Light filtered through the window, and a whole square of gold was thrown into the car.
The queen turned over the dark brown leather book, and when she flipped through the light yellow paper, a very thin and bright line appeared on the edge of the paper. Gold powder-like dust was flying in the sun, and the slightly slanted blue-black writing floated out.
"I am in your grave
chaotic drunken fire
tense and burning in the chest..."
Her fingers paused, vaguely as if touching a burning fire.
What Dalton caught up with the carriage and handed over was not a book.
It is a book full of words.
Dalton's handwriting is beautiful, unlike his much-criticized wanton behavior, his handwriting is clean and neat, and each letter is like a knife hanging on the wall where no one is there. The blade is clear and silent. In the lines of words, the iron fire splashed when the sword was hammered flashed.
he asks:
which ribs should i cut open
to make the heart a fruit
Let you drive a flock of birds to peck
…………………
Thick black smoke entrenched the sky over the holy city.
Dalton wiped the gun, enduring the strange smell of burnt hair, flesh and blood, bones and grease in the air. I'm afraid there is no more ominous and nauseating taste than this, but I gradually get used to it after a long time.
Instead of completely extinguishing the fire in the holy city, he managed to control it within a range and keep it from extinguishing.
When searching for patients for isolation, several people must be in groups. They don't have so many beak masks and cloaks of plague doctors, so they can only cover their mouth, nose, and hands with masks or cloth as much as possible. If all the people in a house died, the corpses would be transported to the northeast of the city and burned. If there are patients or people who have been in contact with patients or corpses, they should be taken to a centralized isolation place. The reason why several people are in a group is because they have to monitor each other. If a companion is unfortunately infected during the search, he must be quarantined immediately—or executed.
None of this is easy.
In the face of the fear of death, people often do all kinds of irrational things: Some sick people are unwilling to go to the isolation area, and they will try to escape on the road; patients in the isolation area try to rush out every day; When it is more intense, there will be riots organized by the crowd, trying to attack the blockade of the city gate...
For all of these, Dalton's order is very simple, only one word "kill".
Cold and without room for maneuver.
On the first day of entering the city, the number of people who died at the gunpoint of soldiers in the Holy City was more than ten times that of smallpox.
The next day, six times.
On the third day, three times.
From the fourth day onwards, the number of people who died at gunpoint finally started to fall less than those who died from smallpox. The numbers gradually decreased, but they still occurred every day. Dalton does not require that everyone will not violate the order, only that the range is controllable.
Aim, pull the trigger, reload, re-aim.
It seemed that there were only a few monotonous actions left in the day. Dalton killed almost half of the people who died. Even the adjutant who had followed him the longest did not dare to make any noise in front of him now. The soldiers are still in awe of him, more than ever, but there may be more elements of fear in this awe.
A person who can shoot unarmed ordinary people without changing his face, no matter whether the opponent is old or young, man or woman, woman or child, isn't it normal for such a butcher to be afraid
Dalton thought casually, loading the gun one shot at a time.
After loading the bullets, there was noise from the direction of the isolation area.
Dalton looked up.
The original cathedral was designated as a quarantine area, and the stone bricks where pilgrims prostrated were full of wailing and moaning patients. Statues of the Twelve Saints surround it, casting long oblique shadows. The bases of several of the statues of saints were covered with a dark brown liquid, and the patients who couldn't bear it any longer smashed their heads to death.
"Please my boy he's alive!!! He's not sick - he's alive!"
A mother who was brought over with her baby was crying and lying on the ground.
Seeing the tragic situation in the quarantine area, this woman, who was as timid as a lamb, broke out with unprecedented courage and turned around to escape from the blockade of the soldiers. The adjutant shot her in the knee and shouted at her to let her in. As if she hadn't heard anything, she raised her pimple-covered face like crazy, and lifted the child up with her arms.
"He's not sick!!!"
she wailed.
There was commotion in the quarantine area, and the adjutant caught a glimpse of the child's face in the package, livid and purple... long dead. Huge pain hit him, and the commotion gradually increased. The gun was aimed at the mother, and the adjutant's fingers trembled, and he couldn't detain it no matter what.
boom.
Gunshots rang out.
The crying stopped abruptly, and the adjutant saw the woman sway, and then fell sideways. The dead baby fell to the ground, rolled around, and turned its blue face to the sky. Slowly, the adjutant moved his stiff, seemingly inflexible finger away from the trigger.
The commotion died down.
Dalton lowered his gun, turned and left.
Walking in the streets of the holy city, Dalton could feel eyes from all directions and shadows in every corner, full of resentment, fear and rejection. If possible, he hoped that all the people who lost their lives would die at his gunpoint, and all the vicious eyes would be cast on him.
Shooting an enemy on the battlefield is a completely different concept than shooting an unarmed person.
The former is glory, the latter is guilt.
Dalton didn't think he was a good person. Before he changed his position, he wouldn't think about whether he was guilty or not. If he had to say it, he probably buried the conscience that belonged to "Dalton Robert" in the soil a long time ago. Later, he fell in love with someone, and he wanted to know what she was thinking and what she would do, so he dug out his dying conscience from the soil and put it back in his heart.
Perhaps people are happier without a conscience.
Once you have a conscience, you will feel like a fire burning in your chest, tortured and tortured all the time, hot and painful. At such times, in the heat and pain, he had the illusion that her phantom was walking beside him.
Dalton calculated the time and the speed of the army, and guessed that she had returned to the Roland Empire now. Occasionally, when he didn't have to shoot, he would also think about what the Queen would do at this point in time. Whether she is reading documents or talking to officials, will she put away the full book, or will she open it and take a look or two
When passing by a dead house, Dalton stopped.
A group of people lay on the ground, digging grass roots out of the soil.
In addition to the plague, there is another terrible thing:
hunger.
The holy city has a large population, but it produces and hoards very little food. It is the commercial hub of the Pope's country. The whole city is like a heart, relying on the blood sent from other regions to maintain life. After the holy city, the blood vessels along with the heart were cut off, and without blood, the city decayed and withered faster than anything else.
Rodrigues was indeed transporting supplies, but the supplies that were brought in had to be supplied to the soldiers first, and the rest could be considered for the relief of ordinary people.
The famous old woman digging in the roots, huddled in the dirty clothes, moves very slowly. She dug and dug, just sat there motionless, buried her head in sobs.
Dalton took a look, walked over, and handed her a piece of bread.
The others immediately cast salivating and jealous eyes, and when Dalton swept over coldly, those people immediately lowered their heads again.
The old woman didn't seem to react at first, she was stunned for a while, and then stretched out her hand hastily. She lowered her head and mumbled some indistinguishable words of gratitude. The moment she took the bread, her withered fingers suddenly grabbed the back of Dalton's hand like an old cat, and sprayed a mouthful of saliva at the same time. go up.
After being thrown away by Dalton, the old man burst out laughing.
Her voice was no longer muffled, but high-pitched. The scarf covering her hair was spread out, and there were red spots beside her cheeks that were covered by the scarf, which were not easy to spot because of her dark complexion.
The people on the grass screamed and fled in all directions.
Dalton raised his gun without hesitation. After two gunshots, the rest of the people stood there in horror. Their eyes swept back and forth between the old man and Dalton, and when their eyes fell on Dalton's left hand, there was pleasure in the hatred.
"He's infected!"
One exclaimed excitedly, as if seeing the happiest thing in the world.
The noise attracted the nearby investigation team, who stared blankly at the scene in front of them, and no one moved for a while. The first person who yelled hysterically pointed at Dalton and yelled, "Aren't you taking him away? He's also infected, take him away quickly."
They looked at each other, not knowing what to do.
Dalton pointed his gun at the old man.
"You killed my son!!!" the old man yelled loudly, crying and laughing, "He wasn't sick! He just wanted to get out! You killed him!!!"
Dalton first clenched his left hand, then let it go.
He moved the muzzle of his gun and pointed at the people standing on the grass with mud in one hand and grass roots in the other: "Follow."
Then he pulled the old man on the ground up, and led her firmly towards the isolation area.
"You're going to hell! You demon!!"
The old man didn't struggle, and cursed viciously with all his strength.
Dalton's footsteps paused for a moment.
"I do go to hell, ma'am."
he answered.
…………………
The Queen's carriage is about to enter the arches of the Imperial Palace.
When the carrier pigeon landed, the queen's handwriting ink that was writing smoothly suddenly broke for a moment. She stopped, and slowly shifted her gaze to the pure white bird.
It stretched out a leg towards her.
She stretched out her hand and unwrapped the letter. The moment she opened it, her fingers immediately curled up, as if they had suddenly touched a flame.
The impression Dalton gave to everyone was that he was always victorious in all battles, that he was always able to escape from death, and that he could come and go freely in the hail of bullets.
He wants to keep being so ambitious until he is very old. Everyone would think so. No one thinks that one day, he will walk into the raging fire by himself.
On the battlefield, he never loses a fight.
But the plague takes away a man without a fight.
The sun faded briefly as the carriage drove into the palace through the arches.
The Queen leaned back in her chair and put her hands on her temples.
"Among all the endings of turning against each other, this is the best I have ever thought of. Your Majesty."
Indistinctly, someone's voice was soft and thin.