A Tale of Strategies For the Throne

Things are a bit bad.

Sitting against the cracked stone wall, Garlan pondered.

The original plan was to be captured himself, and then make some marks along the way so that the cavalry could follow them secretly and from a distance. But the arrangements were all outside the city of Vinal. Who knew that those 'thieves' were bold enough to rush into the city.

Although he knew that on the way to Ayr Town, there were two cavalrymen in disguise and following them from a distance, but the incident happened suddenly, these thieves moved very quickly, and he was knocked unconscious and could not leave any clues. , I'm afraid it will be difficult to track those cavalry.

Moreover, Garlan himself is still confused as to where this place is now.

He thought for a while, got up, walked to the rusty iron railing, held the railing and looked outside.

The gap in the iron bars is not big, but if someone is small, a head can still get through.

Then, in the dark dungeon, I saw a fluffy little golden head emerging from the iron bars, looking left and right with a pair of big eyes, like a little squirrel sticking its little head out of the hole.

He looked at the children huddled in different dungeons who seemed to have fallen asleep, and counted one, two, three, four in his mind.

Well, probably less than twenty.

Garlan came to a conclusion after digging his head out and looking at it for a long time.

There are only twenty children locked up in this dungeon.

In this way, the number does not match up. It is said that the number of missing children plus abducted children is almost sixty or seventy, and the number here is not even one-third.

Then, there are only two possibilities.

The first type is that the child who was caught earlier has been sold.

Second, this is just a temporary transfer station, and the children here will be sent to the real place of imprisonment.

According to the little girl named Keli, the children here were all arrested in the last four or five days, so the second possibility should be more reliable.

So what he has to do now is to first find out where he is, and then wait for the 'thieves' to send him and these children to the place of imprisonment.

Thinking of this, Garlan retracted his little head, intending to go back and squat, waiting for the opportunity honestly.

However, when he was walking back, he accidentally saw a child sleeping in a corner and kicked him. Not only did he trip and almost fall, he also kicked the child. I had to turn half over.

"Ah, I'm sorry-"

Garlan quickly stretched out his hand to apologize, but when he leaned over, he found that the kid who had been kicked over didn't wake up. He was still sleeping deeply and didn't react at all.

He suddenly felt a little strange.

Walking quickly back to the stone wall with an oil lamp hanging on it, he saw that the old man and the little girl were sleeping. When he turned around, he found that the others were also asleep.

...something is wrong.

Garlan remembered that when he looked around just now, all the children were asleep.

At first he thought it was just because it was getting late and everyone was asleep. But think about it carefully, no matter how late it is, there will always be one or two children who are too scared to sleep, right?

He knelt down and reached out to gently push Kelly, who was leaning against the old man's side.

"Wake up."

He shouted softly, and seeing that the other party didn't respond, his hand began to push Kelly's body harder.

But the little girl didn't know what was going on. She fell into a deep sleep and couldn't wake up no matter how hard she pushed her.

Gallan tried to push the old man again. Logically speaking, the old man slept very lightly and was very alert, so he should wake up easily. However, like Kelly, the old man fell asleep completely. If they weren't all still breathing, Garlan would have almost thought that they were actually dead.

what happened?

Everyone was still very energetic before the meal, but some children were still crying, and now they all fell asleep all of a sudden?

And he is the only one who has nothing wrong with him?

…

Wait, 'before eating'?

By the way, that bowl of gruel——

Among all the people here, he was the only one who didn't eat that bowl of porridge!

He figured it out all at once.

Those 'thieves' must have added a drug to make these children sleepy in the food, and they wanted to make all the children sleep to death, probably in order to prevent these children from making noises during the transportation.

In this way, what they will definitely do next is...

Just when Garlan thought of this, there was a click, and the sound of the iron door opening was heard not far away.

Without saying a word, he fell next to Kelly, closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep like other children.

The sound of heavy footsteps came, noisy and messy, as if many people were pouring into this narrow dungeon corridor. Then, he heard a crisp sound like keys hitting each other, and then the creaking sound of iron bars being opened one after another.

Someone was giving orders in a low voice, shouting, hurry up, hurry up.

Not long after, there was a creak, and Garlan heard the iron door of the dungeon where he was being opened, and several people walked in quickly. One of them reached out to fish it out, and roughly lifted himself and Kelly on his shoulders.

With his eyes closed, he could hear the person carrying him talking quietly to the side.

"What should I do with this old guy? Leave him here alone, or throw him directly into the sewer later?"

A voice answered quickly.

"We can take them away together. It's best not to keep anyone here and throw them in the sewer... No, we'd better take them over there together. The group of brats over there are annoying. Throw this old guy over there and take care of those brats."

The conversation ended, and the man carried him out.

Garlan lay on the man's shoulder, his head hanging on the man's back, and he opened his eyes slightly. He saw a dozen tall men in the dungeon, each carrying one or two children and walking quickly out.

After exiting the cell door, there is a spiral stone staircase, which is also extremely dilapidated. Except for the middle part that is often stepped on, the rest of the steps are covered with moss.

In the dark dungeon, the 'thieves' were all hurriedly walking. No one noticed or thought that a child pretending to sleep was secretly observing them.

When the spiral stone steps reached the end, the leading man pushed away the heavy stone above his head and got out of the ground, and the others followed suit.

Feeling the moonlight shining down, Garlan quickly closed his eyes, leaving only an extremely tiny slit, which could not be seen clearly under the cover of thick eyelashes. He secretly glanced at Kelly on the other side with the corner of his eye, and saw that she was still sleeping soundly, and even smacked her mouth. He didn't know what she was dreaming about, but there was drool dripping from the corner of her mouth. , flowed backwards onto her eyes.

The corners of Gallan's eyes twitched and he stopped looking at her.

The man carrying him walked in a hurry, and Garlan did not dare to raise his head, so he could only see the road under the man's feet.

The ground was very flat, paved with large bluestone slabs with beautiful textures. Garlan guessed that this place must be a rather luxurious building.

After walking for a while, he was suddenly thrown down, and his whole body fell heavily on the stone ground. The pain was so painful that he almost screamed out, and he held it back with all his strength.

Because he was facing up when he was thrown to the ground, he took the opportunity to squint his eyes and quickly closed them again.

At this sight, he suddenly felt a huge wave of emotion in his heart.

Under the moonlight, he saw a tall and majestic building that looked like several squares stacked neatly on top of each other, standing tall not far away.

Administrative office!

The last time he followed Brother Camos into the city of Vinal, he saw this magnificent building in the center of the city's aristocratic area from a distance.

This is actually the administrative office in the center of Vinal City!

The hiding place of these so-called ‘thieves’ who attacked the people of Vinar City is actually the place that is supposed to protect the people of Vinar City——

While Garlan's mind was churning, he was roughly picked up by the man and carried on his shoulders.

The man also had leather armor on his shoulders, which was so hard that it made his stomach hurt.

He was glad that he didn't drink that bowl of porridge not long ago, otherwise, if he was pressed to his stomach like this while he was awake, his pampered body would probably be uncomfortable and vomited by now.

He suppressed the uncomfortable feeling and gently flicked the wrist guard with his fingers.

It was a wristband made of black cloth with blue river runes embroidered on it. This kind of amulet to pray for children's health was very common, so no one took it seriously. But now, Garlan flicked it with his fingers, and two or three tiny black beads rolled out from the inner gaps of the cloth's amulet and fell to the ground.

Those small black beads are about the same size as grains of sand and are extremely inconspicuous.

Before Garlan was ready to do this, he had agreed on two plans with Brother Wang and the others.

The first is that after he was caught, Brother Wang and the others followed him and found a place to catch them all.

In the second case, if there is an accident and Brother Wang and the others are thrown away, then he will leave clues for Brother Wang and the others to find.

"Go quickly."

This group of people is waiting here because they have to join the other two groups of people.

The other two groups were smaller in number, but they also brought a dozen children.

Then, after the group of thieves gathered together, they quickly got into a gate with the child on their shoulders.

The road behind the gate was a slope, leading slopingly to the ground. Garlan smelled a not very obvious stench.

He suddenly understood.

Sewer, this is a large sewer built under the city of Vinal.

Under every large city in Aaron Landis near a river that often floods, an equally huge sewer is built, criss-crossing it like a network.

The specifications and standards of these urban sewers are strictly regulated by the state. They are very wide and must be able to accommodate at least one carriage. Moreover, there are usually paths beside the sewer walls for sewer maintenance personnel to walk.

Garlan thought.

No wonder the spies hidden in the city couldn't find any clues. It turned out that these children were secretly transported out of the city directly from the sewers of the Administrative Office.

I don’t know how long I walked in the winding sewer like a maze. Anyway, every once in a while, Garlan secretly flipped the cloth amulet on his wrist and dropped some small black sand.

After walking out of the sewer, there was another long cave. He must have left the city. This cave was also dug manually.

Garlan estimated that after walking for almost half the night, the group of people finally emerged from the ground.

The bright moonlight shone down, and the shadows huddled under the people's feet. As expected, it was almost midnight.

With a bang, he was thrown heavily into a wooden cart. His shoulder, which had been hit hard by the hard wooden floor, was aching.

The child closed his eyes and gritted his teeth bitterly.

That guy who lost me twice, I remember you!

You wait, wait for me——

Mentally writing down the man who threw him rudely around in a small notebook, Garlan, who was lying in the car, opened his eyes slightly.

There were thick wooden railings in front of me. The car body was like a large wooden cage. Twenty or thirty children, including myself, were all thrown in. I heard the low neighing of horses in front of the car. I saw it. There are horses pulling this cart.

Accompanied by the creaking sound of wooden wheels pressing on the ground, the carriage moved forward.

Garlan could only vaguely see that this was a valley deep in the mountains, surrounded by mountains and dense forests on all sides. It looked very hidden. But he didn't know exactly where this place was, so he could only continue to secretly scatter little black beads along the way.

The carriage drove for a while, and the front suddenly opened up. Instead of dense woods, many huge black rocks appeared.

It's unclear whether those dark giant rocks are natural or man-made. There are densely packed small holes on them. When illuminated by the moonlight in the sky, the light and shadow stagger and sway. The strange rocks are rugged and the wind makes them scream, giving people a sense of wonder. An extremely weird feeling.

The wheels of the carriage were still creaking, and Garlan heard a sound.

An extremely strange voice, like singing, but also like shouting.

The voice was actually not unpleasant, it was a deep and ancient accent, and every sound seemed to penetrate people's hearts.

But for some reason, he felt a very uncomfortable feeling when he heard that voice, as if something was stirring in his body and wanted to tear something out.

The child lying on the wooden board of the carriage secretly opened his eyes.

The red firelight illuminated his face.

He saw ahead, a place surrounded by countless jagged dark rocks, a place surrounded by several upright dark stone slabs, where a huge bonfire was burning.

Under the bonfire is a giant black and blue stone slab, with mysterious lines carved on it, like patterns or ancient patterns.

A man in black and blue robes stood next to the campfire, and that strange sound was made by him.

And next to it, there were many people surrounding it.

The people nearby were kneeling on the ground, and everyone was eerily quiet. No one made a sound, and the firelight reflected the extremely pious faces of those people.

A child stood barefoot at one end of the black and blue stone slab, and the blazing firelight reflected the child's dull, dull-eyed face.

Densely mysterious patterns were painted with bright red paint on the child's brown neck and forearms.

The moon had reached its midpoint, exactly at midnight, when the strange sound stopped.

The man in a black and blue robe stepped forward and slit the child's two wrists, letting the blood drip onto the black and blue stone slabs on the ground.

The child whose wrists were cut was still standing there sluggishly, motionless as if he had lost his mind.

Then Garlan saw it.

Amidst the sudden roars of the people kneeling all around, the man in black and blue robes opened his arms to the sky, shouted loudly, and then slit the child's throat with a knife.

The gushing blood flowed through the blood-red runes on the neck and forearms of the child who stood there, becoming increasingly bright red, as if they were about to burn against the firelight.

Then, the bright red blood dripped onto the black and blue stone slabs, blending into the winding patterns, dyeing them blood red bit by bit.

The bonfire burned fiercely, as if the originally bright moonlight in the sky was dyed with an ominous blood red.

Garlan closed his eyes suddenly in the wooden cage.

He held his breath and clenched his fingers tightly, making deep marks on his palms with his fingertips.

Black and blue robe...

Also, when the man stretched out his hand to the sky, the strange blood-red rune appeared on his arm...

All things teach.

During the most difficult period of Aaron Landis, a cult spread the theory of national subjugation in the country, incited people to commit suicide, and panicked people. It almost led to the real subjugation of Aaron Landis.

In the past, King Camos, who came back after being defeated by the enemy, used iron-blooded methods to mercilessly destroy the cult that left no trace of grass behind.

A few years later, when Aaron Landis was just settling down, it was revived again.

The author has something to say: La la la~~No one guessed~~~

Also, I saw several friends saying that Garlan looks like a kitten, but actually...not...the reference object I gave to Garlan was actually...

this

This is what makes me unhappy

otz, it turns out that you can't see the picture on your mobile phone, so if you can't see it, please Baidu [Fat Chirp Silver-throated Long-tailed Tit]...