Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 113: The Fish Scales of Flowing City and the Blind Sounds of the Mine

The freezing rain of early spring was as fine as cow's hair, carrying the fishy smell of melting snow, and slanted down onto the black muddy ground on the south slope of Lancha River.

Three hundred heavily armored halberdiers, clad in steel scale armor, formed a silvery flood barrier, blocking the main road leading to Hohenzollern Castle.

The Tully family banner, adorned with red and blue water patterns and leaping fish, fluttered in the damp, cold wind.

These are definitely not those bandits who only know how to steal food; these are the regular army of Benliu City.

Edmure Tully rode a tall, chestnut warhorse, his young, handsome face filled with undisguised rage.

His once spotless woolen robe was now splattered with a few drops of the putrid mud characteristic of the Blue Fork River, which gave the honor-seeking heir of Riverrun a sense of physical disgust.

"Baron Hohenzollern!"

Edmure didn’t even want to go near the gray stone wall that smelled of limestone; he shouted at it from horseback, his voice piercing the rain.

"You disregarded the laws of your lord and plundered Willowwood with filthy debts! Now, hand over the mines you seized and come with me to Riverrun to face Duke Horst's judgment!"

The top floor of the stone tower.

Otto sat in the unlit drawing room.

He wasn't wearing armor, only a slightly faded, dark gray coarse linen robe.

His 21-year-old face was taut, revealing a sense of fatigue and restraint.

He peered through the narrow window at the group of gleaming, heavily armed halberdiers of Benliu City outside.

"Sir, they have blocked the ferry crossing and the mud road to the south."

Pollifer stood to the side, clutching the forged iron ore register, his voice hoarse.

"Two merchant ships carrying wheat were detained today. If the blockade continues for another five days, the blast furnaces for iron smelting will shut down due to a lack of coal."

"Please invite him up."

Otto's tone was stagnant.

"Tell the Iron Oath Legion below to remove the spearheads. Without my order, anyone who dares to let the heir of Riverrun shed a drop of blood will be skinned alive."

An hour later.

Edmure Tully, accompanied by two fully armed bodyguards, stomped heavily on the wooden steps of the stone tower and entered the study, which reeked of cheap pine resin.

He looked around at the sparse furnishings with disgust, finally fixing his gaze on Otto, who was sitting behind the mahogany desk.

"You're that 'piercing man'?"

Edmure's hand rested on the hilt of his sword, looking down at his opponent.

"I don't have time to listen to your vile excuses. You crossed the Riverrun and annexed Legge family territory without permission—that's rebellion!"

"These are five hundred golden dragons."

Otto neither stood up nor refuted the accusations regarding honor.

He calmly pushed a copy of the IOU, stamped with the official seal of the scholar from Haijiang City, to the edge of the table.

Edmund's voice caught in his throat.

He frowned, looking at the parchment covered with numbers.

"The Legge family owes me five hundred gold dragons, principal and interest. The Willow Grove mines are assets they pledged to me in writing, protected by the laws of Westeros."

Otto raised his grey-blue eyes and looked directly at the young lord.

"Lord Edmure, have you brought your troops here to absolve a dead man of his debts, or are you preparing to have the Riverrun treasury cover the Legge family's losses?"

"Nonsense!"

Edmure blushed.

"You drove the Riverlands nobles to their deaths with your exorbitant interest rates! Lord Blackwood and Earl Mellist will never tolerate such a cancer..."

"Of course they won't tolerate it. Because they want to use you to break this knife of mine."

Otto's muscles twitched slightly, making his voice sound even more suppressed and low.

"Melist is shouting in the north because he wants to drag the forces of Riverrun into the mud to prove the righteousness of his Seafront City."

"Brightwood is jumping around because they want to take advantage of my downfall and swallow Brecken, who is on the other side of Blackwood River, whole."

Otto stared coldly at Edmure's slightly bewildered face.

"Lord Edmure, look around. Has Brecken sent troops to answer your call? And Old Frey of the Twins, aside from sending men to extort tolls from me, has he uttered a single word of support for you in Riverrun?"

"The vassals of the Riverlands are all laughing at you, but you alone with three hundred men stand up for them in my muddy land."

Edmure's hand gripping the sword hilt stiffened slightly.

Indeed, no major vassal has sent troops to join us in the past few days; the summons from Benliu City seems to have sunk without a trace.

Before Edmure could catch his breath, Otto threw the second parchment scroll onto the table.

It was a contract with a lion motif and a delivery order from Seagull Town.

"You think you can scare the Tully family away with a piece of scrap paper?" Edmure sneered, trying to regain his composure.

Do you think Tywin Lannister would send troops to attack Riverrun just for a few carts of iron ore?

Otto's gaze was cold and deep, directly shattering Edmure's bottom line.

"Of course not. A lion doesn't care whether a wild dog lives or dies."

Edmure was stunned.

"But I know what Lord Tywin will say at the King's Landing council."

Otto stared intently at the heir.

"King Robert is currently overwhelmed with debts to the Iron Throne, which consist of millions of gold dragons. This batch of ore, shipped by Littlefinger, is filling the hole in the Westerlands."

The air in the study seemed to freeze.

Edmure may not be good at accounting, but he certainly knows what's hidden in the Red Keep of King's Landing.

"If you smash up the Liulin mining area today, you can hang me."

Otto's voice was extremely low, as if carrying the eerie winds of the Red Keep's sewers.

"Next month, Lord Tywin's ships will return empty from Seagulltown. He won't send troops; he'll simply tell the King at the conference table: 'Your Majesty, it's not that the Westerlands are unwilling to grant the Iron Throne more time. Rather, it's that the Tully family of the Riverlands, in order to protect a bankrupt minor nobleman, has allowed private feuds to be tolerated and forcibly destroyed mines that could have eased the burden on the royal family.'"

Otto watched as cold sweat gradually seeped from Edmure's forehead.

"Lord Edmure, how will Queen Cersei whisper in King Robert's ear? How will Littlefinger smooth things over?"

"They'll pin the blame for disrupting the 'King's Peace' squarely on Riverrun. Are you sure you want Duke Horst to explain all this to an enraged King Robert for the sake of the Legg family's worthless honor?"

"I am not trying to take away the land of the Riverlands."

Otto uttered his final words.

"The Willow Grove mining area still nominally belongs to the Legg family. I was merely entrusted with managing it on behalf of the debtors, sending my steward there to 'manage' it. In return..."

Pollifer handed over a heavy leather bag at just the right moment, which landed on the table with a dull thud.

"Bluefork River is willing to pay Riverrun City three times the original taxes paid by the Legg family each year. This is as compensation for your hard work and as a future military supply to defend Riverrun City against the northern bandits."

Edmure stared at the money pouch, his face turning pale and then flushed.

But through the narrow window of the stone tower, he inadvertently glimpsed hundreds of farm workers dressed in coarse cloth lining up to receive steaming hot, thick oat porridge on the surrounding farmland.

There were even several soldiers handing out wooden signs to them that indicated they were exempt from rent.

"Although you are coarse and greedy, at least the common people under your rule are not starving."

Edmure straightened his back and said.

"For the sake of the common people being able to eat their fill, Riverrun will allow you to continue your legal 'debt escrow'. But if you dare to overstep your bounds again, the Tully family's wrath will not be spared."

Edmure took the bag of gold coins and the copy of the IOU, and withdrew from the border of the Blue Fork River with his three hundred armored soldiers.

Otto stood by the window, watching the army disappear at the end of the muddy road.

And at this very moment, directly beneath the land trampled by Edmure's noble and righteous iron hooves—

In the extremely deep No. 5 abandoned mine pit.

There is no light here, only the smell of sour decay.

Fifteen-year-old William Charlton, dressed in black leather armor, stood at the edge of the mine's only ventilation shaft.

He held no sword in his hand, and there was no bloodthirsty fervor in his gray eyes.

He simply stared blankly down below, like the most tedious street cleaner.

Dozens of wheelbarrows loaded with waste acid mud and heavy boulders were pushed to the edge of the pit.

"grown ups."

An unsuspecting laborer stared tremblingly at the bottomless, dark hole.

"The seventh group down there...it seems like they haven't come up for two months. Don't they need to lower a rope?"

William glanced at the darkness beneath his feet.

He didn't answer, he just casually raised his hand.

"fall."

"Whoosh—Boom!"

Tons of acidic mud and rocks, mixed with pungent toxic water, cascaded down like a waterfall, sealing off the narrow ventilation shaft.

The dust filled the air, causing the surrounding workers to cough repeatedly.

Deep underground, fifty refugees—including the three suspicious spies—who had been drained of all their strength by two months of intensive mining, were completely buried by the soil.

Not a single drop of blood splattered on William's clothes.

Inside the stone tower, Pollifer picked up a quill pen dipped in black ink and smoothly drew a horizontal line on the "seventh group" of the roster.

Then, he turned around and quietly deducted half a percent from the oat milk ration for tomorrow's South Slope camp.