King of The Wall

2021-01-06

Chapter 310 Giant
When the wildling army brought Giant into the land grant through the Wall, out of a Considering the series, Night's Watch placed these big guys outside several dozen li in the northwest corner of Queenscrown, on the edge of the woods by the river... Coincidentally, the location is just a few dozen li in the south of Icescrown City, go there No backtracking, no time wasted.

The subjective initiative of people is so strong that the speed at which the princes of North, eager to save their homes, can be described as astonishing, and they set off on the road shortly after breakfast. It took only half a day for the team to arrive at this small town that did not exist on the map at all, but is now named "Giant's Nest" because of the new guests. Forest.

The snow has not stopped since Robb arrived at Castle Black. It is reasonable to say that this is not a good time for activities, but in fact, I saw this trip coming from the entire group across the distance. The thing to see, or rather the creature - Giant.

The reason is very simple. These big guys don't know how to build a house. No matter what the weather is, they just find a place to take shelter from the wind, and then they just sit on the ground.

The thick fur, bulky body and the thick fat that comes with it, make them not afraid of the cold, even if winter has come, they still live leisurely.

There are not only tall human figures faintly in the woods, but also the screams and silhouettes of the giants' mammoths, and most of the sheep and pigs that the wildlings drove into the Wall have been transformed into the previous winter preparations. Meat products, only the pets and mounts of these Giants, Night's Watch does not and dare not mention the slaughter.

Igor is really good at persuading others, but Giant's wisdom is not high enough to allow people to put facts and reason with him, even more how, the mammoth is a powerful tame creature, There may be other uses in the future.

As the crowd dismounted outside the woods known as Giant's Nest, Igor sent a guide who knew the ancient language to call for them, while the patrol team waited in place.

......

"I heard that Giants all devour raw meat and fowl, drink blood porridge for breakfast, and eat a whole bull in one meal." Because they found their daughter and grandson And Morse Umber, who seemed particularly satisfied, asked casually, "How did you feed them?" "Like most of the legends about them, this is another It's a complete rumor...Giant is a vegetarian, and a complete vegetarian, their teeth and digestive system can't handle meat, they can't eat it if they want. They were placed here because of the water and grass, It is also in a more central position of land grants, which is convenient for various human settlements to deliver vegetables and other food for Giants." Igor opened his mouth to introduce to everyone, "Generally speaking, Giant is a relatively mild creature... Of course, mildness only means that They don't attack for no reason, it doesn't mean it's completely offensive, the reason we stop here and not enter their place is to prevent accidents from happening. There are hundreds of Giants here and we get along with them And soon, if you do something wrong and piss them off, then it's bode ill rather than well."

"You put so many Giants through the Wall, don't you worry about them messing up at all? Come on, is Night's Watch powerless to control?"

"Of course I was worried. When I let Giant pass through, it was always two or three at a time, and I didn't dare to be careless at all, but it took me a while to deal with it, right? After they had a certain understanding, we found out that Giant is not as scary as we imagined." Igor stretched out his hand, and in the woods not far away, a Giant was following the direction where the guide moved towards the crowd: "Everyone Look, Giant, isn't it smaller than you expected?"

A hundred meters away, the guide sent out was returning with a Giant. He is about 1.7 meters tall, and the huge humanoid creature who followed closely from behind is about twice as tall. Comparing the two, the gap is so big that people feel uncomfortable... Even so, most people still have to admit: Giant is much smaller than they thought.

In myths or legends, Giant is probably the kind of "a dozen or even tens of meters tall, who can destroy a castle in one bite, swallow a living person in one bite, is powerful, wild, and even capable of The existence of "fighting with Gods"...but this one who is walking towards them, is nearly 3.5 meters tall - amazing and amazing, but it is only compared with ordinary people, and it can't produce The Wall at first sight. choking impact. It walked slowly, and it didn't produce the effect of the ground shaking in the television drama at all.

Robb looked at the approaching Giant from a distance, made an estimate, and came to the conclusion that only a few elite soldiers armed with long weapons could definitely deal with him.

"It's really not as expected, Giants are all this size?"

"This should only be the newly elected leader of the Giants, the previous one, when attacking Castle Black Killed by Night's Watch." Igor replied: "Like the wolf, the leader of the Giant must be the strongest in the group, and naturally most of them are the tallest, and the rest of the Giants will only be similar to him or smaller, with few exceptions. "

"Um..." Robb nods, "You recruited wildlings to be new people, have you thought about training Giants to work or fight for Night's Watch?"

p>

Sure enough, this is a normal thought. Igor had expected it, nodded: "Of course I thought about it, but there are many problems in it... Well, I will explain it to the adults later." Having walked in front of everyone, under the vigilant gaze of the North noble soldiers, under the one-knee kneels a few meters away, he said in a loud and strong voice like a rolling thunder: "Kneel... to welcome the Lord of North..."

"Wow—" Arya almost screamed with excitement, "I… can I touch him!"

"Don't even think about it." Robb glared at younger sister warningly At one glance, he looked towards Igor: "Didn't you say Giant can't speak Common Tongue?"

"We Church learned a few Common Tongue words." Igor explained that, in fact, the Giant Commander in front of him could only Say this. The oneself was given to the Giants for such a simple mission. According to the translator and guide, it took a lot of effort. "They speak old tongues north of the Wall."

At such a close distance, everyone can finally take a closer look at this creature that used to be heard only in stories: Giant is far from imagination Not only the size of the body, but also its appearance is not the "large human" that everyone imagined before. Their arms were so long that they almost reached their knees, and there was no half a piece of cloth or hide on their bodies, instead they were covered with incredible hair, dense and long, as if they had "long hair" all over their bodies.

Not only is the body different from humans, but the Giant's appearance is also very strange: the head is not resting on the shoulders, but protrudes forward, as if it can never be lifted, it is in two planes with the torso. Their faces are large and flat, with tiny eyes squinting in a line, and horn-like folds in the middle.

It's more like a giant long-haired orangutan than a giant human.

"Well, hello, nice to meet you, King of Giant." Robb said to Giant with a somewhat regressive expression. After the guide translated this sentence to Giant, the big guy stood up again. , stood silently on the side, and also looked at a lot of little people from the south.

"I don't need to translate what I say next." Igor charged towards the guide, before returning to the topic he had just interrupted: "Tame Giant to work or fight for us, sounds wonderful, But there are three problems, which come from Giant's intelligence level, physical fitness and athletic ability, and cost performance."

While pressing the hilt of their swords and staring at the sample in front of them, everyone silently listened to Night's Watch the explanation of the officer.

"The first point, everyone should see it: Giants do not have human-level intelligence. They neither build houses nor wear clothes. Except for some simple physical work, it is difficult for them to accept too much.

Overcomplicated orders and missions. When they are quiet, they seem to be able to think and communicate just like us, but when they get angry or lose their minds, they are completely beasts."

"They can even talk, How stupid can you be?"

"Yes, this first question is the most irrelevant one." Igor's nominee affirmed the questioner's suspicion, and turned to the second point. : "To explain the next question, we must first clearly explain a concept: the multiple relationship between body shape, strength and weight. The specific calculation process is not mentioned here, only the conclusion, and only the result under ideal conditions: the same shape For creatures, the height and length have doubled, and the cross-sectional area of muscles—in layman terms, the thickness of the arms and legs will become four times the original size, and the volume and weight will become eight times the original size. For the leader of the Giant, he's about twice as tall as me, and if we were the same size, he'd be four times my strength and eight times my weight. What does that mean, I think lords It should be clear."

The calculation method of area and volume is too complicated to explain to the gangsters of the North princes, and most of them do not understand mathematical languages such as squares and powers...but Life experience told them that what Igor said was not bullshit. The bright-minded person has already understood what he wants to express, while the stupid person is still raising the bar.

"But this Giant's arms and legs are probably more than four times as thick as yours."

"Of course, if Giant's body is really like me, then he can't even stand. Can't stand up - the bigger the creature, the bigger the ratio of its limbs to the body. The Giant leader in front of us, his limbs are about five or six times the thickness of mine, and his arms and legs are also heavy. This means: he is supporting and operating a dozen times my weight with less than ten times my strength. They struggle with bare hands, and if you give him a steel weapon or tool that fits his size, he will Most of the time, they don't raise."

"I see. You are trying to say that Giant should use a large part of his strength to support his oneself body, so that he can use the margin for exercise and not raise his body. Not much - he's not as strong as an ox as we thought." Robb nods: "But he's still stronger than us, isn't that enough?"

The truth is not It's so simple, when the size of the creature increases, the problem is far more than just weight... There is also an increase in the time required for nerve conduction signals, an increase in the requirement for oxygen concentration, and the skeleton cannot easily support the body, resulting in the inability to carry out intense activities. Movement, and the skin's heat dissipation mechanism limits the durability, etc...

Of course, it would be difficult for Igor to say the above in common language, let alone for the North nobles to understand. He can only explain the more understandable part - the effect of being big because of his size: "It is true that the strength is still greater than us. But the Giants have other shortcomings, they have poor eyesight and hearing, and they are slow and stamina. Not quite as expected. To get them to work, it takes a lot of effort to direct them, and to lead them on a march to fight... Regardless of Giant's long legs, it's a great test to let them walk a mile continuously. If incorporated into the army, the large units have to stop and go to prevent them from falling behind... The appearance of Giant on the battlefield may be a great shock to the enemy, but the effort to achieve that step will far exceed that of them. The benefits of being in the fight."

Karstark count frowned and interjected, "Hey boy, how do I feel like you're trying to make the Giants useless, lest we're going to leave them?"

"My lord, this is really wronging me." Igor smiled bitterly: "Well, I won't continue to talk about Giant's shortcomings... Even if there are such shortcomings, Giant will still be a fighter with amazing formidable power, just Suppose a Giant equivalent to ten elite soldiers. But they are vegetarians. Obviously, the nutrition of grass is far less than that of grain and meat. They need to eat frequently. The required armor, weapons, etc. cannot be carried by oneself, and the baggage team has to be specially transported. The problems that come and go, all need to be filled by manpower. With this manpower dedicated to serving Giant, we Why not just train more soldiers?"

Giant isn't for work or combat, and it wasn't made by Igor. A non-predatory creature with few natural enemies, Giant lived freely without much effort until the First Men set foot on the land of Westeros. There is no need to hunt, and there is no pressure to survive, how can it evolve into a tool-like creature that can bear hardships and stand hard work or a powerful combat weapon for no reason?

Of course, this doesn't mean that Giants have no merit, such as simple strength work at a fixed location, or in siege or defense battles that do not require long-distance raids, they will be good helpers . No matter how bad it is, you can still drive the woolly mammoths to help transport some things.

But the reason Igor doesn't want Robb to use the Giants' brains is that besides they are really not as powerful as they think, there is a more realistic factor: Giants are usually honest and docile, but they are not human. slave. The reason why he obeyed Mance Rayder before was because he also faced the threat of Others. King-Beyond-the-Wall went to great lengths to convince them to surrender together and settle down in the land grant. If the North people take away a few dozen, they just want to use it as cannon fodder, in case something goes wrong and hurts oneself Man, is it not oneself who is under pressure?

He doesn't do thankless things.

...

Fortunately, Robb didn't mention it in the end.

He offered to watch Giant for two purposes: one was to confirm whether this creature had the ability to threaten North, and the other was... he did have the idea of trying to throw them into war , in order to make up for the North's vast area and sparsely populated area and the lack of combatants. But when I came to the scene, I saw that the so-called Giant was actually such a primordial, stupid, lazily, slow-moving vegetarian creature, and most of his thoughts were suddenly extinguished.

It's a headache to think about bringing this kind of living treasure to the battlefield. It's really not as good as a soldier with more training.

"I believe you." Robb nodded, interrupting Karstark's questioning and questioning of Igor, and waved his hand: "Take care of these big guys, don't let them run around, if you scare or hurt North residents , I can ask you."

Igor relaxed: "Of course, this is the responsibility of Night's Watch."

After commanding this, Lord Winterfell re-looked towards everyone in front of him Guys, raise your volume: "King of Giants, it's a pleasure to meet you today, and in case the Others strike, I hope you will do your bit to help us defend the northern border!"

The guide like this Smart man, he understood what to do without being told, and quickly translated Robb's words to the Giant leader. .

Afterwards, Robb greeted everyone and planned to continue their journey south to solve the Ironmen invasion.

Of course, when it comes to going to the battlefield, he obviously doesn't intend to bring his younger sister: "Rodrik Ser, I will lead you all to go directly south to Deepwood Motte to command the battle against the Ironmen. You bring Ten good hands, go back to Wall with Igor. When the snow stops, follow Castle Black to Queenscrown to get Arya safely back to Winterfell."

"Huh?" Arya pouted in dissatisfaction: "I want Let's go with you!"

Robb shook his head, showing a non-negotiable attitude, and he didn't even bother to say anything, and directly started directing the soldiers of the North patrol team to get on their horses. This place is still hundreds of miles away from the west coast of North. If you don't want to delay the war, you can't waste any time.

--

(end of this chapter)