Chapter 13: The Strange Camp

The procession ended in the center of the camp, where there was an open space in which a two-story building of stone and wood stood. Another wide road crosses with the street where the party is traveling, and then spreads out to the perimeter of the camp.

It is rare to see a house made of stone and wood in the camp of an orc tribe, because it has lived in the grassland and desert for a long time, and the nomadic orcs are used to living in tents.

Of course, this is not to say that there are no stone and wood houses in the orc realm, as in the human kingdom, the most famous royal city of the orcs, Sunset City, is a majestic giant city made of the brownish yellow stone blocks unique to the sunset desert, and like the human city, it has tall and strong walls and magnificent buildings all over the city. It is said that the outer walls of the city were dozens of feet high, and two huge caravans could be placed on the walls, and they were so strong that even the heavy catapults that the dwarves were proud of could not shake the continuous attacks, even if the great Link the Great was unable to enter this majestic city after entering the hinterland of the orc territory, he had to use a stratagem to trick the leader of the orcs out of the city wall before cutting him down from the sword.

But the existence of that city is not just a city, it has become a symbol of immortality in the hearts of the orcs, a testimony of a race standing on the continent, living and dying, not declining and extinct since ancient times. In the hearts of all orcs, Sunset City is a holy place, a faith, a being that gives strength in difficult times. Perhaps in the distant future, the orc race will be annihilated in the long river of time, but the city that does not fall, even if it becomes a pile of ruins, will still stand there, reminding later beings that there was once a prosperous race living here.

But in the entire orc territory, it was the only city. In the vast grasslands, all the tribes are still accustomed to living in tents, and the way of life of migration from time to time makes the orcs not build permanent houses in a certain place as a place to live, even in the sunset desert, some mountain lizardmen living in the rocky hills only dig caves for their homes, and do not go to build stone for houses.

So this sudden appearance of wood and stone building made everyone very surprised, look closely, in fact, it is a two-and-a-half-story house, the bottom is only half a story high, it should be half deep under the ground, the half of the low walls above the ground are distributed with narrow slender ventilation windows, thick and strong iron bars to block the inside and outside of the house, behind each window are crowded with a haggard and dirty, unkempt, indifferent head, through the dense iron bar, indifferent looking at the team that is surrounded by the group, from the appearance of the face, it is all human beings, just dim eyes, there seems to be no trace of life, full of deep despair and indifference.

The building was square in shape, with the only door facing the camp gate, two wooden doors that were larger than usual, and the bluestone steps under the wooden doors and on both sides of the steps were covered with werewolf warriors in leather armor and armed with war hammers.

It was strange enough that this rugged building appeared in this place, but what was even stranger was that there was something on top of that high roof platform, looking from afar.

It was a huge tent that was much more ornate than a normal tent, and it was built on the roof of the building in such an exaggerated manner, like the domed architecture sought after by the paranoid race of elves, adding a small semi-circular roof to the whole building.

A tall werewolf stood outside the tent, in front of the roof, his hands clasped and indifferently watching the approaching team. When the team marched into the clearing, far away, all the giant wolves cautiously stopped, only the leading knight turned over and jumped off the back of the giant wolf, slowly walked forward to the door of the building, bowed respectfully to the werewolf with black hair standing on the roof, raised his head and shouted loudly, as if to report the results of the trip in the language of the orcs.

Half-loud, the black-haired werewolf standing on the roof nodded slightly, and the orcs who were holding their breath suddenly let out an excited shout, and the team began to approach the gate of the building, and the heavily armed werewolf warriors who were originally standing at the door of the building also greeted with a smile.

They dispersed the welcoming crowds of the camp that had gathered with them, drove them far out of a certain area, and then began to unload the spoils from the spoil-laden wolves in the group and move them into the building.

The orcs who came with the team stood far away, shouting, shouting, and not leaving for a while, and several kobolds with animal skins tied around their waists walked out of the building with large wooden basins, and threw pieces of jet-black dried meat into the crowd, which immediately caused the orcs to rob, howl, fight, and make a mess.

However, there were always a few orc warriors with thick wooden clubs standing outside the crowd, and when they saw any orcs trying to sneak into the loot area, they unceremoniously drove away with a bar, preventing a few orcs from coming in and fishing in troubled waters.

Ite, along with the other human captives, was dragged from the wolf's back by the leather-clad werewolf warriors and dragged into the building.

Walking down a dim staircase to the half-hidden room underground, Ite felt that he was about to be strangled to death by this werewolf warrior who was roughly dragging him by the neck, his mouth was half open, his tongue was half exposed, Ite breathed hard, and just as he was about to roll his eyes, he felt his body being thrown out forcefully, and the air that had not been seen for a long time finally entered his mouth smoothly again.

The body fell on the hard ground, and he was dizzy, and after a long time, the little star that kept circling in front of him disappeared without a trace, and Itet was finally able to carefully observe where he was.

The afterglow of the setting sun filtered through the narrow stone windows, and the oblique light slightly illuminated the dimly lit room, making the surrounding scenery obscure.

It was a low but spacious room, probably taking up an entire half-hidden floor of the building, and the bluestone walls were very thick, so it was also unusually strong. The huge stone strips are also very neatly polished, so that there are almost no gaps in the stone strips.

There is also a layer of bluestone slabs on the ground as a floor, but judging from the carved marks that still remain on it, the house has not been built very long, and the tiny edges and corners of the stone slabs on the ground have not been trampled and smoothed.

More than a dozen long square pillars made of bluestone support the huge roof, and long logs with gray-brown dry bark are tightly tied together to form a low and oppressive roof.

The empty room was surrounded by a circle of iron cages made of black cast iron, and the space between the thumb-thick bars was so narrow that it was impossible to stretch out an arm. The same style of iron bars divides this circle of iron cages into more than ten separate cells, so that the adjacent cells cannot be connected.

Most of the iron cage cells are crowded with ragged and unkempt human prisoners, many of which are the standard clothes of King Lazer's ** team, indicating that those are all Kingdom warriors who were captured on the border, and some of the clothes on their bodies are varied, but at a glance, it can be seen that they are all suitable for traveling far away in the style of traveler's robes, and it is estimated that they are probably some adventurers who came to the orc territory to do business or try their luck.

They filled three more cells, leaving the already few empty cells and making the already low rooms even more noisy.

In the middle of the room was a wooden staircase leading to the upper floor, and at the bottom of the staircase were two wooden beds and a wooden table made of logs, and two kobold guards were sitting bored on the edge of the wooden bed, lying on the table and fiddling with the remains of some unknown animals.

A total of fifteen human captives were crammed into the narrow and low bars where Itet was, so that people were really crowded together in the already small bars. The low cage top Iter was just right to stand upright, but the taller ones had to bend over when they did.

Fortunately, this cell was in the position of a ventilation window, and the ventilation window was also at the height of Ate's chest, and lying by the window, he could see a puppet in the orc camp outside.

Most of the orcs who had gathered around the building to watch the excitement had dispersed, perhaps to pick up a few pieces of jerky that had been thrown at them, leaving only a group of orc cubs still running and rolling around, screaming with joy and not knowing what to say. A few huge wolves with shiny coats lay on the edge of the clearing and lazily snoozed, not attracted by the cries of the little ones, but casually raised their heads to look at them, and continued to bow their heads to rest.