Chapter 408 Villagers

Wright walked slowly among the collapsed and destroyed ruins. The wind from the south blew across the fields, over the trampled and destroyed wheat fields, and into this devastated place. The smell of blood and burning was no longer in the wind. With a touch of moistness and sweetness - a sign that a summer rain may soon arrive.

After the rain, the grass and trees will germinate, and new shoots will grow in the destroyed fields. Nature will always come back to life faster than human beings, and this village, which was set on fire by the nobles, does not know what time to rebuild.

This small team did not come to clean the battlefield. Wright and his new comrades were only ordered to go from the Kant area to the Hossman prisoner of war camp to replace the medical staff there. It was an accident that they passed by this ruins, the team It won't be here for long, Wright knows, but he still hopes to perform a small purification ritual for the village--a kind of fulfilling his duty as a priest.

After obtaining the consent of the squad commander, he came to the middle of the ruins of the village. There is a collapsed longhouse, which may be the gathering place of the villagers. The house has been burnt down, and the charred planks and beams are like a mass The tangled twigs were buried among the broken dirt and rubble, and the thin beams that supported the roof pointed to the blue sky like bony, monstrous limbs.

And next to the house, is the landfill well.

Wright found a fairly regular tile from the ruins and placed it beside the well. He poured some water into the tile and placed a few small wild flowers beside the tile. He took out a section of white candle that was only the length of a thumb and placed it behind the tile to symbolize the Holy Light.

After arranging all this, he gently rubbed his fingers over the candle.

Nothing happened, not even a shred of holy light.

Wright silently retracted his hand, and took out the lighter from his bosom—a small magic device, made of two pieces of copper engraved with the elemental rune of fire and a small crystal of magic storage—he held the lighter close to the candle , press the switch, and the front end of the rune copper piece immediately emits red light, igniting the candle wick.

"May the Holy Light protect your path... no more cold and darkness... may your souls be at peace... no more hunger and suffering..."

Wright finished his prayer softly, then leaned down to extinguish the candle, but before he put it away, out of the corner of his eye suddenly saw something familiar lying quietly among the weeds by the well.

It was an iron badge, the size of a hazelnut, with the symbols of a circle and a beam of light on it, and an iron ring for wearing a belt or silk thread on the edge - this is a badge of the Holy Light, which hangs on the edge. On the breastplate of a knight of the Holy See.

Wright picked up the badge,

Look silently at the emblem of the Church of the Holy Light on it.

He suddenly remembered that there were priests, priests, and even Holy See knights from the Holy Spirit Plain to support the noble coalition.

He turned around and looked at the burned longhouse. In the ruins of the longhouse, he finally faintly sensed the residual magic fluctuations, which were the breath left by the Holy Light.

The missing holy light emblem was pinched by Wright in his hand, twisted and folded a little bit.

At this moment, a very subtle sound suddenly entered the pastor's ears, instantly attracting his attention.

It was a short, very soft sound, like a twig falling to the ground, and the sound of a light rabbit running across the grass might be more pronounced than that, but Wright still noticed the strange sound. , he immediately followed the sound to look for it - next to the collapsed and destroyed longhouse, he searched back and forth many times.

Eventually, he found a cover covered in dirt, rubble and charred wood, and a hoop fastened to the cover.

Wright threw aside some of the larger stones and logs, then grabbed the hoop on the cover with one hand, and with a strong pull, lifted the cover—in the darkness below the cover , he saw a dozen pairs of eyes full of horror.

"There are survivors here!"

The soldiers quickly gathered, and after more than a dozen fully armed soldiers appeared, the frightened civilians in the cellar finally had no choice but to come out. Wright counted by the side, there were seventeen men, women and children in total. .

These people are in ragged clothes, yellow-faced and skinny. They are very emaciated because they have not seen the sun for many days. They may have been hiding in the cellar since the noble soldiers left. At this moment, the weak ones are even struggling to stand. They can only lean against each other and gather together. Xiaodui looked at the strange soldiers in front of him with fearful eyes.

A combat soldier jumped down from the open cellar door, and after a while the soldier climbed up the ladder: "There are three more down below - dead, need someone to help lift them up."

The squad commander ordered other soldiers to go down to help, and he came to the survivors: "Are you from this village? Are you the only one left?"

The survivors looked at each other with panicked expressions, some shook their heads, some nodded hesitantly, and some just stood there in a daze, as if they didn't understand the commander at all.

"Go get some food and water first," the commander sighed, turning his head and instructing the people around him, "Don't get the jerky, they might choke themselves to death."

The food was quickly brought over, but the dozen or so people just watched with alertness and doubt. They swallowed, but no one dared to go forward until the soldiers put the food into their hands. Make sure these things are really for yourself.

After the first person put the food into his mouth, the others immediately devoured it too - Wright could feel that as the food was swallowed, these people finally became less wary of the soldiers in front of them.

Although they are still nervous.

"Are you people from this village?" After those people regained some physical strength, Wright walked among them and asked as gently as possible, "You have been hiding in the cellar? There are other cellars in the village. Is it?"

A few villagers looked at Wright's burly figure with a little fear, but finally one person spoke up: "We are... there is no one else..."

Then the person who opened the mouth pointed to the cellar behind him and to the people around him: "Just us."

"We are the army of Duke Gawain Cecil," the squad commander said beside him, "don't be afraid, you are all safe."

However, the villagers didn't respond to the squad commander's words as if they didn't understand it, and looked at the molten swords worn by the soldiers' waists in fear.

"Cecil's army is different from other armies, we don't rob food," the squad commander certainly knew what the villagers were afraid of, "who burned down the village? Viscount Consco's knight? Viscount Carroll's? Or another noble?"

The villagers couldn't help shaking when they heard these names, but no one dared to answer the squad commander's question directly, as if they were afraid that if they spoke here, they would be hanged on the gallows the next day. After planting, there was still a crisp voice that boldly said, "It's a knight in a white robe..."

It was a child who spoke, and it should be a girl from the sound of her voice, but when she was halfway through, the adult next to her quickly covered the child's mouth, so that the rest of her words could only be turned into a vague whimper. .

Wright crouched down in front of the child, and waved the adult beside him to move away. He looked into the child's eyes - big, bright eyes, even though the little girl wasn't pretty at all, with rough, dry skin. There were even large patches of freckles, and her dry, messy hair like weeds covered a quarter of her face, but the big eyes peeking out from behind the messy hair were particularly impressive.

Wright looked at those eyes and asked word by word, "The knights in white robes—are they the knights of the church?"

The little girl first shook her head in a daze, then nodded hesitantly: "I don't know... but they have a priest beside them..."

One of the survivors finally couldn't bear it any longer, sobbing in a low voice: "We handed in the food...they all handed in the food..."

Wright knew what the seemingly endless words meant.

They handed over food—when the nobles allied forces went out to expedition, presumably the civilians in every territory donated food and property to serve as military rations, and the nobles would collect these things on the grounds that "we sent troops to protect you", And many commoners will easily believe these statements (because even if they don't believe it, it is meaningless, and the right to speak is in the hands of the lords), I am afraid that until the defeated noble soldiers from the front line come to loot the village and set fire to the house, they will also engage in Don't understand what happened.

Even now, seeing the Cecilians appearing in front of them, few of them would think that these "foreigners" in front of them were the ones who fought with the Lord Lord before, or even if they thought of it, they would not have anything to do with it. In response, they would only bemoan their misfortune, and fear the swords and staffs in the hands of the nobles, the knights, and the soldiers, and the more complicated interests above them are beyond their comprehension.

The only thing they can think of is that they "handed in the food" before.

It seems ignorant, but behind ignorance is ignorance, and behind ignorance is numbness.

The soldiers who went to check the situation around the village came back. They found dozens of bodies in a dirt pit not far from the village.

It is not easy for so many corpses to be completely incinerated in a short period of time. The team did not carry enough fuel and could not find enough fuel nearby. The team commander could only order those corpses to be left in the pit and buried on the spot— — along with the three corpses 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 camp, where someone can escort them to the south."

Wright couldn't let go of the dozen or so survivors—their homes had been destroyed, there was no food or medicine, and it was early summer, and revived Steppenwolf and other beasts were wandering the wilderness without village fences or houses , The protection of the lights, a dozen or so unarmed villagers may not survive for three days in the wilderness. After all, this is not Cecil, and the danger in the wilderness is great.

"We have to report within the stipulated time. This is the discipline of the military." The commander certainly understood Wright's thoughts, but he must emphasize the underlying problem. "Those civilians are too weak and have no strength to travel in a short time. , bring them, we will definitely be delayed."

Wright could not refute, but the squad commander said after a pause for two or three seconds: "But if you want, I can leave you a few soldiers. I will report to the camp with the medical team first. It's disciplined to have these people following behind you."

"Okay, I'm fine," Wright agreed happily, and then said with a serious face, "Also, I have a suggestion, Captain—I am afraid that the villages and towns that are looted by the nobles like this, the survivors hide or flee More than one, we should report the situation and try to find these places and save more people."

"Don't worry," the squad commander nodded, "I will report it."