In the early morning of the second week of December, a large crowd of peasants, merchants, outcasts, and beggars waiting to enter the city were crowded outside the gates of the city of Saône.

As the coldest part of winter approaches, commoners, farmers and small traders have to hurry into the city to sell their goods or buy food items for the winter, while the snow has not completely blocked the roads. For the homeless beggars, only the city can give them a glimmer of life in the cold winter, especially those hired farmers who have been drained of blood by the lord and squire, the grain harvested in a year is not enough to pay the lord's huge rent, and the poor hired farmers have no surplus food to survive the winter, in order not to starve to death and freeze to death, they often drag their families to the city to beg, and then return to the village to rent the land of the lord and squire when spring comes......

In the crowd of people waiting to open the door on both sides of the gate, a few guys huddled together to keep warm, they were dressed in a thin coat inherited from their grandfathers, and their coats and flesh were stuffed with hay, and the whole person looked very bloated, like a few straw bales that moved freely.

A homeless guy put his hand into his jacket and scratched constantly, and whispered to his companion who was hunched over and looking around, "Sir Ron, this is too uncomfortable, the hay is itching all over my body."

The hunched companion glanced around, and replied coldly: "Even if the hay pierces your bones, you will shut up for me!" If you reveal your identity, I'll break your neck before the defenders catch you!" ”

The guy with the bow looking around was none other than Task Force Raid Commander Ron.

Today is the day when the raid team enters the city to assemble, the raid team is scattered into four teams into the city, and the remaining three teams will be directly taken by the strategy team to the cellar of the house north of the city after entering the city through the west gate and the south gate, and Ron's team must not only touch into the city, but also go to the slums in the northwest of the city to transport the weapons, armor and weapons necessary for the operation to the houses.

In order to minimize the exposure of the target that could result from the group's activities, Ron's team had to lurk in the slums and wait for night to fall, when Stanley and the out-of-town response team would bring in weapons and armor through the small hole.

The best way to lurk in the slums is to turn into homeless beggars and enter the city, because the northwest slums are the gathering place of the lowest level of the "scavengers" in the city, and the displaced beggars who are slightly familiar with the situation will go to the city first to occupy a place in that place.

Clang~

Clang~

Clang~

When the morning bell rang, the gates of Thorne slowly opened, and the soldiers in cotton armor and holding short spears came out of the doorway, and struck the people crowded at the gates with the shafts of their spears, making them stand back and line up and be inspected by the soldiers one by one.

After tossing and turning for a while, the crowd entering the city roughly lined up, and a middle-aged goatee who looked like a tax collector walked out of the doorway with a thick booklet and sat behind the wooden table that had been prepared.

The soldiers began to let them go, and everyone who passed through the city gates was carefully examined by the soldiers, but the homeless beggars who could not even afford to wear clothes were usually not carefully searched, in addition to the fact that they were disgusted by the stench, and because it was impossible for these people to bring smuggled goods into the city, and without smuggled goods there would be no income, and the soldiers certainly did not waste time on them.

A soldier defending the city stopped a fat man in a cotton robe in front of Ron and asked, "Wait, what is in your cotton robe?" How can it be so bulging? ”

"My lord~, it's nothing, it's just a little thicker, a little bloated." The fat man replied with a stiff smile.

"Impossible, definitely hiding something~ take it out for me!!" The soldier shouted.

The fat man was startled by the soldiers, and quickly put his hand into the cotton robe and took out a large piece of rye bread, "Big~adult~ just a loaf of bread~ is gone." ”

The soldier grabbed the rye bread in the fat man's hand with one hand, and reached into the fat man's cotton robe with the other hand and touched it for a long time.

The soldier was a little disappointed, and struck the fat man on the head with rye bread, shouting, "You still have a broken loaf of bread!" Confiscated, get out! ”

The fat man reluctantly glanced at the bread in the soldier's hand, and walked away briskly with his head in his hands.

When the soldier saw the fat man leaving, he turned his head to investigate the next one.

Ron hurried forward, an ugly smile squeezing out of his dirt-covered face, and as he laughed, he reached out to pull out the hay from his single coat for the soldier to examine.

The soldier gave Ron a disgusting look and scolded, "You're starving to death and smiling?" What else can you pull out of your clothes besides fleas? Get lost! A few of you get out of here, disturb the lord and make me money! ”

Several homeless beggars were scolded into the city by the soldiers, and walked towards the northwest of the city with their backs hunched over......

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

In the cellar of the private house in the north of the city, more than a dozen young men in different costumes gathered here, some of them were dressed as laborers, some were dressed as urban hooligans, but more of them were ordinary farmers who entered the city.

The cellar was too narrow to fit enough tables, chairs and benches, so the men had to sit on the floor with a small piece of rye bread in their hands and eat with water.

"Big~My lord, there is a team of brothers~ who haven't arrived yet." Smith of the city's response team has been busy all morning, and in addition to Ron, who went to pick up weapons and armor, there are four other members of the raid team who did not arrive at the house on time.

"What's going on? What went wrong? Art asked.

"It's not a big deal, that group of brothers~ disguised as laborers~ blackmailed by the guards, ~ Dawson is afraid of something abnormal~ let them go to the dock to work first~ arrive late."

It turned out that the team disguised as a laborer was stopped by the soldiers defending the city to extort a sum of money when they entered the city with a Provencal accent, and Dawson, who received them, did not take them directly to the North City house to assemble for the sake of caution, but asked them to go to the dock first to pretend to go around a few times to make sure that it was safe and then bring them back.

"The guys came in without being noticed?" Art asked.

"Should~ No. They all came in from the back alley~ , and the house was surrounded by ~ sentinel posts, no~ no one found out. ”

In order to ensure that the raid team sneaked into the house here smoothly and assembled, except for a few soldiers who answered the city gate, the rest of the people were scattered around the house, and the raid team not only divided into many batches to enter the cellar of the house, but also quickly climbed in through the back wall windowsill when no one saw it every time.

"Are the routes and tools for the retreat ready?"

"Adults~all~ are ready. Two routes out of the city~, one water and one land, and the route to return to the safe house ~ house ~ in case of emergency is also by me alone ~ alone ~ repeatedly confirmed ~"

"Okay, we'll go back in a minute."

.........

It didn't take long for the task force soldiers who had done a few hard jobs at the riverside pier to come in a circle near the back wall of the house, and Dawson, who was in charge of the answer, carefully observed the surroundings, and saw that there were a few whistles at the stalls around no one passing, and as soon as the back window of the house was opened, he got in......

"My lord, we're here!" Despite the cold weather, Dawson was covered in hot sweat.

"Good! Your reception team did a great job. Art complimented Dawson and Smith.

"You go to the cellar to rest for a while and eat something, I have put the sentry team in charge of wài wéi guard, you can recharge your strength in peace."

After explaining the response team and the raid team, Art asked Angus, "Sergeant Major, are the carts you prepared ready?" ”

"When you're ready, hide in a weedy pile in the slums, I've sent a soldier to guard it, and they'll be transported here as soon as they get their weapons and armor."

Art nodded, and while arranging his cotton coat, he instructed Angus: "Sergeant Major, I have sent someone to dig up the river sand, you take Oliver and the soldiers of the sentry team to build a model of the target mansion and the surrounding houses and streets with the river sand, you don't need to be too detailed, just let the raid team understand the situation and practice the sand table." I'll have to take the response team to check the retreat routes and tools again. ”

"Don't worry, I know how to do it." Angus agreed, and took Oliver down to the cellar to pile up the intelligence information collected recently in a sand table so that the soldiers of the raid group could simulate the drill.

Art took Dawson and Smith to the city to confirm the route of the task force's retreat for the last time......

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

Late at night on Monday, the door of a private house next to the Tavern North in the city of Thorne was closed, and the surroundings were cold and silent. The cellars of the houses were very hot and bright.

In the cellar, there were about twenty sturdy men wearing half-length chain mail, black tight-fitting robes, and boots wrapped in cotton cloth on their feet, with short swords tied around their waists, and gōng nǔ in their hands. A man was handing out crossbow arrows smeared with a mountain eggplant {mandala} refining potion to the men in black.

"These bolts are smeared with potions, and once they pierce the skin, it won't take long for people to faint. Be careful! As he spoke, the man carefully chipped the remaining three crossbow arrows into the quiver at his waist.

In a corner of the cellar, several men in black dressed in the same costume were gathered around a small wooden table and whispered with candles.

“...... You have to engrave in your mind the distribution of the rooms and the topography of the mansion, and you have to recall the route of your retreat over and over again. ”

"We are in the wolf's den, and it is impossible to take all the Assasin members away, so our most urgent task is to capture the three infidel leaders, and the rest of the killers can be caught as soon as they can, and if they can't be caught, they will be killed on the spot, leaving no one alive!"

Art pointed to the second floor of the mansion in the crude sand table model on the table, and said: "Those three heretic Assasin core members live in this room facing the street on the second floor, and they will definitely jump on the back wall from the second floor to escape if there is any wind and grass, so the back wall guarded by Ron himself must be guarded by me."

Ron touched the hunting knife pinned to his waist and nodded heavily.

Art took up a wooden whistle that hung on his waist, held it up and said to the people: "Remember, in the darkness you cannot distinguish friend from foe, nor can you shout loudly, so we will use the wooden whistle to communicate: one answer, two rally, three to report an emergency."

"I won't repeat the rest, you guys should rehearse it in your own minds, and then close your eyes as much as possible and rest for a while, you will be tired in the next few days......"

After Yate finished speaking, he left the sand table model on the wooden table, and staggered a few steps up the wooden ladder to the private house to the dark second floor.

"Stanley, is there anything unusual?"

Stanley, who was in charge of the sentry guard, squatted by the window and stared outside, and replied intently: "Master, the guy who is stationed near the target has just returned that everything is normal, and the enemy's sentry post has been withdrawn back to three places, and now there is only the secret post on the second floor of the tavern, and our man has already laid an ambush in the room next to him, and when the time comes, he will rush in and wipe his neck!"

"What about the soldiers and security forces in the city?"

"The city of Thorne has always been stable, and the security forces never go out to patrol at night, and as for the defenders on the city walls, they work very hard during the day to check the pedestrians and squeeze money, and when they guard the city at night, they either sleep or drink, so they will not pose much of a threat to us."

"Well, you made the Sentry Team brothers give me round eyes. Start the action in the early hours of the morning, and make sure that everything goes wrong before you act! ”

"Yes! Master! ”

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