Knight and Wand

Chapter 121 Conflict Intensifies

".I have had enough of your chatter, Lord Gunnar."

Trosa's majestic rebuke made Baron Grey Wolf suppress his displeasure and shut his mouth.

The old earl knocked on the table with a headache. "The Thorn Flower made great sacrifices in the early stage, but the greatest victory was taken by you. You have already taken advantage of it. Don't make trouble out of nothing. Baron Farolis did not blame you at all when he left. Where did you hear these rumors?"

Gunnar remained silent.

Naturally, he did not dare to say it out loud. He had spent a large sum of money to find out the "inside story" that shocked him from the mouth of a eunuch who took the initiative to contact him.

“I promise that if the army of the thorn flower invades your territory, I will make the arbitration after the war is over.

But now, the time is approaching, and Earl Mamor is about to open the city and surrender. I will not allow anyone to take a soldier away from the camp. If you take this opportunity to make a noise again, I will take away your Ledingburg fiefdom on behalf of His Majesty. Go, I don't want to see you again today." Trosa waved his hand.

Finally getting the promise he really wanted, Gunnar didn't argue anymore. He bowed his head and Baron Grey Wolf turned and left.

When he returned to his tent, he immediately called for his eldest son who had gone with the army.

Looking at his son who was in high spirits for his achievement in breaking into the enemy line and capturing the flag, Gunnar nodded with satisfaction.

"Canis, take your squire and hurry back to the territory. I authorize you to mobilize the remaining knights and troops to monitor Farolis's movements, but do not take the initiative to advance. Even if Elliver dares to provoke a civil war, you only need to ensure the safety of Wolfenhall.

It doesn't matter who owns the old land of Thorn Flower. When the siege of Mamor is over, even if they dare to take it back, I can get it back without any soldiers." Baron Grey Wolf ordered his eldest son.

Canis pounded his breastplate hard and said, "Don't worry, father. If the cowards of the Weeds dare to reach into the Wolf Territory, I will use my claws and teeth to uproot those flowers and plants."

Gunnar shook his head: "Go back and listen to your mother. Be patient, and you will get your own prey. Remember, wolves need to wander and observe before hunting."

With a few fast horses, the young knight of the Gunnar family and his entourage returned to Wofnhall in just a day and a half.

After meeting his mother at the lord's mansion, the young Canis couldn't wait to go to the inner courtyard to meet his young wife whom he hadn't seen for more than half a year.

As I walked into the courtyard, I heard musicians playing the piano and a female poet singing to the beat.

Canis walked through the corridor, walked lightly, and quietly came behind the lady who seemed to be immersed in listening to the story, and hugged her.

"Aha!"

The young master of the Wolf family laughed.

"!? Canis?" The young lady withdrew her affectionate gaze at the poetess in horror, and turned back tremblingly to hide her confusion.

She took several deep breaths before pretending to be angry and complaining to her rude husband: "When did you come back? You scared me."

The young master's wife turned around and made hidden gestures with her fingers to the beautiful young poetess, urging her to leave quickly.

"Do you miss me, Tayana?" Canis hugged his wife and just wanted to take her into the room as soon as possible to make love with her.

He looked up at the female bard who had stopped playing, put away her instrument and left. He turned to his wife and asked, "What were you listening to just now? Why were you so engrossed?"

"It's a new story from the west, called The Knights of Selva. It's already the second chapter. It tells the story of several brave young knights saving their loved ones." Tayana hugged her husband, lowered her head and talked about other things.

"Selva?" The word sounded familiar to Canis.

After thinking about it carefully, I seemed to remember that it was in early December when Count Trosa mentioned this place name at the celebration banquet after he returned to the camp after chasing Baron Dawson.

However, when he first heard about the Weeds family from the previous dynasty in the east, he didn't take it to heart at all.

"What Knight of Selva? What kind of knight can there be in a remote and poor place where no one has ever heard of? They even made up a story about it. It's all made up by pedantic poets." Canis was disdainful. He didn't care whether it was just a coincidence that they both had the same name, Selva. He just picked up his wife.

"Let your husband show you what a brave knight who can really charge into battle looks like." The young master of the Wolf family picked up his exclaiming wife and walked back to the room.

After a while, after a lance charge that made the servants blush and their hearts beat fast, Canis wanted to hug his wife and have a good sleep, but he heard the voice of a servant outside the door, saying that there was something important to report.

Reluctantly getting up from the messy bed of gentleness, Canis suppressed his annoyance and met with the servant who came to report.

".Attack? Monsters? All sorts of mess."

He complained, but remembering his father's instructions, the young master of the Wolf family frowned and stood up to summon the knights of the inner court.

Upon learning that some residents in the southern parts of the territory had recently been attacked by so-called monsters in the wild, Canis was worried that there was something fishy going on, so he had to give up reuniting with his wife. The next day, he temporarily assembled dozens of cavalrymen and headed south to the places where the attacks had been reported to patrol and investigate.

The areas where the crimes occurred were mostly in the southern part of the territory, which had just been incorporated into the rule of the Gunnar family for more than ten years.

The further Kanis walked, the more he suspected that it was Farolis's people who were causing trouble for his territory.

Finally, following the complaints of a few noisy farmers and after a day and night of travel, Canis's team arrived at the southernmost village marked as "Aiken" on the map.

As they approached the dirt road leading to the village, they saw the ugly beasts and zombies wandering aimlessly in groups of three or four, and they pounced on the cavalry like crazy.

The young master of the Wolf family was naturally not afraid of those mindless beasts. He shouted and charged with the accompanying knights and cavalry. After a few rounds, he slaughtered all the walking corpses on the roadside.

"What the hell is this?"

The accompanying knight steadied his frightened warhorse and, with a spear, nailed the mummy, which had clearly been cut in half but was still crawling on its arms, to the ground.

Kanis looked at the village that had been occupied by these monsters and was immediately furious.

Although he did not care about the lives of those lowly serfs, the disappearance of a fiefdom meant that the family's accounts would lose dozens or hundreds of gold crowns every year.

How could this loss not make him, as the family heir, angry?

"Wild wolves of Wolfenhall, follow me and kill all these bastards who have laid hands on the Wolf Territory." Canis roared, picked up his sword, led the cavalry to gallop, and charged into the village with great momentum.

The shouting and yelling attracted the ghost wandering around the village.

Tearing apart the almost rotten remains of livestock, the zombies raised the will-o'-the-wisp in their eye sockets, sensing the breath and souls of the living.

A black-armored knight who had been standing stupidly in the cemetery outside the village for who knows how long turned around in a daze.

The thirst for the fresh flesh and blood of the living quickly dispersed the remaining fragments of consciousness in the soul.

The corpse knight's pace became faster and faster as he held the greatsword tightly in his armor-like steel gauntlets.

Beside him, several ferocious war dogs that instinctively followed their masters when they were alive, together with the black-armored zombie, pounced on the cavalry of the Gunnar family.

The corpse knight opened its jaw and let out a hoarse, terrifying roar. Its eyes, filled with will-o'-the-wisp, caught a glimpse of the wolf emblem on the cavalryman's body. The fire of hatred made its broken soul go completely wild.

The long blade of the greatsword swung past, and the unsuspecting squire cavalry was cut in half by the corpse knight, including the man and the horse. The gushing blood instantly dyed the black-armored undead knight red.
The battle lasted unexpectedly long.

In the woods on the hills not far from Aiken Village.

Leon and others looked from afar at the cavalry unit which had just cleared out the undead in the village, then quickly gathered their troops and left to the northwest.

With the help of the magic mirror cast by Corvis, Leon and others could see clearly where the army belonged to.

On the spear-shaft swallowtail flags held high by the cavalry team was painted the emblem of a running wolf, indicating that they were the army of Baron Gunnar.

"Leon, why couldn't we go and help them clear out the monsters in the village just now?" Olivia tilted her head and looked at her lover in confusion and asked.

Leon shook his head: "You don't understand. The hatred between the Gunnar family and the Farolis family is quite deep. Our identities are sensitive. If we appear in front of them at this time, it will only cause unnecessary misunderstandings and conflicts."

They rushed from Longka to the vicinity of Aiken Village, originally intending to investigate the situation after the attack on the village, but unexpectedly they ran into the cavalry of the Gunnar family fighting against the undead.

If it were any other noble's troops, Leon wouldn't mind leading everyone to join the battle and help the other side, but facing the Gunnar family, it would be better to avoid trouble as much as possible.

Finally, when the cavalrymen walked away with the wounded and disappeared in the distance, Leon led his companions out of the woods on the hill, returned to where the followers were watching the horses, rode on their war horses, and rushed to the post-war village of Aiken together.

Walking into the ruined village, the zombies lying on the roadside were all dead.

Obviously, ordinary undead can pose no threat to organized elite troops.

But when passing by a place that had obviously experienced an incredibly fierce battle, Leon was surprised to find that the wooden houses there had collapsed, and the low walls that originally surrounded the yard were full of gaps as if they had been hit by some huge object.

The remains of several horses that had died not long ago were in a tragic state of being cut in half by the giant blade. They fell to the ground, and their blood dyed a large area of ​​the soil red.

No bodies of the Gunnar cavalry were seen, and it was not known whether no one was killed or the casualties had been collected and taken away by that team.

However, around here, the remains of some zombie soldiers, wrapped in dented and broken armor parts, were lying everywhere.

Everyone looked around, and Leon looked at the zombie corpses scattered around, and suddenly saw a few that looked particularly familiar.

Duwana War Dog?
The memory of almost dying tragically in that bloody mouth in the past came to his mind, and Leon walked forward and started flipping through the pages.

This is indeed a unique war beast.

Wait? What are these ancient ghouls?

Leon turned and walked to the relatively intact body of an ancient corpse soldier nearby, and pulled off the robe that was almost turned into rags from its torso.

Looking at the broken and worn emblem, Leon could recognize that it was a corner of a thorn flower pattern.

An ominous premonition came to his mind, and Leon stood up with a headache, looking northwest in the direction of Wolfenhall.

He sighed silently, feeling that these ancient undead spirits of the Farolis family might cause trouble for Baron Elliver, who was about to show off his skills.

"No need to look anymore, let's go back to Longka." Looking back at his companions, Leon called on everyone to get on their horses.

It is more important than anything else to take the time to prepare for conflict now.

The noisy courtyard of the mansion was packed with people.

".Evil witchcraft!"

".conspiracy!"

“This is a humiliation!”

A knight roared with an exceptionally loud voice: "Madam! Farolis must pay for the death of Sir Gabe!"

The body of the Knight of Gunnar family had been properly put into the coffin, and two servants were kneeling in front of the coffin with sad expressions.

Next to the coffin.

A headless corpse in black armor, pierced by several spears, was placed in the center of the courtyard square. The kite-shaped shoulder shield on the left side of the corpse had been dented by a long-handled war hammer.

But the thorny rose family crest can still be recognized on it.

The knights of the Gray Wolf family surrounded the black-armored corpse in a rage.

The hostess of the Gunnar family covered her mouth and nose, staring at the mummy of the knight who was suspected to belong to the Thorn Flower family with disgust and confusion.

With a bandage wrapped around his left arm, Canis suppressed his anger and asked his mother as gently as possible: "Please give me the power to recruit troops, mother. They used witchcraft to attack our territory. This is a direct provocation and we must give a strong response!"

"No, I have to inform your father of the news first." Mrs. Gunnar shook her head.

Looking at her furious son, the Baroness had not yet lost her mind. Her husband had already told her in a letter that the Farolis family's army had recently left the front line and their whereabouts were unknown.

As for the main force of the Gunnar family, part of it was stationed in the new territory of Redingburg, and part of it was following Earl of the Stag to besiege the city.

In any case, it is undoubtedly unwise to act rashly out of anger.

The young master of the Wolf family suppressed his anger and looked towards the hateful remains of the black-armored corpse.

The village in the territory was destroyed, several cavalrymen and a knight were killed, and other knights and himself were also injured. For such a humiliation, Canis gritted his teeth and swore to return it a hundredfold!
Gunnar's manor was in an uproar due to the sudden conflict.

In the servants' room in the corner of the mansion, a little incense was burning, emitting a charming fragrance.
The wife of the young master of the Wolf family was so enchanted that she kept singing under the "female" poet.

Until a clear cry was heard.

"You~You can't stay here any longer. You must leave as soon as possible. My husband, Canis, will kill us."

The exhausted Taiana looked at the ceiling, her eyes reflecting the strange purple light, full of reluctance and panic.

"I will be gone from your life soon, Tayana"

The androgynous "female" poet held up the silly woman's face, and her voice was like a bewitching ghost.

"Be good~ Just tell me what you saw~ It's just a few letters~ Don't you think~ Right~?"

Purple power was faintly surging in the poetess's eyes, and on her forehead, the one-eyed demonic pattern shone brightly in the darkness.

(End of this chapter)