Chapter 299: Preparing the Ground

The first barrier failed before they carried it out of the yard.

Dain leaned his shield against the frame and pushed. Two joints held. The third twisted, letting the lower rail lift clear of its brace. Branth caught the falling timber while Rod stepped back with the other end.

“That would have moved under a charge.” Dain said.

Branth set the frame down. “It was built to resist from the front.”

“The ground slopes.”

The builder crouched and examined the opened joint. Hadrin stood beside him with a bundle of wedges. For a moment, Rod expected an argument over whose method they had used. Instead, the keeper knelt and held one brace in position while Branth measured a second.

They had been working since breakfast. Reedbank had sent timber, fiber rope, and workers. Hadrin had opened the station shed and contributed the poles he normally used for road repairs. Theren sorted each length before allowing it into the pile. Wood still carrying active growth went elsewhere.

“The briars will take to it faster.” he explained when Rod asked.

The replacement barrier used dead timber with wide feet that could be pinned between retaining stones. Dain tested it from three angles. This time it held until the pole beneath Rod’s hand began to flex.

Branth marked the successful joints with charcoal.

“Three like this. No taller.”

They were not building a wall to stop the beast outright. The barriers would turn its approach and keep it from moving directly into the workers’ lanes. Rod wanted space to retreat around each one. A solid obstacle that trapped Dain beside it would serve the boar better than the party.

Dirk worked separately with Senn, marking distances on a cord. They would use it to measure the angle from the stone shelf to the upper track. He had selected narrow arrows for the gaps beneath the shoulder plates and heavier heads for exposed joints.

Lana sat with Theren near the stove. Between them stood three trays containing cut runners.

She froze one lightly, one until its leaves darkened, and left the third untouched. Theren tested each with his blade. The deeply frozen runner broke easily but required more magic than they could spend across the whole field.

“This much.” he said, tapping the first tray. “It holds long enough for a cut.”

Lana repeated the effect and timed the thaw. Nessa wrote the result beside the amount of growth treated. They needed a method that worked when Lana was also watching the beast.

Midnight slept beneath the bench until the sound of a knife scraping wood woke him. He stretched, climbed into Lana’s lap, and watched the moving stems with narrow interest.

Rod took the completed barriers outside with Dain. Their weight was manageable with four people, awkward with two. They would carry the parts separately and assemble them on the marked ground. Branth added a short tool roll to each bundle so one forgotten mallet would not hold up the entire line.

By midday, the yard resembled a repair camp.

Workers wrapped their sleeves and tied cloth over the tops of their boots. Nessa checked the bindings, making them loosen anything that restricted movement. She gave each crew a small packet of clean cloth and showed them where to place a thorn fragment if it broke beneath the skin.

“Do not dig for it with the same blade you used on the plants.” she said.

Senn repeated the instruction to the workers arriving late.

The disagreement came when they assigned the lower clearing lane.

Reedbank’s people knew the tools. Hadrin’s people knew the growth nearest the station approach. Neither side wanted its workers maintaining the lane closest to the hollow while the others remained above the bridge.

Rod let Senn and Theren explain the work once. When the discussion began repeating, he spread Dirk’s map on the ground.

“Two mixed crews.” he said. “One person from each side on the cutting line. Others carry the cut growth and watch the path. You change positions before anyone becomes tired.”

Hadrin began to object that his workers were fewer.

“Then the shifts account for that.” Rod replied. “I need people who can work together on this ground. If you cannot provide them, we postpone.”

Corren looked at the marked hollow and agreed first.

Theren selected the pairs. Senn assigned the relief positions. The two leaders walked the escape routes with every worker before anyone carried a barrier downhill.

Rod watched them leave. He would rather lose an afternoon rehearsing than discover during the charge that a worker thought the nearest path belonged to the other household.

In Sanctuary, Max stood beside a cart that had become stuck in the receiving hall’s widened turn.

Anna examined the wheel while two gnomes held the load steady. The revised arrangement had moved the storage benches, giving the cart room to swing. It had also encouraged workers to approach the turn faster, leaving the inner wheel against a shallow threshold.

“We gained room and found the next obstruction.” Max said.

The gnome directing the trial crouched beside the wheel. “Smaller carts cross it.”

“The larger carts are why we moved the benches.” Anna replied.

Max asked them to unload the front third. The cart rolled free once the weight shifted. He studied the scrape on the floor and the height of the threshold. It existed to keep loose material from drifting into the inspection area, but it had been placed where a wheel approached at an angle.

He opened the room plan and moved the threshold farther back. A shallow ramp would take the loaded cart over it before the turn began. The gnomes placed temporary boards while he checked that the change left the barrier fittings accessible.

They ran the trial again with the same load.

The wheels crossed cleanly. Anna made them reverse through the route as well, then asked a worker who had not watched the earlier attempt to drive the next cart. He approached too far to the left and caught the outer crate against a bench.

Max moved the bench another handspan.

Before the next passage, Anna asked one of the shorter workers to take the cart. The handle sat high against his chest. He could push the load, but steering around the turn forced him to move his grip.

The gnome directing the test fetched a shorter handle from the workshop rack. Its fitting did not match the cart’s socket. They compared the two, found that a removable sleeve would hold it properly, and made a temporary one from a spare collar.

The next driver took the same load through without losing his grip.

Max added the sleeve and alternate handle to the cart’s equipment. The receiving room would serve workers of different sizes. A turn that only worked comfortably for the largest handlers would continue producing awkward approaches no matter how wide he made it.

Anna had the spare handle hung where it could be reached before loading began. Then she asked the first driver to repeat his run. He used the longer fitting and followed the same clear route, giving them a useful comparison with the altered setup.

“One more.” he said.

By the fifth passage, the crew no longer needed someone calling directions at the turn. Workers from the adjacent store brought a longer crate to test the approach. It cleared with room for the handlers to keep their hands away from the wall.

Max approved the permanent changes after the crew marked the positions they had used. The stonework could be adjusted through the core. The benches and storage racks would be moved by the people who worked there, keeping the final arrangement practical for their daily loads.

Anna walked with him toward the public square afterward.

“You enjoyed that.” she said.

“It gave us an answer we could push around a room.”

She smiled. “The Orchard gave us several things to push around.”

“None of them had wheels.”

They stopped at a stall for lunch. While they waited, a merchant asked Anna whether the new receiving arrangement would allow longer workshop cases through the gate. She told him when the next freight trial would take place and asked him to bring the actual case rather than its advertised dimensions.

Max listened as the merchant explained that its handles folded out. That detail had never appeared on the freight request.

After the man left, Max added a note to the trial record. The next test would include carried loads as well as wheeled ones.

Beyond Sanctuary, Rod’s party spent the afternoon assembling the barriers.

The briarback remained near its hollow. Lana watched through Midnight while the workers used the upper track, keeping clear of connected runners whenever possible. Theren cut a narrow separation line and packed its shallow trench with stones. Fresh growth could still cross it, but someone watching would see the connection form.

Branth inspected each barrier after it was pinned. Dain pushed against the rails from the angle of the expected charge. Rod checked that he could move around the ends with his axe at full reach.

Dirk climbed to the stone shelf and sighted along the cord. From there, he could cover the upper track and the first barrier. The second lay partly behind an alder. He moved his planned position a few paces and marked a lower stone where he could kneel if the foliage blocked him.

Lana walked the route with Nessa. They chose places where the healer could see the front rank without standing beside the workers. Her supplies went into two separate bags, one kept on her and one left at the retreat point.

They rehearsed the withdrawal without the beast.

Senn called. The workers stopped cutting, laid tools with the edges turned away from the path, and moved to the upper lane. One man went back for a dropped saw. Theren caught his sleeve and sent him onward.

“The saw waits.” the dryad said.

They repeated the movement until everyone reached the ridge without crossing the party’s fighting position.

As daylight began to fade, the briarback left its hollow and walked along the bank. It sniffed the new separation trench, pushed its snout against the stones, and rooted once before returning uphill.

Dirk watched from the shelf.

“It knows something changed.” he said when they gathered.

“It would have smelled us anyway.” Rod replied.

They inspected the trench after the animal moved away. Two new runners had already crossed beneath the lowest stones. Theren cut them, and the workers widened the gap.

Tomorrow, keeping those connections severed would be continuous work.

Rod sent everyone back before the light became poor. They ate early, checked their equipment, and reviewed the plan one last time. No one promised that the boar would follow the exact approach they had chosen. Each person knew what to do if it did something else.

Rod set his axe beside the bed and stretched his hands until the stiffness from lifting timber eased.

At first light, they would stop measuring the creature and begin drawing it out.