Lord: Starting from the Pit-Dwelling Courtyard

Chapter 84: The Knight's Apprentice

Fanta stood at the city gate, with weapons dragged out of the mercenary camp piled at his feet.

Spears, short swords, several blunted scimitars, and two light crossbows that hadn't been assembled yet—the mercenary's equipment was more varied than he had expected. Some of the sword hilts were even engraved with the marks of different merchant guilds, clearly indicating that they had been cobbled together from different employers.

He picked out the usable parts and piled them on the left, while discarding the unusable ones on the right. He moved quickly, as if he were sorting firewood.

The result is that more is lost than used, but the lord can convert it into good equipment, and there are dozens of blacksmiths in the territory.

Fanta was well aware of the importance of standard military weapons, and he did not want these miscellaneous weapons and equipment to disrupt the army's configuration.

Xi Ting was registering the prisoners while muttering to himself, occasionally glancing up at the pile of prisoners.

Xiting was once a knight apprentice in Wenger territory. Because of his good talent, intelligence, and quick learning ability, and most importantly, his loyalty, he was kept by Fanta to be trained.

Fanta glanced up at Xiting subconsciously and suddenly realized that the territory should also focus on training some knight apprentices.

The only knight apprentices truly trained by the territory were three women from the Women's Guard.

The other apprentices were all rescued by Wenger.

The prisoners squatted in a row at the foot of the city wall, their hands tied in front of them with hemp rope, the other end of which was tied to an iron ring on the crenellation of the city wall.

Most of them were mercenaries, and they carried injuries of varying degrees.

No one spoke, no one struggled. The catapults and crossbows on the city wall were still set up, and the bodies of the heavy cavalrymen in the barbican had not yet been completely removed.

Ron stood on the city wall, put down his binoculars, glanced at the number of prisoners, and then told Fanta to assign those who could still work to the reclamation team, and they would be freed after three years of service.

Hilden returned after the war. He had received orders to lie in ambush outside, ready to ambush the defeated Knights of the Inspectorate. However, he did not expect that Hilder would flee in the direction of Harland Territory, which was completely opposite to the direction Hilden had set up the ambush, so it was not of any use.

However, it wasn't entirely useless; he managed to capture a dozen or so small fry in the direction he had ambushed.

Ivan was laid across the carriage, his hands tied behind his back, a rag stuffed in his mouth, and his legs kicking wildly.

Hilden dismounted and pushed all the prisoners on the wagon to the ground, where they rolled and thrashed like fish and shrimp that had been brought ashore.

"Haha!" Leonardo da Vinci laughed without any restraint.

He was the least chivalrous of them all, yet he was the one Ron liked the most.

Ron used to want to watch over him personally, but now he really wants to keep Leonardo da Vinci by his side as a guard knight.

"We caught him at the mouth of the valley; he was hiding in a hollow of a dead tree," Hilden said dismissively. "A brief interrogation revealed he was a deserter before the war."

The rag in Ivan's mouth was ripped off, and he knelt on the ground, panting heavily. Then he looked up and saw the row of corpses at the foot of the city wall.

The mercenaries' corpses were neatly arranged at the foot of the city wall, waiting to be taken away and buried as fertilizer later.

When reclaiming wasteland, no fertilizer should be wasted.

There were more than thirty bodies, some covered with burlap, some not, their exposed faces appearing particularly gray and white in the afternoon sun.

Ivan's gaze moved from the first corpse down to the next.

The third body was a blond young man with an arrow hole in his forehead; the seventh body was a burly man with a thick beard and a scorpion tail tattoo on his arm; and the eleventh body was a tall, thin middle-aged man whose chest was dented from being hit by a boulder.

Ivan's gaze lingered on the eleventh corpse. He recognized the leather armor; there was a knife mark on the left shoulder, which he had personally repaired by sewing on a piece of leather.

"Barry." Ivan's lips moved, then he got up from the ground. The rope had come loose at some point, and he broke free of his hands, staggering to the side of the corpse. No one stopped him.

The blond young man was named Ryan. He had just joined the mercenary team last month. Before he left, he told Ivan that he would save enough money to go home and get married.

The burly man with the thick beard was named Barry. He had been in their squad for almost ten years, second only to Captain Russell and Old John in terms of seniority. He never told anyone his real name, only saying that he would tell them when he died. In the end, no one knew his name until his death.

The tall, thin middle-aged man was named Ed, and he was Ivan's tent builder. The two of them squeezed into a tattered tent for more than half a year. Every time they camped, Ed would give Ivan the windward side.

Now he doesn't have to give way anymore.

Ivan knelt before the pile of corpses, letting out a muffled sound that was neither a cry nor a howl. He smoothed the collar of Barry's leather armor and reached out to wipe the dirt off Ed's face, but the dirt had hardened into a crust of blood and could not be wiped off.

He scratched at the dried blood clots with his fingers, his fingernails scraping against them with a harsh sound.

Old John limped out of the city gate. While Russell hid under the battering ram, he accidentally fell into the ditch. Fortunately, the gaps between the spikes in the ditch were large enough that he reacted quickly and was only grazed by one of the spikes. When Russell was rescued, he immediately stepped forward and surrendered.

Old John was temporarily freed because he was the first to stand up and identify the mercenary leader, and was criticized by Ron as a "model of surrender".

His injuries hadn't fully healed, and he walked with a limp, but at least he no longer had to squat at the foot of the city wall with a rope tied to him.

Old John went over and pulled Ivan up from the ground. Ivan struggled a couple of times but couldn't break free.

"Stop counting. Ryan, Barry, Ed, Marcus," Old John's voice was hoarse. "Four. There are twelve of us on the team. They're just unlucky."

Ivan turned his head and buried his face in old John's shoulder, his shoulders trembling violently.

Old John didn't move, standing there letting him lean against him, still clutching a dirty burlap sack he'd used when he'd scraped his skin. The blood on the sack had dried, and it was hard and gritty against Ivan's back.

Upon seeing this, Leonardo da Vinci couldn't help but scoff, "If you're so fragile, go home and be a good boy. Why try to be a mercenary?"

Ivan's crying stopped abruptly. Just as Ivan was about to glare at the other person, Old John immediately held him down.

"Sir Knight, this boy is still a child, he is young and doesn't know any better, he has offended you."

Ron did not answer, and turned to return to his territory.

There were only about a dozen prisoners, all of whom were mercenaries, and nothing that could interest him.

Da Vinci whistled and said with a smile, "Shanlier of the territory is about the same age as this sissy. He has killed countless goblins and people on the battlefield."

After Leonardo da Vinci finished speaking, he suddenly stopped talking. He glanced at Sanlier on the city wall, where the young man was standing next to the Eight-Bull Crossbow, his fingers fiddling with the bowstring, his face expressionless.

Leonardo da Vinci swallowed the rest of his words.

Shanlier is good. He can be trained as a knight apprentice. Even if he doesn't have the talent to become a knight in the future, his loyalty and sense of responsibility to his family will make him the most loyal warrior in the territory.

"My lord, I have something to tell you."