[536 years of the Empire][24 years ago]

[Palatu Border][Now Xinkendi Province]

It was dim and the autumn wind was stern, and a group of riders fled desperately in the desolate wilderness.

The riders have different ages and different costumes. The only thing they have in common is the look of fear from the heart on their faces at this moment.

There were thirteen of them, but now there were only nine left. The people who were behind were swallowed up by the vast night, and none of them could catch up with them again.

In addition to the sound of horses riding under his crotch, there is another sound of hooves mixed with sharp whistles coming from the wind.

The strange sound of hoofs had chased the riders all night, like a gangrene with bones. No matter how fast they escaped, no matter how difficult the road they chose was, they could not get rid of it.

"They are fast!" One of the nine riders shouted desperately at the others: "We can't get rid of it! Why not take advantage of the strength to fight!"

The leading rider looked at the horizon: it was already dawn, and the outlines of the forest and hills were clearly visible. If you could not escape under the cover of the night, there would be no chance after dawn.

He gritted his teeth and suddenly tightened the reins. His mount raised his front hooves and staggered for a few steps to stop.

"Don't run!" The leading rider gasped and shouted: "Fight with them!"

Among the other eight riders, six stopped their horses and moved towards the leading rider. Two riders seemed to hear nothing and ran towards the forest regardless of scrutiny.

The leading rider didn't care about dealing with his traitorous accomplices for the time being. He pulled out his bloody saber, swallowed, and shouted with his eyes: "What are you afraid of? They are also humans! When the white knife comes in, the red knife comes out! If they kill them, no one will dare to resist us again! Let us take it here in the future!"

The other six riders also drew out their weapons and roared with ferocious faces to give themselves courage.

There were originally thirteen riders in this group, but now there were only nine left. They were not ordinary civilians, but horse bandits and horse thieves who made the people in the border areas frightened.

For pioneers who moved to the deserted harbor, horses are often the most valuable property of a family and the most indispensable tool.

Losing horses means being isolated on a small settlement like an isolated island, surrounded by an unmanned wilderness like a vast ocean.

So pioneers will defend their horses at all costs.

It is precisely because of this that all horse thieves are the most fierce, cruel, and lawless extremely evil people.

Soon, the pursuers appeared on the hillside, and they were also a small team of riders, with about twenty people.

Seeing that the horse bandits were divided into two groups, the leader of the rider whistled, and four riders immediately separated from the pursuit team to pursue the two horse bandits fled to the woodland.

The other riders rode down the hillside and rushed straight towards the seven horse bandits who wanted to give it a try.

The bells they hung on the chest belt of the war horses jingled, the narrow sabers shone coldly, the round earrings and forehead hair fluttered in the wind, and the woven knife tastings wrapped around their hands.

On one side were veterans who came to seek their lives, and on the other side were desperate horse bandits who were desperate. Without scolding or persuading surrender, both sides roared and rushed towards each other.

...

The brief but fierce cavalry battle came to an end. The horse bandits were defeated in dismay, and the pursuers won.

Blood sprinkled on this wild land, and it was steaming at first, but soon became cold.

A thin young rider dragged a half-dead horse bandit into the pile of prisoners with difficulty, then stroked his forehead and walked towards the leading rider.

The leading rider knelt beside a companion lying on the ground, holding his companion's hand tightly, and nodding constantly.

The rider lying on the ground said intermittently, and a coat was covered under his chest, covering the terrible wound on his abdomen. Blood flowed out from under his body and formed a small pit in the mud. He was already breathing less and less and more.

After saying the final instructions, the dying rider squeezed out a smile. He looked at the face of his comrades who were accompanying him and uttered the last word:

"Thanks".

After saying that, his eyes lost their luster.

The thin young rider spoke until the leader covered his eyes for his dead companion, stood up straight, and wiped away his tears, and the thin young rider said: "Girard Pleninovich, what should I do if the living horse thief?"

"Bring that little kid here," Gillard said.

The thin rider, Sergei, nodded and whistled. A Dusak came to Gillard with a boy about seven or eight years old when he heard the sound.

The little boy was obviously extremely frightened. He widened his eyes and looked around in horror. Gillard stood in front of him, screaming shrillly as if he was stimulated.

But no one blamed him because he was the only survivor of the massacre that just happened last night.

Gillard held the child in his arms until the latter stopped screaming and until the latter stopped crying.

Then he walked towards the alive bandit with the child in his arms, pointed to the nearest one, and asked, "Is there him?"

The little boy struggled hard, trying desperately to hide behind Gillard, and he didn't even dare to look at him.

"Don't be afraid." Gillard said softly: "Just nod and shake your head. Come, look at him and tell me-Is there him?"

The little boy looked at it for a long time and nodded his head.

Without Gillardo speaking, Sergei pulled out his sabre and walked forward, grabbed the hair of the accused bandit with his left hand, held the sabre in his right hand and stabbed it into his chest from the latter's shoulder and neatly ended his life.

Several other captured horse bandits witnessed their accomplices being killed like slaughtering pigs. They begged for mercy, cursed, and crawled around and wanted to escape, and they were full of ugly things.

"Beast!" Sergei kicked over a horse bandit who wanted to escape and scolded angrily: "Do you have the courage to commit a crime, but don't have the courage to kill?"

Gillard didn't speak until his companions controlled the horse bandits, and he pointed at the other horse bandits and asked the little boy: "Is there him?"

The little boy nodded.

Sergei started without hesitation, and the identified horse bandit softened and fell on the wasteland.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content later! Until the fourth and last prisoner was identified, the little boy shook his head.

"Not him?" Gillard asked with a frown.

The little boy shook his head again.

Gillard handed the little boy to his companion, squatted in front of the last alive horse bandit, and asked, "Don't you?"

The last alive horse bandit was an old man, his scattered beard was gray, and the blood from the wound on his head stuck to one of his eyes. He looked at the Dusak leader with his other eye and said weakly: "I...I didn't do anything."

Gillard snorted disdainfully.

"What do you... want to do?" Lao Ma asked gasp and said, "Judge... try me?"

"I'm not a judge, and there is no law here." Gillard pulled out his saber and signaled with his hand: "Pull up his right arm."

Without saying a word, Sergei took off the bandit's shirt, grabbed the bandit's wrist, and raised the bandit's right arm.

Gillard waved his knife to slash his face expressionlessly. A cold light flashed, and the old bandit's right arm was cut off with elbows.

The broken limb was thrown to the ground by Sergei, and blood was spurted out from the incision one by one. The old horse bandit screamed heart-wrenchingly, almost fainting from pain.

But it was not over yet. Gillard pulled off a strip of cloth and strangled the old horse bandit's broken arm. He then set fire and burned the hoof dark red, stopping the bleeding of the old horse bandit's broken arm.

At the same time, other Dusaks hung the bodies of the bandits in a row on the trees beside the road. Dusak, who went to pursue the other two fleeing bandits, also dragged the bodies of the bandits back.

Before leaving, Gillard stood in front of the half-dead old horse bandit and looked down at the latter.

"If you can survive." Gillard's tone was cold: "Go tell them, tell everyone like you."

"What do you tell them?" asked the old bandit hoarsely.

Gillard leaned over and approached the old horse bandit: "I."

After saying that, he walked towards his mount and stepped onto the horse in the stirrup.

"The head of the bandit..." Sergei asked hesitantly: "Do you want to take it off and exchange it for a bounty?"

"Just let them rot."

With his companion's body and the horses he recaptured, Gillard walked towards the home without looking back.

Behind him, the horse bandit's body swayed in the wind.

They will be pecked by crows and gnawed by beasts, and birds and beasts will eventually die and rot, and eventually turn into part of this wild land together with the blood sprinkled by Gillard and others.

...

When the smoke from the settlement appeared in view, it was almost dusk.

The sunset dyes everything on the earth golden, and the cool evening breeze makes people feel comfortable.

Sergei blew Dusak's tune, and the other Dusaks hummed softly, while the little boy with tears in the corner of his eyes hugged Gillard's neck and was already asleep.

Sergei caught up with Gillard and said in a daze: "The land here is very fertile."

"Yes." Gillard's body swayed rhythmically to the war horse.

“The harvest this year is also very good.”

"That's right."

"Next year... I plan to build another house." Sergei's Adam's apple flipped: "And then I will pick up my dad and mom here from the Shield River."

Gillard turned to look at his fellow countrymen, partners and comrades.

"I don't care what others think, but I won't go back to the Shield River." Sergei said: "My children and their children will not go back. We sprinkle blood on this land, and this will be our home in the future."

Silence for a moment.

"Yes." Gillard looked at Qingyan in the distance and replied softly: "This place will be our home in the future."

At the fork in the intersection with his friends, he rode his horse through the tree-lined road. The oak trees planted when he settled here had grown to be as tall as two or three adults.

At the end of the tree-lined road, the doorway of the fence.

His wife, who heard the crisp ringing of his war horse, was waiting for him.
To be continued...