Chapter 66 — The House Takes Shape

Rainwood's garrison did not charge.

For several breaths the street held two hundred armed men on one side and a wagon full of wounded people and children on the other, with Wayne's ten guards between them. Brienne stood beside Arlan with both hands on her greatsword. Bor tried to rise despite Rodrick's bandages and stopped only when the healer promised to have him tied to the wagon.

The garrison commander carried House Caron's token, but he kept his own sword sheathed. "Graeme Caron reports murder, theft, and armed disturbance. Lord Elton orders every person involved surrendered to Nightsong."

"And what do you order?" Arlan asked.

The question made the man look at the children instead of the token. "I command Rainwood's garrison. Until the King passes, my charge is to keep this market from becoming a battlefield. You will lower your weapons, give names, and remain while I take accounts. Graeme and his men will do the same. No one goes to Nightsong tonight."

That was not submission to Elton, and it was not freedom. It was a commander choosing the duty attached to his post over the convenience of a powerful man's token.

Brienne spoke before Wayne could object. "The children remain together. None is questioned without Bor or another adult they trust."

"Agreed."

Rodrick held up the keys and tally from Graeme's coat. "These are sealed before three witnesses. Your clerk writes where they were taken and every hand that receives them."

The commander studied Rodrick's severed chain. "You presume much."

"I have lately seen what happens when men presume too little about records."

Arlan ordered Wayne's spear points raised. Across the lane, the commander lowered the bows and sent six men to find Graeme. They returned with wounded guards, two abandoned horses, and no kinsman of Elton. Flight did not prove the weapon traffic. It did make his demand for immediate custody less persuasive.

The street became a hearing conducted among mud, broken kindling, and crying children. Residents gave statements separately. One had seen Graeme order the shack burned; another had carried spearheads from the warehouse; a woman named the girl his men tried to seize. Their memories disagreed about how many blows Bor struck and which guard drew first. They agreed about the firewood, the children, and Graeme's command.

The commander placed the warehouse keys, tally stick, and list of names in a leather pouch beneath his own seal and Rodrick's. He did not declare them proof of piracy. He ordered the warehouse closed until a Storm's End officer or the King's men could inspect it. Graeme was summoned to answer before Rainwood's own witnesses, not invited to rewrite the street from Nightsong.

"Your men killed three and wounded more," he told Arlan when the accounts were done. "That will also be reported."

"Report who held the burning brand and who stood between it and the children."

"I will report what each witness says."

It was the only answer Arlan could reasonably demand. The commander assigned twenty garrison men to escort the wagons to the northern gate, partly as protection and partly to make certain FireStorm left Rainwood as promised. The children went with Bor. Graeme's wounded remained under treatment; no one was handed to Elton.

They rode through the night after collecting their goods from the inn. On the official road, the escort's lanterns made secrecy impossible. Once the garrison turned back, Arlan chose the quieter tracks north. The witness names remained with Rodrick, and the sealed receipt in Arlan's document case listed every object Rainwood had undertaken to preserve.

FireStorm's horn sounded before the returning wagons reached the gate. Morton was waiting with the watch and enough villagers to turn the entrance into a crowd, and he counted Arlan first, Brienne second, then stopped when he saw Bor sitting in the rear wagon surrounded by children. "More mouths," he said.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"More hands eventually."

"Children first, hands later."

Bor looked at Morton with immediate approval. The children were placed in repaired houses near the eastern wall, and the older ones received chores suited to age; the youngest received bowls of hot food and instructions not to wander into the kiln, forge, mine, or training ground. Rodrick took Bor to the infirmary and discovered that the giant had partially reopened his wound by lifting a frightened boy from the wagon.

"If you tear that open again," Rodrick told him, "I will ask Brienne to sit on you."

Bor stared at Brienne and finally accepted bed rest, and the council met after sunset. Morton's report was better than anything FireStorm could have produced months earlier, and three hundred barrels of fresh Red Sun Flame had joined the stores, and two hundred pieces of clear glass were ready for trade. Seed grain for the coming planting was set aside rather than counted as available food.

A prospecting party had also found iron-bearing rock near the western pass. "A vein," Morton said, "but not yet a mine."

Arlan nodded. "Keep it that way in the ledger until we know depth, quality, and cost."

Finding iron did not mean FireStorm had become rich. Opening a mine required labor, supports, tools, drainage, hauling roads, and men who knew how not to die underground; still, a workable local source would weaken one of Elton's most useful levers. Cade reported thirty additional recruits through basic drill, and he refused to call them soldiers yet.

"They can hold a shield and march without stepping on each other; that makes them trainees. Give me two months." Wayne looked offended on behalf of men he had trained.

"One month and three weeks."

"Two months."

"You are both unbearable," Morton said.

Rodrick brought the report that silenced them: Robert had reached Rainwood early, Renly was already there with Tyrell retainers and senior Stormlands lords, and Elton had arrived ahead of both and used the time well. "He accused you before the King," Rodrick said. "Harboring Cade, raising troops, dealing with raiders, preparing rebellion. Robert ordered Renly to put the matter before him."

Cade's face hardened. "Then I leave."

"No," Arlan said.

"My presence is half his accusation."

"Your disappearance becomes confirmation of it."

Rodrick nodded. "Lord Renly answered with a summons, not a warrant of arrest. He has also requested Rainwood's statements and the sealed warehouse inventory. That suggests inquiry, not a sentence already decided."

"The King is angry," Morton said.

"Then we give him less to be angry about," Arlan replied. "No hidden troops, no missing prisoners. No loose accounts. Every man under Cade is on a roster, every weapon is in Morton's books, and every accusation against Elton has evidence attached to it."

Cade tapped the map once. "If they order me surrendered?"

"We deal with the order they actually bring, not the one fear invents before they arrive."

That answer settled nothing emotionally, but it gave the room work to do. Rodrick separated original documents from copies, Morton sent for the military rolls and tax records, and Brienne compared the names taken in Rainwood with those the garrison had sealed. Arlan would enter the royal hearing with records already exposed to hostile inspection, not a chest of claims no one else could confirm.

Arlan looked around the table, and FireStorm had accumulated people quickly: Morton administering, Rodrick thinking, Wayne holding the watch, Cade reorganizing infantry, Brienne guarding Arlan, Bor bringing raw strength and the loyalty of men who understood where he came from. The arrangements had grown by habit; they now needed explicit responsibility.

"Morton remains steward; land, stores, coin, farming, workshops, trade, household administration." Morton bowed.

"Rodrick handles correspondence, legal records, intelligence, medical organization, and strategic analysis; you advise. You do not spend household coin without Morton's books recording it."

"A cruel limitation."

"Survive it."

"Cade commands infantry training and field organization; Wayne is deputy commander and retains day-to-day authority over the standing watch. Neither raises men independently." Both accepted.

"Brienne commands my personal guard and remains my sworn sword."

She went to one knee. "Until you release me or I fail the oath."

"Bor trains under Cade as vanguard once he is medically fit."

From the infirmary doorway came Bor's immediate, "I am fit."

Rodrick did not turn. "No."

"I can stand."

"Standing is not the same as being fit to train."

Even Cade smiled, and Arlan made the distinction clear: these were working offices, not hereditary honors, and no one acquired lands, succession rights, or a grand title because FireStorm needed its jobs organized. "We are too small to imitate a royal court," he said. "If an office does not make the holding work better, it does not exist."

The horn sounded outside before the meeting ended, not an alarm but the return of the courier carrying Renly's sealed time and place. Arlan was to present himself in Rainwood after the King's noon meal on the second day, with Cade alive, the prisoner rolls, and any witnesses he chose to trust before a hostile court.

"Good," Arlan said. "Nothing hidden that becomes suspicious when found; nothing loose enough to disappear on the road." Rodrick gathered the document cases, Morton sent for lamps, and Cade returned to the barracks rather than flee them. FireStorm prepared to answer in person.