Patriarch Anselm followed the peasant detachment of Barbalon to the northeast side of the Castabala front, where at the crossing, a group of Jinat cavalry, to the cheers of the peasants, raised their horses' hooves to all of them, and under the shade of a willow tree, a pontoon bridge was erected over a tributary of the river, through which the camp of the Grand Duke could be reached. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

"Master, can the castle tower over there shoot flaming arrows?" When the cavalry arrived, an old white-bearded peasant pointed to the towering gray towers of Castabara.

"No, all the Saracen mechanics in their city have escaped to us, and no one makes that kind of rocket for the Arni." The cavalry replied.

"What about the cavalry of the Ani? I heard that they robbed the castle of Lord Polybi some time ago, and killed a lot of our peasants, these godsends! The middle-aged man beside the old peasant, with his wooden whip for the mule, looked indignant, but in fact carefully proceeded to the second question, and it was evident that he was also afraid of the Armenian cavalry.

The head-struck Ginatle strangled the horse's chew and waved the whip, a little heroic but also a little impatient, "Fellow (he said this in German, obviously in the tone of the Germans), you really can't make a fortune, look at your timid decay." The road ahead has long been swept clean by our cavalry, and the enemy is cowering, and sooner or later they will be destroyed. So you just swagger over there! ”

The laughter rang out, and the peasants of Barbalon also took up their courage, holding simple self-defense weapons modified with agricultural tools, and followed this small group of cavalry, stepping on the rickety pontoon bridge, pushing their vehicles and driving their cattle over: their military experience was actually much more than that of the peasants of other countries, and many of them had built fortifications and transported grain for the Grand Duke's army, just as the craftsmen of the great hospitals and colleges also sharpened stone bullets for the Grand Duke's stone guns, so they were not very strangers to the bloody battlefields and dead bodies, He also has some self-defense ability and courage, at least he knows how to dig trenches, and he also knows how to form a formation around the baggage carts to fight against the enemy's stragglers.

Soon, across the river, Anselm saw several peasants begin to crouch beside the dead bodies (about the Armenian cavalrymen) lying in the grass, searching for valuable things, the horses and armor had already been taken, and they began to strip the dead of their blood-stained clothes, among which the windy one had a full beard, his neck turned around, and his eyes were cunning and uneasy, which made Anselm feel chills, and he felt that it would be dangerous to follow the peasants any longer, so he took a few servants and began to walk along the river southwest of the castle— Five cures away was the siege of the Guardian Brigade, and he could get there first, so that he could safely pass through the Seleucian camp and then go to Gawain for advice.

"Patriarch, can the Grand Duke of Anatolia really take this castle, it's really big, it's really big." On the way, Anselm's servant carried the box on his back, and kept looking at the long ribbon walls and towers of the Castabara, marveling and questioning.

Then, suddenly there was a sharp whistling sound in the sky, as if it came from the clouds, which frightened everyone to crouch down, and the patriarch was also frightened, and subconsciously lay on the saddle of the donkey, and then the whole world shook as if it had been hit by a meteorite, and it seemed to be an earthquake. This is near the city of Mamisstra, which has always been an earthquake-prone area, and it is not impossible for such a disaster to occur at this moment. But the "earthquake" soon passed: when the patriarch's servants stood up from the ground, holding their trembling feet, they saw that the river was still trembling before them, and that one of the towers of the castle of Castabara, on that side, was shrouded in a great cloud of smoke and dust, and that the shadow was moving in the eyes of man, which was not an illusion.

Anselm and the servant were dumbfounded, and waited for a minute, and then the whistle tore through the sky, and then there was the roar of explosions, and the earth beneath their feet floated again, making it almost impossible to stand, and the donkey screamed and tried to escape, and Anselm grabbed the reins and beat him. "What about the towers? What about the towers? The servant with the box on his back looked terrified, and in the direction of his finger, the tower that had been there a moment ago had disappeared, and then a terrible sound came from afar, as if many people had fallen from the top of the hill to the bottom of the valley with falling rocks.

"I've heard that Gawain now has a terrifying and mysterious giant stone cannon, and it should have destroyed the tower just now, and the guards inside should have all been killed." Anselm hurriedly drew a cross on his chest, "In this way, it is not impossible to capture this castabara fort in time. ”

Then the patriarch drove the donkey and walked forward for several celi, and saw the camp of the Guardian Brigade, and happened to witness a terrible battle: in the water gate of the castle, a number of ships with sails sailed, and the decks were full of heavily armed soldiers, shouting and shouting, and forming a dense formation, and rushed towards the small island raised in the middle of the water, apparently guarded by Seleucian soldiers, who had gone to fight back and retake this natural blockade stronghold.

"Oh my God, oh my God, that's how the battle between ships went." Anselm's servants were frightened and intrigued—on the water on both sides of the river, the soldiers of both ships were gathered on their high bows, firing at each other in a dense stream of arrows, and as soon as the ships collided, many burst into shouts and jumped at each other, brandishing tomahawks and halberds, and savagely fighting. The wounded man fell as if he had fallen from a building, striking a high column of water on the water, followed by heavy armor, and then disappearing in the water after a shower of blood.

"Wow wow!" Later, Anselm shrunk his shoulders and let out a terrifying cry at the same time with several servants, for in their eyes, behind the mud ram dug up at the edge of the riverbank, suddenly spewed out sticky flames, like a hydra feasting: the flames were of terrible length and curvature, and some indescribable sound, as if there were hands manipulating them out of sight, "The Devil's Whip, Satan's Flame Serpent." This is a fitting metaphor from Anselm, who has some literary attainments—poured on the deck of the city's ships, and Anselm watched as the soldiers engulfed in flames seemed to stand still at first, as if stunned, but soon clung to their burning bodies and heads in agony, colliding with each other, some jumping into the water, and some falling on the deck until they were burned alive—and soon several ships were all on fire and ran aground on the beachhead of the riverbank, and the dead bodies were stacked on top of each other, scattered with flames and smoke, The undulations floated around the ship, the bow crooked, the stench of burnt burning, which Anselm's nostrils seemed to smell from a long distance. What can be confirmed is that the city's breakthrough offensive is all over, and it will be destroyed under the terrible "fire of defense" of the Guardian Brigade.

This is what the Anselm masters and servants saw on a pleasant day trip. (To be continued.) )