Following the trail of snow that Giovanni stepped on, I caught up with him

Giovanni had gone far away, and I was afraid that I would not be able to catch up with him, and by the time I finally saw his cloak, the sun had already illuminated the heavens and the earth, and the fiery red morning light sprinkled on the pine forest was dappled like blood, but in a short time the bright red light faded away, as if the light had been sucked back by the sky

"Pushed down?" Giovanni asked angrily

Answer him

I felt tightness in my chest and didn't want to talk about it anymore

Giovanni suddenly turned in a direction and walked towards the east, I didn't ask much, one followed him, we circled around here a few times, spent almost an hour in circles in the pine forest, and then walked in the opposite direction to the south, and the time lost here made me a little flustered, for fear of being chased by others, but Giovanni said that this can delay the time of others, whether it is a man or a dog chasing us, it will be fooled for a while

We walked from the faint path towards the village to the south, and on a hillside, I saw a rabbit that was frozen hard, and this rabbit had a thin wire around its neck, and the peasant children would tie it down in the path of the rabbit, and the rabbits were always running fast, and once they hit their heads headlong into the wire, the great momentum would get their heads stuck in the wire ring, and the more the rabbit struggled, the tighter the wire circle would get stuck until the rabbit suffocated to death

Giovanni untied the rabbit and carried it on his back

We gave the rabbit to a woodcutter at the entrance of the village and asked him if there was anything to sell in the village, and the woodcutter pinched the rabbit meat, and was a little dissatisfied, but hooked it into the rabbit's head with an iron hook and hung it on his waist

"No," said the woodcutter after a long time, "the Westerners and the Burkes have taken all the horses, and we have nothing here now."

Giovanni didn't look disappointed, he took out the wine bag he had just given the assassin to drink, "Can you think of a way?" ”

The woodcutter reached for it, but Giovanni pulled his hand away

The woodcutter's tiny eyes were full of dung, his coat was dirty like moss, and he licked his beard, "Yes"

After an hour the woodcutter copied a few slender sticks of wood from his house, which he tied tightly with leather and reinforced them with hard wood, and every time he worked, he would sit down and say that he was thirsty, or that he was hungry, and that he would be motionless anyway, and at this time Giovanni would give him one or two small coins, or give him something of his own, pimps, buttons, tuke's spoon, and so on

We waited like this, and little by little, the woodcutter came up with a strange tool sleigh in front of us

In the end, the woodcutter took out more than a dozen dogs and said to Giovanni, "A dog with silver beans is counted as money once for twenty miles."

Vanny crouched down and examined the dogs' soles one by one, and finally said this

The dogs were so fierce that they barked so loudly that the snow on the treetops around them seemed to fall

The woodcutter stood at the front, and Giovanni and I sat on the leather cushions at the back, and the woodcutter threw some rags for us to wrap around our hands and faces, lest we get frozen and broken

I didn't know why I was doing this, but at last, when the woodcutter raised his whip and the dogs ran hard, I felt the wind howling in front of me

After the woodcutter drove the dogs back and forth for some distance, the excitement of the dogs passed, the sleigh became stable and we were on the road

"Where are we going?"

"Riverlands"

We turned back and forth up the hill and then drove down diagonally, which was very interesting, and sometimes the snow was so hot that the sled couldn't run, so we had to jump down and follow, lose weight, and even help push the sled

When the woodcutter came to the mouth of a river, he suddenly asked us curiously, "Where are you going in the river?" ”

Along the way, we didn't speak, the woodcutter whipped away the dogs, and the endless snow became a boring nightmare after the initial freshness, and the monotonous journey made people not want to talk, and I wished I could sleep in a daze, and wake up to my destination

"It's none of your business," Giovanni said, "just take the car"

"No, it matters," said the woodcutter, "if you get to Sentinel Ridge, then we'll take the trail later, and we'll be there in the evening, but if you're going to Kelwood, we'll have to find a bridge, cross the river, and get over the road, and we'll be there tomorrow, and I'll know if you have any money to pay me."

"Old man," Giovanni's tone was a little unhappy, "we've come here in a four-wheeled carriage, and we're going to be content with less than half the money yours, and we're going to take us to Kelwood, or send us to the stone tower east of Sentinel Ridge, and you'll be back tomorrow at noon, and you've made a month's worth of money."

"No," the old woodcutter spat out a mouthful of cloudy foam into the snow, "I've only gotten it for half a month, and now it's snowing, and the price is going to be bullish and, if you think the four-wheeled carriage is good, you can go find the four-wheeled carriage."

The old woodcutter stopped the dog sled, stretched a little, jumped off the sleigh, spread a leather blanket on the ground, and then took out some bread crumbs from a broken bag and threw them to the dogs, which caused the dogs to bark, and the fanged fellows spat white air and roared at each other for the tiniest bit of dregs

"The dog can't walk," the old woodcutter looked at me and Giovanni with gloomy faces, "we need to rest"

The winter sun was weak and stopped in the sky, and Giovanni took off his gloves and threw them to the old man

The old man tucked his gloves into his jacket and yawned, "I didn't lie, the dog is really tired"

Giovanni threw one of his pikan shoulders to the old man, and the old man laughed with a mouthful of yellow teeth, "Yes, the dog is almost rested, but the old man has not rested."

"I don't have anything for you," Giovanni said

"Then wait," said the old woodcutter, "it will be very cold in the evening, but it will be all right, the old man has firewood in his cart, and the best wheat cakes, and the price is fair, and I see that you have a lot of good things on you, and you can hold on to the river, and the old man has always been very fair."

Giovanni said, "No, we have to hurry, you can ask for money, but you can't delay our journey, I promise you, when we come back, we will take your car, you will go to the ferry at Sentinel Ridge in fifteen days, and I will give you the money once at that time."

"The old man doesn't take any credit," the old woodcutter twisted his neck, and his bones clicked

Giovanni himself pulled the reins and tried to get the dogs to run, but the dogs all turned around and barked at Giovanni, and the old woodcutter laughed as if he had cut through the steel with wood, and Giovanni looked back and forth at the reckless snowfield, and could only crouch down again

"Daddy, when will you be able to rest?"

The old woodcutter stopped paying attention to us, closed his eyes and rested and Giovanni touched his waist impatiently, I knew that his dagger was in that place but in the end, Giovanni still did not move, Giovanni looked at me and said no more

After half an hour, the old man spilled a pee on the dogs, and several dogs leaned over and sniffed the old man's scolding and kicking a few dogs, calling them stingy dead dogs, greedy even drinking urine Giovanni and I didn't make a sound, so we could only listen to him

I was a little worried, not because of our own time, but because of the old man

We continued on the road, but the old woodcutter became more and more aggressive after entering the snowfield, and he detoured the road several times in the afternoon, only to visit his old friend, and he had lost the first two huts, and at the last one he found another hunter

The two grinned and ran together through the snow hugging each other

Orion boiled a pot and was boiling venison, and the two of them enjoyed the venison together, and drank the wine that Giovanni had given them, and chatted happily about gas, prey, and taxes, and they scolded the Vickyan soldiers for being villains, the Burke tax collectors for being skinners, and the two of them for being dogs* during the Battle of Riverlands, and the two of them seemed to have joined the parliamentary army during the Battle of Riverlands, and they were militia archers, and they loudly showed off their achievements on the battlefield

Giovanni's eyes lit up when I heard this, and I whispered to them, "Are the archers of the Riverlands good?" ”

"Is it amazing?" Giovanni laughed sarcastically, "As soon as Lech's flag appeared, these people fled, and the scene of shouting 'We're finished' as they ran was spectacular."

"And what are they blowing?"

"It's already a scumbag, no longer bragging, wouldn't they even be bored to live" Giovanni said with contempt, "They can serve whoever they are, whoever is the owner of the castle, they will help Victor, this is the worst soldier, although there are many people, but it is useless, but these people use it to manage the roads, and it is still okay to escort the grain and grass, you have to remember"

"I see"

When the two men talked about generosity, they also sang "On the River" to show their courage

At last, the two men kissed each other on the cheek, and one of Orion's pockets for the woodcutter was filled with meat, and the woodcutter threw a few rounds of cheese and a packet of dried mushrooms into Orion's hut

We entered a small camp of the Vycoian Orions before dark

As soon as we got there, a strong north-west wind began to blow, and the sky seemed to be condensing gray clouds, but soon after the sun went down, we could not see anything, and the woodcutter looked around, and began to curse, because there was no one in the camp, and the people had migrated here, and he had thought that he would be able to get hot water and tents with fire, but now all that was left was cold stones and blackened charcoal

"**, what the hell" the woodcutter roared and looked for shelter from the wind, "nothing is left and nothing is unlucky, this weather and this stupidity"

We found a hollow between a few stakes and made a fire in it

The evening breeze howled, and the growing dead branches glowed red under the licking of the flames, and ghostly red shadows danced on the red-hot branches

In the middle of the night, it suddenly snowed, and in the second half of the night, we knew that we had encountered a storm, and the woodcutter woke up in the middle of the night, and gathered the dog that was freezing and frightened, and he had just walked out a few steps, as if he was completely out of sight, and Giovanni and I did not expect such a heavy snowfall

"**" The woodcutter cried again, "On time, the damn north wind has sent the snow in advance, and we can't move."

We were trapped inside the snow.