War will never be as impassioned and exciting as the bard said. After the initial excitement, what is left is endless panic and suffering.
On the fifth day after leaving Kitzby, a convoy of more than 120 people drove non-stop and arrived at a small village on the edge of the Aosta war zone in the evening.
It is here that everyone truly feels the power of war to destroy everything.
This village called Hades was originally a large village with more than 200 permanent residents. It was only two days away from the city of Aosta. With the support of the north-south trade road, it became a temporary settlement place for business travelers. If there was no war, this place might become a prosperous trading town in the near future.
Today, the former hotels, taverns, shops, and businesses have all turned into piles of burnt black peat. The flat village roads are covered with brown-red bloodstains left after being washed away by the rain. On the bustling streets in the past, there were only three or two wild dogs with red eyes, beaky mouths and empty stomachs, dragging out the incompletely decomposed corpses among the ruins, tearing them and eating them. The wild dog was almost crazy. It was not afraid of the crowds pouring in beside the ruins. It kept tearing at the corpse, took out the rotten liver, intestines, lungs and lungs from the belly of the corpse and started chewing them~
An arrow flew out from Jason's riding bow and pierced the belly of a wild dog, causing the wild dog to wail and struggle. The other two wild dogs were frightened by the sudden arrow and took two steps back. Their blood-red eyes stared at the group of people not far away. They twitched their noses and made a low sound from their throats. Seeing that there were too many enemies, the two wild dogs faced off with the crowd for a while and had to look at the uneaten corpses before escaping into the ruins~
"Sir, this is too much. I remember that in the early autumn of last year, although there was some chaos here, it was still a prosperous place. However, in more than half a year, this place has turned into a hell." Ron was so shocked by the scene in front of him that he could not speak for a long time.
Att did not answer Ron's words, and followed Baron Balian to kneel down on one knee, holding the cross around his neck, hanging the Holy Cross on his chest, chanting prayers to God in his mouth, and everyone behind him also made signs of the cross and lowered their heads to pray in low voices.
Baron Balian stood up and returned to Ater, and ordered: "The team will camp here tonight. After you arrange the sentries in the evening, you can choose two more clever cavalry to follow me to the south to scout. Now we have entered Lombardy. In the area controlled by the army, be careful and don't be careless in the slightest." Yat took the order and asked: "Sir, should the team find a hidden forest outside the village as a camp? Is it dangerous to camp here?"
Baron Balian looked around and replied: "The Lombard army cannot control all the areas around Aosta, so those bastards turned this place into a scorched ruin. Since they have burned this place, they should not come back easily. You can ask someone to find a few more complete rooms." Let the soldiers all sleep in the house and recuperate. Be careful when lighting the fire, and try to block the fire with the broken walls..."
"Okay, sir!"
Att turned around to make arrangements for camping, resting and scouting.
…..
Night has fallen, and six cavalrymen riding cotton-wrapped warhorse hooves appeared on the commercial road leading to Kalkburg.
Hades is only a day's journey from Fort Kalk, but the closer to the core of the war zone, the greater the possibility of encountering the enemy. In order to prevent the convoy from being targeted by a large number of enemies, Baron Balian decided to take advantage of the night to lead people to find out the enemy's situation.
The three Barons of Balian led Art, Ron, and Jason, who were unfamiliar with the road, to form three two-person sentinel teams. One group went south along the trade road, and the other two groups were two miles away from the trade road and went south to scout. The three groups agreed that they must rush back to Hades before sunrise regardless of whether there is any enemy.
Att and Baron Balian are personally responsible for the most dangerous trade routes.
They drove their horses southward and arrived at a small manor ten miles outside Kalkburg at the zenith of the moon. This was originally the private farm estate of the lord of Kalkburg and was managed by Butler Borg. The main part of the manor was a stone tower about thirty feet high. There were several huts in the low walls under the tower. All the residences outside the wall had been burned and razed to the ground.
There were a few fires in the tall tower, and a few shouts of drunken men floated out.
There were two torches stuck on the wall at the top of the tower. An unlucky guy who had been ostracized by the superior was squatting and dozing by the wall. He smelled the smell of beer and meat floating up from the tower below. The unlucky guy had already cursed them several times in his heart.
The guy with half-squinted eyes did not expect that two heavily armed enemies were already lurking less than two hundred yards outside the manor.
“Sir, is Kalk Castle already besieged? Otherwise, how could a checkpoint be set up here to block the road to Kalk.” Art asked, staring at the manor tower in front of him that served as a checkpoint.
Baron Balian was not sure, but he knew that the Lombard army was insufficient in number and the siege of Aosta was somewhat difficult. How could he still have the strength to send troops to set up a jam here when besieging Fort Kalk.
"Art, I think Kalk is not under siege. I guess they just want to cut off the communication between Kalk and the outside world, so that the people in the fort lose hope of foreign aid, and then concentrate their efforts to attack."
"Let's go around here and go to the front to scout. If there is really no siege, we will come back and find a way to kill these watchdogs~" Baron Balian said.
The two of them returned to the haystacks where the horses were hidden outside the manor, led the horses around the manor, and headed towards Kalk.
As a result, as Baron Balian thought, Kalkburg was not besieged, but the surrounding arteries were successively blocked by the Lombard army. Many surrounding villages were massacred, and the enemy attempted to cut off all supplies of materials and personnel to Kalkburg.
At the time Art and Baron Balian rode back to Hades, the sky had already begun to turn white. The other two groups of sentinels had already returned to Hades.
"Sir, we arrived about a mile outside of Fort Kalk in the middle of the month. We found no enemy checkpoints or patrols along the way. We passed two scattered small settlements, both of which have become ruins. Jason's group was similar."
After confirming that Fort Kalk was not surrounded, Baron Balian summoned his attendants and several commanders of Art's patrol team to discuss in the tent how to pull out the sentry tower blocking the trade route to Fort Kalk...
It was daylight, and after discussion, everyone formulated a more feasible action strategy.
It was close to noon when the southbound convoy lazily broke camp and hit the road. By the time everyone reached a hill two miles north of the manor's sentry tower, the sun had already set, and there were only some dim lights around them under the afterglow of the setting sun.
Most of the convoy stopped and hid in a sheltered place behind a hill, where Touba's team and a retainer of Baron Balian took care of the food and newly recruited soldiers. The remaining members of the patrol, led by Baron Balian, pulled a four-wheeled carriage filled with grain, salt, ale and other goods towards the south side of the road in the direction of the manor.
At dusk, two soldiers holding crossbows on the crenellated wall on the tower of the manor were laughing and talking about their wonderful experiences in the past when they burned, killed, and robbed prostitutes in Provence.
While they were arguing about who had slept with the most women, a four-wheeled carriage and two grooms appeared on the north side of the road.
"Stop!!" A soldier shouted in broken Common Tongue. Another soldier hurried downstairs to report to the checkpoint commander.
The four-wheeled carriage stopped, and shouted towards the manor about forty steps away: "Is this Mr. Borg? We are merchants delivering food to Fort Kalk, please let us pass."
Standing at the door of the manor, the sentry commander in iron scale armor and a pointed iron helmet was so happy that his mouth burst with joy. He had just been stationed here for seven or eight days, and a fat sheep came to the door.
"Haha, Mr. Berg has become a dead dog. You don't need to go to Fort Kalk, just leave the goods here."
The commander's words with an obvious Lombard accent woke up the ignorant coachmen. They realized that this place had been occupied by Lombard enemy troops, and quickly turned their horses and headed back the way they came.
"Leave two people behind, let me catch up with the others!!"
“Sir, could it be a trap?” a soldier next to the commander reminded.
While the commander was hesitating, the soldier on the tower fired his crossbow. Driven by the huge tension of the crossbow, the crossbow arrow quickly swooped towards the carriage. A jar filled with ale on the carriage was shattered by the crossbow arrow. The fragrant wine flowed along the carriage to the ground, and soon it floated into the nose of the tower commander.
The commander raised his head and loudly asked the soldiers on the wall: "Is there an ambush ahead?"
The soldiers on the wall looked along where the carriage was gradually moving away, and could not see clearly in the gray distance. He looked at the carriages gradually going away, feeling anxious in his heart, "Sir, there is no ambush. You should catch up with them quickly. If you are late, they will run away."
The commander no longer had any worries and called the six disheveled soldiers in the tower to get on the only three horses in the stable. The three and four horsemen followed the aroma of ale spilling on the ground and chased all the way to the north of the road...
The seven chasing enemy soldiers had just left the tower, and three men in black holding daggers quietly entered the tower~
On the carriage on the north side of the commercial road, Spencer was racing the horse while desperately throwing the grain on the carriage to the ground.
Colin saw this guy keep throwing the goods in the car to the ground, and quickly stopped him: "Spencer, what are you doing, why are you throwing it on the ground??"
Spencer pushed Colin's hand away and replied: "Throw some goods to attract the fish and keep them from decoupling."
"You're a bastard coward. You obviously think the cargo is too heavy and you can't run fast. Our mission is to lure the enemy into an ambush. What if we run too fast and the enemy can't catch up?"
The commander who was chasing after him was really worried about a scam ahead at first, but when he saw the heavy objects being thrown down one after another from the carriage, he was sure that the people on the carriage were indeed running for their lives, and finally strengthened his determination.
"Guys, hurry up and chase! There must be something good in the carriage ahead, whoever grabs it will get it!!!" After saying that, he kicked the horse's belly a few times, and the horse under him quickened its pace. The soldiers behind him also chased after him as excitedly as a hungry man seeing a woman.
How could the carriage pulling the goods outrun the war horses? Seeing the carriage that was sixty or seventy steps ahead at the beginning getting closer and closer, the commander of the sentry tower who was leading the way screamed with excitement. He pulled out the broad sword in his hand and made a gesture of preparing to kill.
Suddenly! At the corner of the business road, the carriage stopped suddenly!
A heavy arrow flew toward the commander's face, and then more than twenty black-clad soldiers rushed out of the grass on both sides of the business road...