Wright walked slowly among the collapsed and destroyed ruins. The wind from the south blew through the wilderness, blew through the trampled and destroyed wheat fields, and blew into this devastated place. The smell of blood and burning was no longer in the wind. , but with a kind of moistness and sweetness - which indicates that a summer rain may come soon.
After rainfall, grass and trees will sprout again, and new shoots will grow in the ruined fields. Nature will always recover faster than humans, and this building was set on fire by the nobles. The burned villages don’t know when they will be rebuilt.
This small team did not come to clean the battlefield. Wright and his new comrades were just ordered to go from the Kant area to the Hosman Prisoner of War Camp to replace the medical staff there. This ruins was an accident, and the team would not stay here for too long. Wright knew this, but he still hoped to hold a small purification ceremony for the village - which could be regarded as fulfilling his responsibility as a priest.
After obtaining the consent of the team commander, he came to the center of the ruins of the village. There was a collapsed longhouse here, which may have been a gathering place for the villagers. The house had been burned down, with charred wooden boards. The roof beams were buried among the broken soil and gravel like a tangled mass of dead branches, while the thin beams used to support the roof pointed toward the blue sky like strange, skinny limbs.
Beside the house is a buried well.
Wright found a fairly regular tile from the ruins and placed it next to the well. He poured some water into the tile and placed a few small flowers next to the tile. wildflowers, and then he took out a white candle that was only as long as his thumb from his arms and placed it behind the tiles to symbolize the holy light.
After arranging all this, he gently rubbed his fingers above the candle.
Nothing happened, not even a shred of holy light appeared.
Wright silently retracted his hand and took out the fire starter from his arms - a small magical device made of two copper plates engraved with fire element runes and a small magic storage crystal - - He put the fire starter close to the candle and pressed the switch. The front end of the rune copper piece immediately emitted a red light, igniting the candle wick.
"May the Holy Light protect your way forward... May you no longer be trapped in the cold and darkness... May your souls be at peace... No more hunger and suffering from now on..."
Wright finished reciting the prayer softly, then leaned down to extinguish the candle, but before putting the candle away, he suddenly saw something familiar lying quietly among the weeds next to the well out of the corner of his eye.
It was an iron badge, only the size of a hazelnut. It had the symbols of a circle and a beam of light, and on the edge you could see an iron ring for threading belts or silk threads - this was a The Holy Light Badge is hung on the breastplate of the Holy See Knight.
Wright picked up the badge and looked at it quietly at the emblem representing the Holy Light Church.
He suddenly remembered that there were priests and priests from the Holy Spirit Plain in the noble coalition.Even the Holy See knights support.
He turned around and looked at the burned longhouse. Among the ruins of the longhouse, he finally vaguely sensed the remaining magic wave, which was left by the Holy Light. The next breath.
The missing Holy Light emblem was held in Wright's hand, twisting and folding little by little.
At this moment, a very subtle sound suddenly reached the pastor's ears, which instantly attracted his attention.
It was a very short, very light sound, like a twig falling on the ground. The sound of a light rabbit running across the grass might be more obvious than that, but Wright Still noticing the strange noise, he immediately started looking for it - he searched back and forth many times next to the collapsed and damaged longhouse.
Finally, he finally found a cover covered with dirt, gravel and charred wood, as well as an iron ring fixed to the cover.
Wright threw aside a few larger stones and wood, then grabbed the iron ring on the cover with one hand, pulled hard, and lifted the cover - in In the darkness under the cover, he saw a dozen pairs of frightened eyes.
"There are survivors here!"
The soldiers quickly gathered around, and after a dozen heavily armed soldiers appeared, the frightened civilians in the cellar finally left. Walking out without any choice, Wright counted a total of seventeen people, men, women, old and young.
These people are in ragged clothes, with sallow complexion and thin skin. They are extremely haggard because they have not seen the sun for many days. They may have been hiding in the cellar since the noble soldiers left. They are so weak that it is difficult to even stand. They can only They gathered in a small group leaning on each other, looking at the strange soldiers in front of them with fearful eyes.
A combat soldier jumped from the open cellar entrance. After a moment, the soldier climbed up the ladder: "There are three more below - they are dead and need help to lift them up."
The team commander asked other soldiers to go down to help, and he came to the survivors: "Are you from this village? Are you the only ones left?"
Survived The soldiers looked at each other with panic expressions. Some shook their heads repeatedly, some nodded hesitantly, and some just stood blankly, as if they did not understand the commander's words at all.
"Go and get some food and water first," the commander sighed, turning to tell the people around him, "Don't get the dried meat, they may choke to death."
< p>The food was quickly brought over, but the dozen or so people just looked at it with vigilance and doubt. They swallowed, but no one dared to come forward until the soldiers stuffed the food into their hands. Only then did they confirm that these things were really for themselves.After the first person stuffed the food into his mouth, the others immediately started devouring it - Wright could feel that as the food was swallowed, these people finally became less interested in the soldiers in front of them. So slightly wary.
AlthoughThey are still nervous.
"Are you from this village?" After those people recovered a little strength, Wright walked among them and asked in as gentle a tone as possible, "Have you been hiding in the cellar? Are there other cellars in the village?"
Several villagers looked at Wright's burly figure with fear, but finally one person spoke: "We are...there is no one else..."< /p>
Then the person who spoke pointed to the cellar behind him, and then to the people around him: "It's just us."
"We are Duke Gawain Cecil's Army," the team commander said from the side, "Don't be afraid, you are safe."
However, the villagers did not respond to the team commander's words as if they did not understand, and looked at them in fear. The melting swords worn by those soldiers at their waists.
"Cecil's army is different from other armies. We don't steal food." The team commander certainly knew what these villagers were afraid of. "Who burned down the village? The knights of Viscount Consisco?" Viscount Carroll? Or another noble?"
The villagers couldn't help but tremble when they heard these names, but no one dared to answer the team commander's question directly, as if they were afraid. Anyone who spoke here would be hanged on the gallows the next day, but a few seconds later, a crisp voice spoke boldly: "It's the knight in the white robe..."
The person who spoke was a child. Judging from the voice, she should be a girl. But as soon as she was halfway through speaking, the adult next to her quickly covered the child's mouth, so that the rest of her words could only be indistinct. Whining sound.
Wright knelt down in front of the child and waved the adults next to him to get out of the way. He looked into the child's eyes - they were a pair of exceptionally bright big eyes, even though the little girl looked nothing like him. There were even large freckles on her beautiful, rough and dry skin, and her dry and messy hair, which looked like weeds, covered a quarter of her face, but her big eyes peeking out from behind the messy hair made her Very impressive.
Wright looked at those eyes and asked word for word: "The knights in white robes - are they knights of the church?"
The little girl shook her head blankly at first. He shook his head, and then nodded hesitantly: "I don't know...but there are priests around them..."
Someone among the survivors finally couldn't help it and sobbed in a low voice: "We are friends." Those who have received food...all have given food..."
Wright knew what this seemingly meaningless statement meant.
They handed over the food - when the aristocratic coalition launched an army, the civilians in every territory must have donated food and property to serve as military rations. The nobles would say "We are sending troops to protect you." " to expropriate these things, and many civilians will easily believe these statements (because even if they don't believe it, it is meaningless, the right to speak is in the hands of the lords), I am afraid that until the noble soldiers who were defeated from the front line came to plunder the village,When they set fire to the house, they couldn't figure out what happened.
Even now, when they see the Cecil people appearing in front of them, few of them will think that these "strangers" in front of them are the people who fought with the lord before, or even if they think of it, they There will be no reaction to this. They will only lament their misfortune and be afraid of the swords and staffs in the hands of the nobles, knights and soldiers. Above this, the more complicated interests are what they want. Don't understand.
The only thing they could think of was that they had "delivered food" before.
It seems ignorant, but behind the ignorance is ignorance, and behind the ignorance is numbness.
The soldiers who went to investigate the situation around the village came back and found dozens of corpses in a pit not far outside the village.
It is not easy to completely incinerate so many corpses in a short period of time. The team does not carry enough fuel and cannot find enough combustion aids nearby. The team commander can only order those corpses to be left behind. Dirt pit, buried on the spot - together with the three bodies recovered from the cellar.
After these things were done, Wright found the commander: "I want to take those dozen people to Cecil - at least to the front-line camp, where someone can escort them to Go south."
Wright can't let go of the dozen survivors - their homes have been destroyed, there is no food and medicine, and it is early summer, the rejuvenated Steppenwolf and others Wild beasts are roaming in the wilderness. Without the protection of village fences, houses and lights, a dozen unarmed villagers may not survive three days in the wilderness. This is not Cecil after all, and the danger in the wilderness is great.
"We have to report within the specified time. This is the discipline of the army." The commander certainly understood Wright's thoughts, but he had to emphasize the underlying problem, "Those civilians are too weak. We don't have the energy to rush in a short time. If we take them with us, we will definitely be delayed."
Wright could not refute, but the team commander continued after a pause of two or three seconds: "But if you are willing. , I can leave you with a few soldiers, and I will take the medical team to report to the camp first, and you will follow with these people - this is in line with discipline."
"Okay. , I have no problem," Wright agreed happily, and then said with a serious face, "In addition, I have a suggestion, Captain - there may be more than one village like this where the nobles' troops were defeated and plundered, and the survivors hid or fled. , we should report the situation, and then try to find these places and save more people."
"Don't worry," the team commander nodded, "I will report it."