The joy of such a harvest in the Nameless Valley did not infect the world outside the valley.

Since the fall of Bogdan last summer, the situation in southern Provence has become increasingly unfavorable.

Just after the bitter winter, the Duchy of Lombardy launched a larger-scale invasion of the southern border of Provence, and although the army levied by the Count of Aulesny from the north was constantly replenished to the important cities and forts on the southern border, the southern border of Provence was still encroached upon by the first city of Lombar.

Complete one's misery.

As soon as the autumn harvest was over, the Duke of Wittot gathered an army of nearly 3,000 men and marched north to break through the fortresses of eastern Provence along the mountain range of Lamelle......

At this time, the Marquis of Kolay, who had lost the strategic eastern fortress of Vilno, led the remnants of less than a thousand men and retreated, all the way to the central town of Aosta......

The freedmen of the occupied areas in the south of Provence and the cities in the east that were about to become war zones, as well as the small lords and gentry with a little wealth, took their families north early to escape the war. Unchecked bandits in the mountains of eastern Provence are also rampant.

In autumn, the southern borders of the Count of Burgundy began to flood with more and more refugees from the north, from the free citizens of Vilno, to the peasant gentry from Alfero, and even from the Aosta region. The Duke of Witot carried out the most greedy plunder and the most brutal massacre of the occupied territories, and the captured towns and villages became hell, and the cities and villages that were about to become war zones were at risk.

At the end of September, Duke Vladis conscripted all men over the age of seventeen and under thirty-five in the north, and an army of more than 5,000 soldiers and 3,000 auxiliaries and laborers was led by Duke Vladis himself to aid Aosta......

…………

Three days ago, on the trade route that ran from north to south along the Lamel Mountains, a middle-aged fat man in a silk shirt and a gray cotton gown with a black agate dagger was pressed against the back of a donkey, and the sun shone brightly on his bald head, and behind him was a caravan caravan consisting of ten chariots with two horses and four wheels and eight caravan guards in leather armor, armed with short spears and swords hanging from their waists;

Behind the caravan were a large group of traders and vendors and low-waisted women with heavy makeup, who were butchers with bacon legs of lamb, peasants with apples and onions, or even wandering beggars who accompanied them empty-handed, all day and night. They were as excited as vultures smelling carrion, and the war might not be so bad for them.

The caravan ahead suddenly stopped, and all the caravans shrank together in a square formation, and the caravan guards all stood guard with spears and swords.

The bald-haired, pot-bellied caravan leader was standing in the middle of the guards, wiping the sweat from his head as he asked the guards who had gone to explore the way.

"Are you sure it's four riders?" The bald man asked.

"Yes, sir, I can see it very clearly, four riders plus a horse carrying goods." The young guard replied in the affirmative.

"What kind of flag?" The bald man asked.

"There are no flags, and there is no armor." The young guard replied.

"It's strange, there are no flags and no armor, whose army's army is this?" The bald man muttered to himself.

"Danger or not, everyone take their weapons and get ready for battle! Rick, you go and put up the coats of arms of the Dean family and Count Olesny. Jon, you go to the back and tell the group of tails that there may be danger ahead, those who are afraid of death should flee for their lives, and those who are not afraid of death will come and help us guard the carriage, and there will be a reward afterwards! The bald man commanded the people around him.

In less than a moment, a puff of smoke and dust rose from the south side of the trade road. Four riders in hoods, in civilian clothes, with long swords hanging from their waists, galloped on, and as soon as they saw the caravan caravan, the four riders stopped at their horses.

After a moment of confrontation, a leader-like man whispered a few words to the people around him, and the four riders drove their horses down the trade road, bypassing the caravan from the farmland next to the road, and then galloping north...... The bald head turned around and stared blankly at the dust rising all the way behind him, wondering in his heart~

No sooner had the guard been lifted, and the caravan drivers were about to drive forward, when a rumbling of horses' hooves was heard not far away, and a large cloud of dust rose up......

"We are a caravan of the House of Dean of the Count of Burgundy, hired by the Count of Olesny of Provence, and are transporting military rations to Aosta, please get out of the way, or you will suffer the wrath of Lord Olesny!" The eagle heraldic flag on the bald finger caravan roared sharply, but his voice trembled a little.

On the opposite side were a dozen masked riders riding steals, followed by thirty minions in ragged peasmen armed with blunt knives and long sticks.

The jackals chasing a few hares came across a flock of fat lambs...... At this time, the robbers were obviously not afraid of the Count, who had been overwhelmed by the war.

At sunset, except for the dark red bloodstains, the trade route returned to its former calm.

…………

To the northeast of the Nameless Valley, next to a boulder on the slope of a canyon exit, Art was smearing wolf dung on a green mule with a caged mouth.

In recent times, Art has often ridden a green mule in the wilderness outside the forest in pursuit of Steppenwolf.

The wolf attack in early winter last year left a deep impression on Art, and made him believe that there must be a large number of Steppenwolves living in this wasteland, and that Steppenwolf's fur is much more valuable than that of timberwolves. After being fully prepared, he decided to take a risk, and if he could catch a few Steppenwolves with intact fur, he and Cooper would have a better time this winter.

More than 20 days of hard work were not in vain. A short half-day ride northeast along the edge of the forest to the north of the valley hut leads to a gorge deep into the mountains, where a pack of steppenwolf nests are located.

Art had figured out how the wolves hunted, so it took him three days to set up several traps more than fifteen feet deep at the entrance to the canyon. It is not far from the wolf's nest, and it is the only way for the wolves to return to the nest, and the vigilance of the wolves when they return to hunting is weak, and the possibility of trap hunting is also relatively large.

Not surprisingly, the wolves should return to hunt before sunset today, and Art led the green mule early in the morning to hide behind a boulder at the downwind of the valley slope.

The sun was just setting in the west, Art sat on the ground with his back against the boulder, picked up the water bladder and poured out a handful of water and fed it to the mouth of the green mule in front of him. Art immediately sensed the alarm, turned over, held the bow in his left hand and pinched the arrow in his right hand, and turned out of the boulder lightly with the bow and string......

In the wilderness in front of the canyon, a rider in civilian clothes wearing a hood led the way, and two cavalrymen in light armor and armed with bows followed closely behind.

Half a month ago, he and three of his men were ordered to carry a secret letter to the Marquis of Ivrea, the ruler of the Count of Burgundy, and twenty gold cakes worth more than 28,000 finnigs as a "welcome gift" from Vilno to Besançon, the capital of the Count of Burgundy.

Sneaking for half a month, except for being almost ambushed by a gang of robbers at the foot of Mount Lamel, the journey was quite smooth. Now that they have reached the southern border of Burgundy, they will be a day's further north to Tignez, where they will be escorted by the local garrison to the court of the Marquis.

But not long after they entered Burgundy, they were bitten by seven or eight light cavalry from the north of Provence. From noon when he and his three men scattered to break through until now, the two light horsemen behind him had been chasing him on this wasteland for an afternoon, and the war horse under the hooded rider's crotch was already foaming at the mouth.

The canyon was in sight, and the hope of escape was growing, and the hooded rider kicked the horse in the belly with his spur-covered boots, and the horse neighed and rushed a few steps before leaping to his feet, stepping over a pile of wolf dung. At this moment, there was a tearing sound of a heavy arrow breaking through the air behind him, and the hooded rider was shot in the back by an armor-piercing heavy arrow, and immediately fell off the horse's back, and the right foot that had just kicked the horse hard slipped into the horse's pedal, so the war horse dragged the hooded rider for more than a dozen steps before stopping.

When a light cavalryman saw that the hooded rider was wounded and fell from his horse, he rode his horse and whipped up and rushed into the gorge. Just when the hooded rider stepped on a pile of wolf dung with more than ten steps, the horse under him was short and fell into a deep pit......

Seeing that the situation was not right, one of the light-armored cavalrymen in the back immediately grabbed the reins, turned over and dismounted, looked around with a bow, groped forward, and glanced at his companion who had fallen into the pit and broken his neck, and then walked around the pit step by step to the hooded rider.

Before the hooded rider could enter the canyon, Art had crept up from the mountainside boulder behind a clump of dead grass at the mouth of the valley. At this time, the light armored cavalry who was about to bend down to probe the hooded rider's snort would never have thought that less than twenty paces behind him, a flat-headed light arrow had already flown out from the full bowstring with a light twist~

Chirp~ With the whistling sound of arrows piercing the air, a light arrow pierced the throat of the light armored cavalry.

After shooting down the light cavalry, Art quickly stepped forward and stepped onto the hooded horseman's horse to chase the frightened horse of the light cavalry. After chasing for a mile, the distance became farther and farther, and the horses below him ran slower and slower, and Art had to give up.

Before sunset, Art had only time to take the weapons and armor from the light cavalry on the ground, then pushed the corpse into the pit, and then returned to the valley hut with the hooded rider unconscious with an arrow in the back on his horse.

…………

Early the next morning, the valley cabin.

"Cooper, are you ready?" Art straightened the ropes in her saddle as she turned to the old man's cabin.

"Master, it's all cleaned up, that guy is too badly injured and won't wake up for a while. But to be on the safe side, I tied his hands and feet with rattan. Cooper walked out of the cabin as he pinned the half-cut scythe with the wooden handle to his waist.

"Don't bring that broken scythe, use this." Art said as he picked up a short sword and threw it at the old man.

"Wait, Cooper." So saying, Art turned and went into the house, and took the oak bow and bark quiver from the wall, and handed it to old Cooper.

"Master, I won't do this~" The old man was a little at a loss with a single bow and quiver.

Art took the bow, drew a light arrow from the quiver, made a gesture of winding the arrow, pulling the bow to aim and scattering, and then slapped the bow into Cooper's arms.

"Just these few actions, try a few more times. If you're in danger, just draw your bow and aim from afar, and it doesn't matter if you hit it or not. Art said.

"It's just for show, I can do this." Cooper Sr. learned from Art to do a set of moves.

Old Cooper had never ridden much of a horse, and did not dare to gallop on a mule, until the sun rose on the mountain, and the young and the old rode a horse and a mule to a dense forest not far from the Wolf Valley.

The two men hid their mules and horses in hiding, carried bows and swords on their backs, and carried a large bundle of hemp rope on their shoulders, and sneaked halfway up the slope on one side of the canyon.

After observing for a long time halfway up the mountain and confirming that there was no movement at the mouth of the canyon, Art held his bow and arrows, bowed his head and moved towards the mouth of the valley, while Old Cooper slowly followed more than 20 steps behind Art.

Descending to the valley mouth, the traces left by yesterday evening have not changed in the slightest. After motioning to old Cooper to avoid a few traps, he came to a deep pit at the front of the valley mouth, and he looked at the bottom of the pit, where two men and a horse were planted upside down, and the horses were still neighing softly when they were already angry.

"Cooper, you can find a hidden place in a while, observe both sides of the valley mouth, and immediately release arrows to warn if there is a situation." Art tied the rope to the trunk of a nearby tree, grasped the hemp rope with both hands, and after giving Cooper, began to descend the rope to the bottom of the pit.

…………

"Master, what to do with that injured horse, it's a pity to rot in the pit like this." Old Cooper looked at the wounded horse in the pit with a look of regret.

"There's no way, you can't pull it up, even if you pull it up, it won't cure it, you can only kill and cut some meat and bring it back."

Art said and took out the hunting knife and went down to the bottom of the pit again, touched the position of the horse's heart and stabbed it in, the wounded horse struggled slightly twice and died, Art cut off two large pieces of the horse's leg and let old Cooper hang it......

Tying up the "prey", Art wiped the sweat from his face and tightened the sheath on the green mule's back.

"Alright, let's go." With that, Art got on his horse, and old Cooper climbed on the back of the mule......

In a slightly leveled clearing next to the pit, a low mound has just been piled up, and two foreign souls will wander forever in the canyon.

Back at the cabin, it was already dark.

Having simply eaten old Cooper's broth, Art sat in a wooden chair with a back, a piece of parchment in his hand, and pondered word by word by the light of the fire in the fireplace......

"Master, it's all cleaned up, and there are really a lot of things." Old Cooper walked into the hut from the courtyard and threw a large stack of objects on the wooden table in the middle of the house.

Art looked at the table full of items and couldn't help but feel a burst of joy.

The two dead light cavalry left behind a complete set of saddles, two semicircular iron nose guards, two standard dark gray cotton-filled linen tunics and trousers, two short robes and capes, two sets of double cowhide armor, two tanned leather belts, and two pairs of cowhide boots; a round shield with a skin, a short spear, two pointed swords and two short knives with wooden handles, a battle axe, two ox-horned riding bows, two sheepskin quivers containing more than thirty flat-headed light arrows and a dozen water chestnut armor-piercing heavy arrows; A woolen felt blanket, a cowhide bladder, a deep-bottomed copper pot, two sets of wooden cutlery, and two cotton money bags containing a dozen small silver and copper coins, as well as a few odds and ends.

The hooded rider's belongings were even more valuable: a maroon horse with a full set of saddles, a hooded tunic and cloak with a cowhide belt, a long and short broadsword, and a fine iron dagger. What's more, there was a money pouch containing three gold cakes and a few marks, as well as a large pile of copper coins of various colors, as well as the parchment letter in Art's hand.

Art didn't catch Steppenwolf, but his harvest was not earned by hunting in the forest for ten years.

…………

"Alright, Cooper, we should go talk to that guy who pretended to be dead." Art suppressed his excitement, took a piece of wood from the fireplace, and walked out of the big log cabin to old Cooper's cabin.

Soon there was a heart-rending howl from the cabin......

It was a long time before Art leaned out of the hut and wiped the blood from his hands with a rag as he went.

"Master, if he is really a nobleman as that guy said, we shouldn't just kill him." The old man felt that Art was not well thought out, and he was a little worried.

"Cooper, I didn't intend to kill him, but if he were an ordinary knight, I could give him the honor and dignity of a knight, and perhaps we would have received a large ransom for it. But he should not have been a Lombard, let alone born into the Burley family. Art said coldly.

"It's God's will, unfortunate fellow." After hearing Art's words, Cooper didn't say anything more, turned around and went into the house, dragged out the body, put it on the back of the green mule, and buried it a little farther away.

That night, Art lay on the bed in the wooden house, tossing and turning, and lost sleep all night. From the Sheepskin Letter and the Hooded Knight, Art learns that the Unknown Valley is full of smoke and war, and that this may be his best chance to establish himself in this era......

"Master, it's windy outside~" Cooper wiped the blood on his hands and walked in.

"yes, it's going to be windy!" A faint smile appeared on Art's face.