Hearing hooves in the heavy rain meant the Dothraki were very close, likely already inside the ruined village.
However, what was strange was that the hooves sounded extremely urgent, indicating that the Dothraki, upon entering the village, did not slow down but intended to pass through quickly, which clearly did not seem like they were pursuing the escapees.
"Someone is chasing them," Fenya immediately analyzed a possibility in her mind.
At this moment, she suddenly remembered that the carts loaded with various goods were by the roadside; anyone passing through the village on the Valyrian Road would inevitably see these carts and horses, and their whereabouts would be completely exposed, and it was too late now to disguise or move the items elsewhere.
This point was clearly understood by everyone inside the house; they had all taken out their weapons, preparing to fight to the death if exposed.
In the face of crisis, Fenya no longer thought wildly, also drawing the scimitar from her waist, taking a deep breath to stabilize her emotions, and coming to her subordinate's side, staring intently at the movements outside the house.
Soon, as the hooves gradually grew louder, the Dothraki were approaching the house they were in; a lightning bolt streaked across the sky, illuminating it and the ground, and under the light of the lightning, Fenya clearly saw a large troop of Dothraki spurring their horses to gallop, as if some monster was chasing them from behind.
At this time, the first few Dothraki riders had already galloped past the entrance of the house; they did not see Fenya and the others hiding inside the house, but they did see the carts outside the house and by the road.
Normally, they might have already started searching the village for the caravan members and plundering the caravan's goods, but now they just wanted to escape quickly.
However, their wish did not come true; as soon as they had galloped past the house where Fenya and the others were hiding, several sharp arrows flew from behind, accurately striking their heads and piercing their hard skulls, causing these few individuals to fall directly from their horses, lying stiffly on the ground.
Not only these few Dothraki, but also the Dothraki following closely behind fell from their horses one after another; without exception, their heads were pierced by arrows.
In less than two minutes, only a few of this troop of Dothraki cavalry remained alive.
The last few Dothraki, seeing that they could not escape, completely went mad, turning their horses around, wanting to fight to the death with the enemies behind them, but the other side clearly did not give them this chance; several arrows pierced through the rain, directly striking their eyes, penetrating their skulls, and shooting them down from their horses.
Over a hundred powerful Dothraki cavalry were slaughtered like chickens and ducks before everyone's eyes, without any power to resist; Fenya and the others all involuntarily held their breath, looking out of the house in fear.
They all simultaneously thought that since the other party could so easily kill so many Dothraki cavalry, killing them should not be difficult either.
At this moment, everyone in the house fell into despair.
Just when everyone thought they were doomed this time, a crisp sound of hooves trampling on flagstones came from the direction the Dothraki were fleeing; from the chaotic sound of the hooves, it was not difficult to judge that hundreds of cavalry seemed to be entering the village, and these people were clearly the ones chasing the Dothraki cavalry.
Everyone held their breath nervously.
Not long after, they saw a Knight in magnificent golden armor slowly walking from one end of the street; the Knight held a strange long spear with a sword-like tip in his hand, and behind this Knight was a pack horse carrying bags, and a finely crafted longbow hung from the pack horse's saddle.
However, they did not see any cavalry behind this Knight; all they saw were hundreds of Dothraki warhorses following him, and Fenya immediately understood that these warhorses were the source of the hooves they had heard.
So, upon seeing this strange scene, everyone simultaneously had one thought: that the more than one hundred Dothraki cavalry just now were all shot and killed by this one Knight.
Although they found this idea somewhat absurd, all the evidence they saw now told them that this guess was correct, and they also inferred from the Dothraki warhorses following behind the Knight that perhaps thousands of Dothraki cavalry had died at the hands of this Knight.
At this moment, the Knight had already arrived in front of the house; a lightning bolt suddenly appeared in the sky, illuminating the sky and the ground, and everyone saw the Knight's face, but his face was not a human face, but the face of a lion.
"Night Lion!" Fenya couldn't help but exclaim.
Although Night Lion is a deity of Yi Land, there are many followers in various city-states of the Free Trade City States, and most of these followers are wealthy individuals and powerful figures, because Night Lion is regarded as the god of wealth.
Although Fenya was not a devout follower of Night Lion, she would also worship Night Lion and pray for Night Lion's protection; she even wore a Night Lion statue pendant around her neck.
The lion-headed Knight before her immediately made her think of the deity Night Lion; besides the lion face, it was more the powerful strength with which this Knight had just shot and killed those Dothraki cavalry that made her feel as if he were a deity, which is why she made the association the moment she saw the lion face.
However, after the exclamation, she immediately realized she was wrong, because the other party did not have a lion's face, but was wearing a lion-head helmet that completely covered his face.
Hearing Fenya's exclamation, the Lion Knight turned his head and looked into the house; although everyone only saw the lion mask, everyone could feel the gaze behind the mask sweeping over them.
"Can those of you in the house help me collect and organize these spoils of war? I can pay you for your trouble." Very standard High Valyrian came from inside the lion-head helmet, the tone somewhat calm, sounding not like a forceful command, but a discussion.
Fenya felt that the other party had no ill will, hesitated for a moment, then sheathed her scimitar, then gestured to everyone, and walked out of the house.
"Do you want everything on them?" Fenya walked up to him and asked.
"No, only valuables and warhorses are sufficient," the Lion Knight replied.
Fenya asked no further questions and led her subordinates to gather the scattered warhorses, leading them to the herd, then plundered the Dothraki cavalry's possessions, piling them in front of the Lion Knight, and then pulled out the arrows stuck in the Dothraki's heads, cleaned them slightly, and piled them together.
The Lion Knight dismounted, put the arrows into a box on the pack horse's back, then picked out some items from the pile of valuables; Fenya, standing by, noticed that the items this Lion Knight picked out were all exotic, and some even looked somewhat sinister, such as a human skull shrunken by some mysterious method.
After picking out the items and putting them together in the box behind the pack horse, the Lion Knight said to Fenya and the others: "The rest is for you to divide!"
Hearing the Lion Knight's words, everyone was stunned, their eyes involuntarily falling on a pile of coins from different places.
It should be known that the Dothraki were not interested in copper coins, and even if they got them, they would discard them casually; most of what they carried were gold and silver coins.
And most of these gold and silver coins were re-melted into various gold and silver ornaments; when they saw certain items they liked in the market, they would directly take off an ornament, throw it to the vendor, and take the item they liked.
So, even though all the people of the Free Trade City States deeply disliked and despised the Dothraki, they all liked to do business with the Dothraki; as long as a deal was successfully made, they would make a fortune.
The pile of coins before them naturally had no copper coins; most were gold and silver coins, and gold coins were more numerous; when they heard the Lion Knight giving all these gold coins as payment to them, their breathing became heavier.
However, they did not reach for the money on the ground, but turned to look at Fenya.
"Garrett, you are responsible for dividing all this money, remember it's an even split," Fenya instructed the Captain of the caravan guards beside her.
"Yes, Master," the Captain replied, then had someone move the coins into the house, re-lit the recently extinguished bonfire, and slowly divided them by the fire.
Undoubtedly, the reaction of these people also attracted the Lion Knight's attention; when he said that all this money was for them, he had already expected that these people would fight among themselves for these coins, a situation he had seen more than once on the road before.
But now, this situation was completely beyond his expectation; these people not only did not fight each other but honestly waited for the distribution, and the reason for all this lay with Fenya, this Myrish merchant woman.
The Lion Knight developed a slight interest in this caravan, so he gave up the idea of continuing his journey and said to Fenya: "The rain tonight is too heavy; may I rest in your house for the night?"
Fenya quickly nodded and said: "Of course you can. This is not my house; I am also just borrowing it to shelter from the rain."
Because it was unclear if more Dothraki would appear later, having a mysterious, powerful, and benevolent Knight with them made Fenya feel safer.
The Lion Knight led his mount to a nearby dilapidated wall that offered some shelter from the rain, hung the long spear in his hand on the saddle, and then turned and walked into the caravan's house.
The re-lit bonfire illuminated the small house; after the Lion Knight entered the house, everyone in the house looked at the Lion Knight with respect, and then simultaneously shifted their attention back to the pile of money.
Only a few Night Lion believers looked at the Lion Knight, murmuring, seemingly praying; clearly, they had taken the Lion Knight as an incarnation of Night Lion, because in their view, only Night Lion, who controls the world's wealth, could treat money like dirt and so easily give such a large sum to them.
And, when the Lion Knight came in, Fenya was also quietly observing him, and quickly discovered something unusual; outside, it was pouring rain, and they had been standing outside for a while and were already soaked, but the other party had been chasing the Dothraki here, and there was no trace of him being wet, which seemed incredibly strange to Fenya.
"Are you a caravan from Myr?" The Lion Knight did not sit by the fire, but sat near the door, in a spot not wet by the rain; after sitting down, he did not remove his helmet, but asked Fenya with his helmet on.
"Yes, my Lord," Fenya nodded and said, "We are the Myrish Ruby Trading Company, and I am the President, Fenya Doggett; these are my subordinates."
"I can see that your subordinates are very loyal and devoted to you," the Lion Knight said in a deep voice.
Fenya looked at her subordinates who were busy dividing the money, nodded, and said: "I am also very fortunate to have such a loyal group of subordinates." As she spoke, she looked at the Lion Knight and tentatively asked: "May I ask, my Lord, are you from Yi Land?"
"No," the Lion Knight shook his head, then introduced himself: "You can call me Onstein, Lion Knight Onstein."
This Lion Knight was Lynd, who had left Bello Town not long ago and entered the Disputed Lands; he had traveled deep into the Disputed Lands along the dilapidated Valyrian Road.
Perhaps because his armor was too dazzling, he encountered over a dozen robberies of varying sizes along the way; sometimes it was the Dothraki, sometimes unknown mercenary groups; in short, the number of people who died at his hands along this journey was no less than three or four thousand.
The group of Dothraki cavalry he had just been chasing were originally fleeing routed soldiers; they would not have been pursued by Lynd, but after they passed Lynd, perhaps the leading Ko thought that Lynd's lion armor was worth a lot of money, and he was only one person, so after running for a distance, they turned back to rob Lynd.
Unfortunately, they did not expect to run into a tough opponent; on the spot, the Ko of that troop was impaled by Lynd's long spear and lifted into the air, then split in half in mid-air; the other Dothraki panicked after he killed a dozen of them, turned and fled, and were pursued by Lynd all the way.
Although in the additional character template Lynd obtained, Dragonslayer Ornstein's weapon expertise was primarily with the long spear, and archery was not his main weapon.
However, as Ornstein, who once commanded the Silver Knights, he was also skilled in archery, though his archery was somewhat ordinary compared to others.
However, this ordinariness was only relative; the "others" Ornstein was comparing himself to was Hawkeye Gough, one of the Four Knights, a powerful archer capable of shooting down an Ancient Dragon with a single arrow; Ornstein's archery naturally could not compare to his, but compared to the archery of ordinary master archers, he was clearly several times stronger.
After inheriting Ornstein's character memories, Lynd also practiced archery while practicing spearmanship; this time, coming to Essos, he prepared a large box of arrows, and it proved that in this wilderness environment, bows and arrows were far more useful than long spears.
The number of mercenary bandits and Dothraki who died by arrows along the way was several times more than those who died by long spears; although eliminating enemies from a distance with archery was very satisfying, cleaning up the battlefield afterward was also very troublesome, because every iron-headed arrow had to be recovered, and situations like today, with someone helping to clean up, were rare.
-------------------------------
I've already uploaded 40 chapters of this story on Patreon!
If you enjoy it, come check out the latest chapters in advance.
[patreon.com/TripleCrown07]
Thank you so much for your support!!!
"And If you're enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!"