Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 95: Mud and Pierced Heads Beneath the Cloak

At dawn, the spring mist in the Blue Fork Valley, like a rotten, yellowed rag, clung lifelessly to the gray stone walls.

The heavy oak doors of the inner fortress creaked and slowly opened a crack.

John Mudd, covered in mud and dragging a half-broken wooden cart, stepped into the yard like a funeral procession crawling out of hell.

The wheels left a bloody rut on the dry, hard mud.

All the thirsty citizens and soldiers gathered around.

Steward Pollifer was still holding the broken wooden ladle he used for dividing water. When he saw the mangled body on the cart, the ladle fell to the ground with a "thud".

That's Rosso.

The scout with the severed hand was covered in mud on most of his body, and a few broken, dry reeds were stuck to his cheeks.

A heavy, armor-piercing arrow with black fletching brutally pierced his neck.

The dried black blood had congealed into dark purple patches on his chin and breastplate.

His only remaining right hand was gripping a piece of bloody mud tightly, his eyes wide open.

A few suppressed sobs erupted in the courtyard, followed by deathly silence.

Otto Hohenzollern descended the steps of the stone tower.

He walked slowly, and the sound of his leather boots on the stone slabs was particularly clear in the cold morning air.

The crowd automatically made way for him.

Otto walked up to the cart and stopped. He looked down at Rosso's mud-covered face.

Less than three feet above Rosso's body, Otto and John Mudd, who was standing beside the carriage shaft, exchanged a brief glance.

Then, Otto moved.

He didn't shout or yell like those crude mercenary leaders, nor did he show any exaggerated grief.

He slowly and heavily unbuttoned the iron button on his collar and took off the cloak made of fine black wool that symbolized his status as Baron Hohenzollern.

He bent down and personally draped the expensive cloak over Rosso's stinking, rotting corpse.

The veterans of the Iron Oath Regiment, who were nearly dying of thirst, had tears in their eyes when they saw this scene.

Otto straightened up, his grey-blue eyes scanning the angry, thirsty faces in the yard.

"Tethos Blackwood is a noble earl. He smashed our canals; it was a war between lords."

Otto reached out and pointed to the heavy arrow lodged in Rosso's neck.

"But the noble Blackwood would never stoop to the despicable act of shooting a crippled scout in the back with an arrow in the middle of the night!"

Otto turned around abruptly and pointed to the fog-shrouded riverbank to the south.

"The ones who killed Rosso were bandits entrenched at the water source, trying to drive us to our doom! Rosso was killed by these bastards while trying to clear a path for you to drink water!"

William Charlton, standing in the shadows of the corner, bit his lip hard.

"Today, we're going to fetch water from the riverbank."

Otto's voice suddenly rose, like a steel sword drawn from its sheath, cleaving the deathly silence of the morning.

"Anyone who dares to stand between us and the river is a bandit who murdered Rosso!"

"In the lands of Hohenzollern, no bandit is taken prisoner, and no corpse is left intact!"

"Take your spears and go get back that bloody water from Rosso!"

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Thirty veterans of the Iron Oath Regiment, along with dozens of militiamen, roared like hungry wolves.

Extreme thirst and ignited hatred made them completely forget their fear of the Blackwood army.

At Chen Shi (7-9 AM), the spring mist gradually dissipated.

The turbid and raging Blue Fork River roared not far away.

On the riverbank, seventy or eighty farmers and laborers from Hohenzollern were frantically digging in the soft sand.

The river water during the spring floods is not drinkable, so they have to dig deep pits a dozen steps away from the riverbank.

The turbid river water, filtered through the sand layer, slowly seeps into relatively clear puddles at the bottom of the pit.

The farmers rushed into the sand pit without a second thought, not even bothering to use wooden ladles, burying their faces directly in the seeping cold water, greedily swallowing this life-saving rain.

Behind them, on the only road leading to the inner fortress, was a large expanse of reed beds, seemingly flat but actually muddy, soaked by spring rain.

Instructor Torun squatted behind a patch of hard soil at the edge of the mudflat, chewing on a bitter grass root.

The thirty Iron Oath soldiers around him no longer formed a tight shield wall.

As John Mudd had instructed, they were divided into ten "three-man corner lock groups," like ten rusty iron nails, firmly driven into the junction of all the hard soil and mud on this tidal flat.

Mud lay prone in a mud pit ten paces from Torun, holding an extended hook-and-sickle spear in his hand.

"They're here." Mud closed his eyes, pressed his ear to the mud, and felt the faint tremors coming from the ground. "Twenty-five riders, heavy rangers."

On the opposite bank of the river, Tytus Blackwood's lieutenant was leading a troop of elite cavalry across the water.

They had their sentries removed last night, and today they saw those Hohenzollern peasants swaggering out to dig for water.

This was an unforgivable provocation for the notoriously arrogant Blackwood army.

"Scatter them! Flatten all those sand pits!"

The lieutenant drew his longsword, and his warhorse traversed the shallows, charging straight at the farmers who were digging for water with unstoppable momentum.

They were too eager to pursue and did not carefully examine the geology beneath their feet.

Disaster struck when those twenty-five heavily armored warhorses, clad in leather armor, charged into the reed-covered mudflats.

The seemingly flat ground was actually foul-smelling mud that reached deep into the horses' knees and even their bellies.

Once the warhorses' hooves sink in, the immense inertia immediately causes them to lose their balance.

With a muffled "boom," the seven or eight warhorses at the forefront broke their forelegs and collapsed into the mud with pitiful cries.

"Kill the bandits!" Instructor Torun roared.

Even when heavily armored cavalrymen fall from their horses, they remain dangerous killing machines.

A lieutenant named Blackwood struggled to his feet from the mud, his face covered in blood. He swung his greatsword with a gust of wind, cleaving a farmer who had rushed too close in two at the waist.

Internal organs and blood stained the surrounding mud.

A warhorse with a broken hind leg rolled desperately in the mud.

A shield bearer from the Iron Oath Legion tried to get close enough to finish him off, but was crushed by the hundreds of pounds of weight of the warhorse.

With a sickening cracking sound, the veteran coughed up a mouthful of blood mixed with pieces of his internal organs, dying beneath the horse's belly before he could even scream.

"Hook their horses' legs! Don't confront them head-on!"

John Mudd weaved through the mud, his hook-and-sickle spear spitting like a viper's tongue.

He precisely hooked the ankle of an enemy knight who was wielding a meteor hammer and pulled sharply.

The knight lost his balance and fell. Before he could get up, two black daggers plunged into the gaps under his armor.

The mud pit was filled with roars, the clashing of weapons, and desperate screams.

Blood mixed with foul-smelling mud, turning this mudflat into a giant reddish-brown dye vat.

Fifteen minutes later, this ugly, muddy battle finally came to an end.

Twenty-five of Blackwood's elite cavalrymen were wiped out.

Hohenzollern also paid a heavy price: fourteen farmers were smashed to pieces by warhorses and broadswords, and three elite veterans of the Iron Oath were killed in battle.

Otto stood at the edge of the muddy ground littered with corpses and severed limbs. His boots were stained with blood.

"Strip them of their black and red cloaks. Burn all the coats of arms belonging to the Blackwood family," Otto ordered.

Polly approached, looked at the mess on the floor, and asked with a pounding heart, "Sir... what should we do with the bodies?"

Otto turned his head and looked at the thick, broken logs that had been washed down from upstream by Tethos and originally belonged to the watermill.

"Hanging them is too lenient for the bandits."

"Split those watermill logs in half and sharpen them," Otto said, pointing to the twenty-five enemy corpses on the ground. "Chop off all their heads."

Pollifer shivered.

When Tytus Blackwood led his troops to the other side of the river, he saw a terrifying sight that made his eyes widen and his blood freeze.

On the mudflats opposite the Lancha River, twenty-five rough, pointed wooden stakes stand densely along the waterline.

At the top of each wooden stake, a bloody human head was pierced through the neck.

The heads had their helmets removed, and some still bore the contorted expressions of extreme pain they had suffered before their deaths.

Blood flowed down the wooden stake, seeping into the sand below and turning the once clear puddle into an eerie dark red.

At the very front of these horrific impaled heads stood a tattered white cloth, on which a line of large characters were glaringly written in the stench of human blood:

**Hohenzollern Code: Beheading and piercing of bandits who pollute water sources.**

Thetatus's hooked nose turned deathly pale with extreme rage.

He gripped the sword hilt tightly, his fingernails digging deep into his palms.

He knew that was his regular army, and Otto knew that was his regular army too.

"Pierce..." Tytus's voice sounded like a cold wind blowing from the depths of hell.