Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 34: The Cry of the Sickle and the Cicadas in the Longhouse

The water level of the Blue Fork River dropped by two inches in just three days.

The dried-up riverbed hardened rapidly under the scorching sun, turning a dizzying grayish-brown. This sweltering heat no longer carried moisture, but was a pure, suffocating dryness, as if even the air itself had been dried up by the lime kiln that burned day and night.

Otto Hohenzollern stood in the shadows of the second floor of the stone tower, his right hand unconsciously pressing against the splint on his left shoulder. The old wound, soaked in sweat, produced a fine, piercing itch. This itch tested one's sanity more than the excruciating pain.

He looked down at the territory beneath his feet. The once open mudflats were now firmly locked up by a gray-white rammed earth wall. Inside the wall were neat shacks, and outside the wall was a dead swamp.

But what he saw was not prosperity, but depletion.

"Sir, this is the cost of today's labor."

The voice of the clerk, Pollifer, came from behind him, hoarse and fast-paced, as if he were compressing his words before speaking. He handed over a wooden board coated with a thin layer of beeswax, its engravings gleaming in the sunlight.

"Four militiamen collapsed from the heat while digging the No. 3 dry well. A refugee responsible for burning charcoal had his leg broken when a collapsed earthen kiln fell on him. I've been providing him with porridge for a week as per my special permit, but someone else will have to take his place."

Pollifer wiped the sweat from his brow. The charcoal pencil had left a black mark on the wooden board. He rubbed it with the back of his hand, but it only made the mark smudge further.

"Most importantly, the mining progress of those forty militiamen is about 20% slower than last week. My lord, it seems we won't be able to pay Earl Jason's 60% share of the silver this month."

Otto did not turn around.

His gaze was fixed on the forty swaying figures on the drill ground. These farmers and miners were biting wooden sticks, enduring Instructor Torun's whip, mechanically repeating the marching motion. The light in their eyes was rapidly dimming as their strength was exhausted.

Humans aren't made of iron. Even iron that's been repeatedly forged will break, let alone a human.

"Earl Jason wants real silver, but I want walls to protect my territory."

Otto's voice was as cold as ice.

"Tell Matt to cancel all the healing porridge and replace it with double the amount of boiled, lightly salted water. Tell the militiamen to stop work for two hours this afternoon and take a nap in the cellar, but they must be at the drill ground on time tonight."

"But sir, over at the mine—"

"Go and do it."

Otto interrupted Polyver. He knew he was gambling with the lives of his people. If the land blockade by Tethos wasn't resolved quickly, this exploitation of his people's physical strength would inevitably lead to rebellion sooner or later.

He descended the stone tower, his boots clattering dully on the log path. When he reached the blacksmith's shop, Cole's heavy hammer vibrated at a strange frequency, more like counting beats than hammering.

Otto pushed open the half-closed workshop door, and a wave of heat mixed with the smell of rust and grease rushed out.

"Sir, here are your new teeth."

One-Eyed Cole wiped the soot from his face and pointed to a row of freshly quenched polearms beside the anvil. They were no longer the slender spears of the traditional kind. At the top of the ash wood poles, a strange and menacing iron piece was being forged: from one side of the originally sharp, conical spearhead, extended a heavy, crescent-shaped iron hook with barbs. The hook's blade was polished to a gleaming shine, gleaming coldly in the dim workshop.

Hook-and-sickle spear.

"I've tried, sir."

Cole grabbed a hook and yanked hard at a thick crossbeam. With a snap, a fist-sized piece of wood was torn from the beam by the hook.

"The thrusting force is the same as a regular spear, but the pulling force—if it hooks into a gap in the chainmail or the stirrup, even a twelve-year-old child, by using their weight to sit back, could pull a fully armed knight off his saddle."

After finishing the last hook blade, Cole picked it up and glanced at it in the sliver of light filtering through the corner of the workshop. He squinted his one eye, turned the blade around, and looked at it again, noticing a small chip on the edge. It wasn't big, but in his eyes, it was scrap. He tossed the blade into the scrap heap, grabbed a piece of iron, and stuffed it into the furnace without a word.

Lent, who was stacking iron blocks on the rack, handed one to Cole halfway through. Cole took it, weighed it in his hand, and pushed it back. "That one's too soft. Use the one from the next row." Lent looked around and found another one. This time, Cole didn't say anything and placed it on the anvil.

"I reinforced the hook neck with blue steel scraps from those old crossbows in Sea Frontier City. It won't break unless it hits heavy plate armor."

A hint of arrogance flashed in Cole's single eye.

How many are there in total?

Otto reached out and stroked the cold, hooked blade.

"Twelve. Priority will be given to your sixteen Iron Oath veterans."

Cole looked at the pile of pig iron with a pang of heartache.

"This thing uses twice as much iron as a spear. My furnace is almost empty."

After he finished speaking, he took an iron hook from the tool rack, weighed it in his hand, and then put it back. The action was somewhat like saying goodbye.

"Starting tomorrow, these twelve hooked sickles will no longer be present on the training ground."

Otto turned around and looked out the window at the reeds shrouded in mist.

"Cole, I want you to take your apprentices to the innermost compartment of the longhouse and wrap all these sickles in coarse black linen. I want everyone to think they're just ordinary spare spears."

Cole paused, his one eye lit up, and he didn't ask any more questions.

He turned to look for the linen, and as he reached the door, he kicked a piece of broken iron on the ground, tripped, steadied himself, and continued walking.

---

As night fell, there was no sound from the drill ground except for the occasional sound of a bone whistle, which would then disappear.

Otto sat alone by the narrow window on the first floor of the stone tower, without lighting a lamp, letting the darkness engulf him. The bone whistle that had been removed from Pete's body lay quietly in his palm.

He kept thinking about what happened that night.

A mole.

The nail must be hidden among the new refugees, or worse—among the original forty militiamen. Someone left the hearth in the dead of night to pass the signal to the Tethos sentry patrolling the water, or perhaps it directly attracted the Ironborn.

Footsteps sounded outside, the soles of boots clattering on the log path, stopping at the stone tower entrance. After a moment, the wooden door was pushed open, the hinges creaking softly.

Pollifer walked in, rubbed his hand on the door frame, and got some white dust on his fingers. He didn't notice and pressed the clipboard into his palm, leaving a white handprint on it. He stood still before speaking.

"My lord, as you instructed, the message has been spread."

He lowered his voice, a slight tremor in it.

"I deliberately let those gossipy women from Labor Group Three overhear me while I was registering at the warehouse, saying that a batch of refined white salt would be sent to Baron Paiber's territory that evening via a secret passage through the muddy swamp to the south."

Otto looked out the window at the gray-white stone wall. There was a small, unfinished gap there, directly facing the man-eating swamp. He had left that gap intentionally, like the red string on a fishhook—it looked like a hole, but it was actually waiting for someone to bite.

"Who was sent to keep watch?"

"Jack is leading the team. The remaining two light cavalrymen are already in ambush in the deadwood forest."

Pollifer swallowed hard, gripping the notebook tightly until his knuckles turned white.

"Sir, if no one touches it tonight, our food rations for tomorrow—"

"Someone will make a move."

Otto stroked the bandage on his left shoulder, the excruciating pain keeping him in a state of frantic lucidity.

"Tethos Blackwood won't let any opportunity slip by to cut off my income. And that mole, he's practically driven mad by the lime smell and boiling water of the territory. Under such pressure, anyone with selfish motives would find the outside world far more alluring."

Otto stood up, drew his longsword from his waist, tested the blade with his thumb, and made no sound.

"Send word to Torun. Have him take those twelve veterans who have been given hooks and sickles to assemble on the gentle slope behind the swamp. Do not blow whistles, do not light fires."

"Tell them we're going hunting tonight. The prey isn't wild animals, it's those neighbors who want to stab us in the back."

Pollifer received the order, strode outside, his boots making a louder sound than usual on the stone slabs, and pushed open the door. Once outside, his footsteps slowed and then disappeared into the night.

---

Late at night, the mist from the Blue Fork River began to drift towards the shore.

At the end of the sewage ditch paved with quicklime, a blurry figure silently avoided the training team's patrol route. He skillfully slipped into the reeds, heading straight for that deadly, yet deliberately safe, swampy area.

On the stone tower, Otto watched that figure's retreating figure, holding the bone whistle in his hand, without moving.

The figure walked deeper and deeper into the fog, disappearing into the mist.

Otto waited for a while.

The mist drifted slowly over the reeds, covering the muddy beach until nothing could be seen except for the occasional, faint, intermittent sound of water.

He put the bone whistle in his mouth.

"Beep—!"

A muffled whistle suddenly disappeared into the mist.