Bruce rushed up and punched the talkative Stukov in the face, and the sudden punch sent Stukov staggering back several steps.

"Oh, it hurts." Stukov covered his face and watched Bruce scream with his remaining eyes, but he wasn't angry.

"Why are you hitting me?" Bruce said angrily.

"Fake, if I don't hit you, do I watch you stab the baron in the neck?" Stukov rubbed the corners of his mouth and wiped the blood away, and the people around him quietly slipped away when they saw the thunderous lord, leaving only Stukov and Bruce standing in the clearing.

"Why not? How many of my men that bastard killed. Bruce said angrily, he felt that it was polite to kill James with a knife.

"Watching you throw your money bag into the water?" But Stukov was not afraid of the annoyed Bruce, and he said to Bruce.

"What money bag?" Bruce looked at Stukov in confusion, not understanding what he meant.

"Of course, I captured the baron in exchange for money, and if I died, wouldn't I have wasted a lot of money?" Stukov said to Bruce.

"Kill James, and I'll be the Baron's heir, you idiot." Bruce was almost by the feel-good Stukov, James was not married to himself and had no heirs born, and if James died, then under the law of succession, he would be the new baron.

"Ah, I didn't expect that." Stukov opened his mouth and looked at Stukov with a blank face, Bruce could only shake his head helplessly, he stepped forward and hugged Stukov hard.

"Just now I was taking revenge on you for beating me unconscious, and now I thank you for saving Glinton, thank you and my friend." Bruce hugged Stukov tightly, thanking him for bringing him the mercenary at the crucial moment.

"You're welcome." Stukov said with a little embarrassment that it had been a long time since he had hugged a friend, and that a long time ago there had been a guy who claimed to be a friend.

When Bruce left Stukov to inspect the loot, Eve appeared behind Stukov, keeping an eye on the two.

"There's no way you didn't know that Bruce would be the heir to the baron." Eve said to Stukov that maybe Stukov's acting skills could fool Bruce, but Eve didn't believe that Stukov was really that confused.

"Haha, I still can't fool you." Stukov looked back at the shrewd Eve with one eye, and he smiled wryly, he couldn't look back on the past, he didn't want that to happen in front of his eyes again.

"Are you afraid that Bruce will kill the Baron and bear the reputation of being a kinship?" Eve blinked, looked at the mysterious one-eyed man with gray hair, and said the answer in her heart.

"It's not just a love affair, the Baron is de jure the monarch of Bruce, and if he kills the Baron, Bruce will also bear the reputation of being a regide." Stukov explained to Eve that the vicissitudes of life appeared on his face, and his thoughts took him to the past buried deep in his heart.

The flames were soaring, the sounds of fighting, and the clashing of weapons were mixed together, the knights in strong armor charged each other face to face, the fallen ones were immediately trampled into flesh by the horses, the infantry were mixed together like ants, the spears of the forest were intertwined, and the worn-out banners fell in the air.

Bruce looked at the trophies left behind by James' army, this time there were more than a hundred pairs of armor of various colors alone, and there were more than seventy well-made weapons after being sorted out, and even those broken armor and weapons could be sold to merchants for a profit.

"Not bad." Bruce nodded in satisfaction as he faced the loot piled up like a small hill, the dead were gone, and he could only make a better life for the families of the dead soldiers.

"There's cavalry coming." Suddenly, the crossbowmen on the wall shouted loudly, having just experienced the attack of Locke's army, and the Greentons still smelled of frightened birds.

"Vigilance, vigilance." Bruce didn't bother to look at the loot, he drew a spear from the loot and shouted loudly as he walked in the direction of the city wall.

"The soldiers assembled." Stukov hurriedly called the scattered mercenaries, fortunately these mercenaries had good military qualities, and immediately gathered after hearing the employer's greeting, holding shields and spears under the city gates under the leadership of Stukov.

Bruce walked up the city wall with a spear, and a crossbowman saw the lord coming up, and hurriedly pointed out his hand with the crossbow on his back, and sure enough, three cavalrymen were slowly walking towards them outside the village, but one of the cavalrymen was holding a banner in his hand.

"This flag doesn't belong to Locke Manor." Looking at the flag in the hands of the cavalry, Bruce frowned slightly, and he saw that the flag pattern was a yellow-red fish scale lattice, and the blue ribbon was wrapped around the flagpole.

"Stop, you've trespassed into Glinton's territory." The crossbowmen raised their crossbows and aimed them at the three cavalrymen, warning loudly from the city walls.

"Gray Law~~." The three cavalrymen immediately grabbed the reins under the city wall, and they looked at the wall in front of them in surprise, they did not expect that a small village could have such a strong wall, and they were even more shocked to see the embarrassed appearance of the camp of Locke's army along the way.

"We are the messengers of Lord Duke Bemessi, and we ask to see your lord." The leader of the messenger raised the banner in his hand and made his intention known to the people on the city wall.

"Duke of Bemessy?" Bruce frowned when he heard this, he couldn't help but tap his fingers on the wall, from the information stored in Bruce's mind, he knew that Duke Bemessey was James's feudal lord, could it be that the Duke knew that James was captured, and he intended to intervene?

"Your Excellency?" Greenton's soldiers looked at Bruce and asked him for advice.

"Open the gates and let them in." Bruce thought it was better to meet them and see what the Duke's intentions were, he had just provoked a baron, and if Greenton was making enemies of a duke, he might not be able to resist it anymore.

"Squeak." With the sound of the city gate opening, the three cavalrymen slowly walked into the city wall, and they saw the soldiers of Locke Manor sitting together in the corner of the city wall with their weapons unarmed, and in front of the lord's house were piled up like small hills, and the mercenaries with spears and shields on both sides of the city gate watched them vigilantly.

"Mercenaries?" The messenger who saw the identity of those spearmen showed a clear expression, it seems that this lord has hired a mercenary with strong combat power, no wonder James is not his opponent, the envoy thought so.

"You are the messenger of Lord Duke Bemessy?" Suddenly, a young voice came from above the city walls, and the messenger turned to see Bruce standing on the walls.

Many years later, when the duke's messenger sat by the fireplace and narrated to the clerk who had written his biography, this was what Bruce had to say.

"When I first saw him, he was standing on the walls of Glinton, and the afterglow of the setting sun shone right on him, and the bright red light sprinkled all around him, and a young but determined face was impressive, and I had a feeling that he would never be just a little country lord forever, and I did not expect that premonition to come true much later."

—Notes of the Duke of Bemessi's Chamberlain