Chapter 249 The Snowy Journey Back

The horse's hooves lifted up the mud after melting snow, making a crackling sound.

Count Leonor Corbray, and his brother and heir, Lynn Corbray, were stationed by the stream outside the city.

The top of the abandoned fortress was covered with snow that had not had time to melt.

The two thousand cavalry led by the two brothers were currently resting in this ruined castle.

Taking off her gloves and holding up the biting cold water from the creek, Lynn Corbray washed her face violently.

The cold that reached his bones made him sober in an instant.

"Come down, brother, come and wash yourself too. You may not have time to wash your face properly during the rest of the journey."

Lynn Corbray spoke loudly to her silent brother who was sitting on the horse and looking at the plains of the Trident River in the south.

Awakened by his younger brother's voice, the Earl of Ansuku City, who was dressed in black fur, glanced at his younger brother's face and the long sword at his waist, and nodded slowly.

He turned over and dismounted, and his feet suddenly fell into the thick mud.

The forty-year-old valley cavalry general just frowned briefly, pulled out his soles from the mud, and walked towards his younger brother's position.

Coming to Linn Corbray's side, he squatted down and stared at the withered yellow grass leaves by the stream. The remaining snow had not yet melted but had frozen into solid ice. Leonor Corbray took a long Sighed.

After their team split up with John Royce at Actor's Ford, they chased Earl Mallister's 500 men all the way north, but because the terrain was unfamiliar, they were never able to catch up.

Moreover, deep down in his heart, Leonor Corbray did not want to fight this battle, so it was best to drive them away.

But his younger brother is a war fanatic and has been leading the army to the front.

As the commander of the valley army, Leonor Corbray naturally cannot say explicitly that we should stop chasing them and just drive them away. Now we can go home.

He couldn't say this, and he couldn't restrain his younger brother, so he could only let it go, and he would go all the way alone.

As a result, after taking so long, I could only watch helplessly as the troops in front of them, under the banners of Riverland and the North, entered the Mallister family's Seaside Castle.

Once the door was closed, two brothers with ugly faces were left looking at each other outside.

No matter how high up Linn Corbray was, it would be impossible for him to really lead his army to attack Seaside City, which was the bridgehead against the Ironborn attack.

Even if you want to die, you have to look at your posture. If you give it to someone so forcefully, you won't be able to do it unless your brain is missing.

Therefore, after a day of wind blowing outside Haijiang City, Leonor Corbray pressed his unwilling brother, announced to his army that the mission of this trip had been successfully completed, and began to prepare for the return journey.

The soldiers who followed them didn't say anything. The towering city walls had already caused them a lot of losses before, and the people in the valley gradually understood that they were really not very good at attacking cities.

They were quite happy to hear that their commander didn't let them chew city bricks and fight the people in the river.

Although I can't grab anything, isn't it a good thing that I don't have to get hurt, let alone lose my life?

As for the lack of spoils, it doesn't matter. The defeat of Robb Stark's 20,000-strong army in one battle has already made the people of the valley full of food. But what they are doing now is to take advantage of the victory to expand the results.

The army began to return south, but just after taking a few steps, they encountered the oncoming blizzard...

This battle has never been seen by many young men in the valley, even the slightly older ones. Because the valley is mountainous, the wind and snow are never very strong.

It snowed so heavily all of a sudden, and the temperature dropped suddenly. Many soldiers couldn't bear it at all, and they quickly fell ill.

The team's condition declined rapidly, but the experienced army leader Count Leonor understood that in such an open environment on the plains of the Riverlands, once stopped, the entire team would be at risk of capsizing.

We must find a place where the army can be stationed as soon as possible to temporarily shelter from the wind and snow. However, there are no villages or shops along the way. Edmure Tully has evacuated all the people. One or two small villages are simply not enough to station two thousand people. people.

This will cost my life!

Leonor Corbray himself was so cold that he had runny noses, let alone ordinary soldiers like him who only wore single clothes and had no ability to withstand the cold.

Every morning when he woke up, his men would report to him large areas of frostbite.

The Earl of Hearts City was grateful for countless times that he did not listen to his brother Lynn Corbray's words.

If the superiors had insisted on attacking Haijiang City at that time, they would not be able to defeat it now. After such a freeze, the combat effectiveness of the army was sharply reduced to less than 30% of the original, and morale was extremely low.

Mallister in Seaside City looked for an opportunity to launch a surprise attack on him. Count Leonor Corbray did not have the confidence to guarantee that he could block the attack of the Mallister family's army.

Spreading out the map, the brothers finally chose the ruined fortress of the Mulder family, which was not on the road and had perished.

Wasteland City.

So, after enduring the wind and snow for five days and paying the price of three hundred men being left behind, Count Leonor Corbray finally brought his army to the deserted stone city where only the city wall was still intact.

Fortunately, the city wall is still in good condition and can somewhat block some of the biting cold wind.

Count Leonor Corbray still had some food in hand, and he didn't care about anything at this time. He demolished the Mulder family's abandoned castle, took out the usable wooden boards inside, lit a fire and started cooking. .

If you don't give the soldiers a hot meal, I'm afraid there will be big problems.

In the wind and snow, the soldiers leaned against the cold city wall and tried their best to build strange bunkers one after another.

As long as it can cover the wind and snow and retain even a trace of warmth, it is good.

At this time, who cares whether he looks good or not? If he can save his life, it is the blessing of the gods.

So, after enduring for a long time and plundering all the moving animals in the ghost-like deserted stone city, Count Leonor Corbray's army finally survived the blizzard.

They finally saw the sun they cherished so much.

Many soldiers, after seeing the rising sun on the eastern horizon, suddenly had muddy tears on their faces that were covered in bruises and frostbite.

They have never felt that the sun is so lovely and it shines so warmly on them.

I don't know how many soldiers knelt down on the spot, kneeling and saluting in the direction of the sun from the bottom of their hearts.

But no matter how excited they are, their situation is still not optimistic.

Because, the time they spent hiding from the wind and snow in Desolate Stone City was actually used to rush back south and join up with Yohn Royce.

As a result, their logistics encountered fatal problems, and their food was completely exhausted.

"Brother, what should we do next?"

Of course, Lynn Corbray knows the current situation of the army. It can be said that now, the entire army has truly reached the brink of crisis.

This is not twenty people, two hundred people, this is two thousand people!

The people of Hejian had already harvested the food in the fields before they launched the war, and with the implementation of the strong walls and clearing of the country, they had no way to obtain supplies through robbery.

As for hunting, this is even more unreliable. Any place that is so rich that after the snow can support a team of two thousand men through hunting is not even the Reach, let alone this place.

"Sigh... I don't know. If we can't find anything to eat anymore, we're only left with the last two options."

Lynn Corbray knew exactly what her brother was referring to by those last two options.

First, kill the horse!

The two thousand of them are pure cavalry, and they can survive for a long time with their war horses. But if they kill the war horses, it means that they have personally abolished the pillar of their own force and leave their fate to the unknown.

This means that we can only pray that John Royce will win the battle in the south and completely subdue the forces of the Riverlands here.

Otherwise, without their horses, their cavalry-equipped team would not even be able to defeat an equal number of Riverland infantry.

They have no experience in fighting dismounted.

Second, it’s all-or-nothing!

The nearest castle is the Blackwood family's Crowtree City. While they still have the strength, they will make a last-ditch effort to see if they can knock down Crowtree City.

If they can defeat it, the supplies there will bring their team on the verge of extinction back to life.

The population and wealth in the city will also make them make a lot of money.

But if they can't be defeated, then they... will be completely doomed.

Because they had no food, once the attack was frustrated, they were forced to start killing horses. As long as they were discovered by the defenders on the city, the news that they were in danger of running out of food would immediately spread throughout the city.

By that time, they couldn't run away or fight down, so they could only wait. I don't know when, the defenders of Crowtree City launched a surprise attack on them, and then their doom came.

How to choose, this decision is difficult to make.

If they were civilians, it would be easy to just surrender, but they were soldiers, and they were the Valley Army who defeated Robb Stark and claimed to be the first cavalry of the Seven Kingdoms.

How could they surrender to the Riverlanders, who were the last among the Seven Kingdoms in terms of strength, without even fighting a single battle?

Lord Leonor Corbray did not want to do this, he was afraid that he would not be able to return to the valley at all.

But he was asked to lead more than a thousand soldiers, covered with frostbite and shivering in the cold wind, to attack the towering walls of Crowtree City.

The Earl of Ansu City was really frightened.

"How about let's go, brother, and go south. No matter how many people are left in the end, it's always good to escape. If we lose our lives here, our Corbray family will be doomed. "

Count Leonor glanced at his younger brother who had advocated the pursuit, his eyes flickered for a moment and he said nothing.

There is one thing that Lynn Corbray said is wrong. Even if the two of them die here, the Corbray family can still pass on.

His second wife is already pregnant with his child.

Moreover, his youngest brother, Lucas Corbray, is now in Heart City, serving as his acting city lord.

According to the original arrangement, if his wife, the daughter of a wealthy businessman in Seagull Town, gave birth to a girl, then Lynn Corbray would still be his heir.

And if he died here with him, then he would get nothing.

That's a good idea.

Lord Leonor Corbray understood.