Chapter 504 Mass Burial Pits
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Plains of the Holy Spirit, east.
It rained all night, and the field was full of large and small puddles and slippery and muddy land. The tenaciously growing white-stem grass fell to the ground under the scouring of the rain. You must be extra careful when you walk on it. Just do it.
Taka, the corpse dragger, drove the cart carefully on the field. He had to concentrate on picking out places that were free of water and more solid, so as to prevent the cart's wheels from getting caught in the quagmire. In such a place far away from the camp , once the wheels get stuck in the quagmire, it will be a very troublesome thing.
A gust of cold wind blew, and the unshaven strong man couldn't help shivering. He raised his yellow and cloudy eyes, looked at the low-hanging sky in the distance, and couldn't help muttering: "The blood god is really above. Hell weather."
Rain on the night of Allingah is not a good sign, especially for superstitious corpse draggers.
From the perspective of mysticism, the rain on the night of soul reunion will seriously affect the effect of the bonfire, and even make some small bonfires unable to burn smoothly. The lost ancestors' souls will wander in the curtain formed by water vapor and flames. Plain residents Most of the terrible legends about evil spirits of the mountain people come from this.
From a practical point of view, the rain on Anling Day often means that the weather will turn cold quickly, and the winter will come earlier and more rapidly.
Either way, it's not a good thing for ordinary people.
The cart seemed to run over rocks on the road, and the whole car swayed violently. Taka hurriedly controlled the reins to maintain his balance. With the neighing of several pack horses, the car stabilized again. The strong corpse dragger He quickly turned his head and glanced at the car deck behind him, where more than a dozen human-shaped "goods" wrapped in sackcloth were still fixed there, and the ropes showed no signs of loosening.
"You guys should stay well," Taka muttered. "A bonfire will be lit for you on Anling Day next year."
The corpse certainly doesn't respond to the corpse dragger's words, but like every eccentric and taboo corpse dragger, Taka has his own quirks, and he's used to talking to the "goods" he's delivering, pretending that those are capable A "passenger" who understands his own words thinks it is necessary for him to have a good relationship with the "passengers". Only by maintaining a good relationship can these "passengers" find trouble for him in the future.
Especially since these "passengers" still died on the battlefield and were the remains of soldiers who were rumored to be most likely to become evil spirits, it was even more sloppy.
The road ahead was very slippery, and the puddles were difficult to bypass. The tow man carefully controlled the car.
While swearing in a low voice: "This damn civil war... I don't know when it will be fought. Do you think so?"
Although he cursed like this, Taka knew very well that if it weren't for this civil war, his "business" would not have been so good.
War will create a lot of corpses, soldiers, civilians, and even occasionally knights and mages. Of course, the latter are noble dead, and it is not the turn of the bottom-level corpse draggers like Taka to contact, but the former does not. Likewise, those who die on and on the edge of the battlefield will be the main source of income for the corpse haulers. The commanders of the warring parties and the people in the village will hire professional corpses to dispose of those corpses that are too late to converge, or whose identities cannot be identified. The corpses do not need to bury them seriously, but only need to transport them to the designated pit. , to avoid polluting the water source or generating evil spirits.
This is a lowly but well-paid job. The corpse draggers are usually engaged in it for generations, and they often do this kind of thing to deal with the dead. The corpse draggers will naturally form their own set of rules and taboos, such as absolute The deceased must not be insulted, the name of the god of death must not be recited when collecting the body (this is to prevent the dead who should have entered the kingdom of other gods from being targeted by the god of death), and the body must be sent to the funeral within two days after the end of the Anling Day. destination.
It is precisely because of this rule that Taka has to hurry on the muddy and slippery plains to prevent his "passengers" from getting angry because they missed the "day of return" after Requiem.
When the giant sun was gradually rising into the sky, Taka finally arrived.
This is a place far away from the front line of war, and far away from any camp of the Easterners or Wang **, it is a natural pit, and now it has become stinky.
The corpse dragger put on a heavy scarf and hood, and wrapped his hands with strips of cloth. He nimbly jumped out of the cart and looked out at the deserted place.
Frankly speaking, this is not a very suitable cemetery. It does not meet the teachings of the gods of death, nor does it meet the requirements of the blood god, but this is the place designated by the client, so Taka, who is a corpse dragger, will not. I'll get to the bottom of why the corpses have to be thrown into this big pit.
There are some scattered wooden carvings and metal frames around the pit. Those are simple altars set up by the priests to appease the soul. They are very rough things, but they are enough to deal with the lowest level of evil spirits. Taka walked to one of the wood carvings next to the edge of the big pit, and then took out a crumpled death chrysanthemum from his arms according to the rules of the corpse dragger, and placed it at the root of the wood carving.
The little white flowers lie quietly in a muddy patch, their petals shaking slightly in the cold wind, this little flower that can be seen everywhere in a humid, shady environment has an amazing vitality, it can grow and bloom almost all year round , even after being taken off, it can survive tenaciously for several days. The Ansu people firmly believe that this incredible vitality is the evidence that they can communicate the kingdom of the living and the dead, and the Ansu people also believe in another thing: every flower The death chrysanthemum grows in the kingdom of the living and the dead at the same time. The moment it withers in the world is the moment when it blooms in the underworld, and the soul of the deceased will pass through this secret at the moment when the death chrysanthemum withers and blooms. The contact successfully arrived at the "other shore", and embarked on the road to the various kingdoms of God on the other shore...
"Xiaohua, I hope you can guide these lost people to find their destination..." The corpse dragged said in a low voice, drawing the mark of the Blood God on his chest, "Alas... It's really hard for you, a flower needs to be picked up. attract so many people..."
After saying this, Taka turned around and prepared to go to the cart to carry the body.
However, before taking a step, his eyes suddenly noticed another thing not far away.
It was the embers of a bonfire, and it was a small bonfire.
The corpse dragger was a little curious. He walked to the embers of the bonfire and smelled a slight smell of smoke and dust in his nostrils.
The bonfire was extinguished not long ago.
"Anyone here to mourn the dead?" Taka muttered, walking around the small bonfire, "Could it be that a relative of some lucky guy in the mass grave came over to pick up the body..."
Halfway through the corpse man's words, he suddenly stopped.
The rain last night was not small, and I heard that it was especially heavy on the Dakeng side.
In the continuous rain, it is difficult for such a small bonfire to burn smoothly. Even with the bark of the black-grained tree that can burn in the rain, it should not burn so thoroughly.
There is no trace of dampness around the bonfire. It is not dried by the fire, but it seems that there is no rain falling on the ground in a radius of more than ten meters.
In addition to the smell of smoke and dust, there is also a strange sweet smell in the air, which seems to be some kind of floral fragrance, but it is not the smell of death chrysanthemum.
Taka has been a corpse dragger for half his life, and he knows all about the spices that will appear on Anling's Day, but he has never smelled anything like it...
Although it was impossible to say what was going on, the corpse-dragging man instinctively felt a strange feeling. This strange feeling made him uneasy, and reminded him vaguely of the rumors that had circulated among the corpse-dragging people recently. ...
It is said that ghouls haunt the night... there are flesh-devouring monsters operating in the dark lands... the corpses in the mass graves seem to be inexplicably decreasing... the remains that are too late to be buried often disappear for no reason...
In the cold wind of late autumn, the corpse dragger couldn't help shivering. He felt that something malicious was moving under his feet. Although he couldn't see it, the thing seemed to have seen him.
He is not an extraordinary person, but he is a corpse dragger who has dealt with the dead for half his life. He is also a relatively devout blood god. He knows that he has some intuitions that ordinary people do not have. It really allowed him to escape several attacks by evil spirits.
He began to step back cautiously, moving as slowly and naturally as possible, trying not to appear alarmed.
However, a rustling sound suddenly entered his ears, and along with the rustling sound, he saw some turf and clods trembling in the mass grave below, while some were wrapped in sackcloth. The humanoid figure he had thrown in three days ago was writhing weirdly.
The corpse dragger's eyes widened. He clearly saw that a few vine-like things suddenly grew out of the soil and pierced the corpses. Then the ground fluctuated like water and swallowed the corpses into the dark depths. ...
A huge panic hit, he finally exclaimed uncontrollably, and after an exclamation, he ran away.
But the strange sweet smell that filled the air came out again, and it was more obvious than before. In this sudden sweet smell, the corpse dragger Taka was in a trance for a while, and then he fell into a long and deep. 's dream.
A vine-like thing spread out from between the soil and the blades of grass, wrapped around the limbs of the corpse dragger, and in a low grunt and rustling sound, the soil fluctuated like water, dragging him into the ground little by little.
The cold wind of late autumn blew across the plains and the desolate mass graves. It was quiet here, as if nothing had happened.
After a while, a sudden gust of wind blew across the plain, and the gust rolled up large swathes of fallen leaves that came from nowhere. Amidst the falling leaves, a woman in a green priest's robe appeared.
Bertila frowned, looking at the place where the corpse was swallowed by the earth, and sighed slightly: "Unlucky guy..."
"Your bonfire mourning the dead caught his attention," a vague and low voice came from the depths of the earth, accompanied by a rustling sound, "I'm very curious, who is it, who deserves it? A dean lit a bonfire on All Souls' Day... Do you believe in the return of the dead like those ordinary people?"
"Master Heaton, don't forget why you were punished for coming here to collect biomass. Just do your part."
"Ha...you're probably the most boring woman in the world..."
There was a vague grunting sound from the ground, and then the sound gradually subsided, and the rustling shuttle sound gradually subsided. The person who made the sound seemed to have returned to the deeper soil.
Bertila stood quietly for a while, as if thinking about something. After standing still for a few minutes, she stepped forward under the priest's long skirt, and the "legs" composed of countless roots and vines wriggled. , took her to the bonfire that had been extinguished.
A blooming death chrysanthemum falls in the embers of a bonfire.
"I don't care what's in your body... You can't stop this plan.
"Humans will live forever, even if they disobey the gods."