Even though walking in the forests slowed them down, it was a sound trip.
Three days later, Yorko encountered a team of soldiers of the Graycastle miles away from the boundary. They were searching along the road. They wore unique brown leather uniforms with long metal rifles on their backs, which clearly showed their ident.i.ties to him.
He understood what had happened when he met Duke Kant after he followed the team and returned to Evernight. Having received the letter from Hill, His Majesty Roland had directly sent two confidential letters away. One was to order the platoon of the First Army that stationed in Deepvalley Town to divide into four troops and enter the Kingdom of Dawn from the four junctions of the boundaries so as to reinforce the retreating diplomatic personnel. The other one was to inform Duke of the Northern Region to be ready for a war. That meant that the Duke began to prepare military materials, such as grain, cotton, and horse carriages. When the main army arrived in the Nothern Region, they could declare a war to the Kingdom of Dawn.
Fortunately, the emissary delegation had had a sound trip.
The Duke exhaled a long breath of relief when he was saying this sentence. Yorko felt flattered.
But what touched him the most was how his old friend had responded to this incident.
Though he clearly knew that the four witches in the delegation were more important, but his name was ranked at the top of the list in the letter. He felt that he had nothing to complain about his suffering and scary experiences at the thought of such a good treatment.
Yorko wrote a long letter about what had happened during the process of the retreat. He handed it over to the Duke who would pa.s.s the letter to His Majesty. He hoped that His Majesty could put an end to the military tensions in the Nothern Region. Now, he understood what Hill had said was true. His Majesty took it much more seriously.
Additionally, he was quite surprised by the responding speed of the First Army. Apart from the time for carrier pigeons to deliver letters back and forth, the army, which originally bore responsibilities to defend against the remaining force of the church and demonic beasts, could carry out the operation on the very day they received the order. As far as he knew, n.o.bles used to spend half a month summoning knights, mercenaries, and free peoples, let alone dividing them into groups to carry out missions. Once the troop spread out with less supervision, those mercenaries paid aforetime would escape over one night.
This might be the reason why his old friend could conquer the king"s city in one day.
Now, Yorko dimly understood that the military force of His Majesty was much better than that of the other n.o.bles, not only in terms of weapons but actually beat them in every other aspect.
As a messenger, he was not alone. The whole kingdom backed him up and fought with him as his sharp sword. He felt exhilarated at this thought like there was a flame burning in his chest.
Now, No.76 was the only one he was worried about.
According to his promise to her, the first person who arrived at the destination would hang a four-colored flag at a visible spot. Yet Duke Kant ordered his men to search each corner of Evernight but did not find such a flag. Now that they lived in the house arranged by the duke, Yorko directly set up a flagpole in front of the door with a four-colored flag fluttering in the wind. Once No.76 entered the inner city, she would immediately see the flag and find them.
Actually, he was not the only one that worried about No.76. Through windows, Yorko often saw Annie and Amy standing under the flagpole and waiting for No.76"s safe return. As they knew each other better, Annie gradually changed her att.i.tude towards him. At least, she would not stare at him, full of vigilance.
Hill"s men had talked to him several times and they had hoped that he could go to the Western Region as soon as possible. The magician had directly told him that the chance that No.76 successfully distracted the knights while at the same time staying alive was narrow. If those knights had not targeted at them, she would have arrived at the border village one day later and arrived in Evernight earlier than they had. Now, nothing happened at their meeting spot, so No.76 was very likely dead already.
Yorko knew that the magician was right, but he wanted to wait for another few days, just for the words she had said when parting.
"When the situation turns better, I"ll meet you again, right in the border city of the Graycastle. Make sure that you wait for me there!"
After they parted, Yorko finally knew why he had that strange feeling.
Although No.76 was a slave in name, he never treated her like a slave, neither in the Black Money nor in the Kingdom of Dawn.
Yorko had decided to give her freedom if she came back alive.
But the decision came too late.
Three more days pa.s.sed. While he was thinking about leaving the Northern Region the next day, things seemed to turn for the better. A carriage stopped beside the flagpole. The coachman seemed to be very anxious and wanted to ask the guards about something, but he was afraid to come forward to ask. Yorko witnessed everything through the window, but before he came out, Annie and Amy had gone up to the carriage.
No.76 came back!
Each member of the delegation had heard the news and even Duke Kant, out of curiosity, came to see the brave maid who had sacrificed herself.
But her condition was not good.
When Yorko saw No.76, she had bruises all over her body. She was unable to move due to her broken right hand and left foot.
"Sir..." No.76 blinked her eyes and managed to summon up a smile, "thank you for waiting for me!"
All of a sudden, he felt completely relieved.
"I"m glad you came back."
They then stayed in Evernight for another week until No.76 was in a stable condition. After that, they went to Deepvalley Town where they took a s.h.i.+p and left the Nothern Region.
In the following days, Yorko got to know what had happened to her after her departure.
The knights of Glow had caught up with her before the sunset. In order to gain her some time, she untied the reins of all the horses and spurred them to run in the opposite direction to stop the knights who were speeding up. At the same time, she had attempted to flee to the mountains on the roadside. After a short while, however, she had been stopped by a creek.
Considering that she would die after being captured, she thus had ridden off the cliff that was 30 meters high. Luckily, there were branches and cane vines on both sides of the precipice, so she had smashed into pieces. However, during the long drop, her head b.u.mped into the rock and bled. Her right hand and left foot were broken by the rocks that jutted out. By the time she had reached the stream, she had sunk into a coma.
The knights stopped chasing, probably because they had not found a safe path leading downhill or they had thought she was dead. It had been midnight when she had woken up. She had used splashed chilling stream water to keep herself awake. Sometimes she had been able to catch several small fish and shrimps.
Two days later, fishermen around there had found her and saved her life.
Hero could remove her pain, but could not cure her wounds. Now, they had to go to the Western Region and see whether there were witches who could cure her.
Anyway, she"s come back alive!
Satisfied, Yorko stood in the wind at the bow. The s.h.i.+p sailed towards Neverwinter with its sails stirring in the air.