Episode 2 The Black Count's Fortress - Part 2

"Put down your swords. I'm coming with you to the fort. So treat these children decently."

 Then, with a strangely noble gesture, he pulled the greatsword from its scabbard at his waist belt and threw it out on the ashes.

 When the captain gave the command in a sharp voice, several knights leaped from the horse and ran towards them. All of them were frightened, and they approached them with gore-like spells, crossing their fingers and pointing them out, and quickly changed their weapons. Then they were mounted on horses, and the right wrist of each was fastened to the saddle with a strong leather strap. Linda and Remus were mounted on one horse and Guin on another. On top of this, Guin's horse alone was flanked on both sides by the horses of two strong knights and tied together with leather straps.

"Guin."

 Linda whispered lowly as the knights turned their horses' heads and began to move towards the fort, brushing the ashes away as they pressed their three captives.

"They've been slaughtered for us. How can we ever apologize?"

"No apologies necessary."

 Guin replied with a stern look on his face - although the leopard head always looks like that.

"Don't sweat the small stuff. I stopped being one of them anyway. They'd have taken it even if it hadn't been for you.

 It's more--"

 He glanced at the silent knights on either side of him,

"Tell me. I may have known it once, but now all knowledge has eluded me. What is Gora and what kind of country is it? Where is it? Is it big? Is it weak? Why was your country attacked and destroyed by theirs?"

"Gora is a powerful nation that rules the southern half of the rich and open Middle Kingdom."

 Linda taught in a low voice.

"Originally, it was located on the frontier, and had to expand its land through hard and painful cultivation. However, among the three major countries of the Middle Plains, it was the fact that it was the only one whose borders almost bordered on the frontier where barbarians and demons were rampant that made the soldiers of Gora brave and made its name high in the Middle Plains. Gora is a confederate kingdom, made up of the three duchies of Yulania, ruled by Grand Duke Orkan, Kumu, the domain of Duke Talio, and Mongol, ruled by Grand Duke Vlad. These three dukes restrain each other, compete for power, and govern the country by consensus so that they do not lose everything in a three-way fight to the death. Saul, the last living member of Gora's old bloodline, is publicly proclaimed emperor, but even the three children know that he is nothing more than a puppet of the Grand Dukes.

 Paro was a beautiful country with the richest and most elegant culture in the Central Plains. The pearl of the Middle Plains, the flower of the Middle Plains, they called it. It was a peaceful country with a long history and a rich past through trade, and was called one of the three great countries of the Central Plains, along with the emerging crude Gora and the enigmatic northern Cheironia. To understand what kind of country it was for the Central Plains, I think it is enough to know that the Red Road, which leads to all the cities and even to some of the frontiers and protects the safety of travelers, was paved by Paro in the heyday of the Third Dynasty."

"The Gora have long since given up on settling the frontier and have sought to direct their invasion to the richer and more fruitful Middle Plains."

 Remus said.

"This is what Renan, the minister, told me, but there were many disagreements among the three great dukes about it - in the end, it was Grand Duke Vlad of Mongol who overcame them and sent his troops to Paro.

 In front of a powerful army made up of brave warriors and barbarians who came from the frontier guard of Mongol, Paro--"

"We were so used to peace that we did not even expect Mongol's surprise attack. They took down the fortifications along the road to Paro one by one, and at the same time, they diverted a large force and suddenly attacked Paro, the capital, from the border of Cheironia, and annihilated the royal family of Paro."

 Linda's voice was shaking.

"Except for the two of us, right, Linda?"

"Except for the two of us. I don't understand. Cheironia and Paro have always been friendly, they've made treaties and there's been peace there for hundreds of years. That's why Paro has been so weak in the north. No matter how skilled the Grand Duke of Mongol was in strategy, he could not force his way into the city of Paro from the north without the cooperation, or at least the tacit approval, of Cheironia. The Emperor of Cheironia has sold his soul to the demons of Mongol."

"And when the city fell... how on earth did you two end up in such a remote place?"

 Curious, Guin asked.

 Remus tried to answer, but his sister suddenly stopped him.

"Shh!"

 Linda looked at the black-clad knights surrounding her with a very strange expression on her face and replied, "Many strange things happen to the Holy Royal Family of Paro.

 In the meantime, the party had passed through the Forest of Ludes and the Forest of Talos, and had finally reached a place where they could look up at the fortress of Staphorus.

 The area around us was a succession of deep forests and a small amount of grassland between the forests. The path gradually climbed, and the murmur of the river became louder and louder. Beyond the forest was a mountain. Under the blue-purple sky, a series of black mountains continued to grow in a strange, dim and ominous manner.

 It belonged to a comparatively high land among the frontier regions, and beyond the river there was no more deep forest or undergrowth of grass, but only an endless stony wilderness inhabited by the fierce barbarian tribe of Shem. The forest was dangerous, but it was nothing compared to the danger of the wilderness.

 Linda shuddered as she sat on the horse, remembering the horrors of the wilderness barbarians she had been told about in the peaceful crystal palace of Paro. In order to escape into the wilderness, he had to cross the Kesu River, a huge dark stream. In this age, the land where man could live in peace was pitifully scarce.

 Considering the Keth River and the wilds of Nosferus, even the forests of the Rood and the Golarians had to be better. Linda made a small, spellbinding gesture, then sighed and looked up at the fortress towering above her.

 It was a huge stone-built frontier fort suitable for sieges. The gray stone walls were lined with countless gun eyes, reminding us that it had often survived the attacks of the Semites in the wilderness. A number of towers towered in complex but beautifully proportioned ramparts, and on every tower fluttered the black lion banner of Gora and the grand ducal banner of Mongol.

 Surrounded by trees in a dark forest, the fort was at the top of a winding mountain road. Behind it was a cut, and below it the rapids of the Kesu River. It would have been a strategically advantageous point. Between the black trees and the background of the dark purple mountains, the fort was also surrounded by a certain gloom, a chilling silence, characteristic of the frontier.

 As the fort grew nearer and nearer, the Black Knight's troop and his followers grew silent, and even their breaths were hushed as they walked the horse in silence. Suddenly a black snake ran across the mountain road, and a black bird flew over the forest with a cry that sounded strangely like a human voice, but no one paid any attention to it.

 At the end of the road, as if to end the hopes of Paro's followers, a huge stone wall rises up.

"Open the gates."

 The captain stepped forward and shouted. The eyes of confirmation peered out, and then the high gates began to open with a creaking sound.

 The black horse and his band of men pass through the gate in silence, but then...

"No! I don't want to go through this gate!"

 Suddenly Linda started screaming.

"Linda!"

 Startled, Remus held his sister's shoulders from behind and tried to restrain her. Linda did not even look at him. Her violet eyes looked up at the towering stone fortress with something that made her shiver with awe.

"What's the matter with you? You're lonely."

 The captain shouted angrily and drove his horse back to the end of the line. Linda shook her head and stared at the castle.

"There's a miasma in the air. It smells musty, like doll territory. Does no one see it? Can't you see the fate that awaits this fortress? No, I will not go through these gates. I don't want to touch that miasma.

 The knights were visibly upset. Even if they hadn't, the strange misfortunes of their colleagues and the fires in the Rude Forest over the past few days had frightened the hearts of the superstitious frontier guardians. The leopard-headed monster they had found in the forest was hardly a pleasant omen. On top of that, everyone knew that the royal house of Paro was the family of the High Priest of Janus, and that those who descended from it would bring forth the greatest of prophets and high priests. They also knew that it was their brethren who destroyed the royal house of Paro and put it to the sword.

 The knights made the sign of Janus on the breast of their armour, and there was a great murmuring of voices that it was a royal curse. The horses stopped between the wide gate and the main gate.

"Hey, what's the big deal?"

 In anger, the captain shouted and ran back and whipped the horses on their rumps at random.

"Pass quickly. This is the fortress of Staphorus, from which we left this morning. It's a frontier, close to the Dark Lands, but inside the fortress is the safe haven of Mongol, no sorcerer can enter. If there's any bad luck, it's all coming from Paro's cursed twins. Come on. Come through. My lord is waiting for you."

 The knights looked at each other and slowly gave the horse a whip.

 Guin peered at her companion with interest. But Linda was already quiet - too quiet. She grasped Remus' hand firmly, nuzzled her chin into the collar of her leather dress, covered her face with her silvery hair, and followed the knights in silence. His large, sensitive, violet eyes glowed with an unearthly light and were hidden behind his smoky eyelashes.

 And so the party entered the stronghold of Staphorus.