Ormond found a hemp rope, tied one end to the pheasant's moat, lowered the wall with the other, and waved his hand at the guard on the battlement, and the castle's fire gradually dimmed. "Remember what I told you. He said.

Irina looked beneath the walls, where the rushing river was constantly crashing against the embankment that supported the base of the wall, and there was a narrow passageway, only a few meters from the Giant's Bridge, and the guard, Billyon, did not agree to open the gates, so Ormond suggested that she climb down. "I'm not going down with your rope. Irina told him, "Wait for my letter and I'll get back as soon as I can." Then he leaped down the wall of the city, which was thirty feet high.

As her light dimmed, Irina's silhouette faded into the night, and all she saw was the bright light of the fire flickering across the river and the Giant's Bridge across the river, and she groped her way to the bridge, and looked back for Ormond's figure, which was silent above the walls, and there were no guards to be seen. She let go of her worries and turned all her attention to the hundreds of camps on the other side of the river, where the fires were bright and transparent, and the northern forest behind her was shrouded in a dull yellow haze.

For Irina, the most dangerous stretch of the road belongs to the Giant's Bridge. As long as she successfully passed through without the Horking people noticing, she could easily sneak into the northerners' military camp to find out. At the other end of the bridge, two Hortins were standing straight on either side of the bridge with spears in hand, their eyes turned away from the Redstone River, their attention focused on the noise in the barracks, unaware that Irina was quietly approaching them.

However, the thorny problem also lies in front of Irina, if she crosses the bridge, the two guards will definitely be killed by her. Otherwise, she will be discovered, which will alarm the entire northerners' military camp. It's a dilemma. When she became a member of the Men in Black, Maester Pesil had told her that when the lives of the Men in Black were not threatened and the balance of the continent was not disrupted, the Men in Black were not allowed to harm innocent people, and there was only one real enemy of the Men in Black, the dead.

The Horking people are innocent to Irina, and they are bewitched by the sorcerers of the north, so they choose to leave their homeland and burn and plunder. Before the outbreak of the Civil War, everything was unknown, the balance had not been lost, and the men in black could only wait and see. Wearing a black cloak and hiding herself in the shadows, Irina thought for a moment and then decided to abandon the military camp that was close to the Horkings and chose to go directly into the Blackwater Reef.

The army of the northerners has not yet been fully assembled, some of them are in Blackwater Reef, and the other part is around Seahorse Town. If this place is not the main force, then the wizards of the north will not be here. Irina drew her bow and arrow, aimed the arrow at the guard on one side, and the moment she shot it, she quickly drew a second one, and in a matter of seconds, the two of them were bound by Irina in a few minutes. She didn't take their lives, but only hit them in the stomach, and before the two could open their mouths, Irina crossed the Giant's Bridge at an alarming speed and hid in the corner, and then, there were urgent shouts and miserable cries for help behind her, and for a while, the barracks seemed to have opened a pot, and the sound of hounds barking, chain mail rubbing, and weapons unsheathed spread throughout the barracks, and the wandering firelight quickly spread between the camps, and the patrols searched along the riverbank, blocking the main roads in and out of the forest.

In the corner where Irina hid was two dilapidated carts and a pile of abandoned wooden stakes, surrounded by a swaying camp with fire, from which a deep, gruffled conversation could be heard, during which two hounds passed in front of the tent, followed by five patrolmen armed with torches, who joined the other guards in front of another tent, and after a brief conversation, the two groups crossed over. At the same time, there was a commotion to the east of the huge barracks, and the guards who were hovering nearby walked towards the source of the sound.

There was a sound there, and Irina leaned down to see a row of dazzling torches burning on the wall on the other side of the river, and the swaying figures paced back and forth between the torches, carrying flaming bows and arrows from the castle into the night sky, not much, but enough to attract the attention of the Hortins. The arrows fell from the sky and rushed straight into the wide river of red stones, like meteors passing by, fleeting.

It must have been Ormond's idea, Irina knew that he was covering for me. The Redstone River flailed its arms in the fingerless darkness, flirting at the beachhead and swinging towards the piers, splashing water that reflected the light and shadow on both sides. Irina did not hesitate, and while the attention of the people of Heerjing was all focused on the castle on the other side of the river, she ran quickly to the forest on the north side.

The surrounding light gradually dimmed, and finally turned into complete darkness, and at this moment Irina had not yet stepped out of the range of the Heerjing people, and did not dare to raise the light easily. Sometimes there was a faint sound of conversation and laughter coming from the forest not far from the road, and sometimes a faint fire flickered through the forest in the distance. When Irina turned a roundabout road, there was an urgent sound of horses from the other side of the road, from far to near, and the sound grew louder and louder, and the number of people was more than twenty.

Irina avoided the avenue and bypassed them from the edge of the woods, until all the agitation behind her fell silent. If tonight isn't counted, there are still three days to go until Seahorse Town, and time is of the essence for Irina. Can't afford to delay too much on the road, Irina thought to herself, the northerners were gathering in a steady stream, Ormond's guess was not unreasonable, strange things happened at about the same time, maybe there was some kind of connection.

She raised her hand, and with a whisper, a cluster of 'flowing fireflies' appeared in the palm of her hand, and the red flame floated lightly into the air, illuminating the road in front of her. This is the secret language of the dwarves of the Hado hills, for them, there are many kinds of flames, each of which has a corresponding secret language, and Irina has only mastered two of them, one is the fire secret language that almost all the people in black can use, and the other is the 'firefly fire' floating in the air, which is what the dwarves call it.

In the beginning, the dwarves were unable to recite these secret words, but the earth spirits that inhabited the Holy Lake Bay gave them this ability. The relationship between elves and dwarves dates back to the elven era before the human era, so no one can really understand them. Maester Pesil once told all the men in black that there are many beliefs in this world, and there are many gods because of faith, such as the four Dutan brothers believed in by the Dutans, the true god Panla worshiped by the Dastur Church, the goddess Nishizawa worshipped by the people of the mountains, and the goddess Our Lady admired by Westerners. The dwarves of the Bodo Hills believe in the moon god, and for the earth elves, they only recognize the gods of the dwarves and believe that the moon god is real, so the earth elves give the dwarves a moonlight sac.

Irina remembered that she disagreed with Maester Pesil when she said this, as Maester Pesil believed in the Grevyn Star, as did the other two of the three Guardians. The three of them were blessed by the Grewin Star, and their age was frozen forever at the moment when they were blessed, and now it seems that Master Pesil lived at least seventeen hundred years, which is only a conservative number, maybe longer.

The Grevyn Star is real, not merely a transmission of teachings and intentions, as evidenced by age. Irina believed Maester Pesil, so she also didn't believe in the moon god that the dwarves believed in, and over time, she came to the conclusion that although the earth elves were a higher race and were good at secret language and magic, they made the mistake of acknowledging the dwarven beliefs. Gradually, all the men in black no longer valued the abilities of the elves and dwarves, but regarded them as friends. In a more appropriate way, the Guardian's abilities are superior to those of the Earth Elves, who, in the eyes of the Guardians, are no more than mortals. The Order of the Men in Black under the Guardians has also been blessed by the Grevyn Star, as is the opinion of the Elves.

The glow of the glow swirled lightly overhead, keeping pace with Irina's hurried footsteps, as they climbed slippery and muddy dirt slopes, skirted abandoned fields with the sound of frogs, passed through thick birch forests, flowed past streams of trickling streams, and finally rested beside the rocky beach of an unknown lake. Surrounded by waist-high bushes and tall trees, nightingales chirp in the dense forest, the night breeze sighs, the lake ripples, and the starlight spreads and gathers on the water. The clouds overhead rushed away, obscuring the twinkling of the stars, and the night was deep asleep, only Irina was meditating alone in the light of the flowing fireflies.

The next morning, less than two hundred meters east of Irina, the lake poured into a wide river, which was connected by a double-hole stone bridge. Irina remembered this road, crossing the stone bridge and walking for half a day, she could enter the hinterland of the Blackwater Reef, where hundreds of rivers crisscrossed the city, thousands of islands were entrenched, and there were many villages, and the road to Haima Town, the royal city of the north, would also branch off there. If you choose it right, you will definitely be able to avoid the military formation set up by the Ertin, and maybe the people living on the Blackwater Reef are still alive, I hope it will be like this, Irina thought uneasy.

When she arrived at the first village, it had burned to the ground, and one day the heavy rain had washed away the blood and filth, and the surface was covered with a layer of dark silt, which had sunk the entire collapsed foundation even deeper. The original path was almost nowhere to be found, so Irina had to take another detour to get around.

When you come to the second village, the situation is almost the same as the previous one. At the end of the ruins, flocks of crows hovered low in the sky, chirping into a piercing noise. Looking through the ruins, a dark mound protrudes from the surface, and if you look closely, it is not a mound, but a crematorium.

"Guide your servant out of darkness to light, wise star. Irina, unable to hide her grief and indignation, took off her hood and looked very depressed. The west wind swept through her body, carrying her scent to the crematorium on the east side, and the crow, as if sensing the uneasiness, rose into the air in an instant, caught in the chaos and horror and flew into the forest.

When he came to the third ruin again, there was no hope in his heart, and the people of Blackwater Reef were either lucky enough to escape or were killed by the Horkings, leaving only one in pieces. Perhaps the people who got the news in advance had already taken refuge in Seahorse Town, probably the vast majority, and Irina thought that the Holy Court would open its gates for his people to provide protection. It also reminded her of the Pillar of Dawn in the Holy Lake Bay.

During the Dark Ages, the magic of the Earth Elves forged a barrier of light and provided the only protection for the surviving humans, and they sent hundreds of wolf spirits to the Delon Snow Mountains to provide support to the guardians. The final battle takes place in the Black Forest's River Demon Swamp, where the Guardians, Wolf Spirits, and human armies form a final alliance that drives the dead into the Ragoras Wilderness.

I hope that little Dengkan will realize the severity of the north. As Irina prepares to leave the area, she hears someone talking in the depths of the ruins, and she doesn't think she'll see anyone alive again along the way. Irina followed the voice softly, and saw an old woman and a young girl among the crumbling stone tiles, the old woman was doing her best to soothe the panicked girl, she described it as withered, slumped back because of her emaciation, her whole body was covered with cracked earth, and the blood was pouring from her gray hair and solidifying in her ears. Sometimes she held the girl in her arms, sometimes wiped the tears from the girl's cheeks, and the old woman choked up several times and couldn't speak.

Irina took off her hat and walked quickly to their side, and the girl turned her head sideways and saw someone approaching, and suddenly fell to her knees in fright, and began to cry. The old woman hurriedly shielded the girl and tilted her head to probe Irina. "Don't be afraid, you're seriously injured, I'll help you. Irina's voice was so light that it also made the old and the young let their guard down. The girl poked her head out of the old woman's arms and stared at Irina, her hands clasped tightly around the old woman's thin arms, she was still a little scared, Irina knew, and what scared her was what she had been through. Irina couldn't imagine how a young child could go through this.

Irina turned her gaze to the old woman's body, and was surprised by the severity of her injuries: her left ankle was shattered, a finger-thick wooden tip had been pierced into her abdomen, the wound had begun to inflame and pus, and her face was pale and lifeless. But the tenacious perseverance has allowed the old woman to persist until now, and it is because of the girl in her arms, she cannot leave her alone, she loves her more than everything, beyond death.

"I'll save you, trust me. Irina insisted, taking a plum from her bosom and handing it to the old woman, "Eat it, it will make you better." But Irina was not sure that such a serious injury would save the old woman.

"The barbarians destroyed our home, my loved ones were burned alive, and now only my granddaughter remains". The old man couldn't stop his tears, and hugged the girl tightly with trembling hands. "I'm already in my prime, I shouldn't have sent a white-haired person to a black-haired person, I don't know what I've done wrong, the gods want to punish me like this!" she let out a long sigh, as if she had lifted a heavy burden, "Good Samaritan...... Good Samaritan, please save my granddaughter, please save her!"

When the girl heard this, she almost collapsed, and she put all her arms around the old woman, tears wetting her collar and stinging Irina's heart. "I'll save her, don't worry. ”

The old woman's pale and wrinkled face showed a bright smile, "Good Samaritan, please take her away." Her words were like gossamer, "The gods will bless you...... My body can't get me any further, and I'm going to stay in the town and spend the rest of my time praying for you. The girl's tears were raining down, and her weak little hands were tugging at the old man's coat, and her strength was so strong at the moment. The old man kissed the girl's forehead deeply, "My child, you can go with this sister at ease, I will take care of myself." ”

"I'm not leaving, I won't leave you, I won't!" the girl wiped away her tears, her face stubborn.

This scene also reminded Irina of her when she was a child. In the late autumn dusk, a layer of pale frost rises in the wheat field, and the girl uses wooden tongs to collect the ice crystals on the surface of the dead leaves little by little into a paper bag, and her mother praises her for her skillful hands, and her father praises her as the most beautiful person in the world. Irina remembers that it was in a grass hut that had just been built, the sunlight on the west ridge was a soft yellow, and everything around her was so beautiful. But it all came too suddenly, and the fleshless walking bones broke into the thatched hut, and the mother took the girl in her arms and told her not to be afraid, that everything would pass. However, the girl saw her father torn in half by the white bones.

"Run, don't look back, quick, quick!" the mother pushed the girl out of the door, turning and scuffling with the bones. The last scene was the thatched hut that had fallen silent and the cold after sunset, and the night was soon dark, and she kept running, not daring to look back, the branches cutting her face, and the roots grabbing her ankles. She could hear hurried footsteps and hoarse screams coming from behind her. When she looked back, her mother and father were standing under the stump, their bodies surrounded by a golden halo, and she wanted to turn around and throw herself into her mother's arms again, but her mother showed a stern expression. "Don't stop, run!" In an instant, the white skeleton burst out of the bushes and took the place of his mother, and he scurried towards her, swinging his sword and stabbing at her. She wanted to dodge, but she bumped into it somehow, and when she fell, it was pitch black in front of her.

When the girl awoke again, the tall horses carried her through the neighing woods, and it was no longer her mother who protected her, but a sturdy man, and behind him a woman in a black cloak, whose eyes were full of concern. Later, the girl learned that the white bone came from the undead realm east of Delong Snow Mountain, where there was no light, and it was the man in black who saved her life. It was the first time she had set foot in the Black Hills, the first time she had entered the Castle of Dusk, the first time she had seen Maester Pesil, and the two who had saved his life were now her best friends, Ivan and Boo.

The old woman stopped talking, her eyes only pleading, and with all her strength she tore the little girl's arm open and handed it to Irina. "Good Samaritans will protect her, right?"

"I'm not leaving, I'm not leaving!" the girl stepped back weakly.

"You must go, listen to me, and in a few days, you will come to me again, or this place...... I'll be waiting for you here. The old woman could not bear the sharp pain of the wound, and she curled up and let out a murmur.

"I'll protect her, I swear. Irina assured the old woman.

"My good Samaritan, the gods will bless you...... The Celestials ...... Bless you. She turned her head away and stopped looking at her granddaughter. "Let's go, let's go. ”

Irina knew she didn't have long to live, but she handed her the remaining plum orchids in her pocket. The girl kept crying, her fists clenched, and she refused to leave her. Finally the old woman spoke, "Her name is Midara, the last flesh and blood of the Seti family, you will take her to Seahorse Town, right? It's safe there, and when I get better, maybe I'll go to you." The old woman looked at the girl, "Be obedient, go with my sister." ”

The girl reluctantly stood up, "You have to talk and count." ”

"What am I...... It's time to lie to you, you can go with confidence. The old woman smiled.

Irina and the girl bid farewell to the old man lying on the ruins, the sun was very warm at the moment, and everything around them was calm.