Lord Highlander

   Chapter 589 578. The new owner of the barren land

  A round of red sunset slowly sank in the endless sea of ​​sand.

  The clouds in the sky are connected into a light orange gauze, which is connected with the yellow sand that can't be seen at a glance. The color in front of you is a gradual change from light yellow to orange.

  The sky gradually darkened, the night came, and the warm sand quickly turned cold.

  Suldak looked up at the night sky and saw the stars gradually lighting up. The gap on the edge of the desert was more than ten kilometers long. It was almost impossible to monitor the entrance of this desert at night.

In desperation, Suldak opened the sacrificial altar again, consuming three three-headed hellhound heads to bless Samira with the blessing effect of "insight". After the sacrificial altar can obtain a more powerful blessing effect , Suldak found that the sacrifices he had stored had obviously become insufficient.

  The team found the highest sand dune nearby, and Samira stood on the top of the sand dune.

  She is like a cheetah that has always been quiet, lurking there quietly.

  …

The camel team has been passing through the red rock wall full of gravel. The thick fleshy palms of the camels walked very slowly on the gravel. Some strong men with dark red turbans on their heads were leading the camels. Looking tired.

  Each camel was dragging two large bales of heavy supplies, and these people walked silently in the dark without talking to each other.

A huge shadow appeared in front of him, soft and cool fine sand appeared in front of his eyes, and finally reached the edge of the desert, just like a fish swimming into the sea again, the tensed heartstrings of these strong men relaxed a little, someone will straddle The scimitar on his waist was re-hooked on the hook next to the hump.

The burly man walking in the front pulled off the veil covering his face, his sharp eagle-like eyes looked behind him, and then he leaned his body on the ground and listened for a while, waiting for him to stand up , the camel team behind has followed.

  The strong man untied two water bags from the side of the hump and threw them to his subordinates. Then he pursed his dry lips and said in a hoarse voice:

   "All the team members take a rest in place, and can only rest after going down into the desert and walking back to the oasis."

  The strong men leading the camel immediately surrounded two water bladders, shared the clear water in the water bladders, and then lay on the soft sand holding the scimitar, squinting their eyes to let themselves relax quickly.

  The strong man took a few steps towards the height of the sand dune, the soft fine sand kept flowing down, and every step he took would almost send him back to the original place with the quicksand.

  A gray-bearded old man walked up slowly behind him, his eyes had been eroded by the years, making them cloudy and scorched.

He bowed his waist, stood beside the strong man, and said to him: "Awang, we shouldn't have killed so many villagers, and we took too much food this time, some people probably won't survive this winter, maybe The village will be deserted next year, so we won't be able to continue to grab food here."

   "Even if we can't grab food, it will be next year's business. If we don't grab it, we won't even survive this year..." Awang said coldly.

  The strong man Awang sat down on the **** of the sand dune, and the soft sand made him feel inexplicably at ease.

The old man also sat down with him, and said in a tone of nostalgia for the past: "In the past, when we went to the barren land, we didn't even need to cross the Gale Rift Valley, and it was only half a day's journey from the desert side. Go out and come back at night. At that time, there were still many villages close to the Rift Valley, and they cultivated oat fields next to the Rift Valley, and we will collect some oats in autumn."

The old man sighed, and then said: "In the earliest days, those who were willing to beg for a living in the barren land were poor exiles. Later, some homeless and criminals came here, and they settled down here. After more than a dozen generations of hard work, some villages have gradually formed."

"There is a sea of ​​sand nearly a thousand kilometers away from Babetila Province, and the closer you get to this side, the more desolate the sandy land is. Even people like us who are familiar with the desert, if they don't know the hidden oases, they will come here to rob villages "The old man continued: "Later, the other bandit groups in the desert saw that we could always survive the severe winter safely, and the secrets of the barren land were slowly leaked out. Those people did more ruthless than us, and they killed more Kill, slowly on the barren land, there are basically no villages west of Gale Rift Valley."

  A robber handed the water bag to the old man, and the old man took a sip cherishingly, and continued:

   "Now the villages hidden in the barren land are very hidden. They are usually hidden in the mountain depressions, and they are far away from the desert. Sometimes there will be no harvest. There are much fewer bandits who are willing to come here."

Awang spat out a mouthful of bloodshot spittle, and said to the old man: "If it weren't for that old dog Gage who drove us all to the east of the desert, I wouldn't want to venture into the barren land. It is said that there is a new baron lord here, and his methods are ruthless, and there are still hundreds of robber corpses hanging on the top of the Pagolos Pass."

  The old man sighed again.

Awang then cheered up and said: "But this time our harvest is not bad. With this food and what we have accumulated before, it should be enough to survive this winter. When the spring next year, I will Go and see if you can cross the big meadow in the northwest, I heard that there are many wandering herdsmen raising horses, and there are groups of wild horses and yellow sheep, so it is easier to survive."

The old man shook his head again and said: "The nomadic herdsmen have a lot of animals, but those Duerwa herdsmen are all good at riding and archery, and all of them ride green horses of Qinglin horse bloodline, and they are staring at them on the big grass. , our camel team can't get rid of them..."

  Before the old man finished speaking, a scream came from the silent night.

"ah!"

  The strong man Awang suddenly stood up from the sand, and asked loudly in the direction of the screaming: "What's going on?"

  A subordinate ran over in the dark, ran up to the leader in a panic, and said with horror on his face: "Leader Awang, Ganda was shot to death!"

  Awang stared round his eyes, walked into the darkness, and asked, "Where is the enemy?"

  The bandits around held their weapons in their hands and looked around.

  The flustered subordinate pointed to the top of the hill and said hesitantly, "It seems to be over there, leader. It's too dark to see where the arrow came from. It seems to be over there..."

   At this time, Awang had already found the man who had been shot through the throat on the sand dozens of meters away. His eyes were as sharp as knives looking at the top of the dune, and he shouted in a deep voice:

"follow me!"

  A group of men gathered around Awang, wearing leather armor and holding a machete, they rushed up the sand dunes at a fast pace.

In the dark night, the feathered arrows that had been flying all the way were nailed into the forehead of a sand thief soundlessly. No chance.

   Immediately afterwards, a sand bandit behind him was shot through the shoulder by a straight-feathered arrow.

"Sharpshooter! Shield..." Awang gritted his teeth and roared. He didn't lose any manpower along the way. He was about to enter the desert, but was blocked by an unknown team with a sharpshooter. He gritted his teeth and ran towards the top of the sand dune. Hastily followed.

He couldn't remember which bandit group had such powerful archers. In the darkness, Awang could only feel his body being locked away from a distance. It was a kind of mysterious fighting intuition, and this kind of intuition had saved him on the battlefield. How many times did he feel this feeling again in the face of the darkness at this moment, Awang didn't hesitate at all, his whole body was like a fish jumping into the water, his waist suddenly turned over, the whole person suddenly turned around and moved forward five times to the right. position...

I saw a black arrow flying past his original position soundlessly, another flying arrow flew close to his cheek, and the sharp hook drew a blood groove on his face, Awang stopped. Halfway up the sand dune, curling his body into a ball, he has never been so close to death.

  Samila who was standing on the top of the hill let out a little sigh, drew his bow and fired arrows again, and shot down the two robbers who continued to charge upwards.

  Those bandits were about to rush to the top of the sand dune, and the bandits who rushed ahead were holding shields in their hands, but ten brothers lay down on the way of the charge.

Awang rushed to the top of the sand dunes and saw a three-meter-tall ogre wearing black simple shoulder pads waiting there with a bone-crushing stick in his hand. A chill rose from the soles of his feet, and he suddenly remembered There was a rumor among the robbers before, that there was an ogre and an elf archer among the subordinates of the new noble lord in the barren land, but I didn't expect that the archer turned out to be of 'night elf' blood, possessed The ability to see at night...

Awang somewhat regretted his recklessness. His body was like a vigorous sand wolf, stepping on the soft fine sand and rushing towards the right waist of the ogre. The scimitar in his hand wanted to follow the ogre's waist There was a wound on the left side of the forehead, and the robber around him cooperated with Awang very tacitly, and rushed directly to the right rib of the ogre. The ogre ignored Awang and the robber at all, and swung the bone-crushing stick in his hand. It was round, and the robber who rushed forward swept out sideways.

  Awang took the opportunity to lower his figure, almost letting his body stick to the sand, barely avoiding the sweep, and then the scimitar in his hand drew a strange arc...

Just when the blade was about to approach the ogre, a dwarf chain shield appeared in front of the blade, and the scimitar cut on the sharp jagged edge of the dwarf chain shield, splashing a trace of sparks, and a silver light shone on the shield, Awang I only felt a counter-shock force that made my wrist rise sharply, and before I could counteract this momentum, a blood-red sword light flashed in front of me.

  Awang didn't feel how sharp the blood red crescent was, but felt that his sight was not controlled by his body, and the surrounding scenery suddenly spun.

The severe pain in his neck spread to his brain, and he seemed to fly, but it was so light. In the whirling night, he saw the body standing in the sand that was spurting blood from his neck. Looking at the scene in front of me, I realized that I was beheaded by my opponent...

  Awang's head rolled down on the sand dune, and the headless corpse fell to the sand with a 'plop'.

"drink!"

The ogre let out a loud cry, and swung the bone-crushing stick in his hand to fly five robbers who rushed forward at once. Almost all the robbers hit by the bone-crushing stick had their lumbar vertebrae like wheat cut down by a scythe in autumn... It was broken, and the body was swept into two parts.

   "Who are you?" Someone in the robber group shouted angrily, but no one answered.

   "Everyone spread out and run separately! Quick..." Someone among the robbers shouted in an accent different from that of the Badlands.

  The robbers running behind didn't even see what happened in front of them clearly. Someone yelled this voice, and dozens of robbers seemed to run away in all directions, no longer looking at the battlefield behind them.

  They are very experienced in escaping. Almost all of them circle their bodies in a ball and keep rolling down the dunes when rushing down the dunes.

Andrew at the bottom of the dune had already killed several robbers guarding the camel caravan. He was standing in front of the sand with a butcher's ax in his hand, stepping on the head of an old robber with gray beard and hair, spitting out the grass roots from his mouth , looking at those Sand Pirates rolling down quickly, their eyes were bloodshot.

  …

  The battle at night was far smoother than Suldak had imagined. After Samira gained the ability of 'insight', she chased and killed almost all the robbers who fled into the night.

Compared with the battlefield on the dunes, the battle under the dunes is too bloody. The aboriginal warrior Andrew held an ax in both hands, like a wild boar rushing into a cabbage field. He never thought about the integrity of the robber's corpse. I got up and hit the skull, and the skull suddenly shattered...

Suldak even thought about whether the heads of these bandits could be sacrificed, but he just thought about it. If he really sacrificed, he probably would be labeled as a 'heretic' soon and be cursed by magic. Those magicians from the trade union law enforcement team are hunting around.

  Before dawn, Suldak even had a chance to take a nap.

  More than forty camels have been connected in a string by ropes, and the supplies on each camel's back have been counted. Most of them are carrying wheat grains, some messy mountain goods, and some tents to keep out the cold.

   Some supplies were even stained with dried blood. Suldak packed the heads of all the robbers into boxes. These heads were handed over to the guard camp, and some meritorious rewards could be obtained.

   While helping the half-elven archer Samira gather the camel team, the ogre found a camel with a broken leg, so the camel had become a veritable roasted camel in the morning.

  The ogre hugged a huge hump, bit it down, and the mouth was full of fat.

When the sky was completely bright, the headless corpses that could not be taken away on the battlefield had been strung together by dozens of spears and stood on the top of the sand dunes. Along with these corpses standing in a row, there was also a gigantic giant weighing several thousand kilograms. The rock strip, this huge rock is about three meters high, placed on the sand dune.

   A line of imperial characters "Boundary of the Barren Land" is engraved on it with a knife and an axe.

  (end of this chapter)