It was not possible to buy a ship big enough to take this many people. It was war time so every big ships were being used by the City Lord. The merchants who owned some ships also had to donate them for some time. They were only left with few small ships that could only carry around 40 people max.
These ships were more like big boats and were not used in long distance sailing. But Alex only needed them travel by the shore so it was not a problem for them to rent 6 such small ships. Jack went with some people to the port near the city.
This was the only place where they could find small ships to rent or buy.
With help of a merchant that had known Jack and Donald for a long time; they rented 6 small ships from other merchants. Jack also purchased 2 Ships from the hands of an old merchant who was looking to sell them. They were not used much and were in good condition so he purchased it for their own use. He bought them for 50 Gold coins and rented 6 other small ship for 20 gold coins to use them for a week.
They had enough money so there was no problem in spending a little.
It would take 6 hours for the ships to reach at the pickup point. The ships had to head North West first then turn around a corner of land and travel by the semi arc shaped shore going south then and then east. They would reach Pearl village by evening.
The family members of the new mercenary group had already left the village by that time.
An hour later, a big group of people were making their way towards the village entrance. It was the Jordan Family group; they had brought 100 guards with them. Those guards were walking with 2 carriages in the middle of the group. It must be a person of high standing.
Donald was waiting for them at the entrance. Since the person arriving was the direct descent of the Jordan Family, such procedures needed to be followed.
A carriage stopped in front Donald. One guard who was waiting beside the carriage heard something from the carriage. He nodded and went in front of Donald.
"Are you this Village Head? " He asked.
"Yes, I am Donald, this village head. We are very honor..!" Donald was stopped in between.
"Alright, young master is tired from the journey. Take us to our house now." He said rudely and went away.
Donald looked at the carriage, and then he showed them the way to his house. This kind of thing happening was very normal and Donald had already experienced this numerous times.
After arriving at their house, the carriage stopped again. 3 people came out of it.
One was dressed lavishly, probably the Young master. Another one was dressed in light armor and stood behind him like a body guard.
The third person was surprisingly someone that Donald knew. He was none other than the previous Village Head Jon.
"Donald you are standing in the presence of my Young Master, Gareth Jordan. Why are you not bowing your head?" Jon started causing trouble for him just as he came to this village.
Hearing this, the young master of the Jordan family also made his expression like he was displeased.
"It's was my mistake, Sir. I was stumped by your noble presence. Please forgive my little mistake" Donald said as he quickly bowed his head. This was how a commoner greeted someone from the noble family.
He knew immediately that the young master in front of him was an idiot. The aristocrat of this kind might be the most dangerous.
They punish people on slight offense, it's like they enjoy carrying out their power on common people.
Donald was very adaptive so looking at the situation he just wanted to hand over the village as quickly as possible and leave this village.
Jon seems to have become the butler of this young master. Anyway Donald completed all procedure with Jon while the young master enjoyed the company of his maids that followed him to this village.
While doing those procedure, Jon seemed quite smug about taking the village back from Donald's hands.
Donald just ignored him. He didn't want to entangle with him today.
Just as Donald was leaving, Jon called from behind.
"Where are you going, Donald."
Donald frowned but said "I am going to the city. That's where my family and I will be staying from now on."
"Oh, then have a safe journey." Jon smiled and left with that note.
Donald quickly left the village with some of the men that stayed back to go with him.
After going some distance, he circled around the village to go towards the beach.
…
"Butler Jon, they are not going to the city. I followed them and found that they were going south towards the sea." A guard said.
"Donald shouldn't know about the ambush. Maybe he wasn't going to the city all along." Jon said.
Suddenly another guard came and said "Butler Jon, it's not just few people at least 300 people have left the village to settle elsewhere. Most of them have gone with the previous Village Head.
"What! Where will they settle with such a big group…How dare he steal the property of Jordan Family. "Jon exclaimed.
It would have been fine if few people left the village, but it's completely different case if almost half of the villagers leave. The villagers are now seen as form of wealth by the Noble Families, if such a large group of people suddenly leaves then the village won't have enough population and they would suffer a loss on purchasing this territory.
Jon started to sweat buckets because this would become a huge crime if he let go of them like that. He would be beheaded for sure and Young Master won't be able to save him.
"That bastard where does he want to go with those people" Jon was fuming with anger.
"Jon, why are you screaming" Suddenly Jon saw his last hope, he quickly said.
"Young Master, that Donald has committed a huge crime; he had the gall to steal from you."
"What did he steal?" he asked confused because they had not brought anything of high worth with them.
"The villagers, young Master, he took the villagers with him and not just 10 or 20 but more than 250"
Gareth might look like an idiot but as he was from a Noble Family, he knew the importance of these people. The whole deal that his father made with the City Lord was for these people other than the territory.
"What the hell were you all doing then, you just let them leave. Huh!" Gareth too didn't want this to happen or else his standing in his family would fall.
"They left before we came. But it's still not too late; Donald seems to have taken them to the shore. I don't know what he wants to do there. Maybe use ships to go somewhere but we can still stop them from leaving. Young Master, please give us order so that we can go and behead that vile thief and bring the villagers back." Jon said calming his young master.
"Then don't just stand here, go and intercept them, no wait, I will also go with you all." Gareth said.