"The lumberyard is almost here, and we can still ride horses on the way here." The old butler rode a manor draft horse ahead, looking back at the team from time to time.
The result of multitasking was that he was slapped on the forehead by a low branch of birch. His face was covered with an ownerless spider web dripping with dew, and it also carried two withered leaves.
"Hey!" He lowered his head, shook off the water droplets that had not yet soaked into his clothes, and lifted away the cobwebs, "Normally no one comes on horseback, so there is no one to clean up these things. Be careful to bump your head later!"
"Pong!"
As soon as he finished speaking, there was a buzzing sound of hitting the metal shell in the team, followed by the sound of branches breaking and falling, and they were soon trampled by horse hooves. Who knew whose helmet directly broke the crossbar blocking the road.
Just as Martin was about to give a warning, a handful of leaves were slapped on his helmet, causing water droplets to drop on his face.
It is really not a good idea to enter on horseback for the sake of speed. This road is probably a trail that loggers have walked all year round. The part that is higher than an adult's head is still in a wild state.
Compared with the relatively "clean" forests in the north, the forests of Westminster show the same complicated and detailed style as the local nobles and buildings, filling the spaces between trees with a large number of shrubs, tall grass, and horizontal branches.
Compared with the rattan curtains they hang, this clear path is more like a slender undersea tunnel passing through the sea of leaves.
Theoretically, their path should be along the river, but they could only occasionally see the dark water under the shadow of the trees that blocked the sky in sparse places, slowly drifting with fallen leaves and driftwood with branches removed.
According to this vegetation density, further into the forest area there are no paths at all. It is purely a daydream to go deep into the forest on horseback, and there is no place for people to show off their riding skills. At most, they can lead a few load-bearing horses to accompany them, carrying equipment, tents and other heavy equipment.
things.
After a journey where they had to keep their heads down, they came to a clearing cut out by the river beach. A few wooden houses and simple fences were all the facilities of this logging camp in the forest.
There are some tree trunks that have just been cut down and have been basically processed in the fence, and the branches have been shortened and piled up, and placed next to the house.
Hearing the sound of horse hooves, several people who were pruning and peeling tree trunks and preparing to go into the water raised their heads and were surprised to see a large group of riders filing out of the forest. The small venue was crowded with people and horses.
One of them, who looked older, came up to the butler. He hesitated to speak when he saw the exaggerated formation. After thinking about it, he realized that he shouldn't be carrying the ax in his hand, so he quickly put it down while holding down the young woodcutter who was looking curiously.
"Sean, these are... the knights from the city." The butler dismounted, climbed over the fence, and called out the other person's name familiarly, "Don't be nervous, I'm not here to come to you. I'll just answer the question truthfully."
Kraft tied up his horse and followed the lumberyard. He happened to hear this conversation and felt a subtle sense of déjà vu emerging, as if he had seen it in some literary and artistic work.
"Have you seen any stranger activities in the woods?" Today, Martin's clothes did not show the "don't be nervous" and "just ask" attitude at all. The full armor on his body brought a great sense of oppression, more like
I came here to find someone to do something about it.
In fact, they did have this consideration. In the worst case scenario, they thought about being attacked just like Diego when they entered the forest, just in time to teach these pagans what professionalism means.
He even guessed that there were pagan outposts in the lumber camp, and wanted to see if he could deceive one or two of them.
But for now, everything is going as normal in the forest along the way. Martin glanced at the few people who were confused with their tools and found no unusual movements on anyone's part. They seemed to be just a group of ordinary loggers.
"I haven't seen it before. Few people in the town come here. We are the only ones who go in." Sean gave a negative answer after only thinking about it for a moment. "What's more, the forest is so big, it's hard to meet people."
superior."
"What about the traces of people passing by? Overwhelming grass, shrubs, remnants of camping." Looking back and forth on several people, Martin hoped that someone could give him some clues, or that they could be clues themselves.
This is not the grove outside the city where Diego died, but a real forest. Paganism may not need to hide in it. If you have no direction and aimlessly search, let alone more than thirty people, three hundred
It won't have any effect if people spread it out.
However, the faces of the lumberjacks only had confusion and fear of violence, and no one could answer his question. Finally, the older Sean stood up and tentatively explained: "We are just a group of tree cutters, not hunters, no
You know these things..."
"What about other abnormal things? For example, mushrooms that grow particularly vigorously."
They probably haven't seen it before, they just kept shaking their heads and passively responded to one unclear question after another.
Kraft listened to several rounds of sterile conversations, walked away with no interest, and took Coop to wander around the lumberyard the size of his yard.
The conditions here are indeed poor. When clearing the site, they did not dig out the tree stumps on the ground, leaving them in place and becoming natural benches or part of the fence. As for the trees themselves, they may have become part of the wooden house.
Except for a small area where dried fruits are spread out, the rest of the place is basically filled with piles of wood to be processed.
Kraft knew and named trees that were famous, namely birch, pine, and the like. Most of them were calf-thick, with a layer of green bark, moss that grew in the damp environment under the tree, and small branches that were not completely pruned.
Judging from the process, it should be that the residual branches are first cut off with a small axe, put into a more regular pile next to it, then peeled and trimmed, and pushed into the river for rafting.
"The quality of this wood is quite good." Kraft patted the burred wood through his gloves. With such abundant resources, construction projects here must be much more convenient, "But these are all
Is it a small tree?"
"All forests within the territory and all animals in the forest, the output belongs to the Duke." The manor steward also came to the wood pile, selected the needed ones and marked them, "But the Duke is very generous and allows the use of
Trees that are more than a hand wide and thicker are still important properties in Westminster."
This chapter is not finished yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "Okay." Kraft understood. It turned out that this was not the duke's property, so it was indeed a good thing from the current perspective. After all, there were many nobles.
In the Sri Lankan version, Grandet was required to pay taxes even when he went into the forest to collect firewood.
He walked towards the river and kicked a cylindrical object under his feet. The object rolled out a few steps and got stuck on a stone on the river beach. It turned out to be a small section of jujube wood. The side looked good and it could be
The materials used to make the wooden structure of the crossbow were somehow abandoned on the ground.
There are many such pieces of discarded wood lying on the ground, discarded randomly everywhere.
"Huh?" Out of curiosity - more out of boredom, Kraft kicked a piece into the air, stood upright on the ground with his feet, and discovered the reason why they were not used.
A light brown spot spreads from the heart of the tree, breaking off the layers of growth rings, occupying almost a quarter of the cross-section.
The wood in the stain is obviously different from other parts. It is softer and cannot bear stress. It seems that some kind of disease has spread from the heart of the tree and corroded the inside. Perhaps the logger thought it was just a small problem at first, but when
They cut off section after section, only to find that not a single part of the entire wood survived.
Kraft knelt down and observed carefully, and found that the light brown color came from the mixture of white and the texture of the wood fiber itself, creating such a color.
Scattered on the ground were several types of wood sections from different trees, all of which were unusable due to such defects and had to be cut into pieces and discarded.
"Where did all this wood come from?"
"Ah? These are useless pieces of wood. Don't look at their special color, but they are actually very loose and useless..." Sean, who was dealing with Martin's various questions, felt like he was being pardoned, and finally he knew something.
.
"No, I asked where it came from!"
Startled by the suddenly raised voice, Sean short-circuited for a few seconds and replied in a low voice, "It was chopped in the woods."
Seeing that Kraft's expression was getting worse, he quickly tried to remember, "The manor wants better wood. We went deeper to look for it. We didn't pick it privately."
"Take us there to see."
"But it's quite far, so we can only walk there."
"Then get ready to go." Kraft took an ax and knocked it down on the upright wooden section. The continuous color-changing strips on the profile ran from the beginning to the end, with fine wire mesh interspersed among them. "I promise you,
