Tesolys's offer was undoubtedly tempting. These people could not even get enough to eat. Day after day, they had nothing but sour, astringent wild greens to fill their stomachs. The chance to eat dozens of sacks of grain each month was enough to make them risk everything. With that grain, they could fill their bellies and never suffer hunger again. Their children would no longer be so frail. Their women would no longer be too starved to produce milk, leaving every newborn baby to die.
The highlanders' homeland was a dense mountain forest. The climate was damp, the conditions harsh, and farmland was extremely scarce. Most of it lay in narrow strips between the valleys. The soil was poor, and farming it was very difficult. Only the highlanders, who crossed mountains as easily as level ground, could reach those places. Trying to haul any livestock there carried a great risk of the animals falling to their deaths in the valleys.
Agriculture was bound to remain poor in a place like that. Hunting and gathering alone could not support many people either. Those harsh conditions had also shaped the locals' fierce character. Since they lived mainly by hunting, every man and woman was a good shot with a bow.
When the Empire first conquered the region, they had caused its armies plenty of trouble. Those fierce, cunning locals could always plunge into the woods before the soldiers caught them. Using their knowledge of the terrain, they would disappear in the blink of an eye.
At last, the emperor lost patience. He declared that he would burn every patch of forest he came across until the highlanders came out of hiding. Only after he actually burned a mountainside forest did these unruly people submit to imperial rule.
Even in the years since then, their fierce nature had led them to rise in revolt from time to time. Norsca Province was always full of rebel groups, large and small. They were usually wiped out quickly, but a new group would soon appear.
Every highlander was both dangerous and valuable to the Empire. With a little training, they could become fine infantrymen and the very best archers. Their fierce, unruly nature always caused trouble of one sort or another on the march. But once they aimed their longbows at the enemy, they showed their true worth. Heavy arrows falling as thickly as rain could be anyone's nightmare. And when they swung their two-handed greatswords, the enemy would tremble at the mere mention of them.
To Tesolys, these relatively well-behaved highlanders were a large group of excellent archers. He would just have to do quite a bit of work to make them obey his orders.
* * *
"Listen carefully. We'll leave these sacks of grain with you. Eat as much as you like. You can stuff yourselves to death for all I care. But next, we're going to ride our horses down the road at a trot. There's a three-way junction thirty-two gari from here. You'll have to catch up with us on your own two feet..." Tesolys slowly looked over the eager highlanders.
"If you reach it before us, I'll pay the fighters among you three gold dinars a month. If you arrive at the same time as we do, you'll get two gold dinars. But if we get there and have to wait for a tree's shadow to move three chi, you'll only get one dinar. Once the shadow has moved six chi, I'll consider you unqualified. Then you'll only get food, and not a penny in pay..."
"Of course, if you don't want to, you're free to go. You can simply stay here."
Tesolys thought he had set very harsh terms. Instead, he heard these people burst into loud cheers...
"They'll even feed us! Aqi, did you hear that? They'll actually feed us!"
"Even if we don't make it in time, we still get food? Only an idiot would turn down a deal like that!"
"Hurry up and pack! Throw away those rotten hides. We're going to have full stomachs soon. We won't need that stuff! When we get back home, I'll make those poor relatives call me Master Keqijin! Then I'll eat three big loaves of bread in one go, right in front of them! They'll drop dead from envy!"
"Then I'll be Master Aqi! I'll definitely marry the daughter of the Keqika family! I'll give them ten big sacks of grain as the bride price!"
* * *
With tremendous enthusiasm, the highlanders threw away everything they did not need. They kept only their longbows, weapons and the food they had to carry. Some were already eager to set off.
They climbed sheer cliffs and rugged peaks more nimbly than apes, then slipped into the woods like fish returning to the sea. They vanished among the forested mountains with a speed that left the cavalrymen dumbfounded...
"Were these people monkeys once? How did they climb up there?!"
Marcus stared in amazement at the departing highlanders. The terrain here was so bad that, if his men had to march through it, they would go around those mountains. Yet these highlanders dared climb vertical, ninety-degree cliffs with nothing but a leather rope. Some women even had children strapped to their backs with ragged hides, and they climbed no slower than the men. The slightly older children were even more like monkeys. They climbed faster than the adults.
"Don't be so surprised, Marcus. They've grown up in places like this... We need to get moving. If they cross a few mountains first, they really might arrive before us."
"Of course, my lord. They can't keep up with our warhorses. We'll have a good laugh at these barbarians at the finish!"
Alka's loud voice rang through the forest like metal scraping against metal. The cavalrymen put away their weapons and headed for the road outside the woods. Their horses were still there, guarded by fifty cavalrymen.
Not one rider thought they would lose this contest. They were the proudest and strongest of knights. They knew better than anyone how fast their fine-bred warhorses were. Riding across the plains, they were as swift as a gale. No one could escape their pursuit.
* * *
"Let's go, lads! Don't lose to them!"
The warhorses' impatient neighing rang along the road. The cavalrymen formed a spindle-shaped column and urged their mounts into a trot. Like a river of steel, they poured into this dry riverbed in the blink of an eye and surged onward, ready to drown anything in their path. From the dry road they raised a long, yellow-brown dragon of dust, billowing as it rushed into the distance.
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