Unknown Knight

It took two days for the caravan to return to the city of Tiha.

After entering the city and asking around, Aix learned that the caravan of General Grans had just left two days ago. It can be said that they came with high hopes but left with disappointment. Not only did the olive oil not sell for a good price, but the prices of the products produced in the city of Tiha were also high due to shortages, so they were unwilling to spend money to buy too much. It seemed that Grans must have suffered a huge loss in this business trip. Aix, whose plan had succeeded, was so proud that he hummed a little tune.

On the second day, the caravan stayed for one day, mainly to sell some of the goods purchased from Sagos, and also to meet with the mayor of Tiha City to finalize the warehouse land promised by King Ragnar. The troops were still divided into two groups. Catherine, Desevi and Manide went to the local merchants to sell the goods brought from Sagos City and buy local products; Aix and Fatis went directly to the mayor's mansion.

Lord Iden of Tihar should be a very capable lord, which can be seen from the prosperous trade of Tihar. Before coming, Aix had already inquired from Ragnar's secretary that Lord Iden was born in the Nordic Royal Guard and served as a personal guard beside King Ragnar for many years. He was deeply trusted by Ragnar, but this did not mean that Aix would not do the corresponding public relations. He personally presented 100 silver coins and said that as long as the business improved, he would get a dividend of 200 silver coins every year. After seeing the snow salt charter issued by King Ragnar and the official letter of land use in Tihar City, Lord Iden agreed very happily. He got both benefits and favors, and was very satisfied. He specifically asked the secretary to follow the requirements of Mr. Aix as long as it was not excessive.

After leaving the city lord's mansion, Aix did not stop and went directly to choose a piece of land with the secretary. After giving the secretary 10 silver coins, he successfully got a piece of land slightly smaller than the Sagos warehouse. However, Aix was also very satisfied. After all, Tiha City was smaller than Sagos City, and with its prosperous trade, the land was relatively tight.

This piece of land is also on the street, but a little bit remote. It is three storefronts wide and a rectangular plot overall, equivalent to two-thirds of the Sagos warehouse. There was originally a wooden house on it, which was said to have belonged to an old Nord soldier, but the old soldier was alone and later died in a battle. The house became ownerless and no one has lived in it. Now it has been given to Aix.

Seeing that the wooden house had two doorways wide enough to accommodate all the caravan members, Aix immediately decided to check out of the hotel and asked the remaining guys to push the truck to the backyard. Then he cleaned the place and decided to stay here tonight. After all, the public relations for the two cities of Sagos and Tiha cost a lot of money, and Aix wanted to save money wherever he could. Besides, after cleaning, this place was not bad. At least there were no annoying fleas and bedbugs like those in the hotel, and the air smelled much better. There was no smell of stinky feet that hit his head as soon as he entered the door.

Originally, the caravan was going to set off back to Suno that day if there was nothing else to do. The reason they stayed one more day was because Aix heard that a batch of salt and other local goods would arrive tomorrow. In order to stock up more coarse salt for making snow salt, Aix decided to wait one more day. By the way, he also wanted to go to Ramon to see if there were any suitable slaves to buy, especially the blacksmith he had always wanted.

After finishing the work at the warehouse, Aix and Fatis came to the slave trader Ramon. They hadn't seen him for a few days and he looked very different. Not only were his cheeks thinner, his eye sockets were sunken, and his right arm was wrapped in a bloody bandage. When they met, he was no longer as attentive as before, sighing and looking very depressed.

Although Aix was gloating, he had to ask for help, so he pulled himself together and greeted him. He learned that he was assassinated by a female assassin three days ago. Fortunately, this woman had been in the underworld for so many years and had some background. Several powerful slave hunters around him saved his life, and he lost two capable subordinates. It is said that this female assassin was very good at throwing knives. After killing two people and injuring four or five people with flying knives, she actually broke through the siege with a light crossbow in her left hand and a dagger in her right hand, and escaped at night. That's not all. This female assassin also shot his slave hunting team with a crossbow outside the city these days, which made Ramon exhausted and he dared not send the purchased ship slaves out of the city.

While gloating over the misfortune, Aix was delighted. Now was a good time to bargain for slaves, so after comforting the guy verbally, he suggested seeing if there were any suitable slaves.

Ramon immediately regained his spirits upon hearing this, and wanted to ask his thugs to bring all the slaves in stock to sell to Aix. Although he bought these slaves at a low price, their daily food, drink, defecation and urination cost money. If they were not used for a long time, they would get sick and die, which would be a big loss. Although Aix repeatedly said that he only wanted a few, he still asked his men to bring dozens of slaves for him to choose from.

Anyway, now that all the things were done, Aix was not in a hurry. He looked around and asked around. After a long time of searching, he really found a blacksmith who lived in Kudan City. He was a hunchbacked old man who seemed to be 60 years old. When asked, he was only 45 years old. He was captured by slave traders when he went out of the city to buy iron. In the end, Aix bought three craftsmen at the price of four silver coins each. In addition to the blacksmith, the other two were a carpenter and a stonemason. The whole family of these two craftsmen was plundered and sold by the rebels. The family members were all there, which made it easier to control them. Aix bought the families of these two craftsmen at the price of two silver coins per adult and one silver coin for the elderly and children. He bought a total of 12 people. When he left, Aix saw that Ramon's eyes were red. Obviously, his heart was bleeding, but Aix pretended not to see it. The more uncomfortable this damned man felt, the happier he was.

After returning to the warehouse, Aix comforted and promised the slaves as usual. Just like the slaves of Atiman before, these people heard that they were not bought as slaves, and they all called Aix their benefactor. With the stories told by the slaves bought before, the 12 people felt much more at ease. Catherine brought up the cooked porridge at the right time. The slaves had not eaten fresh hot meals for a long time, and they all cried while holding their bowls.

Finally, Axe specially called the old blacksmith for a talk. This was a rare talent. After asking him about his original monthly income and family situation, Axe told him that as long as he worked diligently with him, he could directly cancel his slave status and pay him the same salary every month. If he did a good job, his salary could be increased. When he returned to Kudan City, he could bring his family with him, and the adults in the family would be given jobs, etc. This made the old blacksmith completely feel at ease.

After finishing all the work, Aix was very tired. However, the number of people in the caravan had more than doubled, and most of them were strangers. He felt stressed and always felt that something was going to happen. He was restless and worried. He called all the old brothers to the backyard for a meeting and told them to get along well with the newcomers. Only when the team was stronger could everyone's jobs in the caravan be stable and everyone could make money. They should help them more and try to integrate them into the caravan as soon as possible. At the same time, the number of people on night duty was increased from two to three, with two old people taking one newcomer. When on night duty, everyone carried a sword and a crossbow. Fortunately, the night duty system had been thoroughly implemented, and Aix didn't need to worry too much.

After arranging everything, Aix dragged his tired body to bed with peace of mind. Before falling asleep, he was still complaining in his heart: It's not easy to be a leader. I worry about everything. I feel sorry for all the bosses in the world for a minute.

The next morning, after delivering a batch of newly arrived local coarse salt and smoked fish, Aix and his party left the city and returned to Suno. Since it was the return trip, everyone was very happy, especially the old brothers in Suno. In addition, this business trip could be said to be a great harvest. The joy in everyone's hearts was beyond words, and the whole team was filled with laughter.

After walking about 5 or 6 miles out of the city, a horse suddenly came running from behind. When she was about to overtake the team, she saw Aix, Catherine and others in the team, and immediately pulled the reins. As soon as the horse stabilized, the horse fell off the horse. Everyone gathered around and saw that it was none other than Cress who had left without saying goodbye not long ago. She had a wound on her back and ribs, and was already dying. She said to Aix who was holding him:

"There are pursuers behind me, save me!"

After saying that, she leaned in Axel's arms, as if she had no strength left.

Axe's heart skipped a beat, knowing that he was in trouble. He looked up and saw smoke and dust billowing a mile behind him. A large group of horses were chasing him. Without giving him time to think, he hurriedly put Cress into the empty barrel that had previously contained beer, and made a shallow cut on the butt of the horse that Cress was riding. The horse neighed and almost kicked Axe with its hoof, then rushed forward like an arrow.

At the same time, Aix told everyone not to make any noise and to quickly surround the city with the six carts. There was no time to evacuate the elderly, the weak, women, children and horses. The enemy's cavalry had already rushed to the front. Aix had to let everyone drive the pack horses into the cart formation, and everyone followed and hid in the cart formation. Without any instructions, the young and strong men took guns, shields, and bows and stringed the strings, and quickly armed themselves.

"It's the slave hunting team!"

The extremely capable hunter Desevi whispered to Aix.

When the caravan heard that it was a slave hunting team, it was in a state of chaos. Many of the new members had been captured and enslaved by the slave hunting team. They had seen their cruel and brutal methods before, and fear appeared on their faces. The hunchbacked old blacksmith, John, was still quite courageous. He walked over to Aix tremblingly and said:

"Sir, these people are the men of Ramon, the human trafficker."

Axe said "oh" and glanced at the barrel where Cress was hiding, as if he understood something.

There were about 15 or 6 riders, all of them looked fierce and fierce, and all of them were holding hammers and wearing armor. After they rode their horses around the chariot formation, a leader wearing chain mail and an iron helmet came up on horseback, raised his whip and pointed, saying:

"Which manager can come out and speak?"

Aix pushed everyone aside and stepped forward, saying coldly:

"I am. If you have something to say, please tell me."

"I am a subordinate of Ramon, the big boss of Tiha City. Have you seen a woman on horseback passing by here?"

The slave hunter said with an arrogant look on his face.

"Oh, Ramon, I just bought a dozen slaves from you. I saw the woman you mentioned. She went to the front and rode her horse very fast. I didn't even see what she looked like."

Axe pretended to be a little relieved and agreed.

When he heard that this team of merchants were the boss's guests, he turned around to look at the other slave hunters behind him. After seeing one of the slave hunters nodded in confirmation, he turned around to look at the caravan and found that this team of merchants' ideas were a bit tricky. There were no less than twenty people with weapons, both for attack and defense, and he had never seen such a chariot formation before. Years of experience made him feel that this chariot formation was a bit weird, so he gave up the evil idea he had just had in mind, nodded to Aix, and led the team forward angrily.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief after they walked away. At this moment, Aix felt very regretful, because they were just 5 or 6 miles out of the city, and he thought it was relatively safe, so he did not send out scouts in time. As a result, people arrived at the front and back, and his own people and horses were not evacuated properly, and it was very hasty. If they had more people today, Aix estimated that there would be a fierce battle. So he secretly told himself that the practice of sending scouts must be implemented in the future, otherwise a misstep might really become an eternal regret.

After sending out the outposts led by Desevi and the rear outposts led by Fatis, Aix opened the beer barrel where Chris was hiding. She was actually asleep. Seeing her, Aix's heart was filled with anger, and he pushed her awake and said:

"What did you do to make Ramon send so many people to hunt you down?"

The girl was confused for a moment after waking up, obviously she was very sleepy. When she saw it was Aix, her face turned red and she lowered her head and said:

"I went to assassinate him."

"You don't want to die, why do you do such a stupid thing?"

Axel felt overwhelmed and scolded her.

Cress became stubborn when he heard what Aix said. He raised his head and gritted his teeth and said:

"He sent slave hunters to kill my parents and relatives and kidnap my sister!"

Upon hearing this, Axel was speechless. Fortunately, Catherine came over to smooth things over, comforting her with kind words while checking and bandaging her wound. After Catherine's explanation and questioning, everyone knew the cause and effect of the matter.

It turns out that all these evils originated from the "white slave" trade mentioned by Ramon. In order to do the slave business better, this slave trader fabricated the gimmick of "white slaves" and publicized it to everyone he met. He also often sent his slave hunting teams to the remote rural areas of Virginia to capture local young and beautiful girls, and then sold them to nobles and wealthy people in surrounding countries at high prices.

A year ago, when Ramon sent a slave hunting team to Kress' hometown to capture "white slaves", Kress was working as a servant in the local noble castle. When she heard the news and rushed home, the tragedy had already happened. In order to rescue her abducted sister, she searched everywhere for the next year, suffered a lot, and finally found out recently that the culprit was the slave trader Ramon, and her sister had been sold to an unknown place, so she decided to kill Ramon to avenge her sister.

After hearing this, Aix suddenly realized why the girl took the twenty silver coins from her "benefactor". She thought it was to buy weapons and horses for assassination. If that was the case, Aix had already chosen to forgive her in his heart. Seeing that the girl lost her previous strong appearance and cried bitterly under Catherine's comfort, Aix swore in his heart that he would kill that damn Ramon if he had the chance.