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Standing on top of a mound in the mountains, you can look down on Vrankov.

Here, the Ryazan River can be seen shimmering with white luster in the forest, and the fields show a green sè face, and large evergreen pine forests stretch from a distance to the river, dense like a whole army of soldiers, while birch and ginkgo forests appear very sparse. White smoke wafts above the river, giving the woods a lonely and mysterious feel.

Lots of Valan heroes can cross the entire forest with a bag of salt and a sword, and this is the hero of the forest. I grew to like the Valanian adage that a sword is sharper than a scythe. Warriors should not be tempted to think about the short-term things in their parents.

In the morning and evening, when the cold wind makes people shiver unconsciously, every Valanite wears a heavy cloak of gray sè. We didn't dare to burn an open fire in the wilderness at night, but only dared to light a fire when we encountered a cave, which we used to roast dry and wet clothes and process our own dry food.

When I parted ways with the cavalry leader, he gave me a bow and a sword, and gave me and the new guides half of his food.

This time, instead of being dressed as soldiers, the guides were a bunch of oil merchants on mules, but I knew that once they were armed, they would be the most powerful soldiers like the guides before them.

Joey's health continued to deteriorate and there was no way to continue traveling with us. His wounds stenched, bleeding and thick juice. Bella said that you can use maggots to eat all the meat and then deal with it. This was ridiculed as madness by the Valans, who smeared Joey's wound with lard, placed a lucky amulet on top of it, and bandaged it. The treatment seems to be working, and I reckon the next time I see Joey, his wound will be painless. But by the time I left Joey and the guides on, Joey's forearms had turned black.

The muddy road was like an endless ladder, and there were times when we walked all day on the winding road back and forth. I only climbed a few hundred feet on the mountain. I have heard that there are more than 2,000 mountain people living in the mountains. I wonder what they ate to survive. As far as I know, there may not be as much land as a village in the lower part of the mountains, and there is not as much game to hunt all year round.

However, the mercenaries in the mountains are indeed excellent, although their weapons are rudimentary. I have met several groups of soldiers, thirty or forty people, and their purpose is the same as ours. I want to go to the mountains and meet the 'Prince of Valan'. I thought it was funny in my heart that Giovanni was just a mercenary leader, and he dared to claim the title of prince. I don't know how Lech will react when he hears it. But in the blink of an eye, I suppressed the smile in my heart, the title of 'Prince'. It's a cause that I share with all the other Valans, and we follow Giovanni, in fact, we are following our own dreams.

Speaking of these soldiers, they wore only leather armor, most of them had no helmets, only a thick fur hat, and their weapons were only a large single sword. This knife resembles a butcher's knife for cutting meat. But longer. Thicker and very sharp. It is said that more than a thousand mountaineers armed with such single knives defeated a Mamluk in Saland. Of course, this may be their own boasting.

I asked my guide how many soldiers Giovanni really had. This guide always said that there were more than 10,000 at one time, and about 3,000 at another. I don't believe that. Giovanni's sharpest soldiers numbered only a few hundred, and with the armed peasants and Salander mercenaries, there would never be more than six hundred. These people can naturally dominate a multiplier of rabble, but there is absolutely no material in the mountains to sustain such a large army. Giovanni was a good organizer, but he couldn't have conjured up so much food out of thin air. And the wear and tear of these people's weapons, the maintenance of armor, the fodder for the horses, each of them is an impossible task.

I know that the barracks had a granary, and there was storage for four hundred soldiers to spend three months. I found out from the barracks dispatch that Giovanni seemed to have the same warehouse somewhere else. Then, Giovanni could easily maintain an army of 800 men. If Giovanni had foreign aid that I didn't know, I calculated in my heart that the number of Giovanni's troops was probably less than 1,500 men.

That's a lot, and it's definitely not a little horn sè that the count can ignore.

While all the crows were about to roar and fly for carrion, a falcon was ready to give them a swift blow behind them.

The woods begin to regain their greenery, and the vibrant woods feel alive like a newborn fawn. When we crossed the ridge, we found an abandoned village. The people in the village seemed to have disappeared overnight, and I don't know where they went. We looked around the village curiously, there was no sign of fighting, and there were still some houses in which there was food that had not had time to be looted. If someone looted this place, then it was in a hurry. We found some thieves in the big house in the center of the village: these men had found the abandoned village the other day, and they had happily occupied it, and they had drunk themselves with the rest of the wine and had wasted a lot of food.

When we hung the thieves one by one on the beams of the roof, they thought they were joking, and they cried out in pain until we lit a fire under their feet. We tortured these people and asked them where the people in the village had gone, but they didn't know anything. We continued to torture them, and they said that the plague had driven away the people of the village.

They said that before the winter the people of the village had taken in some cloaked Kugit nobles, who were covered with rotten sores, and before entering the village, spread out all their belongings and laid them at their feet, begging to be taken in.

The villagers, hoping to loot the money from the dying men, agreed to take them in. The Kugit were housed in a remote house, and the people of the village divided their belongings and kept the Kugit to die. Soon after, only an old man and a small child died of the Kujits, who were inexplicably not dead, and demanded a part of their belongings so that they could continue to live. At the same time, there were people in the village who were sick, always bleeding from the nose, followed by ears. In the end, coughing and sweating were bloody. Urine, stool, there are bursts of bloody breath coming from the surface. People had sores on their faces and their eyes flashed like demons.

The people of the village felt that this was a curse imposed by the Kujits, and they executed the child and the old man, and then abandoned the village and fled.

I have not heard of this condition, nor have the Varans. I don't believe in any terrible illness that can destroy a village in one winter. In winter, sickness is as weak as man. We conclude that these people are lying, and that they have destroyed this village that belongs to the prince. They didn't have a reason to live, so we locked the house, set it on fire outside, and left.

"This disease is like the devil." I say.

"Of course. Because it's fake. One of the Varan guides said, "Who would believe in something so powerful?" God would not have created such a thing to plague us. ”

"But I don't think it's just nonsense," I recalled, recalling some rumors I'd heard, "I seem to have heard that on the edge of the desert, the tribes of Kugit had been hit by a plague in previous years, and their strength had been greatly weakened. I don't know if that's what they're talking about. ”

"Bah," the Valans believe in spitting can throw away bad luck, "have you ever heard that a plague can go on and on for years?" We are Varan. Which family has a plague? We're going to burn down the house. So that for a maximum of a year, the plague left. ”

The Valans often abandon the sick. Even seriously wounded comrades-in-arms. During the plague, there were often only a dozen or so victims in the village of Valan, because once they became ill, they were resolutely abandoned by their relatives and friends.

Giovanni was very disgusted by this, because the sick would also heal and the wounded would be able to rejoin the team, and if you abandon them at this time, you will lose your future friends and strength. For this reason, Giovanni even regularly provided for the priests who treated the wounded, asking them to help treat those who were seriously ill. This earned him a lot of friendship and gave the soldiers the courage to fight, because they didn't have to worry about being abandoned by their friends if they were injured.

This practice was taught to him by Giovanni's experience as a mercenary. Mercenaries often seem to be nice and easy to get along with, but I know the reason for this: not with good intentions, but with better intentions.

If people live more soundly, people will be able to burst out with greater vitality. There were many princes who did not believe this claim, so they failed. There were many lords who felt that their subjects were just sacks of mud and stones, so they were abandoned. There is a family that thinks I'm just a pawn to be used against, so my resolve has been strengthened, and I'm not ready to follow them anymore.

On a hillside, we encountered the first sentry posts.

There were seven soldiers here, and when they saw me, one of them recognized me. We greeted each other as if we were in the barracks.

"Victor!" The Valanian volunteered to lead us to Giovanni, and he jumped on my horse and rode with me, "Do you still eat with that damn fork?" ”

"No, this was a long time ago!" I said, "I'll give the fork back to the old loach!" ”

The Valans laughed.

We walked through the woods, where large areas of trees had been cut down and sturdy watchtowers and prefabricated fence boards gradually appeared. There were young people everywhere, many of whom surrounded the Valan soldiers, watching the veterans display their weapons and demonstrate how to fight. As we passed through a gate made of two huge logs, more than thirty young soldiers threw their javelins together, and those javelins flew into the sky like a black gust of wind.

The soldiers had gathered in several circles according to the different troops, and their officers were talking loudly. As we passed, none of the soldiers looked back, as if they had not heard the sound behind them. Almost half of the soldiers here wear helmets, and quite a few of them wear shiny armor, and after seeing too many Varan armies like Hanako, the weapons of the army here are better than I imagined, which is almost comparable to the parliamentary army, well, in fact, it is still worse than the parliamentary army, because the Valans do not have those noble guards composed of boyars.

One of Valan's attendants helped me grab the reins of my horse and told me to dismount. I walked through the camp full of Valan warriors with a group of people around me, and then I saw the Great Tent of the Prince of Valan, sitting in the deepest part of the tent.

This is the most glorious moment, and I am about to meet the people who will change Valan. I will swear allegiance to him as a loyal knight swears allegiance to a majestic king. I'll also tell him Joey's story and tell him that I'm going to get revenge on Joey. If we had really captured Vlaankov and been recognized by the Parliament, and even by the Berks and Svadians, then our story would have been written in books, told by bards.

Should I call him Your Majesty? Or is it the Prince?

"I am the son of Vicchia boyar," I said aloud, "and I have come to Lord Valan on a mission, and I will swear allegiance to him." I would like to see Your Majesty, please inform me. ”

The two Valan warriors looked at me with strange expressions, then stepped out of the way, revealing Prince Valan and his closest generals.

I saw Prince Valan: Giovanni was yawning, gambling with a couple of mercenary generals, he had just lost money, he was in a bad mood, he was picking his feet and drinking, questioning whether others were playing tricks on the dice.