Chapter 2: patrol
Laws: Deserters from the Night's Watch are public criminals, and all the lords of the Seven Kingdoms are obliged to hunt down and execute them, especially in the North, which has the closest relationship with the Night's Watch - the Stark family and the following lords can treat deserters. No mercy at all.
Unless you flee north to join the savages, you can imagine the consequences of running away directly. But Egg wanted to get rid of his identity as a night watchman and just wanted to stay away from human natural enemies. How could he still run north?
And heading south...if you sincerely want to escape, you must be prepared. First of all, you need to have a good horse, bring dry food, change into black clothes, and choose the right moment to quickly escape from the Night Watch's sphere of influence, avoiding all villages and inhabited areas along the way... As long as you can successfully cross the Neck and run out of the North, your escape plan will be complete Half successful. The next step is to go straight to the warm and safe south. The further south you go, the less the lords and nobles care about the Night Watch. You only need to go to the rich rivers and rivers to find someone who can accept you and will not question you. Once you have your identity, you can start a new life in another world.
The plan is clear and simple. The problem is: in this feudal era with inconvenient transportation and extremely low mobility, it is really... difficult for me, who has an obviously foreign appearance and no legal identity, to complete the escape plan smoothly
.
Shaking his head, Egger shook his thoughts out of his mind. It was not the time to think now - as the horse's hooves trampled on the snow, they made a series of slight muffled sounds, and the tree trunks and branches quickly blocked the sunlight. They truly entered this northern area. To the north of the border, there is a vast and unparalleled boreal forest.
"These damn savages." Gary scolded, "The weather is getting colder and colder, but it won't stop." "If
it stops, it won't be called savages." Egg patted a few snowflakes that fell on his sleeves and responded casually. Hedao, due to the shortage of manpower and supplies, and to make it difficult for the savages to figure out their own activities, the night watchmen have abandoned regular patrols and adopted a random and more targeted work and rest system. The brothers who were on guard on the Great Wall the night before yesterday reported that there were fires a few miles north of the wall. This was the direct reason that prompted the commander-in-chief and the chief ranger to arrange this patrol. If this incident had not happened, these people would have been there by now. After finishing morning exercises, I hid comfortably in the house and warmed myself by the fire.
"Stop chatting, spread out to the left and right, move forward side by side, and don't let go of any suspicious traces." Weimar interrupted the chat among the three Night Watch soldiers that had not yet begun without looking back, and gave orders in a cold tone.
Upon hearing the chief's request, Will and Gary both shrugged and quietly made a face at the speaker's back - the four of them in order from oldest to youngest were Gary, Will, Iger, and finally Wei. Ma, but the youngest one is actually the chief. It is obviously impossible to say that the other three people have no opinions at all - this young nobleman from the valley is the third son of the Earl of Runestone City.
He was chosen because the possibility of inheriting the title is unlikely. He joined the night watch and was escorted to the Great Wall by his father himself, along with a whole cart of luggage.
This matter was often ridiculed by other night watchmen while drinking - the great Sir Weimar Royce did not look like he was here to serve, but more like he was here for a vacation.
It was clearly agreed that every member of the Night's Watch was each other's brother, but a young, inexperienced and prestige recruit stepped on them all at once. It was even the first time for Wilma Royce to lead the team. patrol. To be honest, how can this convince other Night Watchmen to respect him?
Unwilling to obey, but with a strong sense of discipline, the three of them spread out in accordance with the instructions and started patrolling forward in a straight line to investigate.
Soon, they found signs of human activity near the area where the sentinel found the light: there was no snow yesterday, and signs such as the footprints formed by the movement of savages and the piles of embers left by fires were clearly preserved.
"They left." Gary looked at Weimar and hesitated to speak.
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The Night's Watch was born after the Long Night. In that long winter that lasted a generation, the White Walkers went south and swept across the Kingdom of the First People, almost wiping out mankind... After this disaster, the Great Wall was built to fight against the White Walkers and protect humanity. and the establishment of the Black Legion. It is conceivable that joining this armed force that protects all mankind was once the highest honor on this continent. Even though the entry threshold is extremely high, there are still an overwhelming number of volunteers. But as the White Walkers retreated to the land of eternal winter in the far north and gradually disappeared, after a generation died after experiencing the long night, the importance and treatment of this legion were destined to decline.
That being said, the Great Wall actually blocked the invasion of northern barbarians for the Seven Kingdoms for a long period of time, so it still maintained a sense of existence. However, an important historical event finally dealt a fatal blow to the Night's Watch - Aegon's landing and the establishment of the Targaryen dynasty.
The House of Dragons did not trouble the Night's Watch, but its founders brought dragons from Valyria. After a large-scale savage attack, the ruler of the kingdom boldly rode a dragon north to grill the savages. This quickly drove away the attackers, but objectively it greatly accelerated the decline of the Night's Watch - the cunning rabbit died and the lackey was cooked. When one's own side had weapons that could sweep away the enemy, the role and influence of the Night's Watch plummeted. , Anyway, if those vulgar savages come again, wouldn't it be better to inform the Dragon Knight King directly?
The nobles and knights were no longer willing to dedicate their lives to a meaningless watch. The Night Watch gradually lost its source of soldiers and had to repeatedly lower the entry threshold... After a hundred years of evolution, the Night Watch finally became the virtue it is now. .
"The long night is coming, and I will keep watch from now on until I die. I will not marry, fiefdom, or have children. I will not wear a crown or compete for honors. I will fulfill my duties faithfully and live and die here. I am the darkness. The sword in the heart, the guard on the Wall. I am the fire that withstands the cold, the light at dawn, the horn that wakes the sleeping, the shield that protects the kingdom. I dedicate my life and honor to the Night's Watch, tonight and every night. Of course."
When people are excited about this Night's Watch oath, which is composed of a large number of promises and titles and sounds domineering at first glance, how many people can guess that it was not actually like this at the beginning? And behind the revisions, how much bitterness and helplessness is there?
The dragons and dragon knights of the Targaryen dynasty have gone with the wind, but the decline of the Night's Watch has been difficult to reverse. To this day, the Blackshirts are not so much the first line of defense against the wildlings as they are guards. The security guards who maintain the Great Wall, with less than 1,000 members, can be roughly divided into the following three categories:
The first category is the prisoners to whom Ige belongs who choose to serve on the Great Wall to avoid punishment, such as thieves, poachers, rapists, etc... These guys who were once not even worthy of carrying shoes for the "Night Watch" are now the main force of the Men in Black and will be destined to live and die there.
There is no other way out except being deserters; the second category is those who are forced to join by life. People: dilapidated officials and nobles who failed in political battles and were demoted or fell out of favor, farmers who lost their land, bankrupt businessmen, and illegitimate children...
These people are nominally encouraged to join the Night Watch, and theoretically can choose to leave at any time before taking the oath. But in reality there is nowhere to go, and the Night's Watch "artisans" and "stewards" are largely made up of such people.
The third, final and smallest category are those like Sir Waymar Royce - volunteers who self-exiled out of a sense of so-called honor and duty, or to make way for their brothers and sons to avoid power struggles within the family. They had other choices, but they walked down the stage of power in the Seven Kingdoms and came to the Wall. Such people have become fewer and fewer over time. Lord Commander Jeor Mormont, First Ranger Benjen Starr Gram, and even the blind maester Aemon Targaryen who gave up his right to rule the Seven Kingdoms fall into this category. They are usually directly appointed as officers and leaders. This seemingly unfair rule is actually easy to understand - in the northernmost part of the kingdom where the emperor is far away, if a group of scum, criminals or peasant commanders are not directly subordinate to any The lord's Night Watch Legion, I really don't know what kind of bunch of things they will become guarding the Great Wall.
There are no filial sons before a long-term illness, and there are no heroes on the long-frozen Great Wall. No matter what kind of lofty ideals the young nobles who volunteered to join the Night Watch had when they came, when they discovered that the Great Wall and the legendary Night Watch Legion were in a desperate situation, they were completely different from what they imagined, and the environment was completely different. After such hardship, the warm blood quickly turned into cold water.
Waymar Royce was no exception. He was filled with regret at this moment - no one forced him to come to the Great Wall, but he was inspired by the oath of the Night's Watch, and in order to show his beloved brother that he had no right to dispute the family property. I decided to come here. Now that the words have been spoken and the oath has been made, even if he dares to shamelessly go home in despair, his family will never welcome him publicly.
The only solution now is to make a contribution as soon as possible. When the time comes, I can apply to return to my hometown to visit my relatives, and I will not be questioned because I ran away because of the hardship.
The young ranger captain rode a horse and circled around the place that had once been a savage camp. After thinking for a while, he quickly made a decision: "There are not many of them. Follow the footprints and chase them."
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