"Haaha! Seguimi, avrai pane e vin! Reinhard, come with me and make your way under me. There'll be bread and wine!..."
"Hllenhund! Who's going with you to screw sheep? Who are you? How dare you bring these royal hounds to block me?!..."
"...? Didn't I just say? Me, the famous Don Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Castilian Navy!..."
Barcelona in February had a pleasant climate, and green mountains stretched north toward the Pyrenees. Noble estates and farmland spread across the outskirts, while the waterwheels and watermills of villages and towns turned gently along the rivers. Shepherds of Aragon, with sheepdogs in tow, drove flocks of Aragonese sheep onward, kicking up a layer of dust in the distance. These hardy sheep had decent meat, produced both milk and wool, and their milk-fed lambs were a famed delicacy of the peninsula!
However, when the shepherd rounded the mountain road and saw the German Great Mercenary Corps nearly two hundred strong in the distance, saw those gaudy suits of armor and banners, he shuddered on the spot. Trembling with fear, he peered from afar, then saw a large troop of cavalry holding high the Castilian castle banner. His knees went soft outright, and even his toes stopped obeying him.
"Holy Mother! Murdering tyrants who don't blink have run into soldier-bandits who eat men without spitting out the bones... Hurry! Run! My sheep, run faster!..."
"Awoo, awoo!..."
The shepherd turned around, shivering, and the sheepdog barked wildly. The distant flock was driven along and hurriedly turned back the way it had come. Alvaro, captain of the royal cavalry troop, raised his brows, glanced north, and gave two low orders. Afterward, an elite royal cavalryman clamped his horse's belly and, ignoring the tense, guarded Holy Roman Empire mercenaries holding spears, pikes, bows, and crossbows, galloped