Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 119: The Abandoned Tent Before the Mahogany Table and the Glimmer in the Mud

Outside the medical tent at the south slope camp, the mud and water had been trampled into a dark red paste. The air was filled with the bitter smell of wound medicine, the stench of festering wounds, and the coke smell wafting from the blast furnace a few steps away.

Ever since the labor code was enacted, the atmosphere at the bottom of the Blue Fork River changed. The migrants, hoping to obtain the status of "land reclamation workers" in three years, frantically competed for a spot in the mines. Even in the most dangerous blind pits, they swung their pickaxes with all their might.

Gareth stood before the wooden tub, immersing his large, blood-stained hands in the icy well water. A murky pink hue rose to the surface. Behind him, on a pile of straw, lay thirty-odd displaced people, their legs broken by falling rocks or their eyes blinded by the acidic mud.

A young miner had just had his festering left leg sawed off. Herbal plasters were applied to the wound, and the bleeding was stopped with a red-hot iron block. The miner convulsed in pain, yet he kept muttering incoherently, "Two more baskets...write it down, my name...the quota in the code..."

Gareth closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the cold air mixed with the smell of blood. He picked up a rough cloth to dry his hands, unsheathed the cross-shaped sword from his waist, placed it on a wooden box beside him, and turned to walk towards the gray stone tower of the inner fortress.

In the study on the second floor of the stone pagoda, charcoal crackled and popped in a copper brazier.

Pollifer stood before the mahogany table, his thin, long face expressionless, and pushed a parchment covered with numbers to the center of the table.

"My lord," Pollifer's voice sounded as if he were checking a bundle of moldy firewood, "In the past two weeks, a large number of people have been injured or disabled in the South Slope Camp and Willow Forest Mining Area in the struggle for promotions in the Codex. Currently, there are seventy-four people lying in the medical shed, completely incapacitated from heavy physical labor."

Otto sat in the main seat, wrapped in his thick gray-black woolen coat, his gaze fixed on the numbers on the parchment.

"These people are consuming our winter wheat reserves." Pollifer's fingertip tapped the column representing expenditures, the abacus beads clicking in his mind. "They can't go down into the mines, or even go to the river to wash iron ore. Providing them with a bowl of the thinnest wheat porridge each day is a bad debt for the territory. I suggest cutting off the medical shed's rations and herbal supplies to these seventy-four men. Save the wheat and feed it to the new laborers who can still wield pickaxes."

William Charlton stood in the shadows beside the bookshelf. Upon hearing this, he slowly placed his hand on the counterweight of the sword hilt, his thumb gently rubbing the rough leather sheath.

With just a nod from the man behind the mahogany table, William would lead his soldiers to throw the useless people in the medical shed into the mass grave to the south. There was no resistance; it was done as cleanly and efficiently as sweeping away a pile of rotten wood.

The heavy oak door creaked open as it was pushed open from the outside.

Gareth strode into the study. The hem of his white linen cloak was stained with mud and dark red blood, and his eyes were sunken and bloodshot from days of brewing medicine.

William's eyes turned cold, and his grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. Polliver stopped his report, a hint of displeasure at being interrupted showing in his eyes behind his brass-rimmed glasses.

Gareth ignored the sword in William's hand and Polyver's cold stare. He walked straight to the mahogany table, placed his hands on the edge, and looked at Otto sitting there.

"Seventy-four men." Gareth's voice was hoarse, filled with heavy, suppressed breaths. "Sir, their legs were broken in your mines, their eyes were blinded by your acidic mud pits. You enacted laws that made them believe that shedding blood would make them human. Now that they're crippled, you're going to stop their wheat?"

“It wasn’t me who broke their legs.” Otto raised his head and looked directly at the weary white knight. “They themselves, in their eagerness to obtain the status of settlers, neglected the supporting timbers of the tunnel. Blue Fork River only pays for labor, not for the accidents caused by greed.”

"Sir! They just want to live!" Gareth's hands clenched tightly on the edge of the table, the wooden board making a slight thud.

"Here, everyone is trying to survive. Including you, including me." Otto stood like a solid ice wall. "Polliver made it very clear. A bowl of porridge for a healthy man can be exchanged for ten pounds of pig iron. For a cripple lying on a haystack, it will only elicit a few groans. Blue Fork River doesn't support cripples."

Gareth stared intently at Otto, his chest heaving. He released his hands from the table and straightened up.

"My lord, I don't want the good wheat." Gareth lowered his stance. "Downstream on the Blue Fork River, near the rocky shore, there's a large wasteland overgrown with poisonous vines. Give me that land."

Pollifer frowned, about to speak, but Otto stopped him by raising his hand.

"I don't need the rations from the inner fortress, nor do I need the protection of the Iron Oath Legion." Gareth's eyes revealed a stubbornness like a rock. "Every day, some half-burnt firewood is sifted out from the blast furnace area. Every month, dozens of bags of moldy, insect-infested wheat bran that even horses won't eat are cleared from the bottom of the granary."

"Give me that rocky beach, and all that moldy chaff and scrap firewood. I'll take those seventy-four useless men and get them out of the south slope camp. They can build their own shelters there and cook their own chaff. Dead or alive, they'll never appear on Chief Inspector Pollifer's desk again."

The study fell into a deathly silence. Only the occasional faint cracking of the charcoal in the brazier could be heard.

Pollifer looked at the roster in his hand, quickly calculating in his mind. From an economic perspective, Blue Fork River hadn't lost a single copper coin by dumping a piece of barren land on Gareth.

Otto leaned back in the wooden chair, quietly watching the white knight before him.

The father was whispering in his ear: William's sword is the most thorough way to settle accounts. Taking in worthless trash will only breed weakness.

But Otto looked at Gareth's white cloak, stained with blood.

"knock."

Otto, wearing a black leather glove, unconsciously tapped his index finger lightly on the mahogany table.

The faint sound interrupted William's grip on his sword.

"Polliver," Otto spoke, his voice still calm, "mark off that rocky stretch downstream and give it to Sir Gareth. Every month, give him fifty bags of moldy wheat chaff from the bottom of the granary, and two cartloads of scrap firewood from the blast furnace."

Pollifer paused, taken aback. William loosened his grip on the sword hilt completely in the shadows, a hint of confusion flashing in his grey eyes.

Otto looked at Gareth, gazing at the weary knight.

"Take them away, Gareth, to that wasteland. Let me see how long your knightly oath can keep them alive on a pile of moldy chaff."

Gareth didn't say another word. He bowed and gave a knightly salute. As he turned and left the study, his steps were heavier than when he arrived.

Half a day later.

Gareth, leading more than seventy crippled men, some missing limbs, some leaning on wooden sticks, and some supporting each other, left the bustling Blue Fork River Fortress. They pushed several wheelbarrows loaded with moldy chaff and scrap wood, trudging along the muddy, rocky shore downstream.

Otto stood in front of the skylight on the upper floor of the stone tower.

A wind carrying moisture blew against his face. He stood quietly by the window, watching the line of disabled people struggling to move forward in the cold wind.

Just as the group was about to disappear into the rain and mist at the end of the valley.

Suddenly, a thin crack appeared in the heavy, leaden-gray clouds to the west. A ray of sunlight pierced through the continuous rain, briefly illuminating the desolate outline of the rocky beach.

Otto looked at that ray of light.

Just seconds later, the gap in the clouds was pushed back together by the gale. The sunlight faded, and the rocky beach was once again completely swallowed by dark clouds and rain.