Four-Armed Divine Emperor

The tribes that Aiel personally showed up to basically all bowed down to him, sincerely, at least before they killed Xerxes.

Only the leaders of the two families wanted to play cohesive and showed hostility towards Ai'er. He acted decisively and, together with the accompanying Devngel warriors and fanatical mountain followers, launched a thundering attack to eliminate the leader and his direct lineage. Then he showed himself in front of the tribesmen, conquering everyone with the shock of "the return of the god Anu", and then moved all these tribesmen to an isolated area in the rear and kept them under supervision, so as not to do anything bad before the war.

There are now twenty-two tribes, large and small, that have joined the expeditionary force (Aier). They are all medium-sized tribes that can at least muster more than a hundred combatants. If they are too small, it will not make much sense to call them, so it is better to avoid making a trip.

There were 3,000 mountain warriors serving as reinforcements. These mountain people had left the border area and could only fight with bravery and brutality. They were seriously lacking in discipline. They could only go down the mountain to plunder, but it would be difficult for them to get any advantage if they encountered regular troops from the East and the West.

But in the border areas, they are very excellent mountain troops, and if used well, they can be very effective.

After listening to everyone's argument, Ai'er realized that although the mountain people now had to rely on Devangel to defeat the Xerxes, they also relied on the presence of the "Four-Armed God" and believed that the mountain people were the true descendants of the gods. The Asta people were just second-class servants who had temporarily gained power, and they were unwilling to give in no matter what.

The Derwen Gaels, on the other hand, disliked the mountain people for their barbarity, lack of discipline, and reckless bellicosity (although they shared this sentiment, a nice way of describing them was "martial spirit" and "martial arts songs"). In the end, he had to come forward in person to conclude the discussion and make the final decision.

"Clap!"

Al clapped his hands, and the crisp sound immediately interrupted the noise in the tent, and everyone's eyes were immediately focused on him.

"I need a win, guys."

Al looked around at everyone present. The warriors looked respectful, while the mountain people looked fanatical.

"Win this war, no matter what the cost, and by then, all our efforts will be repaid tenfold from our enemies."

Chapter 25: Tartus

Tatus was wearing a wooden cangue, sitting on the ground, leaning as far back as possible against the wall. Only in this way could the weight of the torture instrument be shared and the force borne by the upper body be reduced.

There were five prisoners in total, all of them were soldiers of Xerxes. Now they were in the huts of a mountain tribe on the border, only one fence away from the livestock. The strong smell of feces and animals made everyone frown and stay away from that side as much as possible.

Tatus didn't care much for these things. After all, the slums at the bottom of Xerxes' city were no better than the mountain dwellers' livestock sheds. In his youth, Tatus had fought for the slop thrown away by the rich and powerful, searching the garbage dumps at the slaughterhouse for anything of value, just to survive. Two children without family to rely on, despite their common status, could actually be devoured to the bone with just a little trickery...

As a centurion serving under the Western Grand Prince Satrap, during the Battle of Muten, Tatus fell from the overturned city wall and was knocked unconscious. His subordinates rescued him and he luckily survived the war.

Although it was somewhat dishonorable to wake up and find yourself captured, it was better than having your throat cut open and having your military achievement claimed.

It was only half a year ago that Tatus made the class leap from an ordinary soldier to a centurion and married a noble daughter. He still had a lot of time and many opportunities to strive for a higher position. It was also less than half a year ago that he moved his sister, who was also his wife, from the uncomfortable and unstable lower city to the central city where people of certain status and wealth lived.

Tatus did not want to die. Be it for himself or for his family, he had been working very hard. He was extremely talented. Compared with most of his fellow officers from wealthy families, Tatus Behenam was more in line with the image of a "brave, wise, and loyal" general praised in tradition. If he had a little luck and opportunity, then Tatus would undoubtedly have a great chance of rising in the series of military operations launched by Great Satrap and Adwin, and gradually having his own place in the legion and in the territory.

But unfortunately, fate is so fickle that it is rarely changed by the will of mortals. Only the wizards of the White Tower can see the mystery.

It is precisely for this reason that Tatus has now "fallen" into the hands of the border people...

"coming!"

The sound of hurried footsteps could be heard, and a group of people were rushing towards the shack. The leader was a fierce mountain warrior with various tattoos on his bare arms, his forehead shaved, and the rest of his hair tied into small braids hanging around him.

Tatus' heart tightened.

Although he was prepared, he couldn't help feeling a little nervous when the moment finally arrived.

When the mountain people saw the five captives here, they didn't think much about it and started to catch the livestock, dragging them back to the mountain. At the same time, shouts of killing began to come from the direction they came from.

Only the leading warrior with pigtails kept his eyes on Tatus and the other four. He called over a few of his men and whispered a few words to them. Seeing this, Tatus immediately became alert.

"Have things changed?"

He thought to himself that his fate had been rough enough after Mu Teng, and he hoped that the sacred light would protect him this time. As long as he could return alive, even seeing his sister again would be enough.

Tatus, who seldom prayed devoutly, prayed silently in his heart while silently shrinking his body inward.

After the mountain people dragging the livestock left, only the five Xerxes captives in the shack and six mountain warriors including the braided warrior were left.

There is no distinction between regular and conscripted soldiers among the mountain people. As long as a man is able to hold a weapon, run and kill the enemy, he is a soldier.

"Who is Tartus, Centurion, Tartus?"

The braided warrior asked, and the other captives all turned their eyes to the centurion sitting inside. Tatus sighed slightly in his heart, pushed off the ground with his feet, stood up from the ground with difficulty and walked over.

"I'm Tatus, what's going on, my lord?"

The braided warrior looked him up and down and waved back.

Immediately, four warriors opened the fence and walked into the shack.

The other four captives were not as wary as Tatus, and did not seem surprised or wary of the mountain people's approach. Soon they could no longer regret it.

"what!"

"No!"

"I, I have promised to serve the Master Mage!"

After a few screams mixed with useless pleas for mercy, three of Xerxes' captives were executed. Tatus trembled all over and gritted his teeth to keep his face expressionless.

The warrior with pigtails glanced at the calm Tatus and admired his composure. He gave up his plan to intimidate the centurion, drew his curved blade from his waist, and asked the centurion to lift the wooden flail.

Tatus did as he was told silently, and tried his best to raise the wooden flail in his hand. Soon, accompanied by a dull thud, a force of force came from the contact between the wooden flail and his body. Tatus's legs went weak from the shock, and he almost fell to the ground. Fortunately, he managed to stand firm.

The other surviving prisoner was also asked by the mountain people to roll on the ground, and only stood up again after being kicked several times and leaving enough marks.

"The gods have commanded me to bring you a hadith: God has sent people to contact your relatives. They will come to the border to reunite with you within ten days at the earliest. Go and do your work."

"The gods have another glorious mission for you, Xerxes."

When the braided warrior conveyed this, his fierce gaze became pious, and Tatus actually read a hint of "jealousy" in it.

He nodded, and at the same time secretly tested the stability of the broken wooden yoke, then patted it on his chest and said:

"I, Tatus Behenam, swear in the name of Light and Flame that as long as you fulfill your promise, I will never betray your trust. If I do, I will be condemned to eternal damnation!"

The full name of the Black Prison is the Black Cold Prison, which is an extension of the fire worshippers' worship of light and fire and their fear of hell and darkness.

They believe that there is no light there all year round, no temperature, and even the spirit will be frozen there, trapped in the stagnant despair of eternal life and immortality. Even light will be captured by the black ice and turned into black light that brings withering and death. Those who have been lucky enough to enter there say that when the black light passes through the sky, you can see countless ice sculptures of sufferers who have been frozen for countless years wailing on the earth.

Swearing an oath by the Black Prison is a very solemn matter among Zoroastrians, and very few are willing to break it. This is especially true in more backward places and where the influence of the White Tower order is weaker, such as the Kingdom of Xerxes in the land of Thurso.

The warrior with pigtails nodded and said nothing more. He asked his followers to break open the fence for them and signaled them to go out.

Tatus walked in front, and another surviving prisoner followed him out of the gap. Several mountain people waited until they ran a distance before shouting and pretending to chase them for a while. When they were about to see the front of Xerxes' army, they retreated and followed the leader to retreat behind the mountain.

Tatus ran all the way, even though he knew there was no threat behind him. He had to convince himself that he could play the role of a "deserter who escapes and is captured, and brings back key intelligence" in order to hide it from Satrap's legion and his colleagues.

Soon, he finally saw the army from his homeland, with its familiar appearance and flags. To prevent accidental injury, Tatus half-intentionally slipped and rolled on the ground, using the wooden yoke, which had not yet completely broken, to protect his head. He looked even more embarrassed, and he couldn't wait to shout:

"I am the centurion of the Muten Legion, I am the centurion! Tartus Behenam! I am a Xerxesian! A Xerxesian!"

His face was dirty, and he was afraid that his own army would not recognize him and mistake him for a slave of the mountain people, and would shoot him to death with an arrow if they disliked him.

The resistance of the mountain people had been completely broken. The men with weapons were either killed or captured. The surviving captive also ran to Tatus and shouted with him that he was a Xerxes. Soon four soldiers came over, carefully checked the two men, wiped off the dirt on their bodies to reveal their true faces, and showed them the tattoo patterns that the Xerxes were traditionally keen on tattooing on their skin. After gaining their initial trust, they uncuffed Tatus and the others, guarded them and helped them wash, and then took them to meet the military commander of the front-line troops.

Malik Hestor.

Tatus was to bring some news to him, and through him to the army at King Adwin's camp.

Chapter 26: The Edge of the Noose

Malik took off his gauntlets and threw them into the arms of the slave soldier. At this time, on the other side of the tent, three half-naked mountain women were tied up and tied to pillars. A professional slave trainer was whipping them with a whip.

The woman's screams and curses, as well as the sound of whips breaking through the air and hitting flesh became the background of the meeting.

He returned to the long table and sat down, his hands on his knees. He frowned and asked, "Overthrow the city wall?"

"Yes, we saw it with our own eyes. The Master Mage of the Brio people came to the west city wall with only a team of cavalry. Then the wall collapsed and began to fall backwards. I was on the wall at the time. Fortunately, I did not die, but I fainted and was then captured by the enemy." Tatus knelt on the ground with his head lowered, answering the general's questions honestly.

Before entering the tent, he had wanted to greet his superior with the etiquette of a subordinate to express his gratitude. However, Malik was disgusted by his disheveled appearance and the fact that he was a "captive escapee" of questionable status, so he directly ordered Tatus to meet him as a slave and not to raise his head without permission, so as not to disgust the nobleman.

This kind of naked contempt and humiliation had rarely happened to Tatus even when he was in the slums, let alone after he became a centurion and rose to a middle-level officer.

But Tatus still did not show any dissatisfaction on his face. He knelt down timidly with his head lowered.

He originally thought that this adventure was tantamount to treason, and the biggest dangers were two: one was being discovered and executed, and the other was unfortunately dying in the chaos of war.

Unexpectedly, the first hurdle was the brutal character of the front-line commander.

After hearing Tatus's answer, Malik's face remained expressionless, playing with a wooden warhorse chess piece in his hand. "Where's your commander? Did you get any news about him before you escaped?"

"When I escaped, I heard that the Legion Commander and His Highness were being 'invited as guests' by the Deven Gaels. They had separate rooms in the city hall, and I and the others were being held in a camp outside the city."

Malik straightened up and asked with a frown: "Your Highness? Which Highness? Oh..." He suddenly remembered.

The Hestor family was considered a prominent family in Xerxes. Hundreds of years had passed since the first generation of their rise to prominence. He also knew some not-so-secret information about the country and the court.

The conflict between the Grand Prince's Queen and his favorite concubine was no secret to high-ranking military officers like Malik. Strictly speaking, he had a certain connection with this palace struggle - Hestor was among the forces that had previously defeated and divided the family that Zeina came from.

Of course, Malik is not a queen-loving party. When the prince is young and strong, Queen Statera can only exist as the moon of the territory at specific times. Colluding with the court is a capital crime in the eyes of the king of every country established by the Zoroastrian ethnic group. Once discovered, a bloodbath must be carried out.

Of course, this kind of thing that allows you to seize the opportunity and make huge profits once something unexpected happens will never be stopped even if the punishment is severe.

Therefore, Malik had little interest in the rivalry between the two women due to family ties, favor, and other factors. However, he was quite curious about the fact that the concubine, the heirloom of the family, was extremely beautiful and deeply loved by the prince...

"That idiot Salem thought he had won Muten, which meant he had gotten a lucrative job, but in the end he lost the most important key point in the prince's attack on the Brio people."

Malik threw the chess piece to the ground and sneered at the commander of Tartus, which made the centurion feel even more dissatisfied than the humiliation he had suffered.

When he was still an ordinary soldier, he was assigned to fight under the command of Legion Commander Salem. In addition to his military achievements, he was able to become a centurion because of Salem's recommendation.

So he stood up and tried to defend the legion commander with words that were as non-aggressive as possible:

"My lord, we failed and suffered humiliation. This is an undeniable fact, but the Ble'o people have a wizard to help them, and a 'holy wizard' sir is on their side. Just like how Lord Amir helped us deal with the Ble'o warriors, no mortal can stop them..."

"Heh." Malik sneered, and suddenly grabbed a handful of chess pieces from the sand table and smashed them on the centurion's head.

"Salem is no match for war, but he's pretty good at herding livestock."

Facing personal humiliation, Tatus did not say a word. In the army, subordinates also have a certain dependence on their superiors. Although not like slaves and masters, except for very few special cases such as treason, it is a kind of justice in the army for subordinates to defend their superiors. Those who violate this will be despised and excluded.

Conversely, it is natural for superiors to protect their subordinates.

"Okay, go on."

Although Malik has a violent personality, he is not a completely anti-human madman who kills people at the slightest displeasure. He may be disgusted by Tatus's embarrassment and despise the latter's low status, but he will not get angry and kill people just because Tatus defends his superiors and slightly refutes his words.

So Tatus used the wording he had planned before coming here - in order to make it look more presentable, he deliberately blurred some parts so that it would not look so perfect and would arouse suspicion.

Basically, after they were defeated and captured, the Brio people massacred a group of prisoners in revenge, so he felt scared, fearing that he would be killed one day, so he kept thinking about escaping.

But there were no good opportunities and they could only do nothing. After a while, the envoy of King Adwin came to Muten, met with the wizard, and also met with the prisoners of war. He announced that the two sides had signed a treaty and the prisoners would be able to return soon. In order to show their victory, the Brio people took some of the prisoners of war to be taken to Devangel for display. The prisoners were in panic, fearing that they would be chosen to go to the rear of their old enemy, because they would not know whether they would live or die.

After the envoys came to ask for peace, the people of Blaeo celebrated their victory all day long and relaxed their supervision of the captives. Tatus did not want to risk his life, so he simply encouraged several of his subordinates to escape together, stole a few horses, and planned to hide in the border area for a while and return to the country through Xerxes' caravan.

But perhaps there was a centurion among the escapees, which made the Brio people pay great attention to him, so the cavalry pursued him relentlessly. After they fled into the border area, they ran for another three days and two nights before they shook off the pursuers - then, they were spotted and robbed by local mountain people.

There were originally more than a dozen people in the group, and there were only eight left when they ran to the border. Three of them died in the confrontation with the mountain people, and three of the remaining five were also killed by the mountain people when they retreated. Tatus reacted quickly and saw that the situation was not good. He blocked the attack with a wooden yoke and then broke through the fence and escaped. A sergeant also escaped with him.

Malik was very quiet while listening to the story, and did not interrupt. After Tatus finished speaking, he asked in a cold voice:

"Since you knew the 'peace talks' had already taken place, why risk fleeing? Don't say you were afraid of being sent to Devon Gale. Since the Brio people didn't kill you initially, the possibility of revenge later is very small. You're an officer, you have status and value. According to Brio custom, even if they wanted to kill prisoners to vent their anger, it wouldn't be your turn."

"Whatever the reason, you will die if you can't tell it. Your name is Tatus, Tatus Behenam... You are from Barak, and you have a sister and a wife at home. She is the daughter of the Farawall family. Is this information correct?" Malik asked.

Tatus replied in a trembling voice, "Yes."

All this information was reported truthfully when he revealed his identity. If something went wrong there, there would be no recovery.

"Alright, I'll send someone to investigate immediately. If the information is wrong, you'll die. If it's true, but your answer doesn't satisfy me, you and your family will die together. It won't be difficult for Hestor to kill a lying centurion suspected of being a spy and his family. So, I'll give you five breaths."

"Similarly, if you were bribed by the enemy to spy for them, I will now explain everything again. If you are indeed a centurion, I will give you thirty lashes as punishment. You can choose to return to Salem or stay and work for me. If you are not, I will cut off the little fingers of both hands and make you take a bag of money and roll it eastward."

If Tatus was a dead spy, then these words would be of no use. The army was on the way, and to verify his identity, it would take at least half a month to go back and forth at full speed, by which time the fighting on the front line would have been over.

But if they were simply bribed, coerced or induced to be spies, Malik's words were sincere enough to make most people confess everything.

But the situation in Tatus is different...

He took a breath, stood up straight and then knelt down again, repeating this twice before he prostrated himself on the ground.

"Now I dare not lie to the adults!" He shouted loudly with his face close to the ground, and his breath blew up dust that covered his face.

He raised his head and gritted his teeth, "My purpose of fleeing is not to go back to my country, but to go to Bam!"

Bam is the capital of the Northern Princedom, built on a grassland. It is a mixed crowd with tourists and merchants coming and going in an endless stream.

"Oh?"

Malik became interested, and this response also made Tatus understand that, at least for now, he would not be executed immediately.

"The Brio people didn't just massacre out of anger. They held a 'public trial' in Muten, arresting and trying all the soldiers in the legion who had committed bullying, and then executing them or forcing them into forced labor."

"I was tried together with Fant Fadil. He rode a horse and threw torches at the Muten people's house. He also raped and killed a pregnant woman... The enemy hung him up, cut off his male penis and stuffed it into his mouth. He wailed for several days before dying..." Thinking of that scene, even though Tatus believed in his heart that the other party "deserved it", he couldn't help shuddering.

Like Fant, he was also tied with a rope and pushed onto the platform amid the Muten people's curses and gloating noises. Just when he thought he was going to be hanged like his colleagues before him, as one of the very few innocent prisoners of war, a voice in the crowd shouted:

"That's a good man! The one on the left! That's him! He was the one who pulled Kassar out when the Xerxes threw him into the burning house and let him go!"