Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 57: Zhang Xin and the Anvil

The bitter, fishy smell of the white peony powder hadn't dissipated yet.

It was embedded in every crevice of the stone tower's base, mingling with the pungent smell of the disinfectant liquor, turning the narrow stone chamber into the odor of a pharmacy. Otto Hohenzollern leaned against the stone couch, a folded old linen cloth pressed against the back of his head, as hard as a flattened wooden stake, as if someone had pressed a piece of iron under his skin and refused to remove it.

Two short whistles came from outside the window.

Through the stone wall, the sounds from the training ground were filtered into muffled echoes—the booming of shields hitting the snow-covered ground, the crunching of footsteps on the snow, and Toren's voice, hoarse from the cold wind, as he spoke in a low voice. The words were indistinct, but the meaning was always the same.

When Ilion walked in, his steps were slower than usual.

The scholar came twice a day, morning and evening, to change the dressings, take the patient's pulse, and jot down a few lines in his gray leather-bound medical record book. He rarely spoke during his visits; when the medicine wasn't ready, there would be a soft grinding sound, and when it was ready, there would be a crisp sound of the mixing bowl hitting the stone table. Otto had memorized this rhythm.

Today, I was a step slower than usual.

Ilion stood in the doorway, holding a bowl of medicine in one hand, but with something else in his other—a parchment letter roll sealed with the Duke of Tully's purple clay seal. The seal was intact, showing no signs of being tampered with.

When the ravens of Riverrun pass through a relay station on the road, a summary of the letter will be delivered by another bird first. As the resident maester, Ilion will naturally see the summary in advance.

"Put it here." Otto patted the edge of the stone bed with his right hand.

Ilion put down the letter tube, but instead of leaving, he sat down on a low stool at the other end of the stone chamber and began grinding the medicine powder.

Otto took the letterbox and used his right thumbnail to pry open the seal. The parchment unfolded, revealing neat handwriting—the handwriting of the Maester of Riverrun.

He read it from beginning to end without making a sound.

The Duke's meaning was clear: the request to defend in lieu of war had been approved. The Blue Fork River waterway held significant defensive value in wartime, therefore, the garrisoning of the Hohenzollern territory was approved as a meritorious service. However, conditions were also present—before the ice melted, a complete roster must be submitted to the Grand Marshal, proving that there were at least thirty regular soldiers, each of whom had passed the basic examination for Bachelor certification. Of these thirty, ten must march with the main force. The remaining twenty would remain at the Blue Fork River, forming an inland waterway defense line approved by the Duke.

The last line was written lightly: "May Baron Hohenzollern make careful plans."

Otto looked at the number again.

thirty.

He now has sixteen.

Fourteen short.

"Polliver."

Ilion put down the grinding bowl and placed the medicine bowl beside the stone bed without saying a word.

Pollifer came in almost immediately, as if he had been waiting outside. He entered with a chill, carrying account books, and sat down on a low stool.

Otto handed him the mailbox.

Pollifer took it, unfolded it, and read it from beginning to end, then paused on the last line for a long time.

"Thirty people," Pollifer said.

"Thirty people. From now until the ice melts, it will be a little over three months."

Pollifer opened the page to the latest one and started looking for deals.

"Sixteen armored warriors need to maintain a daily ration of more than two pounds. Including additional grease, each person consumes sixty pounds of rations per month. Sixteen men, that's nine hundred and sixty pounds per month. Two thousand eight hundred and eighty pounds per quarter."

Numbers were etched onto parchment using charcoal sticks.

"Expanding to thirty men will add fourteen more soldiers of equal standard, resulting in an additional 840 pounds per month and 2,520 pounds per quarter."

Otto stared at the numbers without interrupting him.

"The four dry wells currently have an actual inventory of approximately 22,000 pounds, after deducting the already distributed supplies and the equivalent of salted fish. Based on the full consumption of the territory's 575 inhabitants, at least 15,000 pounds must be reserved as a minimum ration before spring planting. The available reserve is approximately 7,000 pounds."

Polly looked up at Otto.

"Seven thousand pounds of salt can only feed fourteen soldiers until spring. After spring, until the new grain arrives, this deficit will be unrecoverable. But if the salted fish bricks can be exchanged for enough old wheat before spring, and if the vegetable production from the Darkfire Ditch can sustain the soldiers' strength, the shortfall can be reduced to an acceptable level."

How big is the gap?

"The most optimistic scenario is a shortfall of 2,000 pounds. The worst-case scenario is a shortfall of 6,000 pounds."

Otto leaned back against the stone wall.

"Fourteen new combat units have been added. Where should we select them?"

Pollifer flipped through the register, his finger pausing on the column for the old guard of Darryl City.

"The fifty veterans from Dairui City are still in good shape. Although their bodies are weakened by long-term food shortages, if we start supplementing their rations and oil according to combat soldier standards from now on, it's not impossible for Torun to internalize the hook-and-sickle formation within his muscles in three months."

"Take fourteen from the mine," Otto said. "Choose those between twenty-five and forty years old, whose old wounds are not on the spearmen or shieldmen's legs. The mine's manpower shortage will be filled by the remaining refugees."

"Ore production will decrease by about 20%."

"Use white salt to make up the price difference."

As Pollifer carved this line, his lips didn't move, but his breath had that short, sharp quality unique to numbers pushed to their limits.

"Let's just get through this winter," Otto said. "We'll live one season at a time."

Pollifer nodded, stood up, and prepared to leave.

"There's one more thing."

Ilion put down the medical record book in his hand and looked at Otto.

"Tell Cole to light the stove tonight."

"What are you hitting?"

"Fourteen sets of fish-scale armor."

The training ground is located on the east side of the stone tower.

Otto didn't go down. He stood in front of the narrow, unglazed window on the second floor of the stone tower, looking at the scene below.

Today was the first time those fourteen veterans had stood on the training field.

They weren't standing in neat rows, not intentionally, but because no one had told them where they were supposed to stand. Each found a spot free of snow; some squatted, others carried scrap iron pickaxe handles on their shoulders like miners' tools. Yesterday they were carrying ore in the mine, and today they were told to change into old leather armor and come to the training ground.

Torun came out.

He wasn't wearing the armored fish scales, but only a thick black leather suit, with a short sword at his waist and the bone whistle around his neck. His boots crunched steadily on the snow, his steps neither hurried nor slow.

He stopped in front of the fourteen people and scanned them.

He did not speak.

The silence lasted a long time. Long enough that the person standing in the third seat in the back row looked up and met Toren's eyes directly.

Otto recognized the man.

He was of medium height, with a straight back, not the hunched posture of a miner, but the kind of straightness that comes from someone who wears armor for long periods. His right hand held a white ash wood stick in a peculiar grip—his ring finger was not fully closed, only three and a half fingers gripped the stick, with the stump of his half-ring finger sticking out, avoiding the surface of the stick.

Edric.

Toren saw that look in his eyes but didn't look away.

"Take the hook-and-sickle spear," Toren said, his voice low and flat.

Fourteen newly forged hook-and-sickle spears hung on a wooden rack behind them. The iron hooks still bore the fine sand marks left from the forging process, and the spearheads reflected a cold light in the morning sun. The fourteen men went up and each took one.

Edric took the hook-and-sickle spear in his hand, looked it over, and ran his fingers along the edge of the crescent-shaped iron hook, a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth.

"Stand in two rows. Six people in the front row, eight people in the back row."

They did as instructed, but the resulting line was uneven, with almost a step's width of space between the far left and far right of the front row. The back row was even more chaotic, with people jostling each other to separate.

Toren didn't correct him immediately. He stepped forward, stopped in front of the man on the far right of the front row, pressed his finger on his right shoulder, and pushed him three inches to the left. Then he went to the next person and did the same.

He pushed all six people into the correct positions with his hands.

There was no explanation, no cursing, only hands.

Then he went to the back row.

Edric stood in the third position in the back row.

Toren stopped in front of him, glanced at his gun-holding posture, and then raised his right hand, trying to press down on his shoulder to adjust the position.

Edric did not move.

It's not resistance, it's just that it hasn't moved. Like a wooden stake driven into the ground, it has its own center of gravity and doesn't need anyone else to decide its position.

Toren's hand froze in mid-air.

In that instant, the air in the training field became like the thin, brittle surface of ice in winter.

"You think you're on the right side," Toren said, not as a question.

"I've fought in wars," Edric said, his voice low and calmly controlled. "I know how to stand."

"The battles you've fought are fought differently from those here."

"It's different." Edric looked at the hook-and-sickle spear in his hand. "The places where I fought weren't where they used these kinds of farm tools."

Torun did not get angry.

He called Edric out from the back row and told him to stand in the center of the training ground. Then he took the fifteenth hook-and-sickle spear from the wooden rack and held it in his hand.

"Come and hit me."

Edric weighed the hook-and-sickle spear in his hand, then moved. His steps were steady, a movement honed by years of battlefield experience—low center of gravity, each step firmly planted. He exerted force from his right side, the shaft of the spear sweeping across Toren's side.

Toren turned three inches to the side.

He didn't dodge, but simply shifted three inches to the side, letting the sweeping gun barrel glide past his waist. At the same time, he stepped forward with his right foot, stepping into the gap between Edric's feet, his entire body weight pressing against him with that step.

It rammed directly into Edric's chest.

The thud was solid.

Edric was knocked back two steps, his heels carving two furrows in the snow. He didn't fall, but his sickle fell from his hand and stuck in the snow beside him, tip pointing downwards.

He steadied himself, glanced down at the gun that had slipped from his hand, then looked up at Toren.

Torun did not pursue. He planted his gun in the ground, stood still, and waited.

Edric bent down and pulled the gun out of the snow. He paused for a moment, taking slightly longer than usual.

Then he straightened up and walked back to the third seat in the back row.

He didn't speak.

That evening, Otto waited at the bottom of the stone tower for Polyver's end-of-day report.

When Pollifer came in, his face was red from the cold, and he was holding an account book in his hand.

"How's the training ground?" Otto asked first.

"Edric." Pollifer flipped through the notes, finding the line he'd written down. "He got a shoulder bump. The gun slipped from his hand. Then he went back to the ranks."

"In the afternoon."

"His hook shots were all on point. But he talked less and did more."

Otto leaned back against the stone wall.

Pollifer wrote down this line without saying whether it was right or wrong.

"The last bone whistle, are all fourteen men still on the front lines?"

"Everyone's here. Not perfectly aligned; two people's strides aren't even synchronized. But no one has fallen out of formation."

The stone chamber was quiet for a while.

Outside the window, the last whistle of the training field echoed, carried far away by the cold wind, before disappearing into the darkening sky.

"Have Cole keep the furnace burning tonight. How's the first batch of four suits of armor coming along?"

"Cole said the first set can be released tomorrow."

"Let Edric take your measurements."

Pollifer paused for a moment. He didn't ask why it was Edric and not someone else, he simply noted it down, closed the charcoal stick, re-fastened his sheepskin coat, and headed for the door.

"Polliver."

"grown ups."

Otto didn't turn his head; he simply leaned against the stone wall, his voice steady.

"Toren did well today."

Pollifer nodded and went out.

The door closed, and the stone chamber returned to silence. The sound of the wind outside seeped in through the cracks in the window, drifting aimlessly across the stone walls.

Otto folded the Duke's reply again and put it back under his pillow.

Three months.