Perhaps the time he had been lost in his thoughts was too long, no matter what, Nightingale couldn’t bear it any longer and squeezed his arm.
When Roland returned from within his thoughts, he reassuringly patted the back of her hand and cleared his throat and said. “The way I have thought before is still the way I think now.”
“…” For a moment Scroll was frozen, “What?”
The hand on top of his arm also instantly grasped firmly.
Seeing their reactions, Roland couldn’t suppress his laughter, previous it was he who had thought that he had misheard them, and now it was them who thought so? He coughed twice and then reassuring said: “I still think the same — I’m willing to marry a witch and take her as my wife.”
…
When Scroll left the room she wore a very strange expression; it looked as if she was perfectly contented and yet she was also carrying a somewhat sad look, leaving behind a confused Roland.
Needing an explanation he turned around he asked, “Is she okay?”
The one he spoke to didn’t answer, she only looked at him with a smile, which together with the outside sunshine shining upon her white face gave her a gentle, bright and beautiful appearance causing others’ hearts’ to beat faster.
“Alright,” Roland moved his line of sight away from her, “It seems you are in a pretty good mood.”
At this moment, the voice from outside the door traveled over, “Your Highness, one of Longsong Stronghold’s Knights has arrived, he claims to have crucial news for you.”
“Take him to the reception hall; I will meet him there.”
When the Prince walked into the hall, the knight immediately stepped over and then went down on his knees, “Lord Petrov has sent me to tell you, that an envoy sent by Timothy Wimbledon has arrived at Longsong Stronghold.”
“Envoy?” Roland mused. “How many people have arrived?”
“Altogether there are about 50 people.”
It seems that they are just a group which wants to persuade us to give up, he thought, simply a diplomatic strategie, nothing which should be painful or itching for me, “When did they come?”
“Yesterday morning,” the Knight lowered his voice, “Lord Petrov gave me the order to inform you as soon as possible.”
Merely a day and a night, I’m afraid he had hurried all through the night while holding up a torch, “Thank you, I have put you to a lot of trouble, rest for a day before you return.” Roland looked to the guards and told them, “First give him a gold royal as reward and then take him to the inn.”
When the Knight had left the hall, Roland wanted to put the matter aside, after all, a team of just 50 people could never become a threat to Border Town. In case they wanted to negotiate, he would merely allow the single leader to enter. However, since Petrov treated this situation so carefully, it might be better to grasp the situation himself and to know the whereabouts of the envoy.
Thinking until here, he called for Lightning and Maggie, giving them the order to fly together to the stronghold and examine the situation.
A double-hour later, the two witches had completed their investigation and returned to the castle.
“There was nothing to see,” Lightning reported. “We didn’t see a group of 50 knights on the road. Actually, we didn’t see even one lone knight.
“Haven’t seen anyone, goo!” Maggie confirmed.
It seems after they had reached a big city, traveling such a long distance, they were in need to first have some fun for themselves and to ease their tired body. “Before the envoy arrive here,” Roland ordered, “every day you two will fly along the way and check if you can discover anything.” He paused, “Oh that’s right, how far are you with the map?”
“Probably she has already put together several hundred pieces, they are enough to almost fill Soraya’s whole room,” Lightning explained. “By now she had moved the map to the backyard, do you want to take a look?”
“Alright,” Roland laughed.
The castle’s backyard had been turned into a botanical garden, ever since Sean had brought back the seeds from Port of Clearwater, Leaves had created even more fantastic oddities of every description. In order to save the land and place for flower beds, Leaves had put up a wooden frame in the sky, so that many plants grew and twisted around the frame like a grapevine, some of them even climbed half of the castle wall. This was the reason why the wall behind the castle hung full with grapes, apples, wheat and sugar cane, and whenever the witches had some free time, they would gather in the backyard and picked up some fruit and sugar cane from the wall to eat. Unfortunately, these crops could only grow with the help of Leaves’ magic, and with this, could only be regarded as an unsuccessful test.
The map which was a mosaic, pieced together by many parchments, was placed at the center of the yard, reaching a size of five to six square meters.
“Here we are,” Lightning announced, and then put an arm around Roland’s waist, beginning to slowly float into the sky until they were hovering over the map. “Do you see the palm-sized brown square? From high up in the air, Border Town looks exactly like that.”
“The blue pieces East and South… are they the sea?”
“Yes, but you have to climb over the mountains to reach there.”
Roland felt a cold shiver running through his heart, if we say that it was still normal if the wildlands were ten times more vast than the Kingdom of Graycastle, he still hadn’t expected, that when he had the complete map in front of him, the Western Territory would actually seem so small. In front of them was the Impassable Mountain Range and behind them the sea, just like they were sandwiched between a natural barrier and the marginal zone. No… not only the Western Territory, when he completed the undrawn parts of the map with his mind, in the case where he thought of the Impassable Mountain Range as a wall splitting of the mainland, then the Kingdom of Graycastle, no, the whole “mainland” itself, would be nothing more than a small piece of land behind the wall.
Chapter 196 The Calamity of the Church
Lehman and his knights rode their horses through the streets of Longsong Stronghold.
Now, after the fighting had come to an end, the city’s residents were all hiding in their houses and keeping their doors shut; not even half a shadow could be seen on the streets, making a cold and cheerless image.
“Sir Lehman, I hope that your hand is alright,” The “Shield” Knight, Sir Levin asked.
“It’s not a problem,” Lehman Hawes shrugged his shoulders, “at least I can still move it,” however, that small movement was already enough to make him wrinkle his brows.
Last night’s seizure of the gate had went smoothly, only twenty guards had been stationed at the East Gate, they never expected that the enemy’s attack would come from the inside.
Even though they were able to sound the horn, the reinforcements had still needed a quarter of an hour to arrive, by then, the 15 mercenaries, enhanced with the pills, had already reached the top of the gate; killing one guard after another and thus allowing Lehman with this Knights to open the gate. Under the darkness of night, Lehman hadn’t noticed the side door in the city wall from which two knights had suddenly appeared, the one armed with a hammer immediately throwing himself at Lehman.
In order to lessen the swinging power of the hammer, he had to take the hammer’s blow before it reached his waist, under such a hasty situation Lehman was merely able to use his arm to resist, and almost at the same time using his sword with his other hand to pierce into the guard’s waist. Affected by the impact of the fatal blow, the incoming hammer lost a lot of its strength, but it was still strong enough to leave behind a noticeable dent on his arm’s armor piece.