chapter 3

The commander, who was bent on meritorious deeds, had made up his mind, and the three soldiers had no choice but to suffer.

Will was originally a poacher, and his sneak tracking skills were quite good. He quickly deduced the number and situation of the people on the other side - about ten people, including men, women and children. They were probably a family of savages.

Savages have a strong and ferocious image in the minds of the residents of the Seven Kingdoms. In many places in the north, they are even used by adults to scare children. However, the night watchmen who often deal with them do not accept this trick. People in black know very well that the so-called savages , in essence, they are just feral farmers who do not pay taxes or perform corvee labor, and think this is called "freedom". Our own side is different - whether you believe it or not, the fact is: even if it continues to decline, the Night Watch is still one of the largest standing armies on this continent. To use a modern word to describe it, it is a "professional soldier".

In this era of feudal lords, nobles who wanted to fight had to notify their vassals, and the vassals summoned soldiers. The "soldiers" put down their hoes and picked up their weapons to assemble under the leadership of the knights, and the army was formed.

The Night Watch is different. Their only task is to guard the Great Wall. They are always in a state of war. All supplies and food come from land-grant residents and donations from families in the north. Even in the most peaceful times, the Night Watch is fine. Production. Although the quality of the soldiers is a bit poor, an army that trains every day can be considered an elite soldier in this backward world.

And the Rangers are the "combat soldiers" of this standing army. Compared with the "auxiliary soldiers" such as craftsmen and administrative officers, they basically do not even do chores such as washing and cooking. Their only activities are training and patrolling - -Compared with the savages who hold sticks and stone axes and spend most of their time "survival", their average combat effectiveness is more than one or two points stronger. Leaving aside some select savage "warriors", few savages dared to take action against well-trained and well-equipped rangers when the numerical difference was not large and they were unable to carry out an effective ambush.

At least the small group that Iger and the others are targeting now don't dare.

This group of savages initially headed west slowly along a route parallel to the Great Wall. After noticing the pursuit of the four rangers, they began to turn north and try to escape... It was the first time that Weimar Royce led a patrol, so naturally he would not take it easy. After letting go, the two groups started a marathon in the ice and snow.

  ...

Egg and the other three night watchmen followed the wild man's whereabouts during the day, and spent the night wrapped in heavy blankets to recharge their batteries. With the advantage of having a horse to ride, Will firmly stuck to the enemy. He tracked north for three days, turned northwest, and then turned north two days later... Thanks to the storm and heavy snow, Will never lost sight of his target. .

"Nine days, sir."

"Nine days is a long time?"

"Not long." Gary replied in an unassuming tone: "But we only brought dry food for ten days. Even if we plan carefully, we can only last for twenty days. And we still have to go back. , if we continue to chase, the second half of the return journey..."

"I heard Sir Thorne say." Weimar said with a touch of sarcasm in his tone, "Last winter, the rangers carried a month's supplies but persisted outside the Great Wall for six months. Months, how did they do it?"

Will and Iger, who didn't interrupt, looked at each other and coughed a few times to hide their embarrassment: Weimar's irony may be quite powerful, but it's a pity that he chose the wrong target.

"If you want to know how it was done, I can help you." Gary, who had long been unhappy with this playboy, would certainly not miss the opportunity to slap him in the face: "I participated in that operation, and the food supply After finishing the meal, we ate horse meat and dog meat first, then dug grass roots, dug rat nests, and hunted everything that moved. In the end, there was nothing left to eat. The commander ordered us to take the bodies of our brothers with us... Fortunately, there was no one left in the end. It came in handy, and we braved the storm to reach Custer's fortress, and with the help of the savage who had his own daughter, we returned to the Great Wall alive." "

If the commander wants to give it a try, I can only promise to do my best to bring everyone alive. Go home." The speaker happily looked at Weimar's panic expression and continued unceremoniously: "It's just that the commander-in-chief once reminded us that teams of less than ten people should not go to Custer for help, and grassroots and Horse meat is not easy to digest."

The young noble's face changed several times. Egg thought that the youngest team leader among the rangers would become angry, but in fact he quickly calmed down and even miraculously made a concession: "Well, no matter what happens, we will turn around and end the tracking tomorrow, but on this last day, we must take the initiative and try to capture one or two 'tongues' alive. Regardless of success or not, we will set off to return tomorrow."

"Take the initiative. ?" Will couldn't continue watching the show. He became nervous: "But... Lord Bunyan asked us to investigate the reasons and movements of the wildlings, but he didn't let us..." "

What did you find out during these nine days? Weimar interrupted the poacher, "It would be easier to catch a living savage for interrogation if we chase him for nine more days. Gary, what do you think?"

Gary can argue with the other party based on his seniority and veteran status. After some ridicule, but faced with Weimar who was both a noble and an officer, he could not disobey the order after all. He curled his lips and replied reluctantly: "It's all at your command."

Weimar smiled contemptuously, and he liked it Seeing the feeling that others were unhappy but had to obey orders, I snorted in my heart and turned to look at Will: "You, go to the front to investigate, report the specific situation when you come back, and we will study and decide how to act."

The poacher has no temper. He glanced at Ige and Gary, then took the order and left. The remaining three people dismounted and found a place to sit down and rest among several big trees.

...

Iger stood on a rock half-buried in the snow and began to observe the surroundings. The weather was getting colder day by day, and this place was located hundreds of miles north of the Great Wall. Geographically speaking, the temperature should indeed be lower... But what surprised him most was that it was hundreds of miles north of the Great Wall. It's not the cold that's unsettling, it's the people.

Ser Waymar Royce, to be precise.

It's not that I'm afraid of him. Although this young nobleman is somewhat pampered, it's impossible to label him a playboy without conscience. Apart from being a bit arrogant about his status, he has never done anything bad that makes people angry... Egger is afraid. Yes, it is a plot related to this young man.

If he had known earlier that one day he would travel to this world, he would have rewatched both the TV series and the original novel several times. But there are no assumptions in life. In the original world, whether he was watching a drama or reading an original novel, he would just skim through it, only knowing the plot of the story in general, and not remembering any details at all.

But there was one plot that he really couldn't forget, and that was - Wayma Royce, the unlucky guy who was hacked to death by the White Walkers at the beginning of the story of Ice and Fire. As the first named character to appear in the novel and TV series, his death reveals the true existence of the world's biggest villain, sets the tone of the plot.

But the conscience of heaven and earth, as a time traveler, Iger asked himself that even if he could not be promoted and paid all the way to the top of his life, he should not be a foil who died at the beginning of the story! Therefore, when he heard that this patrol would be led by Sir Waymar Royce ten days ago, he refused in his heart.

It's a pity - as a person who came to the Great Wall with a crime, he has neither the right to choose his superiors nor the right to refuse normal attendance. He can only bite the bullet and hit the road and go deep into the ghost forest again.

Ghost Forest. Without ghosts, how can it be called a ghost forest? The cold wind north of the Great Wall never stops, blowing the shadows of the trees like ferocious living creatures, hence the name of this black wasteland. Egger still remembers the scene when he left the Great Wall for the first time. At that time, the memory of legends and plots suddenly came to his mind. At first glance, every tree shadow around him seemed to be a strange ghost waiting for a living person to take the bait. A weirwood tree with a human face carved on it could scare him. At the end of the first day of patrol, when he dismounted, his legs were almost too weak to stand. Now that he thought about it, it was really embarrassing.

Now, he has gone out of the wall more than ten times and met the savages two or three times. He is no longer afraid of the cold forest in front of him, which is known as a ghost.

But walking with Weimar once again activated the hidden uneasiness in his heart. There seemed to be some indescribable danger hidden in the dense shadows of trees on all sides, making him as uneasy as an animal facing its natural enemies.

I walked around the resting point and found no abnormal signs. Maybe the chill and sense of crisis on my back were just an illusion caused by the existence of Weimar? Thinking about it carefully, this guy is not so unlucky that he will run into a White Walker on his first patrol... When he returns to the Great Wall this time, he has to find a way to avoid patrolling with the evil star of the Royce family. arranged.

Egg shook his head and returned to the other two people. He found a place to sit down under their strange eyes and waited quietly for Will to return from his investigation.

...

The cold wind was blowing, and the horses kept walking around and snorting. Egger kept paying attention to the sounds of the surrounding environment without relaxing his vigilance, while thinking about ways to avoid walking with Weimar and getting away from the night watchman. This lasted about an hour. Finally, Will came back.

"Huh?" Weimar raised his head, looked at the poachers with questioning eyes, and spoke in his characteristic arrogant and careless tone: "It will be dark soon, and the savages should have stopped to light a fire and set up camp, right? ."

Will turned over and dismounted, walked to the three of them in a daze, swallowed, and said with a confused look on his face: "I know you won't believe it... But I don't know what happened in front... The savages are all dead."