In a deep valley in Issuria, behind a bush in a fortress called Ferner, a Turkic scout cavalryman with a dark cloak over his mouth and nose turned and struck his horse and ran towards the hidden castle.

This is actually Gilligi. Arslan was at the last stronghold of the plateau, and when Alexios's army of Seleucia marched in the surrounding valleys a few days ago, the sultan swallowed his anger and led his men to remain motionless, not even daring to carry out the herding and grazing, and in the face of the Roman emperor he hid in a dark cave like a cat and a mouse.

And now, his scouts reported that many pilgrims from the west, without vigilance and armament, had come to the famous lake of hot water by the Ferna River, and that the emperor's men and horses had somehow withdrawn in the direction of Constantinople, separated by the Phrygian mountains.

"I have no city to lose, Ben Sultan thinks of Zahas, who is now wandering on the sea, and I am doing the same in the mountains." Between the walls of the Ferna rampart, Gillichi. Arslan was no longer the ruler who loved to recite sad poems in the palaces of Nicaea, and the blood genes of his ancestors were back: he had a rough beard, his cheekbones were raised from exertion and jolting, his eyes were full of gamblers, and he and his wife, Shahname, wore the same fishy fur cloak, and hung a fire sickle, a bowstring, and dried dried lamb around his waist.

The only constant was his bitter hatred of the pilgrims, who had been in good hands in the country of Roma, with many rich and dangerous cities. and countless star-studded mosques, all now occupied: Nicaea, Ankara, Seleucia, Tarsus. Nothing is lost. In order to replenish the armed forces, he had to shake hands with the Emir Merrick of Danishmond. Even bent his knees to the other side and put the palace minister Ibn . Maimon remained there as a hostage, and in exchange for eight hundred Danishmund's mercenaries, plus his own men, he cobbled together four or five thousand men and horses to wander all the way to these barren mountains.

This castle of Ferner, located in the mountains, was owned by a leader named Nikitas, who was neither a general of the empire nor a nobleman of Jinat. Rather a chieftain, the self-proclaimed "Isurians" chieftain leader, this group of people was originally regarded as a barbarian by the Eastern Roman royal family, in order to get rid of the influence of the Goths hundreds of years ago, the empire began to recruit a large number of martial and savage soldiers from the mountains to reduce the proportion of Goths in the army, and later a chief also took the opportunity to ascend the throne of Rome, which is the famous "Barbarian Emperor" Zeno. After Zeno's death, the empire aspired to choose an orthodox Roman as emperor. Even Zeno's widow, Ariadni, openly shouted to the senators and the populace, "Please, elect a true Roman!" ”

In this way, he succeeded Zeno on the throne. It was his chief attendant, Anastasia, who was dissatisfied with the Imperial Isurian Forbidden Army (they wanted Zeno's younger brother, Longinus, who also had Isurian ancestry, to succeed him). Rebellions were staged simultaneously in Thrace and Asia Minor, which were decisively suppressed: so. Most of the Isurian soldiers were later placed in Thrace. After a long time, it slowly dispersed, but there are still many indigenous remnants who continue to entrench themselves in the mountains, engage in village autonomy, and live a semi-nomadic and semi-agricultural life, but they still insist on calling themselves "Issurians" or "Galatians" to the outside world.

Throughout the Middle Ages, it was difficult for even a developed and mature government to extend its power into the deep and precipitous mountains, and as long as this group of indigenous mountain people did not rise up to make trouble and could provide a source of soldiers, the imperial government and the Turkic sultans did not care whether they ate bread or meat today. Therefore, the chief of Nikitas also gathered two or three thousand armed mountain people, and took advantage of the retreat of the imperial forces from the Anatolian plateau to entrench themselves in Ferna Castle and get free.

Now the gilligi have come, and the two have the same smell, and they join forces with each other: the gilligi are safeguarded, and the goods of the pilgrims or the imperial government are robbed, and you and I divide them equally; Nikitas, on the other hand, promised that the castle would be your base of activity, and that he had been given the title of "Ataberg" by Gilligi.

In this way, the Sultan became a road tyrant, and the original mountain bandit became a Taifu, and there is no ingenious irony of the world than this.

When he learned that the Danish prince and his army were walking among the reeds at the foot of the mountain, Gilligi decided to do it again, and after saying goodbye to his wife, he asked Nikitas to take a thousand elite mountain bandits to the front of the road and cut off the pilgrims' approach; Hajib led 2,000 Roma soldiers on foot to sneak among the reeds and valleys on the side of the road, intending to attack and kill Sven; Another 800 Danishmond cavalry, after receiving the Sultan's signal, attacked in a surprise attack to cut off the Danish army's rear route, cutting it off from the civilian pilgrims of Reinstein, first annihilating Sven and then Ryanstein.

"Let's all rest, and we're on our way right away." In the midst of the reeds everywhere, Prince Sven saw that his fiancée was a little tired, so he beckoned and said, "The Danish soldiers around him were very casually hula, sitting or lying, and did not send out guard posts, and rested in a scattered manner, and some of them also cut some reed grass with small sickles, and began to make a fire to dry their wet jackets.

The flames were soon glimpsed by Hajib, who was a thousand feet away, and Hajib's wife had advised him beforehand: "Your life should have been lost in Nicaea, but you have been pardoned by Gawain, and you should give up killing Christians from now on."

But his loyalty to the Sultan still made Hajib unable to let go of the butcher's knife, and he only freed all the Frankish and German slaves in his yard, and told them to go to Seleucia, and now he was the commander of the Sultan, with the wolf-like Roma soldiers, holding the mighty bow and arrow in his hand low, and the cat bent his waist, wading through the mud and streams, one after another, into the endless reeds, and the long grass that rattled with the ropes, constantly pulling away from both sides, rubbing against the soldiers' turbans and armor, making such a subtle sound. Murderous sweat trickled into the ground that seeped into his boots, and Hajib adjusted his breathing, watching the resting Danes in the swaying reeds, still unaware, and the sound of coarse and lax laughter was everywhere.

A cluster of arrows made of animal bones suddenly bounced out of the string, carrying the wind, through the reed leaves, the fragments of the leaves swollen and scattered, the feathers and tails of the arrows flipped rapidly, drawing a white arc of death, from the still stunned human heads, poofed through the light jacket, drilled a hole in it, and then the jacket fell into the fire, and the sound of fireworks burst out, "Damn! The other companions scrambled to their feet, stepping on the spreading fire, and thought that the guy with the jacket had missed, but the soldier's head swayed, and the arrow feathers on his forehead were impressive, and soon he was cross-legged, and his upper body fell into the fire, and with a bang, sparks burst out. (To be continued.) )