"Bane is in for it this time!"
"Embezzlement? Smiling Will, that guy, would he embezzle? I remember he was someone who valued honor above life itself?"
"What do you know? Embezzlement is just an excuse. He's actually caught up in the internal struggles of House Crane."
"Followed the wrong person?"
"No, he followed the right person, but he just didn't know he wasn't as important in that person's heart as he imagined."
"What do you mean?"
"Idiot, he was used as a pawn in a trade!"
Among the crowd watching the excitement outside the tavern, there were many merchants traveling between cities. These people were much better informed than ordinary folk, and their hushed conversations revealed the recent power shifts in Red Lake.
Lynd's somewhat mutated hearing allowed him to easily catch the content of their conversations, thus understanding the reasons for the current situation and judging how he should act.
In fact, even without Bane's instructions, Lynd had already planned to go all out, because he needed Ser Crane to make a name for himself in Red Lake's noble circles.
Thinking of this, Lynd nodded to Bane, indicating that he understood, then without another glance at Ser Crane, he walked to the open space in front of the tavern and said calmly, "Come on!"
Lynd's demeanor and actions clearly surprised everyone around him. They thought Lynd should have shown anger, unwillingness, or perhaps worry and fear.
After all, as an innocent person caught in the internal struggles of House Crane, inexplicably targeted and even forced into an extremely unfair duel, he should have shown some strong emotional fluctuations.
But Lynd remained unusually calm, facing his fully armed opponent as if he were facing an ordinary person, not putting the other party in his eyes at all. This made everyone recall the various rumors about Lynd during this period.
At this moment, the expression on the face of the soldier chosen by Ser Crane also became grave, because the calm Lynd brought him an extremely strong pressure, a pressure like facing some terrifying existence. This made him think of the rumors about Lynd devouring the Bear Hunter.
However, at this moment, like Lynd, he had no retreat and could only brace himself.
So, when a hint of impatience appeared on Ser Crane's face, he took a deep breath, tightened his grip on his sword, and without any warning, charged towards Lynd, simultaneously swinging his sword in a diagonal slash, aiming for Lynd's shoulder and neck.
Watching the attacking sword, Lynd was not flustered at all. He simply took a step forward as if strolling, and tilted his body slightly, easily dodging the slashing longsword. Then he suddenly rushed forward, colliding with the soldier's body.
The soldier was knocked to the ground by Lynd without any resistance. Before he could react, a foot stomped towards his neck. After a sharp pain, he completely lost consciousness.
At this moment, the surroundings fell silent. They still hadn't understood what had just happened. They only saw Lynd take two steps, and the soldier fell, followed by Lynd stomping on the soldier's neck, ending the battle.
Ser Crane saw his man taken down by Lynd, and the expression on his face was difficult to maintain its composure. With a gloomy face, he motioned to another soldier beside him, telling him to replace the previous one and continue fighting Lynd.
That soldier also had a bitter expression. He knew very well that his strength was similar to his companion's. Since his companion was so easily dealt with by the opponent, he absolutely could not defeat the opponent, but he also had no way to escape now, so he could only brace himself and charge forward.
As a result, just like the previous soldier, Lynd easily dealt with that soldier, as effortlessly as casually snapping a roadside weed.
Immediately, murmurs arose from the surroundings. Clearly, Lynd's displayed combat power was excessively strong. Although among the mercenaries of the surrounding caravans, there were also people who could deal with such soldiers, they could absolutely not do it as easily as Lynd. And what was even more terrifying was that after killing two soldiers, Lynd still maintained a calm demeanor, making people feel that he did not regard human life as important at all.
"Bear Hunter, it's the Bear Hunter!" There were many people from Whitegrove in the crowd. Many of them were very familiar with Lynd's past character and behavior, and everything Lynd was displaying now was clearly very different from the Lynd in their memories. This also made them increasingly believe the miraculous rumors about Lynd.
As for Lynd, the person involved, he was not affected by the surrounding gazes and conversations at all. He bent down, picked up the longswords of the two soldiers, casually swung them to get a feel for their weight, and then said to the noble in front of him, "Let the rest come at once!"
Hearing Lynd's words, Ser Crane's face turned extremely ugly. He felt humiliated. Originally, upon seeing Lynd's strength, he had thought of recruiting Lynd into his command, but now he only wanted to get rid of Lynd and erase the humiliation he had suffered.
"You few, go together." Ser Crane roared at the remaining four soldiers.
Although Lynd was the one who suggested they all come at once, Ser Crane's actions still drew disdain from the onlookers. Some subtle but still audible jeers came from the crowd, making Ser Crane feel incredibly embarrassed and increasing his disgust and resentment towards Lynd.
Upon hearing Ser Crane's command, the four soldiers did not immediately advance. Instead, they looked at each other, each took down the round wooden shield strapped to their backs, and then the four cooperated to form the most common shield wall formation, pushing towards Lynd.
Seeing the four soldiers use this combat formation against a single person, the people around felt even more disdain. The jeers that had been hidden were now unleashed, and immediately the open space was filled with all sorts of jeers and insults. Even the people of Whitegrove, who didn't have a good relationship with Lynd, spoke up for him.
However, when Lynd saw the military formation formed by the four, he showed no panic at all. He remained very calm, no different from before.
However, unlike the passive counterattack just now, this time he chose to take the initiative. He charged towards the gap between the shields of the two shield-bearing soldiers in the middle, seemingly intending to break their formation by crashing into them.
This method is also the most common one used by knights to counter multi-person defensive formations, but this method has a prerequisite: the knight must be wearing heavy armor, which can enhance the impact force and also defend against surrounding attacks, ensuring that even if the charge fails, he will not be injured.
But now Lynd was only wearing a thin short shirt. In every way, Lynd's charging behavior looked like he was committing suicide.
And the two soldiers facing Lynd's charge thought the same. They pressed their arms tightly against their shields, trying to resist Lynd's impact. Even if they couldn't stop Lynd, they wanted to slow down Lynd's momentum so that the soldiers on both sides could cooperate in surrounding and attacking Lynd.
The other two soldiers seemed to have guessed their companions' thoughts and also cooperated tacitly, raising their longswords, ready to slash at the position slightly in front of the shields.
However, something that stunned everyone happened. Lynd rushed to the four men, and just as he was about to collide with the shields, his momentum strangely vanished. Then, like a superb dancer, he moved with the steps of a waltz, spinning around and passing in front of the four men's shield wall. Before the four could react, he had circled behind them.
As Lynd's body spun, the twin swords in his hands did not remain idle. Following the rotation of his body, they precisely slashed towards the back of the necks of the four targets.
The rotational force brought by his spinning body, combined with Lynd's inherent arm strength, made it impossible for the four soldiers' necks to withstand such an attack. Three heads were directly severed and flew out, carried by the residual force on the swords, while the remaining head was still connected by a layer of flesh, dangling from the wound.
Blood gushed from the neck wounds like fountains, splattering all around and staining Lynd's clothes red.
The jeers previously directed at Ser Crane and the four soldiers instantly vanished. The surroundings became utterly silent. Everyone stared at Lynd, dumbfounded, only able to hear the sizzling sound of blood oozing.
"Bear Hunter!"
"Bear Hunter!"
...
It's unknown who was the first to shout Lynd's nickname. The silence was instantly broken, and cheers with various accents rose and fell, even the Whitegrove people cheered excitedly, as if they were the ones who had just fought.
Although the battle just now was very short, only a few seconds, ending almost in the blink of an eye, for the people around, this was absolutely the most spectacular battle they had ever seen. In their memory, they seemed to have never seen anyone who could defeat four opponents so quickly and gracefully.
"Don't come near me!" At this moment, Ser Crane no longer cared about noble decorum. The moment Lynd, covered in blood, looked at him, he retreated in panic again and again, then said nothing, frantically untying the reins from the hitching post, mounting his horse, and rushing out of the crowd, disappearing at the end of the road outside the village.
Although the people around were disdainful of Ser Crane for abandoning his subordinates' corpses and fleeing, they didn't say much. After all, no matter how bad he was, he was still a member of House Crane, and a titled member at that. No matter how much House Crane declined, it was still the master of Red Lake, not someone these commoners could provoke. A few mocking remarks were already their limit.
"Disperse, everyone disperse!" Bane showed no joy because of Lynd's performance. His face remained extremely serious. After shouting loudly at the crowd twice, he turned and instructed his subordinates in the tavern, saying, "Find that guy Squinty, clean up the bodies, and also strip off their weapons and leather armor and keep them safe. House Crane will likely send someone to collect them."
After speaking, he motioned for Lynd to hand over his weapons to the tavern staff, then led Lynd towards the tavern's backyard.
Although Lynd had left and Bane had signaled everyone to disperse, the onlookers were still not out of their excitement. Some bolder caravan mercenaries even gathered around the corpses, examining the wounds and mimicking Lynd's swordsmanship from earlier, to see if they could perform it.
However, more people were discussing whether House Crane would blame Lynd for this incident, or even send people to arrest and execute him.
Just as everyone was discussing Lynd's subsequent troubles, in the open space in the tavern's backyard, Bane was also talking to Lynd about this matter.
"How did you do that?" Bane asked impatiently after leading Lynd to the backyard.
Lynd looked puzzled and said, "Do what?"
Bane made the movements Lynd had used to execute the four soldiers just now. When Lynd performed them, it was like dancing, but when Bane performed them, he looked like a wobbling wine barrel, particularly comical.
Although Lynd wanted to laugh, he held back and replied, "You told me to go all out."
"Yes, I told you to go all out." Bane nodded, smiling wryly, "But I never expected you to be so powerful and ruthless when you went all out. Although the guards of House Crane are not top-ranked among the lord's guards in The Reach, they are still the regular army of Red Lake. I didn't expect you to take down six of them at once. It seems I underestimated your abilities before. If I had known your actual combat strength was so strong, I wouldn't have gone to that guy Will. I would have just gone to Lord Vortimer, and things wouldn't have turned out like this."
Lynd asked doubtfully, "Old Man, what exactly happened in Red Lake? Why did a noble suddenly come looking for trouble with me today?"
Bane sighed, saying with a hint of apology, "Alas, you were implicated by me. I didn't expect the internal strife of House Crane to happen again, and so coincidentally right after I went to see Will."
Saying that, he told Lynd what he had learned.
It turned out that in the past, House Crane had split into two factions over the issue of alliances.
One side believed that since House Tyrell was the Lord of Highgarden, the Supreme Commander of The Reach, and the Warden of the South, then House Crane should naturally side with House Tyrell.
But the other faction believed that the relationship between House Tyrell and House Crane was distant, and there were no records of ancestral intermarriage. Siding with House Tyrell would not bring them any benefits.
On the contrary, House Florent of Brightwater Keep had a very good relationship with House Crane, with multiple intermarriages, shared bloodlines, and frequent economic and political interactions between the two houses. Moreover, House Florent's strength was not much worse than House Tyrell's, and aligning with House Florent would be more beneficial for the development of House Crane.
However, this internal family division had not escalated before it abruptly ceased due to House Florent and House Tyrell suddenly making peace.
But the divisive trend within House Crane did not diminish because of this; instead, it intensified, finally erupting completely recently.
And the result of this latest eruption was both expected and surprising: the members of House Crane who sided with House Tyrell were utterly defeated. Family power had been completely seized by the members who sided with House Florent, and that Ser Crane from earlier was one of them.