Temple Sword

Chapter 137 The Last Day——
Dubica--
Varos paced nervously on the wall. He hadn't seen Roland for two whole days.

He gave the boy a testing mission, sent him to follow Mikolaj, and he thought nothing would happen to the young soldier, but he did not return the next day, nor the third.The others had no idea of ​​his whereabouts, and the captain began to get really worried.

Is our butler more dangerous than I thought?he said to himself, and wondered if he should tell Lady Agnes about it.

"Roland, my boy, if you slip out and enjoy yourself, I'll whip the skin off your back!" he complained, but since Miklos disappeared with him, Varos finally It was decided to arrange for a vigil first, and then he would tell the lady everything anyway.

Today was the only day of the week when he was not on night watch. He was on guard during the day, and then he and his wife, Bograka, could spend the night in their hut.

He couldn't wait to enjoy their time alone, so he hastened his pace, and in brisk, hurried voices, he addressed the ten spear guards who lined the ramparts with orders.

"Got it all?" he asked after the sun started to sink. "Anyone have any questions, or complaints?"

The soldiers shook their heads. Of course, none of them were very enthusiastic. No one likes a vigil.

"Be more active, my children," Varos clapped his hands. "You see, I keep vigil six days a week, so you who keep vigil every three days shouldn't have any complaints. Go ahead and stand guard!"

Wait for me, my Bograka, he can't help but smile, after I report everything to my wife, I'll come to you!

"Captain!" Varos had just walked through the killing hole when a voice came from the tower. "somebody is coming!"

"Who?" he called back, stopping on the creaking wooden stairs. "Who's coming at this hour? It's going to be dark!"

"You'd better take a look, Captain!" The sentinel's tone was obviously nervous, "There is a whole army coming here!"

"What the hell..." Varos complained as he turned and ran back to the city wall.

"What army? From where?" he asked, but he had seen it with his own eyes before he could get an answer.

At least two hundred warriors approached the manor from the woods to the northwest, all infantry and only two of their chiefs on horseback, but they were so far away that Varos could not see their faces clearly.

Still he saw their banners clearly: there were no royal or noble coats of arms on them, and he did not know which province or kingdom had a banner of that color, and the infantry marched under a black banner, surrounded by a blood-red banner. The slash in the line is divided into two.

The captain's stomach also jumped up, and an ominous premonition welled up in his heart.

"Lock the north and west gates!" he ordered the soldiers standing on his right, and then turned to those on the left: "Tell all soldiers to prepare all the weapons at our disposal at the foot of the wall! Bows, swords, spears, nail heads Hammers, sabers, everything, everything!"

"Captain..." the soldier on the left panted heavily, his face turned pale, "They are... going here..."

"Didn't you hear me?" Varos yelled at him, "Cheer me up before I throw you down!"

The soldiers ran to prepare their weapons as if being chased by a hot branding iron, and the captain looked sullenly into the distance.

He squinted his eyes and blocked the orange light of the setting sun with his hands, but he still couldn't see clearly.He is now sure that it may be an army of mercenaries or robbers walking towards the manor. He doesn't know the flag of this motley army, and no decent noble will use a black and red flag.

Regardless, a dark thought surrounded Varoth that they might be just as dangerous as the regular soldiers.

Thirty soldiers from the manor quickly gathered in the courtyard, the captain turned his head to look at them, and quickly summed up the situation in a few words: Two hundred heavily armed men are coming towards the manor, the reason is unknown, but he feels that they are not With good intentions.

He sent a soldier lightly on horseback to the town of Dubica to ask the magistrate for help, and then set the heavy deadbolt on the gate, supported by several wooden beams.

There are spare weapons every few steps by the foot of the wall, and following the command of the captain, they also prepared some buckets.The gate was thoroughly wetted to prevent it from being set on fire.Everyone put on soft armor, chain mail, gauntlets and helmets.

Varos looked back to the northwest horizon again, and he could already see the faces of those people clearly.He looked at the two leading riders, and his heart skipped a beat.

He didn't know the tall, well-armed man, he'd never seen him.But as to who the well-dressed, unarmed old fox was, he knew all too well.

"Eric," he pushed the nearest soldier, "tell Lady Agnes at once! Tell her that Mikolaj is back with an army, and that he must have killed Roland. Tell her, No one can sleep tonight because we are under siege, go!"
-
Somewhere west of the Bulgarian White Castle—
Laszlo took a deep breath and crawled out of the bushes.Apart from his sword, he carried only a small lockbox in his pouch between the two remaining pieces of jerky.

He hid everything else in the dense bushes. He walked forward quietly with light steps, the tip of his weapon pointed forward. Thinking of what he might need to do, his Saracen sword trembled slightly. But it was just a momentary flicker.

To his surprise the door was not locked, and he pushed it open with his left shoulder and stood in the cool passage between the farmhouses.

It was quiet, everyone was resting, and the hinges were oiled so that Laszlo made no sound as he entered.

He didn't wait, he started walking, clothes, food, weapons, horses, he repeated to himself countless times what he had to gather, and to do it as quietly and as quickly as possible.It would be even better if he could find a hammer to break the lock on the chest...

The rooms were open to each other, and Laszlo wanted the bedrooms to be at the end of the house so he wouldn't have to risk waking the residents through them.

He first walked down a long corridor with a doorway that opened into a spacious dining room, then stepped over the next threshold into a tidy little kitchen.

His eyes were used to the darkness, and the moonlight that streamed through the small window helped him find his way.He soon noticed that the servants must have left scraps of dinner on the table, and who knows, maybe one of them wanted to eat them again when fresh pies were baked in the morning.

Well, if that's the case, he's going to be disappointed.Laughing, Laszlo put six hard-boiled eggs, a piece of bacon, two sausages, and a large ham into his bag.

He took the box out and tucked it under his arm to get all the food in, then he sheathed the Saracen and took a large kitchen knife.

There was only a small storage room in the kitchen, and as soon as Laszlo walked in, he was attracted by the long-lost delicious aroma, and even his knees were shaking.

Freshly bagged ham, bacon, and sausage smell heartbreaking, too, and the pantry's rich food aromas are heaven on earth for a man who hasn't had a full meal in ages.

He wondered where the clothes bedroom was, but didn't notice a door or stairs, hunger overcame everything in the end.

“Clothes can wait,” the man, who had been utterly emaciated over the past few weeks, said to himself, knife in hand, greedily slicing up whatever bread, cheese, and meat he could get his hands on.

He took two bites and stuffed the food down his throat one bite after another, his dark, hairy face wet with tears of joy.For the first time in a long time, he was able to eat well and eat more than one kind of food.

He found a jar in the corner of the storage room. He lifted the lid, smelled the contents, and was immediately excited: it contained duck fat and roasted duck liver.

Laszlo reached into the jar, frantically scraped out the liver with ten fingernails, and stuffed it into his mouth by the handful.

In the blink of an eye, the feeling of fullness turned into nausea, and he stuffed his stomach so full that he almost threw up.He slumped to the ground, his hands and beard covered in grease.

After eating and drinking, he sat in an unfamiliar room, struggling with nausea, when he suddenly felt an urge to laugh.He had to cover his mouth with a greasy palm to keep himself from giggling out loud.

Then, his desire to laugh disappeared as if suddenly cut off.

A strange man in pajamas stood in the doorway of the storage room, staring in amazement at the burglar sitting in the corner.

Before the man could move or shout, Laszlo sprang to his feet, a large kitchen knife in his hand, and flung himself at him as if catapulted from a slingshot.
-
Trenchin--
The king's army roared forward with unprecedented fighting spirit, chanting the names of kings, gods and saints in their mouths, holding swords, spears, axes and maces in their hands, charging forward, over the rocky slopes, Fording through the ruins, nothing seemed to be able to stop them.

At the head of the thousands of soldiers of Miklos Gutkled, followed by the great army of Timisoara, and then the soldiers of the nobles and magnates of the Holy See, they rushed like a flood. The still-standing walls of Castle Lenchin rushed toward the trembling defenders who awaited them.

"Forward!" roared the soldiers, with new flames burning in their chests, "Kill the traitors, kill the resisters!"

They marched on as if they didn't feel the arrows from above and the stones from above, mocking death in their throats.

This time, the emergence of new wounds and the fall of old comrades did not slow down this tough offensive. Everyone believed that this was the end of everything.

As the tall hooked siege ladders were hung on the city wall, some defenders turned around and fled without trying to push the heavy thing away.The besiegers scaled the walls, and after weeks of failure, they finally broke into the castle.

Miklos Gutkled's warriors flocked to the city wall and began a frenzied and furious massacre. Isstvan Rakfi also jumped from his saddle and climbed up the city wall with his men.

"Let us show the strength of the Sekai warriors!" he roared in a hoarse voice of iron, stabbing the defenders above with his father's sword. "Wolf cubs of Transylvania, come up!" Ladder, kill these bastards together!"

Antar continued to wait on horseback for the final charge, his drawn weapon in his hand, and Simon followed closely on his right.For now, he's just calling the shots, waiting for Trencin's gates to open for the first time in weeks.

He didn't wait long.

A low creak and a deafening roar of death sounded the beginning of the end.

The tall castle gate opened slowly like the mouth of a tired giant, devouring the soldiers waiting in front of the gate.

Until then, Antal Barto was shocked by an unparalleled feeling of intoxication, which the crowd roaring into the castle around him felt after the king's speech.His head began to buzz, he kicked his spurs, and roared into the city gate.

Now, not even the king himself could stop the carnage.
-
Dubica ---
"Mykolai!" Agnes shouted on the wall after more than 200 mercenaries surrounded the manor. "Tell me, what does this mean? Answer me, I'm asking you!"

Not only did the housekeeper refuse to answer the woman, but he didn't even dare to look at her.He knew all along what a terrible act of betrayal he was about to commit, but he wasn't ready to look the dupe in the eye.

"Your husband is a heretic!" The burly mercenary captain replied loudly. "We know that Antar Bator is a heretic Templar and a sworn man, therefore he is guilty! We have come to judge him and we will not tolerate any act of Sodom in our country heresy!"

"My husband is the chief knight in the court of Charles Anjou, King of Hungary, and the general of the king's banner army!" Agnes raised her head and replied in a proud voice, "You pig-faced villain, how dare you slander him like that ?”

"I see. It seems that the people of Barto's family are very brave, you mean woman!" The leader said with a lewd smile.

"Before I hand you over to my subordinates, I will make you my man in front of the burning ruins in front of my house. Then we will see if your mouth is still as good as it is now!"

Varos couldn't stand the sound anymore, and the anger crawled from the bottom of his stomach to his throat, almost strangling him.

"Get out of here now, and we'll spare your life!" he cried, standing beside Agnes, "or we'll hang you with your rogue minions!"

"You'd better open the door, Varos!" the butler finally said, "Trust me, you'd better..."

"You'd better keep your mouth shut and your head down, Mikolaj!" the captain cut him off, drawing his sword from its sheath. "I've always known you to be a smooth-talking servant, an insidious master-restraining fox!
But this time your judgment can't be more wrong, by God, I can finally kill you with my own hands tonight! 200 against the stone walls of the estate?What are you thinking, you idiot?

We just have to hold on a little longer, and soon you'll be kicked out like trash!You're all going to die here today, you bastards! "

"The captain must mean that he has sent a messenger to Dubica to ask for reinforcements." The mercenary leader explained loudly with a smile.He waved to his men, then turned to Varoth again.

"Tell me, Captain, is he the one who will make sure we get kicked out of here?"

The crowd parted behind the leader to make way for the most horrific sight Varos and Agnes had ever seen.

Three men were holding spears, supporting the fourth man. The man's armor was stripped off. The first spear passed through the middle of the man's back and came out from his chest.

Two other spears penetrated both arms of the messenger, and with these three arms they lifted the poor man aloft, as if the crucified Jesus was being carried about.

Agnes grabbed Varos' arm tremblingly, trying not to show any emotion on her face.Varos was not good at camouflage, looking down in disbelief from the low stone wall, unable to take his eyes off the slain, humiliated, desecrated corpse until it disappeared behind the mercenaries.

First Roland, now he again, thought the captain, they only have 28 soldiers left...

"So, what do you say?" The mercenary commander shouted again, "Are you going to open this damn door, or do you want us to break it open ourselves?"

"You'd better prepare for the worst, ma'am," Varos whispered to Agnes with a pale face, "we have few troops and no reinforcements. Unless there is a miracle, we will not be able to repel the siege of these people... "

(End of this chapter)