Chapter 49 Marching in the Rain

Big raindrops pattered on Lind's cloak, and then they gathered together and flowed down the outside of his body along the leather of the cloak, dripping onto the grass below.

Linde wiped the rain off his face, raised his head slightly, looked at the dark sky, then turned to look at the listless team around him, and couldn't help but sigh.

From the moment he escorted the Tyrell family to Bitterbridge, Lind discovered that his luck seemed to have become very bad. For nearly half a month, the rain did not stop.

It is precisely because the rainwater gathered into small rivers that the entire hills and mountains north of Kuqiao were divided into pieces. Roads that could normally be passed on sunny days had to take detours because they turned into small rivers. As a result, The marching time was suddenly doubled.

What's even worse is that the locally recruited guide was unable to sit firmly on his horse due to the sudden rise in water when crossing the river, and fell into the river. Because it was raining heavily at the time, everyone was covering their heads and did not notice the surrounding situation. When I realized that the person was missing, I turned back to look for him, but I only found a body washed to the water's edge.

Without his guide, Linde had to send the scout team out to explore the road, while the others could only stay where they were and wait for the scout to come back from exploring the road.

Fortunately, Linde adhered to the golden rule of his ancestors that the army should not be moved and food and grass should go first. When he left King's Landing, he purchased a large amount of food that could be fed by humans and horses, so he did not have to worry about food.

Now the only thing Linde has to worry about is illness. The long period of rain has caused more than a dozen people in the team to fall ill. One of them did not survive and died on his horse last night.

Before encountering the bandits, there were casualties. This undoubtedly had a big impact on the morale of the team. Fortunately, the prestige established by Linde with his strong strength could still be used at this time to support the limited morale. Otherwise, At this moment, this cavalry team may have dispersed.

"Jon, can your good luck stop the rain?" Lind asked the steward beside him.

"Sorry, sir, my good luck can only cause people to break their belts, make them incontinent, or cause toothaches." The steward took off the hood of his cloak, wiped the rain from his face, looked at the sky, and said: "The weather, that is God's domain, I can't control my luck."

If anyone has attended the tourney in King's Landing, they will definitely be familiar with Lynd's steward. He is Jon Bulwe, known as Good Luck Jon.

As Roger Redwin's steward, he was supposed to return to Highgarden with the Duke's team, but when he was at Bitterbridge Castle, he gave up returning to Highgarden to live a prosperous life, and instead chose to join Lind's team. , and took the initiative to become Linde's affairs officer.

Linde smiled and asked, "Do you regret it now?"

"I regret that I drank the last bottle of wine last night and had to drink the horse piss tonight."

As the captain of the Guards, Raul rode a horse and came to Jon Bulwe and said: "Lord Jon, I'm sorry, you didn't even drink horse urine tonight, because the last pot of horse urine has been stained by scar eyes." The kid drank it all secretly."

Hearing Raoul's words, Jon Bulwe couldn't help but cursed and said: "Damn it, I know it's not a good thing to let rats take care of food." After that, he said to Lind: "Sir, you Don’t you care about that guy with scarred eyes?”

Lind turned to look at Jon, and asked Raul loudly: "Raul, did the captain of my 2nd Cavalry steal the food of the logistics team?"

Raul said loudly: "No, he is very strict with his mouth. He also sewed up the mouths of his men, so they can't eat secretly."

"No, he ate it secretly!" A voice shouted from the cavalry not far away: "I saw him ate it secretly last night."

Scar-eyed Mitt shouted angrily: "Shut up, Horse Shoe! Next time you peek, I'll dig out your eyes!"

The people around him suddenly burst into laughter, and their originally low morale recovered a little.

After leaving King's Landing, Linde began to divide the cavalry in an orderly manner. The cavalry consisted of fifty hunters and scouts to form the First Cavalry. It was led by Bryn Rivers and twenty recruits. Ten people including the mercenary knight and Scar-eyed Mitt formed the second cavalry brigade, with Scar-eyed Mitt as the captain.

The rest were all assigned to the Guards, commanded by Linde himself, with Raul as his adjutant, and the officer structure of the cavalry was initially formed.

In addition to the 2nd Cavalry, the 1st Cavalry and the Guards, which are mainly composed of archers, scouts and hunters, have been practicing their riding and archery abilities continuously since leaving King's Landing. In order to increase the rate of fire and make it easier to fire their bows immediately , Linde also improved bows and arrows, changing the long bows commonly used by archers into short bows.

In the world of ice and fire, there does not seem to be an army that focuses on cavalry and archery. Whether it is the army of the Seven Kingdoms or the Kaos of the Dothraki Sea on the grassland, their fighting methods are cavalry attacks and hand-to-hand combat.

Although the method of mounted archery has various shortcomings, it is a method that can preserve troops to the greatest extent during battle.

From a relatively safe distance, move quickly and continuously shoot arrows. Once you cause large casualties to the enemy and destroy the enemy's formation, you can launch a charge and win the final victory.

Even if it cannot kill the enemy on a large scale, it can still harass the enemy and make the enemy exhausted. It can even retreat in time to preserve its strength when the battle situation is unfavorable.

For Linde, if he could not find troops that could be replenished at any time, every force he had on hand was very important and he could not afford to lose it.

At this time, a flag bearer of the 1st Cavalry held Linde's flag and quickly passed through the cavalry queue in front, and was blocked by the cavalry in front. Raul saw this scene and said loudly: "Sir, Someone from the 1st Cavalry's scout team has returned."

"Let him come over." Lind ordered.

As the order was issued and the cavalry in front was released, the flag bearer rode up to Linde. He wanted to dismount and salute Linde, but was stopped by Linde.

Linde asked: "Stop getting into those boring etiquettes now and tell me, what did the explorers find?"

The flag bearer quickly replied: "We found a bandit camp in front. Lord Bryn speculated that it should be the camp of the Blood Shoes Brotherhood."

"Blood Shoe Brotherhood?" Linde was stunned and said in surprise: "How did we end up in the Blackwater River?"

According to the information provided by Wallis, the Blood Shoe Brotherhood is one of the largest bandits entrenched in the area north of Bitter Bridge, but they are not the main target that Lind needs to deal with this time, because the Blood Shoe Brotherhood robs The target was not the merchants on Rose Avenue, but the caravans on the Golden Avenue, the main trade route in the west. Their camp was also in the upper reaches of the Blackwater River in the northwest, which was why he was surprised.

Because if that was really the Blood Shoes Brotherhood, then they should have crossed the Mander River before, otherwise, they would not have appeared within the territory of the Blood Shoes Brotherhood.

"Are you sure it's the Blood Shoes Brotherhood?" Jon Bulwe also saw the map provided by Varys. He was also surprised and asked towards the flag bearer of the 1st Cavalry.

"Yes, we saw the Blood Shoes flag in the camp." The flag bearer answered the question very seriously, and then added: "Lord He Wen said that the camp might be the defeated army of the Blood Shoes Brotherhood."

"What does the collapse of the army mean?" Linde asked.

"Sorry, sir, I don't know." The flag bearer shook his head.

Lind thought for a while and ordered to Jon Bulwe and Raul: "The whole army is on standby and let Scar Eye take care of our logistics team. I'm going to go to the front to check the situation."

"My lord, that is too dangerous. As the commander-in-chief, you should not..." Jon Bulwe advised.

"Danger? You value those bloody shoes too much." Linde smiled and ordered the flag bearer: "Lead the way!"

Upon hearing the order, the flagman immediately pulled the reins, turned the horse's head, and led the way. Linde also followed on horseback.

When he followed up, a black shadow followed closely beside Linde, his speed was no slower than the speed of a war horse.

This black shadow is Glory, and the incarnation of the black shadow is one of the abilities that Glory has after absorbing the energy of the dragon's lair resentment. This ability seems a bit useless, that is, the fur can change between black and white at will.

However, in Linde's opinion, if this ability is used well, it can be very effective, especially in detection.

The two men and the beast walked very fast. After climbing over several hills and turning around a small lake where water gathered, they saw the First Cavalry hidden in a low-lying area, and the First Cavalry also saw it. them.

When Bryn Hewen saw Lind following the flag bearer, he couldn't help but be stunned. Then he came up to meet him and asked, "Sir, why are you here?"

Lind shook off the water on his body and said, "Don't talk nonsense, take me to see the Blood Shoes Brotherhood's camp."

After hearing Lind's words, Bryn Hewen took over the responsibility of leading the rider and led Lind around the low-lying area where the 1st Cavalry was stationed. They stopped at the foot of another hillside, and then the two dismounted. Climbing the hillside, when we were almost at the top, we lowered ourselves.

There were already two scouts lying on the hillside in a secret place, staring at the camp at the bottom of the hillside. They saw Linde and Bryn Hewen walking over, and wanted to salute the two, but were stopped by Linde. blocked.

Linde came to where the two of them were, which was a cracked rock. Crouching behind the rock, he could clearly see the situation down the hillside, but the people down the hillside could not see the situation on the rock side.

I saw a simple camp made of stones and wood at the foot of the hillside. Several bonfires were set up in the camp. Through the light of the bonfires, Lind could easily see the situation inside the camp clearly.

"The rain was so heavy that I could only clearly see the flag of Blood Shoes." Bryn Hewen came to Linde's side and whispered, "Maybe you have to get closer to see clearly what's going on inside the camp."

"No, there's no need to get closer. I've already seen clearly the situation in the camp." Linde had now clearly seen the situation in the camp down the mountain. Just as Bryn Hewen guessed, this was indeed a group of defeated troops, and there were many wounded people in the camp. , and there are no old, weak, women or children, they are all warriors.

"Since you can't see clearly what's going on inside the camp, how do you know they are the defeated army of the Blood Shoes Brotherhood?" Lind asked Bryn Rivers.

Bryn Rivers replied: "Before coming to King's Landing to participate in the tourney, I heard that Lord Tywin was preparing to deal with the bandits on the Golden Road, and the Blood Shoes Brotherhood was the focus. Calculating the time, the Blood Shoes Brotherhood should also have Was wiped out."

Lind asked: "Duke Tywin? The Blood Shoes Brotherhood was wiped out so easily. I remember the intelligence said that they had more than 900 people, and they also had heavy armored infantry."

Bryn Rivers shrugged and said: "The Blood Shoes Brotherhood is indeed very strong, but Duke Tywin is very rich, and golden dragons can often do many incredible things." As he said, he looked at the camp and asked : "What should we do now?"

Linde looked up at the sky and asked an unrelated question: "How long do you think this rain will continue to rain?"

Bryn Hewen also looked at the sky and said, "It may rain for a few more days! This is the rainy season after all."

"We need a place to hide from the rain." Lind pointed to the simple camp below and said, "Isn't that already available?"

It gets dark very quickly on a rainy day, and it was already completely dark just in the evening, and the noisy raindrops covered up all the sounds.

Bigfoot was the captain of the Blood Shoes Brotherhood. A dozen days ago, he had a hundred men, staying in a warm house, lying on a soft bed covered with velvet, with two plump prostitutes lying next to him.

But now, all his people are dead. Like a dog, he was driven from the south of the Blackwater River to the east of the Mander River by the Western Army. All his people died on the road, not only him, but also several others. Almost all of the brothers' captain's men were also dead.

Then the guy they regarded as a brother, relying on the fact that his people were still alive, took away all the wealth they brought with them when they fled, and gave away their lives like giving bones to dogs.

He hated that guy very much, but he couldn't show any hatred, otherwise he would be hanged on the camp gate like the other two captains for any reason.

But he is not worried about that guy being able to sit securely in his position, because fear has already made that guy crazy, just like a mad king. He doesn't need to do much at all, he just needs to wait. Sooner or later, that guy will die on his own In the madness, what belongs to him will naturally return to his arms by then.

A smile appeared on the face of Big Foot standing at the gate of the camp. The scene of regaining everything had already appeared in his mind. He could even feel the cold feeling of those golden cuties in his hands.

Just a sudden appearance of a black shadow shattered all his illusions. The severe pain in his throat and the spurting blood instantly made him lose all his strength. He sat limply on the ground. He knew that he was no longer able to survive. All the eyes could see was a dark figure, which was a monster with pale eyes and a dark body. The other gatekeeper, who was dozing, had also become the target of the monster's attack.

Finally, he saw some figures holding weapons following the monster and entering the camp silently. He knew that the bloody shoes were finished.