The seventh day of the sleeping month—
After the first snow.
The severe winter blocked all the highways from the mountains of Anlek to the countryside of Amperexel. The lobbyists of various forces in Freeport spent two months in vain. In the end, they were in vain. The cold season finally brought the north to the north. The turbulent situation was frozen in ice, and the rumors about the Northern War that had gained momentum two months ago ended up dispelling like a rumor.
But those who can really see through all of this understand that there is a deeper crisis hidden under this false peace. Beneath the appearance of the silver-clad and frozen world is not silence, but an explosion after patience.
The sword shouted, longing for blood.
As if winter has passed and spring is coming, after the snowflakes bloom, what seeps into the ground is not snow water, but blood water. Brando knows this very well. It's like clearing the black and white words in a history book.
But when the earth is dormant, there is a potential power just about to move under the snow cover. It was like a clear sound of horse hooves passing through the forest, shaking the soil—when the old knight Pallas led his knights on this hill in the territory of Mintai for the first time in the cold wind— He didn't know that the war that ignited in Tonigel had been passed on to the desks of many dukes and lords through unknown channels.
In a sensitive period, a spark will detonate. Everyone thinks that the princess is taking risks, but no one thinks that the little silver-haired girl can only accept Brando's "kindness" with a wry smile.
So where is Earl Dernell going, this is very meaningful.
But no one cares about the fate of a chess piece.
Only when Princess Griffin got the information that Pallas started to march towards the firs, she couldn't help but twisted the parchment with two fingers and shook it. She smiled lightly and said to Overwell next to her. : "Qing Overwell, who do you think will win?"
Overwell bowed slightly: "Sense tells me that Earl Dernell will win, but my instinct tells me that it is not necessarily."
"What if you win?"
"Then Count Dernell will not dare to act rashly."
"Lost?"
"Anglek also tends to keep Denell at least neutral, which is exactly what the old guy wanted—"
"That is to say, in a nutshell, is it harmless to us?"
"If Her Royal Highness can realize that Earl Dernell will never be with us!"
"It's a pity that Ms. Macaro and Leo Woods can't see this." The silver-haired girl supported her snow gill with one hand and sighed.
Overwell did not answer easily. In his opinion, Master Cunning Fox and Master Lewoods were not incapable of seeing this, but out of their own considerations; perhaps in their opinion, Earl Dernell was at least more of an unknown source. Young people are more reliable. What Macaro meant was that he didn't want the princess to have too much dealings with that young man. Sir Wolf could feel this very keenly.
He could not say these words, otherwise it would cause suspicion within the royal party, but he believed that this wise princess could also see it.
"You said," Griffith raised her slender eyelashes slightly, and she stared at the close minister: "Why did he do this? Is it just because of the so-called natural goodwill for the royal family?"
The girl shook her head again. Her background made her distrust this kind of uninterested goodwill: "I'm afraid it's not necessarily."
"In the eyes of the minister, it was out of the adventurer's ambition—"
"Ambition?"
Princess Griffin blinked.
But at this moment, the old knight Pallas, who is standing in the cold wind, obviously does not know that there is an alluring beauty princess who is evaluating the fate of both parties. There was a breath of whiteness in the air, looking at the far white misty mountains.
Below the mountain is the camp after the attack—
This is the sixth attack this week.
Whether the attacker was a caveman or a caveman.
The area around the old man's forehead was almost squeezed together, and his old face was more like a knotted bark. The knights behind him came out of the forest one after another, and most of them looked solemn.
They originally thought that the undulating hilly environment of Mintai area was not as dangerous as the Grahar Mountains where they had been fighting all the year round, and the mob as the enemy was not as haunting as the mountain people. They thought that they could breathe a sigh of relief-more people are about this coming soon. The war is seen as an opportunity to relax.
But I didn't expect to meet a tougher guy before I met the refugees.
"Are these damned cavemen rioting!" someone scolded angrily. Cavemen attacked a wide range of targets, not limited to military targets. Sometimes granaries and manors were within their hunting range.
Although the army of Jean Denell has not yet gathered, these mysterious attacks have made the people in the territory panic. The damage caused by the attack was not great, but Pallas worried that it would delay the assembly of the army.
Especially recently, it has developed to a camp where mountain people gather. This is the second camp to be attacked.
The cavemen were extremely fast in the forest. When they launched their attacks, the mountain people were not prepared to prevent them. As a result, these monsters entered from the north side, killed many people and then quickly evacuated.
The terrain in the forest is complicated, and the cavalry cannot be deployed and tracked, making it even worse.
"How many people were lost?"
"Not many, more than a dozen died, but a lot of injuries."
"How much has been lost in total this week."
"Nearly a hundred people," the knight replied, "this is not a battle loss."
"Why is there a loss in the battle?" Pallas turned around and asked, it was too early to leave the battle. The mobilization of grain, grass and other materials was far slower than expected, and the speed of the gathering of the mountain people was not fast-so far. It’s less than one of twelve.
But what makes him strange is that he has never given any orders, how could there be battle damage.
"Because there was a group of mountain people who gathered in private and prepared to retaliate, but they were ambushed after entering the Mintai collar. Only one or two people came back." The knight replied.
"This bunch of idiots," the old knight scolded, "So how many losses in total, from the first attack to the present?"
The knights glanced at each other before one answered.
"More than three hundred people."
"Only two weeks—" Pallas shook his head. In fact, he could still accept the loss. Because if he doesn't take the initiative to attack, it is really difficult for him to get these things.
But in his opinion this is the last struggle of the other party.
In the past two months, Pallas has mastered enough information. The private soldiers of the nobles who have escaped from Fir City have brought him a lot of useful information—for example, he knows that Brando has cavemen under his command. There are probably hundreds of them, or even thousands.
With hundreds of cavemen and more than a thousand mercenaries, Pallas feels that if he fights steadily, he has a good chance of winning. He would never make the mistakes made by the old man of Sir Mintai a second time—in fact, the old knight knew that according to his personality, he might not even make the first time.
He rubbed the metal hilt with his hand, and heard that Kaglisi was also captured by those mobs. In fact, he has been worried about his student these days.
Pallas originally planned to take about one and a half months, even if these mountain people lost another thousand lives during this time, or even 1/3 of them quit the battle sequence, he didn't care.
But the old knight understood that on the battlefield, numbers were not calculated like this.
Because if the things he predicted did happen, it would be a fatal blow to morale, and it would not necessarily even throw the mountain people staying in this area into chaos.
He saw that the opponent was putting pressure on himself, trying to force himself to fight against him in advance.
But things are never that simple. Those mountain people who were ambushed illustrate the problem very well. Pallas knew that he must not be impulsive, but on the other hand, the chattering mountain leaders also gave him a terrible headache.
Those people are not unreasonable. The cavemen in the forest even went deep into the hinterland and burned a granary in Pallas this week. This made him wonder if there was something wrong with Schafflund, because the cave dwellers Only through that direction can a person enter Pallas territory.
But Schafflund's spies reported that everything was normal, and he sent a second batch of spies for this reason, and found nothing unusual.
This can only make the old knight scold Okins in charge of the Schafflund area as a sieve that can be penetrated by anyone.
But he never thought that if it weren't for this sieve, his own people might not have penetrated in.
Pallas touched his sword, and finally pressed the impulse in his heart. He shook his head and said, "Let's go back."
"My lord," the knights were puzzled: "Forget it, what about those cavemen?"
"Let the mountain people shrink their defenses, change the route of material deployment, and re-plan the location of the granary. The enemy is in the dark, we are in the light, only to be more vigilant—"
"But this is too much time wasting, so why don't we just fight them and kill them!"
"If you think so, then your enemy will be happy," Pallas replied coldly, "Madala's undead, mountain people, even food and other supplies are not in place! If you lose the pars again Russling, then where to put Master Denell's face—"
"We have thousands of people in our hands, and the army of the mountain people in the territory is gradually approaching two thousand," said the knight. "Even if the opponent adds cavemen, it won't make our opponents?"
"That old idiot Sir Mintai thinks the same way. Have you seen his end?"
"But if we do this, it will affect the assembly time, my lord."
"That's fine, it's best to drag it until the moon of spring dawn-sending troops in winter is not a good sign -" Palas Knight shook his head-although this kind of sporadic harassment is harmless, it is tantamount to slapping his face. , But he still has no way to fight back.
He is a cautious person, and the other party seems to have caught this.
But Pallas's only confidence now is that he will never make the decision to dispatch troops early because of his anger and dizziness. The old knight thought he had spotted the opponent as a trapped beast, so he had to fight steadily, trapping the opponent little by little, and not giving the opponent a chance to break the game.
The shame of the present, he will slowly find it back in the future.
"Drag to the Moon of Spring Dawn? For so long, Lord Earl will not blame it? Three months, Martha is on, how much food is needed?"
"My lord, if you do this, Lord Earl will kill us!"
"On the contrary," Pallas glanced at his old men. "The longer we delay, the better. You have to look farther. The battlefield is not limited to Tonigel-anyway, until the end of this war, the adults will not Come to trouble you."
"Some things are not only measurable by the money spent." Although the old knight is a pure soldier, he has enough experience to make him see through the waves behind this seemingly peaceful situation: "Of course, if we can do well, Lord Earl is more relieved—"
"That's natural." The knights agreed.