stjorthotic Chapter 88: The Broken Red Wax and the Ghost of the Old Stone City
Chapter 88: The Broken Red Wax and the Ghost of the Old Stone City
A sweet, fishy smell wafts from the spring mud of the Blue Fork Valley.
That was the melting snow seeping into the lime pit, softening the rotting flesh buried there last winter.
William Charlton crouched in the shadow of the inner gate's archway, clutching a rag soaked in lard.
He was wiping the barbs off the barricades, a task his superiors had given him that morning.
The rust on the pig iron, after being soaked in lard, emitted a strange smell, similar to that of dried blood.
William's fingernails were filled with dark red grime, and the pus from his frostbite, stung by the lard, made his eyelids twitch with pain.
But he didn't stop.
He could feel the gaze cast down from the top of the stone tower behind him—even through the thick stone walls, he knew that Baron Otto was standing behind that narrow window.
That feeling of being watched no longer humiliated him; instead, it felt like an invisible thorn whipping his spine.
"Clatter—clatter—"
From the mist at the end of the official road came the rhythmic sound of horses' hooves.
The sound wasn't loud, but it carried a cold, rhythmic quality powerful enough to shatter ice.
William stopped what he was doing.
He looked up and saw five riders on horseback breaking through the thick fog.
It was a rare exotic horse from the River Valley, with a broad chest and slender limbs.
Although the long journey had left the horses covered in mud, their wildness, a trait from overseas battlefields, was undeniable.
The lead rider wore a faded gray cloak and no insignia.
But in the leather pouch on the side of his saddle, a strange black wooden gun handle was sticking out; it was a folding fortification shovel commonly used by the Golden Company.
The leader pulled down his hood, revealing a face as hard as a dried rock.
There was a clean cut at the corner of his eye, as if it had been made by some kind of fine, sharp blade.
He didn't look at the peasant militiamen who were nervously slipping in the icy mud while holding spears, but instead fixed his gaze on the black dagger at William's waist.
"I am John Mudd."
The man's voice was so steady and flat, as if he were reading out a list of the dead.
"Come see the Baron of Bluefork River."
William stood up.
His keen intuition, honed from years of cleaning latrines, told him that each of the five men before him was a professional butcher who had crawled out of piles of corpses.
He didn't humbly lead the way like ordinary citizens; instead, he gripped the lard-covered rag tightly, his voice hoarse yet steady:
"Wait at the bottom of the stone tower, sir. Hand the horses over to the labor crew, and leave the sword behind."
John Mudd glanced down at the twelve-year-old hostage, a subtle yet bloodthirsty smirk playing on his lips.
He untied the longsword from his waist and threw it, sword and strap, into the mud at William's feet.
"Good teeth," John Mudd said.
---
Inside the study at the bottom of the stone pagoda.
The charcoal brazier was filled with expensive southern hardwood, producing no smoke, only a bone-deep heat.
Otto Hohenzollern sat behind a hard wooden table.
Before him lay an open parchment, the kind of watermarked paper unique to the Braavos Iron Treasury, its red lacquered seal half-picked off, revealing the cold, hard numbers and terms inside.
John Mudd walked in.
He wasn't wearing armor, only a black deerskin vest, and his exposed arms were covered with a dense array of arrow wounds.
He stood before the table, neither bowing nor speaking.
He looked around the simple, even shabby, study, his gaze finally settling on the sketch of the territory marked ten miles to the north and south on the wall.
"In Essos, a baron of your stature cannot even afford a day's camping fee for the Golden Company."
John Mudd spoke, his eyes fixed on Otto.
"But in your letter, you mentioned Old Stone City."
Otto ignored his disdain.
He picked up the rolled-up treasury document with his right hand and gently placed it over the charcoal brazier.
"This is your employment contract with Golden Group, which is valid for seven years."
Otto's voice sounded particularly deep in the enclosed room.
"I bought it from the Iron Treasury lender for 530 silver stags and a debt involving the port of Pentos. Legally speaking, you are now my...private property that I bought back."
John Mudd's eyes turned dangerous, and he lowered his body slightly, adopting a posture ready to strike and kill at any moment.
"But I don't need animals here who only follow contracts."
Otto suddenly released his right hand.
The expensive parchment scroll, symbolizing John Mudd's "cargo identity," fell into the fire.
Flames licked away the dry paper, and the red sealing wax melted under the high temperature, emitting a pungent, burnt smell.
In less than three breaths, the employment contract of this Golden Company captain turned into a pile of gray embers.
John Mudd stood frozen in place.
He looked at the pile of ashes.
In the Golden Guild, contracts are like gods; breaking a contract means being hunted down across the entire territory.
But now, this contract has been burned by his "creditor".
"The contract states that you are a commodity, but I don't keep talking livestock here."
Otto withdrew his hand from above the brazier; his right hand was slightly red from the heat, but he didn't even flinch.
He looked directly at John Mudd, his voice as calm as if he were reading a trivial settlement statement.
"I have already erected a boundary marker on the southern edge of Old Stone City. I know you dream of the crown on that land, but I tell you, until that ruin is transformed back into a castle, it will only kneel there as my vassals of Hohenzollern, not as mercenaries who work for gold."
Otto took a heavy, unengraved stainless steel ring from a drawer under the table and pushed it to the edge of the table.
"Kneel down and swear an oath to me. I will give you status, land, and the right to kill. In exchange, you must transform the farmers in this land who only know how to poke wooden sticks into a team of professional butchers who can bring down the heavy cavalry of House Blackwood."
"Click".
John Mudd's knees slammed heavily onto the stone floor.
He didn't spout flowery rhetoric like the knights of the South; he simply reached out his calloused hand and grasped the cold steel ring, his voice as hoarse as the cracking of a millstone:
"My lord. From now on, the swords of the Mudd family will only recognize this double-headed eagle banner."
---
When John Mudd entered the drill ground with his four taciturn followers, a commotion arose among the militia phalanx that had been practicing.
Instructor Torun stopped wielding his whip.
This veteran from the North keenly sensed the presence of his kind—no, it was a more professional and chilling sense of smell than his own.
He glanced at the oddly shaped longsword with a barb hanging from John Mudd's waist, then at the four Golden Company veterans who were scrutinizing the militia with the same eyes they would use to examine livestock, and his grip on the bone whistle tightened for a moment.
"The master said that from today onwards, I will be in charge of sharpening the 'sharp edges' of these people."
John Mulder stopped in front of Toren. The two were about the same height, but the professional pressure emanating from Mulder, who had spent years traversing battlefields around the world, made the surrounding air seem heavier.
"They are farmers, not assassins," Toren reminded them in a deep voice, with the typical Northerner's protectiveness.
"In my eyes, they are just raw iron that hasn't been tempered yet."
John Mudd ignored Toren's hostility.
He turned around and looked at the thirty soldiers who had already formed a "backless formation".
His gaze was like a sharp scalpel, instantly cutting through the facade of the formation.
"The person at the top, come out," Mud said coldly.
Edric took a step forward, the black fish-scale armor making a dull thud.
As an elite from Dai Ruicheng, he was not convinced by this suddenly appearing "outsider".
"Your signal is too strong."
John Mudd walked up to Edric, extended two fingers, and flicked the inside of Edric's shoulder armor.
"You're pushing your brothers instead of guiding them. In a real melee, that kind of force will make the shieldbearers think you're going to fall, and they'll start spinning out of panic. That kind of mistake is enough for the longbowmen of Blackwood to string you all together."
Edric's expression changed, and he wanted to retort, but John Mulder's subsequent action silenced him.
Muld casually grabbed a shieldman's round shield and gestured for Edric to strike from behind.
No matter how much Edric pushed, Mudd was like a cast iron stake rooted in the mud, his body rotating with the precision of a pendulum.
That extreme control over the center of gravity silenced all the soldiers present.
"William, come here."
Otto had somehow appeared in the shadows of the corridor and waved to the proton who was washing stirrups not far away.
William Charlton jogged over and stopped precisely three steps away from Otto, head bowed and hands at his sides, as docile as a trained puppy.
"Go, follow John Mudd."
Otto looked at the professional officer on the field who was ruthlessly dismantling the formation, his tone cold.
"Watch how he kills, watch how he keeps his soldiers ruthless with minimal rations. He teaches you one trick, and you have to learn three. If he thinks you're useless and kicks you back, you go back to washing those five Blackwood prisoners' latrine buckets."
William shivered.
He looked up at John Mudd's emotionless gray eyes, then at Otto.
"Yes, sir."
William tightened his grip on the black dagger at his waist and strode toward the professional gladiatorial arena, filled with the stench of blood and sweat.
---
Inside the stone tower's inner vault, a dim oil lamp struggled in the damp air.
Maria Frey, accompanied by two robust farm women, was stuffing jars of fine white salt into specially made wooden barrels with interlayers filled with moldy wheat straw.
"This batch of goods will not go through the south gate of Haijiang City."
Maria's voice became hoarse as she turned to look at Pollifer, who stood in the shadows, her eyes gleaming with a greedy shrewdness.
"William's letter says that 'Blind Petyr' is looking for a new buyer again. We need to send this batch of salt into the culvert outside the East Tower, and stuff it directly into the spice merchant's mistress's yard."
"Madam, this is playing with fire."
Pollifer pushed up his brass-rimmed glasses, and although he kept saying it was dangerous, he took notes at an astonishing speed.
"If old Wade finds out we're right under his nose..."
"Old Wade is busy arguing with the Blackwoods at Red Fork River right now; he has no time to look down at the bugs under his feet."
Maria sneered, pulled the bunch of brass master keys from her waist, and slammed them heavily on the table.
"This is what the adults taught me. As long as the profits are divided fairly enough, even the most loyal guards will become the best porters. We need to make Raymond feel that this money is his last fig leaf; we need to make that 'blind Petyr' feel that as long as he doesn't give in, he can buy a third mansion in the Twins."
Pollifer nodded and wrote in the last column: "Spring Plan: Salt Cloth Exchange".
---
And at the very top of the stone tower.
Otto stood in the shadows where the moonlight did not reach.
He heard the sound of guards changing shifts on the parade ground, the sound of iron brushes scraping against chainmail in the cellar, and the sound of Maria fiddling with an abacus in the treasury.
Otto closed his eyes.
"Father, look."
He murmured to himself in the empty darkness.
"This empire hasn't even been built yet, but I can already smell that... alluring odor of its decay."