Chapter 19 Howling Forest

The Kingswood is located at the southern end of King's Landing, separated by the Blackwater River. It has been the king's royal hunting ground since the Targaryen dynasty established King's Landing as its capital.

Because of this, this forest has not been inhabited for a long time in the past, and no one has cut down the trees here. As a result, this forest has the richest species of flora and fauna in the entire Westeros continent. There are even legends that there is a forest. Creatures that appear only in ancient stories, such as the Son, still live in this vast forest.

However, during the period of the Mad King, King's Landing City's control over the Royal Forest became very weak, which caused many civilians who could no longer live in King's Landing to enter the Royal Forest to seek life.

Although it is impossible to provide them with a very comfortable living environment here, as long as they know a little bit about hunting skills and plant identification abilities, they can survive on the edge of the royal forest.

As a result, there were more and more civilians living in the Royal Forest. It was no longer just people from King's Landing, but also debtors, refugees from other territories, etc. In the later period, the entire Royal Forest had formed twenty large and small groups. There are many villages and towns with populations in the tens of thousands.

Because the Royal Forest is a key area between the north and the south, the Rose Avenue needs to pass through the Royal Forest to reach King's Landing. Countless caravans pass through here, which causes a large number of bandits to gather here, and those villages and villages built privately in the Royal Forest are Cities and towns have become the best cover for bandits.

Originally, those bandits were just a small group, and they could only rob some lone merchants and small caravans at best. But with the emergence of the Royal Forest Brotherhood, all the bandits in the Royal Forest were unified together. , forming a bandit group with as many as five thousand people.

The Kingswood Brotherhood is not only a large number of people, but the leaders and leaders among them are also extraordinary in skill. The leader Simon Toyne, the Smiling Knight, Wenda the White Hart, the three-hanging Oswin the Long Neck, "Big Belly" Benn, etc. They are all strong men who can fight the Kingsguard back and forth. You must know that the Kingsguard under the Mad King at that time was known as the strongest Kingsguard. The fearless Barristan, the Sword of Dawn Arthur Dayne, and the White Ox Lo Hightower and others were all the strongest knights in the Seven Kingdoms at that time.

With such a strong strength, the ambitions of the Royal Forest Brotherhood are naturally not small. They completely cut off the north-south connection of Rose Avenue, set up cards in the Royal Forest to collect taxes, and did not deal with those caravans who did not obey their laws. Hold on, let alone the caravans of those small lords, even the royal caravans of the southern guardian Tyrell family and the Targaryen family, they will not hesitate to attack.

The actions of the Kingswood Brotherhood have seriously affected the safety and tax collection of King's Landing. Mad King Aerys II has sent people to encircle and suppress them more than once, but with little success.

If there are many people who surround and suppress the Royal Forest Brotherhood, the Royal Forest Brotherhood will hide under the cover of the villages and towns in the Royal Forest until the encirclement and suppression people leave and then come out.

Because every time the Royal Forest Brotherhood robs something, it will be sold in the surrounding villages. People in the surrounding villages have gained a lot of benefits. In addition, many civilians in these villages and towns have joined the Royal Forest Brotherhood. The two are connected. Close, making them willing to cover for the members of the Kingswood Brotherhood.

If there are only one or two thousand people in the encirclement and suppression, then the Royal Forest Brotherhood will strangle these people in the Royal Forest, and then cut off the heads of these people and hang them on both sides of a certain section of the Rose Avenue in the Royal Forest. This was to show their strength and cruelty and increase their deterrence. The forest where the road was located was also called the Howling Forest. Before the Brotherhood of the Kingswood was completely surrounded and suppressed, more than a thousand heads had been hung here.

Although the heads hanging in the Howling Forest were taken away and buried after the Kingswood Brotherhood was annihilated, it is said that the caravans passing by this road can still feel a terrifying aura and hear those voices. The howl from the skull.

I don’t know if it was the Mad King’s bad taste, but he actually built a post station in Howling Forest, euphemistically called it a resting place for passing caravans, and in order to make this inn function, he even built this road. All other resting places on the road have been demolished, which means that the only stop on the Rose Avenue in the Royal Forest is the Howling Forest.

However, most caravans will choose to rest for one night at Rat Tail Rock, which is closest to the Howling Forest, because it is a rare open space in the Royal Forest with a wide field of vision and is very suitable for camping.

After spending a night at Sage Tail Rock and hitting the road early the next morning, you can pass through the terrifying place of Howling Woods in one day.

But this time the Tyrell team was unlucky. Like other caravans, they spent the night at Rat Tail Rock, but it started to rain lightly the next day, and the rain became heavier and heavier, and it continued to rain for several days. If you continue to stay at Rat Tail Rock, you may miss the tourney in King's Landing, which may make King Robert dissatisfied.

So Garland could only force the team to go on the road, and rainy days would have slowed down the team's progress. What was even worse was that when the Mad King was building the Howling Forest Station, he deliberately pried away the stone slabs laid on this section of the road. , thus turning this section of road into a dirt road.

After Robert Baratheon ascended the throne, he was busy with other things and had no intention of repairing the road, leaving this dirt road unchanged.

This section of dirt road is easy to walk on a sunny day, but once it rains, this section of road will turn into mud. Not to mention carriages, even if people walk on it and stay for a while, they will get stuck in the mud. Go inside.

Until dark, the Tyrell family's team did not walk through the dirt road in the Howling Woods. Even more coincidentally, they happened to walk near the Howling Woods Station just after dark, which forced them to stop. One night at the inn, otherwise, they would have to camp in the mud.

Although this inn was built only a few years ago, because it is located deep in a cold and humid forest and has not been used or maintained all year round, many of the houses in the inn are uninhabitable due to rotten wood.

Only the front hall is made of stone because the foundation and walls are made of stone. Although the roof is a little damaged, it is still much better than other houses. After lighting the fireplace and dissipating the damp smell in the house, I can barely stay for one night.

The only people who can take shelter from the rain in the hall are Garland and other nobles and their servants. As for the others, they can only set up a temporary tent outside the house that can protect them from the rain. But compared to the guards responsible for the night, it is enough to live in a tent. alright.

Linde, who was originally assigned to the scout team, could also stay in the tent and rest, but the accompanying nobles around Garland wanted to eat some game, so they asked the hunters in the team to form a hunting team and enter the nearby forest. Hunting, and among all the hunters, Linde, the bear hunter, was obviously the most famous, so he naturally became the leader.

"I think these prey are enough." Deep in the forest, Raul picked up the deer whose head was pierced by an arrow, turned to Lind and said.

After more than an hour of hunting, almost every member of the hunting team was holding a prey in their hands. Although the prey was not enough for the entire team, it was enough to fill the stomachs of the nobles.

Although Lind's hunting skills are mainly based on setting traps and he is not good at tracking prey, he has organ perception beyond ordinary people. With his extraordinary hearing, vision and sense of smell, he can still easily hunt even on rainy days. Find the right prey.

The only flaw is that his bow and arrow skills are a little bit worse, there is no rain, and in the open area, he may be able to shoot the prey, but in this situation, he can only hit the prey by chance.

Fortunately, there are hunters who are proficient in bows and arrows in the team, otherwise, it may take longer for them to catch enough prey.

"Let's go! Go back." Linde nodded and agreed to Raul's proposal.

Perhaps because they thought that they would have a warm campfire to warm themselves to when they returned, and that they could change out of their wet and heavy clothes, everyone's pace became much more relaxed, and they even started to talk and laugh.

"Stop, don't talk at all! Be on guard." After walking for about ten minutes, Linde suddenly stopped, stopped everyone, and then looked toward a dense forest on the right.

Because everyone had seen Linde's powerful search ability before, when Linde gave the order, everyone stopped, silently put down the prey, and took off their bows and arrows, ready to pull at any time. The look of a bow shooting an arrow.

At this time, Linde looked at the dense forest ahead with some confusion, and concentrated on looking for the unknown existence that made him feel dangerous.

Just now, Linde suddenly felt a strong sense of danger, and the hairs on his body even stood up because of the sense of danger. This made him immediately order to stop traveling, stay on guard, and at the same time carefully search the dense forest that caused a strong sense of danger. .

Although he searched carefully, Linde did not find anything, and even the sense of danger disappeared. Just when he thought it was just an illusion, his extremely sensitive hearing seemed to hear a faint sound of breathing. It came from that dense forest.

"Be careful, be on guard!" The moment Lind sensed the weak breathing, he also saw the bushes under the dense forest begin to shake slightly. This shaking was not because of the raindrops, but because other things were passing through the dense forest. , Linde, who discovered this, immediately warned the others and drew out the two swords at his waist.

Immediately afterwards, I saw a huge, fuzzy black shadow emerge from the secret order, and rushed towards the hunters closest to the dense forest at an extremely fast speed. Before the hunters had time to react, they passed through the gap beside the hunters. After passing through, he picked up a deer on the ground and rushed into the forest on the other side.

Everyone was confused by this scene. They never expected that a black shadow would rush out of the dense forest, and the target of the black shadow turned out to be a dead deer.

Although due to the darkness and rain, even the people who passed by the black shadow could not see clearly what the black shadow was. They could only vaguely see that it was a beast, but Linde could see clearly. The shadow looked like a huge black panther, and the only animal with this form in Lind's memory was the legendary shadow lynx.

Although the shadow bobcat is mainly black, the black in its fur is not exactly the same, which makes its fur appear striped, much like a zebra pattern.

"What was that just now?" Raul asked with a slightly trembling voice as he looked at the direction where the black shadow disappeared with lingering fear.

"A shadow lynx." Linde gave the answer truthfully.

After hearing this, everyone couldn't help but take a breath. They were all hunters, and they knew very well what would happen if they encountered a hungry shadow lynx in the dark night forest. At the same time, they were extremely lucky that the shadow lynx did not attack anyone just now. It took away a prey. In this way, the shadow lynx just now should not appear again, and they don't have to worry about being attacked by the shadow lynx again.

"You go back first." Linde put down a wild boar on his back and then ordered to the others.

Everyone was stunned when they heard this, thinking that Linde wanted to hunt a shadow lynx. After all, for a hunter, successfully hunting a shadow lynx is definitely an honor.

In addition, there is always a legend among hunters in Westeros and Essos. It is said that as long as a hunter can hunt ten powerful preys, then that hunter will be blessed by the ancient gods and eventually have the ability to hunt. Dragon power.

Although the names of the ten beasts are different, the mountain bear and shadow lynx are always on any list, so everyone subconsciously thinks that Lind wants to complete the hunting legend and become a legend who can hunt dragons. hunter.

"Do you want to complete that legendary hunting list?" Raul confirmed to Linde with curiosity.

Hearing Raoul's words, Linde couldn't help but feel doubtful. He soon realized that everyone had misunderstood, but he did not explain. He just motioned to Raoul and others to go back as soon as possible. If anyone asked him, he would report the truth.

Seeing this, everyone said nothing. Raul became the leader and picked up the prey again. They reminded Lind to be careful before leaving, and then continued walking towards the camp.

Although during the half month he left Bitterbridge Castle, Lind was demoted from a knight's squire to the most miserable and tiring scout team, but none of the Tyrell family's guard soldiers, servants, and noble knights thought that Linde lost power. They knew very well that Linde's demotion to the scout team was actually just a test. It wouldn't be long before Linde would return to his rightful position.

For those low-level warriors, this is a good opportunity to make friends with Linde. When Linde becomes an official knight in the future, they will be able to get some benefits more or less as Linde's friends. Good friends will no longer be bullied.

As a result, many guards offered to join the scout team and work with Linde. For example, Raul, who had a good relationship with Linde among the guards, was one of them.