Chapter 373: The Road They Could Take

The worst thing about the letter was that it had taken three days to reach us.

Commander Ressa Dorn had written that she had three days of food remaining.

I stood over the council table, looking at those two facts until Mary put her hand over the page.

“Looking harder won't shorten the road,” she said.

“I know.”

“Then help me decide what goes on it.”

Outside, wheels rattled across the courtyard. The additional supplies ordered the previous evening were already being loaded. Riders had left through Orselle with instructions for Merova to send what she could ahead. We had acted before we understood the full measure of the need.

Now we understood it, and ordinary wagons were still too slow.

Aurethar stood beside the window, studying the narrow straps a harness maker had spread across a chair.

“I can carry supplies on my reconnaissance flight.”

“How much?” Thor asked.

He gave her a weight. Mary immediately began dividing it between food, medicines, and the containers required to keep both intact.

“No passengers,” Aurethar added. “And nothing hanging beneath my wings. I need to turn if I'm intercepted.”

“Where do you put it down?” I asked.

“At our forward position. Merova can move it under cover. I won't lead every watcher in the hills straight to Ressa's people.”

Thor nodded.

“Fly the road first. If the enemy holds it, we need to know before the wagons reach them.”

King Edric tightened the strap of his sword belt.

“And if they hold it?”

“Then we find out how strongly,” Thor said. “Before anyone makes a stirring speech.”

“I had only a short one prepared.”

“Save it for the horses.”

He smiled, but the expression faded when he looked down at Ressa's letter.

I knew that look. He had brought his own people out through roads lined with things he would remember for the rest of his life.

“I'll go with the relief party,” I said.

Thor considered me for a moment, then moved a marker on the map.

“Take the western approach from Orselle. Merova commands the withdrawal once you reach her. If she tells you to abandon a position, abandon it.”

“I know what her domain is.”

“I know what your temper is.”

Mary continued counting sacks without looking up.

“Both excellent reasons to listen.”

I found Julian in Garrick Valewood's workshop before we left.

He was seated at the bench with a small pair of trousers in front of him, frowning as though the garment had committed treason.

“These were Garrick's,” he said.

“They still are, unless you've decided to borrow them.”

“They fit him last week.”

Across the room, my son was trying to persuade Ignatius that measuring yourself while standing on a wooden block was dishonest.

Ignatius looked down at the block.

“It makes me taller.”

“Yes,” Garrick said. “But you didn't grow it.”

Carol and Seraphina were waiting at the measuring board. Carol had already taken off her shoes. Seraphina was examining hers with suspicion, apparently concerned that the soles might unfairly influence the result.

Garrick Valewood watched them with a pencil tucked behind his ear.

“We're measuring once,” he told them. “Rysa asked for a proper record. She didn't ask us to spend the morning growing against a wall.”

Julian ran a finger over a newly let-down hem.

“They're catching up so quickly.”

“To the trousers?” I asked.

He gave me a patient look that was becoming alarmingly familiar.

I sat beside him.

“Being their older brother doesn't depend on staying a certain number of inches ahead.”

“I know.”

From the measuring board came a sharp disagreement over whose turn it was to hold the pencil.

Julian stood automatically.

“Carol, give it back. Seraphina hasn't made her mark yet.”

Carol objected. Julian listened, explained that helping did not mean taking over, and found a second pencil so she could write her own name beneath her mark.

It took him three attempts and considerably more patience than I would have managed before breakfast.

When he returned, his grandfather was smiling.

“What?” Julian asked.

“Nothing. Just wondering who you think is catching up with whom.”

Julian looked embarrassed, which was usually how he looked when someone noticed him doing something kind.

Then his eyes went to the travel cloak over my arm.

“You're going to Commander Ressa.”

“Yes.”

“Oswin said she used to ride messages for Father.”

“She did.”

He considered that, then reached into his pocket and took out a folded sheet.

“I wrote to her. Mother said I could, if it didn't include instructions.”

“That sounds wise.”

“It says we're here. And that she should come if she can.”

I accepted it carefully.

Garrick Valewood rested a broad hand between Julian's shoulders.

“We'll have the garden beds marked by the time they arrive.”

“All of them?” Julian asked.

“We'll begin with one.”

For some reason, that answer seemed to settle him more than a grand promise would have.

Adriana and Evelyn were waiting near the gate, with Mirelle and Cassia beside them. Celestine stood a little farther off, speaking quietly with Edric.

Adriana took my hand and pressed it against the curve of her stomach.

The baby declined to participate in my farewell.

“Stubborn,” I said.

“Your child,” Evelyn replied immediately.

“Our child has excellent judgment,” Adriana said. “It knows you need to leave before Mary discovers another cart that can be filled.”

Mirelle handed me a small packet wrapped in oilcloth.

“For Ressa. Personal letters. Nothing she has to answer before she sleeps.”

Her fingers held the packet for a moment after I had taken it.

“Bring her enough food to believe she can leave,” she said.

I nodded.

There were promises I could not honestly give her.

That was an order I could try to obey.

The roads beyond Orselle smelled of dust, hot leather, and crushed fennel beneath the wheels.

We traveled with the additional wagons until the road narrowed, then transferred the urgent supplies to pack animals. The heavier stores would follow to a defensible orchard Merova had chosen as a receiving point.

Edric helped unload without waiting for anyone to notice that he was a king.

One of his soldiers attempted to take a sack from him.

“Your Majesty—”

“If you can carry two, take the one on the cart.”

The soldier considered arguing, looked at the sack, and took it instead.

By the time we reached the forward position the following afternoon, Aurethar had already flown again.

His first load had arrived safely. Merova had sent most of it onward with Sabine, the guides, and a small escort. Enough food to feed Ressa's people through another day, with careful portions. Enough medicine to begin treating the worst cases.

It was not enough to bring them out.

But it meant we had not arrived carrying an apology.

Merova met us beside a disused charcoal burner's hut.

“The lower road has been watched since yesterday morning,” she said. “Small patrols. Mounted. They haven't found the camp.”

“Are you certain?” Edric asked.

“No. Ressa is certain they haven't found the present camp. That's why we're moving it.”

She spread a map on an overturned basket.

The direct way toward the coast followed an old timber track between two steep shoulders of rock. A longer path bent west, crossed a dry watercourse, and climbed through scrub before descending toward the orchard.

“The timber track takes carts,” she said. “The western path takes people who can walk well.”

“How many can't?” I asked.

“Too many for us to carry that distance without stopping.”

Edric studied the western line.

“What used to run through the watercourse?”

“Water, presumably,” I said.

He looked at me.

I sighed. “Go on.”

“An irrigation channel,” he said. “See the cut bank here? There's a retaining wall. If the old maintenance track survives along it, we might get narrow carts through.”

Merova tapped the map.

“Sabine thought the same. She's checking from the other end.”

A messenger arrived before sunset.

The track survived.

So did a collapsed section where years of rain had carried away the outer edge.

Three cart lengths of missing road stood between Ressa's people and a route the enemy had not yet occupied.

We entered the hidden camp after dark.

Nobody cheered.

That was the first thing I noticed.

People turned toward the sound of our animals and then toward the sacks strapped behind the saddles. Some stood. Others tried, failed, and remained where they were beneath patched canvas and branches.

A little girl stared at a loaf a soldier was carrying as though she had forgotten bread could be that large.

The cooking fires were tiny, carefully screened. Thin porridge steamed in pots, made from the first supplies Aurethar had brought. The camp smelled of damp wool, smoke, sickness, and food being stretched with more water than anyone wanted.

Ressa Dorn came to meet us wearing a coat that had once been dark blue.

There were repairs at both elbows. One boot had been stitched with wire. Her sword was clean.

She bowed to Edric, then to me.

“Your Majesties.”

“Commander,” I said. “Where do you want the supplies?”

For a moment, she looked as though she had forgotten how to answer a question that simple.

Then she turned and began giving orders.

The camp moved around her.

Soldiers took loads. Two elderly women argued over which pot could be trusted not to leak. A boy appeared with a basket that was too large for him, and another boy silently took the opposite handle.

Ressa watched the food being carried away.

“We'd started boiling the grain twice,” she said quietly. “Once for those who needed it most. Again for anyone who could pretend the water tasted of something.”

I handed her Mirelle's packet.

“She's waiting for you.”

Ressa held the familiar seal beneath the lantern.

“And her children?”

“Safe. All three.”

She closed her eyes.

I gave her Julian's letter separately.

She read it standing up, one thumb pressed against the fold to keep the paper steady.

“He was smaller than my saddle the first time I carried him out to see the horses,” she said.

“He'd be annoyed if I told you he still needs reminding to eat when he's writing.”

“That sounds familiar.”

Her mouth trembled once. She folded the letter and put it inside her coat.

Then she asked about the road.

Sabine took us to the broken track before dawn.

The missing section was worse in person.

An old stone wall had slumped outward into the channel. Above it, the earth had broken away, leaving a narrow ledge that a healthy adult could cross slowly with empty hands.

Below it lay a drop deep enough to kill someone who landed badly.

“We can pass the walkers one at a time,” Sabine said. “But the carts will have to be unloaded, dismantled, and hauled across.”

“How long?” Merova asked.

Sabine told her.

Too long.

Aurethar landed beyond the bend a short while later and approached in human form, dust clinging to his boots.

“Riders on the lower road,” he said. “More than yesterday. Some wagons behind them. I couldn't get closer without drawing attention.”

“Which way?”

“Toward the timber track.”

Ressa's expression did not change, but I saw her hand tighten around the pommel of her sword.

“They've found one of our old camps.”

“Then they'll search the routes out,” Merova said.

I crouched at the broken edge and put my hand against the earth.

There was moisture deep beneath the dry surface. Enough to feel. Not enough to build what we needed without making the surrounding bank unstable.

“I can freeze a span,” I said. “But a smooth ice bridge over a drop is a poor way to move frightened people.”

“And if you're needed somewhere else?” Merova asked.

I looked at the fallen stone, the surviving wall, and the scrub trees farther uphill.

“Then we make something that stays useful when I let go.”

Edric followed my gaze.

“Cribbing below. Timber across. Ice to hold the footings while we brace them.”

“We've no proper beams,” Sabine said.

“We have straight trees.”

“And tools?”

Ressa turned toward the camp.

“Eight hundred people didn't flee with only blankets.”

Within an hour, a cooper, two carpenters, a woman who had maintained mill channels, and three soldiers with axes were arguing over the best place to put the first support.

I stayed out of the argument until they asked me to cool something.

It was surprisingly pleasant.

The mill worker rejected my first idea outright.

“Freeze that whole bank and it'll shift when it thaws.”

“All right.”

She blinked, apparently prepared for more resistance.

“You'll do it where I mark?”

“Yes.”

She handed me a stick.

“Then stop standing on the part I need to look at.”

Edric laughed so hard that Ressa looked over from the men cutting timber.

For the first time since we had arrived, I saw her smile.

By midday, the crossing was wide enough for one narrow cart.

The first across carried three people who could not walk, with their bedding tucked around them and a healer crouched at the rear. Wheels creaked over rough planks. The supports held.

I remained below the outer edge with my palm against the lowest brace, keeping the temporary footings hard while the weight passed overhead.

The mill worker watched every movement.

“Again,” she said when the cart reached the far side.

The next one came.

And the next.

Ressa had divided the camp into groups before dawn. Families stayed together wherever possible. The strongest walkers carried food, tools, and bundles for those who could not. Her soldiers moved among them with their weapons ready and their packs loaded beyond anything I would have ordered from rested men.

Edric stopped one who was carrying a child as well as two full bags.

“Give me that one.”

“I can manage, Your Majesty.”

“I didn't ask whether you could.”

The soldier surrendered a bag.

Edric took it and continued uphill.

There was no speech.

Merova stood beyond the crossing, controlling the pace. Nobody was allowed to hurry onto the planks because the line behind them was frightened. Nobody was left alone on the far side to wonder where their family had gone.

Aurethar kept watch from farther west, beyond sight of the procession. Sabine's scouts screened the wooded approaches.

For almost two hours, the work continued without interruption.

Then a horn sounded from the direction of the timber track.

Ressa turned toward it.

Merova caught her arm.

“Stay with your people.”

“They're my soldiers down there.”

“And they know where to withdraw.”

Another horn answered. Ours.

Sabine's warning.

I eased my hand away from the brace. The timbers had settled onto the stone packing. The ice was no longer bearing the crossing alone.

The mill worker crouched, inspected the joint, and nodded.

“It'll stand.”

I drew my sword.

“Then I'd better earn my keep elsewhere.”

The enemy reached the lower bend with infantry behind six mounted scouts.

They had expected hungry fugitives.

Instead, they found Edric's soldiers kneeling behind a low stone bank, with Sabine's Lyradoni holding the trees above it.

I arrived as the first arrows struck.

A man beside the path fell backward with a shaft through his shoulder. Another soldier dragged him down before the second volley came.

Beyond the bend, someone shouted for the riders to push through.

Edric stood behind the bank with his sword bare.

“There are more coming,” he told me.

“How many?”

“Enough that I don't intend to stay and count them.”

The horsemen started forward.

I sent a hard crosswind through the bend, full of dust and loose leaves. The lead horses shied. One rider wheeled into another, and the charge lost its shape before it reached the stones.

Sabine's archers shot at the men trying to dismount and clear the way.

Then a clay vessel broke against the bank.

Fire spread across the dry grass.

Ordinary fire, this time. It went out beneath a wash of cold mist, leaving a smell of wet ash.

I heard someone beyond the bend curse.

That improved my mood considerably.

A runner reached us from Merova.

“Last carts across. Rear walking group still coming through.”

Edric raised his voice.

“Second line! By sections!”

His soldiers began withdrawing, one group moving while the others held.

The enemy realized what we were doing and pressed harder.

I struck the path with winter.

Frost spread over loose stones and the exposed roots beneath them. Men who had been running suddenly found themselves fighting for balance. I did not try to freeze the whole hillside. I needed seconds, and I needed enough strength left to walk afterward.

An arrow glanced off my armor.

Edric caught the soldier nearest him by the collar and pulled him back as a spear came over the bank.

The king's sword flashed once.

Then he shoved the man toward the withdrawing line.

“Go.”

The soldier went.

We fell back through the trees, stopping twice to keep the pursuit from reaching our wounded.

At the final rise, I looked down the slope and saw Ressa helping two of her people carry a litter.

She had stayed with the column.

When she saw us, she put her shoulder beneath the pole again and kept moving.

Aurethar's shadow crossed the scrub just as the last of us reached open ground.

He did not breathe fire into the woods.

Our scouts were still coming out of them.

He landed on the exposed ridge instead, wings spread, his great head turned toward the path the enemy would have to climb.

The pursuit stopped beneath the trees.

I could not tell whether their officer feared a trap or simply understood what advancing over bare ground toward a waiting dragon would cost.

Either way, Merova used the pause.

We kept moving.

By late afternoon, the orchard came into view below us: old fruit trees, a low wall, wagons, cook fires, and the bright cloth markings our people had hung where the road divided.

No castle.

No gate.

Just somewhere that had been prepared before exhausted people arrived.

A woman near the front of the column saw the water barrels and began crying without slowing down.

The count took time.

Names had to be checked against groups, and groups against the places people had stopped to rest. One boy was reported missing before his grandfather discovered him asleep beneath a wagon beside his sister.

All eight hundred and twelve civilians reached the orchard.

All eighty-seven of Ressa's soldiers came out with them.

The wounded defenders who had traveled among the civilians were accounted for too.

Our escort had nine wounded. Two were serious. One of Edric's men had died at the second position, and his comrades brought him in beneath a blanket with his spear laid alongside him.

Edric knelt beside the stretcher for a long time.

We had opened the road.

He would still have a letter to write.

Ressa found me near the water barrels after sunset.

She had finally taken off her sword.

Without it, and with her coat unfastened, she looked smaller and considerably more tired.

“Merova says we rest here tomorrow,” she said.

“If the scouts continue to find the approaches clear. The wagons can begin moving those who need healers in Orselle first.”

“And the rest of us?”

“Food. Sleep. Then the next stretch.”

She looked out across the orchard.

Children were eating beneath the trees. Someone had found a fiddle among the bundles, though the owner was only tuning it, plucking the same uncertain note again and again.

“I thought leaving would feel worse,” she admitted.

I waited.

“I've spent months trying to keep some part of Lyradon from disappearing. Every time we moved, we left another place behind.”

She took Julian's letter from inside her coat.

“He says he's making a book.”

“He is.”

“He wants to know whether I remember his father falling into the ornamental pond.”

I turned toward her.

“I think I need to know that as well.”

“The king insisted the stepping stones were perfectly safe.”

“Were they?”

“For everyone who wasn't trying to carry a wet dog.”

I laughed. Ressa did too, though hers ended with a hand pressed over her eyes.

After a while, she lowered it.

“Could you tell Her Majesty that I received her orders?”

“Of course.”

“And that I'm bringing them.”

She looked toward the fires, where the people she had kept alive were being given second portions.

“All the ones I still can.”

We sent the message that night with the next rider returning to Orselle.

I added a page for home, carefully separating what we had accomplished from what still lay ahead. The survivors had food and a defended resting place. They had not yet reached the coast. The scouts were watching the roads. The wounded were receiving care.

At the bottom, I wrote that Ressa remembered the pond.

Then I crossed that out.

Julian deserved to hear the story from her.

Instead, I wrote that she was looking forward to helping with his book.

Aurethar settled beyond the orchard wall, his wings folding with a sound like sails coming down after a long voyage. Edric walked the line of sleeping soldiers before sitting beside his own small fire. Sabine ate standing up until Merova pointed at a bench and waited.

For once, Sabine obeyed without arguing.

I leaned back against an old tree and thought of Greykeep: four fresh marks on a measuring board, a garden bed waiting for seeds, Adriana's hand over mine, and a boy who was learning that he could grow into his place in a family without anyone else having to remain small.

Nearby, a child asked whether there would be breakfast.

Her mother looked toward the stacked sacks, then toward the cook preparing grain for morning.

“Yes,” she said.

The child considered this remarkable development.

“Can I sleep until then?”

“Yes.”

A moment later, she did.