“Thank you for your trouble, you can get up.” Garcia raised her arm, holding her hand in front of him.
Ryan gently took the Queen’s hand, placed a symbolic kiss on the back of her hand, and then got up to stand on her side.
“Strange ceremony,” Kabala opened his mouth and said, “You haven’t even touched the back of her hand at all, so why then put on such a display?”
The question came so sudden, he couldn’t refrain himself from frowning, but the other side was the patriarch of the Sandstone Clan, so it wasn’t good to rudely reprimand in public, without any better option he said coldly: “This is a commonly used courtesy between aristocrats and stands for politeness and respect, to touch would show somebody’s lack of manners, but as Sandpeople you’re unable to understand this, so it’s only normal.”
“Is that so?” She raised her eyebrow, then pointed to her own neck, “We are obviously jointly allies of war, who just finished the battle a moment ago, yet you still put this kind of thing on me. The politeness and respect of your mainland people are really beyond comprehension for me.”
Kabala’s neck was enclosed by an iron ring, with a bulge in its middle, seemingly resembling an ornament, but Ryan knew that within it was a God’s Stone of Retaliation embedded. Which with the exception of a unique key was tough to undo, but this key was always in Garcia’s hands. Since the other was a witch, it was only naturally to be careful when dealing with her, but she indeed exerted herself extremely during the fight. In case they hadn’t had her method of command, Ryan was afraid that their slaves that had been carrying the fierce Snow Powder, would have never dared to charge into their believers’ strong defensive line. In the end, even after already opening his mouth, he didn’t know how to refute her.
“Well, don’t argue about such trivial matter,” Garcia interrupted. “You mustn’t forget the purpose of our coming — compared with this vast land, is it impossible for you to tolerate the stone?”
“I simply spoke without thinking the matter through,” Kabala shrugged, “I hope you will honor your promise.”
“Of course, this is the foundation of our cooperation,” the Queen smiled.
“What is your next task for the Black Sail Fleet?” Ryan asked.
“Let’s leave the discussion about the plans concerning the next step until later, for now, we should all take a look at a good show which is about to play out.” Garcia clapped her hands, instructing her personal guard, “Bring her in.”
Not long after, two armored guards led a woman with her hands tied at her back into the temple.
She was about thirty years old, had average looks, with messy brown hair scattered over her cheeks and wore the golden robe of the Church. It was of exquisite workmanship and was made out of materials which could generally only be worn by the Hermes’ Archbishops. However, right now, this gorgeous robe had been ripped in several places, and was stained with blood.
“This woman is an… Archbishop?”
“Yes,” the Queen of Clearwater raised the corner of her lips, “I have gone to several of the local nobility and made them confirm whether she was indeed one of the Church’s three Archbishops, Excellency Heather.” She looked at the other woman and asked, “How about it, am I telling the truth?”
“…” Heather did not answer, but Ryan could see a strong ridicule and disdain within her eyes.
Apparently, Garcia had also seen the expression within her eyes and thus chuckled twice, “I already knew that you wouldn’t surrender so easily, that’s also the reason why I was so kind and took you to the church. It was so that I could bring you back to your Kingdom of God. Here you may beg for God’s redemption as you beg me for forgiveness. First, I will slowly cut off your fingers. Then I will go on to your four limbs and then I will destroy all five of your senses. This way you will fully experience the suffering and helplessness of the citizens of the Port of Clearwater’s for yourself.”
“And afterward?” the female Archbishop suddenly asked, “What will you do when you are crushed by the Church’s army? Are you intending to drift across the sea for the rest of your life, never to come close to shore ever again?”
“It is needless for you to worry about this,” Garcia waved towards the guards. “In comparison, the Church’s Army is nowadays also attacking the walls of the Wolfsheart Kingdom, and in this way turning Hermes into an undefended city. This should be much more important for you to think about this than about my personal destiny. I might be unable to set foot on the land of the New Holy City. However, I should at least be able to reach the ruins of the Old Holy City at the foot of the plateau. You should already have heard that the water of the Styx’s River in Graycastle’s extreme south, it’s easy to light, but hard to extinguish. This time I’ve taken a whole shipload with me.”
One of the personal guards pulled out his dagger, approached the Bishop laying on the ground and cut off two of her fingers.
Heather, however, merely bite her teeth not releasing any shout.
Seeing this, the Queen of Clearwater climbed up the flight of steps, sat on the large throne, used her right hand to support her chin and showed an expression that was full of interest.
… soon three other fingers were cut off, in this way her left hand had now been turned into a bare meat palm which made beads of sweat appear over Heather’s forehead.
“Must you do this?” Kabala shook her head, “If you don’t want to intimidate the enemy or receive intelligence via torture, this kind of pure torment is unnecessary.”
“Unnecessary?” Garcia laughed coldly, “You should ask her what they do with all the witches who fall into the Church’s hands? But I guess you wouldn’t be interested in knowing this.”
“Hahaha…” At that time, Heater, having already lost all her fingers, suddenly began to laugh, “You’re simply unable to understand the greatness of the Church. And clearly, you will never understand how important the Holy City actually is. Ignorance is your lifelong companion, even on the eve of your destructing, you will still be unaware of it! Hermes will let you see what it means to wield true power — besides destruction, there is no other end for people who go against the Church!”
“Is that so…” Garcia raised her legs and smiled. “Then I will have to wait and see, won’t I?”
Until the Archbishop had died, she never cried out any plea for mercy. However, what surprised Ryan even more, was that she had never cried for God either, or begged for his salvation. At the end, when Heather was already losing her consciousness due to the excessive loss of blood, her expression turned from cold and detached to dreadful. As if she wasn’t suffering any punishment, but was rather standing at the sideline and looking at a farce which had nothing to do with her — within her two eyes, Ryan though he could already see his own doomed future.
Feeling this kind of indescribable oppressing feeling, almost made him feel breathless.
“Chop off her head and hang it over the church’s door.” After confirming the Bishop’s death, Garcia gave an order. She then looked to Ryan, “Now, we can begin to talk about the next step.”
“Yes, His Majesty,” he forcefully suppressed the discomfort within his chest. “Do you intend to attack Hermes?”
“Yes, but we won’t dispatch our whole army.” She spread out a portable leather map, “Taking with it the least required amount of sailors and the Eastern Region’s slaves, the Black Sail Fleet will follow the River westwards, and go to the Old Holy City. However, we will instead directly go south, crossing Eternal Winter’s border, with Wolfsheart Kingdom’s capital as our destination”.
“Wolfs… heart?” Ryan got started.
“Wolf King Woolf and I have already reached an agreement,” Garcia explained, “In case I help him ward off the Church, he will give me a hand in taking over the whole Kingdom of Eternal Winter. So if the Church does not recall their troops, the ships loaded with fierce Snow Powder and Styx river-water will turn the Old Holy City into a sea of flames — unlike the New Holy City, which is surrounding by high city walls, the old city does not have any walls. Thus, without enough manpower, they won’t be able to stop the slaves’ attack from all directions.”
“However if they retreat, the western border of the Wolfsheart Kingdom will be able to receive breathing room, and with the joined border of the two countries, we will also be able to work together against the Church in the future!”
“Indeed,” the Queen of Clearwater nodded, “We will also be able to obtain a firm grip over Endless Winter for ourselves.”
Chapter 250 End of Midsummer
Seeing that the second month of summer was coming to an end, Border Town was on the verge of greeting summer’s final month, which was also the hottest of all of the months, all the more leaving Roland in a mood where he didn’t wish to leave the castle.
Aside from using it to make gunpowder, the rest of the saltpeter brought in by Margaret had been used to lower the room’s temperature — nowadays a bucket of saltpeter with a kettle soaking in it had been arranged within almost all of the castle’s rooms. This way, not only were they able to show the effects of endothermic cooling, but it also allowed them some ice water which they could drink to quench their thirst. Only in this way was he able to keep from sweating as he sat in the office each day.
With the exception of Anna, he had called all of the other witches to stop their work. Outside of their daily practice and learning, they were mainly gathered in the hall of the first floor, either chatting or comparing their skills in Gwent against one another, displaying an appearance that was of both harmony and happiness. However, Anna… It wasn’t that Roland didn’t want her to rest, it was rather that she didn’t hate the heat at all. Compared to holding ingots which were still red from the fire directly in her hands, the hot temperature of summer was nothing to her. Even when standing next to the fireside and producing steel for the whole afternoon, she did not even shed one drop of sweat.
In order to reward Anna for her hard work, Roland had recently specially created some ice cream desserts. For example, the later generation classical types of ice cream — made from stirring a mixture of egg yolk, butter, milk and syrup. Which were then cooled off once more by using saltpeter. Anna was exceptionally fond of this soft and fragrant ice-cold snack, every time he saw her take a small bite of ice cream, her lake-blue eyes would turn into stitches, making him feel very pleased.
Moreover, looking over the monthly reports sent by the City Hall was also a joyous pleasure of his.
By now, Border Town’s population had once more doubled, almost reaching a total of 18’000 people. On top of that, with the addition of Longsong Stronghold’s monthly “transferred” batch of serfs, breaking through the 20’000 mark next year would not be a problem for him. Leaving out the size of the territory of Border Town or the number of villages and towns belonging to it, this scale could almost be compared with the size of Redwater City, the city of Valencia, and King’s City.
However, something which was somewhat regrettable was that even though the population might have grown a lot, the quality of it hadn’t improved by much. At present, there were still more than 1000 of Border Town’s native inhabitants who had yet to receive an education. Furthermore, it would still require one year before they could obtain the capacity needed to graduate without a hitch — although Karl’s previously opened college had fostered a batch of talented students in advance, their number were still less than one hundred, which when compared with the general population, seemed insignificant.
Perhaps I should first carry out an education program for the Eastern refugees, and not start with the steps of building enough living quarters, Roland thought,after all, receiving the education earlier would only bring benefits and not cause any harm.
The current development of the town’s factories was also excellent.
After more than half a year of construction, the industrial park now had three operating factories: there were two steam engine production plants and a bullet processing plant. The number of workers in the first plant had also expanded from the 10 blacksmiths at its opening to the 100 people it now had. The follow-up workers were mainly natives — which was also something he wanted to see, a group of apprentices would gradually grow into craftsmen, who would then provided the foundation needed to raise the next group of apprentices.
"Release that Witch" отзывы
Отзывы читателей о книге "Release that Witch". Читайте комментарии и мнения людей о произведении.
Понравилась книга? Поделитесь впечатлениями - оставьте Ваш отзыв и расскажите о книге "Release that Witch" друзьям в соцсетях.