A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 952: The Frontline - Part 4

Because of the delays at the border, it took another full day to get to their destination. Night fell as they marched on the first day, and they were forced to make camp. It was only by evening of the second day that they started to see castles of a distinctly different style arising in the distance.

They'd spent the final hour or so of that second day walking through recently captured Verna territory. There wasn't much of it all – given that they could cover its distance in an hour of slow walking – but the instant that they entered it, the whole mood of the marching soldiers changed.

Conversation fizzled out to virtual silence, and every noise that was not the stomping of feet was liable to send more than a few men jumping in alarm. In a line, the men – though not ordered to – had started to adopt an alertness that bordered on being battle ready.

If they had not seen the sigil of the Blackwells flying high above the top of the Verna castles, accompanied by the Pegasus of the High King, they might have been even more alarmed in their approach.

Quite clearly, these castles were foreign. The whole land, even though it seemed to be nearly identical to what they'd just crossed, with green grasses, open plains and rivers, and the occasional broad forest, seemed to wreak of foreignness. There was a sense of the alien, and the unknown, and all the dangers that were associated with such things.

The Stormfront castles were straight, and blocky, for the most part. Indeed, there were many architectural flourishes on those further inland, but here on the border, what was left were structures that prioritized efficiency and use, and so it was square towers and high walls, with thick stones, slapped together using thin cement.

The Verna did it differently. It was as though they did it on purpose, merely to rival the Stormfront architecture, and seeing it, Oliver thought they really might have. Their structures were far more rounded. The entire blueprint of the border castle seemed to be a circle. As far as defence went, Oliver found himself considering the strategic implications of circular walls.

With the circular walls, there were circular towers, with pointed spires for their roofs, and siege weapons sitting under the roof's protective hat.

"Ballista, my Lord," Verdant responded, answering Oliver's unspoken question. Oliver replied with a nod. He'd heard of them from Volguard, but he'd never seen them for himself.

"The Verna…" Oliver murmured to himself. Only now, when he saw their architecture up close did his mind fall to the people themselves, and their culture. He knew their lands were diverse and rich. The Verna was a large country, with many different climates in it, and many interesting different technologies.

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He knew too, that if you travelled even further east, there were said to be seas of sand stretching for miles and miles.

"Where are we, Verdant?" Oliver said suddenly. "I mean, where exactly? I have it in my head, but there have been so many different places given to me on my way here, that I don't feel I truly know. My father said that he fought the Pandora Goblin in a world of sand, but that can't possibly be true, can it? Is there any sand of that sort in the Stormfront?"

"Ah," Verdant said, going quiet for a moment. "No, your suspicion that prompted you to ask that question is quite right. The Pandora Goblin lies in those lands far to the east, in those sandy deserts of the Verna people."