Huerta felt a little unsure during the return journey. After he met Baron Luke in Kortrijk City, he felt an even stronger sense of uneasiness that weighed him down like a boulder.
It was impossible for Baron Luke to send soldiers to escort him back to Fort Esbai, otherwise even a fool would know about the dirty deeds of the two of them.
Huerta still had money in his hand, and he had earned nearly twenty Denier silver coins from selling stolen goods. Of course, he was willing to hire some more reliable-looking mercenaries to send him home.
Baron Luke's spymaster is a balding middle-aged man who hides himself in a black linen robe all day long. Like Baron Luke, he is very satisfied with the intelligence sent by Herta this time because the Baron praised it at the dinner the day before yesterday. This made him feel very happy.
So, while Herta was busy looking for mercenary escorts, Baron Luke's spymaster had already found a team of reliable mercenary soldiers for him and generously helped him pay the deposit.
This team of mercenary soldiers looked battle-hardened, with a total of two archers and eight infantrymen. Most of them were wearing armed clothing and hard leather hats. They had short axes and daggers on their waists, and carried a small flexible shield on their backs for blocking. They looked far better than those few thieves who didn't know the heights of the world. The executioner is much more professional.
"This is exactly the escort I want!" Herta couldn't help but sigh after meeting the mercenary soldiers in the tavern.
He thought that if those thieves dared to cause trouble for him on the road, with the tattered weapons and tattered armor in their hands, they might die within two seconds.
In this way, Huerta left Kortrijk with ten mercenary soldiers.
Unlike the noisy Swabian travellers, they are obviously much more dedicated. During the journey, they occasionally joked, but most of the time, their eyes were scanning the surroundings like cautious rabbits, always listening to what was going on around them.
When they were walking near the town of Nijmegen, a soldier with good vision looked at the road in the distance and saw an ancient wooden bridge over a winding river. At this time, there was a car crossing the wooden bridge. Abandoned carriage, no one knows whether there is a trap waiting for them to step on.
"Hell, there might be an ambush on that wooden bridge," Hertaler, who was driving the carriage, stopped his horse and said with a frown, "There was nothing strange blocking the wooden bridge when I came."
The area around the wooden bridge was very empty. There were large areas of abandoned cultivated land covered with weeds and a pasture with two white cow skeletons lying on it. There was no one on it. A hundred meters across the river, there was a village that had been destroyed by the war. A desolate atmosphere came over me.
"It might be a trap set by bandits, or it might just be a carriage that an unlucky businessman damaged and left in the middle of the road. If you don't want to go through here, we can take a long way around. Of course, you have to add two coins for that. Remuneration in Denier silver coins." The leader of the mercenary soldiers wearing chainmail was not in a hurry. In his career, there were too many things like this.
"For my safety...and of course for your own safety, let's take a detour. However, the extra two Denier silver coins as reward are not necessary," Herta wiped her head. Sweat dripping from his eyes, he worked hard to organize his words, "After all, avoiding possible dangers is a kind of protection for yourselves. Why wouldn't you do it?"
"Hahahahahaha!"
"To put it bluntly, you just don't want to pay us two extra Denier silver coins!"
"Look at this coward!"
"coward!"
Herta's intentions could not be hidden from these shrewd soldiers, and everyone burst into laughter, which made Herta extremely embarrassed. The mercenary leader was a little unhappy. Herta's stinginess made him feel uncomfortable: "We are the ones who lick blood on the edge of the knife to make money. We are not afraid of danger. Don't think about using this ridiculous reason to excuse us from the detour reward. You want Know that the carriage in front of the wooden bridge may just be an abandoned carriage, nothing more.”
"I, you...you misunderstood what I meant," Huerta quickly calculated the risks and benefits in his mind. He still had some confidence. Maybe there were real robbers who couldn't defeat them. All this sense of security was gone. From the armor and weapons on the soldiers escorting him, "Then don't waste time, let's cross this bridge, guys."
The group of people set out on the road again, but what was different from before was that the soldiers took out their weapons from their waists, raised their shields, and moved forward cautiously.
Herta took a deep breath nervously. He seemed to realize that if he was ambushed, he who was driving the carriage would definitely be killed first. After all, the robbers did not want the roast duck in their mouths and they rushed the carriage frantically to clear a bloody path. flew away.
Of course, if the driver is a businessman, maybe the robbers will not do anything to Herta out of consideration for ransom. The problem is that no matter how you look at him now, he still looks like a country coachman.
"I'd better lead the horse and walk." Thinking of this, Herta got out of the carriage dejectedly, held the reins on the horse's mouth, and walked together among the mercenary soldiers. In this way, even if he encounters a wave of involuntary arrows from the enemy, he can still find a human shield to block the arrows for him.
When they approached the abandoned carriage, they discovered that eight guys wearing leather armor and looking like they didn't look like good people were sitting on the ground and resting idlely beside the pile of rocks at the foot of the steep slope by the river.
Seeing the "prey" coming to the door, the criminal showed a successful evil laugh, picked up the wood-cutting ax and stick and hammer on the ground, and eagerly walked towards Herta and his party.
"It seems you need a little help, friends." A man with wild curly hair carried an ax and looked at the mercenary soldiers and Herta among them. Then, he pointed to the carriage behind them and said, "Those goods It’s too heavy, let’s help you share some of it!”
Herta opened her mouth in horror. It seemed that he had made a wrong bet. This was a despicable trap. But the good news is that almost all of the eight people on the opposite side have no armor, and their weapons are not satisfactory. They should not be the opponents of the mercenary soldiers.
"You are such cowardly dogs," the leader of the mercenary soldiers pointed at the noses of the criminals and yelled according to the words Herta taught him, "this batch of beer belongs to Lord Simon, don't you think so?" Are you blind? Except for a driver who drives the carriage, the rest of our group are all private soldiers of the Baron!"
Herta glanced at the faces of these criminals with some uneasiness, until a familiar face came into his eyes. He was surprised and cursed in his heart, and quickly withdrew his gaze and lowered his head. But it was too late. The man noticed Herta, recognized him, and then gave a sarcastic sneer.
"Jewish swine who talks lies." Just when the criminals in the negotiation were undecided, one of his companions took off his hood, and a sloppy face and an arrogant beard appeared. In front of everyone, "These guards are not Baron Simon's private soldiers at all. The disgraced coachman among them is the owner of the Esbai Castle Tavern, a greedy and stingy follower of Satan."
"Ha, it turns out it's him." Another criminal pulled off the mask covering his face. Herta took a closer look and saw that this was not the leader who had escorted him to Bruges before. " It looks like we have a big fish waiting for us, and we can also take revenge for the revenge we made that day in Bruges!"
Herta really didn't expect that she would encounter those thieves here. Now, they were engaged in highway robbery, and they also recruited two men as strong as lumberjacks to join their gang.
Seeing that negotiation was meaningless, the mercenary leader took a fighting stance. The two archers tiptoed onto the top of the carriage, drew arrows from their quivers, and aimed at the outlaws.
"If you are sensible and hand over thirty Denier silver coins, I can forget the past grudges and let you roll safely from this wooden bridge to the other side." The leader of the team licked his chapped lips. He looked at Herta with a provocative look.
"No, you dirty Swabian shit, don't even think about it!" Huerta tightly protected the money bag and at the same time pulled out the dagger from his sheath.
"What a pity. It seems that I can only get these thirty Denier silver coins from your corpses!"
"You should be the ones who die!"
The outlaws roared and charged forward, archers on top of the carriages firing arrows at them. One arrow was inserted into the soil, and another shot through the arm of a tramp. The latter immediately let out a horrifying scream in unbearable pain.
Before the archer could draw the second arrow from the quiver, the mercenary soldiers clashed with the robbers.
Despite the fact that these robbers were unattractive and slovenly in appearance, in fact, two of them had two brushes, but they were just these two people. Some of the other robbers had their limbs chopped off, and some had their limbs broken by hammers. Ribs, and someone's head was split open.
When the leader of the team and another guy wearing a lumberjack's vest realized something was wrong and quickly retreated, they discovered that their companions were dead and injured, and they were the only two people who could still stand and hold weapons.
"run!"
The leader of the trip was as calm as he was when he stopped his companions from getting out of control in Bruges. He knew that he had no chance to win. The opponent only lost one person, and that was his fellow lumberjack who struck hard with a logging ax. Damn it.
This means that even if he puts down his weapon and kneels down to beg for mercy, he cannot get the other person's forgiveness. As for escaping directly, the two archers standing on top of the carriage would definitely kill them.
So, the leader of the trip took the opportunity to pull out the small throwing ax from his waist and threw it fiercely at an archer on the top of the carriage. A bright blood flower bloomed on the latter's face, and he groaned and shot straight. Goudi fell down with the "little fountain of blood" that kept gushing out from his face.
He had no time to throw a second throwing ax to kill the other archer, because the angry mercenary soldiers were already chasing after him with roars.
…
The bloody head of the leader was carried by the mercenary soldiers. He came to the abandoned carriage that had been moved to the side of the road. Herta was already waiting here with a spike and a hammer.
Seven heads have been nailed to the side of the abandoned carriage to warn lawbreakers in the area. It can also be said that Herta, who came up with this idea, let out a small breath of bad breath in her heart. The remaining body parts of the evil-doing owners of these heads were thrown into the river and allowed to swell and rot in the water.
After dealing with all this, they solemnly dug a grave for their two dead companions and quickly held a simple funeral.
According to the contract, these trophies belong to the mercenaries. Small items such as coins can be stuffed into pockets, but the captured weapons are relatively heavy.
The mercenary soldiers wanted to put them on Herta's carriage, but this greedy guy actually wanted to charge a Denier silver coin for this, so the soldiers had to curse in their mouths while putting these weapons Stuff them into your belt, or tie them into a pile with linen and carry them on your shoulders.
They packed up their loot and continued on their way.
The only lively place in the entire Barony of Clairvaux is the town of Nijmegen. There is not much left of this prosperous town after the ruthless destruction of the war.
The damaged wooden fence has not been repaired, and the wooden gate at the entrance of the town is so damaged that it can be kicked open with a kick and is in urgent need of repair. The people who were struggling to survive were powerless. Even the usually lively and bouncing guard dog was now as skinny as a stick, lying on the ground unwilling to move.
The kind old Baron Clairvaux and his heirs had died in the war, and the land was once again owned by Earl Helder. But how could the Earl, who was so damaged and unable to take care of himself, find the energy to help the survivors on this land?
The originally affluent townsfolk were living in an ignoble existence, but because the town wall had lost its function, damned robbers often poured into the town in groups and took away all the usable things from the townspeople's homes, even though most of the townspeople had nothing.
The plundering that makes things worse has plunged more people into the quagmire of hunger. More and more desperate people have turned into bandits, either becoming poachers or robbers and robbing the surrounding territories. Already unbearably poor, the town of Nijmegen is likely to become a stronghold for looters.
Huerta and his party carefully bypassed the chaotic town of Nijmegen and continued walking south. It didn't take long for them to return to the embrace of the forest.
Huerta knew that this was the junction line between the Dehes Forest and the lowland plains, and he would soon be able to return to Baron Simon's territory. After experiencing a robbery, his original uneasiness about returning home because of his betrayal of Baron Simon turned into a desire for personal safety and shelter.
But what he didn't know was that in the grass beside the forest road, two pairs of eyes with sharp brilliance were staring at him, and the hunter was holding a more deadly longbow in his hand.
"Go tell Lord Bill that the traitor has appeared and is ready to close the net."
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
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