Chapter 160 — The Refugee Settlement

As refugees, even the last wisp of straw they clutched was liable to be snatched from them, so the camp's people were no strangers to bandits. But seeing the dress and bearing of these men, anyone with a bit of sense realized they were something more fearsome still: they were mercenaries—mercenaries who had been paid.

Red-nosed Tom's sister, a black-haired, black-eyed girl named Joan, shrank into the crowd and carefully averted her gaze to avoid meeting the eyes of those vicious men. She cradled her injured right arm with her left hand and endured the pain of the filth seeping into the wound on her face. At the first moment those thugs burst into the camp, she had smeared her face with a mix of charcoal and mud, and that look had quickly caught the eye of one of the mercenary leaders. He had laughed heartily and praised her as a girl with a head on her shoulders—and then he had nearly flayed half her face off with his whip.

As he whipped her, he laughed and said this would fix her "makeup" to her face for good.

Blood was dripping to the ground, mingled with mud, but Joan felt a sliver of relief, because the mercenary leader was now cursing in a fury:

"You lowborn scum! Filthy mud! Bitches and mongrels fit only to sleep in the gutter! Where's the cripple gone?! I know one of you got away—I know one of you got away! Damn it... eight of you died just now. Do you know how much money I've lost?! Where are you hiding that cripple?!"

Tom had long since left, gone off in a new direction to look for mushrooms and edible moss—happily skirting the mercenaries' line of sight. By the time he came back he was bound to notice something wrong at the camp, and he would run.

At the thought, Joan stealthily lifted her eyelids and stole a glance at the mercenary leader in his armor, a silver-white longsword at his waist. She knew that soon someone around her would crack under the pressure and reveal that she was Tom's sister. And she was long since prepared—death was the worst that could happen, and it would cost these long-legged beasts even more. She could see that she and the rest of these refugees were worth a great deal of money to the mercenaries, and with every one who died, their fury would rise a notch.

Often enough, this was the greatest resistance a "lowborn" could offer against nobles and their jackals.

But just as these thoughts rose in Joan's mind, a strange noise suddenly came from not far away, falling on ears made exceptionally keen by years of hunting.

It seemed two stones had fallen to the ground, one after another, dozens of yards away.

Before she could work out what those "stones" were, she heard two thunderclap-like roars erupt from behind the mercenaries!

That thunderous roar was unfamiliar to them all. Even with swords leveled at them, the refugees driven onto the open ground leapt up in terror and fled for their lives toward the camp's interior—that is, away from the blasts. The mercenaries, hardened by blood and blade, kept somewhat steadier; though they too turned pale, their first thought was: enemy attack! To arms!

It was the right reaction—both for them and for Gao Yang.