Wright walked slowly among the collapsed and destroyed ruins. The wind from the south blew across the fields, the trampled and destroyed wheat fields, and into this devastated place. There was no smell of blood and burning in the wind, but With a moistness and sweetness that heralds a summer rain that may be coming soon.
After the rain, the grass and trees will germinate again, and new shoots will grow in the destroyed fields. Nature will always recover faster than humans, and this village that was set on fire by the nobles' rout, I don't know what time to be rebuilt.
This small team did not come to clean up the battlefield. Wright and his new comrades were just ordered to go from the Kant area to the Hosman prisoner-of-war camp to replace the medical staff there. It was a coincidence that the team passed by the ruins. He won't stay here for too long, Wright knows this, but he still hopes that holding a small purification ceremony for the village can be regarded as fulfilling his responsibility as a pastor.
After obtaining the consent of the team commander, he came to the middle of the village ruins, where there was a collapsed long house, which may have been the place where the villagers gathered. The tangle of dead branches was buried among the broken earth and rubble, and the thin beams used to support the roof pointed to the blue sky like strange bony limbs.
Next to the house, there is a buried well.
Wright found a tidy tile from the ruins and placed it next to the well. He poured some water into the tile and placed a few small wild flowers beside the tile. He took out a white candle that was only as long as his thumb, and put it behind the tiles to symbolize the holy light.
After arranging all this, he rubbed his fingers lightly over the candle.
Nothing happened, not even a speck of holy light appeared.
Wright withdrew his hand silently, and took out the fire starter from his arms, a small magic device, made of two pieces of copper with fire elemental runes and a small magic storage crystal. He put the fire starter close to the candle, and pressed the switch , The front end of the rune copper plate immediately emitted a red light, which ignited the candle wick.
"May the Holy Light protect your way forward... May you no longer be trapped in cold and darkness... May your souls be at peace... So there will be no more hunger and suffering..."
Wright finished the prayer softly, then bent down to extinguish the candle, but before putting the candle away, out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly saw a familiar thing lying quietly among the weeds by the well.
It was an iron badge, only the size of a hazelnut, with symbols of rings and light beams on it, and an iron ring used to wear a belt or silk thread could be seen on the edge. This is a badge of holy light, hung on the Holy See knight on the breastplate.
Wright picked up the badge and quietly looked at the emblem representing 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 supporting the noble coalition army.
He turned around and looked at the longhouse that had been burned. In the ruins of the longhouse, he finally vaguely sensed the remaining wave of magic power, which was the breath left by the holy light.
Wright held the lost emblem of the Holy Light in his hand, twisting and curling it up a little bit.
At this moment, a very subtle sound suddenly entered the pastor's ears, which instantly caught his attention.
It was a very short and slight sound, like a twig falling to the ground. The sound of a light rabbit running across the grass might be more obvious than that, but Wright still noticed the strange sound , He immediately followed the sound to search for it beside the collapsed longhouse, and he searched back and forth many times.
Finally, he found a cover plate covered in dirt rubble and charred wood, and an iron ring fastened to the cover plate.
Wright threw a few larger stones and logs aside casually, then grabbed the iron ring on the cover with one hand, pulled hard, and lifted the cover to the darkness under the cover. I saw more than a dozen pairs of terrified eyes.
"There are survivors here!"
The soldiers gathered quickly, and after a dozen heavily armed soldiers appeared, the terrified civilians in the cellar finally came out. Wright counted them, and there were seventeen men, women and children in total. .
These people are ragged, yellow and thin, emaciated from not seeing 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 struggling to stand, so they can only lean on 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, and a moment later the soldier climbed up the ladder: "There are three dead below, and someone needs help to lift them up."
The team 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 terrified expressions, some shook their heads repeatedly, some nodded hesitantly, and some just stood there in a daze, as if they didn't understand the commander's words at all.
"Go get some food and water first," the commander sighed, and turned his head to tell the people around him, "Don't take the jerky, they might choke themselves to death."
The food was brought over quickly, but the dozen or so people just watched with full of vigilance and doubts. They swallowed their saliva, but none of them dared to step forward until the soldiers stuffed the food into their hands. Make sure these things are really for yourself.
After the first person stuffed the food into their mouths, the others immediately gobbled it up. Wright could feel that as the food swallowed, these people finally became less wary of the soldiers in front of them.
Although they are still tense.
"Are you from this village?" After those people regained some strength, Wright walked among them and asked in as gentle a tone as possible, "You have been hiding in the cellar? Are there other cellars in the village?" Is it?"
Several villagers looked at Wright's burly figure with a little fear, but finally one person spoke: "We are... there is no one else..."
Then the person who spoke pointed to the cellar behind him, and then pointed to the people around him: "It's just us."
"We are the army of the Duke of Cecil Gawain," the squad commander said beside him, "don't be afraid, you are already safe."
However, the villagers didn't respond to the squad commander's words as if they didn't understand, and looked at the melting swords worn by the soldiers in fear.
"Cecil's army is different from other armies. We don't rob food." The team commander certainly knew what these villagers were afraid of. "Who burned the village? The knights of Viscount Consco? The men of Viscount Carroll?" Or another nobleman?"
The villagers couldn't help trembling when they heard these names, but none of them dared to answer the team commander's question directly, as if they were afraid that they would be hanged on the gallows the next day if they spoke here, but within a few seconds After planting, there was still a crisp voice that spoke rashly: "It's a knight in a white robe..."
It was a child who spoke, judging from the voice, it should be a girl, but as soon as she spoke halfway, the adult next to her quickly covered the child's mouth, so that the rest of her words could only be muffled whimpers .
Wright squatted down in front of the child, and waved his hand to get the adults out of the way. He looked at the child's eyes, which were a pair of extraordinarily bright and big eyes, although the little girl was not beautiful at all, and there were even bruises on the rough and dry skin. There are large areas of freckles, and the dry and messy hair like weeds also covers a quarter of her face, but the big eyes protruding from behind the messy hair are particularly impressive.
Wright looked into those eyes, and asked word by word: "The knights in white robes, are they the knights of the church?"
The little girl shook her head in a daze, then nodded hesitantly: "I don't know...but there is a priest beside them..."
Finally, someone among the survivors couldn't bear it any longer, and sobbed softly: "Those who paid us the food... all the ones who paid the food..."
Wright knew what the seemingly endless words meant.
When they handed over the food, when the noble coalition forces went out, the civilians in every territory must have donated food and property as military rations. The nobles would confiscate these things on the grounds that "we sent troops to protect you", and many Commoners will easily believe these statements (because it is meaningless even if they don't believe it, and the right to speak is in the hands of the lord), I am afraid that they will not understand until the noble soldiers defeated from the front line came to loot the village and set fire to the houses. What the hell 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 against the lord before, or even if they thought of it, they would not have any thoughts about it. In response, they would only lament their misfortune, and be afraid of the swords and staffs in the hands of the nobles, knights, and soldiers, and the more complicated interest relationship above this is beyond their comprehension.
The only thing they can think of is that they have "handed in food" before.
It seems ignorant, but behind ignorance is ignorance, and behind ignorance is numbness.
The soldiers who went to investigate the situation around the village came back, and they found dozens of corpses in a pit not far from the village.
It is not easy to completely incinerate so many corpses in a short period of time. The team did not carry enough fuel and could not find enough combustion aids nearby. Together with the three bodies 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 whose homes had been destroyed and had no food or medicine, and it was early summer and the rejuvenated Steppenwolves and other beasts were roaming the wilderness without village fences and houses and lights Without protection, a dozen or so unarmed villagers might not survive 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 specified time, this is the discipline of the army," the commander certainly understood Wright's thoughts, but he had to emphasize the hidden problems, "The civilians are too weak and have no strength to rush on in a short time , bring them, we will definitely be delayed."
Wright had no way to refute, but the team commander continued after a pause of two or three seconds: "But if you want, I can leave a few soldiers for you, and I will take the medical team to report to the camp first. It's disciplined to watch these people follow behind."
"Okay, I'm fine," Wright readily agreed, and then said with a serious face, "Also, I have a suggestion. The captain was looted by the nobles like this. There may be more than one village where the survivors hid or fled. , we should report the situation up, and then try to find these places and save more people.”
"Don't worry," the team commander nodded, "I will report it."