Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 36: The Soft Rope of the Purple-Based Silver Eagle and the Fast Horses of Stone Fence City

Pale blue pine smoke billowed from the chimney at the top of the roof.

Two roasted lamb legs, thick with fat, were being turned over in an iron rack over the fire pit.

Oil droplets hit the glowing red charcoal, bursting into a pungent, meaty aroma that filled the room.

The top floor of the inner city of the stone tower has excellent ventilation, allowing you to clearly smell the cooking fumes.

Twelve old soldiers, clad in the iron chainmail of Haijiang City, removed their heavy helmets and leaned haphazardly against the stone wall covered with dried wolf pelts.

Next to it were three barrels of freshly opened, cloudy ale.

"That young man named Hohenzollern, though he's from a poor family, does know how to be filial."

The leading armored soldier wiped the white foam from the corner of his mouth with his rough thumb and let out a burp mixed with wine.

He glanced at the muddy field twenty feet away.

Beneath the stone pagoda, the earthen kiln that burns day and night emits choking white smoke.

Dozens of shirtless farmers carried large chunks of rough earth and ash into the cave dwelling, and then loaded jars of coarse pottery with sealed mud mouths onto a cart pulled by two skinny horses.

The alkali smoke stung their eyes. The veterans from the coastal city only looked down for a short while before coughing repeatedly from the white smoke. They quickly looked away and continued to roughly gulp down the beer from the barrels.

"It's a complete mess down there, like a pigsty. As long as we keep an eye on those earthenware pots and don't pocket the money, we can scrape together those cartloads of salt profits for the Earl next month. Who cares whether these peasants are drinking excrement or sleeping on the mud floor?"

On the shady side of the fire pit, Otto Hohenzollern stood shirtless, his upper body covered in sweat.

A yellowish burlap bandage was wrapped around his left shoulder, and the blood seeping from under the bandage was scalded by the high temperature, forming an unpleasant scab.

Blacksmith Cole, wearing thick, numb tanned leather gloves, used tongs to pull a tightly sealed iron bucket from the most hidden furnace.

The container doesn't contain white salt, but rather coarse argentite powder, which has been refined from mud and sand using high temperatures.

Its weight is equivalent to five times that of pure salt.

Otto picked up a wide-mouthed, rough-bottomed black pottery jar with his right hand.

First, spread a layer of coarse salt three fingers thick at the bottom, then signaled Cole to pour in the grayish-black powder from the iron bucket, and finally sealed it with several large ladles of pure white refined salt.

Scalding hot resin was poured over his head, and a rough piece of burlap was then attached to cover his head.

From the outside, it looks like just a jar of inferior white salt meant for coarse people, but its weight is far from what it appears to be.

Cole wiped the sweat from his grime-covered arm, a suppressed glint flashing in his single eye.

"Sir, the bottom is completely lined with these heavy jars mixed with silver powder."

Cole was breathing heavily.

"We'll just wait until nightfall to hand over the patrol to Lord Raymond."

Otto didn't look up; he grabbed a dusty undershirt with his right hand and put it on.

---

Stone fence city.

This ancient fortress, built of rough, massive blocks of gray stone, resembles a belligerent red-eyed wild boar in the fierce winds of the southern Riverlands.

On the towering battlements, banners embroidered with reddish-brown, spirited warhorses fluttered in the long summer winds.

Count Jonas Brecken slammed down his thick, bear-leg-like arm.

The oak table in front of him, which was at least two inches thick, groaned in pain from the impact of the slap.

The wine glass on the table tipped over, spilling red wine onto a roll of parchment.

His gaze was wild and even undisguisedly violent as he stared intently at the thin accountant standing three steps away from the long table.

Pollifer felt his back was soaked with cold sweat, and his toes inside his boots were trembling, but he gritted his teeth and refused to take even a single step back.

Before Count Jonos were two earthenware jars whose clay seals had been broken.

There were no impurities in it; it was all pure white salt that had been boiled in that earthen kiln upstream of the Lancha River for two whole days before being filtered out.

"You're just a lowly errand runner who can't even say his own last name."

Count Jonos let out a thunderous, hoarse voice from deep within his throat.

"You came to my hall and told me that you wanted to send this white salt, which is more valuable than life itself, out through the Red Fork River tributary of my Brecken family?"

The count extended a large, fat finger, dipped it in a grain of snow-white salt, and put it under his tongue.

The pure, unblemished saltiness exploded in my saliva.

His face, weathered and marred with dark red dregs, twitched involuntarily.

"This is not a request, Lord Brecken."

Pollifer's palms were sweaty, but his voice, as Otto had instructed before his departure, rose to the level of a sword clashing head-on.

"My lord Hohenzollern said that the Seafront City would take half of the white salt trade, and the remaining profits could be given to our friends in the south. But those stubborn old men of the Blackwood family, clinging to their dead tree stumps, have actually erected a tree barrier on the main channel of the Blue Fork River, blocking the trade route to the south."

Upon hearing the words "Brightwood," Earl Jonas Brecken's eyes became bloodshot, as if someone had pierced his flesh with fire tongs.

The blood feud between the Brecken and Blackwood families has festered in the Riverlands for over a thousand years, with the bones of countless generations piled up in the poisonous soil at their border.

"That idiot Tethos, his head is full of crow droppings!"

Jonos kicked over a heavy wooden chair in front of the table.

"He blocked my upstream passage? Does he think the water in the riverbed is all piss from that stinking, broken tree of his!"

Pollyf suppressed his wildly pounding heart and took a half-step forward.

"Therefore, Lord Hohenzollern has sent me with a substantial sum, reserved exclusively for the most powerful family in the entire south. I've brought white salt, along with a monthly quota of one hundred cans. Just fly the banner of the Brecken family's red warhorse, and let your flat-bottomed ships transport it for us."

Pollifer held up two thin fingers.

"Besides the freight, 20% of the profits will go to the treasury of Stone Fence City. But this ship flying the red horse flag must sail openly through the section of waterway blocked by Crow Tree City."

A deathly silence fell over the hall.

All that could be heard was the whistling of the wind blowing in through the narrow window.

Count Jonos, panting heavily, stared intently at the incomplete contract in Polliver's hand.

His eyes lingered on those two words for a long time, and the corners of his mouth slowly parted into a smile—not a smile, but the kind of movement one makes when someone has figured something out.

"Good! He wants to drag the Brecken family into this mess!"

Count Jonos let out a maniacal low laugh.

He grabbed the blood-stained quill pen from the table and scribbled a horse's head in a hasty signature on the parchment scroll before sealing it with wax.

"Go back and tell that Hohenzollern brat! Tomorrow morning, twelve iron-clad grain ships from Stonehold will be flying my red-flagged warhorse banners, heading upstream to collect his salt!"

The count drew his broadsword from his waist and slammed it into the remaining pile of white salt on the table.

"I'd like to see if Tytos Blackwood's archers dare to shoot through the hold of my Jonos's grain transport ship!"

---

More than a hundred miles away at Lancha River, the night had completely erased the last glimmer of bleak light from the distant mountains.

The river wind at night was bone-chilling, and the decaying grass mixed in with the muddy water emitted an extremely unpleasant stench.

The sound of splashing water was deafening. This wasn't a fish leaping, but rather four or five dark figures wading in chest-deep, icy water on a shallow riverbank about two hundred paces from the land.

Otto was only wearing a pair of rough linen trousers.

His upper body was frozen blue.

To prevent his left shoulder from getting infected and festering, it was raised high above the water, and his body was strangely tilted.

To his right, Instructor Toren and three of the strongest veterans were lifting up an old elm tree as thick as a thigh.

One end of the elm wood was singed and blackened by fire.

"Downwards!"

Otto growled in a low voice.

Four strong men held their breath and, under the pressure of the muddy water reaching their chests, pressed the thick log vertically into the muddy bottom of the water.

"Thump!"

Toren swung a heavy iron hammer wrapped in several layers of rags and soaked raw cowhide.

The silence of the night enveloped the muffled, thudding sounds of the impact.

The noise couldn't even penetrate the white mist on the water's surface, let alone reach the ears of the snoring sea garrison commanders at the top of the tower.

Smash it inch by inch into the mud.

When Toren struck the hammer for the seventh time, a corner of the wet leather wrapped around the handle slipped off.

He stopped, bent down, bit the piece of leather with his teeth, and wrapped it around twice more. He wiped the water off his face with the back of his hand and continued swinging.

They stopped only when the tip of the thick log was completely submerged two feet below the water surface.

Without the clear, low water level during the day, ordinary flat-bottomed boats would be torn open by the invisible fangs in the water if they were to drift slightly out of the deep water channel and be propelled by the current.

"My lord, all thirty-six underwater wooden spikes have been nailed to the three openings of the underground waterway."

Toren's lips were purple from the cold, his teeth chattered involuntarily, and his hands were covered in bloody cuts from underwater.

Otto wiped the mud off his face.

The wound on my left shoulder, which was originally black, seemed to have its pain frozen under the icy water.

He didn't speak.

I looked up at the thick mist over the river, then looked to the north. There was nothing there, only darkness.

"go back."

Several people climbed out of the water, their boots making a dull thud as they stepped onto the muddy riverbank.

Toren's teeth were still chattering. He gripped himself tightly with his arms and walked toward the longhouse.

The water mist covered the riverbed, and nothing could be seen.