Rise In Calradia - Chapter 390 : Catherine's Caravan

"Come here and give a hand, the carriage is stuck again."

On the broken and muddy road, the members of the caravan hurriedly got out of the car to check. The aunt who was in the lead walked over with a frown, and then shouted loudly, calling for others to come and help.

As the leader of the caravan, she is no longer young. Judging from her appearance, she should be around forty years old, but in fact she is slightly older. Her stature is not tall, and her face can barely be called charming, and she should have been somewhat beautiful when she was young. As the leader of such a caravan of twenty people, with five horse-drawn two-wheeled carriages and six pack horses, she was dressed in shabby clothes, an old cotton coat and leather apron with a belt. Attached to it is a mounted short knife, a useful tool like a butcher's knife, but also useful in fights. In addition to this knife, there are many other standing tools hanging from the belt, and the ledgers that are crucial to the caravan and some dinars are placed in the backpack that is diagonally across.

Her name is Catherine. She is a businessman who has long traveled between Palavin and Suno and is somewhat well-known in Swadia. When she was young, she also provided physical services. But even so, the meager profits and the endless salary arrears of those **** nobles made her always poor and only the principal was left, and her children also left before her for various reasons. It was not until the appearance of the lord named Byron that her fate was completely changed. Before and after the earthquake, Byron's territory had always been in great demand for supplies. Not only was the profit lucrative, but the accounts were settled on the spot, and sometimes even a little more was given. The most important thing is that, as vendors who provide supplies for the army, they enjoy partial discounts on territorial tariffs and various miscellaneous taxes, which makes this poor old woman understand for the first time what a truly profitable business is.

Now, she already has her own caravan, not only that, perhaps because she was not afraid of difficulties to deliver supplies to Amira after the earthquake (actually because she saw that it was profitable, and the Amira people rescued after the disaster) A lot of dinars but nothing), Earl Byron planned to meet her after the arrival of this shipment, and the soldier who gave her a little letter also revealed to her that the Earl was likely to invest in her caravan, which made her very happy , so deliberately spent a lot of money to expand the team and shipped more goods. She was fully looking forward to that adult taking her business to the next level. After all, after working together for so long, she believed that the young lord who was a mercenary would definitely understand the difficulties of a businessman like her.

The members of the caravan came to help one after another, pushing out the carriage with its wheels stuck in the mud, and even the groom who was watching the horse came to help. It was already a little late, and they had to get there before dusk. a village.

But even so, there was still one person in the caravan who did not act. He was still sitting in the car and seemed to be caught in some kind of memory. Judging by his thick chainmail, the battle axe hanging around his waist and the shield on his back, and the sledgehammer on his carriage, he was clearly a reliable guard, though perhaps not a good helper.

"Big man, don't think about the fact that you killed ten people by yourself in the past, come and help, don't you see the car can't move!" Catherine shouted dissatisfied.

"You can call me Wolfhart, or a giant bear. I'm not a big man, ma'am." The big Nord raised his head and said solemnly.

"I can call you whatever I want, big, half-breed. I can call it anything I want. Now, get out of the carriage and help us move this **** broken wheel out of the way. I saved you and took you in. Paying your salary is not for you to eat here!" Catherine's words were very sharp, and Wolfhardt, who looked strong and really looked like a bear, shrugged helplessly and left the carriage with his head down.

"Okay, okay, ma'am, don't be angry." As a half-blood of Swadia and Nord border, Wolfhardt's father was a Nord's own infantry, squire and village militia captain, The mother is the daughter of a Swadian knight. He has the status of a noble. Even if he is a mercenary, he is also called a mercenary knight, and he has a bit of aristocratic pride. But in front of this Swadian commoner old woman, he did not dare to have any temper. After all, it was Catherine who rescued him a few years ago when he was defeated and passed out in the wild, wounded and wounded, paid a huge sum of money to her to keep him alive, provided him with food and work, and treated him like Like his family, he swore to **** Catherine until she got married again, so he didn't dare to have any temper with the eldest sister.

With his strength, the carriage, which was still difficult to move, finally moved this time. Everyone worked hard together, and finally pushed the carriage out of the **** mud pit. Several people came over with shovels and wooden boards to fill the pit. , so that the carriage behind it cannot pass.

At this time, everyone's attention was focused on their carriage and the big pit, and the complex surrounding environment was temporarily ignored by them. In today's Rhodok field, such a mistake is fatal!

A crossbow arrow flew through the sky and shot at Catherine's neck. But Wolfhardt was quick-witted and quickly stood in front of Catherine with the shield on his back to block the deadly crossbow bolt, and then roared:

"Bandits! Protect the convoy!"

The members of the caravan were all taken aback. In a brief panic, one crossbow shot into the eye of a caravan guard, and the other shot through the knee of a hapless crossbowman. The caravan guard They only recovered at this time, raised their shields around the carriage, and the remaining two mercenary crossbowmen hid behind the shields to look for traces of their opponents and prepared to fight back.

"Okay, what do you want? Come out and tell me, we can talk!"

Catherine has seen many scenes in her life, she even dodged arrows to pick up corpses on a battlefield full of corpses and still fighting, so instead of panicking, he hid behind Wolfhart and shouted, trying to Negotiate with each other. This method has always been very useful. The bandits do not want to risk their death when they seek money. Killing is often done to intimidate businessmen. As long as the conditions are right, they will definitely choose to take the money and leave rather than go with this group, which still has a large number of people and has many guards. A team fight. And Catherine has long learned how to bargain with these outlaws on road money.

But this time, the other party did not answer, but continued to shoot crossbow arrows at them. Their heads were high, and one of the hired crossbowmen who came back to attack was shot in the shoulder blade, and the well-aimed crossbow bolt was shot crooked.

"Coward! Kind of come out!" Wolfhart yelled a few times, but only more bolts answered him.

"Damn it, they're not bandits!" Wolfhardt scolded, feeling the power of the crossbow bolt on his arm, his numb arm and the holed shield made him understand that the other party was definitely not Ordinary bandits, those desperadoes can't get several heavy crossbows used by the army, and it is difficult for the accurate head to reach this level. These people were either Rhodok rebels or a small group of Rhodok troops who had infiltrated Byron's territory.

"You cowards of the Rhodoks! Your lords and kings will be ashamed of you. I'm going to get out of here and tell Lord Byron who is attacking his people and merchants in this land! "

Wolfhardt's tentative reply apparently worked, the bolts stopped firing briefly for a while, followed by a terrifying salvo before a dozen men armed with shields and trees emerged from behind the bushes and trees on all sides. Rhodok veteran spearman of the spear. They had previously hidden their shields under them to avoid detection, and there was apparently a squad of senior Rhodok crossbowmen in ambush.

They didn't have to show up, they just had to drive them away and then burn the supplies or take them. But when the other party discovered their identity and yelled, they had to show up to surround those merchants, kill everyone, and leave no room for news. They had taken down two groups of Byron's merchants and a patrol on this trade route before, and they had to do as much damage as possible before Byron's forces found them.

"Okay, now you've emerged, **** bastards!" Wolfhard spat, then backed up to the carriage where he was saluting, picked up the two-handed warhammer, and charged forward.

The senior Rhodok spearmen who were shrinking the encirclement of course expected the resistance to this dying struggle, and they skillfully erected their shields and set up their spears. Three Rhodoks stood in front, and two approached from the flanks. Facing this strict formation, even a knight would have difficulty parrying.

But they still underestimated the strength and prowess of this Nordswadian half-blood. Wolfhardt completely dodged a few spears, and then ignored the last one that remained on his chainmail and didn't pierce through. The spear slammed into the shield of a senior Rhodok spearman directly sideways. The huge momentum hit the opponent so that the king had to take two steps back, and he also seized the opportunity of the opponent's instability and used the hammer directly. He slammed his head forward, immediately dodged another spear and then swung the hammer to the ground, and swung the hammer to force the two people next to him to dodge, and then swung the hammer hard to the ground. The senior lancer at the stern came on the face, and this time, people could clearly hear the cracking sound of the skull.

After doing this, he immediately turned around and kept swinging the hammer to force the other spearmen away from him, and ensured that the shield on his back could resist the arrows of the crossbowmen behind him. After a while, he got close to the opponent at the moment when a person stabbed the spear, pressed his body against the opponent's shield, and smashed the handle of the hammer down on the opponent's instep, causing the opponent to scream, and then knocked down. He added a hammer.

But at this time, the other three spearmen quickly approached and stabbed him several times, causing many iron rings to fall off the chain armor on his body, and there were also two not deep wounds on his body~www.novelbuddy.com~ But This also means that his offensive tactics have failed, and Wolfhardt can only retreat helplessly, standing in line with others. But at this time, he found that the caravan guards had been defeated by the attack of the rest of the spearmen, and more than half of them were killed or injured. If it wasn't for the other party not staying alive, these guys would have surrendered long ago.

At this time, the encirclement has been formed. Wolfhardt once alone defeated a small group of enemy light infantry and captured the leading noble officer, but this does not mean that he can defeat an entire team of well-trained and formed formations alone. The Rhodok Senior Spearman. In fact, he felt that it would be difficult for another knight with similar skills to get out, not to mention Catherine.

All he can do now is to try his best to protect Catherine so that she can escape. At this time, Catherine had also drawn out her sharp knife and was facing off against the approaching spearmen.

This is a lose-lose situation unless...something turns around!

With a swift sound of hoofs, the Rhodok spearmen turned around and formed an array. But it was too late for them. A fast, terrifyingly strong warhorse directly knocked over the first few people, while the rider on the horse's back was wearing full-body plate armor and a giant wing helmet. In the middle, on his cape, which flutters in the wind, is a blooming peony.