For a moment, Iger thought that Robb had seen through his delaying tactics and decided to turn the table to fight the land grant first, so he sent the Karstark army to copy his own back...... But on second thought, this shouldn't be the case.

Kahoe City is located in the northeastern corner of the Seven Kingdoms, east of the last Hearth, separated from the northern hinterland where Winterfell is located, by the Moe River and the Lonely Mountain...... Robb Stark had received an alert from the Wall a week earlier, ordering the entire army to assemble at the Hearth, and the Karstark family had of course headed west rather than making a big circle. Due to the distance and the fact that the road was not as smooth as the King's Road, which had been repaired by Egger, the marching speed was average, and the Stranger's slaughtering attack on Amber's house was missed...... It wasn't until the ghouls crossed the border and the land-giving army chased the former south to the battlefield of Long Lake that they arrived one step late—I don't know whether to call it luck or a trip for nothing, taking over the deserted castle and collecting the corpses of the Amber family left behind by the Night's Watch.

Robb Stark would never be able to send a message to the Karstark army that was already on the road at Long Lake, which meant that the northern army that occupied the last of the Hearths should not know that the war was over and that they had broken their vows of neutrality and joined the Dragon Queen's side!

Egger ordered the dragon sleigh to stop at a distance and not approach the castle, and sent an advance force to investigate the situation, and the performance of the other party confirmed his judgment: after spotting the black flag of the open force outside the city, several soldiers of the Karstark family came out to check on the identity of the visitors, and after confirming that they were indeed the night watchmen, they opened the gate defenselessly, and let them in and out.

After confirming that there was no ambush in the city, Iger greeted the queen and entered with his guards, meeting the leader of the occupation force, Count Rickard Karstark.

＊＊＊

"You, commander-in-chief, are you eating!" Rickard sprayed Egger on his head as soon as they met, "I immediately summoned the soldiers after receiving Robb's letter, but after three or four days, I could only collect the corpses! Are you sleeping when the dead go south? If you are really dead, the point is that I can't even find the corpses of the people I know—Raven, the prostitute, and Hammoud Amber, what about them?! Did you escape, and you still don't look for them?"

Most of the Amber family have become ghouls, and they were turned to ashes by dragon flames in the Battle of Long Lake.

Iger said to himself, the patrol of the Land-Giving Army who had previously scouted the ruins of the last Hearthh City had indeed reported this situation to him: most of the corpses left inside and outside the castle were old and weak, women and children—the men of the Amber family were well-fed and dressed, and they were strong and strong, and they must have been picked up by the strangers to become puppets...... Of course, he didn't have to explain it in such detail.

"Lord Karstark, the land has lost tens of thousands of warriors to fend off the invasion of the Strangers. Egger didn't have time to count whether there were so many, but it was estimated that it was about the same, so he simply exaggerated, "Even if the enemy can't take it, Houguanzhen decides to make a detour to the south, we will chase all the way to Changhu until the enemy is completely destroyed...... With such a heavy sacrifice and the final completion of the mission, even if it is a shame that you really failed to stop the enemy from the northern gate, it is not your turn to blame you for not dying a soldier and not half of the ghouls!"

"What?" Recard blushed for a moment. He really didn't know anything about the situation, although he looked like a very rough man, but at least the truth was still told, and when he heard the raging momentum, most of his momentum suddenly went out, and his expression softened a lot: "It's over......? Where did they go?"

Iger had no choice but to be patient, and he could only detour south after the strange ghost lightning raid on the Great Wall and Houguan Town, and after capturing the last Hearthh City, he selected male warriors to transform into ghouls and take them away, Robb Stark and the Night's Watch cooperated on both sides to annihilate the remnants of the enemy in Long Lake, and the war between humans and ghosts was basically over, and the princes of the north could go back to their respective homes...... and that the Night's Watch was planning an expedition outside the Fortress to wipe out the remnants of the enemy, and told the old Karstark about it in 1510, so as to make reasonable preparations for the next request.

......

"Uh-oh, it turned out to be so,, it didn't catch up. Ricard frowned as he listened to what he had to say, and cursed in annoyance, his anger calming down, "Well, I apologize for the previous rude accusation, the Night's Watch brothers have worked hard, and you can't be blamed entirely for the Amber family's affairs." The vegetables and meat products they used to hoard in the warehouse are no longer useful, so let your people come and move them and bring them back to the donated land, which will be regarded as a reward for the defenders of the Great Wall. ”

"Thank you for your kindness. This is simply a textbook generosity, and Iger didn't know what to thank him, so he blurted out and quickly shrugged: "Another thing, many of my soldiers were injured in the battle with the ghouls in Long Lake, and now they need a warm and safe environment to recuperate. The battlefield is too far away from Houguan Town, so I can only find a place in the north first—I hereby request to temporarily borrow the last Fireplace City, and then withdraw the land when the condition of the wounded has improved. ”

Rickard Karstark is a notoriously stubborn man, and if he is told that "the Queen's dragon is injured and needs a place to recover, so Lao Tzu is now going to requisition your castle from the North", then let alone doing things, it is a question of whether he can get out of the castle unscathed. Although the combination of dragon + land-grant army can form a crushing advantage over the Karstark army of no more than 2,000, but at the moment Iger still needs the northern border to supply his first batch of nitrate - he needs a while to prepare before he can have the ability to turn against the Seven Kingdoms, especially the northern border. It would be best if the goal could be achieved through a small deception to avoid an early outbreak of conflict.

"Wounded, let them pick a house to live in the winter town outside the castle...... Anyway, the original owner didn't need it. "If there are any seriously wounded, our army has brought a doctor to live in the castle, and they will be properly healed." ”

To be honest, this treatment is nothing to talk about, but this is not what Iger wants.

"You don't understand what I mean. He said helplessly, "Our army of more than 4,000 people, and your Karstark family's army totaling nearly 7,000, will be very crowded if you stay in the last Hearthh City together." Now that the war is over, it would be a waste of time and food for you to stay here with your troops, and I would appreciate it if you could return to your fiefdom and lend the last of the Hearthh to the Night's Watch for a few weeks. ”

"What do you mean?" Count Karstark's face changed, and he showed anger again: "Lord Commander-in-Chief, pay attention to your own identity! Let's not mention that we can't make up our minds for the time being, even if all the people of the Amber family in this world are really dead, in the end, Fireplace City will not have anything to do with you, what do you want to do to drive me away?!"

＊＊＊

The war between humans and ghosts is over, but the Karstark army continues to remain heavily armed in the assembly area...... Of course, it is not because there is too much food, but because of many considerations.

The Wraiths don't use fire, and they don't go to great lengths to destroy buildings or the wealth and resources stored in them after slaughtering inside and outside the castle - such a fortified city stuffed with granaries and meat depots to prepare for the winter must not be left unattended by cats and dogs. As the first Northern nobleman to arrive after the fact, Rickard Karstark had an obligation to watch over it in the first place, so as not to cause unnecessary damage to it due to the "broken window effect".

In addition to this high-sounding reason, other reasons are not enough for outsiders.

Just like the land-giving soldiers and civilians will not all be crowded in Houguan Town when the strange ghosts attack, the residents of the northern territory will not be crowded to the outside of the feudal lord's castle for the winter, according to the distance determined by the living area, the residents belonging to different lords will scatter but focus on gathering in several winter towns composed of a castle + several large villages, thousands or tens of thousands of piles of land to keep warm, exchange with each other, credit resources and labor to ensure that they survive the long winter. In the end, although the Hearthside City was no longer a no-man's land after the Stranger Massacre, the total number of 50,000 or 60,000 people of the Amber family was still mostly left, and the castle, as well as the territories and inhabitants under its jurisdiction, still had considerable value to compete for. Rickard will have to take the heart of the Amber family's domain in the last Fireplace, to ensure that the Karstark family can maximize the benefits of this unfortunate aftermath!

That's right, it's for the sake of profit. But it would be too biased to scold Rickard for making a fortune because of this, and years of experience have taught the nobles of the North: when something like this happens, if you show chivalry for the sake of shame and don't fight for it, then all the benefits will fall into the pockets of shameless and ambitious families like the Burtons. The Karstark family and the Amber family have always had a close relationship, and the fall of the latter is definitely not good news or opportunity for the former...... But now that the tragedy has happened, no matter how much you pretend to show your grief, you won't let the dead come back to life, and as a lord, Rekad has to think about the long-term interests of the family as a whole!

Of course, he did not expect the Castells to swallow the entire inheritance of the Amber family in one fell swoop: if it was later found that there were still people in the world with the surname Amber who were alive because they had gone out at the time of the incident, then Recard would have returned the castle and its contents without complaint, but if it was indeed unfortunate that the Amber family had been completely destroyed, such a good castle and the land and people under its jurisdiction certainly could not be left in ruins or turned into savages, and the approximate way of dealing with it...... It is nothing more than the following.

1. The Stark family, as a feudal monarch, annexed the fief of the former Amber family.

In principle, the Starks have the power to do so, but then Robb will instantly rule too large to manage, and at the same time, the assets of the perishing vassals will be spread out in such a way that they will have a reputation for greed and malice...... In a situation where the wolf family has always attached great importance to honor and prestige, it is almost impossible to happen.

2. Robb appoints a loyal or meritorious follower to transfer the castle and fief that destroyed the Amber family to the new family.

Regardless of whether there is a suitable candidate, Amber is a surname almost as old as Stark, a glorious family that has been kings in ancient times, ruling a territory almost the size of a land grant from Seal Bay to Long Lake and Lonely Mountain...... Even if the Stark family chooses a new last Fireplace City Lord, the latter is not qualified to inherit all of Amber's original territory and instantly become a pillar of the northern border. In order to avoid this "mismatch", the domain of the new Last Earl of Hearthh City must be cut off a few woods and villages at the edges, and distributed to the more senior nobles of the surrounding borders, so that they can be divided among their subordinate vassals.

If this happens, then the family that actually occupies the last Fireplace City will definitely get an extra piece of the pie in this distribution!

3. It is also the most likely scenario: even if all the people in the world with the surname Amber died in the attack of strange ghosts, in the frequent marriages with other families in the north for thousands of years, although they have no surname, there are people with the blood of the Amber family in their bodies...... If Robb has no intention of letting "Amber" disappear into the long river of history, it is very likely that he will pick out a person who is close in blood and has no previous succession in the original family from among these people with Amber's bloodline, and order him to change his surname back to Amber and take over the last Fireplace City again - in a reasonable way of "succession", so that this ancient and noble surname will continue to exist in the north.

As the Karstark family bordering the territory of the Amber family, there are still records of intermarriage with the Amber family for a hundred years, and there are several candidates in the clan who meet this condition. The hard work of "collecting the corpse for Amber's family" and the fact of "physically occupying the last fireplace city" will inevitably add a lot of points to the selection of a new Earl Amber in the final selection of a new Earl Amber.

......

No matter what way you think about it, Rickard Karstark has no reason to give up the last Hearthcity and leave at this moment!

——

Wonderful Book House