Chapter 128: Five letters (1)

There was no plan.

Not really.

To stop a calamity horde of more than ten thousand beasts with barely eight hundred cultivators was close to impossible. Any officer or noble of the Empire with enough sense to understand the numbers would have already called it a suicide and started looking for a way off the Wall.

But Encrid had stayed.

Not because he was foolish.

Because he knew they could survive.

The answer was not the eight hundred cultivators standing on the Wall. They were important, but they were not enough.

The answer was the Wall itself.

It stretched across the northern frontier like a mountain range built by human hands, covering the entire southern edge of the Great Green Forest. It had stood for centuries. It had been designed to withstand attacks from the forest long before most of men that currently stood on the Wall were even born.

They did not need a plan to defeat ten thousand beasts.

They needed preparation to defend the Wall.

And Encrid gave them exactly that.

The Council remained in session until the fourth hour of the morning.

That was full seven hours.

For seven hours, Encrid stood at the end of the table and explained what had to be done.

He gave them the figures he had prepared over the past six months.

He went through the grain stores, the preserved meat, the water reserves, and the number of days their current supplies would last if the Wall was placed under siege.

He gave them the equipment warehouse numbers and pointed out which stores were sufficient, which needed to be moved closer to the battlements, and which could not be allowed to run out.

He gave them ration figures and explained how those rations would need to be distributed if the Wall remained under attack for weeks instead of days.

He went through the choke points.

The narrow stairways.

The inner gates.

The sections of the Wall where defenders could be rotated without exposing the replacement soldiers to the enemy.

He presented the evacuation order that Merta and Vess had revised so many times during the past six months that both of them could probably recite it from memory.

He brought out the drainage survey.

The stake schedule.

The calculations for how many people could cross the Darwen Span in a single day if the inner districts had to be evacuated.

He explained where wounded soldiers should be taken, which passages needed to remain clear, and which sections of the Wall could be abandoned temporarily without creating a breach.

Then came the fighting.

Encrid explained how they should deal with the first wave.

They would not meet it head-on.

The first wave had to be broken before it reached the main defensive positions. The Wall’s height and narrow approaches could be used to force the beasts into confined spaces, where ranged attacks could thin their numbers before the cultivators engaged them directly.

The second wave would be different.

There would be no easy victory there.

They would need to preserve their strength and avoid being dragged into a battle of exhaustion too early.

He explained when to rotate the defenders, when to close sections of the Wall, where reserves should wait, and how to prevent panic from spreading when the first casualties began to appear.

He explained what to do during a long battle of attrition.

How to save arrows.

How to conserve Star Energy.

How to keep wounded cultivators from returning to the fighting before they were ready.

How to make sure that one exhausted section of the Wall did not collapse simply because another section was still holding.

None of it was a plan.

It was preparation.

And preparation was not the same thing as a plan.

By the time the Council finally left the chamber, every person in that room understood the difference.

A plan assumed they knew what the enemy would do.

Preparation assumed they did not.

Encrid had prepared for both.

When the session finally ended, Encrid went straight back to his room.

He did not sleep.

He lit the lamp, sat at his desk, took out five clean sheets of paper, and began to write.

✧ ✧ ✧

It took him until dawn.

Encrid had been composing these letters in his head for six months.

But he had never written a single word of them. Because a letter that existed could be read by the wrong person and letter that existed too early could be ignored.

That was what he had told himself.

He had been waiting for the right moment.

The truth was simpler.

He had been waiting for confirmation.

Now he had it.

And the price of waiting was that he had ten days instead of six months.

’I should have sent these anyway.’

"Shit."

The curse left his mouth quietly as he continued writing.

The first letter was addressed to the Gannon estate.

To his father.

Duke Aegis Von Gannon.

Encrid wrote carefully, choosing every word with more consideration than he had given most of the Council’s orders that night.

The second letter was addressed to the Imperial Palace in the capital.

That one took longer.

There were things that had to be said.

There were things that could not be written.

The third letter was for the east, where his sister was.

It was the shortest of the five.

It was also the hardest to write.

Encrid stared at the page for a long time before finally putting pen to it.

When he finished, he read it twice.

Then he folded it.

The fourth letter was addressed to House Cavel.

That one was more practical.

It still took him considerable time.

The fifth letter was different.

It took him eleven minutes to write.

Encrid placed every word carefully.

He filled a single long page.

There were no figures.

No numbers.

No explanation.

The letter was addressed to a place rather than a person.

When he finished, Encrid stared at the signature line.

He considered signing it.

Then he decided against it.

He folded the page, sealed it with plain wax, and left no impression on the seal.

Five letters.

Five destinations.

Five things that needed to happen.

Encrid looked at them on the desk.

Then he remembered the problem.

The Imperial Post left the Wall only twice a month.

It travelled south over the Darwen Span in a sealed chest alongside the supply returns. The next departure was scheduled for nine days from now.

Nine days.

A letter placed in that chest would take roughly three weeks to reach the capital. The Gannon estate would receive its letter in about two weeks. The east would probably take even longer.

That was useless.

Encrid had ten days.

Even if he sent a person from the Wall, there was no guarantee they would arrive safely.

There was even less guarantee that they would arrive in time.

He needed another way.

And whatever that way was, it had to work.

Because these letters mattered.

They mattered to the Wall.

They mattered to the people who would soon be standing on its battlements.

And perhaps they mattered to what came after.

Encrid stood from his chair.

There was only one option left.

He put on his coat, tucked the letters securely inside it, and walked out of the room.

He descended from the upper levels of the Wall and entered the Shambles.

The streets were still awake despite the hour.

Lanterns burned above crooked buildings. The smell of smoke, ale, wet stone, and old blood lingered in the cold air.

Encrid walked deeper into the district.

He knew exactly where he was going.

The Crooked Lantern.

✦ ✦ ✦