Chapter 378: The Gates Stay Open

The morning after we opened Stonewake’s road, I discovered that victory could smell strongly of boiled cabbage.

Someone had moved the council’s meeting into a room above the kitchens because the usual chamber was being used for wounded defenders. Steam rose through gaps in the floorboards. Every few minutes, a cook below us shouted for more firewood.

Thor stood beside the open window, reading the night’s reports.

Lexander sat with his eyes closed and a cup untouched between his hands.

Bruni was not there. The healers had finally persuaded him to sleep, which was a better achievement than anything the council was likely to manage before breakfast.

Dema entered with three members of Stonewake’s council.

Their senior representative was a dwarf woman with silver braided through her dark hair. She introduced herself as Council Speaker Hadrin, then set her helmet beneath her chair before sitting.

I liked her immediately for bringing it.

“The ovens are working,” she said. “The infirmaries have what they need for today. Your wagons are being unloaded.”

“Good,” Thor said.

Hadrin looked toward the window.

“The enemy is still outside.”

“Yes.”

“And if your army leaves, they close the road again.”

Nobody tried to soften the answer.

“That is what we need to prevent,” I said.

The enemy spent that day demonstrating how narrow our success remained.

Their archers tested the corridor from two different positions. A mounted patrol approached the bridge and withdrew when Veyra’s sentries challenged it. Farther uphill, stones rolled onto the upper footpath where someone had loosened a bank during the night.

Nothing large enough to demand our whole army.

Enough to ensure that every wagon needed protection.

I spent the morning helping the engineers raise a shielded barrier at the exposed bend. My part involved holding a timber steady while four people who understood the work argued over its angle.

I had become very good at holding things.

When I mentioned this to Thor, she said it was encouraging to see me developing useful skills.

The second convoy reached the bridge shortly before noon.

Eleanor came with it.

She inspected the wall Bruni had braced, walked the corridor, and returned wearing the expression she usually reserved for buildings that were doing something personally offensive.

“It will carry the wagons if you keep them spaced,” she said. “But that retaining wall needs proper rebuilding. Days of work. Longer if people keep shooting at us.”

“We’re discussing how to discourage that,” Thor replied.

“Discuss vigorously.”

Then Eleanor went to find Ordel and began doing the work while we discussed it.

Dema brought us the first useful answer that afternoon.

It arrived in the form of an elderly elven charcoal burner who refused to sit until someone assured him the chair belonged to neither a king nor a god.

“It belongs to the kitchen,” Hadrin told him.

He sat immediately.

He had spent years working the woods above the enemy’s northern camp. His son had helped the hold’s scouts follow the supply traffic moving through those woods since the siege began.

“They’ve two roads,” he said, laying a rough drawing over our map. “You can see this one from the wall. The other comes down through the charcoal beds.”

Ordel leaned forward.

“Wagons?”

“Small ones. They unload the large wagons above the ridge and bring everything down in pieces.”

“Food?” Lexander asked.

“Food. Tools. The black stone they feed their furnaces.”

I looked at Thor.

The ruined ram was still cooling below the wall. Ordel’s engineers had found a charged iron assembly inside its furnace, together with fuel that burned hotter and longer than ordinary charcoal.

Breaking one machine had not stopped the enemy building another.

“Can we reach that road from the upper settlements?” Thor asked.

The old elf nodded.

“If the people who live there show you how.”

Hadrin looked at Dema.

“Send to them.”

Dema was already moving.

We waited for the guides and used the time to learn what we could.

Aurethar was still sore from the fighting. Tareth’s damaged wing would keep him from maneuvering safely in another battle for several days. Neither condition could be wished away because we wanted the sky watched.

Aurethar flew short reconnaissance circuits with long rests between them. From the walls, Stonewake’s lookouts tracked the enemy dragons when they rose above the ridge.

The collared one remained near the northern camp.

The second flew farther east twice, returning each time before dusk.

We could not tell whether it carried messages or merely watched the roads beyond our reach.

Fenrir appeared once on the ridge where I had first seen him.

He stood long enough to be noticed.

Then he disappeared.

Thor did not alter the hospital guard. Veyra did not abandon the bridge. I did not send riders racing back to Greykeep because he had reminded me I possessed a family.

We sent the ordinary reports, with everything we knew and everything we did not.

That required more discipline than throwing lightning.

The guides reached Stonewake after sunset on the second day.

There were five of them: two dwarves, two elves, and a beastfolk woman with a scar across one ear. They had come by paths that did not appear on our maps.

When Ordel asked whether Bruni could use those paths, all five looked at one another.

“No,” the beastfolk woman said.

“That’s fortunate,” I told her. “He’s supposed to be resting.”

From the doorway behind me came a low, disappointed sound.

Bruni had come to the meeting with his arm secured against his chest and a healer following close behind him.

“I can walk,” he said.

“You can,” Thor agreed. “To your bed.”

“The army needs—”

“The army needs you able to use that shoulder next month.”

He looked toward me.

I considered the size of him, the bandages, and the expression on the healer’s face.

“I wouldn’t choose me as your example of good judgment.”

Lexander coughed into his cup.

Bruni sighed deeply enough to move the loose edge of our map.

Then Hadrin approached him.

“The apprentices have been asking to meet you,” she said. “The ones learning to repair the lower wall.”

His attention shifted.

“They want to know how you felt the stone move before it fell.”

“I didn’t feel it early enough.”

“You felt it in time to save them.”

Bruni looked down at his bandaged arm, then back at her.

“I could tell them what happened.”

“While sitting,” the healer added.

He thought about that.

“While sitting,” he agreed.

We did not take the entire army into the hills.

Lexander would remain at the corridor with Veyra, Istren, and the greater part of our force. Stonewake’s defenders would prepare a sortie, but they would not leave their walls until our signal confirmed the enemy had begun responding to us.

Thor and I would go with Dema, the guides, and a picked force drawn from our troops and the hold’s defenders.

Our objective was the supply road above the northern camp.

We would seize its narrowest crossing and destroy the stockpiled furnace fuel if we could reach it safely. Then we would hold long enough to force the enemy to turn away from Stonewake.

We were not there to run downhill into their camp.

Thor made that point repeatedly.

By the fourth repetition, I suspected she was looking at me on purpose.

Before we left, I wrote another short note home.

There was no way to tell Evelyn and Adriana precisely when I would return, so I did not try. I told them the road remained open and that we were working to make it less costly to keep it that way.

I also wrote to Julian.

I asked him to make certain Garrick Valewood took a break from repairing wagons long enough to eat with them.

Some instructions traveled better when delivered by a grandson.

The mountain paths were unpleasant in ways the map had failed to mention.

For most of the first hour, I could see either the boots of the person ahead of me or a drop I preferred not to examine closely.

My ribs complained about every upward step.

Dema noticed.

“Would you like to stop?”

“Would it help if I said yes?”

“We’d stop.”

I looked at her.

She looked back, entirely serious.

We stopped for five minutes beneath a stand of twisted pines.

Nobody complained. Several soldiers looked grateful.

Thor handed me water without comment, which somehow made accepting it easier.

We resumed when the guide said the next section would be wider.

She had a generous understanding of that word.

By the time we reached the abandoned charcoal beds, the stars had begun disappearing behind low cloud. Below us, a few hooded lamps moved along the enemy’s supply road.

The guides had brought us above a stone culvert where the track narrowed between an outcrop and a steep bank.

A guard shelter stood on the far side.

Beyond it, carts waited beside a timber storehouse.

Thor crouched beside me.

“We take the shelter first.”

I nodded.

No grand storm. No warning bright enough to be seen from every camp in the valley.

We needed the road before the enemy understood it was threatened.

The first alarm came too late to save the guard shelter.

Dema’s soldiers reached it from the uphill side while our archers covered the road. There was a brief clash inside, a shouted demand to surrender, and then men came out with their hands empty.

Farther down the track, a wagon driver abandoned his team and ran.

We secured the animals before they could bolt.

The stockpile was larger than the charcoal burner’s son had estimated.

Heavy crates stood beneath the storehouse roof, each lined with dark cloth. Ordinary charcoal filled separate bins. Farther back were iron fittings, spare wheels, sacks of grain, and two covered wagons prepared for the descent.

Thor opened one crate carefully.

The black fuel inside gave off a faint heat despite the cold air.

“Leave it,” she said.

We moved the food and animals away first.

Then the enemy arrived from below.

They came in a compact column with shields raised, moving quickly enough to show they understood the danger but carefully enough that nobody broke formation.

Their officer had not panicked.

That made our work harder.

Dema’s line blocked the crossing while Thor moved toward the storehouse. I stayed beside the culvert, where the bank gave our soldiers room to stand two deep.

The first enemy arrows struck the outcrop above us.

Stone chips pattered over my shoulders.

“Hold,” Dema called.

The enemy advanced.

I let them reach the steepest part of the track before sending wind down it.

Shields tilted. Men bent forward to keep their footing. Their formation compressed against the bend.

Our archers began shooting at the exposed flanks.

They kept coming.

The fighting at the crossing was close and ugly.

There was no room for sweeping blows. I used my sword more than my hammer, catching spear shafts and striking at hands that reached past the shields.

Dema stood to my left with a short axe.

Once, a man forced his way between us and nearly drove us apart. She struck his knee with the rim of her shield. I caught his weapon arm before he could bring the blade down.

He fell, and the next rank stepped over him.

Behind us, Thor called for the last workers to clear the storehouse.

Lightning struck.

The sound rolled through the hills.

The roof burst upward in a shower of sparks and splintered wood. Heat struck my back a heartbeat later.

The charged fuel caught in fierce patches beneath the collapsing beams.

Thor had waited until the prevailing wind carried the smoke away from our withdrawal path. Even so, everyone near the crossing felt the air change.

The enemy officer shouted for another push.

He needed that storehouse.

He needed a road that was already burning behind us.

A horn sounded from the valley below.

Then another answered from Stonewake.

Our signal had reached the hold.

I could not see what Lexander was doing.

That was the hardest part.

Beyond the trees, horns sounded and distant light flashed against the low clouds. The enemy at our crossing heard it too. Their officer looked back once, then continued directing his men toward us.

Thor returned from the burning storehouse with soot across one cheek.

“Five more minutes,” she said.

We had already held long enough to bring troops away from the siege line. Five more minutes would let Stonewake’s sortie strike while those troops remained committed here.

It felt like an unreasonable quantity of time.

A spearpoint cut across my forearm where the ice had thinned. I knocked it aside and drove the attacker back with a burst of cold that whitened his shield.

Dema’s line changed ranks.

Fresh soldiers took the front while the exhausted stumbled behind them.

One of our men did not rise when the others moved.

Two comrades reached for him. Dema stepped forward to cover them, and I moved with her.

For several breaths, the whole world narrowed to the space between three shields.

Then the wounded soldier was clear.

The enemy’s next push failed to reach the crossing.

Thor raised her hammer.

Lightning struck the empty road behind their front ranks, splitting the formation without falling among our own soldiers.

They broke apart.

“Back,” she ordered.

We withdrew by sections, taking our wounded and prisoners with us.

The grain went on the captured animals. The spare wheels and furnace fittings remained beside the burning storehouse.

Nobody ran downhill looking for glory.

We reached the upper path at dawn.

From there, we could see the valley.

Smoke rose from the enemy’s nearest shelters. Stonewake’s banner stood over the broken gallery, with Concordia’s beside it. Soldiers were pulling captured carts back toward the corridor.

The northern camp was moving.

Not charging.

Packing.

I looked toward Thor.

She watched for a long time before speaking.

“They may be shortening their line.”

“Or leaving.”

“Or trying to make us think they’re leaving.”

We sent scouts and kept our force together.

By midday, the enemy had abandoned the ground immediately below the lower gate.

By evening, their remaining siege machinery was burning.

The two dragons departed eastward before sunset. Aurethar watched them from above Stonewake but did not pursue them alone.

We had no confirmed sighting of Fenrir.

I disliked that more than I would have disliked seeing him retreat.

But I would not spend lives searching every patch of shadow merely to satisfy myself that he had gone.

The scouts followed the withdrawing columns at a distance.

We secured the empty ground.

Lexander met us outside the lower gate.

His cloak was torn, and someone had bandaged his upper arm.

He looked at my face, then at Thor’s.

“You found the fuel.”

“Eventually,” I said.

He glanced toward the smoke above the ridge.

“I had wondered.”

His attack had gone forward when troops began climbing toward our position. With the enemy’s attention divided, the defenders took the nearest trenches and seized the second machine before its crew could bring it into use.

They had not tried to storm the northern camp.

They had taken the ground that made the road safer, then stopped where they could hold it.

The decision had frustrated several younger officers.

Lexander did not appear troubled by that.

Between the mountain action and the sortie, we had lost five allied soldiers and three of Stonewake’s defenders. Twenty-seven wounded had reached the healers.

The soldier we had carried away from the crossing was among them.

Still alive.

I went to see him before attending the council.

He was asleep when I arrived, his breathing shallow but steady. A healer nodded when she saw where I was looking.

“He has a chance.”

After the morning we had endured, I accepted that with gratitude.

The enemy had left people behind.

Some were wounded soldiers. Others were laborers who had hidden when the withdrawal began. A few had been left to burn supplies and instead surrendered when our scouts reached them.

We gathered them in separate guarded areas while the healers worked through the urgent cases.

Seven laborers wore binding bands.

We did not cut them.

One of the recovered overseers’ written orders required them to remain with a marked tool wagon. We brought that wagon into the guarded yard with them while a message went back requesting Caldris and Thesra’s advice.

The people inside it received food, blankets, and care.

Their captivity had changed that day, but I would not call them fully free while the bands still held them.

A young enemy soldier asked to speak to an officer.

When I approached, he stared at my hair, then down at his own hands.

“Are you going to make us fight for you?”

“No.”

He swallowed.

“What happens now?”

“We find out who you are, what you’ve done, and whether anyone can safely go home. Until then, you remain under guard.”

He considered that for a long time.

Then he asked whether he could help carry water to the wounded.

The captain assigned a guard to go with him.

Stonewake did not celebrate until the following afternoon.

By then, scouts had confirmed that the main enemy force was continuing east. The two other seized bridges still needed to be checked, and patrols would be required for weeks, but the army that had stood beneath the walls was gone.

The lower gate remained open.

People noticed.

A few came outside simply to stand on the road. Others walked to the broken gallery and stared at the valley beyond it. An elderly dwarf carried a stool into the sunlight and sat down beside the wall with his hands folded over a walking stick.

Nobody asked him to move.

The bakers sent bread to the hospital and the sentries before bringing any to the council chamber.

Hadrin thanked them, waited until everyone had eaten something, and then asked the question she had plainly been preparing all morning.

“What do you expect from us?”

Thor looked toward me and Lexander.

I set down my cup.

“For now, help maintaining the road, treatment for the wounded, and enough cooperation to keep the next enemy column from surprising us.”

“And afterward?”

“An agreement we can all keep,” Lexander said. “Warning when your scouts find trouble. A place for messengers to change horses. Help for the people who need to leave, if it comes to that again.”

Hadrin looked between us.

“You aren’t asking for our gates.”

“They’re yours,” I said.

She rested both hands on the table.

“Then they will open to your messengers.”

The elven and beastfolk representatives agreed to take the same proposal to their settlements. Stonewake could speak for its own hold; the surrounding communities would make their own decisions.

Dema began listing the routes where shared watches would matter most.

The discussion lasted until the light changed at the windows.

This time, nobody minded.

Bruni received his bread in the lower courtyard, surrounded by apprentices.

One of them had drawn a rough cross-section of the retaining wall on a slate. Bruni was using a finger wider than the chalk lines to show where the weight had shifted.

“Here,” he said. “That’s when it moved.”

A young mason frowned.

“How did you know where to put your hands?”

Bruni thought about it.

“Where it was falling.”

The apprentices looked dissatisfied.

Ordel, seated nearby with his bitten hand resting on his knee, laughed for the first time in days.

“Now you understand why we require drawings.”

Bruni looked offended for a moment.

Then one of the apprentices offered him another loaf, and the difficulty passed.

I sat beside him.

“Helena will feed you for a month when she hears what happened.”

He looked hopeful.

“Will she?”

“I suspect she’ll begin before anyone finishes the story.”

He considered this an acceptable prospect.

I did not leave Stonewake the next morning.

There were wounded who needed steadier transport, prisoners to escort, and a road still being repaired beneath Eleanor’s unforgiving eye. Thor stayed to arrange the relief of our forward companies. Lexander worked with Hadrin on patrol responsibilities.

We were tired enough to make mistakes.

So we took another day, and then another, until the first returning column was ready.

On the evening before departure, I walked to the upper wall with Aurethar.

The valley looked strangely large without the enemy tents.

“The collared dragon is still out there,” he said.

“I know.”

“I saw the collar clearly during the fighting. Different housing from Arvek’s. Heavier beneath the throat.”

“Tell Caldris everything you remember.”

“I already wrote it down.”

We watched the road for a while.

Then he looked toward the courtyard below, where people were loading the carts that would carry our wounded home.

“We saved a place this time.”

I followed his gaze.

The bakery door was open. Children were chasing one another between stacked empty baskets while an adult pretended not to notice until they approached the wagons.

“Yes,” I said. “We did.”

The letter I sent ahead was longer than I intended.

I told Mary which companies would remain temporarily and what Stonewake had offered. I gave the council the details of the enemy withdrawal and the gaps in our knowledge. I asked for the binding specialists to prepare for the seven laborers and their wagon.

Then I wrote to my family.

I told them when we expected to reach Westmere, allowing for the pace of the wounded. I told Evelyn that the healer would be sending her own assessment of my ribs, so there was no point in my attempting to improve the description.

For Adriana, I included a small packet of mountain tea the bakers swore settled an uneasy stomach. I added that Evelyn should inspect it before anyone drank it.

For Julian, I wrote about Stonewake’s gate remaining open.

And for the four children, I drew Bruni sitting beside a pile of bread.

I was halfway through the fifth loaf when Lexander looked over my shoulder.

“You’ve made him smaller than the bakery.”

“I’ve made him fit on the page.”

“Ah. Artistic necessity.”

He took out the wooden duck and set it beside my inkpot.

A little of its paint had worn away during the journey, but it was otherwise unharmed.

“I promised to bring this back,” he said.

I looked at the duck, then at the courtyard where our people were preparing for home.

“Then we’d better.”