New chapter! Thanks for all the support!
x
Eastwood Village was not that far from Winterfell. On foot, it was about a day's journey; on horseback, it could be reached in only half a day.
It was a small village built between the White Knife and Sheep's Head Hill. Relying on fishing and mountain goods, the village lived in relative prosperity.
There were around a dozen farmhouses, an assembly hall, and a watchtower. Its security was maintained by a few militiamen chosen by the village chief.
Sam, the young man who had gone to Winterfell to ask for help, was the youngest among Eastwood Village's militiamen.
At that moment, unable to ride a horse, Sam sat behind Jory, staring blankly at the village ruins. From time to time, wisps of black smoke still rose into the air, and charred corpses were scattered everywhere.
"Seven hells! This is simply horrible."
Theon rode around the area looking for survivors. Finding none, he could not help letting out a heavy sigh.
Jon said nothing. But from the way his brows were tightly furrowed and his teeth clenched, it was obvious that fury was boiling inside him.
The peaceful and prosperous Eastwood Village had been completely wiped out in a single night.
Robb guided his horse slowly through the ruins. The air was still thick with the smell of smoke and the faint odor of burnt flesh.
Faced with such a tragic scene, there was only anger on his face, not the slightest sign of nausea. On the contrary, he observed everything carefully.
Most of the corpses in the ruins had been charred black. The few that had not been consumed by fire had been reduced to scattered severed limbs, covered in wounds of varying sizes.
He could not imagine what the villagers of Eastwood Village had suffered before they died.
The brutal sight left Robb feeling deeply oppressed, but his mind was extraordinarily sharp. His eyes swept across the ruins with keen focus, not missing anything out of place.
He had already made his decision.
Those responsible would pay for what they had done.
"Why… why?!"
A heart-wrenching cry came from behind. It was Sam's voice.
"My lords! Come over here!"
A Winterfell soldier seemed to have found something and shouted to Robb and the others.
Hearing the call, they all quickly rode in that direction.
This was the village's assembly hall. Thanks to its structure of rough stone coated in mud, although the outside had been blackened by soot, the interior had not been touched by the fire.
Robb was still a little way off. When he reached the hall and dismounted to enter, he saw Jon coming out with a grim face, blocking Sam, whose eyes were still wet with tears.
"What's inside? Let me in! Let me in!"
Stopped by Jon, Sam's suppressed emotions burst out all at once. He struggled desperately, trying to force his way into the hall.
Jory came up from behind and knocked the young man unconscious with a quick strike.
Robb looked at the unconscious Sam, bit his lower lip, and stepped into the assembly hall.
More than ten Winterfell soldiers stood there in silence. Not one of them said a word, but every pair of eyes burned with rage.
Robb pushed aside the soldier in front of him and immediately saw a scene straight out of hell.
More than ten women, completely naked and already dead.
Their limbs had been spread wide and nailed to wooden stakes, fixed against the three mud walls of the hall.
Two or three had died from their throats being slit.
As for the others… some were covered in bloody holes, some had their bellies split open with their entrails spilled across the floor, and some had been partially flayed.
Crrk… crrk…
Robb felt as though a flame were rising from deep inside his entrails, and his teeth ground together with force.
Suddenly, he noticed one of the women move a finger.
"She's still alive!"
Robb strode forward in two long steps and dropped to one knee beside the woman, whose body was covered in bloody wounds.
"Whi…"
The woman, with disheveled hair and an unrecognizable face, saw the direwolf sigil on Robb's mail. With extreme weakness, she managed to utter a single word before lowering her head and dying.
Robb did not even have time to respond.
The moment he heard that one word, something immediately surfaced in his mind: the hoofprints he had noticed earlier, heading southwest.
"White… White Harbor! The killers went to White Harbor, on the Bite."
Combining that with the map of the North he knew by heart, Robb reacted immediately.
"Captain Jory, leave two men behind to take care of Sam and collect the bodies. Everyone else, prepare to move at once!"
...
When night fell, near the lower reaches of the White Knife, in a small hollow sheltered from the wind.
More than a dozen soldiers dressed in leather armor sat in a circle around a crackling campfire, eating dinner.
Dick tore savagely into a roasted lamb shank, browned to a golden crisp, then grabbed a wineskin filled with cheap barley ale and took a long swig.
A middle-aged man with yellow teeth stared enviously at the lamb shank in Dick's hand.
While struggling to break apart a chunk of hard black bread, he asked with a grin,
"Captain Dick, is it true your cousin is an officer in the City Watch of King's Landing?"
"Does that even need to be asked? Captain Dick exchanges letters with his cousin by raven all the time. His cousin is an important figure in King's Landing."
Hearing someone question Dick, one of his closest subordinates immediately spoke up.
"Hehe, we're risking our heads following Captain Dick on this job. It's only natural we'd want to make sure."
Clap! Clap!
Dick, who had been devouring his food, noticed that the yellow-toothed man and the other soldiers were all staring at him, waiting for an answer.
He set the lamb shank aside, slapped his greasy hands together, and said loudly,
"Starting from the Dreadfort's lands, we looted three villages. All the money we got will be divided equally once we reach King's Landing. I imagine that's what you care about most."
"On top of that, as long as you keep following me, I'll find a way to get you into the City Watch. You've all known me for years. When I, Dick, make a promise, I keep it."
As soon as he finished speaking, the soldiers sitting around exchanged glances and began cheering in perfect unison.
"Long live Captain Dick!"
"We'll follow Captain Dick to the death!"
"Captain Dick…"
Dick raised a hand, signaling for silence. Once their excitement died down a bit, he continued,
"Now is not the time to celebrate. That bastard Ramsay Snow is definitely already hunting us down."
"The village we looted yesterday belongs to House Stark. Once they find out what happened in a few days, they'll come after us too."
"After offending those two great houses, there's no place left for us in the North."
"But by the time they reach White Harbor, we'll already be on a ship bound for King's Landing."
"Hahaha! When we get to White Harbor, we should book two or three whores and write a greeting to the 'great lords' of those two houses on their asses."
"Speaking of which, we had rotten luck too. It just so happened we were attacked by wildlings during our watch shift."
"Yeah! Those damned wildlings… no one knows how they got around Last Hearth. Good thing we ran fast."
"They're not human, they're beasts. I saw old Hank get his throat torn out by a wildling."
"If we hadn't run back then, we'd have been eaten by those wildlings. If we'd stayed, that bastard would've flayed us alive. Good thing we've got Captain Dick."
Dick's words truly had an effect.
The soldiers looked much more at ease and began chatting animatedly.
'Split the money? Hmph… once we reach King's Landing…'
Dick swept his gaze over the Dreadfort soldiers, including his own trusted men, and a cold gleam flashed through his eyes.
In his mind, the pursuers were still at least two days of riding behind them.
With no sense of urgency whatsoever, after eating and drinking, not one of them even bothered to stand watch. They simply threw themselves onto the ground and fell fast asleep.
As time passed, the night began to fade, and the morning sun cast its first ray across the horizon.
Tok… tok… tok…
A faint sound of hoofbeats gradually grew louder.
Dick, more alert than the others, jolted awake from his sleep. Like a startled rabbit, he sat up abruptly and craned his neck toward the source of the sound.
In the direction of the rising sun, a group of dark figures was riding hard toward them.
Realizing instantly what was happening, Dick sprang to his feet and shouted:
"Up! Get up! Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
x
x
x
If you're enjoying the story, don't forget to add it to your library and drop some Power Stones.
Your support really helps the novel grow!