Chapter 448 (1/2)

Chapter 448: A Hail of Bullets

Translator: TransN Editor: TransN

“My lord, the dock area in the west city seems strange,” reported a guard who was in charge of sealing off the street. “I’ve heard strange noises coming from there and sent two platoons to investigate but none of them came back.”

“What?” Jacques Medde said with a frown, “You must have misheard it.”

“No, it’s clear, like the sounds of heavy, rapid breathing. Wheeze, wheeze…” the guard said, imitating the sounds.

“Maybe it’s the snoring sounds of a tramp?”

“My lord, in this weather, anyone sleeping outside will be frozen to death,” the guard insisted, “and nobody can snore that loudly. It must be a giant almost as tall as the city wall if they’re really snoring sounds.”

The Earl stared at him for a good long while and then turned away, shouting, “Knight Dowcan!”

“My lord, what can I do for you?” a knight wearing the badge of the Maple Family on his chest responded, striding toward the Earl.

“Summon your platoon and follow my guard to investigate the dock in the city.” Jacques patted the knight’s shoulder and added, “Inform me at once if you’ve any news.”

“Eh… Could you send someone else there?” the young knight said, hesitating. “My father urged me to enter the castle together with you.”

“It won’t take you long to go to the dock, but I can assure you here it’ll take a lot longer,” the Earl said with a smile, “and if the Honeysuckle Family surrenders, I’ll wait for you here.”

“Ah… fine.”

After the knight left with his guard, Jacques’ facial expression turned stone-cold. “Keep dreaming! You think you can receive the same credit by sending a son here to enter the castle with me? His Majesty mentioned only me in the secret letter!”

Before long, he heard the distant sound of gunfire coming from the west.

Jacques was instantly on the alert. “What’s that? The eldest son of the Maple Family has no flintlock.”

When he was planning to send some of his knights there to check the situation, the guard who had reported to him earlier stumbled back into the battalion. “My, my lord… things have gone wrong!”

“What went wrong?”

“The rebel king… he came here!” The guard said with his eyes widely opened, “Thousands of enemies are heading for the castle!”

“You meant Roland Wimbledon’s army?” Jacques raised his hand and slapped the guard on the face. “Thousands of them? If you dare to talk nonsense, I’ll hang you up on the city gate!”

“My lord, they carry the flags of the Kingdom of Graycastle.” The guard did not dare to dodge. He got down on one knee and continued, “I wanted the squire of Knight Dowcan to catch one or two enemies to get further information, but the moment they charged towards them, they were, were…”