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.
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.
At first, Lehman hadn’t felt much pain, however, after they had conquered the gate, he noticed that he had problems with lifting his arm, when he unlocked the armor he discovered that his forearm had already swollen up like a rolling pin.
“I hope there’s an analgesic herb in the church,” Levin said. “They often prepare some strange things.”
“Like those pills for example.” Duane, another Knight who happens to be near, said.
Soon, the knights reached the church’s gate, and a team of around 100 militia could already be seen waiting for them, showing off a look full of desire.
“Hand out some pills to them,” Lehman dismounted from his horse. When he saw that everyone had taken the pills, he turned around, climbed the stairs and led his team to the main hall.
“Halt,” the two gatekeepers shouted, “This is Holy Land, no one is allowed to bring their weapons inside!”
