Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 39: The Refining of Bones and the Probing of the Black Crow

The twelve veterans of Haijiang City ultimately couldn't survive the first cold wind before winter on the high tower.

The battle report arrived in less than half a day, and the veteran who was in charge was already wearing full armor. With a dark face, he ordered the camp to be broken up and retreated along the ruined road from the Blue Fork River, citing the need to return to defend the lord's territory due to the war.

They left in such a hurry that they didn't even take enough of the remaining oats from the stable.

Once the people of Haijiang City left, the firelight in the two newly built kilns beneath the stone tower even baked the mud walls deep inside into a semi-glassy, ​​brittle shell.

Blacksmith Cole's bare arms were covered in coarse, dark hair. The salty liquid on his body wasn't from the outside, but rather a glossy sheen forced out by the rolling heat.

"Sir! The furnace temperature is about to get out of control!"

Cole's one eye was bloodshot from the white soot, and he roared at the wooden platform in a rough voice.

The fire in the furnace had indeed reached a dangerously low point. But it wasn't that there wasn't enough charcoal; rather, the people who had been put in were nearing the end of their lives.

At the bottom of the kiln, fourteen tough men, selected from among the refugees, were working in pairs, using heavy iron tongs weighing over a hundred pounds to repeatedly push and pull the tongs into the red-hot furnace.

The high temperature mixed with the pungent, toxic fumes from the ore refining process. Most of the night had passed, and two already emaciated homeless men were coughing up thick phlegm mixed with blood.

They lay limp like broken-backed mud beside the scorching slag heap.

Otto stood on the tall wooden platform outside the furnace.

His figure was half-hidden in the shadows where the firelight couldn't reach, his right hand resting on the counterweight at the end of the sword hilt, the longsword still sheathed.

"Those coughing up blood, just drag them away." Otto's voice pierced through the white smoke, like a block of ice smashing into the kiln bed.

"Polliver, cross out the names. Give these two men a bowl of thick bean paste. After nightfall, take them to the outer defensive trenches and fill them with mud."

Otto did not look down at the people wailing below.

"Go to the refugee camp where they're building fortifications on the outer wall, and drag three more men as thick as their arms down into the cellar to fill in this backbreaking work."

At the exit of the kiln, five raw silver bars, fresh from the stone mold and still not cooled, were neatly arranged on the cracked straw mat.

The rough raw silver ingots, illuminated by the red glow of the furnace bottom, reflected a chilling, piercing white light.

Pollifer emerged from the damp corner of the tent, clutching the walnut wood memo pad in his hands, his jaw trembling slightly with fear.

"My lord. The silver ingots that came out of this cellar are of a higher purity and weight than usual for half a month. Converted to iron coins according to the black market rates of the Narrow Sea merchant ships, this illicit silver..."

Pollifer didn't dare to report the weight in pounds.

"These privately minted silver bars must not be tainted with the tax payment slips from the market." Otto turned his gaze, his cold eyes sweeping over the few gleaming solid silver bars.

"Dig a dry well two zhang deep under the inner stone wall and fill the surrounding area with quicklime to prevent decay."

"Seal all this silver that has never seen the light of day. When the south is fighting for grain and supplies and people are more valuable than lives, these few baskets of the remaining silver can be exchanged for the thickest scale armor and steel shields on the decks of Braavos."

As the master and servant were checking the Dark Silver, three sharp, short whistles suddenly rang out from the wooden watchtower at the main gate of the longhouse.

This is a signal for the guards to approach and intercept.

Otto threw off his sweat-soaked shirt and grabbed a thick, coarse gray linen cloak, wrapping it tightly around the left side of his body.

"Open the inner fortress gate!"

Outside the city, the lingering mist of late autumn morning had not yet dissipated.

A small group of people did not take the wide, flat, hard stone trade route, but instead trudged through the muddy, withered water plants.

The lead knight rode a large black horse. He wore no heavy shield or ring armor, but a tattered, knee-length robe embroidered with black raven patterns.

They were men under Tytos Blackwood's command, who had just bled out at the ferry crossing.

Instructor Torun had already led twelve guards armed with hook-and-sickle spears, forming a long wall in front of the spiked barricades outside the city gate.

The knight from Blackwood reined in his leather horse at the edge of a muddy puddle a hundred paces away, his hooves slipping repeatedly on the dark gray mud.

He was accompanied by fewer than four followers, which didn't seem like he was there to storm the camp.

The knight charged forward in a gruff voice, shouting orders:

"By order of the Earl of Raventree City! You barons of this desolate land are not to interfere in the age-old feud in this strategically important river region!"

The knight tore a dirty cowhide whistle from his waist and threw it far towards the barricades as if throwing a bone to a beggar.

"Hohenzollern! You'd better stay put at the White Salt Ferry! If my count finds out that even the slightest favor you did for those ships carrying crossbows, the next batch of their ships crossing the river will be filled with your headless corpse!"

The veins on the back of Toren's hand, which was gripping the ash spear, throbbed violently, and the crescent-shaped hooked sickle made a slight, almost blood-sucking sound in his hand.

As long as Otto issues a brief order to kill, even if they fight to the death, these three or five arrogant scouts will not be able to piece together a complete corpse in the mud.

But Otto did not give the order to raise the crossbows.

He slowly made his way through the crossed lines of spears held by the guards. His heavy iron-clad leather boots sank into the cold mud without slowing him down in the slightest.

The young knight single-handedly stepped over the sharp wooden spikes blocking the horses and stopped on a barren embankment less than twenty paces in front of the tattered scout.

He didn't even spare a glance for the leather whistle on the ground.

"Go back and tell Count Tettos that such blind verbal threats are worthless in the mud of the Blue Fork."

Otto pulled a pair of old leather gloves, their edges frayed and worn, from his right waist. They were left over from when he was dismembering the Ironborn's body.

Otto slammed the wrist glove, stained with years of black blood, into the mud pit directly in front of the black horse.

The filthy leather armor crashed into the puddle, stirring up a filthy and foul-smelling black and gray slurry.

"Red horse banners or black raven crests, whichever banner attempts to cut off the flow of Riverrun's tax revenue and sever the livelihood of my territory, I will slap that lord's leather armor with this glove!"

Otto's voice, though lacking a furious roar, rendered the knight speechless, preventing him from uttering a single harsh word.

"Hohenzollern doesn't make blood pacts with thieves in the shadows. I only sell grain and salt that can be exchanged for iron ingots. Go back to Raventree City."

"If any envoy dares to stand tall and speak arrogantly before my barricades again, I will cut off his throat and tongue and feed them to my hunting dogs!"

The leather under the black robes of the Knight of Blackwood stiffened.

Before his men could speak, he yanked hard on the leather reins, and the horse, with half a muddy mark on its head, swerved into the deadwood path to the side.

Watching the battered figure, covered in dust and grime, rush into the withered forest, Pollif approached and whispered in a trembling voice:

"My lord. We've humiliated him like this. If Blackwood doesn't find an excuse to attack us, we can remain calm for now. But once they recover..."

"I'm waiting for them to bleed each other dry, until the last drop of blood is left on this land."

Otto turned around, and the armored guards behind him pushed the solid wood door back into its tightly closed slot once more.

He walked towards the earthen kiln, his boots sinking into the mud, his footsteps heavy.

"Go tell Cole, who works in the kiln, that the furnace used for heating must be constantly replenished with charcoal and must never be allowed to cool down."

He didn't stop, keeping his voice low, and just kept talking as he walked forward.

"When Raymond, who is making money by bloodshed in the Twins, finds out that we can produce such a mountain of silver ingots here, he will have to hand over the money for ten sets of heavy armor to fill the armory of Hohenzollern."

The fire in the kiln was still burning, and orange-red light leaked out from the dark opening, turning the muddy ground beneath his feet a dark red.