265 AС
"Hush, hush, hush... just a little more... gotcha."
- A barely audible whistle that broke into the flight of an arrow, which has become habitual for two years of practice, as always was pleasant to hear. But the most enjoyable part, loved by all hunters, is what comes next. Hit sound.
Like an arrow, shot hundreds and thousands of times before, it pierces the soft flesh of its prey. How with this sound the beast that lived unaware of its fate becomes a trophy. So now, by the characteristic dull sound of the tip sticking into the flesh and the rabbit carcass falling on its side, I understand that today's hunt was successful.
Getting up and brushing off the clothes from the clods of earth and rotten leaves stuck to it, I went to see the result.
"I have been hunting with a bow for six months now, but so far every time is like the first for me. This excitement... this excitement... this slight uncertainty about whether today's raid will be successful still haunts me. Although the last time there was a misfire two months ago.
- All these thoughts visited me while I was walking towards the wounded carcass of a rabbit. The arrow went straight into the neck, without damaging the most valuable part of the fur, located on the body, and did not hit the head. After all, it is not a fact that after hitting the skull, the arrow will not slide off the bone and the eared one will not be able to survive and leave, and the arrow will have to be changed or a new one will have to be bought. There were also such precedents.
"My marksmanship is slowly improving. This carcass can be sold for a whole groat, and if the father properly guts it and removes the skin for one star, it will definitely pull.
Taking out the arrow, trying not to break it or damage the tip, because I only had ten of them, I carefully examined my surroundings.
The forest near our farm, like all the lands around Ashmark and the Golden Route, has always been famous for its game. And where there is game, there is also a hunter who can easily become prey. Because of this, without even departing from "civilization" for more than a few kilometers, I had to carefully look into both eyes at everything around.
This habit the old hunter (Peace be upon him) drove into me in the first place. After all, wolves appearing here and ready to dine with a handsome six-year-old boy are not uncommon. After wiping the arrow from blood and animal fat so that it would not rust and serve me as long as possible, I quickly, with a movement honed dozens of times, made an incision on the neck, drained the blood of the rabbit so that it would not deteriorate, and put it in my impromptu "backpack" .
Remembering how much strength and patience it took me to turn a simple grain bag into a kind of hunting bag with pockets for catch, my eye began to twitch.
"No, I liked the process itself, but Aerys's constant jokes will bring anyone to the handle, no matter how old he is."
– Remembering this small ulcer, which is only two years older than this body, a smile crept onto my face involuntarily. On Earth, I was the only child in the family, and I never had brothers or sisters.
Because of this, I always felt sad when I had to see other people who were not deprived of this happiness. And get angry when I saw that many do not appreciate it. And now, realizing that an older brother and two little sisters are waiting for you at home, a smile itself appears on my face.
- It's time to check the snares. – No matter how good a shooter I am for my age, most of the game can only be caught with the help of traps. Yes, simple ones, made on the knee and from several coils of rope, which I learned to make in the first days of my apprenticeship, traps.
Ashford Forest is certainly not as huge as the famous Royal or Wolf Forest, but there are a lot of fearless animals here. All thanks to Tywin Lannister. After he destroyed the Reins and Tarbecks and plundered their lands well, the number of hunters visiting this forest has greatly decreased - it's hard to hunt without a head.
Because of this, the beast has become much larger. So much so that it began to settle on the outskirts of the forest.
So, walking through the virgin, almost untouched forests, gradually collecting today's catch from the snares, I sincerely enjoyed this beautiful and unpolluted air, the warm and bright sun and the almost complete absence of mosquitoes, slowly heading towards the house.
But I still can not fully believe that I was reborn in a new world.
For the first two years, I did nothing. He behaved like a normal baby, except for the fact that he began to talk and walk much earlier than expected. Although I was in no hurry with the latter - I would not want to have crooked legs all my life. Plus, small physical workouts, such as tension and pressure on the muscles. But as soon as they stopped looking after me at the age of two, giving me the opportunity to study everything that was outside the four walls and places where my parents took me, the dam of my patience broke.
You can draw conclusions. I know when a white fluffy animal will come to this land, I know that it is better not to join any side, since these "sides" are dead like flies, and I know that it is best to stay away from the North.
This will not affect my plans much, because when the main events of the canon begin, I will already be over forty years old. Therefore, I will do what I want - travel the world, learn from different people and at the end of my life settle down somewhere, creating my own Paradise.
With these thoughts, I finally made it home. A small but sturdy wooden house, one story high, with several ox bladder windows with wooden shutters, and a chimney made of red mud. Nothing special. I see seven of them every day.
Once inside, I quickly went down to the basement. It was necessary to put the game in the cold so that the father could properly gut it when he came from the fields.
- Today we have five rabbits, two partridges and three quails in the ingredients. All freshly killed and bled. Not bad.
I sang in the tone of a professional chef, carefully plucking the bird. Feathers can then be sold - many things are made from them, such as pillows, plumage for arrows, writing implements and much more.
Of course, it costs mere pennies, but copper pennies turn into copper stars, stars into silver deer, deer into silver moons, and the moons become golden dragons.
Whatever one may say, I am the second son of a poor boundary knight and I will not receive an inheritance. Everything will go to the brother and dowry to the sisters.
After I finished butchering the bird, I went to our barn, which is a small extension to the house, where, together with my father's old mare, two cows and three sheep, bunches of dried medicinal herbs, collected by me during three days of walking through the forest, hung in a separate corner. .
It took a little time to dry and hang the collected herbs, but towards the end I heard the inhabitants return to the house.
- So ... I went hunting in the morning, returned an hour after noon. It took 2 hours to prepare and pluck the birds, and to dry the herbs for another hour. Hmm, so it's already 5 o'clock. Time flies fast. - In such reasoning, that when you are busy time flies faster, I reached the house where my whole family gathered.
"Yes, it's the family."
Alexander Cold is the head of our small family. A boundary knight who retired and settled in the Western Lands. According to his stories, he comes from the mountain clans of the North, who during the next winter went south to work, but never returned.
According to him, he traveled through Westeros for a long time from tournament to tournament, slowly accumulating money and fame before settling in these parts. According to him.
He even had a nickname - the Iceaxe, given to him because of his weapon - a giant two-handed ax, which, according to rumors, he cut an iceberg when he was still in the North. Alexander himself is a tall black-haired man who has just turned thirty-five.
Like any northerner, he has thick black hair that he grows along with a beard, a muscular physique and regular features that I inherited from him.
The second most important person in our family is Cersei, still a young woman who will be in her forties in a couple of months. I was always amazed how my father, who may have a severe male beauty, could marry such a beauty.
Long hair the color of autumn leaves, a pretty oval face, with large green eyes, a small straight nose and soft red lips, constantly folded into a friendly smile.
The recent childbirth did not spoil her figure at all, which remained in the form of an hourglass, making her the first beauty of our settlement, and of all the Western lands, as my father used to say.
Now Cersei carefully held the hands of two little angels - twins born a year ago - Elia and Thea. The two twins were exact copies of each other with their raven hair, brown eyes with a slight hint of green around the edges, and the childish features that all small children have.
And finally, my main thorn. My brother Aerys, of whom I am an exact copy, except for the color of the hair. If a brother from birth has spiky hair the color of fresh coffee, which he has to cut like a hedgehog, then I inherited my father's thick black hair that is slowly growing back.
Otherwise, my brother and I are exact copies of my father in childhood, with his straight nose, high forehead and thick eyebrows. The only thing we have inherited from our mother are bright eyes like emeralds, which, according to the neighbors, even in the dark glow like wild fire.
After all, it has already been said that the body determines consciousness? So here. When I was born, I could not take these people seriously as my own family. It was not possible to consider this bearded man as a father, and this young girl as a mother. But time works wonders. Now I even in my mind called them my parents. There is no need to talk about brother and sisters.
"Let's consider this another wishlist of the old senile that I once was."
Here is our hunter. - Father was the first to notice my presence and gestured to the table, at which the whole family was already sitting. It's supper time. Having quickly sat down in my place and received a stew from yesterday's rabbit, with cabbage, onions and carrots, I began to actively work with a spoon.
What is the catch today?
- Five rabbits and five birds.
- Looking up from the meal and taking a slice of fresh bread, I quickly answered without interrupting the meal. Here, for active conversations while eating and antics at the table, you can get a spoon on your forehead. Aerys once broke this cutlery with this part of the skull when his father did not calculate the strength.
- Well done. - As always, the father praised, who had already eaten for a long time and now looked at us with a smile. He acquired the habit of eating quickly on campaigns and still cannot eradicate it, despite all the promises given to his mother.
There will be a fair in 2 weeks. I will take you with me. We will sell the skins, feathers and meat that you can get. I think for four deer we can sell everything. Useful on the farm.
"Yeah, as if I don't know that you and your mother put them in a separate bag under the stove."
After a moment of silence and thinking about something else, he lowered his gaze to me and Aerys.
- You have already become big enough and now you do not run out of steam after a simple warm-up. I think from tomorrow we will start your training with weapons. The brother's cry of joy after that and the smile that appeared on my face only made him smirk.
For the past 3 years, along with my father and Aerys, I have been doing "warm-up" training, according to which children are trained in mountain clans, designed to prepare them for the harsh life in the snowy mountains.
According to my father, serious preparation begins only at the age of 8, when the motor skills of the hands more or less normalize in the younger generation. But, according to him, my brother and I are quite talented. The brother, despite the constant help of his parents on the farm, where he learns to help and manage the household, was already in good physical shape, sufficient to begin serious physical training.
It's not about me. From the age of three, I began secretly, with all seriousness, to develop my body - light stretching, plank, various variations of squats, push-ups and abs bore fruit. Already, I am the same height as Aerys, which makes him wildly complex and often gets into fights. With me. Also, we must not forget that I have been hunting for 2 years now. Because of this, our family eats meat every day, which has a good effect on the growth of a young organism.
After waiting for my brother to come off my father, I went up and hugged him, saying thank you for everything he does for me. He did the same with his mother, once again praising her cooking. He kissed the tops of his sisters, hugged his brother, who brandished a wooden sword in the corner of the house and imagined himself as Barristan Selmy, fighting the last Blackfire and once again cutting off both his heads.
"Whatever the child amuses himself with," with such thoughts, I myself went into the street. Westeros is still a medieval world and therefore everyone here lives according to the solar cycle. They get up at dawn and fall asleep at sunset. And now it was sunset. I have three more hours before Cersei catches me again and sends me to sleep. This time is best spent practicing archery.
"Whatever the nobles say, about the cowardice and unworthiness of the ability to love one's neighbor from afar, it is very useful for a simple person in surviving in any conditions," I thought, constantly moving from place to place and shooting at targets from different positions, trying to drive into body necessary reflexes.
On Earth, when I was making a homemade bow for my grandson and myself, I read quite a lot about the capabilities of professional archers. Most professionals, on instinct alone, can tell where an arrow will hit just by looking in the direction of the shot for a moment. I'm up to such skills as walking to the moon, but who's stopping you from striving for this? Especially when others, like your mentor, say (whether) that you have a talent ... more like the stubbornness of a ram.
The rest of the time was spent in the company of a bow, training arrows, a constantly bursting bowstring (It's good that a skein of twine for a bowstring cost only 2 pennies, otherwise I won't see money with such expenses) and the feeling of corns on the index and middle fingers is getting rougher and rougher .
It all ended only when Cersei, under the constant grumbling that I had gone to bed so late again, dragged me by the ear into a large bed, where the rest of the family was quietly snuffling.
"So another day is over. Serious training starts tomorrow. You have to try hard. And don't be late for old Chloe's class."