Chapter 123: The Battlefield Merchant Group

It was about five o'clock in the morning when Lorist arrived at Rock Castle with Pat and Jim, one man and three horses.

The camp outside the rock castle was brightly lit and full of people.

Butler Boris and Daddy Balek, who had been informed by the guards, hurried out to greet them.

"How's the city wall up ahead?" Lorist's first question was the defense of the wall.

Father Balek replied, "My lord, it's all right, the army of the Kenmasses family launched two attacks yesterday, and they did not attack again after being repulsed. A few miles from our walls, we began to set up camp and did not finish until evening. Last night was peaceful, and there was no warning from the city wall ahead. ”

Gerry is a unit of length on the continent of Gelinthia. It is said that in the earliest elven era, the basic unit of length was the mag, that is, the distance between two horses when the elven hussars were in a formation. Later, in the era of magical civilization, Mag was changed to Gemi by magicians. One grid is equal to one thousand cubic meters. Two thousand years have passed, and although these units of measurement in the era of magical civilization have continued to the present, there are also many abbreviations in the title, and Gemi is called rice, and Geri and Li both mean the same thing.

Lorist breathed a sigh of relief: "Why is the camp so lively?"

Boris butler said, "My lord, we are making wooden sheds. ”

"Make a wooden shed?"

"Yesterday the longbowmen of the House of Kenmas inflicted great casualties on the guards of our first wall with their loists. Master Siroba came up with the idea of building a wooden shed on the city wall, so that he would not be afraid of the longbow shooting. As for direct fire, we have the cover of the city walls at a distance of a hundred meters, and the defenders can also counterattack. Papa Balek said.

"Master Siroba, is his idea credible?" Lorist was skeptical.

Butler Boris and Daddy Balek laughed, and Butler Boris said, "My lord, we have adopted this suggestion after discussing it and finding that there are no problems. ”

"What if the enemy burns these wooden sheds with rockets and takes advantage of the smoke to obscure the sight of the guards?" asked Lorlist.

"It's okay, after the wooden shed is built, we will apply a thick layer of green cement to the outside, so that the rocket will not be effective against the wooden shed. Another advantage is that rain and snow will not affect the guards of the first wall. Papa Balek explained.

"Alright then, you guys keep busy, I'll go to the front wall first. Lorist mounted his horse again and slackened towards the wall in front of him.

......

Ovicis leaned against the wall of the room in his armor and snored, but he slept alertly, and Lorist opened his eyes as soon as he walked in.

"Go ahead and rest, leave me alone. Lorist tapped Ovicis twice on the shoulder, who stood up: "Good work." ”

"My lord, I'm fine. I've been sleeping for more than two hours just now. I didn't go out to make my rounds, and I came back to ......sleep when I saw that there was nothing to do," Ovicis said as he glared at his bloodshot eyes.

Lorist was not reluctant: "What are the specific casualties?"

"My lord, the two captains of the Kenmax clan are so powerful that they have launched a hanging shot at our first wall from more than three hundred meters away, and the arrows are like rain. Our guards simply have nowhere to hide. One squad was fully reimbursed in less than a quarter of an hour. There were not many sacrifices, only twenty-seven, and they were all shot to the vital point. The rest were hung up. I sent a small team with shields to rescue them, but more than thirty more were wounded. Luckily we were all wearing iron armor, otherwise the casualties would have been greater......"

Ovickith gushed about yesterday's battle: "We withdrew to the second wall, and the soldiers of the Kenmas took the opportunity to storm the first, and then they were dumbfounded, and could only take their swords and cut down the three large iron gates that connected the two walls. We fought back against them in the house with our crossbows. The first wall was full of enemies, and often two or three arrows were thrown down, and in less than a moment, the attacking enemies all collapsed, and soon fled back. ”

"The Viscount Kenmeth was stupid and ruthless, and he beheaded the first few soldiers who fled back in public, and ordered a second attack. This time they went up the first wall and pulled up the ladder to climb to it. However, I brought dozens of people to guard above, and I came up to kill one by one, and the crossbow of the city guard below continued to exert power. This attack lasted a little longer than the first, and they fled back. There were two hundred and fifty-nine corpses left above and below the first wall, and with the wounded, I estimate that the casualties of the Kenmasses were about four or five hundred. ”

The Viscount Kenmeth still refused to rest, but the soldiers below seemed to be clamoring, and even drew their swords against each other, and finally the quarrel calmed down for a long time, and he took the men and horses to camp there. I asked Papa Balek to lead a team of laborers to collect the bodies of their soldiers who had died in battle, and I wanted to send them to the back for burial. But in the evening, a messenger came and demanded the return of the soldiers' bodies. I'll have the bodies stripped and given to them, so we don't have to bury them......"

Lorist was speechless. This bearded Ovicis is worthy of being a bandit, and he has become accustomed to picking up corpses.

"Did we suffer heavy casualties among our guards in these two attacks?" asked Lorlist?

Ovicis cracked his mouth and laughed: "There are no casualties, the first time they attacked, we were in the house, and they couldn't attack us." The second time, the guards I brought with me were covered by the city walls, and they were wearing iron armor, and they were condescending. As they climb up, they have to worry about the crossbows in the house, which are not a threat to us. It was after they fled, the two squads of longbowmen shot at us again. But I had been prepared, and everyone who went up had a big shield with them, and they were well protected by the big shields against the walls, and everyone was fine except for an unlucky man who left his foot exposed and was hit by an arrow. ”

......

Papa Balek came up to the city with the laborers, and the wooden huts they were to lay were simple: first erect a wooden column every three meters on the first wall, then attach a wooden box to the column, and then lay two fingers of planks on it, which protruded from the wall by one meter and sloped down slightly. The laborers on it had safety ropes tied around their waists, and a thick layer of green cement was laid on the wooden boards while spreading.

Lorist went inside the house and found that the wooden shed did not affect the range of fire of the defenders' crossbows. I went up to the platform wall on the roof, and saw many laborers building a herringbone wooden shed with a great slope on it. Papa Balek said: "This hut above has to prevent snow from accumulating in winter, and the slope is too steep to allow the snow to slide down. The main reason is that the wooden shed below is easy to clean, and the person above is not easy to go up. ”

Loris nodded, saw the crossbow-maker father and son inspecting a city-guarding crossbow and walked over.

There were also several feathered arrows stuck in the crossbow of the crossbow, which must have been covered by the longbowmen after the soldiers of the Kenmax family retreated from the second attack, according to Ovikis.

"What's wrong with this crossbow?" asked Lorlist.

"Oh, my lord, this crossbow is almost useless. You see, this kind of feather arrow is specially made in the pre-imperial period, in siege warfare by the longbowmen to shoot specially against defensive equipment, this kind of arrow is square, like a small shovel, the arrow is heavy, hanging from top to bottom, increasing the power, you see the crossbow on the four arrows, there are four small cracks, maybe a few arrows are fine, but maybe the next arrow will burst and hurt the operator......" Master Falin replied.

"Alas......" Lorist sighed. Together with the fourteen crossbows arranged on the first city wall, they were all scrapped without firing a single arrow, although it is a simple version, but so many crossbows are also a big loss.

Nearly 1,000 laborers built the wooden shed quickly, and it was almost finished by the time it was dark. This is mainly due to the fact that the city wall in front is only seventy or eighty meters long, and all the materials are processed in the camp outside the city, as long as they are assembled, it will naturally be very fast.

The Kenmath family's armed camp also discovered the anomaly here, and the two squads of longbowmen hurriedly left the camp and came to a distance of 300 meters from the city wall and began to shoot with their bows. The feathered arrows fired in the first and second rounds were densely inserted in the wooden shed, and in the third round they began to use rockets, but the green cement on the wooden boards was very thick, and the rockets burned on their own for a while before extinguishing.

After a while, a knight in a gorgeous armor and dozens of attendants left the camp and came to the rock castle to inspect for a long time, and then ran to the longbowmen squad to talk for a long time, and finally returned to the camp helplessly.

Lorist said in his heart, that should be Viscount Kenmeth.

The two captains, the archers, tried in vain, and followed Viscount Kenmeth back to the camp. Papa Barek ordered the labourers to continue their work, which was to put green clay on the logs erected on the first wall and the ceiling of the wooden shed, and ordered a few labourers to go to the top to collect the intact feathered arrows, and to refill the places where the arrows had been shot with green clay.

On this day, Viscount Kenmax did not send troops to attack again, and there was chaos in the camp.

In the evening, Paul Binns and Sedkamp arrived at Rock Castle in a carriage with a squadron of family soldiers. Lorist finally put his mind at ease, and now the Rock Castle can be described as impregnable.

At night, the Kenmax family did not launch a night attack.

At noon the next day, three armies of several hundred men each arrived in front of the Rock Castle and set up camp next to the camp of the Kenmath family. Papa Balek recognized the insignia on one of the flags, an old territorial nobleman in the Northlands, named Earl Spencer. If the second prince hadn't canonized more than forty territorial nobles in the Northlands, then this Earl Spencer would be the closest neighbor to the Norton family.

The other two were recognized by the Butler of Boris, who, like the Kenmath family, were the nobles of the realm who had been newly canonized to the Northland by the Second Prince. The Pegasus Badge Banner is said to be a wandering knight who took refuge with the second prince during the civil war of the Three Kings Empire, was ordered to lead a temporary knight order to perform well, and once saved the second prince's life in times of crisis. After the end of the civil war, he gave a large sum of the wealth looted during the war to the second prince, and then he was made a territorial baron.

There is also a badge on the flag of the family is a golden three-petaled flower, Boris butler smiled, this was originally a court nobleman, married a very beautiful wife, and then his wife hooked up with the second prince, out of compensation, the second prince sealed him to the northland, but left his beautiful wife in the royal capital......

Everyone laughed, and the butler Boris said that this matter was very famous in the royal capital of Windbri, and many people said that it was worthwhile for a beautiful wife to change a hereditary territory, so many people brought their sisters, daughters, and wives to find opportunities to meet the second prince every day, and made a mess of the atmosphere of the court.

On the morning of the third day, four more Lords of the Northlands arrived with an army of several hundred men, this time three old Lords of the Northlands, a new Lords of the Realm.

Lorist wondered, and said in his heart, is the Kenmax family planning to organize an alliance of nobles to crusade against the Norton family? The total number of troops brought by the nobles of the seven territories is less than two thousand, and this is a fart. Could it be that the Kenmax family wanted to use the army brought by these nobles as cannon fodder for the siege?

Lorist didn't figure it out yet, but he saw another large army coming in the distance, many vehicles and horses, estimated to be more than 2,000, but the flag or something was very chaotic and couldn't be seen clearly.

However, instead of camping next to the Kenmath family's camp, the troops chose a flat place on the side to set up camp, and the place they chose formed a triangle with the Kenmath family's camp and the rock castle.

Lorist felt that this force was very strange, and Jim next to him was happy: "It's okay now, some are playing." ”

"What do you mean?, Jim?" asked Lorlist.

"My lord, this is a war merchant group, organized by merchants. They are neutral and do not participate in wars. On the one hand, appearing near the battlefield is to do business, such as providing food, weapons and other materials, and of course the price is relatively high. On the other hand, the spoils of the victors are also acquired. They also had food and drink, women and a gambling house in the camp. No matter which side you are, you can go in and spend, as long as you follow the rules of the camp, you can play with peace of mind. Also, you see, the banner of that Blood Moon is the Blood Moon Mercenary Regiment, one of the three major mercenary groups of the Iberian Kingdom, and they are as famous as the Flying Feather Mercenary Regiment. However, the Flying Feather Mercenary Group is now gone, and there are only two mercenary groups left. ”

"My lord, you see that the Blood Moon Banner is planted at the top, which means that the safety of this battlefield merchant group is the responsibility of the Blood Moon Mercenary Regiment, and whoever wants to attack this camp means that they are enemies of the Blood Moon Mercenary Regiment. Well, the Blood Moon Mercenary Regiment likes to do business in the Battlefield Merchant Group the most, and it is said that they themselves have a large share of the Merchant Group. There are also one, two, three, and four mercenary group flags underneath the Blood Moon banner, which means that there are four mercenary groups in this battlefield merchant group that can be hired by the warring party. Let me see, the Spear Mercenary Group, the Night Bat Mercenary Group, the Cromwell Mercenary Group and the Five Swords Mercenary Group are all old acquaintances. "Jim was excited.

"Are these four mercenary groups very powerful?" asked Lorlist.

"It's about the same as us, but there are more people than us, and the total number of the four mercenary groups is about six or seven hundred. If the number of people I and Hokis had recruited more than a hundred before, we could have formed a mercenary group. It's all because Horkis said to choose reliable companions, so we can only form a mercenary team of sixty or so. Jim replied.

Lorist thought for a moment and asked, "Do you think Viscount Kenmax will hire them to attack our castle?"

Jim shook his head: "No, even if Viscount Kenmax wants to hire them, they won't agree, attacking our castle is to send them to death." The leader of no mercenary regiment is a fool, and it will not be possible to let his members attack our strong walls, and the most he can accept is to escort grain and grass to find out the enemy's situation. ”

"Well, then you have time to contact and ask what the Kenmath family is doing these days. I think there will be people on their side who are going to play in the camp of the War Carter, and you should ask them for a few glasses of wine when the time comes. Lorist commanded.

"Yes, sir. ”

......