"Shall we go to your Orion friends?" Giovanni asked

"We can't go," said the woodcutter, "and we'll have to wait for the snow to stop, but the road is soft for miles, and we can't move the road."

The woodcutter yelled at us, gave us some impossible tasks, and then walked back and forth for half the night before stopping

At dawn the next day, we could barely see the road, the snow was dense like a gray curtain, and the wind that covered the sky and the wild howling wind seemed to blow us into the sky, and the woodcutter no longer roared, and he looked at us with disgust, as if the weather had been brought by us

On this day, Giovanni divided his bread and ate it with me, the woodcutter himself ate some dried cheese, cut a rabbit leg and roasted it

We're stuck inside the camp

At night, I felt hungry and Giovanni woke up, and the woodcutter himself muttered about how much money he had lost

"The Burkes are thieves, and so are the Wikibians," he always said

"I said," Giovanni once asked, "where were you in those days when the river was in turmoil?" ”

"I have been on the front line of the battlefield, fighting until I fall unconscious"

"I mean, when the war was recuperating," said Giovanni, "that was the time when many noble houses were slaughtered? ”

"That's," said the woodcutter, "after the battle on the battlefield, some guys are going to be unlucky, some of the men in the family are dead, no one can resist, whether it's mercenaries or bandits, not to mention the Berks, a few soldiers can kill all the manor, but the Berks didn't do much, the Vikyans themselves started first"

"What?"

"The Burkes attacked at the time,**" the woodcutter scolded, "and then luckily won us, and when we retreated, a lot of Vekia boyars turned back, chasing others and asking me to say, and then I continued to fight, but the council gang ran away all at once, I always wanted to fight, but I fainted, and when I woke up, I was carried to Sentinel Ridge, and it was the Orion, the one you saw"

"You're thankful for him?" I asked

"Thank you?" The woodcutter looked at me sadly, "I hate him, why didn't he leave me behind, let me die on the battlefield like a man, I hate him so much, every time I see him, I can't get angry"

Giovanni and I both frowned

"You just said that the Wikibians fought on their own, what happened?"

"There are a bunch of dogs and nobles," said the woodcutter, "they didn't plan to do it in the first place, and as soon as the war started, they ran away, and those who stayed on the battlefield didn't fight so hard, and as soon as the battlefield collapsed, many of the rebellious nobles suddenly turned the spearhead, and dealt with the family that was badly injured, and the Berks took control of the city, and then sent soldiers to help the Vikians fight themselves, and then the Berks withdrew."

The woodcutter said a lot of things incoherently, but the more I listened, the more confused I became

"No way, the Berks have killed the nobles of Vikia," I said, "at least one"

"It is inevitable," said the woodcutter, "that some of the families who resisted desperately were indeed killed by the Burkes, but some were killed by their own people, such as the Mozov family, the Yank family, or something."

"What about the Lepnin family?" I asked suddenly

"Lepnin," the woodcutter thought for a moment, "but the Burks killed him."

I don't know why, when the woodcutter said this, I felt a sense of relief in my heart, and it was sad to think so, because I felt that it was more decent to die at the hands of the enemy than to die at the hands of my own people, or rather, I could accept that at least the world was not as dark as Giovanni said

But the woodcutter went on to say, "But the Burks were recruited by the neighbors of the Lepnin family, and they wanted Lepnin's land."

I was taken aback, "This can't be"

Giovanni looked at me thoughtfully, smiling sarcastically and the woodcutter glared at me, "You're making a fuss, damn it, there's snow drifting into my neck," and he snorted, "There are so many things like that that the family does this thing quickly and beautifully, otherwise, such a large piece of land can not be managed in a few decades?" Phew"

Lepnin

I remembered the words of old man Leo, who said that the Burkes poured into the manor like a tidal wave, that his family was hanged on the beams, that his daughters were **, naked**, wandering in the wilderness, giggling madly, and Kaja, and I thought of her, what would she think if she knew about it?

No, if it was really the lord who was close to him who wanted to seize the land, it would be impossible for Old Man Leo not to know at all, but his statement was not at all like this, and this woodcutter was originally a deserter and a bastard, he must have escaped by himself, and then blamed the reason for the defeat on others

"You're lying," I said to the woodcutter, "the Lepnin family was killed by the Burkes."

"I've lived all my life," the woodcutter said with a fierce and unquestioning expression, "I know this place as well as my own life, you uncultured little bastard I know what's going on"

"You're going to be fine, just fiddling with your life," Giovanni said with a laugh

"Watch your foul mouth," the woodcutter glanced at Giovanni, "you two scoundrels, or fools, I tell you, there are many people who know about it, now you go and ask the inhabitants around the Lepnin family's territory, whether it is a woodcutter or a hunter, whether it is a craftsman or a groom, you ask them, who occupies the land of the Lepnin family now, and they will definitely tell you that it is a Vecchia boyar"

"That's for sure," said Giovanni, "is it possible that the Burkes would not occupy worthless land on their own, that they did not have so many soldiers, and that they had no intention of offending the lords everywhere: that the Burkes had given land to some rebellious lord?" ”

"Phew," said the old woodcutter, "if you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, you might have said it, but to tell you the truth, old man, I saw it with my own eyes, and at that time, our troops were stationed near Sentinel Ridge, and the Burks had routed us, and there was no shame in it, and the council soldiers could not stop the Burke hussars, and I fled to the forest near Sentinel Ridge in that place, and I saw with my own eyes: the Berks were mixed with a Vecchia boyar, and the Berks attacked first, Then the soldiers of the boyar remained in the forest, and no one could escape"

"Where are you?" Giovanni said, "Neither the Burke nor the boyars have shown you?" That's impossible? ”

"What's impossible," the old woodcutter's face changed, but he quickly regained his composure, "I didn't tell you that this damn snowy day will be on the road tomorrow no matter what"

The next day, at dawn, it was clear, but it was overcast

While we were preparing to set the car, the dogs were all crazy and unwilling to go, and it took less than half an hour for the woodcutter to whip him, and a violent storm enveloped the whole plain again, and we had just barely walked down a slope to a place more than a mile from the campsite

We stayed there for dozens of minutes, trying to wait for the storm to subside, the old woodcutter said that he had seen this kind of storm a lot, and that it would usually become a 'warm' breeze in more than an hour, but the woodcutter was wrong again, we were all covered in snow, and the dog ** folded his head together, curled up on the snow, and the sound of whimpering was very windy, blowing my cloak back and forth, and the snowflakes seemed to have eyes, as long as I showed a trace of skin, it would be found immediately

In the end, we had to pull the sled with the food and leather goods back up the hill with the dogs

Hunger strikes again, and we look at the box beneath the woodcutter's ass

The woodcutter roasted the rabbit in the leeward place, but the fire was not strong at all, and the weak fire only blurred the flesh and blood of the rabbit, and the bloody breath made the dogs commotion, and the storm here was not small, but it was much better than the flat ground below

My hands and feet were cold, my stomach was churning, and my hunger was aching

"We're hungry," Giovanni said to the woodcutter

"My dogs are hungry too," the old woodcutter cut off a piece of bloody meat and chewed it in his mouth, "they eat my stuff and will give me everything, but what about you?" What can you give me when you have eaten my things? ”

"I said, go to the Riverlands, and I will repay you," said Giovanni

"The recruiter has told me so before, the boyar has said this to me, and the Burkes have told me this, but none of his ** people have cashed it out" The old woodcutter spat out a mouthful of phlegm, a piece of bone slag made his teeth jam, and he picked at it with his fingers for a long time, "No money, nothing to talk about"

"Where do I get your money out on a snowy day?" Giovanni said, rubbing his hands

"In the inside of your sleeves, in your collar, in the soles of your shoes," the woodcutter laughed with a mouthful of yellow teeth, "maybe if you think about it, there will be one"

"I dare to give, do you dare to ask for it?" Giovanni said coldly

"Of course you dare," said the woodcutter, "here is a few dozen miles away from the nearest village, and if you deviate a little, you will be ready to die in the snow, only I can take you out at this time, don't worry about money."

"Not really," Giovanni said with a sigh

This made the expectant woodcutter angry, and he cut off the rabbit's head and threw it to the dogs, who almost went mad, and the hungry dogs roared and bit each other for the rabbit's head, and finally the strongest dog swallowed the rabbit's head, but its ears were almost torn apart, and after eating the rabbit's head, the dog roared lowly, and the dogs around him shrank back to dare not provoke it

The woodcutter also roared and cursed the dog, and the snow was falling, and I shivered with cold—hungry and sleepy, and the snow melted on top of my trouser legs, and the cold water flowed under my feet, and the cold almost pierced into my bones, and Giovanni and I put our feet to the fire, trying to borrow some heat

The day passed again, and the next morning, the woodcutter asked me to get a few pots of clean snow water, which I hung on the fire and burned it, and lost my temper for no reason, and finally gave me and Giovanni half a pound of bread crumbs, and Giovanni boiled them in half a pot, and then got some roots and tubers from the surroundings, and boiled half a pot of thin soup, which was not hot at all, and what I drank into my mouth was warm, not warm at all

The dogs had not barked for a long time, and they lay quietly on the ground, breathing from time to time, only to see some white woodcutters throw a few handfuls of bread crumbs, which made the dogs excited again and fight a lot

The blizzard is still raging, and we are gradually losing time, and the sky is almost a dull color from dawn to dusk, and we can only roughly distinguish the time, and it is not easy to judge even the morning and afternoon

"I'm hungry," I said, looking at Giovanni and then at the woodcutter

The woodcutter's mouth twitched, and he smiled horribly, and said to Giovanni, "Do you think you have anything for me?" ”

"Why don't you just come to me and 'ask'?" Giovanni said coldly

The woodcutter hesitated for a moment, "You are a dignified person, I can see that I also don't want to make things so dirty, my demands couldn't be fairer, just like you are in the market, you can price your goods casually, don't you?" If others think the price is too high, just don't buy it."

"Oh, that's right," Giovanni said

Dozens of miles of snow, in case we take the wrong road, we can't get out, this is the woodcutter's capital

"Giovanni," I whispered to him

"What's wrong?"

"When will this snow stop?"

"I don't know, but with such a method, it will definitely stop in a day or two, and there won't be so much snow in the sky."

"Actually," I said, "if the snow stops and I can see the stars, I can discern the direction, and if I keep going east, I think I can get out of this snowfield."

Giovanni smiled wryly, "Anyone can look at the stars, the point is that you can't get out of the snow for dozens of miles" he said, "unless, you can drive a dog cart"

When I was in the Romanov fortress, I saw this kind of dog cart, but it didn't snow at that time, so I didn't need it, but I still knew the basic operation, and in the time of Ivangelodes, Count Kalinin used to buy some ice walking tools, much like this sled, if the dog could listen to me, it would still be possible

"I will," I snapped the dead branch in my hand and said it suddenly

Giovanni turned his head and stared at me for a few seconds, then he turned his head away and looked at the woodcutter in silence, as if thinking about something

Now, I can read the black look directly, and I don't feel a trace of disgust.