After crying all night, Alice finally ran out of energy and sat slumped in the damp mine with red eyes, her emerald green eyes full of despair.
She and her father were winemakers in a small village in the Principality of Friesland in the north. Her father was dissatisfied with the local lord's increasing taxes and had conflicts with them, and he became more and more interested in leaving.
Just last month, a relative from the southern Berg Earldom wrote a letter, describing the peaceful life there, the stable tax rate, and the current shortage of alcohol.
After careful consideration, Alice and her father, who were free craftsmen, decided to sell off the village winery, bring brewing equipment and a batch of newly brewed ale, hired five caravan guards, and headed south to Berg County overnight.
Unexpectedly, after entering Hattuaria County in the Earldom of Berg, he was attacked by a group of robbers in the middle of the night, and he was reduced to his current situation.
At this time, the light coming from outside the cave suddenly dimmed a lot, accompanied by the sound of footsteps getting closer and closer. Tears welled up in Alice's eyes, she already knew what was going to happen next.
"My little beauty, where are you?" The bandit leader laughed wildly, his leather boots rustling in the wet hole.
"Father!" Alice leaned her head on her father's chest and sobbed softly.
The old brewer didn't say anything, but kept stroking his daughter's brown hair with his tied hands, with tears shining in his eyes.
"Ha, so it's here!" The bandit leader used the weak light of the torch in the cave to see the father and daughter, who were tightly tied and huddled in the corner.
A big hand covered with calluses, sticky with mud and all kinds of filth, grabbed Alice's long hair that exuded a faint vanilla smell, and yanked it up her body, which stank of sweat.
The intense pain in her head made Alice, who was sad and exhausted, almost fainted.
"What a beautiful little bitch!" The bandit leader couldn't help but squat down and hugged the brown-haired beauty, who frowned and looked very painful and resistant.
"Sir, since I promised your men to pay the ransom for our father and daughter, according to the rules, you have no right to touch us until the ransom is delivered!" The old brewer was playing with his daughter angrily. The bandit leader.
"What did you say, old man?" The bandit plucked his ears, as if he hadn't heard anything.
"I said..." The old brewer had just started to speak when he suddenly felt his head was buzzing and he lay on his side hard on the ground. Half a month later, I felt a burning pain on my right side of my face.
"Those are the rules of you ridiculous civilized people. You are so grateful that I can spare your lives!" Looking at the old brewer who was slapped and unable to get up for a long time, the bandit leader sneered.
"Father! Are you okay?" Alice cried in grief as she looked at her father's miserable condition.
"Haha, old thing, I will not only beat your people, but also your daughter in front of you, hahahaha!" The bandit leader smiled lewdly, and his dirty hands were about to pull up Alice's dress.
"Ah, someone come and save me, no!" Alice struggled wildly. But this only makes the hungry wolf in him even crazier.
At this moment, there were faint screams and the sound of weapons clashing outside the cave.
"Boss! Oh no, there's a group of people outside breaking into the camp!" A minion on duty at the door ran into the mine and shouted loudly.
"What?" The bandit leader put down the struggling Alice in his arms, "What the hell, how many people are there?"
"There are about twenty people, and the battle formation looks like Vikings. But they all speak the Hatuariya dialect with a Lorraine accent, and wear peasant clothes." The minion said with great confusion.
…
"Shield wall, thrust!"
The fat man saw several bandits in front of the shield wall hitting the shield wall continuously. While shouting instructions, he swung his ax and struck a bandit on the head who was trying to get behind the shield formation from the right wing. The red and white stuff that burst out from the bandit's head instantly covered the fat man's upper body, which looked very scary.
There were slightly larger gaps in the shield formation, and the soldiers standing with shields and spears in their hands stabbed the bandits who were attacking the shield formation with their spears through the gaps.
"Ah!" Several bandits in front of the shield formation suddenly screamed.
Someone was stabbed in the thigh and fell to his knees. Someone had a spear thrust into his stomach, and his bloody hands were holding the spear tightly.
An agile bandit avoided the thrusting spear. He grabbed the handle of the spear with both hands and jerked it back. He actually pulled out the spear, and the recruit who was holding the spear unsteadily was almost dragged out. Shield wall.
"careful!"
The newly exposed recruit was about to stand firm and erect the big buckler again, but the agile bandit in front of him immediately pulled out the dagger from his waist and thrust it into his throat.
"Pfft"
The recruit seemed to have been drained of all his strength. The shield in his hand fell to the ground, and he fell down holding his neck with blood gushing out. The recruit squatting under him and holding the shield felt a stream of heat pouring down from his head. He put the short ax in his right hand on the ground and touched it with his hand. The smell of blood made him weak in fear.
"The people next to you will fill the gap! Quick, fill the gap!" In this fierce battle, Simon had no time to be sad. What he saw was a small hole appearing in the entire shield wall.
"Bill, Klein, shoot from the flank!" Simon shouted.
After a while, four arrows flew out of the forest on the left wing of the camp.
Two arrows hit a bandit who was trying to bypass the shield wall from the left, and another arrow hit the waist of the bandit in front of the shield wall who killed a recruit. Another shot missed nothing and flew across the battlefield into the woods on the right side of the camp.
"Disband and charge!" Simon saw that the dozen or so bandits in the camp had fallen to pieces.
"Kill!"
Several old serfs who had been on the battlefield took the lead in the charge, charging forward with short axes and short hammers. The numb recruits at the back hesitated for a moment and looked at some bandits in the camp who turned around and ran away when they saw the situation was not going well. They finally plucked up the courage, shouted loudly, and rushed forward together.
"What the hell are you doing standing still? Charge!" Simon kicked the two recruits on the buttocks, who were staring blankly at the bloody battlefield in front of them.
A bandit who had been stabbed in the stomach was groaning in pain on the ground, holding his grey-white intestines that had fallen out and the blood that was constantly gushing out. A bandit who had his thigh pierced was trying to stand up and try to escape to the forest on the side. He was suddenly kicked down by a recruit and kept begging for mercy.
The corpses and wounded of bandits were strewn across the chaotic open space, and the thick smell of blood lingered in the air.
"vomit"
The two sluggish recruits immediately started vomiting.
Simon also felt like vomiting, but he still controlled it. The original owner of this body once went to the battlefield with the Baron, and the scene was much bloodier than now. Simon had already vomited when he needed to.
At this time, exclamations came from the battlefield not far away, accompanied by the screams of a new soldier. Simon ignored the two weak recruits and ran forward quickly.
When Simon arrived at the center of the camp, he saw a young recruit lying on the ground. There was a huge wound from the left collarbone to the right rib. You could even see the white bones and various organs in his body. The recruit was lying on the ground, twitching and looking like he was hopeless.
The remaining recruits held shields and surrounded a tall, stout, shirtless man with a two-handed battle ax in his hand, and kept a distance from him.
"Where's Hoffman?" Simon frowned and asked the recruit on the side.
"He just took a few people to chase deserters in the abandoned mine!" The recruit looked nervously at the tall man in front of him and answered Simon.
"Huh?" The shirtless man noticed Simon, who was wearing mail and an exquisite Norman helmet. "Are you the leader of this group of cowardly farmers? Do you have the guts to challenge me in a duel with Jack the Longaxe!?"
"Heh," Simon looked at the new recruit who had fallen silently in the pool of blood with unwillingness in his eyes, and looked at Jack Longaxe angrily, "Although it would be very disrespectful for me to duel with a low-class bastard like you, But now I really want to chop off your head with a sword and feed it to the dogs!"
"Then don't talk nonsense, just come here and give it a try. I, Jack, have a good reputation. Many people have died under my axe, and I don't mind one more of you!" The bare-chested man held the ax in both hands, arched his body, and showed his eyes. He looked at Simon fiercely.
