Chapter 240: Be a Priestess Again
The elderly tribune obviously disliked Levius and his son and had even called them bastards.
"Hiding in the mountains? Doesn't Levius even want his own estate anymore?"
Wendy expressed her incomprehension. She and Lisa Dilan looked at each other and both shook their heads.
"There are many minerals in the mountains, all of which belong to the Levius family... The bastard father and son probably think that the minerals are more important than the manor..."
This tribune did not seem to be senile, but this was all he knew. After all, he was too old to go out and investigate.
But the lord could understand that Levius and his son had offended everyone around them, and they obviously felt unsafe in their own manor.
Since Levius gave up his own manor, the lord took his troops and moved in directly to avoid wasting time setting up camp.
The governor's family estate was very large, with dozens of houses connected on the hillside.
This is a typical high-walled compound of the old Bacchus. It is a series of courtyards with many high arches and huge stone pillars, but there are no towering castles built like the high-ranking nobles on the continent of Pendor.
In fact, if a castle was built here, the village of Fjedne should probably be called Fjedneburg - the scale of this place is actually far beyond that of an ordinary village.
The location and view of the manor are very good. At the foot of the mountain is the valley road leading to the village entrance. From inside the manor, you can basically see the entire village directly across the valley of a hundred meters.
Perhaps the only bad thing is that this manor is isolated on the mountain. Once the foot of the mountain is surrounded, there will be nowhere to escape.
“Is this the narrowest place around here?”
The lord stood on the highest terrace of the manor, looked around, pointed to the entrance of the village and asked.
"Yes, this was originally a road opened in the canyon for transporting ore. Later, as more people came, it was continuously widened until it is this wide now."
Seeing that Leon occupied the manor of the Levius family and began to survey the terrain, the old tribune's eyes lit up: "This... Sir, are you going to deal with that bastard father and son?"
"To be honest, I came here mainly to deal with the Snake Worship Cult. I have to set up an ambush nearby... But I don't have enough manpower, and it's not easy to seal off the enemy in this valley that is hundreds of meters wide..."
The lord did not deceive the tribune. When fighting outside, one must seek help from local people who are familiar with the terrain.
"Snake Cult? I really want the Snake Cult to kill those two bastards Levius and Fabius! They killed a lot of people in the name of dealing with the Snake Cult a few days ago... In fact, we all know that most of them are innocent!"
The tribune gritted his teeth and said, the flesh on his face trembling because of the wrinkles: "If you need help, maybe you should rescue the people in the village."
"How many people are left in the village now? Does anyone know the exact location of the Levius family's properties ?"
The lord looked into the village a few times and saw some people hiding and looking this way, probably there were still a few elderly people left.
"Of course the villagers know about this. Many elderly people in the village have worked in those mines... Every year, there are always some people who can't pay the taxes and go to serve in the mines..."
The tribune sighed, "But I don't know where the father and son are hiding. There are many minerals in the mountains."
The so-called mining service is actually finding excuses to forcibly conscript civilians to mine. It is actually the same thing as the prayer tax and defecation tax imposed by some noble territories in Sarleon Territory.
This tribune was obviously a minor noble, so mining duties would naturally not be assigned to him, and he might not be very familiar with the mines.
But it was obvious that he must be very familiar with the people in the village.
"It seems that we really need to bring the villagers back... Go gather all the people who are still alive in the village, and I will get you some food..."
After sending the tribune back to gather the villagers, the lord began to make arrangements everywhere.
Upon hearing that the lord was willing to share food with them, in less than an hour, all the survivors in the village gathered outside the manor.
When there is no food to eat, even the elderly with disabled legs and feet become very efficient.
In fact, there are only about two hundred surviving elderly people, and they can't consume much food.
Distributing food to these people was not to win their hearts. The people in this area had already been corrupted by Fabius, so there was no need to win them over deliberately.
The main purpose is to make use of these people.
It will take at least a day for the infantrymen following behind to get here, and it is unknown whether they can arrive before the Snake Cult army arrives.
With only 800 cavalrymen, no matter how successful the ambush was, it would be impossible to completely wipe out the Snake Cult army.
When facing the Snake Cult, the Lord was not thinking about how to defeat the enemy.
But how to annihilate the enemy.
In order to annihilate the enemy, all available resources and manpower should be used.
Therefore, even though these two hundred ragged old people in front of him could be put to good use, the lord felt that they could be put to good use.
Originally, Li Ang considered taking advantage of the Snake Worship Army's locust-like habits to set up an ambush and block the enemy. After the infantry arrived, he would try to encircle and block the Snake Worship Army from both sides in the valley.
But the valley was a hundred meters wide, and Li Ang had too few people, so it was difficult to arrange the arrangements.
And the snake worshippers are different from the ordinary mobs - they are not afraid of death.
This means that even if the ambush is successful, in order to block the enemy in the valley, the losses will definitely be considerable.
Those Noldor elves and the female warriors under Amy are all precious treasures. It would be very unprofitable if they suffered too great a loss.
Now that he knew about the mess that Levius and his son had caused, Leon would of course consider bringing back those forcibly conscripted villagers to solve his current problem of insufficient manpower.
Looking at the old people who were queuing up to receive food at the gate of the manor, the lord stood up and walked to a room in the manor and knocked on the door: "Alyssa, are you ready to be a priestess again?"
“Hiss… I never thought that after leaving the Divine Religion, I would still have to do these kinds of work…hiss…”
Alyssa, who was inside the house, opened the door.
She had changed back into her priestess outfit. The low-cut snake-patterned armor revealed her fair neck and shoulders, and the deep cleavage looked quite seductive.
…
In the afternoon, a 'snake cult priestess' came to a large mining area in the mountains with two hundred ragged 'followers'.
This is actually an open-pit mine. The whole mountain looks like it has been cut into a cross section. The mountain is divided into several layers, and there are many people busy working on each layer.
The soil layer in the cross section of the mountain is very new, and it is obvious that the mine has just been excavated on a large scale.
Most of the people in the mines were chained and looked like slaves.
There are a lot of people, and the number of people that can be seen directly at the mine is no less than two thousand.
No matter how powerful the Livius family was, it was impossible for them to have so many slaves - it was obvious that the people here were civilians who were forcibly conscripted and were simply forced to be treated like slaves.
Levius and his son were not very active in training soldiers, but they were quite active in mining.
"What is that... the Snake Worshipers? The Snake Worshipers are coming!"
There were obviously people on guard around the mine. As soon as Alyssa and the old people appeared nearby, someone started shouting.
Then the sound of "ding ding ding" bells rang out, and it was obvious that the sentry in the mine had sounded the alarm.
"Hiss...is the reaction so big?"
Alyssa curled her lips.
The people in the mine had begun to make a noisy commotion, and soon afterwards, a force of about two hundred men appeared on the top of the mine.
At this time, Alyssa had already led this group of "followers" back down the mountain and directly returned to the manor of the Levius family.
It only took the lord a few hours to find the whereabouts of Levius and his son - or rather, it was not that he found them, but that he was able to make them reveal their whereabouts.
In fact, the method Li Ang used is very simple.
As long as Alyssa, the real priestess of the Snake Cult, appears in the largest mining areas with her "followers", then Levius and his son will definitely panic, and they will definitely organize their own real troops - either transfer or fight.
They killed three thousand people in the name of dealing with the Snake Cult. Now seeing the Snake Cult priestess appear here, they would of course think that the Snake Cult came to seek revenge on them.
Even if they were not here for revenge, they were definitely here to rob people, so Levius and his son would naturally have to find a way to solve the problem.
If they didn't show up, Alyssa might really recruit those villagers as a priestess of the Snake Cult...
The number of "followers" brought by Alyssa, that is, the elderly who are familiar with the geographical environment and are responsible for leading the way, is just around 200...
This was a number that embarrassed Levius and his son. They were able to kill 3,000 defenseless people in batches within a month. They must have been ruthless and courageous.
But they didn't dare to directly attack more than 200 snake worshippers...
After all, the Snake Cult is well-known for not fearing death. Unless it is necessary, no one wants to fight with a similar number of desperadoes. If you lose, you will die, and if you win, there will be no benefit...
If the losses are too great and they are unable to suppress the villagers who have been forcibly conscripted, a civil uprising might even cost them their lives.
Because they only had two hundred soldiers with real combat effectiveness, and besides that, there were only more than three hundred slaves kept by the family who were relatively obedient.
But those slaves can only keep an eye on the villagers in the mine - these slaves who used to work in the mines every day have now become foremen, and are quite enthusiastic about wielding the whip, but they can be used to beat people, but they are definitely unreliable in fighting.
In other words, the only ones who can be used in fighting are those two hundred private soldiers.
So Fabius carefully tracked the location of the 'Snake Cult Priestess', neither getting closer nor farther away.
But after seeing this "Snake Cult Army" entering his family's manor, Fabius became a little uneasy.
Although they did not live in the manor but hid in the mining area in the mountains, it did not mean that they planned to give up their own property...
Moreover, these two hundred soldiers are all private soldiers of the family. They have always been guarding the manor and can be said to know the environment of the entire manor like the back of their hand.
People will naturally gain a lot of confidence in a familiar environment. In addition, with a certain mentality of "protecting the family business", Fabius decided to take a little risk .
He led the team to sneak into the manor through an unknown secret passage.
To be honest, the lord really didn't realize that there was such a secret passage in this manor - the exit was under the bed in the inner room, and the lord had no time to check the bed.
This secret passage was probably hollowed out of the mountain and led directly to the other side of the mountain.
This is also a risk protection measure commonly possessed by the estates of great nobles in this era - it allows one to escape in case of emergency.
However, although Leon didn't know there was a secret passage in the manor, Fabius obviously didn't know there were so many people in the manor...
After he led his soldiers out of the secret passage, he gathered 20 to 30 soldiers in the bedroom, preparing to launch a surprise attack on the Snake Cult priestess. However, as soon as he went out, he found himself surrounded by a large group of people holding bows and crossbows...
This scene seemed familiar to him - half a year ago in White Deer Castle, he was also facing a similar scene, and then he was surrounded and shot by a large group of archers and crossbows.
Fortunately, he had sufficient experience this time, so his reaction was quick—he fell to his knees with a plop, raised the sword in his hand above his head, and surrendered at an incredibly fast speed.
“Wow, there’s actually a road here?”
The lord hurried to the inner house of the manor, and was somewhat surprised when he saw Fabius lying on the ground and the soldiers kneeling in a row beside him.
"Fabius, lead the way quickly and release the villagers you captured..."
…
"Sir, we have news. Scouts have discovered some Snake Worshipers in a valley thirty miles to the southeast. They are probably the vanguard of the Snake Worshipers' army."
In the evening, Wendy came to report.
"It looks like the Snake Cult's army will pass by here at noon tomorrow at the latest. I wonder if the Silver Hand will be able to arrive by then."
Li Ang looked at the map in front of him and stood up: "Is the layout of the valley ready?"
"The guards are ready... But sir, we can't hold this manor for long. Although the villagers have been rescued, they can only help us build fortifications. They have not received any training and cannot fight... We still don't have enough manpower and arrows."
Wendy reminded hesitantly.
The Noldor have been fighting in various places during this period, from Bjullin Village to Thrindir. The arrows shot from each place can basically not be retrieved. Now, on average, each Noldor has only seven or eight arrows.
The territory of the Bacchus Empire is not like the Fierce Lion or the Stern Raven. It is difficult to replenish arrows for bows and arrows. Even if you want to use human arrows, you can't find a place to get them.
"It's okay. At least now, even if we are surrounded... we have a way to leave."
Li Ang shook his head: "Wendy, although those villagers are untrained, in fact most of the Snake Worshipers are also untrained. It is the best choice to let them block the entrance of the village... If the resistance of this village seems too strong, the main force of the Snake Worshipers may not be fooled..."
In fact, the safety of the villagers is quite guaranteed because wooden stakes have been driven in at the entrance of the village.
The entrance of the village of Fidenne is actually the most dangerous place in the entire valley. Because it has been continuously widened, both sides of the entrance have been dug into steep vertical cliffs.
Although the width of this place has now reached about 100 meters, it is still the most suitable terrain for ambush.
Wooden stakes more than three meters high are being densely nailed into the entrance of the village. There are several layers of them, and there is basically no room for people or horses to pass between the stakes.
With the help of thousands of villagers who are familiar with the environment, it is actually not that difficult to control the valley that is a hundred meters wide.
