave it empty? Besides, didn't you say that wheat can't be planted in the fields these days, and there will be no harvest next year?" Art sat on the stone at the door of the wooden house, holding a pair of worn-out sheepskin short boots in his hand and putting them on.
"Today we will only choose the most fertile piece of land left to sow, and we will replant the rest later. Tomorrow you and I will go to the northern wasteland for a walk. The guy said before he died that three of his accomplices fled in other directions with most of the gold cakes. I plan to try my luck." As Art said, he carried a large bag of wheat seeds and walked out of the door.
The old man responded, quickly picked up the hoe, hurriedly closed the wooden door, and quickly caught up with the mud-legged man...
Forty miles north of the wooden house in the Nameless Valley, a huge pile of rocks standing in the vast wilderness has become increasingly lively recently. Last winter, a hunter and a dying old man spent the night here; this autumn, four hooded riders and seven or eight light cavalry fought here; now, it is about to welcome its third group of guests.
Scott looked at the huge pile of rocks, unable to hide the despair in his eyes.
They have been walking nervously in this endless wilderness for two days. Except for occasionally seeing a group of wilderness antelope in the distance, there are no people around. Every night, there are howling wolves in the distance.
In fact, less than 5 miles to the west of the boulder pile was the trade road they came from. However, by this time they had become a group of lost sheep. They wandered along the north-south trade road for two days and still could not find the road.
"Ron, come here and help your mother, I'll go take a look at that pile of rocks." Scott handed his seriously ill wife into his son's hands, pulled out a self-defense bladed iron blade from his waist, lowered his waist and walked towards the pile of rocks.
After a while, Scott waved to Ron from the other side of the pile of rocks to take his mother and sister over.
"Ron, please be patient and pick up more dead branches and hay from the surrounding area. Your mother can't walk anymore. We will rest here tonight. There is a pile of ashes here, which means that someone has been here. There may be a village nearby. I will go around and dig some wild vegetables and weeds. Maybe I can catch one or two hares." Scott ordered his son who was slumped aside.
"Camille, can you take care of your mother for me?" He squatted down and touched his wife Emma, who was sitting next to the boulder, and turned to his daughter.
"My dear, I feel much better, you go ahead~" Emma managed to raise her hand, which was as thin as a dead branch, and patted Scott gently...
.........
The next morning, before the sun had risen, Art and Old Cooper set off early.
Ever since Art unexpectedly captured the war horse, the green mule has become Old Cooper's ride. Cooper didn't like riding horses very much, but he dealt with the green mule every day, and now he could barely ride on the back of the mule and walk quickly.
Yate wears leather armor, carries a long sword on his waist, rides a bow with an ox horn on the left side of a maroon saddle, and carries a sheepskin quiver on the right. Old Cooper wore a long linen gown, a tanned leather belt around his waist, a dagger, and a hunting bow and light arrows hung on the front of the green mule's saddle.
"Master, after so many days, can we still find traces of those people?" Cooper followed Art on a mule, carefully avoiding the branches on both sides of the dense forest path.
"I'm not sure, but we can first go to the pile of boulders in the north of the wilderness and search eastward from there. If we can't find any trace, we can go south to the Wolf's Nest Canyon to have a look. Maybe the wolf traps there can surprise us." Art stood up in the stirrups and looked ahead through the dense forest. After walking for a while, they would be able to leave the dense forest and enter the wilderness.
In the pile of boulders, Scott was turning over a prairie rat on a stick on the fire. A strong smell of burnt aroma filled the surroundings of the fire.
"Dad, is it done?" Camille had asked several times while swallowing her saliva.
"Come, Camille, try to see if it's done first." Scott pinched off a piece of meat from the roast rat, which was not much bigger than Camille's fist, and placed it on Camille's palm.
Yesterday, Scott walked around the boulder in a large circle without any human presence. Before dark, he only brought a handful of wild vegetables back to the boulder pile. As darkness fell, the family beside the fire could not sleep due to one or two wolf howls in the distance.
Early this morning, Ron went out to find water and ran back happily with a prairie rat in his hand.
At noon, Scott and his whole family gathered around Emma with a roasted rat and a handful of wild vegetables. She had been ill for several days and had not had enough to eat, and now she could no longer move forward.
Scott called his son aside.
"Ron, you are seventeen years old and already a man. Now, I want you to take Camille and continue walking south until you encounter a village or castle. Remember to take your sister to survive." Scott could not leave his wife who had been with him for more than ten years, but he did not want Ron and Camille to stay here to die together.
"No, Dad, I'm not leaving." Ron held back his tears. Camille beside him had already burst into tears.
"Scott, my dear, please take the children away. As long as the children can survive...I...I will feel at ease even if I die~" Emma forced her eyelids open and said to Scott in a weak voice...
As the family was parting, a rush of horse hooves came from the south of the wasteland.
Scott quickly stopped the children from crying, took out the iron plate from his waist, climbed up a boulder, and looked in the direction of the sound of horse hooves in the south.
I saw two figures on horseback running towards the boulder in the distance~
"Ron, quickly, take Camille and run to the low land to the east, lower your body, run quickly, leave us alone~" Scott slid down the boulder, handed the iron piece to Ron's hand, took out the water bag and fire sickle in the rag clothes, patted Ron's arms, and pushed Ron to the east.
But it was too late, the man on horseback reached the pile of boulders in an instant.
At first noticed someone in the pile of boulders, he raised his bow and arrow and pointed it at the man holding a small iron knife. Cooper also noticed someone and hurriedly took out his hunting bow.
The man tried his best to block the woman and child behind him with his body, and the right hand holding the knife began to tremble uncontrollably. After a stalemate for a while, the man fell to his knees with a plop.
"Master, please, please let my family go, we have nothing left~" The man begged with a crying southern accent, his head kept hitting the ground, making a thumping sound.
Art glanced at the man on the ground and the woman and child behind him, turned the horse's head, and said: "Cooper, let's go!"
Cooper also lowered his hunting bow, glanced blankly at the man kneeling on the ground and the dying woman lying on the ground behind him, pulled the reins and followed Art.
「Master~」
"I know what you want to say, it's impossible. Can you save these people and the countless refugees fleeing north on the east road?" Art interrupted what the old man wanted to say.
The old man was speechless. He turned to look at the man kneeling on the ground and the big boy behind him. After thinking about it, he caught up with Art again.
"Sir, I mean they have two young and strong men. I can take them to cultivate the wasteland for you and grow food to feed you. That way you don't have to go to the fields yourself, and you don't have to work hard to hunt in the mountains~" The old man made his final effort.
Matt paused, turned the horse's head, looked at Cooper with a hopeful face, and then looked at the two men behind him, an old man and a young man...
In the vast expanse of wilderness, a hunter wearing leather armor led a bay horse in front, followed by a green mule carrying a sick woman. An old man led the green mule and a man were talking softly, sighing. A big boy carried a thin little girl on his back. The girl held a small piece of bacon in her little hands. Under the afterglow of the setting sun, the group of people pulled out a long shadow and walked towards the south of the wilderness...