"Head south? Ser Knight, we don't have any boats to cross the river!" Littlefinger remembered that heading south meant crossing the Red Fork, and they didn't even have boats, let alone clothes. Some of them were still bare-chested.
The middle-aged noble on horseback laughed. "Haha, you're lucky, the heavens are looking out for you. When we came by the river, we happened to find a few abandoned fishing boats."
Such a coincidence? Littlefinger and Ramsay exchanged a glance, and Ramsay asked, "May I ask, kind Ser, what is your name?"
The middle-aged knight replied, "You can call me Lord Artis."
Ramsay beamed, "Lord Artis, will there be food in the south?"
Lord Artis raised his voice so loudly that even the slaves squatting on the ground could hear. "Yes! Once you cross the river, head to Stone Hedge. House Bracken has agreed to provide you with clothes, food, and shelter!"
The old man! Littlefinger recognized who he was now.
Ramsay shouted to the slaves around them, "Brothers, Lord Artis isn't here to kill us. He's sending us across the river to the south, where we'll have food, clothes, and shelter. He's a great man! The Brackens are also great people!"
"Great man! Great man!" The slaves cheered as they heard there would be food, clothes, and shelter.
Lord Artis waved his shining longsword. "It's getting late, before it gets dark, you should hurry and cross the river."
"Thank you, Lord Artis! Brothers, let's move out!" Ramsay shouted.
The knights opened a gap in the encirclement, allowing the slaves to leave. The two led the slaves to the banks of the Red Fork, and among the ragtag group behind them, a few knights had changed into torn clothes and mixed in with the crowd.
The Demon Squad reached the riverbank and saw not just a few fishing boats but also several piles of old longswords and spears. Littlefinger and Ramsay had the weapons distributed among them, with over five hundred pieces in total.
"White Demon, what do you make of this?" Ramsay asked, holding one of the swords.
Littlefinger, trimming his beard with a slightly sharper blade, responded, "Those people just now are from the Blackwood family of Raventree Hall. They want us to raid House Bracken."
Ramsay was furious. "These two houses are bitter enemies. Are we just going to be used like this? Sending us to fight the Bracken's knights is like sending us to our deaths!"
"Do you want to die right here, or take your chances crossing the river and possibly dying a few days later?" Littlefinger washed his face with the river water and walked toward the fishing boats.
Ramsay followed him. "You know the Riverlands well. What if we cross the river and don't head south but go east instead?"
Littlefinger shook his head. "No, after crossing, we'll hit the River Road, and there are soldiers patrolling near Riverrun. Heading south... one step at a time."
After crossing the river, the Demon Squad traveled south into the lands of Stone Hedge. When people are hungry, they need food, and these slaves, who had already eaten people before, dared to do so again after two days without food. Whether they would raid was no longer something Littlefinger and Ramsay could control.
Wherever they went, villages were raided, women were raped, and the slaves began killing people and setting fire to houses.
The good days of the Demon Squad didn't last long. Lord Jonos Bracken gathered his knights and personally led the charge to encircle them.
The Demon Squad was no match for them and began fleeing. To the north was the Red Fork, so they had no choice but to head south. They crossed mountains and rivers, avoiding main roads, and bypassed Stonehall before reaching the shores of the Blackwater.
Lord Jonos Bracken captured a few of the Demon Squad's members and, after some heavy interrogation, learned that these people were escaped slaves from the mines of the Westerlands, now led by two branded men known as the Black and White Demons.
Slave trade and use was a serious crime in the Seven Kingdoms. Lord Jonos withdrew his soldiers, taking the prisoners back to Stone Hedge and calculating the damages to his lands.
He then wrote to King Robert in King's Landing and to Edmure Tully, the Lord of the Riverlands, asking both men to punish those involved in the Westerlands and to seek compensation for his losses.
One week later.
Littlefinger and Ramsay lacked knowledge and experience in leading troops, but by this point, they had realized something was wrong. Their group had been surrounded and forced to flee multiple times, yet after arriving here, their numbers seemed to be growing!
Several loyal ex-slaves had already been killed during the pursuit, so the two promoted a few other slaves to lead smaller squads. However, before they could reorganize the group, more trouble struck.
The road from Casterly Rock to King's Landing, known as the Goldroad, was a wide mud path. Slaves on watch in the forests on either side spotted a group of over one hundred Lannister knights and carts. The wheels of the carts left deep tracks in the mud.
Some slaves said the carts carried silver stags, others claimed they carried golden dragons. Greed spread among the slaves' hearts. If they could pull off this heist, their future would be secure.
More and more slaves gathered in the bushes, and no one knew who started it, but Lordless stones were hurled at the Lannister group. The knights tried to protect the carts, losing the advantage of cavalry charge, and soon the two sides clashed. As the shouts and cries of battle echoed, more and more slaves arrived.
The horses pulling the carts were injured and struggled in panic, toppling one of the carts.
"The carts carry golden dragons!"
The shout and the golden coins scattered on the ground completely ignited the bloodlust in the slaves. These slaves, who had eaten human flesh before, would truly become demons for wealth.
After a bloody battle, the Demon Squad emerged victorious. Littlefinger and Ramsay, now with just over two hundred followers, prepared to steal some fishing boats along the river and sail out of the Blackwater.
But now, the Demon Squad began killing each other over the stolen golden dragons. The internal killings grew more brutal, with no mercy and every blow aimed for a fatal strike. The two had completely lost control of the group.
After days of fleeing and slaughtering, Littlefinger and Ramsay were exhausted. By the end, only six followers remained beside them.
"We were played! Hahaha, we were played in circles! Ahahaha!" Littlefinger, feeling on the brink of madness, sat under a large tree and laughed maniacally to the sky.
"Ah! Ah! Ah!" Ramsay, on the other side, snarled, hacking at a tree with his sword to vent his frustration. "Who! Who dares to toy with us like this!"
The six remaining slaves, watching the few golden dragons on the stone before Littlefinger and Ramsay, began thinking about what they might eat tonight.
Seeing this, Ramsay charged over and, in a few swift stabs, killed the remaining six followers. The two sat under the tree, staring in silence at the flowing Blackwater River.
Meanwhile, King's Landing, still waiting for news from the south, was stirring with tension because Robert was furious.
The Demon Squad, composed of slaves, had already caused trouble, and not long after sending an inquiry to Tywin at the small council, another major robbery occurred.
While Robert was handling minor disputes between couples in court, he had sentenced them to death without hesitation. Many officials couldn't understand why Robert was so angry over the Lannister's money being stolen. Was it due to old ties? No one knew what to make of it, and fear spread throughout the court.
The news brought back by the fleeing knights spread quickly. It turned out that the Westerlands shipped large sums of money at this time of year, and it had been happening for several years. Someone had figured out their pattern, which explained why the bandits had targeted them.
Lord Tywin had already issued an announcement to the Seven Kingdoms: The Demon Squad did not come from the Westerlands. The demon brand on the foreheads of the two leaders was proof—they were from the slave city of Yunkai on the Slaver's Bay of the East. This year, the Demon Squad had also stolen 150,000 golden dragons from the Lannister convoy on the Goldroad!
The grand robbery shocked the entire nation, and nobles marveled at the wealth of the Lannister family. The Westerlands issued a bounty: 5,000 golden dragons for the Black Demon and White Demon, and King Robert also issued a bounty of 2,000 golden dragons for each of them.