The inside of the room was damp and cool. The only source of illumination was a small lighted window cut high up in the air.
As my eyes gradually became accustomed to these things, I noticed the various furnishings, the couches with furs thrown over them, and the water basin on the low table. At least they did not intend to make the prisoners so uncomfortable.
"Guin..."
After locking the door tightly from the outside and making sure that the footsteps of the soldiers had gone away, Remus whispered in a hoarse voice.
"Hey, why did they only put Linda in the other room? Do you think Linda's gonna be okay?"
Guin, taking advantage of his extraordinary height, was just stretching out of the lighted window to look out. What he saw, however, was nothing more than a desolate landscape that did not soothe his soul: a remote forest that was dark as far as the eye could see, a wilderness that stretched farther and farther, purple mountains that formed the background, and the dark Kes River that cut them all in half. The one part of the forest that looked ridiculously bright was probably the forest of ludes that they had burned down last night.
"I don't know."
Guin gave a curt answer and gave up looking outside.
"Because ..."
Remus looked at his companion with boyish anxiety and twisted his slender hands together.
"Don't dwell on the things you can't help."
The leopard-headed warrior said in his distinctive barking voice.
"Your sister is a stout woman. She can manage most dangers on her own."
"But that creepy earl..."
Remus was about to say something when he suddenly stopped talking with a startled look on his face.
"What's wrong?"
"What-- what was that noise?
"I'm sure there are guards walking around outside."
"No!"
Remus tilted his head uneasily and pointed to the wall to his left.
"That way. Look, I can hear it again!"
Guin looked in Remus's direction, but at first did not perceive anything unusual in the boy's words. He looked back at him curiously, and the boy rolled his cute little eyes, reminiscent of a grass tow sarigis, and tried his best to convince him.
"Look! It's like scratching a wall, crunch, crunch!"
"Oh."
That's all Guin said. The sound was clear to his ears now.
"Hey, what's that?"
"It's probably a rat hole."
"But ..."
Guin had already begun to notice that even though they were the same "Two Pearls of Paro," there was a considerable difference in the coloration of the souls of the elder sister and the younger brother. Perhaps it was because this boy, the heir to Paro, had been entrusted with Linda's leadership as a younger brother for so many years, but he was clearly much more shy, sensitive, and sensitive than his sister, and if I may say so, his feathers still seemed to have some white in them. I dare say there was still some white in her feathers.
"Such and such a rat ..."
Guin almost mocked him, but broke off and stared at the wall. His round head tilted wryly.
The crunching ... sound of sharp teeth clawing at the stone wall ceased, and instead began to be replaced by a thump, thump, thump of the wall.
Guin kept his eyes on her, ignoring Remus's anxious hands clutched at his chest.
"It's not torque."
He muttered with a snarl that was almost inaudible to the others.
"Unless the big rats on the frontier are exceptionally devil-wise - I've never heard of a torque not only gnawing on a stone wall, but communicating with its neighbors by banging on it."
"Guin."
Remus whispered.
"I wonder if he's a prisoner in the next cell."
"Yeah."
Guin didn't say another word. There was no need to say anything else. Then a part of the wall, which had been pounded on from the other side, suddenly rose up and one of the small stones came loose and tumbled into their room.
Guin reached out and scooped up the stone before it fell to the floor, so that the watchman standing opposite the door did not notice anything unusual in the room. A small hole of about ten centimeters square was left by the stone, through which a stifled laugh could be heard.
"Oh, dear."
A tense voice with a still young, but somewhat fearless and humorous crack whispered in succession.
"Finally, we've got a window to make a call."
Remus rolls his eyes and tries to say something. Guin held him back by the shoulders and stood next to the wall, watching for any sign of him. He still hadn't forgotten his concern that this could be the hand of Vernon, the Black Count.
There was no reply from the next door, so the voice on the other side of the wall aroused a faint suspicion.
"Hey."
The urgent voice said.
"Is there no one in the next cell? That can't be. I was just dozing when I was startled by the sound of footsteps on the tower, the clash of swords and armor, the opening and closing of the door and the undoing of the lock. Now, answer me, who is the new occupant of your dungeon?"
Guin and Remus looked at each other. Guin had not yet given up her suspicions, but there was something in that short, youthful voice that did not offend, despite its irritating tone and its uncharacteristically insolent crack.
"Hey, can't you hear me? Or are you just too cautious to say your name, or have you just been tortured by that disgusting living monster and don't have the strength to answer? If that's the case, you can moan and groan - or if you want me to say my name first, fine, I'll keep my manners. In any case, the whole fortress will know that I was stripped of my armor and sword and thrown in here on the spot for defying that gloomy lord and calling him a pus-filled carrion to his face. Istvan, Istvan of Valacia, who was sent to this disgusting grave for throwing himself into Mongol's army as a mercenary in Torus. Hey, I don't know who you are, but listen, this Staphorus castle, this is one hell of a place."
"What do you mean?"
Guin listened with her mouth hung open. He opened his mouth as clearly as he could and pronounced the words, but the voice on the other side of the wall turned into an unpleasant crack,
"Are you one of those short-headed giants from the northern Taluans, or are you one of those demonic barbarians from Nosferus, Ragon? You talk like you've got a mouthful of raw meat."
He did not hesitate to say so. But he didn't care for that for long, and said, "Anyway, it's a bad place, and the people who run it are pus-filled carrion, but I can live with that. I've been a mercenary since I was twelve, and I've been to every castle and battlefield and lived in many a worse pigsty. But here-- hey, I said my name too. You tell me your name and tell me why I'm being thrown in here."
"My name is Guin."
Guin said, struggling to pronounce the words clearly.
"I was captured by the Black Knights in the Rude Forest, and it seems that the Black Count is planning to send me to the Grand Combat Tournament in Torus to fight."
"I see."
Istvan's voice is a little more familiar,
"That nasty sack of pus is always looking for a fighter-slave who can make a fortune in gambling. Then I'm like a fellow mercenary. It's not like you gave your sword to Grand Duke Vlad of Mongol, is it?"
"My sword is not for anyone but me at the moment."
"Then I'll tell you something--look, I'm going to be leaving this damned castle soon, and you're going to have to escape no matter what. Otherwise, listen, every stone of this accursed castle will come crashing down on your head."
"What do you mean?"
Again, Guin listened and patted Remus on the shoulder soothingly, then sat him down next to himself and pulled a chair up next to the hole in the wall and sat on his haunches.
"It means that this castle is cursed!"
Mercenaries are merry,
"I've been surviving on the battlefield by myself since I was four, and by the time I was twelve, I was a full-fledged mercenary with the armor of an adult. That's why I say that my intuition for survival is so sharp that it could be called a superpower. That's why people call me the Demon Warrior. I know where danger lurks on any battlefield.
That's what I'm talking about. This castle is haunted by demons. A black cloud of misery hovers over this castle. That miasma may be the miasma of that bandaged lord or it may be only a part of the evil.
But listen, Guin-- something's cursed in this fortress anyway. It's been whispered in the mercenary quarters that no one knows what's going on in that black tower that even the Kingsguard won't go near. But there is definitely something going on, and that something is - well, I don't really want to know!"
"You have something to prove.
Guin listened with interest.
"Well-- at first, it was a shortcut, wasn't it?"
That was Ishtvan's answer.
"That was shortly before I came here with my troops. Three of his young apprentices went missing, one after the other, and all three were last seen near the entrance to the Black Tower. Then there was the servant of the stable keeper, and the old steward, who had been in the service of the Count of Vernon for many years, and who had followed him faithfully when he was sent to this remote land.
It was just after the steward's disappearance that the whole fort started to be rumored about the suspicious things that had been going on. The Black Knights went out at dawn and returned at dusk with two or three cloaked men in their ranks. But ever since they began to do so, the disappearances of people from the castle have ceased, and the rumors have ceased to be spoken of."
"..."
"You see... I've been told. A wizard of Torus once told me that the only cure for the Black Death is fresh blood and fresh meat."
"..."
"I am Istvan, the Red Mercenary, and I am called psychic not because I am possessed by a demon, as they say. It's just that I can see what people don't see, what they pretend not to see, and I can see many things that are different from each other back into one pattern. You see, the reason why this fort is not long is not only because the homes of the settlers and hunters in the vicinity of this fort have probably hunted down all the sacrifices, and the man who was brought back in a cloak by the Black Knights who went out to fulfill their secret mission last time, is only a few feet tall. The Black Knights, who had gone out on their last secret mission, brought back five or six dwarfs who were only a meter tall, and when the gag came off for some reason, they shouted, "Alfetu! Alfetto! when the gag came off."
"Alfetto?"