Chapter 357 Battle of Black Mountain (Before the War)
There was a legend widely circulated in Langsand County:
Looking from the flat Ibe Plain, if the weather is clear, you can From the top of Black Mountain, you can see the spire of Black Pottery Town Bell Tower.
Later, after research by Al scholars, it was confirmed that this sentence first appeared eighty years ago and was used by a French poet to describe the Golden Plains and the City of Changsong.
Then Qianhe River Valley’s regional blackness added a few new strokes.
Logically speaking, the relative height of Black Mountain is only about 40 meters, and the terrain of Langsand County changes from high to low from north to south, so this is purely a rumor.
Niedersall has heard this rumor a long time ago, but unfortunately he was unable to verify it this morning.
There is a dense forest hunting ground near Montenegro. The vegetation transpires at night and the air is humid, but the temperature drops sharply in the morning.
When they got up and marched during morning prayers, they actually saw the summer morning mist.
The gauze-like mist covers the endless wheat fields. As long as the sun shines, the mist will melt into the sunlight like an invisible dream.
In the gray mist, a large number of troops were marching along the dirt roads in the countryside. Because there were ten thousand of them, they had to take two roads to move forward.
It is a pity that this dreamlike and beautiful scene is mixed with the smell of fireworks and corpses, and the screams of women and the cries of children are as faint as mist.
For professional military personnel such as Knight Ibe on the march, it is impossible to set up supply depots along the way and order the supply depots to purchase supplies before the arrival of the army.
The professionalism of the knights does not allow them to use such difficult operations.
So there is only one way they adopt, and that is to get food on the spot, and when it comes to action, it is - grab!
"Open the door!"
Inside the house, the light was dim, and the air was filled with the smell of earth and old wood.
Gong Bo Nong, a family of three, sat in front of the table, holding the wooden spoon from which he drank rice cracker porridge in shock and numbness.
The middle-aged Cushite farmer hesitated for a moment, then slowly walked towards the door, and unlatched the door with trembling hands.
The door was pushed open violently, knocking the middle-aged farmer off his feet. The night watch guards rushed in roughly, their armor gleaming coldly in the dim light.
Without any explanation, they quickly dispersed and began searching for belongings in the house.
The peasant woman hugged her daughter and stood uneasily by the door, neither daring to scream nor to stop her. She could only cry silently, watching the originally dilapidated but clean home become a mess.
These bandit-like night guards roughly turned over furniture and kicked open sacks, looking for any place where property might be hidden.
“What do you want?” The middle-aged farmer stood up tremblingly, “I don’t have anything valuable here.”
The soldiers ignored their father’s pleas and were still walking around. He rummaged around and turned the crude pottery and rattan baskets into a mess.
One of the soldiers found a small wooden box hidden under the fireplace. He pulled the box out and kicked off the lid.
Dark yellow coppers were dotted with several silvery-white dinars. The tall, armored sergeant reached out and grabbed a handful in the wooden box.
"That's it?" He sneered, "I know you unclean people must have hidden more! Hand it over!"
The father shook his head in despair: " No, this is all our savings. We really have nothing. "
The armored sergeant sneered and was about to speak when he saw a white sliver of wood on the ground from the corner of his eye. He stretched out his hand and touched it. Sure enough, a plank of wood was lifted.
"Wait, that's..."
Ignoring the middle-aged farmer who was jumping anxiously, the sergeant shouted directly: "Someone, help me."
Several guards stepped forward, He grabbed the bag head and worked together to drag out several large bags of grain.
The armored sergeant used a dagger to cut a hole in the bag, and white rice crackers flowed out of the hole.
It was as if the middle-aged farmer’s blood had flowed out of the hole in the void.
"You still say you don't have any?" The armored sergeant grabbed a handful of wheat and threw it at the middle-aged farmer's face.
The look on the middle-aged farmer's face turned green and white. He looked back at his daughter and wife, who were so thin from hunger. He gritted his teeth and rushed forward, directly throwing himself on the grain bag.
“Are you looking for death?” The middle-aged farmer on the side of the guard was so frightened that his sword was unsheathed, and he became furious after he realized what he was doing.
He sheathed his sword and slapped the middle-aged farmer on the face with his backhand.
The middle-aged farmer was beaten until half of his face was swollen, but he still lay firmly and desperately on the grain bag: "Please, at least let us keep rations and seed grains."
"If you don't hand it over, don't blame us!" A guard grabbed the middle-aged farmer's collar and tried to pull him off.
But the farmer was so frightened that his neck shrank, but his body refused to move. The veins on his fingers and arms bulged, and he tightly protected the large bags of grain.
"Please, just give us a bag of grain and leave us rations..." the farmer begged hoarsely and desperately.
"You asked for it!" The armored sergeant impatiently pulled out his armed sword and inserted it along his back.
"No--" the peasant woman screamed.
The armed sword pierced the middle-aged farmer's back directly. The farmer's body shook violently, and blood gurgled out of the corner of his mouth, soaking half the bag of rice crackers red in the blink of an eye.
“No, no, no, no—”
The sunken-cheeked peasant woman seemed to be crazy, and her screams kept echoing in the house.
She abandoned her crying little daughter, covered her head and hit the armored sergeant. The armored sergeant didn't move at all, but she was so shocked that she almost fell to the ground.
"I'll strangle you to death, I'll strangle you to death!" Chicken-like fingers pressed on the armored sergeant's neck, and the farmer's wife squeezed with all her strength.
The armored sergeant immediately stuck out his tongue, tilted his head and rolled his eyes.
The surrounding guards laughed in unison.
After having fun, the armored sergeant had no intention of pestering the ugly peasant woman. He raised his hand and stabbed the sword through the heart and out the back.
As the corpses fell down, lying cross-wise, there were splashes of blood, and the smell of blood covered up the smell of old wood.
"What about the other one?" Looking at the frightened peasant girl beside the wall who was incontinent, the armored sergeant looked around, "Do you want to play?"
"Forget it, it stinks. "
"She is unclean, maybe she has some internal disease."
"I can kill her, but I will starve to death if I don't. Let's do good deeds."
One. The bearded guard drew his armed sword and walked towards the little girl step by step: "Don't be afraid, it's just a matter of a moment..."
"Get away!" The guard who was walking towards the little girl was kicked in the waist and rolled on the spot.
Standing up and raising his head, he was about to curse when he saw the hem of his silk robe fluttering.
"Good morning, Count Domenico." The night guard was instantly more docile than a lamb, and his arched fighting posture smoothly turned into a bow with his hat off.
The smell of blood in the room made Domenico wrinkle his nose: "What's going on?"
"This family refused to pay food and wanted to attack us, so we fought back Yes." The armored sergeant pushed away the crowd and said with a smile.
"Did this girl also attack you?"
The people present looked at me and I looked at you, but none of them spoke.
"Take the food and get out." Domenico thought with his butt that he knew what happened, but in the final analysis, they were the dogs of the Fran family and the Leia family.
It’s not easy for the owner’s long-term worker to beat the owner’s dog.
Take the little girl's hand and walk outside the house, preventing her from seeing the two corpses.
But there were still corpses everywhere outside the house, including those of neighbors and uncles.
Domenico covered the little girl's eyes. The little girl's shoulders were twitching up and down. She seemed to be crying, but she couldn't shed a single tear or make a sound.
These are all members of Domenico's clan. He is also a Kushite. How did it get to this point?
With the peasant girl in his arms, Domenico mounted the horse and ran all the way, as if he wanted to vent all the anger and helplessness in his heart.
But he didn't run long before his destination was in front of him.
In the forest located on the edge of the Black Mountain, most of the fog has dissipated at this moment.
The mist is like gauze, like a golden-red brocade scarf in the rising sun.
In the fresh wind, butterflies danced gracefully with the fragrance of flowers and the smell of blood.
Pushing his water bottle and dry food into the little girl's hands, Domenico pushed her back: "Let's go to the forest and don't come out until the war is over."
< br>"Then when will the war end?" The mute girl was pushed two steps towards the forest. She turned around and spoke for the first time, "Tomorrow? Or the day after tomorrow?"
Opening his mouth, his words were stuck in his throat and nothing came out.
Just when he licked his lips and didn't know what to say, he heard a series of explosions like exploding beans.
“Bang, bang, bang—bang!”
“Ah—”
The loud horn sound representing the call followed.
Domenico's expression changed drastically, and he started running towards the horse.
He didn’t dare to delay the task assigned to him by his grandmother.
It’s just that he didn’t take two steps before he felt something was wrong. Why did it seem like something was dragging him? When I looked down, it was still the same girl.
She grabbed the hem of Domenico's clothes and had just been dragged out seven or eight meters away. Looking into Domenico's eyes, she still asked stubbornly:
"War When will it end?”
Domenico was silent. He squatted down, looked at the tear-filled eyes, grabbed mud and smeared it on the little girl's face:
"You go north, keep going north, When you see a black and red flag, the war is over”
(End of Chapter)