The cold came suddenly, and overnight, everything froze and slowed, water, trees, weeds, animals, birds, and humans—even the less temperature-sensitive elves wore fur cloaks, and their diets shifted from nuts and berries to meat— While the lich always claims that their new body doesn't need to eat or drink to function properly, the Otherworldly Soul still finds that even a large bowl of berries will only make him feel cold and hungry and thirsty soon, and nothing beats a piece of fatty, roasted, fragrant venison, lamb, or wild boar.

They drank goat's milk like the soldiers of Thundercastle, and boiled it with butter, and Baldwin brought a small jar of winter wine, which was as pure as ice cubes after repeated steaming, but when drunk it was like a flame burning violently in the body, only Baldwin and the elves and knights who needed to go out of the city to investigate and fight had to provide for it— The elves who go out to patrol every day each have a small bottle, mixed with winter honey and water of life, and the blood in their bodies can flow normally thanks to these three things.

Cremar was rightfully taken by Kerryben's side, and their team of ten had gone out six times, and the sheer axe-like cliffs were difficult for humans and orcs to climb and land, but for the elves it was just a different way of walking. Kerribben's Gil Owl and another elf's Brown Rock Pipit are the most reliable eyes of the elves, the Brown Rock Pipit during the day and the Gil Owl at night, they take turns flying in the air, observing the situation in front of them and above, and reminding the elves to be careful of falling rocks, beasts, poisonous snakes and orcs by calling and flying, and when they are tired of flying, they go back to the arms of their big friends to rest.

If someone were flying over the Dragon's Back Mountains at this time, the elves, covered by their gray-white furry hooded cloaks, were like an illusion caused by the rapid flow of clouds and the changing sunlight, and they could climb through the rocks with twice the speed of a human walking on flat ground, and they could climb over the dragon's spine in half a day, hiding in the shadow of rocks that protruded like noses and tongues, and their sharper eyes than the falcons made it easy for them to find what they were looking for.

The orcs gathered on the plain north of the pass, the orcs did not like to use flags, but the chief's tent would be smeared with the blood of the enemy, and the orc priests' tents would be erected outside the tents, and the enemy's heads, hair, and skins would be hung on them, and each tribe, large or small, had only one leader and one priest, and the priests and the chief's tent were next to each other, and around them were the warriors' tents, and beyond were the orc slaves, and the half-orcs and human slaves had no tents, and they ate, drank, sat and lay down with the livestock, which was perhaps a great favor in this bad weather, and the orcs had dry dung and branches, and the priests and chiefs had pyroxeneHuman slaves could hardly find anything to heat up except for themselves and their livestock.

There are two ways for the elves to estimate the strength of the orcs, one is to count their tents, each large tent can accommodate about forty orcs, the medium is twenty-five, and the small tent is fifteen, and the second is to see if there are a few horned deer or sheep missing from the daily tribe's enclosures—in the case of food scarcity, those horned deer and argali, which are given priority to the warriors, and the weight of the meat that each orc warrior normally ingests is twenty to thirty pounds— With a simple multiplication and division, you can find out how many warriors are hidden in a tribe.

Since the third time, the number of tents they saw has not changed, according to Kerry's estimates, the number of orc warriors is about 4,000, the number of orcs and human slaves combined is about 3,000, and the number of soldiers and knights in Thunder Fort hovers around 8,000, this ratio is basically the same as in previous years, and even more reassuring than in previous years, perhaps because of the heavy winter and the mass death of livestock, the number of half-orcs and human slaves is only two-thirds of the past.

"Do you see, Priestess Oakes?" In the black blood tent, the image of the Mithril mirror soaked in the blood of humans, demons, and dragons was gradually disappearing with the departure of the elves, and the mage reached out and gently wiped it, and the mirror instantly returned to its original clean and bright.

"See," said the priest of Oakes, "a bunch of sharp-eared rats raised by humans." ”

"If they really have the same eyesight as a mouse, we don't have to worry. The mage said, tucking the Mithril Mirror into his wide red robes.

"The mighty Kawuha will gouge out their eyes," said the priest gloomily, "and they will never see all our warriors." At the same time, he threw a piece of filth into the campfire in front of him, and the suffocating stench and smoke filled the entire tent, and his human slave girl curled up on the edge of the tent in pain, her eyes closed, her nose and mouth pressed against the cold mud, but the red-robed mage seemed completely undisturbed, and even happily admired the poisonous snakes and skeletons formed by the smoke in the air.

"Is this elven blood?" asked the red-robed mage.

"A female elf's ** mixed with a male elf's testicles is dried and crushed," said Ox priest, sniffing at the filthy mist with his nostrils wide open, "Stir in fresh wolf dung and some secret elixir - the great Kawu likes this very much." ”

"Indeed," the red-robed mage agreed, "this is quite rare and rare. ”

"Soon it will be less rare and rare. The priest said haughtily and ominously.

Kerry, of course, could not hear their conversation, he looked at the sky, the layers were stacked, the clouds of cold and ice crystals were as heavy and gray as lead, "We should go back," he said, "and it will snow soon." ”

This was the second snow that had fallen on the Dragon's Belly Pass, and it was heavier and more urgent than the first, and the snow had already covered their hoods before the elves' party reached the walls.

Torches had already been lit on the towers on either side of the entrance, the elves had lowered their hoods, snowflakes fell on their blonde hair and faces, the checkered iron gates were slowly pulled up, each fence was as thick as a grown male's thumb, the guards vigilantly counted the number of elves, and when the tenth, that is, Cremar, walked past him, he immediately loosened the handle of the winch, and the tough and thick rope sizzled like a snake on the pulley, and the heavy iron gate slid down almost next to Cremar's back, and the eighteen sharp spear tips at the end of the gate pierced the reserved pit in the groundBecause people often oil it and correct its position, it only makes a very light sonorous sound.

The black iron door, inlaid with pure gold rivets and separated from the iron gate by a thick stone wall, slowly opened in the call of the guards, and as Cremar looked curiously as he passed it, he saw something similar to a spring, which was mounted on top of the black iron door, and was fastened to the door and wall with two pairs of hooks as large as a human head, a bit like the door closer commonly used by people in his world on fire doors, making the door easy to close but difficult to open, and the spring was also very good at absorbing the power of the hammer.

"The work of the dwarves. Carey Ben said, "So are the pulleys." ”

"Not a dwarf?"

"The dwarf's work is a little bit smaller. ”

"The dwarves built Castle Thunder, all?"

“...... Whew, no. Careyburn said that there was absolutely no word "cheap" in the dwarves' dictionaries, and that any bargaining would be seen as a disparagement and insult to their skills, and that anyone who wanted to get a discount from them had their heads or butts smashed with axes and hammers— In order to ensure that Thunder Castle can stand for hundreds of years, the first and second generation owners of Thunder Castle even want to exchange a sparrow on the territory for coins, for more than a hundred years, you can't see a beautiful tapestry in the lord's castle, the lord's wife and daughter sit in the room with ventilation on all sides to spin and embroider to make money, every time the lord is invited to Gray Ridge as a guest, he will bring all his family and knights to come, seize the opportunity to eat and drink several meals.

Even so, the dwarven work was confined to a few key points, all of which were feared that the debt would bankrupt the entire Norman kingdom of the Highlands.

Otherworldly spirits touch the bricks and stones in the corridors, which can hold a giant or two orcs, or five elves. It's hard to imagine how the dwarves, who were not tall enough to be waisted by the elves and were as big as wine barrels, could carry the bricks and stones that they could use as a room to live in and build them up piece by piece, or that the dwarves also had mages?

A short time out of the dark corridor they saw Berdwin, with only two servants beside him, two strong arms sticking out of his sleeveless cloak of black bearskin, he had not pulled up his hood, the snow covered his hair, his thick eyebrows and beard, and his eyes shining as bright as morning stars in the light of torches.

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