Not long ago, when House Webber's reinforcements arrived, Joel received a raven from House Rowan, learning that the combined forces of House Rowan and the Oakheart Family had already routed the bandits in Red Lake Forest. The bandits, as Joel had guessed, were now moving towards Steadfast Hold, seemingly intending to use a secret smuggling passage to hide in the mountains on the outskirts of Corn City.
It's unclear if it was intentional on the part of House Rowan and the Oakheart Family, but the bandits were only routed, not suffering heavy casualties. Their main fighting strength remained largely intact, which would undoubtedly put immense pressure on Joel's army. Therefore, the raven also specified that Joel should focus on interception, keeping these bandits bogged down near Steadfast Hold until their arrival for a full encirclement and annihilation.
However, House Rowan apparently hadn't anticipated that House Webber would bring all its forces to support Joel in order to clear themselves of suspicion. This gave Joel enough troops to deploy, changing his initial plan. He no longer intended to ambush them in the forest but chose a small valley, a necessary route for the bandits' retreat, as the battlefield, intending to eliminate them in a frontal assault.
"You will lead ten men and guard Ram's Horn Cliff. Set up a signal bonfire. If any bandits pass through here, light the bonfire and try to delay them until we arrive with support," Joel instructed Linde in the council hall of Steadfast Hold, pointing to a prominent ram's horn mark on a simple map.
Upon hearing this, Linde frowned. He had passed Ram's Horn Cliff when he surveyed the terrain earlier. It was indeed the only way to the secret smuggling passage; one had to pass through Ram's Horn Cliff to reach the mountain path amidst the sheer cliffs.
Although Ram's Horn Cliff was a suitable location for an ambush and interception, it was located far behind the main battlefield. As long as there were no unforeseen circumstances on the front lines, almost no bandits would be able to escape there. No bandits also meant he couldn't earn any merits, which naturally displeased him.
However, in this situation, he couldn't openly oppose Joel's decision. He could only offer a small suggestion, saying, "I've surveyed the terrain there; it's not particularly difficult to defend. There's no need to assign men to me. Besides, those men aren't particularly strong themselves and haven't coordinated with me before. They'd become a burden if we encountered enemies. I can defend it alone."
Hearing Linde's words, everyone present was stunned, including the knights of House Webber. All eyes fell on Linde, their faces filled with surprise. They had only heard of people complaining about having too few subordinates; this was the first time they'd heard someone refuse subordinates.
Joel's knight squires merely thought Linde was arrogant and crazy, while the knights of House Webber were very curious about Linde's background.
In fact, when Linde was summoned by Joel for the pre-battle military meeting, House Webber was already curious about him. After all, everyone in the council hall was either a knight or a squire, except for Linde, who was dressed as a commoner, which naturally aroused everyone's suspicion.
Facing Linde's suggestion, Joel showed no unusual expression. He merely looked at Linde coldly and said in a deep voice, "What makes you think you can stop fleeing bandits by yourself?"
Linde calmly replied, "I am a hunter. I know how to set traps. I don't think those fleeing bandits will be more difficult to deal with than a mountain bear."
Joel watched Linde for a moment, said nothing more, nodded, and agreed to Linde's suggestion.
Now that he knew his task, Linde felt there was no need to stay in the council hall and was about to turn and leave.
At this moment, Aier Morrison, whom he had previously knocked out with a punch, suddenly stood up and said, "Lord Joel, although I trust this hunter's ability, he is only one person. If any bandits escape from the area he is defending, then we won't be able to completely encircle and annihilate those remnants of the Dragon Family. If others find out, they will think we intentionally sent one person to defend such an important place to let the Dragon Family remnants escape, which could bring us considerable trouble."
Joel glanced at his squire, a slight smile playing on his lips, then turned to Linde and said, "If anyone escapes from the area you are defending, you will be wanted as an accomplice to the bandits. Do you still plan to defend Ram's Horn Cliff alone?"
Everyone thought Linde would change his mind, but Linde remained calm, smiling and nodding at Joel without saying a word, then walked out of the council hall.
"Stop, you haven't…" Aier Morrison didn't understand Linde's meaning and tried to call out to him.
"Enough! This matter is decided. Instead of focusing your thoughts on such boring people and matters, you should put all your attention on the upcoming battle," Joel reprimanded him, then his gaze swept over his knight squires, shouting, "Your families sent you to me because they want you to earn merits and make a name for yourselves. I don't want to see you end up as corpses sent back to your respective families. So, each and every one of you, pay attention! This is war, not your lords' and ladies' autumn hunt, understand?"
Joel's act of unceremoniously scolding his squires in front of House Webber instantly made the atmosphere in the hall serious. Everyone was silent, and not only were the reprimanded knight squires feeling ashamed and angry, but even the knights of House Webber felt awkward.
Fortunately, Joel quickly shifted the topic back to battlefield deployment, easing the tense atmosphere in the hall.
Although everyone seemed to be focusing on the orders Joel was issuing, many people, especially those from House Webber, were still curious about Linde's identity and planned to inquire about it with Joel's squires later.
At this time, Linde had already arrived at the quartermaster's leatherworker's workshop. The leatherworker, who had previously followed the knight squire's orders to make things difficult for him, quickly stood up from his stool when he saw Linde arrive, then took out the modified leather armor from a nearby shelf.
"This set of leather armor has been modified according to your instructions. Please try it on and see if there's anything else that needs improvement," the leatherworker said respectfully, bowing, with a much better attitude than before.
Linde took the leather armor and examined it. He found that in addition to adjusting the size according to his request, the leatherworker had also added some thin iron plates to increase its defense. Linde put it on and tried it. He found that these thin iron plates did not interfere with his movements. If the upper and lower straps were tightened, the edges of the thin iron plates would overlap, reducing the gaps and indirectly increasing the defense.
"Good, very good!" Linde nodded with satisfaction, then took out two silver stags and tossed them into the leatherworker's hand. "You did a good job. This is your reward."
The leatherworker quickly took the silver stags, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
Linde then asked, "I need some rope. Do you have any here?"
The leatherworker asked, "My lord, how thick of a rope do you need?"
Linde gestured the thickness and length.
The leatherworker immediately turned and took out several bundles of hemp rope used to tie prisoners from inside the room, asking, "Are these suitable?"
"Yes, very good," Linde took the hemp rope, tugged on it, nodded with satisfaction, and then took out another silver stag to hand over.
The leatherworker quickly shook his head and said, "No, no! These are normal supplies; you don't need to pay."
Linde didn't insist. After putting the silver stag back into his pocket, he hoisted the ropes onto his shoulder and quickly walked out of the castle.
After leaving the castle, Linde quickly headed towards Ram's Horn Cliff. From the information Joel revealed in the meeting, it was not difficult to deduce that the bandits who escaped from Red Lake Forest would likely arrive near Steadfast Hold by tomorrow morning at the earliest. This meant he only had one night to set up his traps.
The path at night was not easy to traverse. Even though Linde had inherited his predecessor's hunter experience and abilities, his speed was still significantly slower than during the day, taking nearly twice as long to reach Ram's Horn Cliff.
Upon arriving, he didn't rest but immediately began setting up various traps around the Ram's Horn Cliff area. Fortunately, when he surveyed the area during the day, he had considered the possibility of roaming bandits passing through here. He had marked suitable trap locations beforehand and, while moving around nearby, had also collected materials for setting traps. This meant he didn't need to do any extra work; he just needed to set them up as planned during the day.
Because he was working alone, he continued until midnight, only then finishing setting up all the traps. Along the way, he also dealt with a lone wolf that tried to ambush him.
However, there was a small incident while dealing with the wolf's carcass: the smell of blood attracted some carnivores. Fortunately, he threw the carcass far enough away that these carnivores didn't damage the traps in the forest.
Linde's predecessor's ability to hunt a mountain bear with traps alone indicated the extreme power of his traps. When setting up the traps here, he also incorporated some jungle trap methods used by armies that he had seen on television in his previous life. This not only significantly increased the traps' power but also made them impossible to guard against.
Although using traps to deal with enemies might seem somewhat dishonorable compared to achieving victory by killing enemies on the front lines, for Linde now, earning merits was the most important thing. As for his reputation, he didn't need to consider it for the time being.
Because Bear Hunter and Dual Sword Master had already brought him enough fame, even exceeding the scope his current status could bear. Excessive fame would inevitably attract unnecessary trouble, just like Aier Morrison's attempt to bother him this time, which was likely caused by his reputation.
Therefore, he now needed to do something to curb his overly inflated reputation, and using traps to kill enemies was the method he could use now.
However, all of this depended on whether any bandits escaping the battlefield would take this smuggling route. Linde couldn't predict this, and apparently, Joel probably didn't know either.
Joel's arrangement of Linde in the rear was likely to give his knight squires an explanation. After all, his knight squires were knocked unconscious in plain sight, and not providing an explanation would more or less cause dissent from the families behind these six knight squires.
In the past few days, Linde had clearly seen that those six were less Joel's knight squires and more temporarily placed by some noble families beside Joel, with the purpose of seizing this opportunity to gain merits during the encirclement of the so-called "Dragon Family remnants."
Under normal circumstances, knights and knight squires are one-on-one. In some special cases, there might be two or three knight squires, for example, Barristan the Bold once had three knight squires at the same time, but having six knight squires like Joel is almost unheard of.
Although Joel has a considerable reputation, being called one of the Dual Swords of The Reach along with Fortimo Klenne, and a sword master praised by Barristan the Bold, his reputation only spread within The Reach and its surrounding areas. Furthermore, due to being a bastard, his status was not very high. Let alone having six knight squires, even halving it to three knight squires would be considered arrogant and rude.
Given Joel's demonstrated intelligence, he couldn't possibly be unaware of the drawbacks, yet he still chose to accept six knight squires, which undoubtedly indicated that he could only passively accept this matter.
Additionally, from Aier Morrison's skill, it was not difficult to see that the six knight squires themselves were very ordinary in strength, even inferior to low-level veterans. At most, they had mastered some formal swordsmanship. Such strength, yet being brought by Joel to appear on the battlefield, was inherently very strange.
However, Linde didn't dwell on any of this. For him, what others did was not important. What was important was whether he could seize the opportunity.
After setting up the traps, he went to a hidden spot to serve as his ambush point, then found some wet branches to build a bonfire, and gathered some plant velvet and dry kindling. Only then did he sit down and wait for time to pass.
During this time, he also considered whether he could earn merits in this joint operation of the three lord families to encircle the bandits. In his opinion, although he was assigned to the rear, far from the battlefield, there was still a possibility of earning merits.
If he was lucky and a straggler escaped from the front lines, then this straggler would most likely be an important figure among the bandits, because only important figures would know this smuggling route, and only important figures would have enough strength to escape the encirclement.
In this way, even if he wasn't fighting on the front lines, he could still earn considerable merits.
As he pondered, time passed bit by bit. Besides the sounds of animals moving and the wind blowing through the trees, no other sounds could be heard.
Linde did not force himself to stay awake but regularly controlled himself to take short, shallow naps, which allowed him to maintain a clear mind continuously.
It was unclear whether it was good luck or bad luck, but as the sky began to lighten slightly, nearing dawn, the area around Ram's Horn Cliff was enveloped in mist. As a cold mountain wind blew down from the northern slope, the mist turned into a light rain, scattering throughout the forest, and the dense rain and fog also limited the visibility of ordinary people.
However, Linde's vision could still penetrate the rain and fog, allowing him to see the black smoke rising in the distance, indicating that the battle had already begun on the front lines.