Chapter 110: Yet to discover the question.

The Council deliberated for four hours.

Encrid said nothing during most of it, because there was little point in doing otherwise. The men and women gathered around the table had spent decades fighting Roamers, studying their movements, defending the Wall, and making decisions under circumstances where a mistake could cost dozens of lives, while Encrid was still trying to understand what Captain Corr’s report actually meant.

They argued over the Far Watch, patrol routes, the condition of the eastern roads, the possibility of withdrawing certain expeditions, and whether the Wall should send another party into the forest to confirm Corr’s findings. Every suggestion carried its own danger.

Sending more men into the forest might mean losing them.

Sending no one might mean overlooking something important.

Increasing the garrison would place additional strain on the Wall’s food stores, while keeping the current numbers carried the risk of being unprepared if the situation deteriorated.

There was no obvious answer, and Encrid was not interested in pretending that there was one simply because the Council expected him to have an opinion.

So he listened.

He wrote nothing.

He did not have enough information to recommend a military response, and until he understood what they were actually preparing to face, sending soldiers into the forest would be little more than guessing with other people’s lives.

’Not yet,’ he thought.

Eventually, after four hours of arguments and counterarguments, the room began to quiet.

Ulrich Vance leaned back in his chair and looked toward him.

"Encrid."

Encrid raised his head.

"What do you think?"

Every eye around the table turned toward him.

Encrid considered the question carefully before answering.

"I think we should increase our provisions."

There was a brief pause. And instead of questioning the commander had a different question.

"How much?"

"Thirty weeks."

Several members exchanged looks.

"The Wall normally keeps between eight and twelve weeks of provisions," Vance said.

"I know."

"Thirty is excessive."

"Yes."

Encrid rested his hands on the table.

"If Captain Corr is wrong, then we will have bought more food than we needed."

Nobody disagreed.

"We will have spent money, filled warehouses, and inconvenienced the Quartermastery."

His eyes moved toward Vess, who responded with the resigned expression of a man who already knew where this was going.

"But if he is right," Encrid continued, "then eventually we may reach a point where nothing can safely leave this Wall."

The room grew quiet again.

"If the forest becomes inaccessible, we will depend entirely on what we already possess. If the eastern roads are cut, we cannot rely on caravans to bring us what we lack, and if the Roamers begin moving in numbers, hunting parties will become impossible. At that point, every sack of grain already inside the Wall becomes more valuable than the money we spent acquiring it."

He paused, letting the thought settle before continuing.

"We do not need to decide today how we will defeat an Elder."

His gaze moved slowly around the table.

"We only need to make sure that, if the worst happens, we are still alive long enough to figure out how."

Nobody spoke.

Encrid continued.

"Thirty weeks gives us time."

Vance leaned back in his chair.

"You are asking us to prepare for a siege."

"No."

Encrid shook his head.

"I am asking you to prepare for uncertainty."

The answer seemed to settle something in the room.

Vance looked around the table.

"Any objections?"

There were none.

The measure passed unanimously.

Thirty weeks of provisions.

No dissent.

No argument over the cost.

No commander willing to risk being the one who had refused to prepare.

The first decision the Council had made since Ansel Corr’s return was not to send soldiers into the forest or reinforce the Far Watch.

It was to buy food.

Encrid thought that was probably wise.

✧ ✧ ✧

Later that night, Encrid walked down the eastern stair alone.

His hand rested against the cold stone railing as he descended, and the sound of his footsteps followed him through the narrow passage beneath the Wall.

Six months.

It had been six months since he had first arrived at the Wall in a cart, six months since the place had been little more than another problem he needed to understand if he wanted to survive.

Now the Wall knew.

Officially.

Not everything, and not even close to enough, but enough to acknowledge that something was wrong in the Great Green Forest.

There was a record now.

A captain’s testimony had been given before the Council. A decision had been made. Thirty weeks of provisions would soon be ordered into storage, and men would begin calculating how much grain, meat, water, medicine, and other necessities the Wall would require if the roads beyond its gates could no longer be trusted.

For the first time, the Wall had begun preparing for something it could not yet name.

Encrid stopped halfway down the stairs.

Below him, blue lamps stretched along the eastern parapet, one after another, their pale light fading into the darkness beyond the stone.

He looked toward the forest, though he could not actually see it from where he stood.

That was almost comforting.

Almost.

Something had been gathering out there.

Something had been calling the Roamers toward the same place, drawing predators and prey alike into a basin where they waited without fighting, without feeding, and without any apparent reason other than the presence of something they could not resist.

Something had awakened.

And somewhere in that forest, a Slumbering Elder had opened its eyes.

For months, Encrid had been trying to convince the Wall that danger was coming. He had spent months looking at numbers, patterns, supply lines, reports, and small changes that everyone else had been willing to dismiss as coincidence, because that was what people did when the alternative was admitting that something larger was moving beyond their understanding.

Now they finally believed him.

He should have felt relieved.

Instead, standing alone beneath the eastern Wall with the cold stone beneath his hand, Encrid felt a growing unease that he could not quite explain.

Because the Council had spent four hours discussing what Captain Corr had seen, and even after all of that discussion, Encrid could not shake the feeling that they had learned only the smallest piece of what was actually happening.

They knew the Roamers were gathering.

They knew an Elder was among them.

They knew something was drawing them there.

But they still did not know what had begun that movement, what the creatures were waiting for, or why something powerful enough to command the attention of an Elder had yet to reveal itself.

Encrid looked once more toward the darkness beyond the Wall.

The forest had finally given them an answer.

But he suspected they had not yet discovered the question.

✦ ✦ ✦