our family is gone

"Sir, let me lead my brothers in a charge!" A young man beside him noticed the battle ahead and couldn't help but speak.

If we really go according to this casualty situation, these people will collapse sooner or later.

But as long as the knights attack, they can easily strangle the barbarians here.

"No." Bruce calmly rejected the deputy's suggestion, but was slightly dissatisfied. "Did these years of security make them forget about fighting?"

What Bruce said is nice, but the problem is that your knights train every day, they work in the fields every day, and these are serfs who were recruited to build the camp.

They have never been on the battlefield and have not received any training. Now each person is given a tattered spear and then told to "go kill those barbarians". Isn't this a bit...?
However, this is a routine operation in this era. When these serf soldiers go to the battlefield a few times and survive against the enemy, they will be automatically upgraded to veterans. If they survive a few tough battles, they will become elite veterans.

They don't have pensions, and using battle and death to screen out those with courage and combat effectiveness consumes less than complicated training.

Moreover, the main combat power is the knights, while the serfs are more of a means to attract and consume the enemy.

It is basically impossible to engage in literacy, ideological construction, training, and equipment updating like Lance. Although it is said that after leaving the training camp, you will be a veteran, and as long as you see blood, you will be an elite, but the price is too high, it is equivalent to using gold coins. Stacked soldiers.

Ordinary people are not considered human in front of these nobles.

Aren’t these things growing on the ground as much as you want?Why waste it on them?
If you don't have enough, just recruit another group. There will always be those who survive, and enough veterans will be screened out.

Bruce has the same mentality.

Fortunately, the barbarians did not attack with all their strength. They only made a tentative attack and then left the corpses of a few unlucky people and evacuated.

They have no heavy weapons, and they are forwards. Their number is too small, and their role is to test Bastia's strength. After roughly knowing the strength of these soldiers, it is enough.

For the barbarians, the price they have to pay to break through the camp is too high. The benefits gained from breaking through a camp are not proportional to the effort. It is still easy to bully ordinary people.

These serf soldiers, who were on the battlefield for the first time and were on the verge of collapse, obviously had no ability to pursue them. The deputy could only watch as the barbarians left the battlefield without any hindrance.

Although he was anxious, Bruce didn't move and there was nothing he could do, but he couldn't help but ask.

"Sir, are we just going to watch them leave like this?" The deputy became more and more excited as he spoke, "As long as you give me thirty knights, I can wipe out all these attacking barbarians!"

I don't know when the hatred between Bastia and the barbarians can be traced back, but for the deputy, he was the one whose parents were slaughtered by the barbarians and then taken in.

Suffering and hatred poured on him for the first half of his life, but they also made him an excellent knight. He was selected as a retinue by Bruce and gradually became the deputy of the Knights.

Different from Alvin's knighthood, the members of this knighthood were selected by Bruce and trained since childhood. Needless to say, they are loyal and very powerful. They belong to his private army.

"It's not yet dawn. It's too risky for us to chase him out. Let's deal with the current problem first."

Bruce didn't agree. There was a lot about himself and his father's plans that he couldn't tell his deputy.

But the barbarians descending from the mountain to plunder have already shown that the peace in Bastia for so many years has been broken.

Whether it is to deal with the barbarian invasion, to annex Hamlet, to deal with other nobles, or even the imperial civil war...

The subsequent war will require a large number of soldiers, and training with the help of barbarians is one of the purposes of his coming here.

The barbarians on the other side retreated. The barbarian warriors had no connection with each other. They could not even be regarded as a coalition of barbarians. They were just a temporary team put together by the large tribes for the purpose of testing.

After leaving the battlefield, they each returned to the tribe and brought the information collected this time.

The Empire is literally in civil strife.

The Knights of Bastia, who often appeared on the border, disappeared.

Bastia's defense zone shrank completely, giving up a lot of space.

Bastia's soldiers were so weak that they only dared to huddle in the camp.

Others can be disguised, but the battle line cannot. Count Bastia's obsession with territory expansion is like the tiger's obsession with territory in the mountains and forests. Any beast that dares to invade must be attacked.

These barbarians are deeply aware of this. After all, the city of Bastia was built to squeeze their living space.

The shrinking of the front line now can only mean that Bastia no longer has enough troops to maintain such a large place.

But these cannot persuade them to go out to plunder. Just like the priest of the Wolf Fang tribe said, they will not attack randomly until they are ready.

What really impressed them was the results of the Langya tribe's plundering. Some small tribes followed suit and achieved similar gains, which stimulated the big tribes even more.

It's just that they don't seem to have received any news about the Wolf Warrior Tribe.

…………

Hamlet, sanatorium.

The two haven't seen each other for a long time, and have experienced so many things in between, so they should have a lot to say.

But when Margaret said the word "escape", the topic was already killed.

After a long silence, Lawrence still felt the strong resentment radiating from his daughter, and couldn't help but reopen the topic.

"Sorry, I didn't protect you well."

Margaret's expression was a little complicated when she heard this. She had never heard her father say this in her memory. It seemed that both parties had changed a lot during this time.

"I'm fine, I'm fine now." Margaret didn't say it angrily. After all, the situation now is much better than it was a few days ago.

But after saying this sentence, he stopped again, and there was a tendency to fall into silence again.

"Tell me the specific situation." Lawrence sighed, and the topic returned to the original starting point.

After all, they are still close relatives of flesh and blood, and with the deep feelings, Margaret's attitude softened this time after Lawrence apologized.

"They tried to keep the news of your accident from me. I haven't stepped out of the castle room since the celebration. If it weren't for..."

Did Margaret lie?You may say yes or no.

The housekeeper did try to block the news, and she did not leave the room. The same news was delivered by the maid.

But what Lawrence heard was that the butler and the knight imprisoned his daughter. As for why they did this, it was inevitable to come up with some plots...

Then he took advantage of the chaos to escape and was chased by a flock of eagles, and was rescued. Then he blended in with the refugees and escaped from Bastia.Nothing good happened along the way. The father did not want to show weakness in front of his daughter, and Margaret was also unwilling to tell her father about the suffering she had suffered along the way.

After being taken care of by the lord's people along the way, we arrived at Hamlet.

But she didn't know that Lance had probably mentioned the hardships and dangers on the road when he mocked Lawrence before. How could this make Lawrence indifferent?

But his daughter didn't say it and he didn't want to mention it again, so he had to sigh in the end.

"Stop thinking about those things. I'll tell you a few places where I hid the money. After getting the contents, I left here anonymously."

Then he emphasized, "Stay away from Bastia, leave the northern border of the empire, even leave the empire, and never come back!"

If this is true, then Bastia has no place for herself, and her daughter is also being targeted by the eagles. No one knows the insidiousness of those guys better than him.

You can avoid assassinations countless times, but they only need to succeed once, and in the process you have to live in fear. It's no wonder that he keeps stressing that his daughter should get out of here.

But the problem is that Margaret may not listen to him. Her character is not the kind of submissive, and she is not willing to escape. She did not come here just to meet him and then run away.

"I won't leave, I want to rescue you."

"What can you save?"

"He wants a ransom, just give it to him."

"He is not a good person! Do you think he can let me go if I give you money?"

Lawrence regretted that he was too protective, and that he wanted her to live a healthy and happy life without letting her come into contact with the darkness of human nature.

"I was saved by someone so I can see you again. How can you say that to someone?" Margaret frowned and was dissatisfied, "And Lord Lance is not one of those people. He has done more than you knights." Justice, and he has never broken his promise.”

Lawrence was really angry with this daughter, "If you were not my daughter, do you think his people would save you? He let you in just to squeeze out the last bit of value from you. He was threatening me."

"No way, he's not that kind of person."

Margaret still insisted on her own opinions in the face of accusations. This attitude made Lawrence stunned when he heard this.

Something's wrong, isn't it? Why does it seem like it's him who's locked up inside instead of me?

Your father has been arrested and imprisoned by him. Don’t I know how cunning and insidious that lord is?

Why is his daughter so fond of him?

"What did he do to you!" Lawrence became irritable as if he had been touched by reverse scales.

But this only made Margaret more dissatisfied. She had grown up and would make her own judgment.

"Don't use your corrupt thoughts to speculate on an upright lord!"

Margaret's reaction was more intense than ever, not because of Lance, it was just an introduction.

The real reason is that the authority of her father's generation was broken by external forces. She could only bear the power her father had shown as a baron in silence.

And now that she has become a prisoner and has lost that powerful aura, it is natural that Margaret's rebellion becomes even stronger when faced with preaching.

This kind of resistance cannot be said to be good or bad, because it has no value tendency in itself. Sometimes it is simply opposition for the sake of opposition.

Lawrence couldn't help but pause, and he didn't even care to be angry, because he felt that his daughter was completely out of his control.

I feel tired...it's all my own fault...

Lawrence's silence is a sign of weakness to Margaret. She thinks she is right and can't wait to talk about what happened in Hamlet.

What Susan said to them was obviously personal, and Margaret's reprocessing at this time was even more so.

Because Lance is the basis for her fight against her father, against Alvin, and even against feudal ethics.

This is somewhat personal emotion, and this emotion is a sharp knife for Lawrence, who watched his daughter being bewitched and put under the protection of another man.

This is fucking worse than killing him!
"That's enough!" Lawrence didn't want to hear her brag about Lance's deeds anymore, and he didn't care if it was true or not.

All he knows is that Lance is going to take away his most precious thing, and this is a war between two men!
It can only be said that these two people are indeed biological, and they have exactly the same rebellious character.

I wonder if Lance, who just wanted to "eat the melon while standing", knew that he was somehow involved...

"Bang!"

The iron door was opened, and Lance's casual voice came, "It's time."

When he walked in, he realized that the atmosphere inside was not at all a scene of fatherly kindness and filial piety, but was instead a bit dignified.

That's not right. Judging from your previous attitude, you should be a father and daughter with a deep relationship. It's heartwarming for both parties to go through a lot of hardships to meet each other without crying. How did it become like this?
All Lance could think about was the engagement.

Engagement, annulment, and escape from marriage even touched Lance's long-dormant nerves when he first heard about it. He thought Alvin was going to do some "don't bully young people who are poor" plot, and play Hamlet in three years.

It seems that no matter how good the family relationship is, it cannot withstand the feudal ideas formed over thousands of years. Especially the nobles, who enjoy the benefits brought by this set of game rules, are naturally controlled by this set of rules.

To a certain extent, they say that Lance's dictatorship advocates rules. In fact, the reason for their opposition is that Lance's rules are different from theirs and they will not enjoy the benefits.

"Let's go." Lance didn't mean to interrupt, he just urged.

Margaret took a deep breath to adjust, then stood up and left without saying another word.

This action inevitably affected Lawrence. His gaze that deliberately turned away was a little disappointed but stubborn and refused to look away.

But before Margaret walked out of the door, she looked back at her father who looked much older. Her lips moved slightly and she wanted to say something, but she didn't say anything.

Just like that, he turned around and walked out, not caring about what happened behind him, and quickened his pace to leave here.

Listening to the footsteps that were gradually receding, Lawrence couldn't help but look over, his expression was complicated and unspeakable.

Until the cell door was closed by Lance, and he was plunged into darkness again.