nownovels Chapter 27: Flying Axes, Blood Tax, and the Whistle of Fracture
Chapter 27: Flying Axes, Blood Tax, and the Whistle of Fracture
The tranquility along the Blue Fork River was shattered at dawn by a piercing scream.
Those were signal arrows issued to the territory's light cavalry—the kind of short arrows with fletching added to bone whistles by the blacksmith Cole. They were now whistling through the cold, sticky morning fog, sending a teeth-grinding whistle through the air.
Nineteen-year-old Otto Hohenzollern sprang from his hard bed in the longhouse almost instantly. A year of high-pressure life on the frontier had long since made him accustomed to sleeping fully clothed. He grabbed the longsword hanging by the bedside and rushed barefoot toward the wooden door.
"Sir! Iron Citizen! They've made their way up from the downstream swampy area!"
The clerk, Pollifer, scrambled up the stone steps, his face, usually reserved for accounting, now ashen in the morning light, and his voice cracked from the exertion of running.
Otto ignored Pollifer's panic. He quickly climbed to the second floor of the still unfinished stone tower. The wind at the top was biting cold, and Otto leaned against the rough stone wall, looking downstream. About two miles from the dock, near a thicket of low bushes, he saw the silhouette of a horse galloping wildly, and behind it, an ominous glimmer of fire.
"Only three riders?"
Otto's heart sank.
"Where's Pete?"
The scene from three days ago, by the campfire in the territory, flashed through his mind instantly.
The young man named Pete was the youngest of the four scouts. He had just received his own scout horse that day and was so excited that he hadn't slept all night. He hugged the specially made lightweight crossbow and went up to Otto, showing it off with a bit of shyness.
"My lord, once I'm on horseback, I'll be taller than everyone else. As long as I keep an eye on those reeds, I'll spot even a water rat swimming by. I'll be your eyes, and I'll never let those saltwater bandits sneak into the camp."
Otto simply nodded indifferently and told him, "Stare at the reeds, not the sky."
And now, in that reed marshland that Pete swore to "keep a close watch on," the flames of death are erupting.
"Rosso! He's been bitten!" Pollifer cried out from below.
In the hazy, cold fog, scout captain Rosso was half-covered in blood. As he rolled to the ground, he was still tightly holding another scout who had fallen unconscious.
Behind them, Pete, who was supposed to be bringing up the rear, now had only an empty warhorse neighing in terror across the wilderness. To the side of the saddle, Pete's prized crossbow, which had never been fired, was still swaying.
"Sir... Pete... he didn't escape."
Rosso was breathing heavily, and dark red blood clots spewed from his mouth with each breath.
"He got too close to see the shadows in the reeds... those beasts were hiding in the mud... the throwing axe severed his neck. I couldn't save him! I couldn't save him!"
Otto stared at the empty horse, his grey-blue pupils suddenly contracting.
The "eye" he had acquired by sacrificing two hundred pounds of salt was easily removed by a cheap iron axe in the very first encounter.
"Polliver, take Rosso to the longhouse to stop the bleeding!"
Otto's voice was as cold as ice from the abyss.
"Toren! Lead the phalanx into position!"
"Thump! Thump! Thump!"
Instructor Toren had already been frantically ringing the iron alarm bell on the drill ground.
About twenty Iron People bandits emerged from the bushes. They were not the regular raiders, often numbering in the hundreds, that the coastal city faced; rather, they were a group of desperate fugitives who had lost their longships and seized inland river barges.
Their bare, muscular upper bodies were etched with hideous sea monsters tattooed on their chests and cheeks. The group smelled the saltiness of refined salt, their eyes gleaming with fanatical greed.
"Squad formation, in position!"
Otto stood on the main road between the mud-walled houses, the only way to the white salt warehouse.
The twelve deputies had donned gleaming black fish-scale half-armor and stood on the far left flank of the formation, their shields locked and spear tips trembling slightly. Although the sight of Rosso's gruesome state terrified them, none dared to retreat a single step under the oppressive weight of Torun's whip and Otto's cold gaze.
In Tiemin's mind, inland farmers would scatter like startled sparrows at the sound of an axe hitting a shield.
"Countdown—ten!" Torren roared from the front lines.
This was the most brutal moment of contact.
The Ironborn's throwing skills were ingrained in their very bones. Several spinning battle axes sliced through the air and slammed heavily into the shield wall on the left flank of the formation.
At that moment, a fatal tactical flaw was exposed.
A cunning Ironborn leader seemed to have grasped a pattern from Torun's roar. He calculated the breath before the phalanx's assassination attempt and hurled his heavy axe the instant Torun shouted "five."
"Snap!"
A sergeant's oak shield was cleaved open with a half-foot-deep crack, the immense impact fracturing his left arm instantly. Had he not been wearing his newly donned scale armor, the axe would have sliced through his ribs.
But he did not fall. The two militiamen behind him held his back firmly.
"Stab!" Toren roared hoarsely.
Thirty-seven spears pierced through the gaps in the shield at the same instant.
The two Ironborn at the forefront were unable to dodge due to inertia. Although they instinctively used their round shields to block, Otto's "Weighted Suppression Array" was stacked four layers thick on the left flank. The spear instantly pierced through the thin round shield, pinning the two Ironborn firmly to the mud.
"Go around! Cut these bastards down from the flank!"
The leader of the Iron People realized that the frontal assault was unsuccessful, so he began to command his men to flank the weak right flank of the square formation.
"Light cavalry, harass!" Otto ordered coldly from the rear.
Despite Rosso's serious injury and Pete's death, the remaining two light cavalrymen, at Otto's command, swallowed their grief and mounted their horses. They rode out through the gaps between the sheds and circled incessantly twenty paces to the right of the phalanx.
"Buzz—"
Two crossbow bolts were fired at the Iron People who were trying to flank them. Although the bolts only hit one of them in the thigh, the mobility and intimidation provided by the horses made these bandits, who were used to fighting on foot and at sea, feel extremely wary, and the momentum of their encirclement was forced to slow down.
"At the top of the tower, fire the scorpion crossbows—!" Otto roared upwards.
Cole himself unleashed the power of a scorpion crossbow. The blue steel bolt, as thick as a baby's arm and equipped with iron wings, whistled through the air with a piercing sound.
"Bang!"
However, since it was their first real battle, Cole's estimation was off. The crossbow bolt didn't hit the Ironborn charging at the front; instead, it slammed heavily into the frozen ground beneath one of the Ironborn, creating a crater the size of a washbasin. Dirt splattered all over the Ironborn's face.
The Ironborn's charge was slightly delayed by the force of the immense power, but this was enough for Cole to complete the second slingshot maneuver.
"Put it on again!"
The second blue steel crossbow bolt whistled through the air. This time, it pierced precisely through a Minion who was preparing to throw a throwing axe. The immense kinetic energy sent his body flying five steps backward, smashing into another Minion behind him, breaking his ribs and sending him sprawling to the ground, a bloody mess.
The morale of the Iron People completely collapsed in that instant.
They came to plunder salt, not to attack the city. Faced with this strange square formation supported by heavy crossbows, harassed by cavalry on the flanks, and as heavy as stone in the front, this group of scattered soldiers finally felt something called "fear".
"Back into the water! Retreat!"
The remaining dozen or so Ironborn began to flee scramble toward the shore. Toren wanted to lead his men in pursuit, but Otto coldly stopped him.
"Don't pursue them. Their skirmishes on the mudflats will wear down our militia. Go and retrieve Pete's body."
An hour after the battle ended, the longhouse in the territory was filled with the pungent smell of liquor and lime.
Pete's body was recovered, half his neck severed. Those eyes, once filled with longing for "riding horses to see the world," were now filled with dust and terror.
He did indeed see the reed beds clearly.
But the price was the flying axe that chopped off his throat.
Otto sat by the fire, and Toren stood in front of him, head bowed, looking dejected.
"Sir, the formation is still not fast enough. The enemy has taken advantage of our countdown."
"It's not that they're slow, Toren. It's that you're too loud."
Otto raised his head, his eyes revealing a cold, analytical look.
"Your shouting on the battlefield not only drained your energy, but also revealed our assassination rhythm directly to the Iron People. That leader was clearly counting your beats before throwing the axe."
Toren froze, cold sweat instantly pouring down his back. This defensive loophole caused by information transparency almost cost the left-wing sergeant, who had suffered a broken leg, his life.
"This 'countdown method' is useful in training, but it's suicidal when you're fighting for your life."
Otto stood up and picked up the broken bone whistle arrow that belonged to Pete from the table beside him.
He plucked the tattered tail feathers, leaving only the bone whistle with holes, and gently blew on it.
"Beep—!"
A short, sharp, and extremely penetrating sound echoed throughout the longhouse.
"From now on, battlefield shouts will be discontinued. One long shout means to hold your shield and defend, two short shouts mean to suppress and assassinate on the left flank, and three short shouts mean to retreat across the board."
Otto handed the blood-stained bone whistle to Toren.
"What I want is a silent machine that only obeys commands."
Toren took the bone whistle and nodded heavily.
"Sir, Pete's horse... its leg is broken, it can't be saved," Pollifer reported in a low voice.
Otto looked out of the longhouse. In the shadow of the nascent stone tower, Pete's body lay covered with a straw mat.
The death of an elite light cavalryman, the crippling of a captain, and the loss of a horse were unacceptable losses for Otto. But he also understood that in Westeros, some legitimacy had to be bought with blood.
"Bury Pete under the stone tower and give his family three times the compensation."
Otto gazed at the shimmering Blue Fork River in the distance, his voice sounding particularly firm in the cold wind.
"I will write this down in my report to the Duke of Riverrun and Earl Jason. I will tell them why I built the stone tower and why I set up the scorpion crossbows. Pete's blood is the legal seal of that tower. From this day forward, anyone who calls this a 'false fortress' is speaking for the Ironborn."
He gripped the longsword tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force.
This battle, lasting less than half an hour, completely washed away the last vestiges of the territory's naiveté. The nineteen-year-old lord knew that this bloody defensive battle was about to become the most fatal blow he would deliver to Tytos Blackwood at the negotiating table.