Things are going bad.
Sitting at the foot of the cracked stone wall, Garlan mused.
The original plan was to be captured by himself, and then make some marks along the way, so that the cavalry could keep up in secret from a distance. But the arrangements were made outside the city of Vernal, who knew that those 'thieves' were too bold to rush into the city.
Although he knew that on the way to Ayre Town, two cavalrymen disguised and followed far behind, but the incident happened suddenly. , I'm afraid those cavalry are difficult to track.
Moreover, where is this place now, Garlan himself is still at a loss.
He thought about it, got up, walked to the rusted iron railing, and looked outside while holding the railing.
The gap in the iron fence is not big, but the others are small and can still get a head out.
Then, in the dark dungeon, a fluffy golden head emerged from the iron fence, looking left and right with a pair of big eyes, like a little squirrel sticking its head out of its hole.
He looked at the children curled up in different dungeons who seemed to have fallen asleep, and counted in his heart one, two, three or four.
Well, probably less than twenty.
Garlan, who drilled his head out and watched for a long time, came to a conclusion.
There are at most twenty children locked up in this dungeon.
In this way, the number is not correct. It is said that the number of missing and kidnapped children is about sixty or seventy, and the number here is not even one-third.
Then, there are only two possibilities.
The first is that the kid who was caught earlier has already been sold.
Second, this is just a temporary transit station, and the children here will be sent to the real place of captivity.
According to the little girl named Kerry, the children here were all arrested in the last four or five days, so the second possibility should be more reliable.
So what he has to do now is to first find out where he is, and then wait for those 'thieves' to send himself and these children to the place of imprisonment.
Thinking like this, Garlan retracted the small head that got out, intending to go back to squat and wait for the opportunity honestly.
However, when he walked back all the way, he didn't notice a child sleeping in the corner, and kicked the child, not only tripped him and almost fell, but also kicked the child. Had to turn over halfway.
"Ah, sorry—"
Garlan quickly stretched out his hand to apologize, but when he leaned over, he found that the child who was kicked over didn't wake up.
He suddenly felt a little strange in his heart.
Walking quickly back to the stone wall with an oil lamp hanging, he saw that the old man and the little girl were sleeping, and when he turned around again, he found that everyone else was also asleep.
...not right.
Garlan remembered that when he was looking around, all the children fell asleep.
At first he thought it was just because it was getting late, so everyone went to bed. But think about it, no matter how late, there will always be one or two children who are too scared to sleep, right
He squatted down, reached out and gently pushed Kerry, who was leaning against the old man's side.
"Wake up."
He shouted softly, and seeing that the other party didn't respond, he began to push Kerry's body harder with his hands.
But the little girl didn't know what was going on, she slept soundly and couldn't wake up no matter how much she pushed.
Garland tried to push the old man again. It stands to reason that the old man's sleep was very light and alert, and he should have woken up easily, but the old man, like Kerry, completely fell asleep. If they weren't still breathing, Garland would have thought they were actually dead.
what happened
Before eating, everyone was still in good spirits, and some children were still crying, but now they all fell asleep at once
And only he has nothing to do
…
Wait a minute, 'before dinner'
By the way, that bowl of gruel—
Among all the people here, he was the only one who didn't eat that bowl of porridge!
He figured it out all at once.
Those 'thieves' must have added a drug to the food to make these children sleepy, and they want to put all the children to sleep, presumably so that they don't make noise while being transported out.
With that in mind, they're definitely going to be...
Just as Garlan thought of this, there was a click and the sound of the iron door opening not far away.
Without saying a word, he fell to Kerry's side, closed his eyes and pretended to be in a drowsiness like the other children.
Heavy footsteps came, noisy and messy, as if many people poured into this narrow dungeon corridor. Immediately afterwards, he heard a crisp sound like keys hitting each other, and then the creaking sound of the iron gates being opened one after another.
Someone was giving orders in a low voice, shouting hurry up.
After a short while, with a creak, Garlan heard the iron gate of the dungeon where he was being opened, and a few people walked in quickly. One of them stretched out his hand and rudely carried himself and Kerry on his shoulders.
With his eyes closed, he could hear the man carrying him whispering to the side.
"What about this old guy? Leave it here, or just throw it in the sewer later?"
A voice answered quickly.
"You can take it away together. It's best not to keep people here and throw them in the sewers... No, we'd better take them there together. There are a bunch of little devils over there, so let this old guy go and take care of those little devils."
The conversation ended there, and the man went out carrying him.
Garlan lay on the man's shoulders, with his head hanging on the man's back, and opened his eyes slightly. He saw a dozen tall men in the dungeon, each carrying one or two children and walking out quickly.
After going out of the prison door, there is a spiral stone staircase, which is also extremely worn. Except for the middle part that is often trampled, the rest of the place is covered with moss.
The dark dungeon, where the 'thieves' were hurrying on their way, no one noticed or thought that a sleeping child was secretly watching them.
When the spiral stone steps reached the end, the leading man pushed away the heavy stone above his head and drilled out of the ground, and the others followed suit.
Feeling the moonlight coming down, Garlan quickly closed his eyes, leaving only an extremely small slit, which was hidden under the thick eyelashes, making it difficult to see. From the corner of his eye, he sneaked a glance at Kerry on the other side, and saw that she was still sleeping soundly, and smashed her mouth, not knowing what she was dreaming, but there was actually saliva flowing down the corner of her mouth. , which flowed backwards into her eyes.
Garlan's eyes twitched, and he stopped looking at her.
The man carrying him hurried all the way, and Garlan didn't dare to look up, so he could only see the road under the man's feet.
The ground was very flat, paved with large blocks of bluestone, and had beautiful patterns. Garlan guessed that this place should be a rather luxurious building.
After walking for a while, he was suddenly thrown down, and his whole body fell heavily on the stone ground. The pain was so painful that he almost cried out, and he tried his best to hold it back.
Because it happened to be facing up when he was thrown to the ground, he took the opportunity to squint at it, and quickly closed it again.
Seeing this, he suddenly set off a huge wave in his heart.
Under the moonlight, he saw a tall and majestic building that looked like several squares stacked neatly layer by layer, standing tall and not far away.
Administration!
The last time he followed King Camos into the city of Vernal, he saw this magnificent building in the center of the city's powerful area from a distance.
This is actually the administrative office in the center of Wiener City!
The hiding place of these so-called 'thieves' who attacked the citizens of Vener City was actually the place that was supposed to protect the citizens of Vener City—
While Garlan was tumbling in his heart, he was picked up by the man rudely and carried on his shoulders.
The man still had leather armor on his shoulders, which was so hard that it made his stomach hurt.
He was glad that he didn't drink that bowl of porridge not long ago, otherwise, he would be slapped against his stomach like this when he was awake, and I'm afraid this pampered body would have vomited out of discomfort now.
Resisting the uncomfortable feeling, he gently tapped the wrist guard on his wrist with his fingers.
It was a black cloth wristband with a blue river rune embroidered on it. This kind of amulet for praying for the health of children was very common, so no one took it seriously. But now, when Garlan flicked it lightly with his fingers, two or three tiny black beads rolled out of the gaps in the cloth talisman and fell to the ground.
Those little black beads were about the same size as grains of sand, and they were extremely inconspicuous.
Before Garlan was ready to do this, he made an appointment with his brother Wang and the others for two sets of plans.
The first is that after he was caught, Brother Wang and the others followed and found a place to catch him.
In the second case, if there is an accident and the brothers are thrown away, then he will leave clues so that the brothers can find them.
"Come on."
This group of people is waiting here because they have to join the other two groups.
The other two groups were smaller in number, but they also brought a dozen or so children.
Then, after the group of 'thieves' converged, they carried the child and quickly got into a gate.
The road behind the gate was a slope, leading down to the ground, and Garlan could smell an unnoticeable stench.
He immediately understood.
The sewer, which is a large sewer built under the city of Vinal.
Beneath every large city in Aaron Landis near the often flooded river, an equally large sewer was built, crisscrossing it like a web.
The specifications and standards of these urban sewers are strictly stipulated by the state. They are very wide and must be able to accommodate at least one carriage. Moreover, there are generally roads along the sewer walls for sewer maintenance personnel to walk.
Garland thought.
No wonder the spies hiding in the city couldn't find any clues. It turned out that these children were secretly transported out of the city directly from the sewers of the Administration Office.
I don’t know how long I have walked in the sewers that are curved like a labyrinth. Anyway, every once in a while, Garlan secretly flips the cloth amulet on his wrist and drops some small black sand.
After walking out of the sewers, there was another long cave. He estimated that he had already left the city. This cave was also dug by man.
Garlan reckoned that he had walked for almost half the night before the group finally got out of the ground.
The bright moonlight shone down, and the shadows shrunk into a ball under the feet of the person. Sure enough, it was almost midnight.
With a bang, he was thrown heavily into a wooden cart, and his shoulders, which were hit hard by the hard wooden bottom, were aching.
The child closed his eyes and gritted his teeth bitterly.
The guy who lost me twice, I remember you!
You wait, wait for me—
In his heart, he wrote down the man who rudely tossed him in a small notebook, and Garlan, who was lying in the car, opened his eyes slightly.
There are thick wooden railings in front of me. This body is like a large wooden cage. All twenty or thirty children, including myself, have been thrown in. The low neighing of horses can be vaguely heard in front of the car. Here comes the horse pulling the car.
With the creaking sound of the wooden wheels pressing against the ground, the carriage moved forward.
Garlan could only vaguely see that this was a valley in a deep mountain, surrounded by mountains and dense forests, and it looked very hidden. But he didn't know exactly where it was, so he could only continue to secretly sprinkle small black beads along the way.
The carriage drove for a while, and the front suddenly opened up. Instead of the dense woods, many huge black rocks appeared.
Those dark giant rocks can't tell whether they are naturally formed or man-made. They are all densely packed with small holes. The moonlight in the sky, the light and shadow sway alternately, the strange rocks are jagged, and the wind is blowing and screaming, giving people a kind of feeling. Very weird feeling.
The wagon wheels were still creaking, and Garlan heard a voice.
A very strange voice, like a song, but also like a shout.
The voice was actually not unpleasant, it was a deep and ancient tone that seemed to penetrate people's hearts.
But for some unknown reason, he felt a very uncomfortable feeling when he heard that voice, as if something was stirring in his body, trying to tear something out.
The child lying on the wooden board of the carriage secretly opened his eyes.
The red flames illuminated his face.
He saw ahead, a place surrounded by countless jagged dark rocks, a place surrounded by several erected dark stone slabs, and a huge bonfire was burning.
Under the bonfire is a whole piece of huge black cyan slate, with mysterious patterns carved on it, like patterns and ancient patterns.
A man in a black cyan robe stood by the bonfire, and that strange sound was made by him.
On the side, there are many people around.
The people next to them were kneeling on the ground, everyone was terribly quiet, no one made a sound, and the firelight reflected the extremely pious faces of those people.
A child stood barefoot on one end of the black-blue slate, and the roaring fire reflected the child's dull, dazed face.
On the child's brown-skinned neck and forearm, dense and mysterious patterns were painted with bright red paint.
The moon had reached its mid-point, and it was midnight when the strange voice ceased.
The man in the black-cyan robe stepped forward, cut open the child's two wrists, and let the blood drip onto the black-cyan slate on the ground.
The child whose wrist was cut off still stood there sluggishly, as if he had lost his mind, motionless.
Then, Garlan saw it.
Amidst the screams that were suddenly raised by the people kneeling around, the man in black cyan robe opened his arms to the sky, shouted loudly, and then cut the child's throat with a knife.
The gushing blood flowed through the blood-red runes on the neck and forearm of the child who was standing dumbfounded, and it became more and more bright red, as if it was about to burn in the light of the fire.
Then, the bright red blood dripped on the black cyan slate, blending into the curved patterns, dyeing those patterns a little bit blood red.
The bonfire burned fiercely, as if the moonlight in the sky had been dyed with an ominous blood red.
Garlan in the wooden cage closed his eyes suddenly.
He held his breath, clenched his fingers hard, and the fingertips made deep marks in the palm of his hand.
black and blue robes...
Also, when that person stretched out his hand to the sky, the blood-red strange rune exposed on his arm...
All things religion.
In the most difficult period of Aaron Landis, a cult that spread the theory of national subjugation in the country, bewitched people to commit suicide, caused panic among people, and almost led to the real subjugation of Aaron Landis.
In the past, King Kamos, who came back after being repelled from the enemy country, used iron and blood to ruthlessly wipe out a cult that left nothing behind.
Years later, when Aaron Landis was just now calming down, it came back to life again.