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Crackclaw Point – Golden Port
A whole month had flown by in the nonstop building and production that never seemed to sleep in Golden Port. Early that morning, a crowd gathered beside the brand-new experimental fields carved out upstream along the Golden Crab River.
More than a hundred people stood there, but if you looked close, almost every face belonged to Pierce's inner circle—key people from the workshops, labs, and command staff. Not a single regular townsfolk was in sight.
The entire area had been cleared out days ago. Heavy rings of soldiers and Tyrant wights guarded the perimeter to make damn sure no curious eyes caught what was about to happen.
Pierce stood on the raised bank, violet eyes calm as he studied the freshly harvested field—stubble cut neat and even across the rich black soil.
Maester Ferren, Qyburn, several wildling Shifters who'd just started mastering the technique, and today's operator, Amod, stood at attention beside him. The air crackled with tense excitement.
In the middle of the field crouched a monstrous machine. Most of its skeleton was exposed, only the critical moving parts wrapped in rough reinforced wooden housings.
The main frame was huge and nightmarish—mammoth leg bones for the thick, powerful limbs, giant shoulder blades and ribs for the broad torso, and a massive curved whale spine running down the back. All of it had been brutally fused and reshaped by necromantic magic and the freezing power of the White Walkers into something that should never have existed.
Black-iron gears and reinforced tendons connected the joints. The giant bone claws and plow blade gleamed with cold menace. This was Pierce's "Plowing Beast"—the unholy marriage of half-remembered modern farm machinery and the death magic of this world.
It wasn't just for plowing. Swap out the front attachments and the same frame could handle seeding, harvesting with toothed cutting wheels, or crushing stalks with heavy rollers. In practice, it was already doing the work of an entire modern combine harvester.
At its core it was a powerful, soulless platform—an empty bone-and-magic shell just waiting for a Shifter's mind to climb inside and take the wheel.
Of course, that kind of power came at a cost. The bones still ground against metal day after day; wear and tear was constant. But even with the maintenance headaches, this single machine shattered every old idea of what farming could be. With it in the fields, Pierce's agricultural output was about to explode.
"Begin," Pierce said quietly, nodding to Maester Ferren.
Ferren signaled the nervous wildling Shifter, Amod. The man had fumbled his first demonstration earlier, only showing part of the Beast's capabilities. But he'd steadied himself now.
Amod took a deep breath, focused, and slipped into the blank-eyed Shifter trance. A heartbeat later, two cold blue lights flared to life inside the empty sockets of the giant bone frame.
Crunch… grind…
The awful sound of bone scraping bone and gears turning filled the air. The mammoth-leg supports pushed the colossal frame upright. A monstrous shadow spilled across the field as the Beast took its first heavy, slightly jerky steps toward the unplowed ground.
The front attachment—a plow blade carved from giant ribs—sank deep into the rich soil. As the Beast lumbered forward, black earth rolled up in perfect, even waves behind it, broken and ready for planting.
The speed and precision were insane—far beyond anything oxen or horses could manage, even better than Pierce had hoped. The turned soil looked dark, moist, and alive.
Pierce's face broke into a genuine, satisfied smile. With this black-tech monster in the fields, he could free up hundreds of workers from backbreaking labor. Those people could move into workshops, construction crews, or the army instead. New land could be cleared faster than ever, and yields would skyrocket.
Fertilizer was still mostly compost and carefully collected night soil—nowhere near modern chemical levels—but with the Plowing Beast he could simply farm more acres to make up the difference. Hand-crafting fertilizer in this world was never going to happen; he'd work with what he had.
"Excellent. Record the data, calculate wear rates, and start training more operators immediately," Pierce told Ferren and Qyburn. "Next test: harvesting and threshing functions."
…
…
The following day, Pierce toured the half-underground grain silos built into the hills on the western district edge, accompanied by Maester Moore.
The black-stone structures were rock-solid and perfectly moisture-proof, with clever ventilation shafts that used wind and manpower to keep the air moving. Whenever temperatures spiked, the whole system could be adjusted at once.
The air smelled of fresh, dry grain. Massive bins overflowed with golden wheat and smaller Yi Ti rice kernels piled like miniature mountains.
Compared to the test fields, this harvest was noticeably better—plumper grains, higher yields—thanks to the new fertilizer mixes, tighter field management, and the ridiculous amounts of sea fertilizer the fish-people had been hauling in.
"My lord, current stocks are already enough to feed every citizen for a year and a half, and more is still coming in," Maester Moore reported, flipping through his thick ledger. "We're following your rotation and pest-control protocols to the letter."
Pierce nodded, scooped up a handful of wheat, and let the kernels trickle through his fingers. "How are the new wildlings settling in?"
"The second batch of three hundred arrived five days ago and are housed in the expanded delta camp," Moore answered smoothly. "Thanks to the first group's… demonstration, the new arrivals are adapting faster. Resistance is almost gone. The men are mostly on coal transport, road work, and dock labor. Osha's women are doing steady work at the silkworm sheds—learning quickly."
As they stepped into a quieter underground chamber, a soft hiss caught Pierce's ear.
In the shadows, a thick snake with vivid ringed patterns was slowly swallowing a fat rat whole. The rodent's tail disappeared down its throat just as the two men noticed it.
The snake lifted its head, forked tongue flicking, but it didn't strike. It simply watched them.
"Rat problem under control?" Pierce asked, amused.
A rare, stiff little smile touched Maester Moore's face. "Extremely effective, my lord. Our 'sentinels' are very dedicated."
He explained, "We selected several highly venomous species. The wildling Shifters made initial contact and convinced them the silos are their new nesting grounds and hunting preserves. They can slip into cracks we could never reach, and they've been told that any large two-legged creature without a strong rat scent is a friend who provides the nest. They rarely attack humans."
Moore's eyes practically sparkled. "You were right, my lord—strong intent during a Shifter bond really can influence the animal. This line of research is fascinating!"
Pierce watched the snake lower its head in what almost looked like respect. He understood perfectly.
Shifting was all about raw soul power overriding an animal's instincts. The greenseers and the Night King were just stronger versions of the same thing.
That understanding was exactly why he'd figured out how to reverse-control and even modify wights.
"You're handling the wildlings, the Shifters, and all this grain storage alone," Pierce said. "Not too much for one man? Any wildling Shifters showing special talent we can pull in to help you?"
Moore thought for a second. "We've identified roughly twenty with potential or awakened ability so far, but talent levels vary wildly. Qyburn's been running some… stimulating experiments with certain drugs to raise the awakening rate in normal people. Still extremely unstable and high-risk, though."
Pierce nodded. Talent took time. No shortcuts.
…
…
After the silos, Pierce strolled back toward the eastern-district castle with Ser Rosco Brune, Ser Benard Brune, and four Tyrant wights for escort. They walked the main streets of Golden Port.
Cement roads stayed smooth and dry even after rain. Shops lined both sides—bakers pulling fresh rye loaves from ovens, taverns with crab-and-anchor signs swinging above the doors, blacksmiths hammering away in showers of sparks, smokehouses dripping with spiced sausage and salted fish. The whole place smelled like life, prosperity, and hard work.
The second people spotted Pierce, everyone—shopkeepers, housewives, playing children—stopped what they were doing and bowed with real smiles. Some old folks tried to kneel; the port constables gently stopped them.
"Long live Lord Pierce!"
"My lord!"
"Thank you for the good life!"
"He looked at me!"
Cheers followed him down the street. Here, anyone willing to work—even the crippled—had a place in the handicraft workshops weaving, polishing, or doing whatever they could manage. Everyone ate. Everyone had a roof.
Golden Port ran like a well-oiled machine on the rails Pierce had laid down—raw, explosive growth wrapped in iron order.
Back in the castle study, the raven master was already waiting with the latest dispatches.
Pierce flipped quickly through the translated messages, noting anything useful.
From Shae in King's Landing: Littlefinger had held a secret meeting with the customs officer at Gulltown. They'd clearly struck a deal on some very off-the-books "gray income." It looked like Petyr's fingers were deep in the Vale's smuggling routes—hardly shocking, since that was exactly where he'd first made his name.
Pierce jotted a quick note with his quill on the special paper. Littlefinger's reach was even longer than he'd thought.
Tyrion's report was almost sad. The rice seeds and farming techniques he'd brought back to the Westerlands had been dismissed by Lord Tywin as "frivolous nonsense" and "an insult to Lannister dignity." Father and son had another screaming fight. In the end, Tyrion had quietly handed the seeds to his aunt Genna at the Twins, hoping she'd try them on a nearby estate.
At the Red Keep, things between King Robert and Queen Cersei kept getting worse. Another shouting match had ended with the king hitting her again. Maybe out of guilt, maybe thanks to Melisandre's quiet influence, Robert had actually agreed to let Cersei build a small prayer shrine to the Lord of Light inside the Red Keep itself.
That was a dagger straight into the heart of the Faith of the Seven. Pierce could already picture the High Septons losing their minds.
The last scroll was from Dragonstone—short and very interesting.
Lady Selyse, wife of Lord Stannis Baratheon, appears to be with child.
Pierce set the scroll down, leaned back in his chair, and let a slow, satisfied smile spread across his face.
Every piece on the board was moving exactly where he wanted—some fast, some slow. The storm was gathering.
And Golden Port would be the strongest fortress in that storm… and the deadliest whirlpool at its center.