If he agreed, he would truly become a mercenary.
Aldric hesitated for a moment. He didn't want a job that involved killing for money. By comparison, becoming a blacksmith might suit him better.
Besides, as a transmigrator, he had countless ways to make money in his head. Just picking a couple would be enough to support a family for several generations.
But, according to the text he had seen before transmigrating, this continent called Westeros was about to become very unstable.
No matter how much money he had, without military power, could he protect it?
Thinking of this, Aldric laughed at himself. I already have five lives on my hands. What's the point of being sentimental now?
So he asked, "What price are you offering?"
Rodney caressed the ring on his finger and said thoughtfully, "This time, besides you, I also have my merchant caravan guards. I can pay you their salary. Fifteen silver stags per day..."
"The same as a caravan guard?"
Aldric shook his head. "No, that's too low. Caravan guards don't have to fight every day. And as far as I know, you already engaged the pirates yesterday and are preparing to continue the pursuit. Joining you now means killing or being killed and neither killing nor being killed is worth this price."
Rodney smiled. "Then what's your idea?"
"If your men are all about as good as Erik, I want five shares."
Erik, sitting nearby, slapped Aldric on the shoulder. "Hey, kid, I wasn't even serious!"
Aldric gave him an apologetic smile. "Sorry, it's not personal. But I wasn't serious either."
Rodney thought for a moment. "If I pay you ten silver moons a day, I'm afraid it will be hard to explain to the other warriors. After all, a street brawl and killing on the battlefield are two different things. You can't get paid for five men just because you beat five men in the street."
One silver moon was worth seven silver stags. Aldric thought his price was fair, but he also understood Rodney's concern. Since ancient times, people have always been more concerned about inequality than scarcity. As a leader, it was a basic skill to keep things balanced.
So he proposed another plan. "In my homeland, there was a time when the merits of frontline soldiers were judged by the number of heads. For every enemy killed, you cut off his head and bring it back to the quartermaster to exchange for a reward. I think this is a very fair method."
"Your homeland is a cruel place, but that is indeed a rigorous system."
Rodney considered it for a moment. "For one pirate head, I am willing to pay you ten silver stags. The prerequisite is that you must kill him yourself, and we must win this battle."
"Deal. Very fair."
Rodney spat into his palm and extended it to Aldric.
Aldric hesitated for a moment, then spat into his own palm, and the two hands, slick with saliva, clasped together tightly. "Done."
With the business settled, the men began to chat.
Aldric, of course, boasted about his experiences as a great lord in Azeroth.
After omitting the combat power levels that were far beyond Westeros, Aldric's life of leveling up and fighting monsters in Azeroth was actually quite similar to that of a real mercenary.
After all, the "adventurers" in World of Warcraft were a bunch who would kill anyone, even a Titan, as long as it dropped loot.
From Rodney and the others, Aldric also learned a little about his future comrades-in-arms.
Castellan Rodney's full name was Rodney Cobbert, the cousin of the current head of House Cobbert, Lord Donnel. House Cobbert, in turn, was a vassal of House Hornwood.
Normally, a member of a cadet branch like Rodney wouldn't be entitled to use the Cobbert surname.
However, Rodney and Lord Donnel had grown up together and were close.
Furthermore, Rodney himself was exceptionally capable and had distinguished himself in several major wars House Cobbert had participated in. As a result, he had been exceptionally granted the fiefdom of Stoneyard Village and the four surrounding villages, a territory roughly equivalent to a large knight's fief in the south.
The young man next to Rodney, Harry, was Rodney's eldest son.
In this battle, besides Stoneyard Village, all four villages under Rodney's rule had sent men. This force of over one hundred and fifty men was the largest he could muster.
If it were any other castellan, they might have just driven the pirates out of their territory and called it a day. But that strategy wouldn't work for Rodney.
On a normal day, besides farming, the villages under Rodney's rule also hunted beasts for their pelts or fished for rare seafood.
These goods were purchased by him and then transported by his own merchant caravans to White Harbor in the south and Winterfell in the north, to be exchanged for other goods.
This trade brought many benefits to him and the Cobbert family behind him, and it was one of the reasons why he, as a descendant of a cadet branch, could have five villages as his fiefdom.
Gathering this force was not only to protect the people under his rule, but more importantly, to prevent the villages from being harassed and the trade routes from being disrupted.
This was also one of the reasons why he was willing to pay a high price to hire Aldric.
The next morning, at first light, the militiamen who had received their orders the night before had already put on their equipment and were coming out of the houses they had been staying in, gathering in the village square.
Aldric and Kevin came out of the tavern and naturally blended into the crowd.
But with one in full metal armor and the other in new leather, both armed with various long and short weapons, and each holding a three-to-four-meter-long iron-tipped spear, they stood out among the surrounding warriors wrapped in furs and dressed in cloth. They were like two bears in a pack of huskies.
When the square was full of people, Lord Rodney and his son, along with four personal guards Aldric hadn't seen before, rode out of the village on horseback, clad in armor.
After a brief inspection of the troops to ensure no village militia was absent, Rodney raised his horsewhip towards the distance and shouted, "Forward!"
The few cavalrymen in the force surrounded Rodney at the front of the line, while the remaining militiamen followed in small groups.
The force of over one hundred and forty men stretched out in a long line on the country road, with the kind of chaotic energy Aldric's nephew's elementary school class had on a spring outing.
But in this messy formation, there seemed to be a strange kind of order. The hundred or so men seemed loose, but no one ever fell behind.
Aldric guessed it was probably because the veterans in the force were acting as a cohesive force.
Besides the few cavalrymen around Rodney, there were also a dozen sword-and-shield men in chainmail, about twenty spearmen, and seven or eight archers with longbows and short swords.
The remaining eighty or ninety "farmer soldiers" in ordinary cloth, armed with various farm tools, gathered around these veterans.
But even among the calm and capable-looking veterans, their armor was rusty and dusty.
The only ones in shiny armor who were walking on their own two feet were Aldric and his squire, making them seem out of place.
Aldric couldn't help but think, Should I also buy a couple of horses for transportation?
He smacked his fist. Damn, why didn't I think of that in the village the other day!
As they reached the village entrance, Kevin noticed a blackened corpse hanging from a large tree by the road.
Kevin nudged Aldric, who was still thinking about buying horses, and said, "Master, look."
He gestured with his chin towards the body in the tree. "The one hanging in the tree, is that the pirate we captured?"
Aldric looked up and examined it carefully. The corpse's face was twisted and contorted, making it difficult to identify, but the hairstyle and clothing were the same as when he had been handed over to Eonet.
The short-haired bandit's body seemed to have been hanging in the tree for a few days. His hands and feet had been cut off, his clothes were tattered and blood-stained, and rotting fluids dripped from the stumps of his limbs, attracting numerous carrion insects to feast below.
Aldric remarked, "It seems his information didn't save his life. Do you feel sorry for him?"
Kevin shook his head. "He got what he deserved. It's just... I think he would have been luckier if he had died at your hands."
"Probably."
Aldric knew Kevin was right.
Although his combat power was strong, he was not good at torture and interrogation.
If he had kept the short-haired man himself, he probably wouldn't have gotten any valuable information out of him. Otherwise, he wouldn't have handed this source over to William and the others intact.
"Hey, hey, is this the pirate you caught?"
Just then, a boy of about sixteen or seventeen, wearing a patched and ill-fitting set of clothes, came over and asked Aldric.
Seeing the boy's eyes full of curiosity, Aldric smiled and asked, "How did you know?"
"I heard it from Alvin yesterday. He said you killed several pirates outside and brought one back to the village alive."
"Are you from Stoneyard Village too? I haven't seen you these past few days."
The boy grinned foolishly. "Hehe, I'm not from Stoneyard Village, I'm from Riverfork Village. I heard Lord Rodney was raising an army to fight the pirates, so I came running."
Just then, an old man with a rake, who was walking not far from them, came over and said in surprise, "Isn't this 'Ivan the Fool'? What are you doing here? Did Jon let you come?"
Ivan nervously looked around. When he confirmed that a sturdy figure behind Rodney at the front hadn't turned to look, he breathed a sigh of relief and whispered, "I followed them secretly. I hid outside the village all last night."
He didn't want to continue this topic and instead asked Aldric, "Big guy, are the pirates tough? I heard you killed several by yourself. Are they that weak?"
Aldric laughed. "I could take on several of you too. You've never even seen a pirate, and you dare to follow along?"
"I heard that the militiamen who participate in the battle get free meals these days." Ivan licked his lips. "And I heard from the veterans in the village that after a victory, Lord Rodney will treat everyone to a big feast, with meat and ale. The last time I had cured meat was two years ago, at Big Brother Mag's wedding..."
Perhaps thinking of the taste of cured meat, Ivan fell silent, lost in his memories.
The old man with the rake sighed and shook his head. He said to Aldric, "This kid's parents died of illness a few years ago. He's been on his own, doing odd jobs in the village to get by. He's not all there."
He pointed to his head, then said to Ivan, "Ivan the Fool, if a real fight breaks out, don't be a fool and charge forward. Hide in the back. Don't lose your life for nothing."
Hearing his name, Ivan came back to his senses. "What, lose what, who's lost?"
The old man shook his head. "Ah! Just don't lose yourself!"
Kevin snickered at this, but Aldric's expression was solemn... He had been eating cured meat every day recently.
Not to mention, back on Earth, he even had to deliberately control his meat intake to lose weight.
Aldric suddenly felt a little sorry for this kid. He patted Ivan's shoulder. "Kid, stick close to me. When we get back, I'll treat you to cured meat."
"Really?" Ivan jumped for joy. "I want the fatty, transparent part!"
Perhaps because they were about the same age, Kevin and Ivan quickly became friends, chattering behind Aldric.
Aldric himself tried to talk as little as possible, avoiding meaningless and energy-consuming activities, keeping his body ready for battle at any moment.
He noticed that from time to time, one or two lean but agile men would emerge from the forest on either side of the road and talk to Rodney at the front. The frequency of these conversations was increasing.
Aldric guessed that these were the scouts Rodney had sent out. It seemed their force was not far from the pirates.
Sure enough, after listening to another scout's report, Rodney turned his horse and ordered the militiamen behind him, "Forced march! Target, Lone Bridge Village!"
Lone Bridge Village was three leagues away from their current position, which was about fourteen kilometers.
The veterans in the force moved to the front and back of the line, urging the militiamen to walk faster. The sound of "Faster, faster!" echoed through the line from time to time.
Under the forced march order, the three leagues were covered in just over an hour.
Lone Bridge Village was located by a rushing river, with the main farmland and village split in two by the river.
For convenience, the villagers had tied several logs together to build a bridge over the river, which was how Lone Bridge Village got its name.
When Rodney led his troops to the river outside the village, he found that the lone bridge had been torn apart.
At the same time, Lone Bridge Village on the other side of the river had already been breached by the pirates. The cries of men, women, and children could be heard from a hundred meters away, making the warriors who heard them grit their teeth in fury.
But every single warrior present was carrying weapons and supplies, heavily burdened. They couldn't swim across.
If they tried to wade through the water, they would easily be swept away by the swift current and drown.
Helpless, Rodney ordered them to detour upstream where the water was shallower to cross the river.
About a kilometer upstream from the broken bridge, the river became calmer. But by the time the hundred or so men had all crossed and rushed to Lone Bridge Village, half an hour had passed.
By then, the pirates had already retreated from the village, leaving behind only the wounded and the dead.