6kv Chapter 7: The Silver Shackles
Chapter 7: The Silver Shackles
In the afternoon in Blue Fork Valley, the air was as stuffy as a saturated sponge soaked in hot water, pressing down on one's lungs.
Three dilapidated mule carts were parked outside the camp. The Frey family servants, after unloading the supplies, did not even ask for a sip of water before hastily whipping their whips and leaving as if avoiding a plague.
Otto Hohenzollern stood under the blazing sun, looking at the sacks and iron crates on the ground.
"Thirty sacks in total, containing three thousand pounds of oats, two sacks of salt, fifteen sets of old leather armor, five heavy crossbows, and this box of pig iron."
Pollifer checked each item on the wooden board with a charcoal pencil, his brow furrowed.
"Sir, the oats are old, stored for at least three summers, and they're full of weevils. The leather shells are also moldy."
"Nothing is unusable; it all depends on how you use it."
Otto pulled out his dagger, cut open a sack, and glanced inside at the wheat grains mixed with the corpses of insects.
"Pick out the blackened, lumpy pieces and feed them to the bulls. Wash the rest three times with boiling salt water and then dry them in the sun. Have the lame man scrub the leather armor with wood ash and let it dry. As for the pig iron—"
He turned to look at the one-eyed blacksmith who had been unable to contain himself any longer.
"Cole, your job's here. Two hundred pounds of pig iron, forge ten pickaxes first. The rest, forge them all into the four-sided armor-piercing awls I drew for you."
"Understood, sir."
Cole's rough, large hands stroked the ironwood box, his single eye gleaming with fanaticism.
As evening fell, Pollifer returned with the hunters he had taken downstream.
Behind them followed a long, swaying line of thirty-five ragged, emaciated refugees. Among them were landless serfs, fleeing artisans, and young children orphaned in border skirmishes.
Pollifer walked up to Otto, took a big gulp of water, and his voice was hoarse.
"Sir, we brought them back. We encountered a fever on the way, and three of them didn't make it and died on the way. I had them buried on the spot and didn't bring them into the camp."
"That's right. Epidemic prevention is more important than military operations."
Otto nodded.
He carried the chipped longsword and slowly walked up to the group of newly arrived refugees.
Thirty-five pairs of tired, fearful, and numb eyes stared at the seventeen-year-old lord. They expected to hear comforting words like "The lord will protect you," or a powerful and intimidating threat.
But Otto didn't have any of those.
He simply stood there, his gaze sweeping over each person's physique as if assessing timber, before speaking in a tone so flat it was almost monotonous.
"I am the lord of this land. You are the settlers summoned by Polliff."
Otto pointed to the completed longhouse behind him, which exuded dryness and coolness, and the iron pot where oat porridge was being cooked not far away.
"My rules here are very simple. Two meals a day, one dry and one liquid. A piece of salted fish every three days. There's a roof to keep out the rain, and safety so that bandits won't chop off your head."
He paused, letting the aroma of the food ferment in the nasal cavities of the refugees.
"In exchange, you must obey my order. Wake up at the sound of the whistle, work at the sound of the whistle. No fighting, no stealing, and you must relieve yourself in the lime pit downwind. Those who obey will live. Those who disobey will go back to the wilderness and starve to death."
"This is a deal. If you feel it's unfair, you can leave now."
No nonsense, no false honors, only the stark realities of survival.
The refugees looked at each other in bewilderment.
After experiencing war and famine, this brutal contract of distribution according to labor was more real than any oath from the gods.
No one left.
"very good."
Otto turned and gave orders to Pollifer.
"The first step is washing. Alkali water was boiled downwind, everyone shaved their heads, and all old clothes were thrown into the fire. Anyone who dared to bring lice and fever into my longhouse, I would chop off their head."
Three days later, these thirty-five new recruits were completely dispersed and integrated into the camp's operations.
Otto selected twenty young, strong men whose eyes had not completely lost their ferocity. Together with the original five hunters, these twenty-five men were relieved of the most strenuous farm work and began to undergo grueling drills.
"From today onwards, these twenty-five people are under my direct command. Your unit designation is—Iron Oath Regiment."
Otto appointed "Shovel," a man with a scar on his arm who had served in the military, as the team leader.
The training took place under the scorching summer sun, and was brutal and tedious.
There were no duels, no sword fights. Otto held a flattened ash wood stick and drew horizontal lines in the mud, requiring the twenty-five men to repeat the formation practice thousands of times a day.
"Attention! Rifle level! Push!"
Twenty-five wooden poles, each fitted with a four-sided iron spearhead, thrust out in unison.
The recruits, clad in old leather armor sent by the Frey family, were drenched in sweat in the sweltering heat. Otto's wooden stick occasionally struck the backs of the soldiers as they writhed.
"The significance of a phalanx lies in its lack of gaps. If you take a step back, your comrades next to you will be pierced through by cavalry."
Otto walked at the back of the line, his voice indifferent.
"Don't look at the enemy's face, look at the markings in front of you. Push once every ten seconds, as instinctively as breathing."
The scorching heat of summer is deadly.
On the afternoon of the seventh day, during the fiftieth charge of the formation, a thin young refugee on the right flank of the column suddenly groaned, his spear fell from his hand, and he collapsed to the ground, his body convulsing uncontrollably.
The once orderly formation began to show signs of disorder. Two refugees nearby instinctively stopped, wanting to check on their companion.
"Who told you to stop?!"
Otto's voice was like a thunderclap.
He strode over and mercilessly struck the two displaced men who had stopped moving in the back of their legs with his white ash stick, forcing them to stand up straight again.
"Return to your units! Keep your guns level!"
Otto stared at them coldly.
"On the battlefield, the half-breath you take while bending over is enough for the enemy's light cavalry to trample through the lines."
The two refugees gritted their teeth, their eyes filled with fear, and raised their spears again.
Otto then looked down at the convulsing young man on the ground. The man's eyes were rolled back, his jaw clenched, and he was unconscious. Training intensely in leather armor under such high temperatures had clearly taken its toll; he'd been completely worn down by the scorching sun.
"Polliver."
"grown ups."
"Carry them away, wash them with well water, and pour salt water over them. If they don't survive, bury them on high ground, far away from water sources."
Otto's tone revealed no emotional fluctuation.
"Cross his name off the roster. Consider it a training loss."
The remaining twenty-four soldiers watched helplessly as their comrades were dragged away.
They finally understood that the "iron and blood" the lord spoke of was not a metaphor.
In this formation, death is merely a mistake, while the very operation of the formation itself is above all life.
From that day on, the movements of the twenty-four survivors never showed any further noticeable change. When the bone whistle sounded, they would advance like cold machines, a military spirit, devoid of warmth yet extremely steadfast, taking root in the long summer soil.
The real upheaval, however, was quietly unfolding deep within the valley.
That evening, two hunters who had been sent to scout the upper reaches of the river rode back to camp on their mud-covered horses.
"grown ups!"
A hunter dismounted and strode over to Otto, who was checking the wear and tear on his tools. He took a heavy stone wrapped in linen from his pocket and carefully placed it on the wooden table.
"We found this about ten miles upstream, below the cliff face. The river had washed away the riverbank, exposing a whole strip of dark gray rock. We broke off a piece."
Otto put down his charcoal pencil and picked up the irregular stone.
The stone was heavy, its surface covered with black stripes. When he turned it over and examined its cross-section by the firelight, a delicate, pure silvery-white shimmer came into view.
Argentite.
Pollifer took a closer look and gasped instantly, nearly dropping the ledger in his hand.
"Gods above... My lord, this is silver! Extremely high-purity brilliant silver ore!"
"We're rich! If we dig up just one cartload, we can buy up all the grain in Haijiang City!"
"Shut up."
Otto's voice was extremely low, yet it carried a chilling severity.
He raised his head, his grey-blue eyes fixed on the two hunters.
"Besides the two of you, who else has seen this stone? Was anyone else present?"
"Absolutely not, sir. We dug it up and rushed back immediately."
"very good."
Otto casually tossed the gleaming silver ore, enough to drive any lord mad, into a nearby wooden crate and closed the lid.
He showed no elation whatsoever.
Instead, his brain was rapidly assessing the catastrophic consequences that the stone would bring.
This isn't a large, already explored mine, but rather a shallow, rich outcrop. The initial grade might be extremely high, but as you go deeper, the costs of water, charcoal, landslides, and labor will devour any profits. Even so, it's still enough to attract the attention of powerful lords.
"Polliver."
Otto turned around, his gaze icy.
"What do you think would happen to a propertied knight with fewer than fifty refugees and twenty-four spearmen if he were to illegally mine a high-quality silver mine?"
Pollifer froze, his fanatical mind instantly jolted back to reality by a bucket of ice water.
Cold sweat trickled down his temples.
"Ward Frey will claim that cliff face as his ancestral hunting ground and send his cavalry to wipe us out. Blackwood will get involved too. Earl Jason will take over everything under the guise of protection. And we... will probably die one night from a bandit attack."
"It's calculated very clearly."
Otto looked out at the wilderness shrouded in the long summer night outside the camp.
In Westeros, wealth that cannot be protected is a guillotine hanging over one's head. Unauthorized mining will only bring destruction.
He must secure legal protection for the mine and a powerful profiteer before the first wisp of black smoke from refining silver rises.
"Place these two hunters next to my compartment and forbid them from speaking to anyone."
Otto took the repaired chainmail off the wall and skillfully put it on.
"Sir, where are you going?"
Since wealth cannot be hidden, we should proactively turn it into an investment.
Otto hung his longsword at his waist and pushed open the heavy wooden door of the longhouse.
"Prepare the horses. Tomorrow morning, Pollifer, you're coming with me. We'll first go to Seafront City to talk to Earl Jason about the loyalty of our vassals. Then we'll go to the border to discuss long-term business with Young Master Raymond."
He mounted his horse, the double-headed black eagle iron ring gleaming dimly in the moonlight.
"Since they all like to squeeze every last drop of profit from others, then I'll personally cut this piece of fat and stuff it into their mouths."
The sound of horses' hooves echoed through the long, dark summer night.
The first major move in the Hohenzollern territory was officially made with the appearance of this silver stone.