Episode 4 Beyond the River of Darkness - Part 1

 Staphorus Castle was in flames.

 The outcome of the battle has already been decided. In the inner courtyard and in the corridor connecting the Honmaru and Ninomaru, there are figures of black-armoured Gora soldiers, their heads split open, shot down by arrows, and smoldering black smoke rising between them.

 The few remaining defenders were being driven back and were helping each other as they slowly retreated, gradually gathering towards the two towers standing in the center of the castle. The sun was high in the sky, and it was a beautiful day outside in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the soft violet sky or the black streams of the kes, except the constant sound of the strange voices of the Semites, warning of the fate of the fortress.

 Earlier, before the garrison of the fort was devastated, when the courtyard and the corridor were filled with the sound of sword fights and the shouts of battle, there was a little disturbance in the "White Tower", one of the two towers of the castle, which was used as a prison.

 The soldiers of the fortress were shouting orders to each other incessantly in order to intercept the barbarians who were rushing into the courtyard and the main gate as an opening to invade, and before they knew it, they were being driven back. The captain of the fourth squadron was already shot down by a poisoned arrow, and the captain of the sixth squadron sank into their midst as if he had been pulled down by the ape-men.

"Defend the tower! Protect the lord!"

 In the midst of the inferior force, only the first captain, who was highly trusted by Count Vernon, was still shouting at the top of his voice without being wounded. He gathered his troops and tried to approach the two towers.

 The arrows of the Shemites shot against his back, and they struck his iron armor with a clattering sound.

 The first captain shouted once more, "Defend the tower! Suddenly, there was a hint of disturbance in the White Tower.

"The Shemites are going to the White Tower!"

 The knight cries out for help.

"The White Tower is a prison for prisoners, and I don't care what happens to them, but the prince and princess of Paro must be protected. Besides, if the White Tower is destroyed, we can enter the Black Tower through the basement."

 said the first captain, gasping.

"Blow the trumpet, my son. I regret to say we must abandon all other posts. rally all the surviving troops and drive the barbarians away."

"Yes, sir."

 Immediately the bugler put the trumpet to his mouth. To blow it he had to turn his face away. As soon as his throat was exposed, the arrow of Shem stood in the middle of his throat. At the moment when the bugler fell down, his colleague jumped up, seized the bugle, and with desperate courage blew it to split his throat.

 As he listened to the sound of the bugle, the first captain breathed heavily and looked up at the beautiful blue sky with his greatsword in his hand. There, the black lion banner of Ghora, black with a gold lion of the steppe and a gold tassel, and the grand duke's banner of Mongol, purple with a white and gold coat of arms, fluttered proudly in the wind, unaware of the plight of the fortress being shaken by the Semites.

 It was what the soldiers of the fort were trying to protect with their lives. It was infinitely proud and beautiful.

 The captain's eyes blurred. He shouted, "For the sake of Mongol! he shouted, raised his danpira and rushed towards the white tower.

 A whip latched onto his leg. It was the skin whip of a mountain wolf whipped by the Shemites. Caught off guard, the captain rolled over. Immediately, his great figure was hidden from the Barbarians, who covered him with their bodies. The stone axe of the barbarians was thrown down and the stone knife slit the captain's throat.

 Around that time--

 Inside the tower, prisoners of war were banging on the walls, screaming in despair.

 At that time, not necessarily all the chambers of the White Tower were filled with prisoners condemned to death by the bloodthirsty Lord Black Count.

 Many of the stone-built chambers were empty, and the only two occupants were Tonelzkumi and a mute silence.

 But in some of the chambers the prisoners were locked up. In some of the rooms there were lighted windows through which one could see the battle in the courtyard and the terrible disaster that was actually threatening the castle of Staphorus.

 Here and there, from the blocked-up cells, there was such a clamour of people slapping the stone doors with their hands, or with a chair or something, or with their feet, or shouting as loudly as they could to attract the attention of the jailer, that it almost drowned out the shouting under the tower.

"Prison guard! Prison guard!"

"Tell me what's going on!"

"The Semites." The Semites are attacking. The fort is dead. We're all dead."

"Let me out. Get me out of here. I'll fight those apes too. I swear I won't run away. Give me the great sword. Give me the sword of Mongol!

"Help me! I'm trapped like this, just waiting to be flayed by Shem's people!"

"Somebody! Prison guard! My friends! The wallboard's on fire. It's burning, it's burning, help me!"

"Prison guard! Prison guard--!"

"Let me out!"

 The knocking at the door, the crackling of the fire that must have been Shem's flaming arrows through the window, and the screams of the poor man who was being burned to death were mingled with the cries of every accent from Torus to the frontier, to Valachia, and as far as Kumu.

 The voice grew tremendously louder as the rickets prison guard appeared in the dark corridor, sluggishly but as hastily as he could.

"Unlock the door. Get me out of here!"

 Every time the jailer walks, there is a chorus of screaming pleas on the floor.

 And the jailer shouted at him with a bunch of keys.

"No. No. Don't talk so loud. The Count didn't order me to let the prisoner go. I can't let him go."

"But if we don't do something, we'll be sacrificed to Shem! I don't have time for this!"

"Just open it up!

"No! Only Paro's kid and the Leopard-headed monster got orders to get out and put them in the black tower. It won't, it won't."

 The dungeon keeper, accompanied by several knights, did not care for the mad curses and pleas of the mouths, but passed through many doors and came to the room where Guin and the others were locked up.

 Guin, the leopard-headed warrior, and Prince Remus, son of the holy Aldross III of Paro, were shouting and banging on the door, as were the other prisoners. Remus was madly calling out his sister's name, and Guin was beating and shaking the door with his huge ham-like hands. The door was made of a single stone so that it could never be broken, but every time Guin's hands shook it and his frighteningly huge body hit it, the door's joint creaked and was about to come off.

 The jailer yells at him in a raspy, frontier accent, "Wait a minute.

"I'm gonna get you out of here. I'll be right outside the door.

"Even if I let you out of jail, if you're going to take me to that bastard lord, I'd rather stay here and have my head smashed in by those monkeys!"

 The leopard man shouted in a loud voice that sounded muffled because of his head structure.

"But I want my greatsword back! Give me the right to fight those pre-humans of Nosferus."

"That's not what they told me."

 The rickets' jailer was stubborn. He padded over to the door and opened it with a key, which he had hung around his waist with a heavy iron ring, but he hurried back. For Guin roared and tried to jump out of the way.

"Wait! Can't you see this?"

 As the jailer fled behind him, the Black Knights stepped forward quickly. In each hand they held a great spear, the point of which almost touched the prisoner's throat or breast. Guin bellowed in fright, and the prince of Paro sought to persuade them by the strength of his loins.

"Does this noise fall on deaf ears? One Guin can do as much as a platoon of Black Knights. If the fort falls into the hands of the Semites, we're all going to die - give Guin back his sword!"

"You don't need to worry about that kind of thing when you're a prisoner."

 One of the knights replied proudly.

"You must evacuate to the Black Tower through the underground passage as ordered by the Count."

"You're going to that dark monster!"

 Guin scoffed.

"You don't know what we have to evacuate from!"

"Which one of you is the monster, the one who was never born?"

 In a fit of rage, the knight knocked Guin down with the butt of his spear. Guin looked unconcerned.

"Come on, you bogeyman.

"No. I don't want to see that Doll-born Count again."

"You!"

"Hey, I think there's a commotion downstairs.

 One of his colleagues stopped the knight, who had gone out of his mind to strike the prisoner.

"I don't know if I'm gonna be okay, this--"

"It's bound to be okay."

 The knight said to his colleague angrily, but proudly.

"This stronghold of Staphorus will not fall at the hands of a mere barbarian band. This is the cornerstone of Mongol's frontier defense. We have been attacked by barbarians many times before, but each time we have cut them down with the proud sword of Mongol and defeated them.

 We'll have a relief force from Arvon soon--"

 Suddenly the knight stopped talking.

 His face looked indescribably strange under his headgear. For a little while, no one understood why his colleague kept his mouth shut and why his face suddenly looked like a silly doll.

 The knight could not finish his speech for ever. A black feather, a short arrow with a black shaft, stood out like a strange trinket on the bridge of his nose, between his eyes, and trembled. He turned his back on Guin and the others, facing his colleagues, and spoke.

 He bared the whites of his eyes and fell straight into the stone-built doorway, making a loud clattering sound of metal fittings.

"The Semites!"