After Rowen and Bergiel stared at each other in confusion for multiple moments Bergiel finally broke the silence, "So you mean to tell me these guys went to your random village where you had done nothing wrong and burned the entire place down bringing just you as the sole survivor?" Bergiel asked in confusion.
"That is exactly what I am telling you. What is going on here?!" Rowen confirmed with clear desperation in his voice to try and find some sort of rhyme or reason on why he was in his situation in the first place.
Bergiel seemed to go through many thoughts while staring at Rowen but before he could say anything another voice chimed in, "So you are fresh meat are you?" A confident voice right behind Rowen's ear whispered.
Rowen spun around quickly, pulling his chain with him, causing a lot of people in the chain line to be moved involuntarily, making a slight commotion. Roland, who had been previously speaking with the knight had, for some reason, become locked in on Rowen's conversation with Bergiel when he wasn't paying attention.
"Is there a problem over here?" One of the knights came over quickly after seeing the commotion down the chained line, staring specifically at Bergiel and Roland.
"Not at all." Roland replied with a smile as he continued to stare at Rowen who felt much more uncomfortable suddenly.
After the commotion, the knights rushed all of the prisoners into the line and started marching them toward the castle gates making Rowen unable to finish his conversation with Bergiel, much less deal with Roland listening in on their conversation.
For now, it would have to wait because before Rowen could even think, the castle walls were upon them. Hundreds of people were going all throughout the streets, going about their business and giving Rowen and the others side glances of varying emotions.
Some people gave them pity while others seemed to look at them with disgust. There were even a few that looked at them with genuine interest but what that stemmed from Rowen was not really sure.
"Are those the contestants for the tournament?"
"They won't last very long, I am sure."
"At lease these trash are being used for something useful."
Many different voices spoke on the group making their way through the gate and into the town inside of the castle walls. Rowen tried as hard as he could to pick up on things they were saying without getting out of the line but only caught a few mentions of a tournament that they were supposedly a part of.
'What would a bunch of criminals and I have to do with a tournament? The only tournament in this country is the queens-' It was at this moment that Rowen knew where they were going. He knew exactly why they were here and what their purpose was with this tournament that kept being mentioned.
There were three kingdoms in their nation split up equally with their shares of land Rothersburg, Crane, and Pestridge. Each of these kingdoms was primarily ruled by a queen that stayed in power throughout their entire rule until one of the other queens either stepped down or passed away. It was at this time that another set of three queens were chosen from either the children of the previous queen or someone of their choosing if they did not have any offspring.
It was only recently that Rowen had heard one of the queens had decided to step down from their rule to enjoy the rest of their life in peace after spending many years as a ruler of their country.
With this change each of the newly appointed queens were set to have a squire or right hand man placed beside them through a tournament to the death. These queens had someone newly appointed to them to mitigate the potential loyalty that the previous squire might have had to the previous queen.
This was important because although one of the queens might have been ready to step down, the other two might not have been ready but then forced to lose their position of power. In years past the previous queens used their squire from the previous rule to manipulate the newly appointed queen so after many years of this one set of queens decided to make this a rule up until this point.
These three squires to be appointed to the queens had the Tournament of Swords to find their way through before being selected. The harsh part about this was that each match was to the death. Not a single time in the history of this tournament had someone survived besides the eventual winners.
That very same tournament Rowen was now walking towards without any hope of getting out of it.
As the group of prisoners made their way toward the middle of the town a coliseum slowly came into view. It towered hundreds of feet in the air and seemed to be placed in the very middle of the town making it accessible to anyone that lived within the castles walls.
Speaking of the castle, further in the distance on the opposite side where Rowen had entered the large gate and passed by the stone walls there was a castle that towered even higher in the air. If the town was the size of a apple then the castle was around three times that size including the coliseum.
You could see even at this distance multiple knights standing guard at the base of the steps to the castle alongside multiple knights holding longbows higher up to have a range advantage as well.
'This is absolutely absurd.' Rowen thought to himself still not fully understanding what he was supposed to do. This was a lot to take in but he also didn't have time to ponder too much as they seemed to finally be arriving at the entrance to the coliseum.
"It is about to get to the fun part!" Roland screamed with excitement behind Rowen.