After an hour of training, Carter let the gun team sit down and gave them a break. At this moment His Royal Highness the Prince also showed up on the practice ground, followed by a woman who was wearing a hood. This didn’t take the Knight by surprise. Previously, at the beginning of the training, His Royal Highness had informed him in advance, that during today’s practice they would be assisted by a witch.
However, Carter hadn’t known that the witch would be so tall, as far as he could determine it with his eyes, she was almost as high as His Highness.
“Your Highness!” The soldiers shouted and raised their hands.
“Thank you for your effort,” receiving their greeting Roland nodded, and walked around since he also wanted to speak with just Carter alone. But at this moment a soldier suddenly rushed in the direction of the Prince. Discovering this Carter frowned, placed his hand on the hilt of his sword and took a step forward, placing the Prince behind himself. Nightingale had been even faster to react, her hand appeared out of the fog and grabbed Roland’s arm. As long as the situation turned out to go even slightly wrong, she would be able to pull the Prince into the fog.
But then they discovered that the person was rushing out was actually Iron Axe.
And even more, he didn’t run to the Prince, but instead to the unknown witch, immediately falling down to his knees in front of her. Not the Kingdom’s normal kneeling on one knee, no, he threw his whole body flat on the ground, with his head deeply buried between his arms, “My Clan Leader!”
With this, the training of the gun team came to a forced break.
*
“First tell me, what’s going on?”
Back in the Castle Hall, Carter, Echo, and Iron Axe stood in a row, while Roland sat at the Lord position, he asked clearly dissatisfied.
From the beginning on Roland had a very good impression of Iron Axe, but with his action of today, he could only sigh. So his final analysis was, it seemed that his inner cultural quality wasn’t able to keep up with his practical talents, he clearly hadn’t understood the meaning of the word discipline.
“Your Royal Highness,” Iron Axe couldn’t help himself to wait any longer. He wanted to kneel down, showing his regret. But when he was already halfway down on his knee, he was stopped by Roland.
“Stand straight and speak!”
‘Yes!” Iron Axe swallowed nervously, and then began to speak, “I grew up in Ironsand City and vowed my loyalty and devotion to the Osha Clan and the new Clan Leader Silver Moon.”
“No, Kabago, I am not the Clan Leader…” Echo quickly disagreed.
“No, you are,” Iron Axe retorted, “Your father and brother already died, in accordance with the Osha custom, from the moment of their death you became the Clan Leader of our Osha Clan. When I heard that you were sold to the Port of Clearwater I immediately went there, but I was unable to find you, I thought that you had … died.
“But I — ”
Roland interrupted Echo, “One by one, first let Iron Axe finish his story.”
“I will obey you until the end of my life, Your Highness.”
…
The story wasn’t complicated; Roland was quickly able to understand the general idea behind what happened.
Echo was originally a member of the Ironsand City’s Osha Clan. Her former name was Silver Moon, and her father had been the Clan Leader of the Osha Clan.
The people of Sand Nation didn’t have an easy life. Ironsand City was only able to accommodate a limited population, so every three years, each clan had to take part in the sacred duel, and the six clans who won would receive the right to live in the city, while the other clans either lived outside of the city, or went together to the Green Sea. These places were dangerous places to live, although they offered water, but the demonic beasts and sandstorms would cause a great threat to the Sandpeople. So during each Sacred Duel, the warriors of various clan would spare no effort in order to win.
