Chapter 440
2021-01-06
Chapter 440 Suppressing Ghosts (Part 1)Worship of the strong and double standards are common in the human world in every way.
When the opponent is similar to oneself, being crushed and reluctantly succumbing often makes people angry and unable to eat... But if they are completely crushed, they will be convinced and prostrate by Conqueror. Oneself in admiration, even proud of it, does not give birth to the slightest resistance.
When Night's Watch made a high move to force the people beyond the wall to surrender, the "free people" wail like ghosts and howl like wolves were not convinced, thinking that the "crows" were just relying on the location of The Wall They can't get the upper hand, they're not really better than them, and they can't hide their arrogance even during the surrender negotiation, keep on saying that they will never kneel... In order to take care of the emotions of these Tie Hanhan and maintain the land grant Stable so that they can obediently and honestly work their lives, Lord Commander Mormont had to add, at the suggestion of Igor, a superfluous addition to the situation where "kneeling" was not common in Westeros: abolishing the kneeling ceremony in the land grant.
But now, the first person to publicly break this agreement is the original proposer of this decree.
…
Igor is ready to endure and deal with the resentment and taunts of some of the new land-givers who despise "Kneelers" as he half-forced to kneel in allegiance to the Daenerys , but the situation is better than he imagined - everyone seems to think that there is no shame in acknowledging allegiance to a Queen riding a dragon. The new land-grantors rejoiced that the dragon was a little less dangerous; the radicals within Night's Watch secretly clenched their fists to finally break free from neutrality and join one side; as for the nobles who were theoretical enemies of the Queen—they could When I came to Wall, it was because of my belief in R'hllor that I was willing to contribute to the war, and I basically understood more than resisted Lord Commander of the Night's Watch's actions to take care of the overall situation.
No one jumped out to accuse Igor of being a "Kneelers", and no one publicly questioned him for breaking the Night's Watch neutrality norm, but Queen's overzealousness first became the problem: presumably because he was being asked to The sincerity shown without the slightest hesitation when swearing allegiance is delighted and applauded, and eager to reciprocate to the new followers - Daenerys immediately asks the whereabouts of the remnant ghouls after taking the oath to each other, and it seems that he intends to bring The three dragons chased after them directly, and used Longyan to eliminate worries for Night's Watch, so that Igor could be pulled to help her conquer the world as soon as possible.
Igor felt the urgency and kindness of the Queen, but he couldn't accept it.
It took far more than originally expected to weaken the enemy to the point where it could be eliminated in a frontal battle. If the Queen is excited to send a dragon at this last juncture, then this war will have to be fought again. Started from scratch. After a moment of speech, Igor reluctantly convinces Daenerys that "the enemy has the ability to attack and transform her child into a corpse dragon", so she gives up the urge to fight alone and agrees to maintain coordination with the larger army.
This time, in order to prevent the enemy from killing a sudden thrust sneak attack, Igor brought Queenscrown's Skinchanger, which can control most of the animals, and even installed Bran Stark, who was inconvenient to move, with the carriage.
To this Greenseer, who now doesn't know whether to call him a "little fellow" or an "Old Guy", although Igor already believes that he is not one of the Cold God gang, he always doubts whether he is doing his best in the war . In addition to using his ability to control crows to carry out investigation and information transmission on the surface, he was brought on this Southern Expedition. In fact, it was also an invisible personal safety bond for him - in case the Southern Expedition Army fell into a hard fight The crisis of failure, then Greenseer can't be spared, if he has any ability, he has to use it all!
The 3rd-layer combination of Skinchanger, Greenseer, and patrolling Rangers reduces the army's probability of ambush and surprise to almost zero. The addition of dragons makes the comparison of the hard power of the two sides completely tilted towards the human side. The foolproof situation of Igor yearn for something even in dreams has finally taken shape. But it was not slow to head south.
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Feeding the three dragons added a lot of logistical and transportation pressure to the Southern Expedition, but it was nothing compared to the advantages and odds they brought to this battle. what. In order to save the human and dragon's stamina, Daenerys spends most of the time in the carriage like Bran instead of riding on the dragon. With three large flying flamethrowers hovering overhead all day, the team seems to be marching fast a lot.
The fortresses along the Wall followed Igor's request and dispatched their elite troops to set off lightly as soon as they received the letter, catching up with the larger troops within dozens of hours after the start of the southward pursuit. The coalition saw the trees at the northernmost tip of Wolfswood the day after the chase, and the fourth day after the Others had crossed Gorge, and approached the Last River in the afternoon, standing at the fork to the last Hearth and Winterfell...then caught up with the enemy.
Well, that's how most people feel - but Igor feels more like the enemy is waiting for oneself to come.
"Skinchanger reported that they found a ghoul army less than ten miles to the south. Looking at the tracks of the footprints, they judged that they left the last Hearth not long ago."
Finally Although Hearth is not located on the side of Kingsroad, it is not far from the main road. Now that the ghoul army has passed through the castle and started south again, the Umber family is obviously bode ill rather than well, and it is not worth the army to spend a few hours to retake an empty city that has no living people. After confirming from Bran's mouth that "one strong and eight weak" total of nine Others were still in the corpse tide and did not separate, Igor did not waste time mourning for the North, but ordered the army to slow down but continue to chase the enemy's main force, Bran and Skinchangers fully Keep an eye on the corpse tide and Others, and send a small patrol to the last Hearth to investigate the situation.
The sky was already dark, and what the Rangers reported later also confirmed Igor's judgment, but... In the end, the strange situation that a large number of fresh corpses were left inside and outside Hearth did not disappear, which was beyond his expectations. Suddenly, the sense of danger he sensed rose a notch.
...
"Are you sure those are corpses and not motionless ghouls in disguise? How many?"
Pauses next to the army that continues on its way , Igor seriously asked the Scout about the final Hearth.
A few years ago, oneself followed Tyrion south to King's Landing, and then went out with Benjen to look for Waymar Royce's Rangers members. In this timeline, he still disguised himself as a dead man and returned to Castle Black to assassinate. Mormont, Igor didn't forget that the enemy would play dead this move.
"Excluding the ghouls who were apparently killed during the siege, there were about a thousand or two, but they were all women and children, and there were hardly any men or soldiers. We stabbed them tentatively with our Dragonglass weapons. Some of them look exactly like the real corpses, and nothing unusual is found." The scout Small Captain carefully selected his words, "But for the sake of safety, in order to prevent the enemy from using the ghouls to trap our army, I suggest to deploy a corpse. Hundreds of people will follow me back to the last Hearth and use cremation to dispose of the corpse."
"Don't be so troublesome." Daenerys, who got off the carriage and stood aside, shook his head, "I'll call the dragon, Fly to the front to stop the corpse tide. Let's eliminate those... er, Others before dark, and then slowly clean up the last Hearth, let the enemy have any conspiracy before it is too late."
"No, although the ten-mile distance is already overtaken on the map, the enemy is not a stationary target after all. In actual combat, even if the army sprints to the past, it still takes half an hour... It's not too long. But once the opponent uses any means to injure and shoot down your dragon, we will never be able to rush to rescue and rescue. I insist on the original agreement - Your Majesty, your dragon can only be put into battle after the ground troops are engaged. !"
A loyal minister who considers the Queen, but in fact - Igor doesn't care about the life of the dragon at all.
No, it's not that he doesn't care, he actually wishes that all three dragons would be together with Others perish in the war, as long as Daenerys is alive: oneself swears allegiance to her, not because the Queen has dragons, Instead, she wanted to use her "Last Targaryen" sign as a ladder and a stepping stone to the stage. Without the dragon, Daenerys · Targaryen is still the Queen, still the monarch whom oneself has sworn allegiance to, but she has lost a lot of support. Only by relying on the gunpowder of oneself can she conquer the Seven Kingdoms - and once her dependence on Night's Watch Legion increases, As the Lord Commander, oneself's position and power in the new True Dragon Dynasty after victory in the future will also be as the tide rises, the boat floats, and even "taking the Queen to make the princes" is not a dream.
But while Dragons and Others perish together are best, Igor is impossible to do the stupid thing of killing them before the victory is decided. The real reason he insists on keeping Daenerys' dragons and oneself's armies apart is this: only synchronized action can ensure that even if the Others shoot down the dragon, Night's Watch will have time to shoot the corpse with Dragonsteel arrows, preventing it from resurrecting as a corpse dragon!
Of course, this is something Igor absolutely won't say.
He asked the guards to order the troops to stop and camp in place and set up guards, then crouched down on the side of the road - opened the map on the low table taken out of the carriage, drew a few strokes, and started. Explaining why he did this: "There's something a little weird about it, and I suspect -- the Others are plotting some sort of conspiracy to just come into view at sunset today."
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p>(end of this chapter)