Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 78: The Silent Tent

The fire in the blacksmith's shop had been burning for seven days and seven nights.

The intense smell of coke, mixed with the sulfurous fumes released during the quenching of pig iron, clung to the riverbank like a thick, prickly, damp cloth. Even the rushing river couldn't wash away this metallic, acrid odor.

One-Eyed Cole was shirtless, his upper body covered in black hair, and his fleshy face was smeared with a shiny layer of oil from the smoke.

He stretched out his calloused right hand and pulled a piece of freshly cooled iron scale from a bucket of sticky, black fish oil.

The surface of the armor plate gleamed with a dark blue, cold light, a result of repeated melting. The edges were ground extremely thin, but the center was as thick as three copper plates.

"Sir, this is the last batch of materials. All four thousand pounds of pig iron have been used to fill these armors."

Cole's voice was hoarse, as if he had a handful of metal shavings stuck in his throat.

He casually tossed the armor plate onto the stone platform. The sound of its impact was no longer a crisp clang, but a heavy, dull sound with a sense of being swallowed up.

Otto Hohenzollern stood in the shadows beneath the stone tower.

He changed into a dark gray linen shirt, stretched out his right hand, and ran his fingertips over the "Summit" heavy armor that had already been assembled.

"Toren, let those sixteen men in to get their armor. Wear it tight so the armor plates don't rattle."

---

As dusk fell, the north wind subsided slightly, but the mist over the Blue Fork River was as thick as a pot of undissolved goat's milk.

Two miles to the south, behind the Blackwood family's newly erected Black Raven boundary marker, fifteen Blackwood patrol cavalrymen sat around a small campfire.

They weren't using any official banners, just wearing old black burqas, and were grumbling as they tore into cold, hard jerky.

In their eyes, the people living behind that gray-white earthen wall to the north were nothing more than a group of cripples who were sick from hunger.

Two days ago, the tax collector, Scholar Seron, from Sea Frontier City left, taking with him a ship full of scrap metal.

"Look at the smoke over there, the salt kiln is about to go out too."

A Blackwood Ranger pointed in the direction of the stone tower and sneered.

"Once the ice has completely melted and the Earl's heavy cavalry arrives, I'll snatch that woman from the lord's side. I heard she's Walder Frey's granddaughter; she'll surely be quite a treat."

A burst of laughter echoed through the woods, startling several roosting crows.

Unbeknownst to them, a series of heavy, unusual footsteps, deliberately masked by the sound of water, were approaching from the flank, in the knee-deep, wet mud.

Otto crouched in the reeds.

His boots were filled with cold mud, so cold that his toes were almost numb.

He held the bone whistle in his hand, his eyes like a poisoned awl in the thick fog.

Beside him were fourteen heavily armored figures in black.

They resembled a group of iron trees that had grown out of the mud, their fish-scale armor coated with a thick layer of rust-proof black paint, offering no reflection in the dim firelight.

Everyone was breathing very softly, with only a slight, sluggish friction between the iron scales due to the fish oil coating.

"Beep—"

A very short, extremely sharp bone whistle, almost swallowed up by the wind, rang out.

It wasn't a charge.

Edric moved.

As the "apex," he placed his two hands precisely on the shoulders of the two shield bearers beside him.

There were no shouts of killing.

The only sound was the "crack" of heavy armor crushing dry branches.

The triangular formation of the three men resembled a giant, geared millstone, and they crashed directly into Blackwood's campfire through the wooden tunnel that Polliff had laid out beforehand.

"Who?!"

A Blackwood Ranger was about to touch the longsword beside him.

But the last thing he saw was a crescent-shaped iron blade with barbs.

"Sizzle—"

That was the sound of a sharp blade slicing through the trachea, crisp as if a piece of expensive silk were being torn apart.

Edric pulled back sharply, and the barbs of his hook-and-sickle spear tore the man's throat guard to shreds.

There is no need to push forward across the entire front.

Fourteen heavily armored figures were divided into four triangular groups, like four black scissors, precisely cutting off the lives of these unsuspecting people in the thick fog.

A Blackwood soldier wildly swung his machete, slashing at the shieldman's oak round shield.

The cast iron on the shield made a muffled thud.

The shield bearer didn't even sway his feet; he merely bent his knees slightly, transferring the pressure to the apex behind him.

Edric slammed his left hand down on the shieldbearer's back.

Spin.

The hook-and-sickle spear swept back along the gaps in the shield.

The soldier's scream lasted only half a breath before his femoral artery was completely severed by the crescent-shaped hook.

---

Gareth led the forty peasant militiamen to guard the perimeter of the woods.

He watched the fourteen armored soldiers advance and retreat silently in the thick fog, and watched the soldiers of Blackwood fall silently like bundles of wheat.

"Sir, it's all clean."

Toren emerged from the mist, a piece of bone the size of a fingernail stuck to his iron helmet.

Fifteen Blackwood Rangers were reduced to twitching, lifeless flesh on the muddy ground.

The campfire was still crackling, its light illuminating the naked corpses.

"Strip clean."

Otto walked over to a corpse and kicked the black emblem on the ground with the tip of his boot.

"Armor plates, boots, belts, horse tack—anything that can prove their identity must not be left behind."

"Where's the body?"

Gareth's voice trembled slightly as he looked at the mangled remains torn apart by the hook-and-sickle spears.

"Sink it into that big mud pit to the west. Sprinkle three baskets of quicklime on it, then cover it with mud to seal it."

Otto turned and looked south.

"Titus Blackwood will find his patrol missing. In this spring swamp, the missing are more useful than the dead."

Otto walked up to the black crow boundary marker.

He didn't pull it out, nor did he leave any bloodstains on it.

He just stared at that piece of wood for a long time.

"Polliver, enter the tent."

Otto gave the order without turning his head.

"Seven warhorses and thirty pounds of broken wrought iron were captured. This will offset the losses incurred this month due to the boundary markers in the birch forest."

---

Late at night, the group returned to Graystone Fortress.

The fourteen sets of fish-scale armor were covered again with tattered burlap.

When Edric took off his armor, the leather padding on his shoulders had rubbed off a layer of skin, but he walked silently to the hearth, picked up a bowl of warm pork porridge with lard, and gulped it down.

Inside the stone tower, Otto sat at a table, holding a hemostatic powder prepared by Maester Ilion.

Gareth walked in, sat in the shadows, and looked at Otto.

"My lord, this method of killing... is against the rules."

Gareth finally managed to utter a sentence.

"The rules are for those who sit in King's Landing and eat grapes."

Otto sprinkled the powder on the wound that had reopened, and the intense pain made the veins on his forehead throb slightly.

"In Blue Fork River, there is only one rule: a dead enemy is a debt settled."

He turned his head and looked at Gareth.

"The ice has melted, Gareth. That means it's not just Blackwood who's after us, but also those pirates who've got their hands on the silver. If it weren't for these fourteen armored soldiers, our labor squad would be lying in the mud pit tonight, getting lime thrown on them."

Otto stood up and threw the blood-stained combat log into the charcoal brazier.

Flames shot up.

"Tell Pollifer that starting tomorrow, spring planting should begin at full speed. And tell those well-fed militiamen to hold the plow firmly."

Outside the window, the sound of ice cracking came again, heavy as if death were knocking on the door.