Chapter 158 Death of Custer

After resting for the night in White Tree Village, the two ranger teams from Castle Black and Eastwatch continued to march towards the next stronghold in the north.

Although Lind said his purpose of coming beyond the wall last night, both Benjen Stark and Mance Rayder regarded his words as a joke.

Because the snow in the forest was too thick, the team did not walk directly through the forest. Instead, they walked north for about half a day and came to a river called Guicha River.

Compared with the thick and soft snow in the forest, the snow on the riverside is obviously much harder. If you step on it, you won’t sink very deeply. The only thing you need to pay attention to is to avoid stepping on some small holes buried by the snow on the riverside. .

The team continued walking west along the river, and discovered several abandoned savage camps along the way. However, compared with the savage camp of the cannibal tribe discovered before, these abandoned savage camps were somewhat unusual.

Because not only the tree houses built in these camps are intact, but also various daily utensils, weapons and food are still in these camps. It is as if the people in these abandoned camps suddenly and inexplicably gave up everything, leaving nothing behind. Just leave without taking it.

These strange situations made the rangers feel a little nervous. They also lost interest in talking and returned to silence, vigilantly observing the movements around them.

Because the road was easy to walk, they traveled much faster. Before dark, they had arrived at Custer's fortress.

Although it is called a fortress, it is nothing more than a house made of branches and mud. It is located on a hillside and is surrounded by a circle of earth walls. From the outside, it looks so simple that it cannot even be compared with any farmer's house in the Reach. Compared to home.

"Crow, there are too many of you, we can't all go in!" When the team came to the entrance of the earth wall, Custer stood in front of them and said with a gloomy face.

The white-haired Custer not only has a fierce appearance, but also has a broad body and strong arms, which all show that he still has extremely strong combat power. Neither Bunyan nor Mance can easily defeat him.

Although Custer's attitude was a bit bad, as one of the few savages north of the Great Wall who could be called friends of the Night's Watch, Bunyan and the others had a lot of tolerance for them, so they agreed to only go in with a few people, and everyone else was there. Set up camp in a walled courtyard.

Custer looked at the few people selected by Bunyan to enter the house, and couldn't help but be stunned when he saw Lind in the crowd. After all, Lind's clothes were completely different from the night watchmen who were all surrounded by black cloaks. It really stands out.

"Who is he?" Custer pointed at Lind and asked in a deep voice: "He shouldn't be your crow? Who is he?"

"This is Lord Lynde Terra, Earl of Summer Hall. He has something to do when he comes to the Great Wall this time. It's hard to say what it is." Bunyan gave a brief introduction, but did not reveal Lynde's other identity.

Custer looked at Lind, his eyes full of jealousy, but his tone was contemptuous, and he said: "The Earl of the South is really rare! You can walk around outside the Great Wall wearing steel armor, and you haven't frozen to death. You are really..."

"Custer, shut up your stinky mouth, Lord Linde is not the kind of person who can be insulted by you!" In the crowd, a devout believer in the Seven Gods couldn't help shouting loudly.

The other rangers who thought Lind was the incarnation of the Seven Gods also scolded and glared at Custer.

Feeling that he had offended the public, Custer was a little surprised, looked at Lind again, and then said harshly: "This is my territory, I can say whoever I want to say!"

Then without saying anything more to Lind, he turned around and walked back into the house. Bunyan and Mance motioned to their men to set up a temporary camp in the courtyard, and the other selected people entered the house together.

When entering the house, everyone picked up the bread placed next to the house, dipped it in a little salt and ate it. Custer's wives also went outside with salt and bread for the other rangers to eat, but Lind did not did not eat.

Seeing Lind's actions, Bunyan and Mance did not show any abnormality, because the bread provided by Custer was so bad, it was just a pile of sawdust kneaded into a ball, and the salt was bitter. They felt Linde probably thought the food was too bad, so he didn't take action.

After all, after Linde took out the box of spice powder worth gold yesterday, in their opinion, Linde was the kind of aristocrat who had extremely high requirements for food and accommodation.

And Custer didn't say anything, because in his opinion, Linde came with others, and the fact that the others had eaten for so long meant that their guest rights had been established, and it didn't matter whether Linde ate or not.

Moreover, there have been times in the past where the night watchman did not eat bread and salt, and nothing happened, so in his mind, unless he did it first, the night watchman would not do anything to him anyway, and it did not matter whether the guest rights were established or not.

Compared with the outside, the inside of the house is much warmer. In the middle of the hall, a fire pit made of stones has dozens of wooden stakes neatly set up. The fire ignites the wooden stakes and emits heat outwards, making the entire house warm. It becomes warm to the point of being somewhat hot.

Custer sat on the only chair in the entire hall, enjoying the food his wife brought to him, without paying any attention to the other people in the room.

The Rangers had long been accustomed to Custer's behavior. Without saying anything, they took out the prepared food, put it on the fire to bake and heat, and went about their own business.

Some of the venison that they had not eaten yesterday was also put into the pot to stew. Soon the aroma mixed with spice powder came out of the pot. Custer, who had never smelled such a fragrance, couldn't help but put down his hands. food, looked at the things in the pot, and swallowed.

His wives craned their necks to look at the pot.

One of the very young girls couldn't help but walked over and asked, "What's in here?"

"This contains spices from across the narrow sea, which are more valuable than gold," a young ranger replied, then took out a ladle of soup with meat chunks from the pot and put it into the wooden bowl in the girl's hand.

Before the girl could drink the fragrant soup from the wooden bowl, Custer shouted at her: "You stinky woman, what are you doing standing there? Why don't you bring it to me?"

The fear from her heart made the girl tremble uncontrollably, then she lowered her head and handed the wooden bowl to Custer.

The young ranger couldn't help but frowned, but didn't say anything.

Custer took the wooden bowl without being polite and took a sip with a surprised expression on his face. Then he simply poured the soup and meat in the bowl into his own bowl, along with the original food in the bowl. Mixed together.

Then, while eating the food from the bowl, he said to the young ranger: "Boy, you'd better behave yourself and don't touch my things casually, otherwise, I will chop off your head and hang it on the "Out in the trees, let everyone know that Custer's things are not to be touched."

Hearing Custer's threat, the ranger showed an angry look on his face. He was about to stand up and say something, but was held down by Mance.

Seeing Mance's actions, Custer smiled proudly, as if he had won a big victory.

Lind ignored the dispute in front of him. After entering the house, he looked at the baby held in the arms of one of Custer's wives. This wife was not happy because her child was born. On the contrary, she had a look on her face. He looked miserable, as if the child was about to die.

This scene made Lind think of one thing. Craster would sacrifice each of his sons to the White Walkers, and the sacrifice time was usually during a snowstorm.

Thinking of this, Lind couldn't help but look outside the house. Although the wind was still blowing coldly, judging from the sky and the increasing wind, there should be a snowstorm tonight. It seems that the time for Custer to sacrifice his son was tonight.

Late at night, a snowstorm came as expected, but because they were prepared in advance, the rangers cleared the yard on the leeward side of the house and lit a huge bonfire there, which kept them warm even in the snow and wind.

Although the inside of the house was much warmer than outside, Linde and others did not stay in the house because after the blizzard appeared, one of Custer's wives kept crying, even if there were other wives to comfort her, she still cried. , and Custer seemed to be used to it, sitting by the campfire drinking wine, paying no attention to his crying wife.

The continuous crying made the atmosphere in the house very awkward and stressful. Bunyan and Mance could not interfere with other people's household chores. The crying was indeed annoying and prevented people from falling asleep. They had no choice but to leave the house and run outside. By the campfire, the sound of the wind around them seemed to them more reassuring than the cry of a woman.

When morning came, except for the two rangers on duty who remained awake and kept adding firewood to the campfire, Bunyan and the others were all asleep, and the snoring one after another was blown away by the cold wind as soon as it started.

Linde was sitting against the wall of the house, seemingly asleep, but in fact he was always listening to the movement inside the wall.

In the house, the baby's mother had fainted from crying. Custer's other wives were taking care of her. A little girl of only five or six years old was sitting beside the bonfire holding her little brother in her arms.

At this time, Custer, who had been sitting by the campfire and drinking all night, stood up, put on his cloak, took the baby directly from the little girl's hands, and without saying a word, lifted the deerskin curtain and walked out.

After going out, Custer looked at the place where the rangers were resting. He did not leave from the main entrance. Instead, he walked to the low wall and climbed over it. Although he was old, his movements were still agile, and there was no movement when he climbed over the wall. , the night watchman on duty did not notice anything unusual.

When Custer entered the forest with the baby in his arms, Lind also stood up, walked outside the wall, and entered the forest.

The night watchmen on duty thought that Lind was going to pee, so they didn't react at all. In their opinion, with Lind's strength, there would be no danger even in the forest.

After entering the forest, Linde guided the power of the Frozen Dragon Rune to his feet, which allowed him to instantly freeze the soft floating snow when stepping on the forest snow, allowing him to walk on the floating snow as if he were down to earth, completely doing Arrived in silence.

He can even form ice skateboards directly on his feet to allow him to glide on the snow. These are some tricks that the homeless knight who lives in the ice and snow all year round is good at.

However, when he thought that he might encounter an opponent later, he chose a method that consumed the least amount of dragon rune magic power, and used the other magic power for emergencies.

After Linde entered the forest, Glory also emerged from the woods and followed Linde. One man and one beast followed Custer from a distance, crossing the frozen Guicha River, and came to To the forest on the other side of the river.

After walking for about ten minutes, a clearing appeared in the forest. In the center of the clearing was a completely withered weirwood tree. All the top branches were dry and broken. Only the main trunk was still intact, but the surface was covered with cracks. These cracks Some of them penetrated deep into the heart of the tree, tearing the weirwood from the inside out.

The face of the weirwood is well preserved, except that a large amount of tree sap flows from the eyes and mouth of the face. The sap is still red, and it looks like the big tree is bleeding from its seven orifices. Anyone who sees this scene will think Everyone here can't help but have the idea that the weirwood will be in pain before he dies.

In front of the weirwood face was a simple altar made of stone. The runes of the ancestors were carved on the altar, and four candles were placed at the four corners of the altar.

After placing the baby on the altar, Custer lit the candles in the four corners of the altar.

This kind of candle is obviously made of special materials. Even if the cold wind is raging around, the flame of the candle is still extremely strong and shows no sign of extinguishing.

After lighting the candle, Custer hurriedly turned around and left.

After Custer left, Lind asked Glory to patrol around, and he walked out of the woods and came to the altar, looking at the baby on the altar and the ancient runes on the altar.

At this time, behind Lind, there was a sound of footsteps, and then he saw Custer, who had left before, walking out of the forest again, holding an ax in his hand.

"You noble boy from the south, you shouldn't be so curious. You should just stay by the campfire." Custer glared at Lind with a fierce look on his face and said in a low voice: "It doesn't matter, it will be over soon. , Your Excellency will like this festival of yours very much..."

Before Custer could finish his words, Glory appeared behind him, bit his neck in one bite, and then turned around and returned to the forest.

From the moment he arrived at Custer's fortress, Lind had no intention of letting Custer, the beast, live. If Custer hadn't been needed to bring him to the altar to help him lure out the White Walkers, he would have even seen Custer before he saw him. Immediately deal with him the moment St.

He had just ordered Glory to kill Custer in the forest, but he didn't expect Custer to be so brave and ran back directly, but the final result remained unchanged.

Lind didn't get rid of Custer's body; he still needed it to do something.

At this time, the swaddled baby didn't know if it was woken up by the cold, and suddenly started crying, and the ancient runes on the altar stone began to shine faintly, and the flames at the tops of the four surrounding candles changed from red to red. Silvery blue.

The White Walkers have arrived.