After shaking off their pursuers, the rescue party fled for five days before finally reaching the fortress. Built amid a forest against the mountainside, its northeastern walls extended along the mountain and required no defense.
The fortress was indeed small, probably less than seven hundred square meters. A few scattered stone houses stood on the open ground inside, while the walls were about five meters high and over two meters thick, with several slightly taller watchtowers. At the center stood a castle that occupied most of the space, roughly as tall as the walls but with deep underground chambers.
Upon seeing Dario, Ronan, and the others, the guards atop the walls hurriedly opened the gates. The gate was a heavy iron portcullis that rose and fell vertically, operated from the watchtower directly above it—the most important defensive position. After all, no battering ram could smash through an iron portcullis; the enemy's only way to open the gate was to seize the watchtower and raise it.
Covered in dust from the road, Ronan and the others were utterly exhausted. Guided by the defending soldiers, Ronan, Dario, and the rest quickly tied up their horses before entering the castle to eat in the first-floor dining hall.
The food was hardly lavish—just hard flatbread and dried beef tough enough to stab someone to death—but the starving group could no longer care about that. They all grabbed knives and forks and began cutting fiercely. Ronan also noticed that after they entered the fortress, the soldiers brought out a birdcage and released a Jade Eagle. They were probably sending word to Terra City.
Using a small knife, Ronan painstakingly sliced off a piece of jerky along the grain, speared it, and chewed it. Then he was the first to break the silence.
"So, more than