LITMIR.BIZ

      And Jeff sat down and remained alone by the fire, carefully watching the fire that reflected on his sword and his eyes, and then he was completely immersed in his own thoughts. Only he and God knew what he was thinking.

      MORNING

      The smell of meat cooking on the fire woke Adelaide. As she opened her eyes with difficulty, she saw Jeff sitting across from her, smoking a hare caught in one of the traps over the coals. Richard wasn’t there. It was dawn, the fog was thick, the air was frosty, and the sky, overcast with dark gray clouds, boded for rainy weather.

      – Good morning,» she greeted him softly, hugging her shoulders as she tried to warm herself after the chill of sleeping on the cold ground that had long since passed, and moved closer to the fire, which was almost completely extinguished, but still gave off heat.

      – Good… – He said in reply. – Make yourself comfortable, we’ll have breakfast and be on our way.

      – Thank you, but where is Richard? – she asked in between.

      – He decided to take another look at the area to see which way we should go. – he answered. – Are you rested, have you had a good night’s sleep?

      – Thank you, yes, very much, just frozen. Have you even slept yourself? – she asked in a slightly shaky voice, rubbing her hands together to warm them.

      – I’ll sleep in the other world! – He grinned, and then stood up, threw off his cloak, and covered his companion with it.

      – Thank you,» Adelaide said.

      – Then I hope you won’t be asleep for a while,» Rich’s voice suddenly sounded as he approached. – All is quiet in the forest. I found the right direction to Philip’s fortress. However, we got a long way from it yesterday, so let’s hurry up and eat and hit the road to get out of harm’s way. – He said, not looking anyone in the eye, as he was a little embarrassed by the situation of the day before.

      Jeff, unceremoniously, cut the hare into several pieces and served it to his guests on a dagger.

      The brothers quickly set about the meal, which led to her soon disappearing.

      Adelaide managed to tear off just a small piece of meat with her tiny fingers and looked at it for a long time before putting it into her mouth.

      – Aren’t you going to eat? – Rich asked sharply as he finished chewing the hare.

      – I’m not really hungry,» she answered with a slight reflection of food rejection on her face. – But maybe you’d like some?

      – I’d love to! – they said in one voice.

      – It’s not a waste of good things! – Richard added and took the piece from Adelaide’s hands, then divided it «fraternally» with Jeff, and they finished it off as quickly as they had done before.

      – That’s it, we can ride,» Jeffrey said, filling the rest of the coals with earth. Then they got on horseback.

      This time Adelaide got on the horse with Geoffrey – apparently because she was still resentful of Richard. And they set off.

      The village

      A couple of hours later, our heroes came upon a village. Tiny in size and quiet in assessment in general. Not a soul was visible in the street. In the windows of the houses, too, there was no movement or signs of life, only a dark gray thick smoke came out of the chimney of one of the buildings. That was where the three walked leisurely. Adelaide pressed herself closer to Geoffrey with excitement, which made him feel good, and he couldn’t hide his smile.

      Jeff held the reins in one hand and the crossbow in the other, ready to fire at any second, while Rich drew his sword from its sheath and mentally prepared for battle. As they rode through the gate, which had long since been unfit for defense, they looked around and made sure that they were facing a ghost town, with not a single living person, animal, or even bird in the area. They followed the smoke to a house, and when they approached it, they saw a cross on the roof of a small chapel, and the smoke was coming from a house attached nearby.

      When they descended from their horses, they went to the door and knocked on it, but there was no answer, so they decided to enter without an invitation. Once inside, the knights and the princess were greatly alarmed and frightened by the number of corpses there, and their faces changed, turning pale, if not even green, at the pungent smell of dead bodies that almost made them all vomit.

      The skin of the bodies, whose souls might have gone to better worlds, seemed so white as to compare it to the first virgin snow, but the sight was absolutely unappealing. All these snow-white corpses were studded with purple stains, like bruises resembling jellyfish, and their eyes were as black as the darkest night, with nothing in them to be seen at all.

      – Oh, my God, what a horror! – Adelaide suddenly burst out sharply.

      – Perhaps they are much better off now, young girl,» came a sudden voice from an unlit corner of the room.

      – Who’s there?! – Richard asked loudly. – Come out into the light! – he added in a commanding tone. Immediately a man appeared out of the darkness, clad in an old brown cloak with a hood covering his face.

      – My name is Father Victor, my children. I am the priest of God’s Temple here,» he said, taking off his hood and exposing his face. He was a swarthy man in his fifties, with black hair and a black beard, with kind but tired brown eyes.

      – What happened here? Where did so many dead people come from and why did they look so horrible? What killed them, and was there anyone left alive? – Jeff asked the priest a lot of questions.

      – My dear friend, a terrible calamity has befallen our village, just as it has befallen other cities and peoples. It destroyed all life, sparing no one, not even newborn children. Death does not choose, it does not care about age, gender, nationality or race. Apparently, this disease is God’s punishment for all our sins. It comes suddenly, and no one knows how to avoid it or heal from it. It affects health so quickly that it leaves no chance of curing those who are infected,» the father said with pain in his voice. – I spend every day praying for the salvation of their souls and every day burning their physical shells.

      – Is there anyone else alive with you, and how long ago did it start? – Richard asked again.

      – The sickness and the passing of people began a year ago, but in just the last two weeks the plague has taken the lives of one hundred and eighty people. There are only twenty-nine left alive, and all are already old people who have one foot in the grave. They now spend most of their time in church, and it is very strange that the deadly disease has bypassed them, including me.

      – How does this disease spread? – Adelaide asked. – Isn’t it dangerous that we are here now?

      – I don’t know how it started,» the priest said. – But one thing I can be sure of is that it is not transmitted from the dead, you should fear the living, whose first signs are a cough, sometimes even with blood, yellow

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