Chapter 26 24. The Earl’s Blue Magpie Castle

Southeast of the Cornico Pass lies the largest border castle in the Dragon Kingdom, the Blue Magpie Castle.

The castle is located on a delta where two rivers intersect.

The castle consists of a main castle and three auxiliary castles forming a fortress complex. From the observation deck of the castle, you can overlook the Roth territory to the west.

At noon on October 12th, Count Caspian Maned Wolf of the Northwest held his hand on the railing of the castle observatory and looked at the groups of barbarian cavalry on the other side of the river more than ten kilometers away.

"You said you saw at least 100 cavalry at that time, but I'm afraid it's already more than that now.

The total number of barbarians we saw outside the various guard towers and noble territories even exceeded 300. Never before have so many barbarians invaded the territory of the dragon." Kebbins said solemnly.

"Sir, what I am reporting to you is the number of barbarians we saw about a month ago. With the fall of Lot, there must be more barbarians going south." The person who said this was Huck Galloping Horse, Lant's

Father.

After escaping from the barbarian tribe 12 days ago, Huck, Ryan and Obote traveled around for more than ten days, disguised themselves as lone barbarian cavalry, and wandered through the Conic Valley.

After leaving the valley in the south, they immediately headed east into the southeastern remains of Cornico. When they were about to approach the Blue Magpie Castle, they caught up with the knights led by the Maned Wolf Count and stationed at the Blue Magpie Castle.

When the knights saw the two "savages" suddenly appearing, they immediately became vigilant. Fortunately, the deputy captain of the knights and the well-known social master of Maned Wolf City, Deputy Captain Crony Red Dragon, noticed the abnormality.

Under great pressure, he stepped forward and recognized Huck and his two sons, finally allowing the count to piece together the truth about the two territories in the south of Cornico that had been invaded by barbarians.

Earl Maned Wolf has already known through his own network that although both Huck and Bob do business with the barbarians, Huck obviously has a better bottom line. After he senses the barbarians' changes this winter, he is ready to inform other nobles as soon as possible.

.

But after Bob also learned about the barbarian's movements, he did not hesitate to choose to trap Huck to death to save himself. However, the barbarian took advantage of him and his whole family was killed.

Now that Huck has returned from the Galloping Horse Plains, it has confirmed the suspicions of the Earl of Maned Wolf. The Earl naturally comforted Huck's family. "Huck, don't worry too much. I have received reliable information.

The people in your territory followed Albert and the others to the great forest. This is something everyone knows in the entire Lot territory.

As long as the people in the territory are saved, the title of your Benma family will never be removed."

"Thank you, Lord Earl. What I am more worried about now is the war situation in recent winters. The fall of the Lot territory will only attract more barbarians, and now the nobles have not realized the seriousness of the barbarian invasion."

"You are right, these gentlemen have been at ease for too long," the earl teased his subordinates. However, he might have misjudged the situation because of the long period of peace.

"Sir, Lord Count, we have the latest battle report!"

........

Baron Jeor Mormont of Wild Bear Ridge was the first baron to prepare 10 knights to set off for Blue Magpie Castle after receiving the Earl's recruitment order. However, in the days after completing the preparations, Jeor Mormont

Baron Ao never left his Wild Bear Ridge.

The reason is simple. A camp of more than 25 barbarian cavalry suddenly occupied their camp outside Wild Bear Ridge.

The intention of the barbarian cavalry is also obvious: to entangle them. Or to block the connection between Maned Wolf City and its southern vassals, so that the troops of various viscounts and barons cannot support Blue Magpie Castle in time.

Yexiong Ridge is a small area, and some magic potions and magical beasts are produced in the mountains and forests.

Many of these valuable materials need to be exchanged with other territories for iron, salt, food and other living supplies. Some of them need to be provided to family knights to improve their strength, and can eventually be used to exchange for weapons. The resources of war horses are very limited.

Geo cannot equip each of his knights with black scale horses and iron armor. The most effective way to kill the barbarian cavalry is to kill the baron as an intermediate knight against a single cavalry.

The other knights are in trouble. They cannot catch up with the barbarians on horseback and will be entangled when they retreat. Unless they are extremely experienced junior knights, ordinary junior knights and reserve knights will not be able to hurt the armored barbarian cavalry.

Baron Geo tried to organize an attack a few days ago, but was almost surrounded. His eldest son was seriously injured in the battle. In the end, Geo himself stood behind the knights, so that the entire family would not be ruined on the way to Blue Magpie City.

On the road.

After that, Geo, who failed to attack, could only hide in the mountains. Fortunately, the barbarians were not good at mountain warfare, and they had no interest in entering the mountains and forests. They just wanted to stay in key areas and block the human race's wishes.

Looking at the barbarian camp on the Lingbei Plain, Baron Jiao sighed, "This barbarian invasion is so abnormal. What happened to the Lot territory?"

"It doesn't matter what happened in the Lot territory now," the Wild Bear Ridge scholar said, "Now Jacques's injury is beyond our control. He must be sent to the Maned Wolf City immediately to be treated by the priest of the temple."

"Yes, but how can we break through the group of cavalry in front of us?"

"I have a suggestion..."

An hour later, the barbarian camp developed and the knights from Wild Bear Ridge appeared again on the edge of the mountain, and the barbarian cavalry also immediately gathered.

The knights wandered around the edge of the woods in the mountains, occasionally going out onto the plains, but then immediately returned to the woods.

The wandering of the knights made the barbarian cavalry very hesitant. The barbarians did not like woodlands, let alone mountains. Therefore, the barbarians never entered the woods in the Yexiong Ridge mountainous area to pursue the knights. They usually only stopped after chasing them to the edge of the woods.

Now the Knights of Wild Bear Ridge are at the edge of the forest, as if they want to take a detour to the Maned Wolf City, or they may be deliberately leading the barbarians into the forest to defeat them one by one.

The barbarians were not sure of the knights' real purpose, but the previous battles proved that the barbarian cavalry could not gain any advantage from the Wild Bear Ridge knights in the forest.

Finally, the barbarian leader saw that the knights were already more than 2 kilometers out of the forest.

Although he still didn't know the intentions of these knights, the barbarian leader decided to immediately lead his troops to intercept them. He didn't want to kill these knights now, he just wanted to drive them back into the forest.

Watching his knights charge towards the barbarian cavalry, even knowing that they would return to the forest later.

But having his subordinates serve as bait to cover his departure from the territory still gave Geo a sense of shame as a deserter.

The only thing he could do at this moment was to rush to Maned Wolf City as soon as possible, inform the count of the information from the south, and allow his son to receive treatment.

...

Also encountering the same predicament was Viscount Elk. East of Maned Wolf City, Viscount Elk had a head-on conflict with the barbarian cavalry for the first time in his life.

The viscount led 20 knights and met a 25-man barbarian cavalry.

The viscount, 2 intermediate knights and 5 junior knights are all equipped with iron armor and black scale horses, but the reserve knights only have ordinary war horses and leather armor.

After the battle, Viscount Elk immediately discovered the gap in combat power between the two sides. He and the two intermediate knights were still able to deal with the fight between the three barbarians with their fighting spirit. The junior knights found that they were unable to defeat them and could still rely on their black scale horses to evacuate. However, 12 preparations

The knight was now at a comprehensive disadvantage, unable to penetrate, defend, catch up, or escape.

The barbarians do not pay attention to one-on-one chivalry, nor do they take care of the weak. They will cut them when they come up, and they will never fight alone if they can surround them.

The 21 knights immediately suffered casualties. In the end, only the intermediate knights could retreat to the castle. Even so, 2 reserve knights were killed and 4 were injured. It was the first time that Elk Castle was attacked by barbarians.

.

The Viscount stood on the gate of the castle and looked at the barbarians who were circling the castle in the distance.

"This is the battle of the barbarians. How did that guy Bob survive in the Cornico Pass for so many years?" Viscount Elk looked at his defeated soldiers and doubted himself.

"Lord Viscount, those barbarians... they went to lead the knights of Doron," a knight shouted loudly.

"What!" The Viscount knew that these barbarians were going to rob each knight's territory now. He had just been defeated and was unable to stop them at all.

Similar situations are happening constantly. The leader of Gray Goose divided 100 barbarians into four groups and went to the hinterland of Earl Maned Wolf's territory to carry out tasks such as harassment, robbery, and obstruction, so that Earl Maned Wolf's troops could not concentrate.

The leader of Gray Goose placed the main camp outside the Blue Magpie Castle, blocking the place where the Maned Wolf Knights could go.

After receiving the battle report, the Earl finally understood that the situation he faced at this moment was worse than he imagined.

Your own troops cannot leave, and your subordinates' troops cannot come over either.

At this moment, the earl really wanted to lead the knights to attack the Gray Goose camp head-on, but there were no clergy in the Blue Magpie Castle, and he was afraid of suffering too many casualties.

........

In the Gray Goose tent, the leader of the Gray Goose met the mysterious young man again.

"Congratulations to the leader for successfully taking over the Lot territory and approaching the Blue Magpie City." the young man said.

"Hahahaha, easy to talk about. In the end, I have to thank you for your plan." The Gray Goose leader looked very happy.

"With the wealth of Lot Castle, Chief, we will definitely be able to unify the entire Galloping Horse Plains. In the future, we will also rely on you, Chief, to do business in salt mines and black-scaled horses."

"Haha, it's easy to say, I've been friends with you for a long time."

"I... Chief, I am from the Imperial Salt and Iron Department." The young man was a little embarrassed. He had always claimed that he was from the Salt and Iron Department, but the barbarian leader in front of him recognized him as one from the Imperial Palace Department.

"Hey, what are you hiding from me? Yantiesi is represented by the Blue Dragon Family of the Dragon Kingdom on the Galloping Horse Plains.

Those people in the Salt and Iron Division keep talking about the price of salt. Those times in Yanyin, they will not tell me which territory has weak defense or which earl has a conflict with the king. This is a matter of concern to your palace, isn't it?

?”

"this..."

"You are not the first imperial official to see me, or even the first representative of the Imperial Palace Division that I have met. You humans only focus on your own affairs, and it is easy to tell where you are from."

"...then...leader, you should also know that the magisters and legends in the Dragon Kingdom are very concerned about your activities in the northwest territory. They will not sit back and watch you go deep into the northwest territory."

Seeing that he could no longer hide it, the young man decided to ask Gray Goose to withdraw his troops.

"Of course, we prairie warriors do not intend to live behind stone houses, and I will not stay under the Blue Magpie City for too long."

"Then you..."

"Our salt mine is in urgent need of slaves. I will find some slaves here and then leave."

"But you are in Blue Magpie Castle...you...you won't send a small group of cavalry to plunder the human demon possessors in various territories, right?"

"Of course, if I don't send troops, can I still ask for it directly from the Earl?"

"Well, you didn't tell me this at that time. You said that you would go north after getting the wealth of Lot's territory." The young man found that the situation in front of him was getting out of control. He was very angry at Gray Goose's betrayal.

"Isn't this a change of plan?" The Gray Goose leader didn't care about the promise that the human race was interested in.

"Aren't you afraid that if things get too big, the strong men of the Dragon Kingdom and the Human Empire will intervene?"
To be continued...