A Tale of Strategies For the Throne

The chaotic night was finally over, and the sky was already bright.

The silence of the night was replaced by the noise of the morning. Although most of the men were still drunk at the moment and lay on the bed unable to get up, the women and children who had not drank had already gotten up early or were taking care of their drunken men. , or diligently start cleaning up the mess from last night.

The women were busy here, and the children gathered together in the open air on the other side.

The old man began to give lectures to them, and carefully taught these young children the words that he did not know much.

At this time every day, an indescribable solemn atmosphere forms on this flat land.

In this atmosphere, even the most naughty children will learn precious words honestly and with full concentration.

Writing is a valuable knowledge that only wealthy upper-class people and nobles are qualified to learn.

However, this kind of precious writing, which is beyond the reach of ordinary civilians, has been passed down from generation to generation in this notorious bandit group.

This may be the final proof that the people of Fela are descendants of the glorious mountain knight hundreds of years ago.

Apart from this, there is no trace of being the descendants of that knight on their bodies.

Sal stood at the top of the bandit's village, looking down at the entire village.

The atmosphere in the village was very good. The woman who was packing up the banquet was cleaning neatly with her hands and feet, while chatting and laughing happily with her companions, and from time to time she cast her eyes in the direction of the children in the distance.

Young children, that is their future, their hope.

Likewise, that is the future and hope of the people of Fela.

The dry wind blowing from the desert wasteland brushed against Sal's cheek and stirred his messy black hair.

Looking down at his people below, the mask of laziness that he usually wears on his face as if he doesn't care about anything has been taken off, and there is deep heaviness in the young man's eyes.

In the legends of countless poems, the descendants of that great knight sank like this from generation to generation, stuck in the mire, and could never get up again.

From the moment they were born, these young children were destined to become horse thieves who were hated and despised by countless people, and they lived like this for the rest of their lives.

Like them.

Moreover, it is not just them, their descendants and their descendants can only be like this.

They have no future and no hope.

Therefore, his once ambitious father chose to drink alcohol and escape from reality after seeing clearly the hopeless future of his family.

He also wanted to be like his father and live his whole life in confusion.

As long as you pretend not to care about anything and don't think about anything, your life will be much easier.

But……

Although it was still only morning, the blazing sun had already started to heat up the desert. It was time to get used to the dry climate and hot air of the Sal desert, but at this moment, for some reason, Sal had the illusion that it was difficult to breathe.

He closed his eyes, and the hot sunlight shone on his face.

The hot wind kept stirring his rough felt cloak and brushing his black hair.

He breathed in the scorching air, and the hot air in his chest seemed to turn into fire, burning his heart and making the blood in his whole body restless.

When he opened his eyes and looked solemnly at the carefree clansmen, the hand hanging by his side clenched into a fist unknowingly, clenching tighter and tighter.

If this continues, one day...

"Thal."

Suddenly someone called his name from behind, waking him up from his meditation.

He turned around and saw a young man with brown hair walking towards him.

Sal frowned without any trace.

Temia.

His friend, or rather his former friend.

In the village, people of similar age grew up together, studied together, and trained martial arts together.

Originally, Temea was one of his best friends, but in recent years, due to their differences in views, they have gradually become alienated from each other.

Sal hid the heaviness in his eyes, put a careless smile on his face again, and stood there watching the other person approach.

He laughed and said haha.

"A bunch of drunkards are still lying down, but you look very energetic. What's wrong? Didn't you drink much last night?"

"Sal, do you plan to continue like this?"

"..."

Temia stared at him with a dark sneer.

"In this desert, there are no horse thieves who are more miserable than us."

He raised his hand and pointed at the messy stockade below.

"Obviously we are the bandit group that has occupied the Sal Desert for the longest time. We should be the overlords of the desert, but we are crushed to death by those outsiders!"

"Do you know how the other gangs laugh at us? They say that the people of Fela are useless, that the people of Fela are useless and as poor as shit!"

He said emotionally,

"I really don't understand why we only want money and don't hurt anyone - so those businessmen are not afraid of us at all. They are willing to hand over all their belongings to other gangs, and we can only get one from them every time." Just a little bit of toll, just like a beggar being given alms by them!”

"It's the same this time. You can obviously snatch all the wealth from that caravan, but you actually let them go like that?"

Looking at the excited Temya, Sal said in a deep voice: "Temya, you have to know that this is the tradition of our Fela people for hundreds of years..."

"Ha, tradition? Can tradition give us gold coins? Can it allow us to eat and drink enough? Can it allow us to live a life of doing whatever we want?"

Temya interrupted Thrall directly.

"You too, and so do those old guys who cling to this outdated tradition and shout about the great bloodline of our ancestors every day - enough! Wake up! Even if our so-called ancestors were noble kings hundreds of years ago, We are fucking horse thieves now too!”

"Why don't you understand? We are just a group of horse thieves, and we should do what horse thieves do, instead of living on a little toll money from others like we do now."

"It's because you insist on sticking to this tradition that Fela has fallen to the point where it is now looked down upon by everyone."

Anger surged in the young man's eyes.

He has had enough of living such a tight life. He is obviously a ferocious horse thief, but his life is extremely difficult and even poverty-stricken. It is completely different from the happy life of other gangs who sit on their property and do whatever they want.

"Robbing when necessary, killing when necessary, let everyone tremble when they hear the name of Fela."

He said coldly, "What about the name of the ancestors, what about Feqir, those things are bullshit to us horse thieves——"

Before Temya could finish his last sentence, Thrall punched him hard in the face, shutting him up and staggering back two steps.

"Temia, you can call me useless and incapable of leading everyone, but you can't insult the ancestors."

Thrall stared at his former friend with a fierce look in his eyes.

"Next time, I will directly summon the clan members to execute you."

Temiah, who had a bruise on his cheek, turned his head and stared at Sal for a long time, then spit in the side.

He said nothing more, turned and left.

Sal looked at the back of the departing young man with obvious unwillingness and remained silent.

Perhaps only Temea could express this thought outright, but there were probably many people who thought it secretly in their hearts even though they did not say it out loud.

Only the older generation of people still adhere to the ancient traditions, but many young people in the tribe cannot understand it.

It's not that Sal doesn't understand, he is also one of the young people, and he even had the same idea a few years ago.

Until his father was injured and he took over the responsibility of the Fira people from his father.

Having matured under the heavy responsibility, he finally understood the belief represented by this name.

Even though that belief has become so heavy now.

He knew that the so-called name of the ancestors and the glory from hundreds of years ago were too far away from the Feira people. Feqir's name, like his bloodline, became blurred and weak little by little with the passage of time. .

Then, one day, it will disappear completely.

Perhaps in the near future, the people of Ferra will forget this name forever, forget their own bloodline, and become complete and real horse thieves.

...Can we just watch this go on?

The hot wind whistled past his ears. Thrall turned his head and looked at the camp below and his people.

His face was dazed, and his eyes showed deep confusion.

He is the leader of the people of Fela.

He determines the future of his people.

And where should he take his people?

There were footsteps coming from the side, and Sal turned his head and glanced.

The young man with a beautiful face who made him uneasy with just one word came here at some point.

Obviously, the teenager laughed at the quarrel between him and Tamia just now.

If it were normal, Sal would have taunted the other person out of necessity, but now he was not in such a mood.

He turned back and slowly squatted down on the top of the mountain.

He just squatted with his legs spread apart, casually pulled up a spiky weed under his feet, and held the root of the grass in his mouth.

When his mouth trembled, the grass in his mouth swayed.

He squatted on the top of the mountain with a weed in his mouth and looked down at the camp below, and then looked far into the distance, looking at the endless desert.

Gravel, cracked soil, dead wood, and jagged rocks.

This is an ugly and hopeless land.

But this is also their homeland.

"Those old guys said that the Thrall Desert didn't look like this before."

"When King Mainar gave this land to the ancestors, it was a fertile land full of meadows, woods, and many rivers."

"At that time, our ancestor Feqir was here, building his town on the land under my feet."

Thrall whispered.

He seemed to be talking to himself, or to the young man standing behind him.

Maybe it's been weighing heavily on my heart for so long that I couldn't help but want to say it out.

"The old guys said, but I don't know when, the rivers here slowly dried up, the grasslands and woods withered, the fields dried up, the soil turned into sand, and no more food could be grown."

"No one knows what the reason is. Everyone says it is God's punishment."

“God made this land barren so that we could get nothing from it.”

Squatting on the ground, he grabbed a handful of sand and watched it fall from his fingers. The young leader looked at the dry desert and tightened his grip.

"No one wants to be a horse thief from birth, no one wants to. Especially us-"

The words were interrupted here.

Thrall exhaled and said, "However, if we want to survive guarding this land where nothing can grow and has nothing, we have no other choice but to be horse thieves."

The young leader's voice was so deep that it seemed to ooze from deep within his chest.

The words that seemed to be spoken calmly were filled with deep pain and helplessness.

"Back then..."

The young man who had been listening quietly aside finally spoke.

He asked: "Since we know that this land has become barren, why didn't your ancestors take everyone away from here?"

Sal smiled bitterly, opened his fingers, and dropped the sand in his hand.

"Actually, I don't really understand, but those old guys said that because this is our home, our hometown, the place where our ancestors have lived for generations, and the place where the bones of our ancestors are buried."

He smiled bitterly and said, "Even if I die, I will die here."

Sal squatted on the ground with a piece of weed in his mouth.

He looked at the endless desert with complex eyes.

An ugly, unsightly, desolate place with nothing.

However, it is his hometown, where his family has lived for generations.

The pair of hanging eyes lowered, Sal had made a decision.

"That thing you said last night..."

He said,

"Sorry, I won't do it."

Not to mention that I don’t know how long it will take, and I don’t know how high the risk is. Even if it succeeds in the end, the young man did not break his promise and gave them a place to stay, but it is of no use.

His people are not leaving here.

The people of Fela will not abandon this land.

No matter how desolate and useless the land is, as long as they still stand on this land and look at this land, the hearts of the people of Feira can calm down.

This is the land of their ancestors. Even if they no longer have the name of their ancestors, they will stick to it until the last person.

…………

"yes."

After giving the answer, there was a moment of silence, and Sal heard the boy's voice coming from beside him.

The young man took a step forward and stood beside him, looking down at the camp below like him.

"When your ancestors became horse thieves, you no longer have any way out."

"Abandon the name of Feqir and call yourself a Feira."

As the boy spoke, he bent his knees and squatted down.

His eyes met Thrall who turned to look at him.

"You have been horse thieves for nearly a hundred years. Now all the Aaron Landis people know that the Fela people in the Saar Desert are gangsters and horse thieves." The young man said, "This infamous title will follow you. It will be like this for the rest of your clan’s life, and for the generations to come.”

It's like a gangrene attached to a bone, which cannot be removed by scraping.

The boy said, his tone was very calm, but extremely cruel.

"The descendants of Feqir, the people of Feira, will be the horse thieves despised by thousands of people for generations to come."

Thrall's breathing quickened suddenly, and a cluster of anger burned fiercely in his heart.

Every word the young man said was like a knife, and every blow was pierced into the place that hurt him the most, causing blood to drip from it.

He wanted to roar, he wanted to tell the boy to shut up.

But he didn't speak after all.

Because what the young man said was the naked reality.

He heard the young man looking at him ask him: "Sal, are you willing?"

…

Are you willing?

Of course not willingly!

He was not willing to let the people of Fela sink like this forever.

He was unwilling to let his people struggle in the mud for the rest of their lives.

He was unwilling to let the name of his ancestor ‘Fiqir’ never see the light of day again——

From a long time ago, he wanted to do something...no matter what, he wanted to do something.

Even if the head is broken and bleeding, it is much better than just rotting silently and suffocatingly.

But reality told him that he couldn't do anything.

The people of Fera have been praying, praying and supplicating to the gods of Aaron Landis.

They have prayed to the gods for hundreds of years, but they have never received any response or mercy from the gods.

…………

The boy who was squatting in front of him stood up again.

"Sal, let's make a deal."

The young man stood, looking down at the young leader of the horse thieves who was still squatting on the ground.

He held out his hand to Thrall.

The wind blew from the desert, blowing the young man's long hair into the air.

"I make a promise to you."

The boy who stretched out his hand smiled at Sal in the wind.

"After you restore peace to the land of Thrall."

"I will restore the prosperity of Thrall to the land of your ancestors hundreds of years ago."

The blazing sunlight shines down from the sky, illuminating this desert land to the extreme.

Maybe it was because he was looking up, or maybe it was because of the backlight, but the boy's smile was so bright that it made Sal feel blinded inexplicably.

"After you offer this land to me."

"I will let you regain the glory of the name Feqir with your own hands."

…………

There was silence for a while.

I don’t know how long it took.

Sal's hand slowly stretched out, with a bit of hesitation and struggle, but in the end he firmly grasped the hand that the young man stretched out to him.