Like a sharp knife cutting through the fat, within an hour, the new city collapsed.

The soldiers instructed the inhabitants of the various gates to hold up the gates with several huge logs, and then proceeded to seal the gates from the inside with pre-prepared stones: stones that had been prepared in the past to prevent the enemy from attacking the city. But at those times, most of the enemies who came came from the land, and the city knew whether it would be attacked a week or even two weeks in advance, and from that time on, most of the gates would be sealed with stones from the inside, leaving only a few gates. In fact, the last time the city of Yurik was attacked was fifty years ago, the soldiers of the Sultan of Salander surrounded the city of Yurik from both sides of the land and water, not so much to attack the city as to show their hegemony, the soldiers of the Salanders stretched for many miles, wrapped in the cavalry of the steppe region, the Vikian mercenaries and the archers of many nationalities, these people camped outside the city of Yurik The bonfires were like stars in the sky, and the military horses took turns drinking water so that the water level of the river flowing through Yurik City dropped instantly. The prince of the city of Ulric finally chose to give in, leaving the city according to the agreement, and giving the city to the Salanders in exchange for assurances that the Salanders would not kill civilians indiscriminately.

Now, in the direction of the sea, there are scattered inhabitants everywhere. The walls were uneven, there were even large sections of the walls, and the few towers were attached to large and small dwellings, and the attackers did not need ladders to climb the towers to meet the defenders. Soldiers who had never practiced before took command of the project to close the city gates, and they were in a hurry. When the Nords began to attack the city, two gates were immediately missed, and in the other direction. The Nords, armed with small battering rams, chiseled six houses in a row and went straight into the streets of the new town. This undoubtedly means that there are already Nord eyeliners in the city. The Nords know exactly where the weak point of the city is.

I pushed the bookcase into the abandoned hut and covered the cart with it. He sprinkled some dirt on it, and hurried towards the old city.

The gates of the old city were open, and the front and back of the gate were crowded with soldiers, and when they saw me rushing over, the two soldiers immediately drew their scimitars from their waists, revealing a clear blade.

"Civilians, what are you doing!" A soldier asked me.

"It's a spy," said another soldier, "and he was hanging around here last night." He should be arrested. ”

When a few soldiers heard this, they gathered around.

I immediately defended myself, "I said, I was commissioned by Asri to give a box of books, yes, books, to one of your scholars in the Old City. He was an astronomer and lived with a female madwoman. ”

The soldiers looked at me suspiciously, and I continued. "Asri, she donated all the food to the temple, and you definitely have her share of the bread you eat. Scholar, if you don't believe me, ask me. It must be in the old city, the southeast corner, the highest place. The sky can be observed. ”

"This guy has figured out the terrain of the old city." One soldier said, "How do you know?" ”

"I don't know how I'm going to deliver something."

"Where is the thing?" The soldier said.

"I'm hiding in the fire-burned hut over there."

"Huh. There is no one to prove. ”

"Whatever you want," I said. "Let me go talk to the astronomer."

"No one can enter the Old City, get out."

"You are all idiots," I said to them, "and to go to the new city now is to seek death." You've driven me to death, and I'm not sure I'll go to the Nords and tell them how to get to the old city. ”

The soldiers were furious, and one yelled that they were going to kill me now.

Then an officer rode out of the city gate, "What is the noise here?" ”

"We found a little spy."

Yesterday this officer asked me for water, and he looked at me and recognized me, "Then he is so lame, he had such a good opportunity to poison me yesterday, but he only let me moisten my throat." Boy, what are you doing here? ”

I told him why I was here.

"Can you work?" The officer asked me.

The shouting and killing sound from the bottom of the mountain made my heart numb, "I am a good hand at attaching tail feathers to arrows, sharpening knives, and feeding horses." ”

"The boy is right," said the officer, "and he will run to the Nords and let him in, and let them follow him." If the scholar said he didn't know him, he killed him, and if he went into the old city and wanted to leave, he killed him. If all is well, let him work in the ordnance department. ”

"Yes, sir." A soldier bowed to him. "I'd love to do it."

I weighed it and decided not to bother with the box, it seemed that the Nords were going to rush up the hillside up the old city in a moment, and they would surely die an unknown death if they wandered around while the two armies faced each other. I hurried into the old city, and a soldier patted me on the head and told me to be honest.

We walked along the road of the Old City towards the inside, and the soldier who followed me said to me, "Which scholar? There are seven or eight scholars here. ”

"I knew I lived in the southeast, on the highest ground," I said to him, "and there was a madwoman concubine."

He slapped me, making my mouth bloody, "Don't be unclean in the mouth of the little thief, Bella saved my son's life, you short-lived ghost!" ”

"Who?!" I was shocked when all of a sudden, Bella's crazy words and the promise she had made for me to come became clear, and the conversation that had forgotten the details was now remembered without missing a word. The eccentric Bella, who seems to be justified by being called a witch. Also, Aunt Asri's conversation about me being 'guided' also confused.

"Bella," said the soldier, "what's the matter?" He asked, gauging my expression.

"I know this man." I said to the soldiers.

The soldier looked incredulous.

I measured the height with my hand, "She's so tall, she has long hair, her eyes are very far apart, she looks weird, she smells like herbs." I know that the Creelians and Salanders don't reject herbs, you know what herbs taste, right? ”

The soldier's eyebrows twitched. "It's not unusual for you to hear about Bella from someone else."

"She's a Rhodoc. It won't be long to be here. I said to him.

"Come on," the soldier was annoyed by the mournful sound of trumpets and drums. "Hurry up and see the scholars, I still have things to do."

There were many soldiers running around in the old city, a few panicked women filling buckets, and an old man whistling at a few frightened horses, hoping that they would be quiet. The ground here is different from that of the new town, the ground is all paved with bricks, and the corners are also compacted with fine ash, which looks very clean, although the road surface is not wide. But it looks much more atmospheric than the roadside in the new town. Every dozen or so steps, there will be a circular pool of water that is empty, and the Zen masters of the past would sit on the edge of these pools to rest after walking. A circular building with paintings from the Zenda period still preserved on the outside, but all the faces were chiseled off, and the Zenda-style hats were shoveled off and painted with Salander-style turbans. I actually saw three rows of stand-like things next to a blacksmith's shop. But there are small circular holes every few feet, and these seats are hollow with a drainage ditch underneath, and it is said that the Zen people like to sit on the stones and defecate. I've heard of them for a long time, but this is the first time I've seen them, as far as I've seen. Sitting on a stone and pooping must not be a comfortable thing. The ground of the old city is all slightly raised in the middle, and the sides of the road are slightly sunken. Underground with clay-fired columnar pipes were built into a dense aqueduct, and sewage was directed directly to the sea. The rainwater is collected into two large rectangular pools.

At this moment, there was a whistling sound in the sky.

Before I could figure out what was happening, I felt a tingling on my scalp, and I shoved the soldier and knocked him to the side of the corner, where he thought I had sneaked up and cursed as he prepared to draw his knife. At this moment, where we had just stood, a stone bullet struck the roof beam, and the house, which had fallen into disrepair and could not support its own weight, had a huge crack in the front half, and after a dull tearing sound, a third of the roof of the house broke away from the house and crashed down on the street.

The soldier let out a breath and was stunned for a long time, and when he noticed that I had stood up, he also stood up. He looked at me and held out his hand to me, "Good fellow, come with me and I'll protect you to the scholars." ”

We raced through the street at a fast pace.

During this time, more than a dozen stone projectiles were fired, and at least three of them hit the main buildings of the Old City. I saw a man trying to block a stone bullet that didn't look too big with his shield, only to be torn in two pieces from his waist, and his upper body was alive for a while, trying to crawl away from the dangerous street, he struggled until he was pierced in the chest by a weeping Crelian spearman. Several women ran through the streets like crazy, they never thought that they would be attacked in the safety of the old city, and all this happened after dawn, and no one had time to react.

"Do the Nords have magic," the Creel soldier held down his helmet, just a stone bullet hit a granary converted from the Chanda Temple, the door of the entire granary collapsed, and a puff of dust was released inside, and now the soldier and I were both disgraced, "I heard that the siege engine will be set up for at least two days. ”

"The Nords were premeditated." I judged, "If you cut down trees to make siege engines after landing, it will take a few days." But if they have all their things ready, they can be assembled in half an hour after going ashore, even with nails and tenons. ”

"It can't be." The Creel soldier jumped over a ditch, turned around and reached out and pulled me to the ground, "No one can fight like this. ”

"I've seen the Varans do that." I said, "There's no reason the Nords wouldn't do that." By the way, I remember, I've heard fishermen outside the city say that many days ago the Nord boats were measuring the depth of the water on the seashore, and their fleet must have been approaching. ”

"What?" The soldier looked angry, and we hid around a corner, waiting for a stone projectile to hit the ground, and when it was fired into the street, it was rolling slowly, rubbing the bricks on the ground into pieces of stone slag, and it seemed to roll very slowly, as if a stick could stop him. But when a soldier tried to do so, his spear and left leg below the knee were torn alive, as if they had been suddenly cut off by a pair of scissors. The soldier was still angry at my words, "The fish seller was bought by the Nords? ”

Someone was shouting "Get out of the streets!" "Get out of the streets!"

I know that the doom is far from over. But I didn't expect it to be so scary.

It was as if two suns had appeared in the sky, and a ball of flames rolled into the street. A Creelian soldier and two brave citizens each immediately carried a bucket of water. Hope to douse it, this time. The ball burst suddenly, as if firewood had exploded into flames, and a huge flame burst out of it, and I later learned that it was filled with a very flammable oil, which weaved a curtain of flames on the ground, and the three men were covered in flames in an instant. The three struggled, and two escaped the flames. The soldier quickly rolled out the fire on the ground, and then got up and doused the fire on a citizen with a bucket. The two men then risked dragging out the man who had fallen into the flames and was struggling. The man's face was burning, his skin was even redder than the flames, and I saw a thick white stuff flowing from his eyes, and the soldiers and townsmen poured two buckets of water on him, but the man shuddered and shrunk into a ball, and died without a word, skin and blood stuck to the ground. The citizen sat on the ground in a dejected state, dragged by the soldiers by the shoulders and dragged deeper into the street.

A woman is crushed under a pile of bricks. Looking blankly at the sky, her pupils dilated, her husband with two children trying to get out of here, the smaller one crying in his arms. The older one held his father with one hand and reached out to his dead mother, unwilling to leave. The Nords' second-round fireball was mostly crooked. I saw a few of them hit the towers, but they rolled down in the direction of the new city. Sorrow welled up in my heart. The old city is already like this, but what will the new city look like? Last night, more than half of the soldiers were summoned to the Old City to get ready. I was also going to sea today to fight the pirates, but I was thought of but was blocked in my own home by the pirates. There are less than a hundred soldiers in the new city, and some of them are citizens of the guard, what role can they play?

A column of soldiers trotted past us in a column, their helmets all embroidered with patterns and yellow cloaks, this was the Doge's Guard. The soldiers, who looked much taller than the others, pushed away the citizens along the way and hurried outside.

"Where are they going?" I asked this soldier.

"I don't know," the soldier was enraged by the dead mother, "I wish they were going to New Town and fighting those Nord pups." I'll send it to you, and I'll go to New Town right away. ”

All of a sudden, my heart was filled with agitation, and I was almost ready to say that I would go with him to the new city to fight to the death, and that it was my wish to kill the Nords. But in the end, this sentence was not spoken, and I even began to fear what to do if the scholar was unwilling to take him in. There is a silver lining to defending the old city, and that is to cost the Nords to negotiate and sell themselves for a good price, as I would have done if I were the Governor. Either surrender, resist the infamy, and find a chance to take revenge later. The stupidest thing is to leave a strong fortress and lose your advantage to fight the enemy with honor, and I know that the enemy will never give us such a chance when we are besieged.

"Won't you stay on guard in the Old City?" I asked the soldier, "The new city could be a sea of fire right now." I'm your word and I'll stay here."

The soldier didn't speak, he looked at me, and most of the goodwill in his eyes had disappeared, "I'm not going to be a coward." I think you're pretty smart, so go find a scholar yourself, I won't accompany you, my brother is waiting for me at the city gate. ”

He glanced at his mouth, pressed his helmet, said, "Farewell, young man," and ran the way he came, crouching against a wall to avoid the whistling stone projectiles, and soon jumped out and disappeared behind the granary.

I turned back and walked southeast.

When I grabbed a citizen and asked where the Bachelor's District was, the citizen pointed to a tall circular tower. I looked at the place, it was a target-like building, I didn't want to live in it, but it was better to stay inside than outside.

I walked up and knocked on the door.

No one opened the door.

A stone bullet hit a pond in the clearing, splashing me all over me, and the next stone bullet might hit my head.

"Bella!" I knocked on the door violently, "Bella! I shouted the name, "Open the door!" Beira! ”

The deadbolt slammed, and then the door creaked open, and a woman's face poked out.

I yelled, "Bella, it's me!" ”

The woman glanced at me with a mysterious look, "Are you looking for Bella?" "This woman's eyes look unfathomable, there is a breathtaking power, who is this woman.

"Yes, living with a scholar, they live here, right."

"Yes." The woman nodded, "But they left, a week ago." ”

A frustration annoyed me, as if I had been played by Asri, Bella, and the scholar together. Why do I have unexpected situations in everything I do?

"But the scholar left a letter." The woman stepped out of the way, "Come in, child." (To be continued.) )