The small square facing the main building of Slov Manor was packed with people. This was the third morning since Lorist and his companions had occupied Slov Manor.
Right in the middle were over seven hundred slave soldiers holding long spears, a group on the left consisted of their families, the ones standing on the right were slaves rescued from the slave-hunter camp, and the thousand-odd people squeezed into a huddle at the very back were the slaves and their families responsible for grape cultivation and daily chores on this manor.
Lorist appeared on the second-floor balcony of the main building, holding a horn rolled up from a sheet of iron. Two days had already passed since taking Slov Manor; weapons, equipment, and goods had been transported, and all the miscellaneous chores had come to an end. Next was the reorganization of the troops. Today, Lorist was going to address all the slave soldiers and slaves, giving them hope and instilling firm confidence in everyone to embark on the journey northward.
I suppose I should introduce myself; I am Baron Norton Lorist, head of the Raging Bear family of the North. Lorist shamelessly placed the baronial title, which he had not yet formally inherited, upon his own head.
"I believe you all know the purpose for which my knights spent a large sum to rescue you from those despicable slave traders at Port Nubite: it is to form our own Norton Family army, taking your families along to travel north and return to our domain, and promising to grant you freedom once we reach the North. But what we never expected was that before we even took our first step north, we were attacked by these despicable slave hunters who wanted to turn you into slaves, cargo, and bloody gold