6kv Chapter 52: Lard Paste and the Ceasefire
Chapter 52: Lard Paste and the Ceasefire
The muddy ground in front of Longhouse No. 1 was frozen as hard as iron. One hundred and seventy-eight members of Dai Ruicheng's family, wrapped in tattered sheepskin rags, huddled together in the cold wind. The wool on those sheepskins had long since fallen off.
The child's lips, blue with cold, clung tightly to his mother's chest. Everyone's eyes gleamed with anticipation as they stared at the large pot burning over the fire in the center of the courtyard. The firewood crackled, and the firelight reflected on their faces.
The steward, Pollifer, opened the cracked walnut board of the tent. His fingers were frostbitten, and his swollen knuckles gripped a charcoal stick, scratching it into the surface.
"Thirty Twin Towers laborers died on the way," Pollifer reported to Otto, who was standing on the stone steps, his voice low. "Including the people from Darryl City, the territory now has 575 mouths to feed, sir."
Otto, cloaked, looked at the dense mass of gray heads in the square.
"Even if you mix in half tree bark and grass roots, the oats in the granary won't last more than half a month." Pollifer swallowed.
In front of the iron pot, lined up were the fifty newly arrived veterans from Dai Ruicheng.
They were clad in tattered armor. Rusty broadswords hung at their waists, the leather at the bottom of their scabbards worn white. This remnant army, which had fought against the royal main force at the Trident River, still retained certain habits. They glanced at the sunken-cheeked farmers beside them and let out a rough sigh.
A Swiss officer strode up to the iron pot. He looked at the paste-like substance mixed with black tree bark that he scooped up with a wooden spoon.
He didn't take the bowl. Instead, he slapped it hard, knocking over the wooden bucket next to him that was used to serve porridge to the farmer.
The sticky, grayish wheat porridge was spilled onto the frozen ground, emitting thick white steam. Several farmers instinctively lunged to grab it, but were kicked away by the veteran with his iron boot.
"You're feeding this kind of acidic water that even pigs wouldn't eat to the people who took the blows for you?"
The sergeant gripped his sword hilt, chin held high, staring at Otto above. Behind him, the forty-nine veterans pressed their hands to the scabbards at their waists. The sound of metal scraping against metal echoed in the cold wind, drowning out the crackling of firewood.
"We're armed with swords!" the sergeant's voice was hoarse. "Let our women and children into the stone hut where we're cooking, and don't put sawdust in the pot. Otherwise, no one in these gray-walled rooms will be able to close their eyes!"
Otto descended the stone steps. His leather boots sank into the frozen mud.
"Here, arrogance won't get you food." Otto stopped at the edge of the barricade, his gaze sweeping over the sergeant's shoulder and over the veteran behind him. "If you want to eat your fill, go to the gate and hold up your shield."
The sergeant gave a cold laugh, pulling half of his broadsword from its sheath, the rusty iron blade scraping against the wooden scabbard: "With those shivering, shovel-wielding farmers behind you?"
"Toren." Otto didn't reply.
Toren, a veteran from the North, stepped out from the shadows of the awning. He carried no sword, but had a yellowed bone whistle between his teeth.
"Beep—!"
A long, drawn-out sound pierced the air. From the shadows on either side of the stone tower, sixteen Iron Oath Guards stepped into the center of the plaza. They wore half-body armor, and the sound of metal clashing as they ran was dull and muffled. Sixteen heavy square shields slammed into the ground simultaneously, three steps away from Veteran Darryl.
The veterans were stunned for a moment. The sergeant drew his longsword, preparing to call on his brothers behind him to cleave the thin shield wall from both flanks.
"Beep! Beep!"
Two short whistles.
The sixteen guards did not push their shields. Instead, sixteen long wooden poles with iron barbs protruded from the gaps in the sides of their shields.
"Sizzle—"
The iron hooks precisely caught on the hem of the chainmail and the arms of the shield-wielding men in the front row. The hook tips got stuck in the iron rings, making a screeching sound.
"Retreat!" Toren's bone whistle turned into a roar.
Sixteen bodies kicked off the frozen ground with their feet and fell backward using their full weight.
"Crack!"
Pulled by this force, veteran Daryl's center of gravity was disrupted. Their chainmail, carrying their weight, sent them tumbling forward. The five sword-wielding veterans crashed face-first into the icy, muddy pit. Longswords flew from their hands.
The barbed hook lashed out. Sixteen short swords, before the five men could even lift their heads from the mud, were already pressed into the gaps in their throat guards. Just a little further down, and their necks would be severed.
The square was deathly silent. In the back row, veteran Daryl's hand remained frozen on his sword sheath. The wind whistled through their tattered cloaks.
Otto stepped forward, picked up the half-eaten bowl of bark porridge that no one had touched, and poured it over the back of the sergeant's head, which was being held down. The paste-like substance flowed down his hair and into his collar.
Otto turned around and looked at the veterans' families behind him, their eyes filled with terror.
"Polliver."
The officer strode forward, carrying a thick-backed iron axe. He forcefully cleaved the wooden wedge at the top of a moisture-proof barrel sealed with ironwood. Wood chips flew everywhere.
The wooden lid was lifted. A strong smell of lard was drawn out by the cold wind, instantly overpowering the surrounding sour and muddy odors.
It was a whole barrel of rendered pork fat. A layer of hard white crust was frozen on the surface.
Maria took a long-handled wooden spoon, chipped open the hard shell on the surface, scooped out two large spoonfuls of oil from the bucket, and threw them directly into the pot that had just boiled.
The hot soup sizzled as it swallowed the oil. The oil quickly spread across the surface of the pot, mingling with the meager aroma of wheat, and drifted into the cold air.
The sound of swallowing saliva echoed across the square.
"Listen to the whistle, hold your territory. Then you and the women and children behind you will be able to eat your fill of oily food."
Otto looked into their eyes, which were now filled with nothing but hunger.
"In the silver mine to the west, the mud in the pit has been trapped for more than half a month. Tomorrow morning, all fifty of you will go down into the pit and dig out the mud."
If we can't find any ore, there won't be any oil or fat in our next meal.
Large chunks of ice floated on the surface of the Blue Fork River.
A troop of cavalrymen, bearing the purple banners and silver eagle flags of Haijiang City, crossed the shallows and stopped outside the stone fortress gate. Large puffs of white vapor billowed from their nostrils, and their hooves pawed restlessly at the ground.
The knight leading the group wore a heavy purple cloak and held a scroll of parchment in his hand. A thick iron chain hung from the back of his saddle, the chain striking the horse's belly with a dull thud.
The door opened with a muffled thud.
Pollifer had four coal-dusted farmers push two unlocked wooden crates directly out of the gate. The bottoms of the crates plowed two deep furrows in the muddy downhill path, finally slid and bumped in front of the knight's horse's hooves.
The wooden crate lid was opened. Twenty-eight crudely refined silver bars lay neatly pressed on the sawdust. The gleam of the silver bars was still dazzling in the winter sun.
The knight stared at the silver bars in the wooden box, clenching his teeth. His warhorse snorted uneasily. He put away the parchment, his face dark, and ordered his squire to dismount and carry the box.
"Back to the city." The knight flicked the reins, turned his horse around, and stepped onto the official road of Haijiang City.
Inner fortress.
At the top of the stone tower, a cold wind howled from the window openings.
The Maester of Ilion, dressed in a thick grey woolen robe, had a stern face. He clutched a raven that had flown in against the wind from the south. The old maester pulled a piece of yellow paper from a copper tube in the bird's leg.
He strode over to Otto, who was inspecting the mechanisms of the scorpion crossbow.
"My lord. News from Rushing City." The scholar's voice carried the chill of deep winter.
"The fight between the Blackwood and Bracken families at Red Fork River stopped yesterday."
Otto pulled the trigger, and the empty bowstring gave a sharp thud, shaking off the frost on the crossbar.
"Neither Tethos nor Jonos are the type to retreat easily," Otto said, wiping the wood shavings off the mechanism.
"Duke Horst has given the order." Ilion laid the letter on the stone bricks. "The Duke ordered seven vassal states to stand guard at the border and forcibly dismantled the camps of two of them. He also forced Tethos and Jonos to drink a truce toast in front of the waterwheels of Riverrun."
Cold snow drifted in through the window and landed on the letter paper, slowly dissolving the ink.
Otto's cold, grey eyes were fixed on the edge of the vast, dense forest to the south.
"Heavy snow is coming, and the Riverlands cannot withstand such a costly struggle. The Duke has suppressed their anger." Otto threw the note into the pot of simmering cowhide next to him, watching as the paper was gnawed into black ash.
"The red warhorse and the black raven have their hands free." Otto looked at the black smoke rising from the oil cauldron without turning around. "Now it's time to vent all this pent-up anger on our muddy ground."