Mercenaries and Adventurers

Led by Knight Lanisa, the hunter team walked north along the west side of the Kendall River for more than a day. That night, they came to the river bank beside the road and cleared away the snow to make a small clearing where the carriage and three horses could be parked.

Everyone raised the firewood for heating carried in the carriage, and had a warm night's rest in the freezing and heavy snow.

In the wilderness covered by heavy snow, it is difficult to find bushes and branches that can make a fire, because they are all covered by the vast white snow. If it weren't for the old hunters' rich experience in wild life, remind everyone, no one would remember to bring such things. After all, the usual way to start a fire is to look for combustibles after camping.

The horses were covered with thick cold-proof cloth, and Knight Lanisa also took off the entire outer vest of her horse. Everyone huddled beside the horses to keep warm, ate the burnt bread heated by the flames, and listened to the strange stories that the old hunters seemed to never finish, and slowly survived the unbearable night in the snowy wilderness.

The next day, they continued along the barely distinguishable road until noon. Along the river bank, they saw wooden houses built one by one by the river.

"That's a part of Hekou Town." A young hunter who got to know him introduced the village and town ahead to Kiel.

Keel took a closer look: "Is it a little too small? The farms we encountered along the way seem to be bigger than this Hekou Town?" Keel counted the number of houses along the river bank, and found that there were only more than 30 large houses along the river bank. Huts big and small.

This number is even less than that of ordinary villages, and it is even less likely to be called a town. At least, you have to be much older than Doral Forest Village, right?

On the nearby carriage, an old hunter driving a carriage smiled and said, "Idiot, that's only a small part of the town. Hekou Town is divided into three parts, and this is the part on the west side of the river bank."

He pointed at the opposite bank of the Kendall River with the slender horsewhip in his hand: "There is still a part of the area on the east side of the river bank. And on the north side of the intersection of the Kendall River and the Wumi River is the main body of Hekou Town. Absolutely Most of the population houses are there."

Kiel put his hands together: "Then how do we get there?"

"There is a ferry in the town. No matter where you want to go on the river, the boatman will take you there. But in this weather, it seems that you don't need to take a boat?"

-

Soon, after passing the fork in the road, the hunter team turned right and turned into the road towards the town.

It was snowing heavily, so even if they got close to the town, they didn't hear much noise from the normal villages. Like other villages in Kendal, Hekou Town was surrounded by fields and wooden walls.

Arriving at the gate of the town, Knight Lanisa jumped directly onto the tower of the wooden gate of the town, showed her identity, and called to open the gate of the town.

Kiel and his party walked into the town one by one.

Now that he knows that this is just a subsidiary area of ​​the town and not the main body of the town, Kiel has no expectations for the town.

Knight Lanisa jumped down from above again, and hit the ground with a bang, shaking away the snow around her feet.

After returning to her horse, she said, "It's still early, don't stay here, you go directly to the ferry, and I will go to the responsible clerk here."

After she finished speaking, she bumped her metal boots against the metal armor on the horse's belly, and after making a crashing sound, the horse trotted towards a tall pointed building along the road.

The others, accompanied by a militiaman from Hekou Town, came to the ferry on the same thick snow as outside the town.

It is said to be a ferry, but it is actually some small piers made of stones. In the piers that were frozen by the river, Keel and the others saw some ferries with big bellies that could carry people.

These ferries have no sails. After all, they are just transport ships sailing back and forth on both sides of the river, and there is no room for sails at all.

It moves forward by beating the water surface with large water wheels protruding from both sides.

Keel found it very interesting when he saw it. After all, similar paddle wheels appeared after the invention of the steam engine in his previous life. And he can clearly know that there is no steam machine technology in the local area, so what is that thing powered by?

Although the ferry is not big, it is also an important jurisdiction area, so there is a manager's house here.

Keel and the others drove the carriage into the yard next to the ferry, and after a brief tidying up, they hid under the rain-shielding wooden porch of the house, avoiding the snowfall, and waiting for the knight to return.

Unlike usual, after many days of snowfall, we waded through the thick snow all the way, and everyone was physically exhausted, so Kiel rubbed his stomach, talked to other young hunters, and walked out of this yard and came to Inside the town.

Needless to say, he was looking for a house like a tavern. As the most important facility in this small area, there must be a tavern and hotel on the outside that provided services for traveling caravans.

As expected, looking carefully at the two sides outside the ferry, there is a hotel and a tavern. The tavern is quite large, but it was snowing heavily, and there were only a few lines of footprints at the wide door.

Opening the wooden door and pushing aside the heat-retaining burlap curtain, Keel felt a burst of warmth all of a sudden.

"Welcome! You are welcome to come to the 'Waterfall Drunkard' tavern in this snowy day. It's even more difficult to make a new face. It's all due to the **** weather. When it snows, it's fun to come out and come to our place." There are too few happy customers." A tall woman came over, she was smartly dressed, but the **** fur scarf around her neck looked both warm and pretty.

After she came over, she patted the falling snow outside Kiel's cloak with the clean rag in her hand. After Keir thanked him in embarrassment, he was guided by the other party to the center bar of the tavern.

The Fallingwater Alcoholic Tavern looks huge from the outside, but the inside is indeed not small. There are three rows of long wooden tables, and it looks like at least sixty people can drink, eat and have fun together.

Moreover, in addition to the long wooden tables used by the brigade, there are also many round tables for five or six people sitting around, or square tables for two or three people to discuss things in the corners of the tavern. As for solo guests, you can sit alone on the wooden bar in the center of the pub.

Although the words are so good, it is probably due to the heavy snow outside at the moment, so there are few drinkers in the tavern, so the store naturally did not light enough lights, and only lit oil lamps at the bar and where a few drinkers were seated.

"Young man, what do you want? Come for the first time? The grilled river fish here is very good. The belly of the river fish in winter has a thick fat for the winter. When you fry them, you don't even need to add oil. Fatty fish The belly will naturally be fried with fat." The waitress who served the guests gestured to introduce their signature dishes to Kiel, and even took out a small wooden board, on which was painted with a superb brush. Fatty big river fish.

Keir swallowed and coughed: "Where's the drink? It's good, I'll take it. But what do you drink here? Let's hear it."

The female waiter snapped her fingers, and the male waiter behind the wooden bar opened the sliding wooden cabinet, revealing barrels of small wine barrels: "There is everything, what do you want?"

Keir doesn't drink much spirits, so he pointed to the barrel of beer: "Give me a big glass. By the way, do you have hot soup here?"

The waitress searched among the stack of small wooden boards beside the bar: "Look, we serve these kinds of hot soups. I don't know if you are used to them, but they are all fish soups."

Out of curiosity, Keir picked it out. Under the introduction of the waitress, he chose a surimi vegetable soup with less spines, but he ordered ten servings at a time.

"At the ferry, I have nine other companions, and they also need these warm foods to warm their bodies. Can you send them there?" Keel asked.

When they heard that Kiel wanted ten copies, the male and female waiters were very happy and said that as long as it was in the town, let alone the nearby ferry management office.

The price of the item is not cheap, but the material is very solid. The river fish in the grilled river fish is as big as an arm of Kiel. He ate only one-third of the fish belly for a meal, and the rest had to be put in clean muslin bags to eat later. Of course, in such a cold weather, it can't be damaged at all. If you put it outside, you can eat it all winter.

The surimi vegetable soup was also a huge portion, and Keel used his belly mostly for this stuff.

After eating a big bowl of warm soup containing fish, his whole body was refreshed.

As for the beer, he couldn't drink it anymore, so he had to pour out the water in his water bag outside the tavern, and asked the male waiter to help him pour the beer into the water bag.

No one laughed at him, first of all, his attire did not look like a poor man, but he wore a long sword with a scabbard that glowed faintly in the dark, whether it was a male or female waiter in a tavern The drinkers not far away all greeted Kiel cautiously and did not cause trouble.

The waitress chatted with Kiel while he was eating, curiously inquiring about Kiel's identity.

Hearing that Keir is a member of the hunter team under Knight Lanisa, these people who have heard the name are finally relieved. Anyone with a little bit of information knows about it. The waitress even wanted to take a look at Knight Lanisa, the only female knight in Kendal County.

Keel has nothing to do, after all, it's none of his business.

After paying the money, Keel walked out of the Fallingwater Alcoholic Tavern contentedly, carrying the bag containing unfinished fried river fish and the beer in the water bag at his waist, and returned to the yard of the management office at the ferry.

Knight Lanisa was talking to a well-dressed middle-aged man, and there were several locals beside them. Listen to the talk, it seems to be a local guide.

Meanwhile, the other hunters were holding wooden soup bowls in one hand and soaking the bread in the hot thick soup with the other, enjoying themselves.

Seeing Kiel walking over with their stomachs in their arms, they all nodded to Kiel with satisfaction, and Kiel also waved his hand to signal that they don't care.

Knight Lanisa saw Kiel walking over with a full stomach, and glared at him: "You all finish eating, and eat what you eat. Is the knight still hungry?"

Kiel grinned: "Master Knight, the food in the tavern outside called Drowning Drunkard is good, you can try it, anyway, it's still early."

The female knight snorted, and the middle-aged man next to her said kindly: "Master Lanisa, this young man is right. Our tavern here entertains guests from all over the world. Satisfaction of the guests. Since you haven't eaten yet, why don't we go over to eat first, and use this time to let my men go down to check the ice on the river. What do you think?"

"Lead the way." Knight Lanisa was actually hungry too. After all, compared to ordinary people, their knights generally eat more food, and they are actually a little hungry at the moment.

The middle-aged man explained some words to several local guides, and then accompanied Knight Lanisa to the tavern across the yard. And those few local guides first ran to their carriage and pushed the carriage. This situation made Kiel and the others very nervous. After all, the things on the carriage were expensive, and those metal clips were not cheap. Some other supplies They are also very important for their hunting expedition.

But fortunately, after Kiel passed by with his sword, these guides explained the situation to him.

It turned out that the recent heavy snowfall, coupled with the low temperature, has frozen the Kendall River as a whole. The ferries usually used to travel to and from various areas of Hekou Town have been frozen in the port.

It's not impossible to find a way to get the boat out, but it's not necessary. Because the current river channel can already be used by pedestrians to walk through it, and no one has ever heard of anyone falling under the ice.

That being the case, a clerk who was in charge of the local area asked them, the guides who had been traveling on the river all year round, to see if the carriage brought by Knight Lanisa could cross the river through the ice.

"So that's how it is." Keel also watched them push the carriage closely, testing the weight of the carriage.

After roughly estimating the weight of the carriage, the guides went to the ferry management office, took out some ice-breaking tools, and walked along the rocky road at the pier to the frozen ice of the Kendall River.

Keel came to the gate of the yard and looked at the guides.

They first used an ice ax to knock out a pit on the ice, and then used a long drill with a handle to push it into the ice groove, and then two people held one on each side, grabbed the handle of the drill and started to circle.

A long drill with a solid metal tip made a hole **** wide in no time. Then they took out the drill and stuck a wooden pole with a hooked end into the hole to measure the thickness of the ice.

After measuring, they piled the drilled ice chips into the hole to fill it up, and soaked the hole to freeze it.

Repeatedly, they started from the ferry and measured straight to the center of the river.

Knight Lanisa and the middle-aged man who managed the local area returned soon. Lanisa Knight still held a wooden cup of cold beer in her hand, and drank it as she walked.

"The taste and portion of the tavern dishes here are good, not inferior to the signature tavern in the main town across the river." Lanisa Knight seemed to be eating happily, patting the middle-aged man's shoulder with her hand.

The middle-aged man distanced himself from the female knight indiscriminately, and said, "It's fine if you like it, and to receive such praise from you, I think this is the best honor for the Fallingwater Alcoholic Tavern. "

The two came over, and Knight Lanisa saw Keir standing at the gate of the yard, and asked, "How is it? About the ice surface." As he spoke, he drank the remaining beer in the glass in one gulp.

Keel pointed to a few locals who were returning back on the river in the distance: "They are back, and there should be results soon."

Nodding, the female knight handed the empty wine glass to a young hunter who was returning the tableware in the tavern with nine empty soup bowls: "Take this too, you don't need to pay for this glass of wine. The waitress in the tavern invited me to drink." of."

-

Soon, several locals who went to measure the thickness of the ice on the river returned, their faces were flushed and they looked a little tired.

"How's the situation?" The middle-aged man asked, rubbing his sore shoulder from the female knight's beating.

Several locals bent down and said, "My lord, the ice is already very thick. Although it is getting thinner from the bank to the center of the river, the thickness of the ice in the center of the river can also withstand the carriages in the knight's team. "

But they added another sentence: "But the things in the carriage are very heavy. If you want to be safest, unload some of the goods and make one more round trip."

The middle-aged man glanced at Knight Lanisa.

The female knight said: "It's already afternoon now, unload the goods and then go, come and reload, and go again. It's difficult to finish before nightfall. Can you finish it in one trip?"

The middle-aged people and the locals were a little embarrassed, and there seemed to be nothing they could do.

But Keel pointed to several wooden boats standing in the yard. These boats, which can accommodate at most three people, are small and light. At this time of winter, they are all set up in the yard next to the house.

Kiel pointed to these small boats and said, "These small boats can be used."

"What's the matter?" Knight Lanisa asked, and the middle-aged man next to him asked for these boats to be brought over. These boats are so light that two men can lift them down and put them on the ground.

Keir walked over to pull a small boat, and dragged it lightly in the snow-covered yard. Although he was young, his strength was better than several local people who were older than him.

The boat was pulled lightly by him in the yard. "Look, everyone, the bottom of this boat is not sharp, but very flat. Just tie a rope to the back of the carriage and hit part of the cargo of the carriage against the boat. The weight of the carriage is shared to other places. And the dragging A few of these light boats are nothing to three horses and us six young lads."

Knight Lanisa's eyes lit up: "Very well, let's do this. Hurry up, everyone, and try to reach the main town of Hekou Town before dark. There is one of our houses there, and we can spend the night there to rest."

The middle-aged man in charge obviously didn't have the momentum to object or anything else, so he had to direct the people to move the wooden boats to the side of the ferry, and then tie them together with ropes.

And Keir put the things on the horse he had been leading into the wagon, and then used ropes to connect the saddle, bridle and other things to the wagon.

Everyone came to the edge of the ferry and followed the gentle **** along the edge to the ice along the river.

Snow has fallen on the thick ice surface, and it is not slippery to step on, and it is very stable.

The ropes connecting the three boats were tied behind the carriage, and Keel and the young hunters removed many metal clips in sacks and placed them on the boats behind the carriage.

"Bai Fei, I put the boat in the yard of the ferry on the other side. Remember to send someone to pick it up later. I'm leaving, thank you for your help." Knight Lanisa rode on her horse and headed towards the stone pier of the ferry. Farewell to middle-aged people.

"Goodbye, Lord Lanisa, and welcome to our place again~www.readwn.com~ The middle-aged man rubbed his shoulders and said insincere words.

Keir had a strange face. He didn't believe that the female knight with superhuman vision didn't pay attention to the other's expression. This was probably either Knight Lanisa's bad taste, or the two knew each other before.

"Go, baby. Everyone, I'm going to the opposite side first. Walk on the ice and pay attention to the cracks on the ice. If it's not right, go back." After finishing speaking, Knight Lanisa rode a heavy horse, da da da da Start walking to the opposite side.

On the hunter's side, an old hunter took the lead on Kiel's horse, and the remaining three old hunters were on the carriage to control the direction of the carriage.

In the back, six young people, including Keir, were in groups of two and two, pushing the wooden boat with their hands on both sides of the small wooden boat.

In fact, the main pulling power comes from the carriage. Three horses pull the carriage, which is still easier than before. The three small wooden boats behind did not bring any obvious resistance.

Looks like Keel has a good plan.

They raced swiftly across the broad Kendall River. Ice and snow, the gloomy weather is constantly drifting with countless snowflakes. Looking from north to south along the river, it is endless. The gray-white falling snow and ice surface seem to be connected to the same sky in the distance. Look, can't see clearly.

The old hunters sitting in the carriage in front, afraid that the young people behind would be bored, simply sang a song to relieve their boredom.

"My love, that long war, when will you return."

"My husband, that **** relic I never want to see."

"My child, I don't ask you to do meritorious service, nor do I ask you to be killed."

"My father, I hope to grow up soon, fight side by side with you, and let you go home as soon as possible."