The Steam Age: Gears and Bones

Chapter 74

The post road from Wild Boar Ridge to the capital of Romulus gradually widens after passing through border counties, the road surface changes from gravel to stone slabs, and the spacing between post stations becomes more regular.

According to the route planned by the Elector's adjutant, there was a post station every half day or so along the way where horses could be changed and supplies replenished. Under normal circumstances, it would only take five to six days to travel from Wild Boar Ridge to the capital.

But in the chaos that followed the issuance of the full mobilization order, normalcy was no longer an option.

They encountered their first delay on the third day after leaving Wild Boar Ridge.

A post station had been temporarily requisitioned by the local garrison as a supply depot shortly before their arrival. The yard was piled high with newly requisitioned grain, bundles of hay, and other military supplies.

The postmaster told them apologetically that all the spare horses had been reassigned to transport military rations, and that a few would not be available until tomorrow morning at the earliest.

Perfit didn't make things difficult for him, but simply let the group spend the night in the inn's courtyard.

The next morning they were given three horses, at least half as many as expected. There weren't enough horses to pull the carriage, which slowed it down considerably.

In the following days, similar delays occurred several times—once a bridge plank was damaged by an troop transport vehicle, and engineers were working to repair it; another time a supply convoy carrying ammunition to the front blocked the post road, and they had to wait quite a while before they could pass.

So when evening fell on the sixth day, they were still about two days' journey from the capital, and the nearest post station had been left behind a few hours earlier.

Ludwig rode back from the front of the procession, dismounted beside Perfitt's carriage, walked to the window, and said with a hint of apology, "I'm afraid you'll have to spend the night in the wilderness."

The nearest post station has already been passed, and the next one is still half a day's journey away. We won't be able to reach it before dark.

However, not far ahead lies a remnant from the era of the ancient gods; a few remaining stone pillars and a half-collapsed shrine offer some shelter from the wind, which is better than being exposed to the cold wind in the wilderness.

Perfit leaned out of the carriage window, glanced in the direction Ludwig was pointing, and then nodded.

They arrived at the ruins before dusk had completely fallen.

It sits on a low stone hill beside the post road, looking from a distance like a pile of forgotten rocks in the wilderness, but only upon closer inspection can one discern the remaining traces of human intervention.

Most of the stone slabs that once covered the ground are now broken, with dry moss and frozen weeds growing in the cracks.

Several stone pillars stood crookedly among the rubble, the tallest of which was broken in the middle, its upper half lying next to the altar base, its broken surface smoothed and blackened by wind and rain.

Only a stone slab base, half-buried in the soil, remains of the altar itself, with grooves still faintly visible on it—grooves that were once used to inlay something, perhaps the base of a statue, or perhaps a bronze basin with a sacred fire that burned eternally.

But the sacred fire of this altar was extinguished long ago when the gods fell, and along with the names of the gods it was dedicated to, it has been worn away by the long years and become footnotes in archaeologists' papers.

A stone statue lies upside down directly in front of the altar.

Perfitt approached and crouched down, using his cane to brush away the withered grass and snow covering the stone statue.

The head of the statue has broken off and rolled into the pile of rubble next to the base. The facial features have been weathered over countless centuries, and the features are so blurred that they look as if they have been deliberately erased.

However, judging from the remaining folds of the robe on the statue and the extremely exquisitely carved belt around its waist, it was once a rather beautiful statue.

Its posture retains a certain indescribable solemnity—even though it is lying in the soil, its hands are still outstretched, as if offering something or receiving something.

Ludwig walked to her side, rested his knight's sword on the gravel ground, followed her gaze to the fallen statue, then glanced at the scattered fragments of stone pillars around him, and explained to her in a tone that was slightly proud yet inexplicably regretful: "There are many such relics in the Holy Romulus; the remains of the Old Gods era are almost everywhere in the territory."

In the time before the gods fell, Romulus ruled the entire Old World, stretching from the Storm Sea in the south to the coast of Victoria in the west.

Altars and temples lined every road leading to the empire, and divine grace was as abundant as the midday sun.

However, with the fall of the gods and the collapse of the empire, the faith of the Father replaced the old gods, and these relics were forgotten along with them.

This once sacred place, dedicated to deities and a sanctuary for travelers, now only has these stone pillars to offer a meager respite from the cold winds blowing across the wilderness.

Perfit did not respond to his account of the Old Gods' era.

She squatted down next to the statue and gently brushed away the pebbles on the base with the end of her cane, revealing a line of extremely blurred text carved on the side of the base.

It wasn't Romulus script, nor Ros script, nor any of the official languages ​​of the Empire she had ever seen, but it came from the same ancient system as the scripts she had seen on the edge of the sealed cellar.

She put her cane away, stood up, and silently memorized the words on it without saying a word.

The group set up camp among the stone pillars on the leeward side of the ruins.

The gray-armored knights parked their carriages next to the altar base, built a low wall with rubble to block the wind blowing from the north, and dug a simple fire pit inside the wall.

After the campfire was lit, the flickering firelight reflected on the surface of the ancient stone pillars, making every crack and chisel mark appear and disappear.

After finishing her dinner by the campfire, Perfit took the old military flag that Chernzov had entrusted to her from the carriage to make sure it was intact, checked the restraints on the infected in the iron cage, and then leaned against the carriage wheel to rest with her eyes closed.

But that night, Perfitt couldn't fall asleep.

At first, she thought that the bumpy ride of the march and the events of the day had left her in a state of persistent low-level excitement, but even after lying with her eyes closed for a long time, the turbulent thoughts in her mind showed no signs of calming down.

Mobilization orders, conscription stations, old hunters carrying shotguns, children tiptoeing along the edge of fields to help their mothers plow, quarantine officers at the port of France, and defeated soldiers on the border of Ross…

These fragments kept appearing in my mind.

She simply threw off the blanket, got off the carriage, and walked into the depths of the ruins accompanied by Belfast.

She stopped in front of the altar base.

The fallen statue still lay where she had left it a few hours earlier, its broken head half-buried in the frozen ground, its faceless face turned toward the night sky.

Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the clouds, casting a thin layer of silvery-gray light on the folds of the stone statue's robes.