Chapter 361: A Door Left Open

Chapter 362: A Door Left Open

By the third morning after Fenrir's attack, I could put on my coat without help.

I considered this a significant victory.

Thor watched me struggle with the second sleeve and declined to recognize it.

“You could have asked.”

“I could also have finished before you commented.”

“But you didn't.”

Outside the tent, someone was sharpening a sword. Farther away, soldiers were hauling broken branches out of the drainage ditch where Fenrir had slipped. The camp smelled of damp canvas, porridge, and the bitter wash the healers used on wounds.

We had moved the aid station farther inland. The empty ground where the first tents had stood remained scored by claws and shattered ice.

I looked at it whenever I passed.

Thor noticed that too.

“He bleeds,” she said.

“I noticed.”

“Remember that part as well.”

Then she handed me the morning's reports.

The enemy had stopped trying to force the saddle.

That did not mean they had stopped moving.

Scouts reported work parties cutting timber below the southern ridge. The ships offshore had begun landing barrels in addition to troops. A new road was being cleared between the beach and the court's camp.

“They intend to stay,” King Edric said.

Orynd stood beyond the open side of the command shelter in dragon form, his great head level with the table.

“They cannot remain there unchallenged.”

“No,” Thor agreed. “But we don't charge down a hill simply because they're building something at the bottom.”

Aurethar placed three stones along the coast on our map.

“Their landing ground. Their camp. The spring.”

He tapped the last stone.

“The beach has no fresh water. They have been bringing some by ship. Most comes from here.”

I studied the narrow track connecting the spring to the camp.

“Who is carrying it?”

“Prisoners,” he said. “Escorted in groups.”

Of course they were.

We spent the morning learning more before deciding what to do.

The spring lay inland of the landing ground, beneath a shelf of dark stone. Its water ran into a basin large enough for several carts to fill at once.

There were no houses nearby. The people who tended the grazing terraces had already withdrawn.

The enemy guarded the track heavily near camp and lightly near the basin.

Above the spring, the hillside divided into two shallow gullies.

Aurethar knew one.

Orynd knew the other.

Neither knew how many soldiers were hidden along them now, so scouts went first.

While we waited, Merova brought the evacuation count.

The nearest lower settlements had been cleared. There were still isolated households farther south, and nobody was willing to declare the whole coast empty merely because the obvious road had stopped bringing people.

“We have guides going out in pairs,” she said. “The search continues.”

Edric nodded.

I thought of two names in Mary's book and understood how much could be concealed by the word complete.

The plan Thor approved did not require us to destroy the spring.

I was grateful for that before anyone had to explain why.

We would take the basin, free the workers we could reach, and hold the tracks leading to it. The water would remain where it belonged.

At the same time, the enclave's flying patrols would threaten the landing boats without descending into the range of the engines guarding the beach.

The enemy could keep its soldiers fed and watered from ships if it wished.

But doing so while its boats were being watched, its inland route was cut, and its intended captives were disappearing into the upper valley would be expensive.

Expensive was sometimes enough.

“What about Fenrir?” I asked.

Thor rested her hand on Mjölnir.

“He is why we leave a reserve.”

“And if he comes to the spring?”

“Then he finds us there together.”

She looked toward Veyra, who sat beside the shelter with a cup of broth and an expression suggesting she resented every swallow.

“You remain with the camp.”

Veyra began to object.

Thor raised one finger.

“With soldiers. With orders. Doing necessary work. You are not being discarded because you were hurt.”

Veyra shut her mouth.

After a moment, she nodded.

That afternoon brought another letter from home.

Adriana had written most of it. Evelyn had added a paragraph concerning my ribs, ending with a request that I refrain from proving anything to anyone until I could cough without regretting it.

I had not told her about the coughing.

Thor looked entirely unashamed when I glanced at her.

Adriana's account concerned the boys.

Oren wanted to know when someone would tell them which work they were required to do.

Tarin had asked the same question without words. Whenever an adult entered the room, he stood up.

Mary had explained that they were there to recover.

They had listened politely.

The next morning, Oren had asked again.

I sat with the letter in both hands.

After everything it had taken to get them out, freedom still needed explaining over breakfast.

Adriana wrote that she and Evelyn were keeping their days simple. Meals at familiar times. The same healers when possible. Mila and Lenna nearby. No repeated accounts of the rescue unless the boys themselves wished to speak.

At night, Tarin wanted the door open.

Oren wanted it closed, but without the latch.

For the moment, a folded towel held it halfway.

Julian had visited with Garrick Valewood.

He had asked about the workshop invitation before bringing any of the little ones.

Tarin declined.

Oren asked whether there would be knives.

“Tools,” Julian had answered. “Grandfather decides which ones we can use.”

Garrick had shown them a wooden boat with no mast and no paint, a plain hull small enough to hold comfortably in both hands.

They could work on it later if they wanted.

He left it on the table and took Julian away before the visit became tiring.

By evening, Oren had put a folded scrap of paper inside it.

Tarin had moved it closer to the window.

Adriana said nobody had asked what either action meant.

I was glad.

At the bottom of the page, she had added something else.

Mother says you are to come home before Julian decides he must grow tall enough to fetch you himself.

Below that, in Evelyn's handwriting:

I agree with Mirelle.

I folded the letter carefully and put it inside my coat.

We moved before the next sunrise.

Not the whole army.

Edric held the saddle with most of his company. Merova guarded the road and kept a reserve ready to move in either direction. Thor took Eshara, a selected body of soldiers, and me toward the spring.

Aurethar traveled ahead above the ridge, where his outline could be mistaken for part of the darkness until he moved.

The scouts had marked our path with small piles of pale stones.

We walked quietly enough to hear the water before we saw it.

A man was coughing below us.

Another voice told him to keep the barrel upright.

Then came the sound of a blow.

Thor stopped.

Her hand tightened around the hammer.

I touched her wrist once.

The soldiers behind us were still finding their positions.

She waited.

It cost her something.

There were twenty-three workers at the basin.

We counted them afterward. At the time, I saw bent backs, wet sleeves, and the iron bands on several wrists.

The guards had stacked their spare spears against the stone shelf.

A small fire burned beneath a kettle.

One man stood over the worker who had coughed, holding a short stick with metal bound around its end.

Eshara reached him before he could use it again.

Her spear struck the stick from his hand.

Thor stepped into the open.

“Down.”

Several guards obeyed before understanding why.

The others saw Mjölnir and reconsidered.

One ran toward the camp track.

I froze the ground in front of him. He slid, fell hard, and discovered two of our soldiers waiting when he tried to stand.

The fight lasted less than a minute.

That should have made me feel better.

Then one of the workers continued lifting his barrel, though the man who had commanded him lay facedown in the mud.

We had brought instructions from Caldris, copied and checked before we left Orselle.

We had also brought the white baton captured at the saddle, though nobody assumed it would govern a different set of restraints.

It did not.

The spring overseer carried a knotted cord with small metal weights at its ends.

He claimed it was only a tally.

A woman among the workers stared at him with such hatred that I turned back to the cord.

“What happens when you untie it?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

Thor lifted him by the front of his coat until his boots no longer touched the ground.

She did not strike him.

“Consider your answer.”

His eyes moved toward the woman.

Eshara stepped between them.

He showed us how to stop the work order.

The man with the barrel sagged against it as though his bones had been removed.

We caught him before the weight crushed his legs.

Eight workers wore restraints. The others had been controlled with weapons, hunger, and threats against the people working beside them.

All twenty-three left with our escort.

The spring kept running.

The enemy's first response came faster than we expected.

A horn sounded from the camp track while our soldiers were still gathering the prisoners' weapons.

Then another answered from the southern gully.

“They were watching the basin,” Eshara said.

Or waiting to see whether we would come for it.

Thor sent half our soldiers uphill with the workers and put the rest behind the stone troughs.

I reached for winter.

Then stopped myself from laying ice along the obvious approach.

The enemy had devices prepared for that.

Instead, I sent fog up through the gully and held the air clear around our own positions.

Boots scraped stone below.

Someone shouted for the heat plates.

Thor gave me a brief, fierce smile.

“Disappointing for them.”

The first bolt struck the trough beside her.

She stopped smiling.

They came through the fog in groups, trying to find our line before committing the whole force.

We pushed the first two groups back.

The third had a heavy shield with a charged plate fixed to its face. Heat shimmered along its edges as the soldiers behind it advanced.

I let it come closer.

Then I drove wind against one side while Eshara's soldiers hauled a rope across the track at knee height.

The shield tipped.

The men carrying it fell into one another.

Thor struck the plate before they could recover.

The burst of heat lifted the fog and turned it briefly to steam.

For several heartbeats, both sides could see the whole basin.

And there, above the southern gully, stood Fenrir.

Still in the dark coat.

Still favoring one arm.

He looked at the empty place where the workers had been.

Then at me.

“You have become troublesome,” he called.

The distance between us was too great for an ordinary voice to carry so clearly.

I did not answer.

There were soldiers climbing beneath him. Men who needed their orders watched him instead of their footing.

Thor raised Mjölnir.

Fenrir's eyes moved toward it, then beyond us to the upper ridge.

Aurethar appeared there.

A second dragon rose farther west.

Orynd had kept the reserve where we could use it.

For the first time that morning, the enemy's advance hesitated.

Fenrir could come down to the basin.

He could fight Thor, Aurethar, and me again while fresh dragons watched the routes behind him.

But the workers were already gone, and the ships offshore had begun signaling urgently for help near the landing ground.

He looked toward the sea.

I could not see what he decided.

I only saw him step away from the ridge.

The soldiers below him kept coming for another half minute before a horn finally ordered them back.

We did not follow them into the gully.

Thor made certain everyone heard that order twice.

Instead, we strengthened the position around the spring and waited for the reserve to arrive.

One of our soldiers had been killed by a bolt through the neck. Four others were wounded.

Eshara sat beside the dead man while someone found a cloth large enough to cover him.

I helped dig a shallow drain to keep the spilled water from pooling beneath the stretchers.

There were no speeches at the basin.

By afternoon, the enemy had stopped sending water carts.

By evening, the flying patrols reported troops pulling back from the inland camp toward the beach.

The ships could still supply them.

But holding that patch of coast was no longer giving them the quick captives, the broken alliance, or the open road they had come to take.

We had made remaining there harder than leaving.

For the moment, that was enough.

The withdrawal took another day.

The enemy burned stores they could not carry and crowded soldiers into the landing boats. Our dragons harried the edges of the operation, but Thor forbade a reckless attack over engines we had not silenced.

We rescued six men from a damaged boat that grounded away from the main beach.

Three surrendered immediately.

Two were too badly hurt to make any decision.

The last tried to draw a knife until he realized the soldier approaching him was carrying a bandage.

Fenrir did not appear again.

Scouts found enormous tracks near the southern ridge and ordinary bootprints beside the ruined tower. Neither told us where he had gone.

Orynd refused to declare the enclave beyond danger.

So did we.

Patrols remained. Watch posts were reinforced. A joint reserve would stay near the upper road until the coast had been searched and the enemy's course confirmed.

But families were no longer climbing toward us with smoke behind them.

That evening, someone lit a cooking fire beside the roofless shrine and made enough stew for the soldiers on both watches.

Thor told me I was returning with the wounded escort.

She did not phrase it as a suggestion.

“Edric and I remain until the relief companies arrive. Aurethar stays with Orynd. You go home.”

“I can still—”

“Yes,” she said. “You can. That is not the same as needing to.”

I looked toward the coast.

There were reports to review, roads to inspect, prisoners whose restraints still needed removing.

There would always be something.

Thor waited while I arrived at that conclusion.

Then she handed me a folded list of the wounded traveling with us.

“Try not to make the healers add your name halfway there.”

“I will be sitting on a wagon.”

“An excellent beginning.”

The journey back was slower than I wanted and faster than several of the wounded could comfortably bear.

We stopped often.

At the village where the woman had given us onions, Edric's quartermaster paid her from the company purse and left a letter bearing the king's seal.

She read it twice.

Then she went inside and brought out bread.

The road had not become safe simply because we had won a battle farther south. Escorts watched the ridges. Messengers rode ahead. At night, the wounded slept inside buildings whenever we could find enough room.

I helped where I could and obeyed when the healers told me to sit down.

Mostly.

At Orselle, Rusk met the column and arranged fresh hands to carry the stretchers through the gate.

The harbor behind him was busy with repairs.

Life had continued while we were gone.

I had begun to understand that as a comfort.

Evelyn saw me before I saw her.

I knew because the receiving hall changed around the shape of her expression.

Relief first.

Then an inspection so thorough I almost stood straighter out of self-defense.

Adriana reached me a moment later.

I held them both carefully.

Not carefully enough.

Evelyn felt the breath catch in my chest and leaned back.

“Ribs.”

“Bruised.”

“We will establish that ourselves.”

“Yes, my love.”

Adriana touched the uninjured side of my face.

“You came back.”

“So did the escort.”

“I am glad of both things.”

Behind them, the children had discovered that I was close enough to run toward.

Julian caught Carol before she collided with my knees. Garrick Valewood intercepted Ignatius, while Helena persuaded Seraphina that climbing me could wait until someone had inspected the damage.

Little Garrick stood directly in front of me.

“Back,” he said.

“Yes.”

He nodded once, as though I had finally completed a simple instruction.

I did not see Tarin and Oren until the next afternoon.

Evelyn examined my ribs first. I bathed, ate, slept badly, and then slept properly after Adriana threatened to take away every report within reach.

When I woke, one report remained beside the bed.

Mary had written three words across the folded cover.

This can wait.

Below them, in a smaller hand, Julian had added:

Grandfather says so too.

I left it where it was.

After lunch, we sent to ask whether the boys would like a visit.

Their answer came through Mila.

Oren wanted to know whether I still had the hammer.

Tarin wanted to know whether he had to stand.

I left the hammer in our rooms.

They were sitting beside an open window.

The wooden boat stood on the sill. It had acquired a mast made from a carefully smoothed twig and a sail cut from clean scrap cloth.

Mila and Lenna occupied the other chairs.

Adriana entered beside me, carrying a plate of sliced pears that Helena had insisted somebody take upstairs.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

I had seen Tarin and Oren through a stolen glimpse into the court.

Seeing them in a room where the sunlight belonged was different.

Tarin began to rise.

“You can stay sitting,” I said.

He stopped halfway, uncertain.

I chose the nearest empty chair and sat down first.

Adriana put the pears on the table.

Oren looked at my hands.

“No hammer?”

“I was told this was a quiet visit.”

He considered that.

Then he took a piece of pear.

“I wanted to come sooner,” I said.

Mila glanced at me, then back at the boys.

“Were you fighting the wolf?” Oren asked.

“Some of the time.”

“Did you win?”

“We kept him from the people he was trying to hurt. He got away.”

Oren frowned.

Tarin watched my face.

“He stood outside our door.”

“I know.”

“Did he tell you we had to stay?”

“He tried to tell me many things.”

Tarin's fingers tightened around the edge of his sleeve.

I kept my voice level.

“He did not get to decide where you belonged.”

The boy looked toward the doorway.

It remained half open, held by the folded towel.

After a while, he asked, “Can that stay there?”

“Yes.”

“Even if someone thinks it looks untidy?”

Adriana answered before I could.

“Especially then.”

We did not ask them what Othellos had done.

They had already been asked the questions needed for their immediate care. The rest could come when they wanted, with people prepared to listen for longer than a council schedule allowed.

Instead, Oren showed us the boat.

Julian had helped with the mast. Garrick Valewood had made a little stand so it would stop tipping over on the sill.

Tarin had chosen the sailcloth.

It was blue.

“I wanted it to open,” Oren said, pointing to the small space beneath the seat.

“It does,” Tarin told him.

“Not enough.”

“It opens enough for the things you put in it.”

Adriana smiled at the familiar shape of the disagreement.

“What are you carrying?” she asked.

Oren lifted the little seat.

Inside lay two smooth stones and a folded paper bird.

He showed us each one.

Then, very carefully, he put them back.

When we left, Julian was waiting farther down the corridor with Garrick Valewood.

He carried a tin of paint.

“Did they like the boat?” he asked.

“They were explaining its cargo.”

His face brightened.

“Oren wants a second compartment. Grandfather says we can make one if we don't cut through the bottom.”

“Usually a sound principle for a boat,” Garrick said.

Julian looked toward the boys' door.

“I can come back tomorrow.”

“You could ask them,” Adriana said.

He nodded and went to knock against the frame.

Not the open door.

The frame, softly, so he would not move it.

Garrick watched him with an affection so plain that my throat tightened.

“He's learning,” I said.

“He pays attention,” Garrick replied. “That helps.”

That evening, the family gathered in the sitting room.

Helena and Lisbeth had brought Mirelle away from a discussion about housing assignments. Cassia arrived carrying a basket of sewing she insisted she was going to finish, despite immediately putting it down to rescue a cushion from the children.

Julian sat beside Garrick Valewood.

The four little ones built a harbor from wooden blocks at their feet.

Adriana leaned against Evelyn on the sofa. I sat on her other side, close enough that our hands rested together without anyone having to reach.

There were losses to remember. Letters to write. Fenrir was still alive, Surtr still gathering armies, and Othellos had not relinquished anyone else merely because we had taken two boys out of his court.

Tomorrow, all of that would require us again.

Tonight, Julian looked up from the harbor.

“Tarin asked if we could paint the boat outside.”

“What did you tell him?” Mirelle asked.

“That we could ask.”

Helena smiled.

“The garden table has survived worse than paint.”

“Mostly your father,” Lisbeth said.

Garrick objected. Julian laughed. Carol announced that every boat required three captains, which immediately caused a constitutional dispute among the four children.

Adriana's hand warmed beneath mine.

For a while, I listened to them arguing about something that did not matter.

Then I closed my eyes and stayed.