nyslfriends Chapter 19: Water Network and Ironclad Evidence
Chapter 19: Water Network and Ironclad Evidence
On a long summer night, a thick, viscous white mist hangs over the Blue Fork River.
There wasn't a breath of wind in the air, only the fermented, fishy smell emanating from the reeds on both banks, a mixture of rotting water plants, dead fish, and silt. In this almost suffocating heat, even the usually noisy summer frogs were collectively silent, and even the buzzing of mosquitoes had subsided, as if the valley had buried all sound underwater in the dead of night.
Damon Rivers stood by the stern of the flat-bottomed boat "Black Toad," his bulging, cloudy eyes fixed on the fog ahead. Sweat streamed down his rough neck, soaking through his fish-smelling leather vest. As the most infamous bastard of the Valpin family, Damon had been smuggling on the Blue Fork for ten years. He could navigate the river's undercurrents with his eyes closed, but tonight he felt an unprecedented, insidious panic.
"Boss, there's a sharp bend ahead. After this bend, it's another two miles of waterway to the Hohenzollern docks."
The first mate lowered his voice, gripping a sharpened boat pole tightly in his hand, his knuckles white.
Damon didn't speak, but bit his thumb nail in frustration. It was a habitual action, something his hand would do when he was thinking, regardless of what he was thinking; his hand just did it on its own.
Something's not right. Something's really not right.
The deep-draft flat-bottomed boat was now neatly stacked with four thousand pounds of aged wheat and two barrels of rust-preventing grease. According to past practice, Raymond Frey's tax patrol boats should have already stopped when entering this section of upstream waters under the jurisdiction of the Twins. Even if Damon possessed Raymond's privately issued exemption warrant, the patrolling soldiers would certainly have stopped the ship and demanded a few silver stags as a "service fee."
However, tonight, from nightfall until now, the entire Blue Fork River is as still as a giant tomb.
There were no torches, no patrol boats, and not even a trace of a tax collector.
"A free river is a slide to hell."
Damon's voice trembled slightly; a smuggler's intuition sent chills down his spine. That greedy idiot Raymond had actually removed all the patrols. He wasn't making way for Damon; he was clearing the way for another group to commit murder.
"Boss, you mean... there's a tail behind it?"
The first mate gasped.
"Nonsense! Tytus's gang has been looking for an opening these past few days. Raymond must have dropped the sentry post so that the night raiders hired by Blackwood could burn us and our boat to ashes on the water!"
Damon growled through gritted teeth, his voice at its absolute limit.
"Let's turn around! We can still leave now!"
"Turn around?"
Damon stared at the first mate as if he were a dead man; there was no mockery in his eyes, only the clear-headedness unique to someone cornered.
"You think the assassins will let us go if we turn back now? They're already following us through the fog! Our only chance of survival now is to follow Sir Otto's instructions and sail the ship into his dock!"
Damon jerked the helm sharply, cold sweat dripping onto the deck without him even noticing.
He finally understood why the seventeen-year-old lord was willing to sell him silver at 20% less than the fair market price. It wasn't a favor; it was money for risking his life, money to use Damon Rivers as bait. He had been taken into account from day one, and he only realized it tonight.
"Stop all the lanterns! Wrap the oars in rags!"
Damon gave a firm order to keep the noise level so that only a few people on the ship could hear it.
"Follow that row of dead trees struck by lightning on the left bank! If we deviate even a foot from our course, we'll all have to feed the fish!"
The "Black Toad" blended completely into the darkness, gliding through the thick fog like a giant ghost, even the sound of water was minimized.
Less than half a mile behind them, on the water, three long, narrow, and extremely fast speedboats, like three black daggers, silently tore through the mist, closely following Damon's path. On the speedboats were more than twenty men dressed in black night clothes, each holding a cocked crossbow, a boarding rope with an iron hook, and a ceramic jar filled with flammable oil.
The leader, a scarred man named Ge Gen, was a ruthless mercenary who would sell even his own father for money. Three days ago, he accepted a hefty bounty. The employer's request was simple: burn the grain ships sailing to Hohenzollern territory that night, and then storm the docks to carry out a bloody pirate raid.
"Boss, that stupid ship has entered the bend."
A mercenary greedily licked his lips. It wasn't a deliberate action; it was something his tongue did on its own, the kind of action a person would take when they smell blood.
"Tell the brothers to prepare cauldrons of oil."
Ge Gen drew the short knife from his waist, his eyes flashing with cruelty.
"That flatboat is too deep to go fast. Wait until they approach the dilapidated docks of Hohenzollern and prepare to slow down, then flank them from both sides. Light the fire, board, and leave no survivors."
"clear!"
The oarsmen of the three speedboats exerted their strength, and the hulls carved three white streaks in the water as they rushed towards the dark shadow ahead like arrows released from a bow.
As the fog gradually thinned, the outline of the unfinished stone tower in the Hohenzollern territory became faintly visible in the pale moonlight.
Damon's "Black Toad" had slowed down and was carefully gliding along the left bank of the river, following a seemingly treacherous waterway full of reefs, slowly entering the inner harbor of the dock in a strange manner.
"They've reached the shore! Let's go!"
Ge Gen let out an excited growl. In his vision, the river ahead was wide and unobstructed. In order to form an encirclement as quickly as possible, he did not hesitate to order the three speedboats to abandon the twisting left channel and cut directly into the open waters of the center and right flank at full speed towards the dock.
This is the difference between smugglers and those who understand defense. They only see the vastness on the surface of the water, but they don't know how to calculate the costs beneath.
As the three speedboats sprinted into the waters 150 paces from the dock—
"Crack—!!!"
A sickeningly loud crash, like a plank being violently torn apart, exploded across the deathly silent Blue Fork River.
The speedboat on the far right seemed to have suddenly crashed into an invisible iron wall while running at full speed. Below the waterline at the bow, a thick, solid iron stake, forged into four barbs at the top, pierced through it like a hot knife through butter. Under the immense force of inertia, the stake tore a terrifying six-foot-long gash through the bottom of the speedboat.
The river water surged in like a fountain, and before the mercenaries could react, they were thrown into the icy water by the violent jolting. Half of their shouts were swallowed by the water the moment they hit it, and the other half floated in the mist and soon disappeared as well.
"Damn it! There's something underwater! Hard to port! Hard to port—"
Before Ge Gen could finish his exclamation, the central main ship he was on also suffered a devastating blow.
The five hundred pounds of pig iron that Otto brought back from the Sea Frontier City, under the tireless forging efforts of the one-eyed blacksmith Cole, were not only transformed into underwater stakes, but also into an underwater interception net woven from coarse iron wire and pig iron caltrops. This iron net was submerged half a foot underwater. The "Black Toad," with its deep draft, could navigate safely along the marked deep channel on the left, while these speed-seeking assault boats, once they charged recklessly, would immediately have their bottom entangled in the iron net.
"Creak!"
The keel of the main ship jammed instantly, and the entire vessel hovered eerily on the water for a moment before suddenly capsizing to the right. Earthenware jars filled with flammable oil shattered on the deck, instantly filling the air with a strong, pungent odor, but they didn't ignite. The jars fell onto the deck, the liquid spilling out and flowing down the tilting planks into the water. The odor, mixed with the mist, lingered on the surface of the water, refusing to dissipate.
Chaos erupted on the water's surface, the splashing sounds of people falling in, the screams of mercenaries, and the cracking of ships mingling together, shattering the deathly silence of the long summer.
"There's an ambush! Swim ashore! Quickly!"
Ge Gen thrashed about in the water, trying to grab a piece of floating broken wood. He managed to grab it, but the plank couldn't support his weight and sank two inches. He kicked hard, using the plank as a springboard to paddle toward the shore. The fog made it impossible for him to see where the shore was; he only knew to head toward something hard.
However, this was not a battle; it was a massacre with its costs precisely calculated.
"laugh--"
Suddenly, a torch lit up the dark, high ground of the dock.
In the firelight, Otto Hohenzollern stood there quietly, his left hand draped in a cloth strap, not wearing armor, but only a black wool cloak, his right hand casually resting on the hilt of his sword at his waist. He looked down at the river, which was as hot as boiling water, in a very casual posture, as if he were watching something he had foreseen happen and it was unfolding exactly as he had predicted.
Behind him, twelve veterans of the Iron Oath Regiment, clad in the chainmail of the Sea Frontier City, stood solemnly like statues.
On the mudflats and high slopes on both sides, twenty men selected from the twenty-five militiamen leveled the old heavy crossbows obtained from Haijiang City, while the other five men, armed with spears, lay in ambush in the outer reed beds to block any escapees.
"Toren."
Otto's voice was calm in the night wind, without any heightened emotions; he was simply doing one thing.
"Bring your entourage to their seats. Have the farmers take their round shields and spears."
Torun blew the bone whistle.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"
Thick crossbow bolts, whistling with death, rained down on the exposed water like a storm. In the water, the mercenaries' prized agility and swordsmanship were rendered useless; the heavy bolts pierced their shoulders, backs, and skulls without resistance. Blood quickly stained the Blue Fork River, casting a faint reddish hue on the pale mist, a red that spread within the mist as if something were rotting there.
Several assassins who tried to climb onto the shallows had just straightened up from the mud when Jack, a scout lying in ambush in the reeds, pierced their necks with a spear. The sound was clear in the quiet valley, the kind of real sound that didn't need any extra processing.
Gegen was utterly desperate. His prized night raid team had been reduced to a pile of floating chunks of flesh and broken planks without even touching the enemy's clothes. He tried to escape by diving, but a waterlogged, coarse hemp fishing net was cast down from the shore, precisely trapping him inside. The cast iron counterweight hanging at the bottom of the net instantly dragged him to the bottom.
"Pull him up."
Otto looked at Ge Gen, who had been dragged onto the pier and was coughing up water like a dead dog. There was no satisfaction in the way he looked at him; he was just confirming that the outcome was as he had expected. Once he confirmed it, he would continue walking.
Damon Rivers stood to the side, watching the bloody yet efficient one-sided massacre, his legs trembling like leaves. He thought he had seen a lot in his life, but he had never seen anything like this. It was too quiet, too orderly, everything falling into place, without any panic. That calmness was more frightening than panic itself.
"Oh... Sir Otto... your cargo, four thousand pounds, is intact."
His voice was trembling; he could hear it himself and tried to suppress it, but couldn't.
"Polliver, settle his bill. From that thirty percent of silver in cash, not a single copper star less."
Otto didn't even glance at Damon before heading towards Gegan.
Damon's hands trembled as he accepted the heavy bag of pure silver. He looked at the wet corpses on the pier, then at the exact amount of payment in his hand. Amidst the fear, a strange sense of security arose within him. He suddenly realized that as long as you weren't on the opposite side of this person, his contract, like his knife, was calculated, real, and would land where it was meant to land.
Otto slowly walked up to Gegen, whose face was filled with fear. His face had changed color due to falling into the water and fear at the same time. That color had no name, but it was the color of a person when they were truly desperate.
"I'm just doing this for money! I surrender! According to the rules, you can ask for a ransom!"
"Rules are made by the living. On my territory, you don't even qualify to be a prisoner."
Otto crouched down, grabbed Gegen's hair with his intact right hand, and forcibly pulled up his mud-covered face, forcing him to look directly into his eyes. There was nothing in those eyes—no anger, no pleasure, only one person confirming the location and condition of another.
"I don't want your ransom. I want what's on you."
Toren strode forward, roughly ripped open the belt around Gegan's waist, and dumped all his belongings onto the damp, muddy wooden planks. A few scattered silver deer, a poisoned dagger, and—
A finely crafted money pouch made of the finest calfskin. At the closure, a brass clasp held a clearly visible twin-tower emblem. It was the authentic coat of arms of the Frey family of the Twins, not a replica, but the genuine article, pressed from the original mold, bearing the distinctive casting marks of the Twins' workshops.
Otto picked up the money bag, weighed it in his hand, and finally a small smile appeared on his lips. It wasn't a smile of joy, but the kind of smile an auditor would give after verifying that the books were correct.
If there is only a confession, that is called framing; but with this deposit bag bearing the Frey family mark, that is called irrefutable evidence.
Raymond Frey didn't even have time to switch the money bag when he collected the toll from Tethos, or perhaps he never imagined it would fall into Otto's hands, or maybe he thought tonight would be so clean that there would be no trace left. It doesn't matter anymore.
"Lock him in the cellar beneath the longhouse. Wash his wounds with salt water, lest he die of a fever."
Otto stood up and casually stuffed the money bag with the twin towers emblem into the inside of his cloak. The action was so casual, as if he were putting something ordinary in, but he knew it was no ordinary thing; it was a piece he would need in his next move.
"Polliver."
"Yes, sir."
"Prepare pen and ink. Send an urgent letter, using the most polite language, to our neighbor, Lord Raymond Frey."
Otto turned to look north, towards the Twins. The fog on the river still obscured that direction, making it appear as an opaque white, but Otto knew where it was; he didn't need to see it.
"Tell him that this month's silver dividend has been refined. To ensure a safe delivery, he must come to the longhouse in Hohenzollern's territory tomorrow night, accompanied only by two trusted men. Tell him I have a great gift for him."
The summer night breeze dispersed the stench of blood from the water's surface, but an even larger noose was already silently tightening its grip on the Frey family's throat.