KOA 105

Chapter 105: Recruitment

Early the next morning, Lynd woke up as usual, looked at Nymeria beside him, and gently moved his hand away from her.

“Who is it!” Although Lynd’s movement was slight, it still woke Nymeria.

At first, Nymeria, who was used to sleeping alone, thought something had happened and instinctively swung her hand at Lynd, but when her hand was caught by Lynd, and she clearly saw who the person next to her was, and felt all the unusual sensations on her body, she immediately realized what had happened. Her cheeks turned crimson, and she buried her head under the pillow.

Lynd kissed Nymeria and said, “You sleep a little longer, I’ll go to the stable to see that little guy.”

“No, I’ll go with you!” Nymeria shook her head and sat up.

Lynd did not refuse either. The two got out of bed. Nymeria shook the bell by the bed, and the maid came in to help them dress. Lynd and Nymeria also put on the weapons placed by the bed.

Although in Tumbleton, they often didn't wear armor, they always carried weapons. After all, in such an environment, who knew when a fatal attack might occur.

When the two left the castle, they encountered many knights and officials under their command. They all showed ambiguous smiles when they saw Lynd and Nymeria, and only restrained themselves when they saw the displeasure on Lynd and Nymeria's faces.

When the two arrived at the stable, Lothor was standing at the entrance of the stable with several of his subordinates, whispering something.

“What’s wrong?” Lynd walked over and asked.

Lothor saw Lynd and immediately praised him sincerely, “My Lord, is that little fellow in the stable your new stable boy? He’s truly remarkable.”

Hearing Lothor’s words, Lynd and Nymeria looked into the stable at the same time.

Brienne, with many bruises on her face, was standing on a horse stool, washing Black Wind’s fur, and Black Wind was standing still, not attacking her. It seemed that a lot had happened last night.

“That’s enough,” Lynd walked into the stable and said to Brienne.

Upon hearing this, Brienne looked at Lynd, but did not stop washing Black Wind’s back, stubbornly brushing every piece of fur clean.

During Brienne's brushing, Black Wind seemed very impatient, snorting at Brienne from time to time, but did not attack Brienne again, only walking a few steps away when Brienne tried to lean on him.

Although Lynd didn't know how Brienne did it, he could tell that Black Wind didn't dislike Brienne's approach.

After completely brushing Black Wind’s fur, Brienne jumped off the horse stool, walked tiredly in front of Lynd, and said, “I have brushed your horse, My Lord.”

Lynd said sternly, “From today onwards, Black Wind will be under your care. You also need to polish my armor. In addition, every day you will study with Maester Yves, and in the evening, I will train you in swordsmanship. My training is very strict. If you don’t meet my requirements, I will continue to train you. Do you understand, Brienne?”

“Yes, My Lord,” Brienne replied loudly.

“Very good, now you can rest, everything starts tomorrow.” Lynd turned to Lothor and said, “Lothor, now take Brienne to the fortress, arrange her next to my room, and prepare a few sets of suitable clothes, leather armor, and weapons for her.”

“Yes, My Lord,” Lothor nodded, waved to Brienne, and said, “Come here, little one.”

“My name is Brienne, My Lord,” Brienne walked in front of Lothor and said.

“Alright, Brienne,” Lothor smiled and led Brienne out of the stable and towards the fortress.

For the next four days, Lynd stayed in Nymeria’s room. After that, he led his team to the east side of Rose Road to clear out bandits, Savage Tribes, and mountain villages there. Brienne was also brought along by Lynd.

This time, the request was unusually smooth. They encountered no resistance along the way. The targets they encountered either surrendered directly or moved to the Red Mountains or the depths of Kingswood in advance before Lynd arrived, avoiding Lynd's military might.

Lynd was also somewhat surprised by this situation. He did not know that the clearing operations in the area west of Rose Road had a far greater impact than he had estimated.

Leading just over a thousand men, they swept across a large area west of Rose Road. Each subjugated mountain village had thousands of people, a dozen bandit groups were easily cleared out, and the unruly Savage Tribes surrendered without a fight. A total of tens of thousands of people were incorporated into Tumbleton. The deterrent effect of such astonishing military achievements, let alone some bandits and mountain dwellers, even the regular garrison armies of various lords would probably be filled with fear.

Therefore, in just one month, Lynd had already completed the bandit suppression mission that he had prepared to take several months to complete. Seven mountain villages and two Savage Tribes were incorporated, and eleven bandit groups were cleared out. In a way, Lord Mace’s bandit suppression mission was considered complete, and now it was only a matter of time before Lynd received his reward.

If it were before, perhaps some people would play tricks to snatch Lynd’s credit, after all, Lynd was just a knight without any backing, but now even the most greedy person would not dare to have such thoughts, because Lynd not only had Willas Tyrell, the heir of Highgarden, standing behind him, but also the Faith of the Seven as his backer.

In the eyes of the Faith of the Seven, especially the Archbishop of Starry Sept, the more brilliant Lynd’s achievements, the more he could solidify his identity as the Chosen One of the Warrior, which was also very beneficial to the faith of the Faith of the Seven.

After Lynd returned to Tumbleton, he did not change any habits, nor did he send anyone to Highgarden to inform them of the bandit suppression situation. Instead, he continued to train soldiers in Tumbleton. When he had time, he would go to the Blackwater Rush Fortress, which was being built on the Blackwater Rush, to check the progress of the project, or train Brienne and Dacey’s combat abilities.

Originally, Lynd only trained Brienne alone, but Dacey, upon seeing this, also expressed a desire to be trained by Lynd. Lynd did not refuse; for him, one more person would not cause any trouble.

Brienne had obviously undergone very rigorous sword training, and Lynd could not find anything in her swordsmanship that needed to be changed. The only thing that could be trained was her movement when performing swordsmanship.

So Lynd slightly improved the movement steps of the Peacekeeper with some attack techniques, handed them to Brienne, and then had Balin, Lothor, and Rosso act as sparring partners, taking turns to fight Brienne to increase her practical combat ability.

As for Dacey herself, Lynd didn't need to teach her swordsmanship or other combat techniques separately. The House Mormont's own combat techniques were already excellent, ranking among the top in all of Westeros. Just think about Old Bear Jeor Mormont, Great Bear Jorah Mormont, and now Dacey Mormont—which one isn't a highly skilled warrior?

After Lynd's analysis, Dacey only had two weaknesses: one was combat experience against strong enemies, and the other was combat experience when surrounded by multiple people.

Thus, Wenda the White Fawn and Nymeria naturally became Dacey’s sparring partners, while Lynd observed from the side, pointing out problems that arose during her fights, gradually improving her combat skills.

In this way, more than half a month passed. One morning, Lynd had Brienne prepare the armor and put the saddle on Black Wind. He planned to tour the area around Tumbleton with Nymeria and some men, and incidentally resolve some minor conflicts in the relocated villages.

“This time, only bring the Third and Fourth Cavalry Regiments. Everyone else stays in town,” Lynd said, putting on his armor, to his gathered subordinates.

“Yes, My Lord,” Balin and Rosso immediately responded.

Nymeria then ordered a knight from the garrison, “Ser Quinn, you also bring a hundred men and follow me.”

“Yes, My Lady,” the knight nodded in response.

“What about me?” Brienne handed the broad-bladed hand-and-a-half sword to Lynd and asked.

“You come too,” Lynd said, looking at the eager Brienne.

“Yes, My Lord,” Brienne took a deep breath to suppress her excitement and replied.

Unfortunately, Brienne rejoiced a bit too soon. Just as they were ready to depart, Maester Yves rushed over and handed two letters to Nymeria and Lynd respectively.

Nymeria and Lynd looked at each other, then simultaneously broke the wax seals on the letters and read their contents.

“Balon Greyjoy has declared himself king, the Iron Islands have rebelled!” Nymeria exclaimed after reading, and the others around also looked surprised.

Lynd, on the other hand, remained calm, as this had long been within his expectations, and he had already prepared himself mentally.

What truly surprised him was the battle report of the Iron Islands rebellion. In Lynd’s memory, after the Iron Islands rebellion, they only attacked Lannisport in the Westerlands, burned all Lannister ships docked at the port, and destroyed the Lannister fleet. It took more than a decade for the Lannister fleet to be rebuilt.

However, this time the Iron Islands rebellion caused even greater destruction. Not only were Lannisport and the Lannister fleet destroyed, but Fair isle was also completely occupied. All of House Farman, the lords of Fair isle, were killed by the Ironborn, except for one Jeyne Farman who survived in Casterly Rock.

In addition, Crag and Banefort were also breached and plundered by the Ironborn. The lord families of these two places managed to escape through secret passages in their castles in time, suffering no major harm, but they also lost their ability to resist and are now all taking refuge in Ashemark.

Not only were the Westerlands attacked by the Iron Islands, but even Seagard in the Riverlands was besieged by a large number of Ironborn.

Originally, Seagard's strength was sufficient to deal with these Ironborn. Even if they couldn't repel the Ironborn, they could prevent Seagard from being breached. However, the problem was that the Lord of Seagard fell ill during the extreme cold disaster a while ago, and after such a long time, his illness had not completely healed, recurring repeatedly.

When the Ironborn besieged Seagard, it was exactly when he was ill. Confused by his illness, he was unable to command Seagard's garrison to resist the Ironborn's attack, and his son, Patrick Mallister, could only barely hold the city walls, so he had no choice but to seek help from the Iron Throne.

It can be seen that at this moment, the Iron Islands are the sole dominant power on the west coast of Westeros, able to attack wherever they wish.

These two letters, in addition to describing the current situation, also mentioned that King Robert had issued a conscription order to all lords of the Seven Kingdoms, commanding them to immediately organize armies and gather in King’s Landing.

These two letters were also orders from House Tyrell to Lynd and Nymeria, commanding them to organize armies and proceed directly to King’s Landing.

“How many people should we bring?” Nymeria handed the letter in her hand to her subordinate, then asked Lynd.

Lynd thought for a moment and said, “I will definitely take everyone. As for you, just bring a thousand people.”

After making the decision, everyone went to arrange their personnel. Although Lynd said he would take everyone, in reality, he did not take Lothor and Wenda the White Fawn’s two teams, but left them to guard Tumbleton.

As they prepared their forces to depart for King's Landing, Willas's raven also delivered a letter, primarily outlining some support plans for Highgarden.

Lynd and Nymeria were to go to King's Landing as vanguards, while the others would arrive ten days later.

However, this time House Tyrell was not planning to lead the troops themselves, but instead had Randyll Tarly in charge. Additionally, the supporting lords included House Rowan, House Crane, House Fossoway of Cider Hall, House Hightower, and House Redwyne. Among them, House Hightower and House Redwyne would provide naval support to the Westerlands in the form of a fleet, while the people from other families would gather at Highgarden before being uniformly dispatched to King's Landing.

Among the dispatched support team were also some acquaintances of Lynd, such as Joel Flower from House Crane, and Matus Rowan, whom he had met several times in Goldengrove.

In addition, Willas specifically mentioned in the letter that Dorne would not respond to the Iron Throne’s conscription and would not send a single soldier to save the Westerlands. Clearly, for Dorne, the suffering of the Westerlands was what they most wished to see.

At the end of the letter, Willas also reminded Lynd not to waste manpower on this matter, just to put on a show. He also explicitly told Lynd that after this rebellion was quelled, Highgarden would publicly acknowledge that his bandit suppression mission was completed and would issue his reward. At that time, he would need to bring people to Highgarden to accept the enfeoffment.

Upon reading this, Lynd felt something was amiss, because Willas explicitly used the word “enfeoffment.” If it were merely to reward him with an exclave and make him a landed knight, there would be no need for the word “enfeoffment.” This term is only used when a commoner becomes a noble.

“Could it be that they are not only giving me land, but also enfeoffing me with a title?” Lynd suddenly had a bold guess, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt that this possibility was very high.

It was precisely because of this conjecture that Lynd remained extremely excited until the team departed, which made Nymeria very confused.