Centaurs

To express her gratitude for High Mountain Keep's selfless assistance, Annie offered two wagonloads of goods in return. Richard flushed and made a show of refusing several times, but in the end he could not withstand her sincere enthusiasm and repeated invitations, and reluctantly accepted.

With her standing right there, he felt too embarrassed to ask what was inside. Secretly, he hoped it was tea bricks, which were valuable hard currency in the Wilderness.

But when the Hum-Ha Duo finally strained to haul the wagons up the hill and began unloading the goods into storage, he was surprised to find that things seemed to be different from what he had expected.

He cut open a sack with a dagger, and white powder spilled out, giving off a simple, wholesome fragrance—refined wheat flour. When the cover was pulled off the other wagon, it turned out to be an entire wagonload of black coal. Judging from the bits and pieces spilling out of the other wagons, the whole caravan was carrying only these two kinds of goods.

Richard stroked his chin, somewhat baffled.

Because of the enormous demand brought by the Pioneering Nobles and the natives, trade in the Wilderness had always been quite prosperous. Every spring and autumn, goods worth at least hundreds of thousands of gold coins flowed into the Wilderness. On the return trip, they brought back large quantities of livestock, furs, and even magical materials, making it a vital trade route for the Pompey Empire.

But the types of goods traded in the Wilderness had always been very fixed. Tea, cotton cloth, and even smuggled ironware were the most popular and profitable products. He had never heard of anyone selling refined wheat flour or coal.

Wildlanders had no habit of eating wheat flour. Besides, they could not afford its price of at least one silver coin per sack. As for coal, no one would be interested in it at all. The most commonly used fuel here was dried animal dung, which was inexhaustible and free for the taking.

Even if the flour and coal could somehow be sold, the profit would be questionable. The Voya Merchant Guild's trading experience had to be extremely rich, so why had they made this choice?

Richard briefly explained these deductions to the barbarians. Whenever he mentioned trade and profits, their faces twisted in agony like suffocating fish, but they still managed to understand that their leader was suspicious of the caravan.

"What do we do?" Gunther held a handful of white flour, thinking that if they used it to make pancakes later and fried the edges until they were slightly crisp, they would definitely be fragrant and delicious. It would be even better if they could catch a rabbit for the filling.

"Keep watching for now." Richard waved his hand and urged the Ogre to hurry up and carry the goods into the cellar. Strange or not, once it's in storage, it's mine.

"We'll make meat pies tonight. I've had enough of that black bread that's hard as a rock."

The barbarians erupted in laughter loud enough to pierce the eardrums, chattering as they voiced their demands for better food. Just then, everyone suddenly heard a sharp, grating blast from a copper whistle.

"Alert!"

The barbarian on watch atop the building shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Hah. Today really isn't peaceful!" Richard sneered. First the Goblins, then the Gnolls, and now who knew what strange creatures had arrived. The prosperity and chaos of the Wilderness had opened his eyes.

The relaxed smiles vanished from the barbarians' faces without a trace. They grabbed the weapons they had just set down and entered combat readiness, an excited mood silently spreading among them.

"Follow me!" Richard drew his longsword, swung his arm, and led the barbarians outside the wooden building in a menacing rush.

The sentry standing at the high point was using his spear to indicate a direction. The hill's relatively higher elevation offered an exceptionally broad view. Looking along the spearpoint, they could see vague black shadows moving slowly toward High Mountain Keep across an endless sea of rippling green grass.

Richard narrowed his eyes and counted them. Twenty-one.

"Can you make them out?"

"Not very clearly, but they seem to be cavalry." Gunther shook his head like a rattle drum.

A small commotion broke out in the caravan camp at the foot of the hill. They had also heard the sentry's warning, but with their poor view, they could not see where the danger was coming from. A lightly equipped scout tried to go up the hill to investigate, but the barbarians pinned him down with gazes sharper than blades.

Hyenas had no business standing alongside lions. These big, rough men had never thought much of the mercenaries from beginning to end!

As time passed, the black shadows drew closer to High Mountain Keep, and more details gradually became clear.

They were not cavalry, but Gunther could hardly be blamed for mistaking them for such. They had limbs and bodies identical to those of fine horses, but from the base of each neck grew a human upper body. They were a group of centaurs.

Centaurs were a universally acknowledged warrior race. Through dissections, physicians had discovered that most of their internal organs were located in the horse body. Aside from the head, the human half consisted almost entirely of muscle and bone, giving them far greater strength than humans of comparable size.

Their unique body structure gave them both the charging power of cavalry and the flexibility of infantry. Adult warriors also often possessed respectable archery skills. This made centaur tactics extraordinarily flexible and varied. They could serve as mounted skirmishers, harassing enemies with their bows, then immediately switch to close combat when the opportunity arose.

In the northwest of the Pompey Empire, the repeated invasions of the large centaur tribes had even left the regular legions struggling to cope.

But...

Richard cracked sunflower seeds between his teeth, and the shells that fell were swept by the wind into the grass, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

Trying to attack High Mountain Keep with only twenty-one centaurs was undoubtedly the most absurd daydream imaginable. Whoever had come up with such an arrogant idea would receive nothing today but a lesson they would never forget.

"Throwing spear."

A barbarian immediately handed a throwing spear to his lord. Richard took it, weighed it twice, then hurled it with all his strength toward the centaurs.

The two sides were at least four hundred paces apart. That distance even exceeded the effective range of a defensive ballista. Given Richard's skill with ranged weapons, directly hitting one of them would have been a miracle.

The throwing spear traced an unusually flat arc before slamming into the ground three hundred paces away, sending a spray of dirt flying.

This was called marking the boundary with a spear. It represented a warning: once they crossed the boundary marked by the spear, there would be no buffer between the two sides, and they would enter a state of total war.

The centaurs had clearly seen what happened and understood its meaning, yet they continued forward, merely slowing their pace.

Richard narrowed his eyes further, his gaze slowly following the centaurs' steps.

As they approached the fallen spear, the leading centaur suddenly raised a tattered gray cloth. Then, as if it had received some sort of guarantee, it pulled out the spear and continued slowly forward.

"What are they doing?" Richard felt that this looked like some kind of traditional witchcraft, but even so, it could not be taken lightly. The Shaman Wizards of the Wilderness were primitive, but among them were still powerful individuals who truly grasped the mysteries of elemental forces.

This inconspicuous piece of cloth might have been empowered by some kind of witchcraft.

"It looks like a white flag..." Gunther said uncertainly.