Chapter 19: The King's Soon-to-be-Acquired Army
1940 Words
"Am I to conclude - you devils have no memory at all?"
The king sat up, his shoulder still slightly sore, but the wound was much better, the holy fire had healed it along with it.
Only one of Baron Sheen's three arrows had hit the king. The only reason there were two holes in the cloak was because the king, after pulling the arrow out, had poked himself with the arrow again in the back heart of the cloak.
He seemed to want Baron Sheen to decide that he was dead.
"If you say so, my kind will suffer for nothing."
The devil avoided the point, the king was clearly in a fit of rage. He wisely didn't want to mess with the king's fire ...... even though the likelihood of that was low.
"It's been a long time, Your Majesty."
"Long enough for your brain to remember the terms of the contract, yes?"
As expected, the king was definitely not a forgetful person.
Quite the contrary, he has a surprisingly good memory, and he is also very top notch when it comes to holding grudges ...... He seems to have the intention of doubling old and new grudges together.
The devil sensed the bad momentum.
"It's like this, Your Majesty." The devil defended himself, "Abandoning the human form you will have true immortality, besides, look at your subjects - how eyeless they are! How dare they betray you! Not so with us - Hell has waited a long time for your arrival! My dear Sire, we will be the sharpest blades of your most loyal subjects, and will offer you the kingdom of darkness."
"Your sophistry is as good as ever."
The king replied.
Immediately afterward, he expressed himself in one word:
"Roll."
"My dear sire, you're being too biased! It's not like the earth is the only place where you can be offered a throne." The devil held out his hand to help the king rise from the ground.
The king ignored him.
Okay, he could be sure of that. If the king had a holy sword in his hand right now, he would definitely stab him in the heart without hesitation.
The devil thought.
The skeletons of the white bone carriage closed their mouths, not even daring to spew sulfuric tears. The nightmares silently lowered their front hooves and stopped hissing. They seemed to have a natural reverence for the king, and at this moment, one by one, they were quiet, very much betraying their master with hellish characteristics.
It was better to let the devil himself face the king's wrath.
The devil cursed in his heart.
He saw the king walk up to the sworn knights that fell across the ground and hurriedly tried to lower the king's anger, "They just fell into sleep!"
To confirm his words, he snapped his fingers and a cloud of black mist flew out from the sworn knights, healing their injuries along with it.
"As a matter of fact, Your Majesty, you may have misunderstood me slightly."
The devil's attitude towards the king was odd, if he had the chance he would certainly fight with all his might to take the king's soul, other than that he was indeed happy to go through everything for the king. When the king woke up, he immediately stopped acting out of character and tried to act like it was nothing of the sort.
"I have come to escort you back to the palace. See what a beautiful carriage I have prepared for you."
"Beautiful enough for twelve Holy Inquisitors to come across the sea, yes?"
The king picked up the knight commander's sword.
"They can be slightly camouflaged. And it will allow you to get out of here unnoticed by those little rats out there." The devil, who had a keen eye for intrigue, guessed a little of the king's plan and took the opportunity to skillfully present himself for use.
Alas, he could know only too well what sort of a man his Majesty was -
A competent king.
As long as there was a use for it, then it was useful to the ruler, and for that reason the monarchs didn't mind delaying the hatred a little. Of course, as long as there was an opportunity, His Majesty thought that he would be happy to unload.
That's why he said that the king could be really fit for hell.
With little expression, the king clanked and pushed his sword into its sheath.
The devil shrugged helplessly.
............
For the sake of the king's sword, which he had managed to push back into its sheath, not to pull it out again, the devil worked very hard this time.
The white bone carriage pulled by the nightmare shifted into an ordinary unremarkable carriage. Those sworn knights also woke up, and the devil attentively asked his majesty if he was going to erase their memories.
The king ruthlessly refused his curt favor.
The sworn knights had earned the king's rare trust with their loyalty. Now, any random sworn knight stood higher in the king's eyes than the devil.
Of course, the knights showed by their actions that they were indeed reliable.
When they woke up and found the king sitting unharmed in his carriage, they were so happy that they almost shed tears. However, if the king hadn't stopped them in time, they would have had to draw their swords and have a blood-spattered duel with the devil.
"He serves me now."
The king sat by the carriage window, clad in a new red cloak the devil had found somewhere.
People in this age were no strangers to devils, monsters, witches ...... and the like, and though to the common man most of them regarded these as horrible nightmares, the people of the upper classes evidently knew a little more about them.
Such is the case with the Knight Commander.
After several battles, the sworn knights seemed to have treated the king as an omnipotent being. The Knight Commander was not surprised that the King was able to cast out demons - perhaps it was only natural to him that all creatures on the land of Rogaland were subservient to the King.
But he was utterly hostile to the Devil.
"Your Majesty. Even traitors whose sins are unpardonable are more trustworthy than devils, whose treachery and insidiousness and capriciousness have been proven by both legend and history."
The Knight Commander admonished faithfully.
"I know."
The king had confirmed that the devil could not touch him directly. He gave an icy smile that meant something.
"It's not like there hasn't been a Templar in the Rose family."
Alas ......
Once again, the driving devil was nostalgic for the Dark Ages.
How relatable people were to the devil back then.
During the day, the wagon strutted out of the forest with the four riders.
Baron Sheen's soldiers scrupulously guarded the various exits of the forest, and the devil maliciously and deliberately passed them by. But none of them noticed.
As he left the forest, the king's eyes skimmed over Tru Castle, which towered in the sunlight.
..................
The king's silent departure showed that he didn't want to expose himself to the limelight so quickly.
It also means that soon the news of the king's death will spread throughout the land of Rogaland.
The king seems to be determined to solve all the urgent crises in the original fate line at once.
He bypassed Tru Castle and took another route to the palace.
The Devil's Nightmare Wagon had been camouflaged so that it could not be detected by the monks, but this also limited its speed, and it was now similar to an ordinary wagon. However, in an era where the glory of the divine power was triumphant, there was always no harm in being cautious.
Two days had passed since the night of siege and betrayal.
The king's carriage stopped at an ordinary tavern, and he rested in his room.
The king had already locked up his true enemy by now.
According to the medieval law of succession to the throne, there were actually not many people who were qualified to ascend the throne after his death. The blood relatives of the Rose family, as well as other nobles who were messed up with certain marital ties to the royal family. Let's put it this way, the people who could profit from the king's death could be lined up from the palace all the way to the outskirts of the city, and among them, there were at least a dozen who were qualified to spy on the throne.
Therefore, before the assassination took place, the king could only list all his possible enemies.
But now he knew who it was.
The clue was in those Gurundi heavy cavalry.
The Gulundi Heavy Cavalry, as mercenaries with horrifying combat strength and notoriously ferociousness, would not appear inside the territory of Rogaland if there were no accidents. They were spread out on the Elta Continent to the east and south of the Abyssal Strait. Only those who controlled the coastal ports in the southeastern part of Rogaland would have the opportunity to receive such a group of foreign aid.
And the striking image of the Gurundi Heavy Cavalry demanded that this person had to have a certain amount of influence over the transportation of the Rogaland Empire, or else there was no way for him to have a group of Gurundi Heavy Cavalry quietly appear on the grasslands outside of Tru Castle.
Beyond that, the King had a brief encounter with Baron Sheen.
Putting aside the matter of betrayal, Baron Sheen was undoubtedly a qualified general qualified lord. The person who was able to convince him to cooperate with him should never have too many stains in the public eye.
Thus, it became clear who the enemy was:
Archduke Grice.
A great nobleman with a great reputation, but previously one of the most understated. He was also eligible for the throne, even with the Duke of Buckingham.
A dog that bites doesn't bark, isn't that what it says?
The king was hidden in the shadows of the window, looking down indifferently on the street below, and could see from time to time three or two heavily armed cavalrymen running past on the road.
The very fact that cavalrymen appeared on everyday streets represented a signal of unrest.
The fact that the Duke of Buckingham is not dead makes what is about to unfold very different from the fateful line. An old duke of great renown and at the top of the order of succession to the throne meant so much. And, he would have been the strongest royalist, as long as he hadn't seen the King's body with his own eyes.
A clash of swords was inevitable.
But the war would be very restrained.
The king knows this.
War in this age is like a game of chess. Castles, knights are the pieces on the board, the game people mobilize the pieces on the board to consume each other and retaliate against each other, but as long as not until the last moment, no one will easily engage in head-on conflict. This will be a stalemate. [1]
The king needs this time.
Plus, he needs an army.
An army that could support him in secret and that no one could possibly guess.
Early in the cold night of the forest, the king realized where he could get this army.
The answer was Engel.
The wild state of unending rebellion.
Author's Notes:
[1] Reference Edward I by Mark Morris
- Writer
