The next day, after returning to the manor and making some preparations, the team decided to head into the forest, led by the lumberjack Sean, to see where they had found the date tree with a rotten center.
Most people neither understood nor cared about the reason for this order, and showed a very rare obedience and discipline. Even the commander Martin was just a knight. To some extent, this may be better than a simple
Personal force is even more rare.
War horses are indeed not suitable for entering forests without roads, and have little practical value. Only a few pack horses were brought into the team to bear the weight of several pairs of armor and camping equipment. As well as the kerosene requested by Craft, they were carried in mesh bags.
Small jars were assembled, padded with some straw to absorb shock, and hung on the side of the saddle.
Due to weight considerations, the amount carried was destined to not satisfy Kraft, but objective conditions did not allow him to carry more.
Martin felt that there was no need to add more. This was the oil used to burn the fortress gates during the attack. It was so effective that it made people feel unsafe having it around. However, he was still willing to follow the advice of professionals and bring some with him, just in case.
It will also be convenient to arrange a cremation for the orphaned pagan when the time comes.
Having said that, do medical school professors really use kerosene in their professional work?
With this little question in mind, Martin took a break at the lumber camp and followed the guide who brought only simple luggage deep into the forest.
According to Sean, the "quite far" he meant was about two or three days of hiking in the forest. Any further away would make it inconvenient to bring the wood back to the lumber camp. The upper reaches of the river in the forest are not deep enough, and there are too many
There are stone shoals or tree branches hanging down in the water blocking the road. It is impossible to float down the river like the logging camp, so you can only bring it back by manpower.
When they are lucky, they will also bring back some specialties from the forest, such as small animals, berries, wild vegetables, etc., all hidden in the long green curtain, which is much richer than the outer forests that are often disturbed. Only in recent years
This time it seems to be bad luck and the harvest is not as good as in previous years.
It is not easy to move forward in this environment. It is often necessary to use a hand ax to open a path, cut off various familiar or unknown plants, and squeeze out a small amount of space for walking.
The infestation of insects and ants, as well as the leaves that are always wet, make the body feel damp and itchy all the time. Since the route roughly follows the river, no one knows what may be under the seemingly normal leaf litter.
What it looks like, it may be a flat piece of land, or it may be a puddle that will sink the whole leg.
It is not easy to find a large enough open space for camping at night, and it takes a lot of time and energy to clean up, and the irritability continues to brew. At this time, the kerosene carried by the camp provides help in starting a fire in the humidity.
These troubles make those who know the target feel more at ease. No matter what they want to track, it is impossible to move in such a forest without leaving traces. Even a ghost has to leave two footprints.
After more than two days of tossing, Sean finally found the area where he came to log wood last time, using a cross-shaped lightning-strike log with a special image as a signpost.
Indeed, it is only a general area, and it is really impossible to find the tree stumps left last time based on memory.
Fortunately, the space here is a bit wider, and you can have a clearing in the forest to camp without having to worry about cleaning, which is gratifying.
"I remember there seems to be a proverb: Look for a specific tree in the woods." Martin looked around the forest with sparse low vegetation, and it seemed that the sunlight falling above his head was a lot more abundant, and eight out of ten of it was no longer intercepted by the tree crown.
Nine, "It means something impossible."
The thing they saw most these days was probably trees. Faced with this problem, Kraft also felt it was difficult, "I shouldn't expect that Sean to find the location accurately."
"Of course, this is not his fault. It would not be an easy task for anyone else. We can look for it in the near future. At least the vegetation here is not too dense."
"I really don't know when we will find it." Martin shook his head and walked away to check the shoveling progress of his followers and to supervise them not to heat and eat the game they picked up.
Along the way, they encountered some harvests such as berries and wild vegetables, as well as mushrooms, but they were scattered here and there, and they had never seen such obviously abnormal and vigorous growth.
And here, at the base of the tree at my feet, there is a solitary bush of finger-sized brown umbrella with white handle. The color does not look like the kind that could knock people down, but is closer to the traditional image of edible fungi.
It is precisely because of this that Martin must keep an eye on the guys who are in charge of the bonfire to avoid another accident where someone gives him a bunch of roasted white belly slices after not seeing him for a while. Whether it is for safety reasons or psychological rejection, he does not want to do it again.
Associate mushrooms with food.
"I'll walk around, it won't be too far." Kraft walked to a place outside the camp where there were few people. He always felt that he was not in a good condition today. He couldn't breathe well when standing in a crowded place, and he felt like he was standing in a long queue.
Feel.
Empirically, staying away from the crowd at this time should improve the situation, so he refused Kupp's company and leaned alone under a tree that could be seen outside the camp, waving his hand to indicate that he was staying here.
No need to worry.
He pressed the back of his head against the tree trunk for a while. The fresh air of nature did not make him feel better. Instead, the left arm he had just waved seemed to have been strained too much. The soreness radiated around the hard object and swam among the muscles.
When the uneven alternation of hot and cold also appeared in the bone marrow, Kraft realized that this seemed to be something more than just something wrong.
The change in feeling was not obvious, like the sun-warmed slate and the slightly cool metal before dawn, or the numbness and acupuncture sensation that flickered like the snowflake screen of an old TV, using this as a port to input signals to him.
The heavy mind is like being soaked in a very light liquid brewed from gossip. Only when you feel it carefully can you discover its existence.
Kraft left the trunk and took a few steps away from the tree. The strange feeling became less hallucinatory.
As I continued to distance myself, the feeling did not subside and returned to its original level. It seemed that just now it was just a small fluctuation of inaccurate perception.
He simply walked around the camp, and the abnormal and sticky feeling of moisture undulated, like ripples on a swimming pool, and he was always flopping in this pool that he couldn't touch the edge.
"Coop, come here." Kraft waved to the idle retinue, "Are you feeling uncomfortable? Dizziness, drowsiness, something like that."
"Uh... I think it might be a little bit like having water in my ears, but it's not a problem at all. Do you have any instructions?" The servant shook his head, trying to shake out the non-existent water.
"Borrow me an axe."
"Wait a minute." Coop ran back to the camp, quickly borrowed the ax from Sean, and handed it to Craft.
The latter raised his arms and struck the nearest tree trunk with all his strength. The two ax marks sank into the trunk and met at the heart of the tree, cutting off a wedge-shaped piece of wood.
Kraft, however, had no intention of cutting down this tree. After prying out the wood pieces, he immediately switched to another tree and repeated the process more than ten times, circling the camp and returning to the center of the camp with a large handful of waste wood pieces.
"We don't have to look hard to find the tree we chopped down last time."
"You mean...?" Picking up a piece, Martin saw the light-colored patches that had loosened the wood and erased the growth rings.