The convoy came to a halt at the edge of the mountain, and several captains gathered around Arte.

"Baskaczak, take your squad to escort the convoy, wounded soldiers, and prisoners back to Tarburg, and tell Otto to strengthen his defenses and be ready to withstand the attack of the Swabian army on Tarburg from now on."

"Tuba, you take the fourth squad and two peasant squads and then select some sturdy men from among the serfs and slaves, and from here you start digging pits for me along the way, dig deep and large, dig as you please, dig some holes in the edges of those hills, and then plant some spiked stakes in the deep pits, so that the enemy army will suffer a little, preferably not an inch."

"Patters, you lead the third team with tools to the surrounding area to find out if there are any trails that can be detoured, and if so, set traps for me, just like those wolf traps I taught you when I hunted in the valley."

"Sergeant Major, is Ron back?"

"Not yet, but the other two sentinels have returned, and I have them keep watch on the east side. I'll take a look south in a moment, Ron and Jason should be on their way to catch up with the brigade. ”

"Okay, you go and pick them up right away, I'm afraid they've met the enemy."

Angus replied and got on his horse and ran in the direction of Ron and Jason's sentry, while the others also went on their own to carry out the tasks arranged by Art.........

…………

It was almost dawn, fifty miles south of Bilten, and when a fast horse borrowed from the villages around Biltenburg ventured into the southern manor in the night, Baron Jeffrey, who had worked hard all night, was sleeping on the belly of the secret mistress of the lord of the manor.

When the chief of guard learned of the bad news of the surprise attack on Biltenberg, he rushed directly into the room where Baron Jeffrey was staying, and woke up Baron Jeffrey, who was dripping with saliva, to report the bad news that Biltenberg had fallen and all the defenders had been killed.

Baron Jeffrey jumped out of bed and grabbed the guard by the collar and shouted, "What did you say?" ”

The chief guard was also a little stunned, and replied grinningly: "My lord~ Biltenberg was captured, the defenders were killed, the castle was robbed, and the lady and young master were also ~"

"What is also ~ say it quickly!"

"The lady and the young master were captured by the enemy~"

"Ah!!h Baron Jeffrey sat down on the bed with his ass slumped, and it took him a while to get up and regain some composure after drinking a glass of wine handed over by the mistress of the manor.

"You hurry up and prepare a few fast horses, let's rush back first, and the others will gather and return immediately."

"Hurry! Why are you still stunned! Jeffrey pushed away the woman beside him, and dragged the chief of the guard out of the room and toward the army camp outside the manor......

At noon, seven fast horses frothed back to Biltenberg, and Jeffrey almost dragged himself into the castle.

Howling and cries filled the castle, and civilians were carrying the stripped corpses of the defenders to the cemetery outside the city, some of them surrounded by weeping relatives, and the streets were littered with bits and pieces, and the doors of the better houses on both sides were broken and the houses were in disarray.

Before returning to the inner fort, there were still some tables, chairs, benches and old clothes that the enemy had not taken with them, and the gate of the inner fort was broken, and there were several piles of burning ash from thatch on both sides of the gate.

In the inner fort, the surviving servants were still tidying up the messy lord's hall, and everything decent in the entire inner fort had been robbed, even the iron candlesticks on the walls and the baron's chairs had been taken away.

On the way back, the messenger had already told Geoffrey that the Burgundian army had attacked Biltenburg in a convoy of baggage, and that they had captured the castle and killed all the defenders, looted all the supplies in the castle, and then swaggered into the mountains to the west with a dozen ox carts laden with goods.

Baron Jeffrey immediately thought of the Burgundian army stationed in Talburg, and he also guessed that the so-called "bandit assembly" was just a conspiracy of the Burgundian army, and they tricked most of Jeffrey's army into the southern manor and took the opportunity to raid the empty defense of Biltenberg.

"Bastard! Devil! Shameless! Baron Jeffrey stood at the door of the Lord's bedroom in the Inner Castle and roared three times towards the vacated room, angry and deeply ashamed......

An hour later, the seven horses that had not yet had time to rest were tired and galloped towards the mountains to the west under the kick of their master's spurs.

————————

On the carriageway east of Tarburg, a few dead leaves were gently blown by the breeze, revealing a thin layer of new soil under the dead leaves. The sun scorched the earth in the west, and the hot afternoon sun made it impossible to open one's eyes.

The smoke from seven fast horses filled the entire carriageway, and at the head of the guard was the chief of the guard under Baron Jeffrey, who was dressed in fine iron chain mail, a chainmail hood, a blue plaid robe, a riding spear in his hand, and a long sword at his waist.

"My lord, I'm going to enter the mountains a little further on, I'm worried that the enemy will set up an ambush on the side of the road, do you want to go in after gathering a brigade?" The chief guard grabbed the reins and reflexively said to Baron Jeffrey, who was following closely.

Baron Jeffrey stayed on his horse and observed the road and its sides for a while, and there was no sign of an ambush, but since the enemy could think of a conspiracy to "assemble a group of bandits", he did not dare to guarantee that there would be absolutely no conspiracy set up by the enemy on this road.

Jeffrey thought for a moment, and said to the two cavalrymen behind him who had borrowed them from the southern manor lords: "You two follow this carriageway to the west and sentry into the west, and we will return when we meet the enemy, and we will wait here for the army behind."

The two cavalrymen were just temporary guards hired by the lord of the manor, and they were unwilling to take risks for others, after all, Baron Jeffrey was not his employer.

One of the cavalrymen glanced at the calm carriageway, then at the surrounding hills, and excused himself: "Lord Baron, this road is not very peaceful, maybe there will be an ambush, Lord Charles just asked us to go back to Biltenberg with you, didn't say that we had to go to the enemy border to investigate~"

Baron Jeffrey pursed his lips, took two silver shillings from his bosom and threw them at them, "If I can find useful information, I will give you two more." ”

The two horsemen took the silver coin thrown over, put it in the sunlight and looked at it carefully, put it in their arms with a smile, and said with a shy smile: "Don't worry, Lord Baron, our two brothers will definitely touch the base of the wall of Tarburg, and by the way, grab another tongue and come back to ask you for a reward." ”

As he spoke, he bypassed the chief guard in front of him and rode forward, and the two of them rode quite well, and the war horses stepped on the ground, raised dust, and galloped towards the west with hoofed flowers.

Looking at the two cavalrymen who had gone away, the chief of the guard had a heart of love and said to Baron Jeffrey. "My lord, although these two guys are a little slippery, they are two good men, and we can consider hiring them for our use when we come back."

Baron Jeffrey looked at the speeding backs of the two and nodded slightly.

As soon as the two of them finished speaking, there was a sudden loud bang on the side of the road, and the figures of the two war horses suddenly disappeared from the calm ground, followed by a neighing of war horses and the screaming of human voices......

.............

Twenty miles away, Taal Fort is bustling with activity.

There were more than 90 soldiers and servants stationed in the fort, plus the caravans that had not yet left and the prisoners who had been released from Biltenburg, and there were more than 130 people stationed in the fort, and there were also a number of enemy soldiers and several families of artisans captured in the cells of the inner fort.

Odo and Cooper, who remained at Tarfort, were too busy to keep their feet on the ground, and Otto had to arrange the returning army to strengthen the defenses of Talburg, receive the prisoners and prisoners brought back, and be responsible for settling the wounded soldiers and preparing food for the returning troops.

The raid on Birtenberg brought back a large amount of booty, which was so large that Cooper and Salter, who were in charge of the inventory, could only roughly sort out the records, and those goods that could be sold quickly and fetched high prices in the Northland were picked aside, and the caravans were to leave with them before the Swabian army invaded; The small amount of weapons and armor, some tools, and most of the food that could be used for the defense of the fort or to keep the fort running, were piled up in the hall of the inner fort, and these things were temporarily kept and dispatched by the baggage team under Odo to meet the daily expenses of the fort; Items that were not used for the time being, such as clothing, furniture, copper pots, and clay pots, were stored in the renovated military fort warehouse, waiting to be brought back to the valley wooden fort when the army left the fort.

The defense of Tarburg had been carefully deployed when the army raided Biltenberg. A trebuchet on the roof of the tower of the inner fort was converted by a carpenter into a four-man tractor, and next to the trebuchet there were several piles of stones the size of clay pots; Every five paces in the aisle of the outer wall there was a soldier with a short spear and a round shield on his back, and each defender had a pile of neatly stacked stones beside him, and another combat group of soldiers patrolling back and forth on the outer wall; Ten bundles of arrows were stocked in the two towers on the façade, each with four temporary archers and crossbowmen.

An oak door leans against the opening of the fort gate, which is embedded in the groove of the door and held up from the inside by two thick bars in the event of an enemy.

The wooden bridge over the pit outside the fort gate was transformed into a simple drawbridge, with two thick ropes pulled diagonally on the façade of the outer wall, and two soldiers were responsible for retracting it.

On the hillside to the right in front of Tarburg, there were also three soldiers and five peasants stationed in the waiting platform at this time, and six rifles and two crossbows and eight hundred arrows were prepared here. The gentle slope in front of the waiting platform is covered with large and small potholes and traps, and the earth and rocks on both sides of the gentle slope are dug up to build a wall. If the enemy wants to occupy the waiting platform, they can only attack from a gentle slope full of traps in front of them.

............

On the road east of Tarburg, Angus and Ron Pegasus galloped back, and as soon as they saw Art, they reported that the two enemy horsemen who had come to spy at the mouth of the mountain valley had fallen into the trap they had set all night, "Lord Art, your hunters have not done in vain in the past few years, and now the carriageway five miles west from the mouth of the valley to the east is full of trap potholes, even if the enemy army will not step into the trap, it will take them a whole day to fill those holes." Angus couldn't contain the excitement on his face.

Art laughed a few times, and then said to Angus and Ron, "Sergeant Major, Ron, you two take a few soldiers with good archery skills and sharp legs to the east to attack the enemy army. If the enemy sends troops to chase and kill, you will immediately flee into the hills, and when the enemy soldiers return, you will stick up and attack them, and it doesn't matter whether you can kill the enemy or not, anyway, as long as they are still on this road, you can't let them live in peace. From now on, you are the hunters of the forest who deal with wild wolves, and they are the prey......"