Chapter 338 - Barbarian Tribes!
On the Southern border of Viscount Baldrick's territory, a group of carriages with a small number of soldiers surrounding it to protect the people inside from any ambush. It came to a stop just outside the forest of Caragan.
Some distance away from them, Alex's puppets had followed the entourage as it exited out of the Viscount Bardricks castle in the dead of night until here.
They had been keeping an eye on the movement of Viscount Bardrick and his subordinates. No matter what noble do, the puppets had to give first-hand information to Alex, just like when Viscount Bardrick had sent a secret messenger to contact General Yasir.
But that didn't happen as the puppets captured the messenger on his journey and thus learning about the intention of Viscount Bardrick.
Now with Blackbeard and his pirate fleet besieging the coastal city and town on the east coast of Vicount's territory, Bardrick has come under tremendous pressure. Maybe by today itself, he would lose everything of his and become a prisoner of war or be executed after being captured by the pirates or the Lord in the north, Danny Glover.
Viscount Bardrick wanted to contact the other four Nobles, but every messenger that he sends, their heads would appear in his city.
The carriage gates opened, and a stout man exited it, followed by two young girls.
The puppets immediately recognized the man. He was Viscount Bardrick himself, and the two girls behind him were his daughters.
"My Lord, how do we call them out for a meeting?" a soldier clad in armor asked as he came forwards after checking the surroundings for any danger.
Viscount Bardrick didn't answer his subordinate immediately but looked towards the forest.
"...There is no need to call them out as they are already here," Viscount said and pointed his finger in the direction of the forest.
Shing!
The guards surrounding Viscount Bardrick immediately unsheathed their swords and fearfully looked in the direction where their Lord has pointed his finger. Some of them were visibly shaking as if they were about to face a terrifying Demon Beast.
"There are people up ahead!"
The puppets were also staring in the direction of the forest.
"Asata Deogo(My Friends!)... Treyga ish nashi ume ga tong... Basho! (I come in peace, take me to meet your... Chieftain!)..." Viscount Bardrick suddenly started shouting out words that no one in his group could make head or tails of. Even the puppets looked confused.
"Treta gam no Basho...Seno (Gift for the Chieftain... See)," Viscount Bardrick said some intelligible words and then pointed his fingers at his own daughters. As if knowing what their father meant, the girls trembled and made faces that seemed they were about to cry. But under the terrifying gaze of the father, the two girls bit their lips and stayed quiet.
"Treta gam?... " a hoarse voice sounded from behind the trees just as Viscount Bardrick was going to repeat something.
The soldiers took a step back when they saw the giant silhouettes hiding behind the big trees inside the forest.
Before long, they noticed a tall, middle-aged man, resembling a wild barbarian as he stepped out of the shadows and into the open. He was more than seven-foot-tall, and his limbs were as thick as two thighs of humans combined. Everyone knew that this person was really the infamous barbarian of the Caragan Forest, and he was not alone. Seven more barbarians walked out with different sizes of clubs and bone weapons in their hands. These barbarian men had their bodies covered with frightening tattoos, making anyone that looked at them tremble with fear.
Their skin was bronze-colored, and each one of the barbarians was buff like Haftor Bjornsson, the Mountain.
"Arata... Treta gam, kaesva seno... Thorat Basho?" Viscount Bardrick knew the language of the Barbarians as there had many exchanges between them for decades. Though he was not fluent, the barbarians understood his meaning very clearly.
Viscount Bardrick wanted to meet.
"Hm... Arata, geshin!" the bald barbarian nodded before signaling Viscount Bardrick and the rest of his group to follow behind them.
"Let's go... wait, I will warn you all beforehand, make no action that might be seen as being disrespectful to barbarians, or I won't be able to save any one of you from them. Also, make sure you don't look at the female barbarians with lustful eyes, or they would take out your eyes with their bare hands." Viscount Bardrick warned his men, so they don't get themselves killed.
"Yes, my lord" The guards looked at each other before nodding their heads like chicken, implying that they understood very clearly.
"And you two... you know what needs to be done. For the sake of securing our family's future and to get out of this predicament, we need the help of barbarians. This is the only way." Viscount Bardrick said in a low voice to his two daughters.
"Ye...Yes, father, we understand," said the older girl. She knew their fate was already sealed when they were born in the house of a noble family. For the sake of political stability or to gain powerful allies, upon coming of age, the sisters were meant to be married off to some noble house or rich merchant family. But the sisters had never thought that their father would be so cold to throw them to the barbarians like a sacrificial offering for the sake of protecting himself and his territory.
On foot, Viscount Bardrick and his group followed behind the bald barbarian leading them through the dense forest. Their destination was the Barbarian tribe, which ruled the seven smaller barbarian tribes in the northeastern region of the Caragan forest.
The puppets followed closely behind the group. Thankfully, they were not real humans, so they also didn't give off body scents similar to humans. If they did, then the barbarians would have caught them by their scent.
It was widely known that barbarians had exceptional senses, especially their ability to smell a human from three kilometers away. On the way, the guards of Viscount Bardrick and the two sisters had experienced the ferocity and the monstrous strength of the barbarians firsthand as they fought head-on with strong Demon Beast twice their size.. It took an hour to reach the barbarian settlement situated on a small hill, the infamous Antral Barbarian Tribe.