The town of Tanzania is only a day's ride away from the Whitewater River wharf in New Cecil Territory.
At the last part of the journey, Gao Wen and his party bypassed the main road and arrived near the stone bridge in front of Tanzan Town under the cover of trees. Then they lurked on the south side of the stone bridge and watched the Tanzan Gate on the opposite side of the bridge.
"Have you noticed? The town seems to be under martial law," Pittman muttered in a low voice, looking at the gate from a distance, "There are no pedestrians on the bridge, and the number of soldiers at the gate is abnormally large. The boats seem to have been detained there."
The shadow under the nearby bushes twisted for a while, and Amber's figure poked out from the shadow: "I just looked at the main road for a long time, but I didn't see any caravans or travelers passing by. The martial law in the town should last at least two days... "
"It seems that right after Golden Eye Piggle's ship left here, the town restricted access," Gao Wen analyzed, "According to the plan, Byron will stay in Tanzania Town to continue recruiting serfs. It’s hard to get out, no wonder no news came back.”
Amber Crow mouthed a bit: "Could something have happened?"
Gao Wen shook his head: "Looking at the situation at the gate, the town only restricts entry and exit, and the order inside is still normal. Byron is a mercenary, and he is very cunning, so he won't stumble in this environment."
"Ahem, the question is how do we get in," Pittman coughed dryly, "Tanzan Town is surrounded by rivers and mountains on the back, and the entrance is only a stone bridge and a gate in front of the town, all of which are swaggering in under the eyes of the soldiers. ?”
An upright person like Knight Philip couldn't help shaking his head: "I don't know the situation in the town now. If the cultists have already controlled Viscount Andrew, our appearance will definitely arouse the vigilance of those criminals."
It turns out that the young knight was just stuffy and blunt, he wasn't stupid...
Gao Wen narrowed his eyes slightly, and a high-definition satellite imaging image immediately took shape in his mind.
"There is a road in Tanzania Mine, which can go around from the east side of the town to the back of the town, and it can be directly close to the castle area," Gawain opened his eyes, "but crossing the river is still a problem. This bridge is... who?!"
Gao Wen suddenly sensed a weak and sneaky aura swaying nearby, so he immediately turned his head in that direction and asked, and after he made a sound, Amber realized "incongruity" from the fluctuations in the surrounding shadows belatedly. shadow", immediately pulled out two daggers and spun in front of him: "Come out! We have found you!"
The dense forest was deathly quiet, but after a while, the bush under a certain tree suddenly shook twice, and then a dirty and messy little head emerged from behind the bush. It was a little boy with a head on his head. Withered and messy hair that has not been trimmed for several years, and wearing short clothes and shorts made of burlap that are full of patches and holes, this is a typical poor man. Years of malnutrition have made him yellow and emaciated and stunted, But there is only one pair of eyes, a pair of bright eyes on his face, with the kind of agility and light that adults of his class don't have in the eyes.
But at this moment, those big eyes were covered with a layer of faint mist, which was full of panic. He stood up from the bushes in a daze, his body trembling slightly, and he even seemed to have forgotten to run away.
"It's a child?" Knight Philip frowned. He never expected that the one "lurking" in the jungle would be such a child who appeared to be in his early ten years and had no power fluctuations on his body. The discipline of helping the weak made his face slightly calm, but the martial training the knight received made him dare not take his hand off the hilt, "Don't be afraid to walk slowly."
The child suddenly yelled "Ah" in horror, then turned around and ran away.
"You're carrying such a big sword, it's a ghost if you don't run away!" Amber glanced at Philip like a fool, and then the figure flashed and merged into the shadows. After a while, the direction of the child's escape was transmitted. There was a short exclamation, and then the shade in front of Gao Wen squirmed, and Amber emerged from the shadows again holding the child by the collar. The ghost-level shadow talent is good, this guy just follows his body when he runs. Like any door.
The child was easily captured by Amber, and probably experienced a short trip to the Shadow Realm in the middle, which made him completely frightened and stunned, and he really forgot to run away, but his fear increased sharply because of this, So much so that Gao Wen felt that he might be frightened and cry in the next second, but the child just strained his face, pursed his lips, and in the end he forcibly did not cry, but just looked at the stranger in front of him in fear.
"Don't be afraid," Amber quickly took advantage of this moment to comfort the child, "We are not good people..."
Gawain immediately glared at the shame of all things.
"Ah, no, we are not bad people," Amber quickly changed her words, and then explained to Gao Wen with apology, "The previous occupational diseases have not been corrected..."
"We won't hurt you," Knight Philip put his hand on the little boy's head, "Look, I am a knight, and I will protect you."
The little boy trembled from fright at first, but after hearing Philip's words, he calmed down a little and nodded with a vague understanding.
Gawain took advantage of this moment and said, "Are you a child from a nearby family? Why are you wandering in the woods?"
But the little boy was taken aback by Gao Wen, a burly man with a height of two meters and a Chinese face, and backed away repeatedly.
"Don't be afraid, he is my lord," Knight Philip said quickly, "he is an upright and kind man."
At this time, Amber saw that the little boy hadn't spoken from the beginning to the end, and couldn't help muttering: "Isn't he a mute?"
Just as Gao Wen wanted to say that there was no basis, don't be blind, but he saw Pittman frowned next to him, and then the old druid stepped forward and pinched the little boy's chin, opened his mouth and took a closer look.
"His tongue was cut off," the old Druid let go of his hand, and said after a moment of silence, "and it has been cut off for at least two years."
What Gao Wen wanted to say was immediately choked in his chest. He didn't know what the expression on his face changed at that moment, he only knew that Amber shrank her head suddenly when she looked at him, and then he suppressed his anger: "So Little child, what crime would you have your tongue cut off?!"
Even the barbaric and backward medieval law will not cut off the tongues of children under the age of fourteen. Even the Blood God Church, known for its iron and blood cruelty, believes that children of this age are "incapable of speaking sins"!
Pittman shook his head: "The tongue-cutting technique is skillful, and there are traces of using spells to deal with it. It's not a crime punished, but a dumb boy servant, most of whom are slaves of a big businessman. Those big businessmen often do this, and they use dumb boy servants as personal servants. People, because they can neither speak nor write, unless they meet a superhuman who knows soul magic, they will never reveal the secret of their master."
Gao Wen: "..."
He didn't know what he should say at the moment, but before he could speak, the little mute who had his tongue cut off made a movement. He suddenly stared at Knight Philip's breastplate, and then grabbed the young knight's arm while Pointing to a certain place on the breastplate, he shouted "Ah".
Philip was at a loss for a while, but this young and promising Mr. Cavalier had no experience in dealing with children. He opened his hands to indicate that he didn't understand what the other person meant, but Gawain noticed what the child was pointing at: "You Have you seen this emblem?"
"Ah... ah!" The little mute nodded again and again, pointing harder at the thing on Philip's breastplate.
That is the emblem of the Cecil family.
Gao Wen's heart moved, and he instantly connected certain things, and immediately asked: "Where did you see it?!"
The little mute gestured wildly, made an indistinct sound, but was completely unable to communicate with others, so he appeared extremely anxious. Finally, the child simply jumped onto a nearby stone, stood on a high place and pointed at someone. Direction, gestures desperately.
Then he jumped down, grabbed Gawain's hand, and shook it vigorously.
Gao Wen: "You know where it is, let us go with you?"
The little mute nodded vigorously, with a pleading look on his face.
Gao Wen exchanged glances with the people around him, and decided to follow the child without much thought.
Of course, he thought a lot, such as whether this is a trap set by the cultists, such as whether the child in front of him was instigated and coerced to do so, after all, those cultists with broken brains can do anything Yes, but there are some dangers that must be faced anyway, especially in the current situation where there is no other way, following the child to see the specific situation is the only option.
They quickly left the main gate of Tanzania Town, followed the little boy into the woods, and turned south along the flow of the White Water River for a short distance. As they walked, Gawain suddenly realized that the boy was going to take him Where to go
Going down this road, there is only one place that can be called a "landmark", and that is the "Goring Mill" located in the southwest of Tanzan Town. The property of the Leslie family has been in disrepair for a long time and has been abandoned. There are many unemployed vagrants entrenched near the mill. However, the atmosphere in the town is so tense now that the reckless thieves nearby have probably escaped far away.
Sure enough, after walking along the path in the woods for a short time, they heard the sound of the river slapping the river bank, and then walked outside the forest, a water mill with traditional Ansu style appeared in front of them.
"Ah!" The little mute raised his finger and pointed in the direction of the mill, and then pointed to the emblem on Philip's chest, indicating that the person with this emblem was in the mill.
The group of four observed the surrounding terrain, then raised their vigilance and walked towards the mill.
They were halfway there when they heard Knight Byron's angry voice from the mill: "You're back! You're back! How many times have I said that! Get out of here, go south, along the river Go to the Cecils, go to them for protection! Or just throw me out in the open and burn me! Don't stay with me anyway! Are you not only dumb, but deaf?! "