Att took a short spear picked up from Odo and poked the unconscious bandit leader a few times with the tip of the spear. After confirming that there was no danger, he walked over, took off the bandit leader's belt and tied his hands tightly behind his back. He then asked Odo to bandage Ron briefly and then go to guard the surroundings.
Yat himself took off the water bag from his waist, took off the bucket helmet of the bandit leader, and poured the water in the bag from the head of the bandit leader.
The bandit leader was awakened by the cold water. He opened his eyes in a daze. He looked up and saw a guy holding a sword facing him. If he looked carefully, he was the guy who was fighting at the fort gate just now. The bandit leader backed away in shock. When he wanted to get up and escape, he found that his hands were tied behind his back. After struggling for a few times, he gave up resistance.
Matt pointed the tip of his sword at the bandit leader and said, "Stop struggling, you can't escape."
The bandit leader stared at Art fiercely, with a murderous look on his face. Art didn't talk nonsense to the bandit leader, and cut off the bandit leader's left ear with a sword. The bandit leader was rolling on the ground in pain, and the anger on his face was instantly replaced by the fear of death. He begged for mercy: "Sir, please, please let me go."
"Let you go? Do you know? Your head can be exchanged for at least five hundred pfennigs."
"Sir, I have money, I will give you money." The bandit leader wanted to cover his ears with his hands, but he couldn't free his hands.
"I want your money, but I don't need you to give it to me. We will get it ourselves." Art said and pretended to cut off the other ear of the bandit leader.
The bandit leader pressed his head against the fort wall, looking at the bloody sword in Art's hand with fear, and begged with a cry: "Sir, I have more money - a lot - only I know where it is hidden?"
Matt stopped the sword that was about to be chopped off, and asked sternly: "Where is it? Tell me quickly"
The bandit leader seized a glimmer of hope, and the panic in his heart was relieved. He regained some sense, swallowed a gulp of saliva, looked at the fortress wall above his head and said: "Sir, You let me climb over the fortress wall first, and I'll tell you after I climb over the fortress wall, I can't take the money with me anyway."
Didn't Art know the cunning of the fox? He didn't give the bandit leader an answer at all, and directly stabbed the bandit leader's thigh with his sword. He held the hilt of the sword in his right hand and twisted it. The bandit leader grinned in pain and his face was twisted.
"If you don't say anything, you won't have the legs to escape."
"I said! I said! The property is buried under the stable next to the lord's wooden house, under the stable~"
After receiving the answer, Art no longer twisted the long sword inserted in the bandit leader's thigh.
"I'll ask you one more question, and after I answer it, I'll let you go." Art pulled out the long sword stuck in the bandit leader's leg.
The bandit leader seemed to see the hope of survival in Art's eyes, and quickly replied: "Sir, if you ask, I will tell you everything I know."
Ate put his head close to the bandit leader. "Why do you want to capture Alsburg? Don't tell me you want to plunder the property here."
Matt put his sword against the head of the bandit leader, and his eyes showed murderous intent: "I said, don't say that you dare to capture Alsburg just for wealth."
The leader of the bandit is indeed a big bandit in the Poje Mountains. At the beginning of last summer, a guy came to the bandit den in the Poje Mountains and claimed to be the knight of the palace guard of the Duke of Swabia Hohenzollern. He brought a seal from the palace of the Principality of Swabia...
It turns out that the Principality of Swabia was instigated by the Principality of Lombardy in the south and wanted to expand its territory to the County of Burgundy in the west. However, the two countries have not been at war for many years. Swabia first wanted to test the reaction of the County of Burgundy and the Principality of Burgundy behind it. If it sent troops to invade the territory, it would worry about the Count of Burgundy and its neighbors. The powerful Principality of Burgundy behind them raised troops to fight, so bandits and bandits became the best choice for the Principality of Swabia to test Burgundy's reaction. In addition to the bandits in the Poge Mountains, there were a group of bandits and bandits from all over the north who were bribed by the Principality of Swabia and captured some small and medium-sized villages and outposts.
According to the bandit leader's account, the knight told him that if he could lead his men to capture and defend Alsburg at the foot of the Poge Mountains, the Principality of Swabia would confer the bandit leader as a lifelong knight and grant him Alsburg as a fief. After that, the knight came to the bandits' lair many times with weapons and supplies, and also helped train the bandits.
In the early autumn of last year, the bandit leader successfully captured Alsburg under the command of the knight. After they burned, killed and looted the fort for a period of time, the knight strictly ordered them not to plunder or destroy the village fort again. So they then began to repair and strengthen the fort wall, and deliberately let go of some fleeing farmers so that the Burgundian court could learn the news of the fall of Alsburg as soon as possible. But a long time passed, and they only waited for Baron Antayas to arrive with a few city guards and ten or twenty peasant soldiers. They fought back the enemies who tried to seize the fort several times, and the knight also returned to Swabia with the conclusion that Burgundy did not pay much attention to the border.
At the beginning of the year, after learning that Baron Antayas was successively summoning territorial troops, the bandit leader continued to recruit troops from various bandit dens in the Boze Mountains, with his followers reaching nearly fifty people. He also moved his bandit den to Alsburg and determined to defend "his territory" to the death, and then waited for the canonization promised by the palace of the Principality of Swabia.
However, he did not expect to be lurked into the castle by Art's patrol team...
.........
"So, you are just a pawn planted by the Principality of Swabia on the border of Burgundy?" Art was shocked when he heard this.
"Yes, my lord, the knight said that this place will be an outpost for their attack on the County of Burgundy~" In the face of saving his life, the bandit leader no longer cares about keeping secrets.
"Hmm~" Matt nodded in thought.
“Then do you have any other property?” Art recovered from his thoughts and asked the bandit leader with a smile.
The bandit leader was puzzled for a while, "Sir, what do you mean?"
"I agree to let you go, but there are two men over there, and they haven't agreed yet. You have to pay them to buy your life~"
"Bastard, you soulless devil..." Knowing that he was being tricked, the bandit leader suddenly became furious.
Matt called Ron, who was on the guard post not far away, and ordered: "Shut up this guy forever before others arrive." After saying that, he walked towards the battlefield at the fort gate, ignoring the curses and screams coming from behind...
At the moment when he was interrogating the bandit leader, the battle at the fort gate was coming to an end. Baron Antayas personally led his troops to climb up the fort wall and followed the battle path of the fort wall to surround the bandits in the fort. The bandits who lost their leader quickly gave up resistance.
When the battle was completely over at noon, apart from those who died in battle and those who were massacred because the soldiers vented their anger, there were still about twenty bandits left in Alsburg.
After capturing Alsburg, Baron Antayas sent city guards to patrol around and severely punished several peasant soldiers who made trouble and looted property. It was not until the afternoon that the red-eyed soldiers regained some sense and composure. Alsburg, which had been sounding the killing all morning, finally became quiet.
The next step is to treat the wounded soldiers and deal with the aftermath.
After a quick and fierce siege of the fort, the attacking side led by Baron Antayas killed fifteen people, seriously injured ten people, and injured more than thirty people lightly. The casualties were heavy, and more than half of the casualties were temporarily recruited peasant soldiers; while the defenders only lost thirty-two people, including nine prisoners who were killed after the war because the soldiers vented their anger. Judging from the battle losses on both sides, it was almost two and a half siege soldiers for one bandit. Such a battle loss ratio occurred when the bandits were attacked from both inside and outside. If the city was really forcibly sieged, it is estimated that half of the soldiers' lives would remain in front of the fort wall forever.
The patrol team that was the first to win this battle benefited from the leather armor and buckler protection provided by Baron Antayas before the war. Afterwards, only two soldiers in the team who participated in the sneak attack were killed in the battle, but the number of injured was as high as nine. Seven of them were soldiers who captured the door inside the fort, and the other two were injured by stones and boiling water while covering the city outside the fort. The nine people who participated in the sneak attack to seize the door were all injured. Kazak had half of his fingers cut off, Bass's calf was cut with an ax and almost broke the bone, Ron was hit with a sword in the chest and cut through his leather armor, and even Art himself was cut open on the arm by a short spear at the fort gate... Fortunately, the remaining seven people in the sneak attack were not fatally injured, but a guy outside the city who was covering the city and was scalded by boiling excrement water was in danger of life.
Matt looked at the wounded soldiers and corpses on the ground, and ordered the few people following him: "Kazak, you are responsible for handling the dead and seriously injured soldiers. Find a quiet place to bandage them. Go and bandage them yourself." Walking towards the two-story lord's wooden house in the center of Alsburg, Ron picked five soldiers and quickly followed... In a dry wooden house in front of the main entrance of Alsburg, two Als villagers who had been rescued by Baron Antayas were taking care of the wounded soldiers who had been simply bandaged. There was a bonfire burning in the house, and a pot of thick soup was boiling on the bonfire.
Touba took off his thick leather armor and sat by the wall of the wooden house, soaking in water and sharpening the chipped tomahawk on a small grindstone. The sharpening motion was a little too wide, which caused some cracks in his bandaged leg wound. He hissed in his mouth and quickly adjusted his posture.
Beside Tuba lay a soldier whose head was wrapped in a thick layer of linen. The blood had soaked out and condensed into dark black blood stains and scabs. The wounded soldier had just woken up and struggled to get up to drink water.
"Colin, you bastard is so damn lucky, you were hit on the head with a heavy hammer and you didn't die." Tuba put down the long sword and battle ax in his hand, half-supported Colin with his left hand, and picked up a bowl of warm broth on the ground with his right hand and brought it to Colin's mouth. Colin opened his mouth slightly and took a sip, turned his head and looked around, and asked softly: "Where did the short man go?"
Tuba put down the wooden bowl and picked up the tomahawk again and started sharpening it. After a while, he replied in a low voice: "The short man has been summoned by God."
Colin felt uncomfortable in his heart. At the most critical moment of the battle to seize the door in the morning, he was hit by a heavy hammer. If the short man beside him hadn't blocked the successive heavy blows for him, he should have been lying in another place now.
Listening to the groaning and howling wounded soldiers in the wooden house, Colin felt for the first time that living was so happy, and then he felt palpitations for the rest of his life.
The broken door of the wooden house was pushed open, and a lame soldier walked in with a few fermented wheat bread mixed with hops. He placed one next to the wounded soldiers one by one and said, "This is the fine wheat bread that my lord has found for you. Eat something good first. I will see you later."
The two of them were familiar with this stupid soldier. Seeing him limping, Tuba stopped his movements, raised his head and asked, "Jason, you idiot, are you going to hurt your legs and feet if you hold on to the wooden ladder outside the fort?" He gave it to Tuba and Colin, then he touched his head and said with a silly smile: "Isn't that right? I was hit on the sole of my foot by a stone thrown from the fort wall. It's okay. No bones were injured."
Looking at Jason's leaving figure, Tuba muttered: "It's nice to be a fool and still laugh after everything is like this~"
"These bastards really think we are fools. This place has become a bandit's nest. How can we only have so little property?" Odo said angrily.
After the battle, when Art took Ron and a few soldiers to the two-story wooden house in the fort that served as the bandit's base camp, a large group of people were already fighting for property inside. Baron Antayas personally brought the guards to mediate and promised to fairly distribute the seized property, which stabilized the situation. After an inventory of the property found in the two-story wooden house afterwards, it was not enough to cover the extravagant expenses of this military expedition. Odo suspected that Baron Antayas or the knights who arrived first had hidden most of the gold and silver.
Att walked out of the wooden house and came to the stable next to the wooden house. He lifted up his leather skirt and peed. Then he said to Odo who was following him: "Odo, let me tell you a secret..."