A guard rushed into the main tent, his expression highly agitated: "My lord, following the marks Lord Reddy left behind, we tracked them to a cliff halfway up the mountain ahead. There we found the heavy crossbow Lord Reddy discarded, and the body of that Great Swordmaster. On that corpse we also discovered Lord
The four Gold-ranked knights in the main tent — Ros the Tiger, Malek, Berunek, and Fareya — immediately rose to their feet: "Take us there!"
The area around the mid-mountain cliff had already been cordoned off and searched by the guards. When the four Gold-ranked knights arrived at the cliff, they saw El,
"So this is that Great Swordmaster? My lord said his name is Garinan, sent by the
"Yes. Knights Josk and Bodefen were both heavily wounded by his hand. Over four hundred family soldiers sacrificed their lives at this Great Swordmaster's hands, including eleven Family Knights..." El walked over, his complexion extremely haggard.
"Still no trace of my lord and Reddy?" Malek asked.
"None. They should have fallen into the river. Only this river flows in reverse — it flows toward the Barbarian Plains, where it joins the Blue Cang River. We've already dispatched men to search both banks of the river channel." El replied.
"We must find my lord. Send the signal to have the search parties from other locations converge here. Comprehensively search both banks of this river. I'll lead the team. You all take this body back first and preserve it properly. We'll decide what to do with it after we find my lord..." Berunek made the decision with hatred in his heart.
...
Lorist was burning with fever. He only regained consciousness for a moment, hazily hearing someone say: "...He's awake... This guy's life is tough... Pour it in... Tell the young mountain lord..."
It seemed someone poured a bag of cool, bitter liquid into his mouth. Lorist swallowed in large gulps, then fell unconscious again.
When he woke once more, Lorist found himself inside a large cloth sack. The sack was swaying and rocking. Pain wracked his entire body, so intense it was nearly numb. The sack reeked of thick blood and stale sweat. He wanted to vomit but couldn't. His head felt like it would split open; sweat poured from him like pulp. He wanted to cry out but couldn't make a sound — his throat was swollen and raw. His lips were cracked, and he hadn't a shred of strength in his whole body.
The sack kept swaying. Lorist finally understood — they were on the move. He had been stuffed into the sack and slung over the side of a horse, just like traveling merchants hang goods on both sides of a packhorse. Amid the endless rocking, Lorist slipped into a deep sleep once more...
Lorist opened his eyes. This time he wasn't in the sack. Above him stretched a sky full of stars. The clamor of shouts and neighing horses reached his ears. They seemed to be camped. He had been tossed from the sack into the grass and left unattended. But now he couldn't move at all — he didn't even have the strength to lift his head. He could only lie still, eyes open, staring at the brilliant starry sky.
His situation looked grim. He had likely fallen into the hands of the mountain barbarians. Lorist quickly grasped his predicament from the voices around him. What puzzled him was that, according to his understanding of mountain barbarian customs, when they encountered a heavily injured person like himself in the wild, they would typically end the sufferer's misery with a swift slash. Or they'd strip the body clean and leave — they would never waste effort saving someone. So why had they put him in a sack and carried him off?
And where was Reidy, who had plunged off the cliff holding him? Had the barbarians saved him too? If so, where was he now? Lorist vaguely recalled that during his unconsciousness, he seemed to have been fed extremely bitter medicine. But the medicine hadn't been right — while treating his injuries, it had left him weak and powerless. His dantian was empty, not a trace of internal energy remained. He was now worse than an ordinary person. Utterly helpless.
Lorist could only lie motionless, quietly trying to circulate his qi and cultivate, hoping to recover. Unfortunately, after circulating his breath for a long time, there was no reaction in his body whatsoever. Instead, he broke out in a drenching sweat.
A burst of giggling laughter approached. A female and a male mountain barbarian came to Lorist's side, apparently finding the spot suitable — quiet and sheltered. The male began propositioning the female. The female seemed to say something. Lorist clearly heard the male barbarian say: "That one's as good as dead. Can't do anything. Let's ignore him. Come on..."
The female barbarian resisted a few more times, then was pinned to the ground by the male. Immediately, the rhythmic sound of flesh striking flesh rang out...
Lorist smiled bitterly. Right now he didn't even have the strength to turn his head to watch — no wonder that male mountain barbarian had said he was as good as dead. The pair next to him were going at it fiercely, having already switched positions twice. Now the male mountain barbarian had the female on her hands and knees, rear raised, and her head just happened to be facing Lorist. She lifted her head and saw Lorist staring right at her with his eyes open...
"He's awake, he's awake! I'm going to tell the Young Chieftain..." The female mountain barbarian struggled free from the male behind her, scrambled up from the ground, and bolted. The male mountain barbarian froze mid-thrust, stared blankly for a long moment, glanced at Lorist lying there, spat out a few vicious curses, and left as well.
A cannibal tribe in the jungle — the scene was exactly like those primitives crowding around a camera lens. He felt like a piece of meat on a felt board...
Do mountain barbarians eat people? Lorist began rummaging through his memory for everything he knew about mountain barbarians. Supposedly, during cold winters when food ran scarce, they would roast and eat the old and young of the tribe who couldn't hold on. Winter was approaching — were they planning to take him back as stored winter provisions?
Well, the only silver lining was that the ones eating him wouldn't be black-skinned primitives, but mountain barbarians who looked much like himself. However you sliced it, mountain barbarians were far more civilized than the primitives he'd seen on TV in his previous life. They might even season and roast him properly, unlike those primitives who didn't even know to clean their food, just tossing it whole into clay pots to boil...
Lorist closed his eyes, tuning out the chaotic chatter above. Although the mountain barbarian language derived from the Galentean common tongue, a thousand years of living in the mountains had caused it to evolve considerably, incorporating many strange words of their own invention. Combined with their bizarre pronunciation, it gave Lorist a splitting headache trying to understand.
The voices above suddenly fell silent. Lorist opened his eyes curiously and saw the crowd of heads parting. A young female mountain barbarian appeared before him, a head of brown hair bound with a gleaming golden circlet. If not for the three black tiger stripes tattooed on her face, judging by her features and face shape, this mountain barbarian woman would count as a stunning beauty.
The mountain barbarian woman looked at Lorist and asked if he could speak.
Another mountain barbarian poked their head in beside her — a mess of tangled hair like a bird's nest, face so dark you couldn't tell if it was a man or woman. They poked and prodded at Lorist's body for a good while, then used a small stick that looked thoroughly disgusting, God knows what stuck to it, to force his mouth open. They leaned in close, examining him carefully for a long time. Lorist nearly choked to death on the mountain barbarian's overpowering halitosis.
Only after fussing for quite a while did the mountain barbarian raise their head and rattle off a long string of words — something to the effect that this man could still be saved. His current inability to speak or move was a side effect of that healing potion they'd poured down him last time. As long as they did this and that, he'd recover.
The mountain barbarian woman wearing the gold crown was overjoyed. She said something that seemed to mean she'd do her utmost to save him. As she was leaving, she looked at Lorist and said, "This is my first captive from the flatlands with status — I'm taking him back to show Father..."
What happened next filled Lorist with rage and humiliation. After the gold-crowned barbarian woman left, five or six other barbarian women stripped him completely naked. Then one of them cried out in surprise, pointing at his flaccid member and saying something to the effect that if it was this big soft, it must be incredible when hard. A crowd of barbarian women gathered to gawk, reaching out to touch and tease him...
Lorist wanted to die of shame. Fortunately, his whole body was limp and his little brother showed no reaction. Otherwise, Lorist couldn't guarantee that if it hardened, these barbarian women wouldn't force him to take turns having sex with them. His savior was that barbarian with the bird's-nest hair — he shouted something, and the women finally left Lorist's manhood alone. But each of them gave it one last squeeze as they departed, nearly making Lorist faint from fury.
Next came the bird's-nest-haired barbarian's turn to perform. He brought a large basin of green paste flecked with black dots and began slathering it over Lorist's body, coating the wounds especially thick. Finally, he forced a whole pot of foul, sticky black medicinal liquid down Lorist's throat.
This time, Lorist truly passed out from sheer rage...
When he woke again, his whole body ached and itched, as if he'd been encased in plaster. The wounds were worst — sour, numb, itchy, painful, utterly unbearable. Lorist wanted to scratch, but his body still had not a shred of strength; he couldn't move.
This time there was a new barbarian woman at his side. Her face was covered in black dot tattoos, and she had a pair of thick lips. Seeing Lorist awake, she poured a large bowl of meat broth down his throat. But not long after he drank it, his stomach began to cramp violently. Unable to hold it, he voided his bowels right there lying down, emptying everything inside him.
The thick-lipped barbarian woman seemed to have known this would happen — she'd kept her distance. Only after Lorist finished evacuating did she approach, calling two male barbarians to carry him to a small stream. They laid him on a large, smooth river stone and washed his body with the cold water.
The icy stream water hit Lorist's body, making him shiver to his core, but he had no strength to resist. He could only endure the thick-lipped woman's ministrations. Once he was clean, she took some unknown beast hide and scrubbed his entire body, then had him lie on his back on the river stone to bask in the sun — whereupon she started playing with his manhood again.
Lorist wanted to die of shame all over again.
The thick-lipped barbarian woman was still toying with him as she mocked the two male barbarians who had carried Lorist over, saying they weren't as big as what she held in her hand. The two men, unwilling to be outdone, lifted their beast-skin skirts and pulled out their own members to compare sizes. Only then did the thick-lipped woman finally release Lorist's manhood, taking one in each hand to measure them against each other. As they compared, the three of them — those damn men and woman — tumbled together and started going at it.
Afterward, they dragged him off and threw him into a pitch-black tent. The barbarian with the bird's-nest long hair appeared before Lorist again, groping over his body for a long while before nodding in satisfaction. This time, though, he didn't slather Lorist in green mud; he simply fed him a bowl of bitter medicinal soup and left.
In the dead of night, Lorist woke up. To his pleasant surprise, he found he had a bit of strength back — he could sit up. His throat was no longer swollen and painful; he tried coughing a few times and found he could speak. He was still naked, but covered by a foul-smelling beast hide. His stomach was empty, growling loudly. He wanted to get up, but his legs remained limp and weak.
Lorist tried to pull himself up using the tent's support pole, but the branch serving as the pole was too thin and brittle. With just a little force, it snapped with a crack, and the entire beast-hide tent collapsed on top of him.
A pair of hands lifted the fallen tent away, and Lorist saw it was that thick-lipped barbarian woman standing before him. He forced himself into a sitting position: "Thanks. Got any food? And my clothes…"
The thick-lipped barbarian woman stared at Lorist for a long moment, then turned and walked out. A while later she returned carrying a large wooden basin. Inside was a big chunk of roasted meat, four blackish flatbreads the size of palms, and a gourd of clear water.
Lorist wolfed it all down, polishing off everything in short order — he even drained the gourd dry. But he still wasn't satisfied. His belly was full, but what about my clothes?
So Lorist tried asking the thick-lipped barbarian woman for clothing: "Clothes. My clothes…"
But the thick-lipped barbarian woman remained unmoved.
Lorist thought she didn't understand what "clothes" meant, so he started miming the act of getting dressed. Carelessly, the beast hide draped over him slipped off. Then Lorist saw the thick-lipped barbarian woman's eyes suddenly light up, glowing green like a pair of hungry wolves…
Only now did Lorist recall in shame and anger the scene of the thick-lipped barbarian woman playing with his manhood, his heart seized with panic, and he hurriedly clutched the beast hide and shrank into the corner of the tent. Just like a little woman who had been thoroughly violated…
Fortunately, dawn broke quickly, and that thick-lipped barbarian woman walked out. Soon two male barbarians wearing beast-hide kilts arrived, gesturing for Lorist to follow them.
Wrapped in the beast hide, Lorist was brought outside a very large beast-hide tent to wait. Barbarian women would occasionally come over to look at him, whispering among themselves — nothing more than talk about how that well-endowed plainsman could stand up now, had woken up, and the like.
After a while longer, Lorist was brought into the main tent. He saw that the one seated in the place of honor was precisely that barbarian woman with a golden circlet bound around her head and black tiger stripes tattooed on her face. On the rough wooden table before her lay Lorist's outer robe and trousers.
"Who are you? What is your name? Where do you come from?" the golden-circlet barbarian woman asked in heavily accented Common.
Lorist had sharp eyes; he immediately spotted the Golden Instructor's badge she was toying with in her hand — the very one he had originally pinned on his outer robe. When he had been with Telesti, he had taken out his collection of academy badges to serve as reference for her to design a badge for the new academy she planned to build. Moved by the moment, he had pinned both the
"I pay my respects, beautiful miss. My name is Locke, and I come from Dawn Academy in
"Aren't you one of the Ruo Dun Family's people?" the golden-circlet barbarian woman said.
It took Lorist a good long while to realize — she was saying
"No, not at all." Lorist hurriedly shook his head. Joking aside, if he had answered yes, his head would surely have ended up spiked on the palisade outside — they had been fighting for two hundred years now, long since become mortal enemies.
"Respected young miss, look at the two badges pinned on my outer robe. The silver one is our Dawn Academy's badge, the gold one is my personal identity badge — I'm a Gold Instructor at the academy." Lorist answered with righteous confidence. He wasn't lying, strictly speaking; he was just talking about something from a few years ago.
"Perhaps you're not lying. The Ruo Dun Family's people certainly wouldn't wear any other badges, so you must be from that academy of yours. But what does a Gold Instructor do? Why did you come to the Northland, and why are you injured like this?" the golden-circlet barbarian woman asked again.
Lorist began spinning a tale: "Respected young miss, I'm the Gold Instructor of Architecture at Dawn Academy. I came to the Northland because the Norton Family hired me to design a castle for their clan. I ended up like this because I have an enemy who wants me dead. I came to the Northland to accept the castle design commission specifically to avoid him. Who knew my enemy wouldn't let me go, sending assassins thousands of miles to kill me? I've been fleeing desperately with no plan, and fortunately was saved by you, respected young miss. Please accept my gratitude — I'll repay you handsomely someday…"
"Spare me your gratitude and repayment. I'm not some 'respected young miss' — I'm the Mountain Lord of Snowy Mountain. Since I saved you, your life belongs to me. From now on, you're my slave. Understand?" the golden-circlet barbarian woman said coldly, then tilted her chin in a signal.
Two hulking male barbarians stepped up from the side, seized Lorist, and clamped a thick leather collar around his neck, a long dog leash trailing from it.
…
A whip cracked across his back, burning hot with pain. A male barbarian cursed: "Damn pig, you're supposed to address her as Master!"
The golden-circlet barbarian woman considered for a moment, then tossed the clothes and trousers from the table to Lorist: "Take them. But these two badges are mine now…"
…(To be continued.)