Game of Thrones: Viserys the Three-Headed Dragon.

Chapter 132 Bait
It was a rare day when the sun came out, so Old Will started patrolling the village as soon as he got up.

The village is located a few miles west of Shiwu City, in a hilly area. The mountains here are gentle, and three low hills surround a small field in the middle. More than 20 families have settled at the foot and hillside of the three low hills, consisting of tenants of the lord and some self-cultivating farmers. The village is called Sanqiu Village. In the narrow and long mountains of Cape Marseille, such arable land is very rare.

The most fertile land in this small field belongs to the Massey family. The last corn planted at the end of summer before Stannis summoned his vassals has reached the harvest season. The continuous autumn rain may cause the corn that cannot be harvested in time to rot. Old Will must ensure that the remaining corn is stored in the barn as soon as possible.

In response to the Dragon King's call, he urgently planted the potato and onion seedlings on the abandoned mountain land. The potato and onion seedlings he planted might have rotted in the last few days of autumn rain. He thought that autumn was rainy, so maybe he shouldn't have planted the potatoes and onions on the abandoned mountain land, but should have planted some rain-resistant vegetables or taro.

There were not enough people in the village, and perhaps they should not have gone to plant, but the Marseille family's agricultural manager urged the villages under his jurisdiction to make more use of abandoned land for autumn planting. Old Will, as the Marseille family's village manager, had to do as the lord wished.

Like most small villages not far from the castle in the lord's territory, Sanqiu Village has no village chief, only Will, the village steward. He needs to look after the fields for the lord, ensure the harvest, maintain and repair the mill and barn. He is also a tenant of the lord and occasionally acts as a tax officer to collect taxes from the self-cultivating farmers in the village.

On the way, he met a tenant family, a middle-aged woman with deep tanned skin and two teenage boys. Old Will thought they were going to harvest corn, but unexpectedly, they came to see him.

"Butler Will, my husband went to the forest to cut wood yesterday and didn't come back. Yesterday, the two children asked the hunter's daughter in the east of the village to go to the forest to look for him, but they didn't find him." The woman came up to him anxiously when she saw Will. "It's been a whole night and he still hasn't come back. Can you ask someone to help go into the mountains to look for him?"

"What? Why didn't you come back all night?" Old Will remembered her husband Joey. Their dilapidated house had a load-bearing pillar that had been eroded by rain for several years. The continuous autumn rain a few days ago finally caused the pillar to fall down. Fortunately, it was a thatched house, so no one was crushed to death by the roof. However, half of the house collapsed and had to be repaired, so the man asked Will to cut a pine tree from the lord's forest to repair the house. The mountains, rivers, lakes, forests and wild lands in the territory, except for the little land owned by the self-cultivating farmers, all belonged to the lord, so to cut a pine tree in the forest, the lord's village manager had to approve it.

The woman's face was filled with anxiety, and the two children were also nervous and at a loss. The adult men in a farmer's family are basically the backbone of the family. If something happens to them, the family will collapse.

Old Will realized the seriousness of the situation: "What are you waiting for? Come with me to find someone. I told him to chop wood in the pine forest outside the village. Where else can he go?"

The woman responded anxiously: "I don't know, he didn't tell me, he borrowed the axe from you early yesterday morning and left."

Old Will was the village manager after all, so he quickly took the farmers to find the hunter's family in the east of the village. Historically, when it came to searching for people in the mountains, hunters were always more useful than ordinary villagers.

There are only more than 20 households in this village, but the houses are not adjacent to each other. They are scattered on the hillsides of three low hills.

Old Will led the farmer's family of three through the flat fields and finally came to the hunter's family at the edge of the east of the village. But at this time, Old Will could only see the hunter's daughter drying corn. Old Will hurriedly asked: "Mo'er, your grandfather is not here?"

"Grandpa Will, my grandpa and brother went hunting in the mountains. They have been gone for three days. They said they will go longer this time. Grandpa found a herd of deer." The hunter's daughter was twelve or thirteen years old, and her face was a little more rosy than that of ordinary people. She seemed to feel that she had said something wrong, and hurriedly explained, "It's not a herd of deer in the lord's territory. We found it in the ownerless wilderness deep in the mountains."

"I know your grandfather's ability. Alas, no." Old Will organized his words. "Did you go with these two kids to find their father yesterday?"

"Yes, we didn't find him. It was getting dark, so we went back." The girl asked, "Why, didn't Uncle Joey come back last night?"

"No," said old Will. "Oh, something must have happened to him."

"Well, Moer, take these two kids to my house to find Charlie, the mother of little Weisses, and ask her to go to the lord to find Will and tell the lord that villagers in the village are missing." The name of the old Will family has been passed down from generation to generation. His name comes from his grandfather. His father is Wilson, and he has a son named Wilson. This is not a single-line family, but many descendants die young. If they get sick or encounter a winter, the children basically can't survive. It was not until the tenth long summer that the Will family expanded and had two grandsons, one named Will and the other named Weisses.

Like all the steward families of the lord, Will's son Wilson was conscripted into the army and died for the lord. The castle is now short of guards, so his eldest grandson, twelve-year-old Will, was recruited to guard the castle. He was trained by the coach of the lord's castle to use a sword and will fight for the lord in the future. His little grandson Wess is the only boy who may inherit the mantle of the village steward of the old Lord Will. Although he is only nine years old, his mother dotes on this boy.

When the hunter's daughter, Mo'er, heard the name of little Will, she blushed slightly, then said "OK", put down the work in her hands, took the two children from Mrs. Joey, and went to the house of old Will.

Old Will took Joey's wife out of the village along the road into the mountains to look for the missing villagers in the pine forest.

The village was peaceful, and no one realized what this disappearance meant. The hunter's daughter, Moer, led the two half-grown children of Joey's family to the housekeeper's house. All she could think about was whether they could go to the castle together. She hadn't seen little Will for a long time. The boy said he wanted to marry her before going to the castle, but she didn't know if he would keep his word.

When she heard the horn, Moer had just walked through the path between the fields with her two children and came out from among the corn stalks.

This strange sound of the trumpet was a sound they had never heard before. They didn't know what it represented, so they just raised their heads and listened carefully in the fields.

When the second horn sounded, the hunter's daughter habitually found a high place on the ground and looked up in the direction of the sound.

She saw from afar a group of people appearing on the mountain road leading into the village.

From a distance, she saw some villagers working in the fields trying to run, but the running figures suddenly fell down. Just like when she occasionally went hunting with her grandfather in the mountains, she would watch the old man draw his bow to the full length, and from a distance, as the arrows shot out, the running hares and deer would fall to the ground.

It's an arrow!

The hunter's daughter realized that the fallen villager was shot down by an arrow.

Is he a robber?

She was frightened. In a remote village like Cape Marseille, the appearance of robbers was almost unimaginable. Moer had only heard about what robbers would do from her grandfather's stories. They would rob, kill, plunder food, steal livestock, and even women.
"No, we have to go call Aunt Charlie!" The hunter's daughter remembered her grandfather's teachings. If robbers appeared, she had to run to the castle and hide in the castle. Although the castle was far away, three or four miles away, she had to run to the castle to survive. She was very close to old Will's house. She started to run with the two children, shouting, "There are robbers! Aunt Charlie, there are robbers!"

With a whoosh, the hunter's daughter heard something flying towards her.

There was a sudden sharp pain in her leg.

"what!"

She screamed and looked back. A feather arrow was completely embedded in her thigh and scarlet blood was flowing out of the wound.

It hurts!

"Woowa!" The two children following behind her were obviously frightened and burst into tears.

Moer wanted them to stop crying, so she ran towards the castle.

But the severe pain in her thigh brought fear, and she could only whimper. She found that she had burst into tears without knowing when, and could not organize any words.

She heard a whistle, then shouting. A rude voice said, "Two children, one of them is a girl. Damn it, I hate children. Drive them to the church and kill them if they don't obey."

Fear coiled around her like a snake.

Two tall figures dressed in black leather and masks gradually approached. One of them took off the longbow in his hand, drew the dagger at his waist, and gave orders: "Children, if you understand, get up quickly and gather at the village sanctuary."

"Wow!" The two children were so frightened that they couldn't stop crying.

One of them said, "Fuck it, the monks in my hometown temple said killing children is a sin, so you should do it." "This kind of thing should be left to the 'dogs'. Damn, they are good at this." One of them came forward, grabbed the girl who was shot through the thigh, dragged her up, and slapped her hard, "Tsk, get up if you can still move, take your two brothers to the temple, or I will chop off your heads!"

The slap made the girl dizzy and she was completely at a loss.

"Go over there!" Another one stepped forward and kicked her in one direction, followed by two crying children who were also kicked. "Shut up! Go!"

The child was still crying, and the tall man came up and slapped him twice: "Still crying!"

Finally, out of fear, they moved numbly.

The hunter's daughter felt cold all over. She limped along in pain from her injured thigh as she was driven away. Her head felt heavy.

The two "robbers" drove them to the middle of the village road like a flock of sheep.

Moer found more villagers. She saw Aunt Charlie, whom Old Will had asked her to find. She was covered in mud and hugged little Weisses tightly. She walked towards the church in silence and shivering. She saw an old man with a pitchfork lying on his back in a pool of blood by the road. The smell of blood came from there. She didn't see his face, so she wasn't sure who he was. There were more old people, women and children who were searched out from house to house and pushed and driven to the church. If they cried out, they would be beaten.

When she arrived at the temple, Moer realized that these people were not bandits, but soldiers.

They flew a great banner in the sept, a flaming heart with a crowned stag in the middle. Any villager who had been to the castle would have recognized it, for it was the banner of King Stannis, so far away from them.

A man who looked like an officer was giving orders in the church square of the small village. Corn had been dried in the morning on the square, but it was now trampled into a pulp, mixed with mud and scarlet blood.

There were only twenty soldiers coming to this village. They were all wearing light leather protective gear that was convenient for movement, with longbows and quivers on their backs, swords hanging from their waists, and a dagger hanging on their hips. They were all tall and had cold eyes.

The villagers were gathered and driven into the church, where they sat as if they were attending a worship service. After completing a wave of expulsion, the soldiers continued to return to the village, patrolling between the houses to ensure that no one was hiding in the fields, haystacks or piles of rocks.

There were only a few soldiers guarding the sanctuary, and no one spoke to the villagers, and no one was allowed to make a sound.

The monk in the church was dead, with an arrow in his chest, his body stained red with blood. He was a skinny old man, his body lying on the steps leading to the small bell tower. He might have wanted to ring the bell to warn people, but he was killed by an arrow shot by an archer in the distance.

Moer squeezed among the villagers and could easily see that everyone's face was pale and full of fear. There was still an arrow stuck in her leg, and the pain made her fall on the seat of the church. She accidentally saw the distorted face of the stranger in the church, and her heart was cold and she couldn't help but feel terrified.

An old woman tried to hold her leg to stop the bleeding, but a soldier glared at the old woman and she dared not move.

A faint rustling sound began to be heard outside the church, and soon another group of the elderly, the weak, women and children were driven into the church, their heads and bodies covered with grass stems.

After an unknown amount of time, a man who looked like an officer walked into the church. He was holding an autumn apple in one hand and walking to the platform where the monks were preaching while eating it.

The officer stood still on the stage and threw the half-eaten apple aside. The apple shattered on the chest of the Virgin Mary, leaving a glaring stain.

The officer spoke loudly, "House Marseilles betrayed King Stannis. This is the punishment the king imposes on your lords!"

"We are Stannis's agents, ordered to burn the traitor's castle and kill the people in the traitor's territory," he concluded. "We must reduce Stonedance to a wasteland of ashes and bones, with only carrion crows to stay. Then the whole kingdom will know the fate of traitors! Blame your lords. Treason is a great crime." Finally, he said, "Light the fire."

After saying this, he walked out of the church.

Soon, the soldiers guarding the temple left.

Finally, the villagers lost control and shouted: "They are going to burn us to death!"

"It's burned down, outside, in the village, they killed my cow and my house."

"fire!"

As thick smoke entered the church through the door and windows, screams, cries, and curses echoed throughout the church.

Someone was screaming: "Fight them!"

Moer looked up and saw the distorted faces of the Seven Gods of the Temple Stranger in her sight. She found herself extremely frightened and her vision was blurred.

Suddenly, someone shouted, "There's no one outside, they've left, come out quickly, come out quickly!"

Before she passed out, Moer felt the old woman pulling her heavy body. Her vision moved with her body and she saw the chest of the Virgin Mary statue stained by the broken apple. Looking up, the Virgin Mary's compassionate face was looking at her with sympathy.

-

Not only Three Hills Village, but also the villages and towns outside the Stonedance Castle of Stoneyon Castle were attacked by the scattered "Stannis" army at the same time that morning. All the villages and towns were on fire, and a group of Stannis's troops even got close to the castle and almost broke into it.

Fortunately, the patrolling guards discovered it in time and raised the castle's iron gate at the critical moment.

Otherwise, with only one coach, a bachelor, a few guards, and a group of guards and servants who are still in training at the age of thirteen or fourteen, I really don't know how the castle can be defended.

Fortunately, the maester sent out a raven immediately. Seeing the raven carrying the letter for help flying to Dragonstone, the Marseilles breathed a sigh of relief.

Their only hope was that His Majesty the King would come on a dragon to support them.

This is Tywin's usual trick.

Back in the riverlands, he used this trick to lure Edmure out of Riverrun and disperse the troops in the riverlands.

This time, because the leader was actually Kevan, the way these people slaughtered the villagers was not cruel enough, and they deliberately left them alive to point Dragonstone to Stannis. In Kevan's view, he might have been kind enough because he gave the villagers who did not resist a chance to escape.

But in fact, they burned down the villagers’ houses. If the food in the villagers’ cellars could not be preserved, they would be as good as dead.

When Gregor Clegane led the westerland raiders on Tywin's orders to wreak havoc in the riverlands, all the residents of the villages and towns along the way were brutally killed. Women were raped and hanged on trees, and no one was spared, from the elderly to children, and even babies.

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(End of this chapter)