Interception

Not long ago, when reinforcements from the Weber family arrived, Joel received a raven from the Loran family, learning that the combined forces of the Loran and Oakheart families had defeated the bandits in the Red Lake Forest. As Joel had suspected, the bandits were now heading towards Fort Steadfast, apparently intending to use the smuggler's tunnels to hide in the mountainous outskirts near Cornfield City.

It was unclear whether the Loran and Oakheart families had intentionally left the bandits merely routed with few casualties, thus allowing their main forces to remain intact. This undoubtedly put immense pressure on Joel's army. Therefore, the raven explicitly instructed Joel to focus on interception, delaying the bandits near Fort Steadfast until reinforcements arrived to besiege them.

However, the Loran family apparently did not anticipate that the Weber family would support Joel with all their forces in order to clear suspicion from themselves. This provided Joel with sufficient manpower to deploy, changing his initial plans. Instead of ambushing in the forest, he chose a narrow valley, through which the bandits would have to retreat, as the battlefield to directly engage and eliminate the bandits.

"You lead ten men to hold the Horn Cliff and set up a signal bonfire. If any bandits pass through there, ignite the fire and try to delay them until we arrive to support," Joel instructed Lind, pointing to a clearly marked horn symbol on a makeshift map in the Great Hall of Fort Steadfast.

Upon hearing this, Lind frowned. He had previously explored the terrain and passed by Horn Cliff. It was a key passage to the smuggler's tunnels, the only route to reach the cliffside plank road amidst the cliffs.

Although Horn Cliff was a suitable location for ambush and interception, it was located far behind the battlefield. Unless there were unexpected developments on the front lines, hardly any bandits would be able to flee there. No bandits meant Lind couldn't establish any merits, which naturally made him dissatisfied.

However, in this situation, he couldn't oppose Joel's decision and could only suggest his own opinions. "I've surveyed the terrain there, and it's not particularly difficult to defend. There's no need to assign men to me, especially since those men aren't very capable, and we haven't cooperated before. They'll just be a burden to me if we encounter enemies. I can defend it alone."

Upon hearing Lind's words, everyone around, including the Weber family knights, was stunned. Their gazes all fell on Lind, their faces showing surprise. They had only heard of people disliking their subordinates for having too few, but it was the first time they had heard of someone rejecting their subordinates' requests like this.

While Joel's knights and attendants thought Lind was an arrogant and crazy fellow, the Weber family knights were curious about Lind's background.

In fact, the Weber family had been curious about Lind since he was summoned by Joel for the pre-war military meeting. After all, the entire Great Hall was filled with knights, lords, and attendants, and Lind was the only one dressed as a commoner, which naturally aroused suspicion among everyone.

Facing Lind's suggestion, Joel showed no unusual expression. He just gave Lind a cold look and said in a low voice, "What makes you think you alone can hold off fleeing bandits?"

Lind calmly replied, "I'm a hunter, skilled in setting traps. I believe those fleeing bandits won't be harder to deal with than mountain bears."

Joel stared at Lind for a moment, said nothing more, nodded, and agreed to Lind's suggestion.

Now that he knew his task, Lind felt there was no need to stay in the Great Hall any longer and was about to leave.

At this moment, Ael Morrison, whom he had previously knocked unconscious, suddenly stood up and said, "Lord Joel, although I believe in this hunter's ability, he is only one person after all. If any bandits escape from where he's defending, then we won't be able to completely besiege those remnants of the Long family. If others find out, they'll think we deliberately sent one person to defend such an important place just to let the remnants of the Long family go, and that may cause us some trouble."

Joel glanced at his attendant, his lips curling into a slight smile, then turned to Lind and said, "If anyone escapes from where you're defending, you will be wanted as an accomplice of the bandits. Are you still planning to defend Horn Cliff alone?"

The onlookers expected Lind to change his mind, but he remained calm, nodded slightly at Joel with a smile, said nothing, and walked out of the Great Hall.

"Stop right there, you haven't..." Ael Morrison didn't understand Lind's intentions and wanted to call him back.

"That's enough! The matter is settled. Instead of focusing on such trivial matters, you should concentrate on the upcoming battle," Joel reprimanded, sweeping his gaze over his attendants, and shouted, "Your families sent you to me to gain merits and stand out, not to end up as corpses sent back to your families. So, all of you, take this seriously. This is war, not your lords' autumn hunts, understand?"

Joel's blunt scolding of his attendants in front of the Weber family made the atmosphere in the hall instantly serious. No one spoke, and not only did the reprimanded knights and attendants feel ashamed, but even the Weber family knights felt embarrassed.

Fortunately, Joel quickly shifted the topic back to fortifying the battlefield, easing the tense atmosphere in the hall.

Although everyone seemed to be focusing on Joel's orders, many, especially those from the Weber family, were still curious about Lind's identity and planned to inquire about it later.

Meanwhile, Lind had already arrived at the logistics team's leatherworking workshop. When the leatherworker who had previously obeyed the attendant's orders to give him a hard time saw Lind approaching, he quickly stood up from his stool and handed over the modified leather armor that Lind had requested.

"This set of armor has been modified according to your instructions. Try it on and see if there's anything else that needs improvement," the leatherworker said respectfully, bending his waist much more than before.

Lind took the armor and inspected it. Apart from adjusting the size as per his request, the leatherworker had also added some thin iron plates to increase its defense. Lind tried it on and found that the iron plates didn't hinder his movements. When he tightened the upper and lower straps, the edges of the thin iron plates overlapped, reducing the gaps and effectively increasing the defense.

"Well done, very well done!" Lind nodded in satisfaction and handed two silver deer coins to the leatherworker. "You did a good job. Take this as a reward."

The leatherworker hurriedly accepted the silver coins, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

Lind then asked, "I need some ropes. Do you have any here?"

The leatherworker asked, "Sir, how thick do you need the ropes to be?"

Lind gestured the thickness and length.

The leatherworker immediately turned around and fetched several bundles of hemp ropes used for tying prisoners. "Will these be suitable?" he asked.

"Perfect, thank you," Lind replied, taking the ropes and giving another silver deer coin.

The leatherworker shook his head hurriedly. "No need, no need! These are normal consumables. You don't need to pay."

Lind didn't insist and put the silver deer coin back into his pocket. He then slung the ropes over his shoulder and quickly left the castle.

Once outside the castle, Lind hurried towards Horn Cliff. From the information revealed by Joel during the meeting, it was clear that the bandits fleeing from the Red Lake Forest would likely arrive near Fort Steadfast by early tomorrow morning at the latest. This meant he had only one night to set up traps.

Nighttime travel was challenging, and even though Lind had inherited the hunting experience and skills of his predecessor, his speed was still much slower than during the day. It took him nearly twice as long to reach Horn Cliff.

Upon arriving, he didn't rest but immediately began setting up various traps in the surrounding area. Fortunately, he had considered the possibility of marauding bandits passing through here during the day, marked suitable locations for traps in advance, and even collected materials for setting traps while moving around the area. This meant he didn't need to do anything extra, just follow the planned setup from earlier in the day.

Because he was working alone, Lind worked until midnight to set up all the traps, even dealing with a lone wolf that tried to ambush him along the way.

However, there was a small mishap while handling the wolf carcass. The scent of blood attracted some carnivores, but Lind managed to throw the carcass far enough away to prevent these animals from destroying the traps in the forest.

The fact that Lind's predecessor could hunt bears with traps alone already indicated the formidable power of his traps. In setting up these traps, Lind also incorporated some jungle trap methods he had seen on television in his previous life. This not only strengthened the effectiveness of these traps but also made them virtually indefensible.

Though using traps to deal with enemies might seem dishonorable compared to winning battles on the front lines, for Lind at the moment, gaining merits was the most important. As for reputation, he didn't need to consider it for the time being.

His reputation as a bear hunter and a master swordsman had already brought him significant fame, perhaps even more than his current status could handle. Excessive fame would inevitably attract unnecessary trouble, as evidenced by Ael Morrison's behavior towards him, which was likely prompted by his fame.

Therefore, he needed to do something to suppress his inflated fame, and using traps to kill enemies was the method available to him now.

However, all of this depended on whether the fleeing bandits would take this smuggling route. Lind couldn't predict this, and it was likely that Joel didn't know either.

Joel's arrangement of Lind in the rear was probably to give an explanation to his attendants. After all, his attendants had been knocked unconscious in public. Without an explanation, their respective families might raise objections.

Over the past few days, Lind had come to realize that these six people, rather than being Joel's attendants, were temporarily planted by some noble families around Joel to gain merits during this so-called "Dragon Clan remnants" siege.

Under normal circumstances, a knight and his attendant were one-on-one. In some special cases, there might be two or three attendants, such as the fearless Balistan, who once had three attendants at the same time. However, having six attendants like Joel was almost unheard of.

Although Joel had a considerable reputation and was known as the River Bay's Twin Swords alongside Fotimo Cline, being acclaimed as a master swordsman by the fearless Balistan, his fame was limited to the River Bay area and its surroundings. Moreover, due to his status as a bastard, his position was not very high. It would be considered arrogant even if he had half the number of attendants, let alone six.

Joel, with his displayed wisdom, couldn't have failed to see the drawbacks, yet he still chose to accept the six attendants, indicating that he could only passively accept the situation in this matter.

Additionally, judging from Ael Morrison's skills, Lind could tell that the six attendants themselves were very ordinary in strength, not even comparable to low-level veterans. At best, they had some basic swordsmanship skills. The presence of such strength by Joel's side, on the battlefield, was very strange.

However, Lind didn't pay much attention to these matters. How others were didn't matter to him. What mattered was whether he could seize the opportunity.

After setting up the traps, he found a secluded place to ambush and built a bonfire using some damp branches he found, along with some plant fibers and dry firewood as tinder. Then, he sat down and waited for time to pass.

During this time, he also pondered whether he could gain merits in this joint operation against the bandits by the three lord families. In his view, although he was assigned to the rear and away from the battlefield, there was still a possibility of gaining merits.

If he was lucky and some escapees fled from the battlefield ahead, then most likely, these escapees would be important figures among the bandits. Only important figures would know about this smuggling route and have the strength to escape from the siege.

In that case, even if he didn't fight on the front lines, he could still achieve significant merits.

As Lind pondered, time passed slowly. Apart from the sounds of animals moving and the rustling of the wind through the trees, there was no other noise around him.

Lind didn't try to fight off the drowsiness but instead regulated himself to short periods of shallow sleep, allowing him to maintain a clear mind.

Whether it was luck or misfortune, as the sky began to lighten towards dawn, the area around the Sheep Horn Cliff was shrouded in mist. With a cold mountain wind blowing down from the northern slopes, the mist turned into drizzle, sprinkling the forest below. The dense rain and mist limited the visibility for ordinary people.

However, Lind's vision could still penetrate the rain and mist, allowing him to see the rising black smoke in the distance, indicating that the battle ahead had already begun.