To the southwest of Lane, a group of refugees on the muddy north-south trade route is slowly marching towards the southern border of Burgundy with their families in tow.

Scott Field stepped out of the procession and stood on a stone beside the road, looking out at the front of the group, where the outline of the village was faintly visible at the end of the road.

"Emma, there's a village not far ahead, hold on a little longer, and we'll have broth and porridge there," Scott ran back to the group, grabbed his wife from his son's hand, and touched her forehead in encouragement.

"Dad~ I'm hungry, when can we stop and have something to eat." The emaciated daughter tugged at the corner of Scott's coat and wept.

"Camille, my little darling, walk a little longer, where thick lamb soup and large plates of pea puree await you." Scott pulled out a hand and wiped the tears from Camille's muddy face.

"Ron, give me the package, put your sister on your back, let's hurry up, get to the front, maybe we won't have anything to eat if it's too late." Scott turned his head and reached out to take the large bag from his son Ron's shoulder, and the feigned ease on his face disappeared immediately.

Scott is a farmer on the outskirts of Vilno, south of Provence. Three months earlier, the Duke of Witot had besieged Vilno with thousands of troops, and the Scotts fled to Aosta with the lord, and soon the news of the fall of Vilno had arrived, and thousands of city dwellers and farmers had been slaughtered or turned into slaves of the Lombards. Then, news came that the enemy army was advancing north into Aosta, and the Scotts had to continue to flee north before they could catch their breath......

Three months later, the Scott family had fled to the north of Provence, where news of the fall of the city continued to spread. After a difficult choice, Scott decided to take his family across the vast wilderness of the north and escape to the Count of Burgundy. The Count of Burgundy did not go to war with Lombardy, so it might have been safer. So, Scott's family and a group of refugees with the same idea began to cross the vast wilderness of the north, and there were constantly three or three refugees along the way, and the team of refugees who fled north was a little bigger, and when they arrived at the southern border of Burgundy, the team of refugees who fled north already had hundreds of people, most of them were like Scott's family, the food was eaten, the clothes were torn, and the soles of their feet were worn out.

Three days ago, Scott's wife began to burn her forehead, and the little oats left in the grain bag were eaten, and the money bag was already empty, but even if there was money at this time, it was useless, and no one would buy life-saving food to others on the way to escape, and no amount of money could buy a grain of wheat. The edible weeds and vegetables along the way had long been plucked out by those who passed by, and the wolf howls around them all night did not give them the courage to leave the group to forage for food alone. The six-year-old daughter and seventeen-year-old son were starving......

There is a small village ahead, and perhaps the displaced people who have fled there will be able to take a sip of thin porridge mixed with wheat bran......

The team picked up speed, and Scott helped his wife, who was no longer able to walk, urging his son to follow him through the crowd.

Seeing that he was about to reach the head of the team, the front suddenly stopped. Scott put down the package on his back, leaned his wife against the package, told Ron to take care of his mother and sister, and then pushed through the crowd and squeezed to the front.

The sight in front of him froze him.

Three or four horsemen in leather armor and short spears stood on horseback, and in front of them stood a bearded old man sitting on horseback, wrapped in iron armor, with a long sword at his waist, and behind them stood a row of men with spears and menacing faces, and behind them several archers with bows and arrows.

This group of people blocked the way of the army of displaced people.

"If you untouchables, you who have lost your home and country, dare to take another step, I will send you to hell forever." The bearded old man roared menacingly at the crowd.

There was silence in the crowd.

"Sir, please, we've been walking for almost half a month, and we've finally walked out of the wasteland, please let us go......" Finally, a white-bearded old man stepped forward and pleaded with the bearded man in a lingua franca.

The bearded man understood the old man's words, kicked the horse's belly, and slowly walked towards the old man, who took a slight half step back, paused, and took another step forward.

The bearded man drove up to the old man, circled around the old man, and raised an ugly face covered with scars to look at the crowd opposite.

Suddenly, his face changed, he pulled out his long sword, and slashed at the old man, and the old man's neck instantly spurted out a puddle of blood, spraying his beard and face......

The crowd erupted in terror.

The bearded blood sword swung forward, and the soldiers behind him rushed towards the crowd~

…………

"Ron, run south with your sister on your back, throw everything away, run" As the bearded man drove his horse towards the old man, Scott sensed the killing intent in his eyes, he pushed away the crowd and returned to his family, picked up Emma, and called Ron to hurry down the road, breaking away from the crowd and running south.

Less than thirty paces away from the group, there was a wave of panic in the crowd, followed by screams and cries, and the crowd began to flee in all directions......

…………

At sunset, in the clearing in front of Lane Manor, stood a dozen shivering homeless people. They were survivors of the massacre of the day, a dozen heavily armed soldiers standing behind them, a fat-headed, big-eared bald man standing on a stone slab and speaking loudly in the lingua franca.

The bald man squeezed out a fierce look and said sharply: "You listen well, as long as you work obediently in the manor, my lord will leave you a cheap life, if anyone dares to run away, the lord's long sword just needs to drink blood and eat meat!"

In the hall of the manor, Baron Bazel is biting a leg of mutton. Today he was in a good mood, and after killing a large number of old and weak, he got a dozen more young and strong slaves, which were very strong, and he did not intend to send them to the slave market in Tignaz, but stayed to reclaim the wasteland near Lane Manor for him.

"Master, the slaves have signed the deed of sale, congratulations on getting another batch of good animals." The bald butler walked over to Baron Bazel's side and flattered him.

"Hmm~ Kus, your idea is very good, after killing the old and weak, all the slaves left behind are sturdy slaves, and they can double the fertile fields of Ryan Manor." Baron Bazel poured another large glass of pale ale.

"Master, I think we have to let these starve for a few days, so that they will obediently obey." The bald butler offered a "good strategy" for yin damage.

"Well, you're right, just do as you say, and if there is resistance, drag it out and cut it down!" Baron Bazel didn't care about the life or death of a slave.

"By the way, sir, I have chosen the cleanest and most beautiful one for you among the women I caught during the day, and it has been sent to your room." The bald man added with a lewd smile.

Listening to the crying of the woman in the bedroom, Bazel went down with another glass of beer, touched his big belly, and laughed......

…………

Seventy miles southeast of Lane, nameless valley log cabin.

"Master, I really don't need you to go, I can do it alone." Cooper tried to dissuade Art, who wanted to grow winter wheat with him.

"Okay, I told you a long time ago not to continue to open up the wasteland and expand the land, you have to go, now that such a large piece of land has been opened, do you just let it be empty, besides, didn't you say that the wheat can't be planted in the ground these days, and the harvest will be out next year?" Art sat on the rocks in the doorway of the hut, a pair of worn-out sheepskin boots in his hand.

"Today we will only choose the most fertile one from the remaining fields and plant the rest later. Tomorrow you go with me to the north of the wasteland, the guy said before he died that his three accomplices had fled in other directions with most of the gold cakes, and I was going to try my luck. As he spoke, Art walked out of the door with a large bag of wheat seeds.

The old man answered, quickly lifted the iron hoe, hurriedly closed the wooden door, and quickly caught up with the mud-legged old man......

Forty miles north of the wooden houses in the Nameless Valley, a boulder mound in the middle of a vast wasteland has been getting bustling lately. Last winter, a hunter and a dying bad old man spent the night here; This autumn, four hooded riders and seven or eight hussars fought here; Now, it's about to welcome its third batch of guests.

Scott looked at the boulder pile, and his eyes couldn't hide his despair.

They had been walking in fear for two days in the endless wasteland, and apart from the occasional sight of a herd of moorland gazelles, there were no people around, and every night wolves howled in the distance.

In fact, less than five miles to the west of the boulder pile, the same trade route from which they came, but by this time they had become a herd of lost lambs, and they had not found their way for two days near the north-south trade route.

"Ron, come and help your mother, I'll take a look at the rocks." Scott handed his seriously ill wife into the hands of his son, pulled out a self-defense blade from his waist, lowered his waist and walked towards the boulder.

In the middle of the night, Scott beckoned Ron to bring his mother and sister over to the other side of the pile.

"Ron, bear with me, go around and pick up more dead branches and hay, your mother can't walk, we'll rest here tonight. There's a pile of ashes here, which means someone has been here, maybe there is a village nearby, and I'm going to go around and dig up some wild vegetables and weeds, and maybe catch a hare or two. Scott instructed his son, who was slumped aside.

"Camille, will you take care of your mother for me?" He crouched down and touched his wife, Emma, who was sitting next to the boulder, and turned to his daughter.

"Honey, I'm feeling better, go ahead~" Emma reluctantly lifted her thin hand and patted Scott gently......

…………

The next morning, before the sun had risen, Art and Cooper Sr. set out early.

Ever since Art had an accidentally captured horse, the green mule has become the old Cooper's car, Cooper doesn't like to ride horses very much, but he deals with the green mule every day, and now he can barely ride on the mule's back and walk briskly.

Art wears leather armor, carries a long sword at his waist, and carries a bow with horns on his left side and a sheepskin quiver on his right. Old Cooper wore a long coat and linen, a tanned belt around his waist, a short sword hanged, and a hunting bow and light arrows hung in front of the saddle of the green mule.

"Master, after so many days, can we still find any trace of those people?" Cooper's mule followed Art, carefully avoiding the branches on both sides of the jungle path.

"I can't say for sure, but we can go to the boulder on the north side of the wasteland first, and search east from there, and if we can't find any traces, we can go south to the Wolf's Lair Canyon, maybe the wolf trap there can surprise us." Art stood up on his horse, glanced ahead through the forest, and after a few moments they could walk out of the forest and into the wasteland.

In the boulder pile, Scott is flipping over a prairie rat on a wooden stick on the fire, and the smell of burnt incense fills the fire.

"Dad, is it cooked?" Camille had already asked several times with her saliva in her mouth.

"Come, Camille, have you tasted it first?" Scott pulled a strip of meat from the roast rat, which was not much bigger than Camille's fist, and placed it in Camille's palm.

Yesterday, Scott took a big circle around the boulder, and before dark, he returned to the boulder pile with only a handful of wild vegetables. As night fell, one or two wolf howls came from time to time in the distance, making it impossible for the family to sleep by the fire.

Early this morning, Ron, who had gone out to look for water, ran back with a prairie rat in his hand.

At noon, Scott's family, who was chewing a handful of wild vegetables with a roast rat, gathered around Emma. She had been sick for days, and she was hungry for food, and now she could not move any further.

Scott called his son aside.

"Ron, you're seventeen years old, and you're already a man. Now, I want you to take Camille and continue to walk south, until you come across a village or a castle, and remember to live with your sister. Scott couldn't leave his wife, who had been with him for more than a decade, but he didn't want Ron and Camille to stay here and die together.

"No, Dad, I'm not leaving." Ron held back tears, and Camille on the side had already cried into tears.

"Scott, dear, take the kids away. As long as the children can live... I... I'm at ease even if I'm dead~" Emma said to Scott in a weak voice with her eyelids open......

As the family was parting from each other, there was a rapid sound of horses' hooves in the south of the wasteland.

Scott quickly stopped the children's crying, pulled out the piece of iron from his waist, climbed a boulder, and looked in the direction of the sound of horses' hooves in the south.

I saw two figures on horseback in the distance running towards the boulder~

"Ron, quick, take Camille to the low ground to the east, keep your body down, run, leave us alone~" Scott slid off the boulder, handed the piece of iron to Ron's hand, and took out the water bladder and fire sickle in the rag clothes and slapped it into Ron's arms, pushing Ron to the east.

But it was too late, and the horsemen were at the boulder in a blink of an eye.

Art first spotted someone in the boulder pile, and aimed his bow and arrow at the man with a small iron knife. Cooper also spotted someone and hurriedly pulled out his hunting bow.

The man desperately blocked the woman and child behind him with his body, and his right hand, which was holding the knife, began to tremble uncontrollably. After a stalemate for a while, the man fell to his knees with a thud.

"Sir, please, let my family go, we have nothing left~" The man pleaded in a crying southern accent, his head kept clapping to the ground, clattering.

Art glanced at the man on the ground and the woman and child behind him, turned the horse's head, and said, "Cooper, let's go!"

Cooper lowered his bow as well, stared blankly at the man on his knees and the woman lying on the ground behind him dying, and pulled the reins to follow Art.

"Master~"

"I know what you're trying to say, it can't be. Have you been able to save these people, and the countless displaced people who fled north on the road to the east? Art interrupted what the old man was about to say.

The old man was dumbfounded, he turned his head to look at the man kneeling on the ground and the big boy behind him, thought about it, and caught up with Art again.

"Master, I mean they have two young men, I can take them to cultivate wasteland for you and grow grain to feed you, so you don't have to go to the field yourself, and you don't have to go into the mountains to hunt~" The old man made his last effort.

Arte paused, turned his horse's head, looked at Cooper with a look of hope, and then looked at the two men behind him, an old man and a young man......

In the vast wasteland, a hunter in leather armor led a red horse in front, followed by a green mule carrying a sick woman, an old man led a green mule and a man were whispering something, and his mouth couldn't stop sighing, a big boy carried a thin little girl on his back, the girl's small hand pinched a small piece of bacon, and in the afterglow of the setting sun, the group pulled out a long shadow and walked towards the south of the wasteland......