Release That Witch

Echo was sitting on the highest point of the castle, the roof of the observation tower, where she could see the entire town.     

She had troubled Lightning to carry her up here, and the little girl would come back to pick her up after sunset. Lightning was currently on her way to Longsong Stronghold.     

The weather was very good today and the sun was bright; the river in the distance was shining like silk, running slowly towards the west, separating the land of green from the white snow. She felt a sense of warmth and softness in her entire body. This was different from the hot sun of the Southernmost Region where the scorching rays would burn the skin.     

[Even the wind is different,] she thought. The winds in the mainland varied from the salty sea wind in the Port of Clearwater. From the humid monsoon season in the king's city, to the chilling wind in the Impassable Mountain Range, to the earthy breeze in the town here. Anyhow, the winds here were pure and simple. Sweltering heat or sweeping windstorms were common in Iron Sand City. Winds were visible, with gravel and grit mixed up in the howling airflow, like a black monster sweeping through. People would have to hide in their house or find shelter to avoid the wind. Standing in the wind would lead to the death.     

Echo sighed softly. It had been four years since she'd left Iron Sand City. The Osha clan had unfortunately failed in the battle for power. Although her father had surrendered, he was still killed by the enemy. She had wanted to rush forward and perish along with the enemy after witnessing this, but she was knocked out from behind.     

She wondered how many of the clan members had survived after these four years.     

She'd heard that the Osha clan had violated the agreement of the sacred duel causing them to be spurned by the Three Gods and exiled to Endless Cape, forbidden from Iron Sand City forever before she was sold to be a slave in the Port of Clearwater. However, Echo knew that this was the conspiracy of the Tibia clan. They had smeared the whip with the black oil from the underground and it could not be extinguished once it was ignited. It was this exact trick that had caused her brother, the strongest warrior in the clan to be burned alive in the duel. It had caused chaos to the team formation.     

Aside from the scorching hot golden sand, Endless Cape was left with only the never extinguished fire pillars and the ocean, which was more frantic than mother earth. The people heading there would soon turn into bones, and they'd ended up even more miserable than herself as a slave.     

When Echo awakened and became God's Messenger, she wanted revenge. But her ability was the useless sound stimulation. No matter how much she begged the Three Gods, they did not grant her will. After living in the Port of Clearwater for half a year, she was clear that the saying that the God's Messengers was loved by the Three Gods was simply the Mojin Clan people's self-deceiving lie. The God's Messengers were hunted by the church under the jurisdiction of the four kingdoms. Echo had completely lost all hope for revenge since then.     

There was a sudden rise of smoke from afar. She looked over to the east bank of the Redwater River and noticed the shimmering green flame moving through the woods. The black smoke of the burning trees combined with the white mist that accumulated from the evaporated snow, forming a gray pillar in the sky.     

It was Anna's green flames.     

When she arrived, Wendy had briefly introduced Anna and Nana to the sisters. Echo was very envious of Anna's ability. Having the freedom to manipulate high-temperature fire flames that could melt swords... If she'd possessed such a great ability when she was in Iron Sand City, none of the Tibia clan would be left alive.     

Echo shook her head. There was no point thinking about these things, she was lucky to have survived, especially compared to the people who were probably killed in the yellow sand. Now that His Highness was willing to accept her, all she could do was finish her missions ordered by His Highness.     

She cleared her throat and started to sing.     

It was a happy song. She could remember the entire tune even though Prince Roland had only hummed it to her once.     

Echo was no stranger to music. Seductive dance and flirtatious crooning were skills she'd needed to master when she was trained as a first-class slave. However, this song His Highness requested was totally different. It was full of rhythm and upward vigor, especially when he requested her to perform the music by imitating the flute, it felt like every note was jumping, making people wanted to dance along.     

The difficulty was in adding in the drums and strings along with the music at the same time. It was Echo's first time to stimulate and overlap all the three different sounds at the same time. She had never thought that music could be played like this!     

Initially, it was difficult for her to make sure that the drum did not interrupt the rhythm of the flute. She managed to gradually merge the two sounds together according to His Highness' suggestion by tapping the beat with her hands or feet.     

After a few days of practice, Echo had gradually mastered the stimulation skill.     

After singing a few times, she stood up and decided to add in the final string.     

As the music played, Echo noticed that the minor tune changed again. If the elated fluting formed the body, the passionate drumming had given it a skeleton, and the last seemingly embellished string had given the music its soul. She worked on the beat repeatedly, unifying the three instruments into one; her voice became increasingly higher and finally she was singing loudly.     

*******************     

"My attack power was higher than yours, so I won."     

Roland put his final card on the table, and Soraya sat opposite to him. She covered her face and cried softly in awe.     

"Let's play another round," she said after a moment of contemplation. She gathered the cards again and said, "I'll draw your 10 cards this time."     

"Ahem," Roland coughed and said, "It's getting late and I still have something to do, you can play with someone else."     

After making a roughly sufficient set of cards, replication was the next step. Soraya's drawing skill was comparable to the copier machine when the template was in front of her. Soon, Roland had a few sets of Gwent cards.     

Hence, Soraya became his first opponent.     

After stating the game rules clearly, a card war was launched. In the card war, Roland found that the witch's acceptance was higher than most ordinary people. Soraya had quickly mastered card handling. Although Roland still managed to win for the following rounds, he had to use the special cards. He had to shamefully refuse now as she requested to draw the cards for him.     

"Alright." Soraya carried the cards in her arms and ran out the door. This was when the cheerful music came through the window. She stopped and ran back into the room and stuck her head out of the window to take a look. "Is that Echo?"     

"Uh-huh. She seems to be quite proficient." Roland leaned back against the chair to enjoy the familiar music.     

The First Army of Border Town would soon enter the comprehensive exercising stage. It was quite different from shooting on the city wall. The comprehensive exercise would be carried out in the wild and required the team to march forward in an orderly fashion. This was also the basic segment of a shooting execution lineup. In order to unify the steps of the soldiers, they needed to rely on drums or slogans to command everyone's marching speed. With the witch's ability of mixed sound stimulation, he simply imitated the British style of infantry march music.     

Compared to simple drumming, the infantry march music could not only control the platoon's marching speed but also help to effectively enhance and elevate the troop morale. Of course, the famous marching song, "The British Grenadiers" should be used during the shooting execution lineup. Unfortunately, Roland could only remember the name but not the entire tune.     

This was no trouble for him as there was another song, based on "The British Grenadiers" that had been widely used across the country during the war of resistance. And, the melody was known by almost everyone; it was the widely-known "Guerillas' Song".     

Soraya turned around as she heard Prince Roland humming along softly. It was in a language that she'd never heard before, clear-cut and perfectly consistent with the beat.     

"We're all sharpshooters,"     

"One bullet for one enemy."     

"We're all soldiers with wings,"     

"Unafraid of tall mountains and deep waters."     

"In the dense forests,"     

"Our comrades set their camps."     

"On the tall mountains,"     

"There are our countless brothers ."     

"... "